The Joy of Birth or the Specter of Death?

Sourced from www.searo.who.int

Every minute a woman dies while pregnant or giving birth.  Women living in developing countries around the globe are especially at risk for dying from pregnancy-related complications.

Italy has the lowest maternal mortality rate (MMR) with only 3.9 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. In contrast, Afghanistan’s MMR is 1,575.1 deaths per 100,000 live births, making it the country with the highest MMR in the world.  At the bottom of the list, close to Afghanistan, we find the Central African Republic, Malawi, Chad, Sierra Leone, Lesotho, and Cote d’Ivore. In fact, twenty-seven of the thirty countries with the highest MMR are African countries.

In Africa alone, a woman is 175 times more likely to die in childbirth than a woman in developed regions of the world.

Of the third-of-a-million women who die each year from pregnancy-related conditions, approximately three quarters could be saved if they had adequate access to reproductive health services.

Despite the fact that most of these deaths could be prevented, funding for reproductive health around the world continues to be threatened by politics and the ignorance of policymakers.

One clear example of this inexplicable war against reproductive health is recent United States legislation. During this past month, the U.S. House of Representative introduced a bill to cut funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Supporters of this bill have the erroneous view that the UNFPA’s main focus consists of providing abortions to women worldwide. Others suggest that the UNFPA is complicit in China’s controversial one-child policy, which enforces abortion and sterilization.

If you ask the UNFPA about their programs and interests, you will learn that they are a women and children’s health program that works to reduce maternal mortality, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide contraception to the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Remember the shocking maternal mortality rate in Africa? If the U.S. bill were to pass, in 2012 the UNFPA would be unable to prevent 7,000 maternal and newborn deaths, unable to provide surgeries to 10,000 women suffering obstetric fistulas, and unable to offer valuable contraception to about one million couples who otherwise would not be able to afford it.
    
My guess is that those countries with disproportionately high MMR will be the most affected if the cuts go into place.  That seems to be the curse of the poor worldwide. Once they thought it could not get any worse, some out-of-touch lawmaker on the other side of the world takes away the few resources available to them.

Where are abortions in this? After all, the proponents of the legislation claim that funding cuts will end abortions. Unfortunately, the reality is that the funding cuts will threaten the basic services that help save the lives of countless women and children worldwide.

Regardless of one’s views on abortion, most people agree on the importance of reproductive health. Millennium Development Goal 5 aims to reduce maternal mortality and to establish universal access to high quality reproductive health for all people in the world. In many people’s opinion, reproductive health should be a human right.

Yes, that is correct. Reproductive health should be a human right, not only a women’s right. If we want to defeat infections like HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, we must include men in our efforts as well. Planning a pregnancy not only depends on women, but also on men, whether it is by educating them on condom use, or on the benefits of contraceptives.

Like it or not, men are key players in decreasing the burden of risk and disease among women. Thus, they should also have equal access to reproductive health.

At this point, you might be somewhat unclear as to what exactly is reproductive health. The term surely gets thrown around a lot, especially around issues like abortion. However, reproductive health encompasses a lot more. In reality, reproductive health refers to a state of good sexual health. Having good reproductive health means having the ability to have a satisfying and safe sex life. It implies the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so. The right to reproductive health is the right to access safe, effective, affordable and acceptable methods of family planning. Most importantly, the right to reproductive health is the right to access health-care services to help women go safely through pregnancy and childbirth.

By making reproductive health accessible to those women who need it the most, we could potentially save over 200,000 women worldwide every year, the majority of which are in desperate need for these services.

The reality of our world is that for some women, childbearing and childbirth are sources of joy, love and much more. For other women, however, childbearing and childbirth are life-threatening episodes of life. Much of this could be prevented. While in developed countries most women can access the resources they need to conduct a good pregnancy, in many countries around the world women have to walk for days to get to the closest clinic. Oftentimes, women go on this walk even while in labor. Sometimes, when they reach the nearest hospital, the facility is empty as a result of cuts to funding and the resulting reduction in medical personnel and hours of operation. These are common realities for millions of women in the developing world.

We were all born to a mother. She was the one who gave us our life. Life is such a treasure that we have defined it as a human right. Then, if women are dying to give life, why is access to reproductive health not a human right? Why are we not making sure the funds go to the agencies in charge of preventing the death of so many women worldwide? Is the fear of abortion practices enough of an excuse to condone the death of so many women? I do not think so.

How can someone be pro-life and still overlook the fact that certain pro-life measures result in the death of many people? If you support life, then you should support access to reproductive health. After all, it is a human right.

Sources:
-World Health Organization
-Planned Parenthood Action Center
-United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)


By Paola Brigneti

Profiling the Slave of Today

While the world is celebrating the jubilant week between Christmas and the breaking of a New Year, Tia looks on with eyes soaked in malaise. She barely looks anything above sixteen, but her eyes look like she is forty, fifty, or more. She should be out there amongst a gregarious group of friends, smiling away her teenage years, celebrating the scintillation that being at the cusp of a sweet-sixteen can infuse. She should be out there amongst peers her age, sitting in a class room and imbibing the cornucopia of information that education offers. She should be out there looking ahead at the life before her, at the oyster that the world is for her, and painting her own big canvas with the choicest options from the brilliant palette of colours at her disposal.

But that’s the least of her problems.

Tia is a victim of human trafficking. She was sold to a brothel at the tender age of eight, where she was repeatedly raped and assaulted by “clients”. She tried escaping, but was kidnapped at a vulnerable moment and brought back to her fate again. Since, Tia has remained in the confines of a brothel. Tia is in huge demand because she is young. Sometimes her “clients” are drunk. They beat her, they ask her to do disgusting things. Sometimes, Tia’s “clients” promise her a future that she knows will never be fulfilled. She has scars from burned butts of cigarettes on her forearms. She has cuts that sear an angry read, unrelenting, refusing to heal, all over her abdomen and legs. But Tia has to survive, to keep herself safe and to prevent herself from physical harm. So she flirts, she bats her eyelashes. She acts coy, she pretends to seduce.

Sourced from www.sawso.org

Tia, for my article, may not be a real girl. But there are many, MANY girls over the world that fit this profile. For girls like the Tia of my article, Laughter is a forgotten trinket; Childhood is a wispy memory from the past that never went past the stage of a closed bud; Family is a word that is pockmarked with betrayal; Care is a coveted asset; A Normal Life is an elusive, exquisite privilege. As hackneyed, as clichéd, as done-to-death as this may sound, Human Trafficking, particularly amongst women and girls, is an abhorrent practice that still subsists in society today.

Human Trafficking is still a thriving phenomenon because of these “clients” who keep the practice going due to their “needs”. Coupled with the proclivity for the hedonistic ideology is the astounding degree of ignorance that blinds most of society, leading them to believe that girls “want” to be a part of a brothel, and are “voluntarily” a part of brothels. The United Nations estimates that 700,000 to 4 million women and children are trafficked around the world for purposes of forced prostitution, labour and other forms of exploitation every year. Trafficking is estimated to be a $7 billion dollar annual business.

Even as we read and write articles and op-ed stories on Human Trafficking, women are subjected to wanton exploitation for sexual work. Children are found to be the easiest means of labour, be it manual or sexual- they needn’t be paid, and they can be beaten into submissiveness with ease.

And here’s the shocker: Even though a majority of these pimping circles are found to thrive in the Pacific Rim, Africa and underdeveloped countries, the “developed” countries are no saints. The United States of America itself seems to have human trafficking as the third highest source of commercial profit. Shocking? Here’s more. The United Kingdom put off signing a European Union directive on Human Trafficking for over 10 months, becoming one of the last countries to sign it- that too, only because criticism egged the government on to signing the document.

The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, or the Trafficking Protocol, was adopted by the United Nations in Palermo, Italy in 2000. It is the only international legal agreement attached to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime that targets Human Trafficking exclusively. The Trafficking Protocol is one of three Protocols adopted to supplement the Convention. The law is in place, no doubt, denouncing sexual slavery and human trafficking in harsh terms. But the enforcement of the law is an embarrassment. The dirigible implementation of a piece of legislation needs to be steered in favour of the pursuit of altruistic concerns, acceptable and expected results. The current state of frugal- nay, next to nought legal enforcement does no good whatsoever. The practice still runs amok as women and children are still being actively bought off by brothels, slave traders and pimps.

What can we do about the issue?

Taking on the dark underbellies of society that indulge in such trade is hardly a practical solution. All it takes is a simple armchair activism. You know this is wrong. I know this is wrong. Simply spread the message to quarters that need to understand that the practice is wrong. On the “supply side”, ground reality seems that families are forced by the harsh hand of poverty and monetary handicaps to sell their daughters to feed the rest of their families. But that perception needs to be changed. By selling their daughters, these families are perpetrating a crime against humanity. On the “demand side”, a strong message must be sent out to make these “customers” realize their complicity in the commission of a grave crime against humanity- that they are criminals themselves owing to their abetment.

This is not a clarion call from a bra-burning feminist. This is not a piece authored in projection of the issue as an empty “woman’s-lib” perspective. The fact is that Human Trafficking is real. The sex slavery aspect of it is a greater evil for women, who happen to be the victims in the entire rigmarole. It makes no sense to dismiss it with a Ah this sort of a thing is just a feminist’s empty rhetoric or an Oh come on now, stop this feminist crap. Be alive. Open your eyes. And help be the revolution that you want to see. 

When Bodies become Battlegrounds

A decade after the West shut down the debate on Afghanistan with stories of oppression, the reality as it stands is far more complicated than it appears. A conflict that lasted a whole lot longer than both the First and Second World Wars combined- the war in Afghanistan had a conservative estimate of casualties ranging up to 40,000.

Sourced from www.muslimwomennews.com

Today, states are planning an attempt to draw their troops out of the proxy battleground that Afghanistan has become. When the war began, Afghanistan was the subject of plenty of attention, as the world scrambled to study and discern the inner side to Afghanistan’s history as a country crippled by decades of war and conflict. Movies hit box offices with a frenzied speed, tolling high in the cash registers. Books were churned by the dozen. Afghanistan was the poster country that needed assistance, and needed it bad. Afghanistan then, was the popular war. 

As the war began, the thirst was for revenge. An insatiable appetite to wreak vengeance that originally coloured the ideologies that peppered the war itself, soon whittled down to being a war for human rights in Afghanistan, particularly the rights of women. The cause was an easy narrative, sufficiently powerful to justify the war that was slowly drawing criticism. The rights of women in Afghanistan was evidently not something the women themselves had the benefit of enjoying. When a stadium full of people in Kabul witnessed the execution of a woman was filmed by the RAWA and submitted to the BBC and CNN in vain, it was subsequently taken up by the Pentagon and (ab)used extensively to fuel the war in a bid to offer justice. The Taliban treated its women brutally. Girls were kept from going to school. Women were subjected to downright unacceptable treatment. And all of this- instead of garnering the right kind of attention to sufficiently attend to the cause of women and to ensure the guarantee of their rights- was used to justify the war that the West had indulged in.

Laura Bush, the erstwhile first lady, proclaimed the clarion call, while her weekly White House radio talk broadcast her speech that conflated the battle for women’s rights and the war on terror. The basis? That civilized people had an obligation to speak out across the world against the situation that threatened women in Afghanistan and the world that the “terrorists” would like to impose on the rest of reality. The speech pandered to the ignorant- the fight against terrorism was not a war in pursuit of their ulterior motives and unmentioned goals, oh no, not at all. It was a fight for the rights, for the dignity of women. 

For ten years, the story dragged on, not as one that the international community must act upon with the right attention and aid, but as a situation that mandated the elimination of terrorists with the tool of war. Wielding the trump card of women’s abuse did do its job for the war- it bolstered their cause for war, allowing it a firm foundation to build upon. That the plight of Afghan women in reality was not far from the projected image only added credibility to the theory that war would weed out the evils the women of Afghanistan faced, was enough to silence any doubt. 

While little has been done to understand Afghanistan, its social stratification and its history, there have been hackneyed attempts to bring progress to Afghan women. Many of these had met failure, remained efforts in vain and largely futile. Resistance burgeoned in waves, since these attempts were foreign, an anathema to the traditional Afghan identity that was inherent in the women themselves. Imported modernization was too foreign an element to be accepted in the fabric of Afghan society.  Powerbroker elements appealed to traditional values and kept conservative rural areas tightly wound in their fists. Education and the dissemination of modern ideas to girls were not acceptable to certain kinship groups. Social systems that were so intricately woven into the weft of the Afghan social set-up were not to be reorganized, much less by foreigners. No matter what their intention. Sexual violence in Afghanistan during the 1990s had become a major issue that needed to be addressed. Many of the warlords, mostly backed by the US had particularly bad records to their credit. While the Taliban sought to reduce it, the means they used were hardly appreciable, brutal, even. 

Sourced from www.eatingdisorderstreatment.com

Besides Afghanistan’s history, the nature of the continued conflict’s impact on gender roles in society has also to be understood. Women are, no doubt, the primary victims of the war in Afghanistan, as is the case with war of any kind in any place. Women experience violence from all quarters, be they enemies or friends. Conflict itself is known to polarize gender roles. The sheer magnitude of violence meted out against a society sends men into more aggressive forms, while the women are sent in the other direction of sheer docility, as the representatives of their social structure, as the bearers of a cultural identity, as the WHO puts it. Just as in any other war, the bodies of women are the new battleground. The war shifts to their bodies- whether it be waged by the weapon of rape and sexual violence as in DR Congo, or with the weapon of physical violence as is the case in Afghanistan. Foreign intervention with military force is worthless in putting a plug in this battle. 

There’s plenty Afghanistan needs right now. The recognition of its sovereignty by the international community, and the fact that women need to be protected needs to be worked upon on a more proactive level. As difficult a fact as it is, a certain measure of security in Afghanistan is likely to come at the cost of the rights of women, something like it was in the early 90s- to the Afghan woman, it could perhaps appear like a necessary evil. 

But can we, the rest of the world, watch while that happens?

Kirthi Jayakumar

Taking Off

Sourced from http://www.kidoshopearl.blogspot.com/

Migration around the globe is a phenomenon that has taken place for as long as humans have been around. As of 2011, there are about 214 million international migrants worldwide, 49 percent of whom are women.  In Africa alone, there were approximately 19.3 million migrants in 2010.

Despite the fact that 1 in 33 persons in the world today is a migrant, we seem to live in a time where migration is usually seen under a negative light. Migrants are often seen as burdensome and are usually confronted with ethnocentric views that fail to realize their contributions to society as a whole.  

Migration happens for several reasons.  In some cases, people resettle in a different country because of pull forces in the country of destination such as education or work. Many countries are increasingly relying on immigration as a means of coping with domestic shortages of professionals in certain fields.  People in this category are more likely to enter the destination countries as documented immigrants. As a result, they are more likely to have access to their new country’s resources and services.  But, most importantly, the choice of moving to a new country is one they make willingly.

Migration also happens due to push forces in the country of origin. Conflict and war, climate change and environmental degradation, and natural disasters push millions of people away from their homes every year. Those affected by these changes are then forced to resettle in a new nation.

It is so difficult to be a documented immigrant in a foreign country that it is frightening to envision the realities of those who have to live in the shadows due to their lack of documentation.

For the second group of migrants – the ones pushed out of their home countries –, life in the new country has the potential to be as challenging as it was in their country of origin. In addition to the hardships experienced and the challenges of starting a new life in a new place, migrants are also more likely to have pre-existing health conditions, lack immunity to existing emerging diseases, suffer from emotional stress, and live and work in suboptimal conditions that put them at higher risk to a variety of diseases and conditions.

What resources are available to these people during these difficult times?

What will they do if they get sick?

The sad truth is that many migrants cannot access health care in their new countries.   New immigrants face significant barriers in accessing health care: language barriers, uninsured status and lack of knowledge about the way the public health system works.

Language can be the main barrier faced by migrants when seeking healthcare in a new country. For some immigrants it might be virtually impossible to find a healthcare provider that speaks their language and, in the case of some languages such as Pulaar, Wolof, Mandingo, and Soninke, there will be no one at the language bank who can help with translation.

Lack of cultural awareness can sometimes trump even the ability to communicate through words.  For example, out of those migrants who were assisted by an interpreter when seeking medical care in the United States, only 70 percent fully understood what the doctor was saying.  Diseases and ailments are interpreted differently around the world. Because people feel misunderstood or judged, they might choose to bypass a visit to the doctor’s office when needed.

As can be expected, these obstacles lead to lower overall health in migrant populations around the world.

Interestingly enough, migrants are often blamed for putting strain on social services such as the medical system. In reality, migrants are less likely to seek medical attention or to fully take advantage of the resources available to them. In the United States, migrants contribute more taxes than the average person, and are less likely than the average person to utilize public services like healthcare clinics.

The picture is ever grimmer for those migrants who have been detained and are now facing deportation.

In the United States, immigrants can be detained in county jails for periods exceeding a month. These facilities were not created to house long-term prisoners and, therefore, are not equipped for it. As a result, detainees may end up confined to a small cell, have access to no exercise, and be fed a diet low in nutrients such as hot dogs.

In South Africa, the Lindela Detention Centre houses undocumented immigrants who are pending deportation. Despite previous reports denouncing substandard conditions in the detention facility, foreigners detained in Lindela are housed in overcrowded rooms, denied access to medical care, and provided insufficient food.

In the French-administered island of Mayotte, the Pamandzi facility houses migrants awaiting deportation.  This facility only has 3 cells and 4 showers. Despite its size, it has admitted to detaining up to 220 migrants including children despite an unofficial maximum capacity of 60. In this detention facility, migrants were forced to sit, eat, and sleep on the floor and they had no access to health care.

Fortunately, not all is bad news. Organizations such as the International Organization for Migration are working to implement programs and allocate funds to improve the care available to migrants in different countries across the world.  Their model advocates for a prevention model that identifies the needs of the community in order to provide relevant services to migrants in need.

The truth is that receiving societies have a moral obligation to ensure migrants’ access to healthcare according to international human rights principles, regardless of their immigration status.  The international standards are in place, now it is up to the receiving countries to make sure that migrant rights are respected regardless of their immigration status, and up to individual to dispel the myths that envelop migrants.

One Brave Woman's Story

Mona Eltahawy, who was trapped, beaten and sexually assaulted by Egyptian security forces, tells her extraordinary story for the first time. This story has been sourced from The Hindu, which in turn sourced it from the Guardian Newspaper.

The last thing I remember before the riot police surrounded me was punching a man who had groped me. Who the hell thinks of copping a feel as you're taking shelter from bullets? Another man tried to protect him by standing between us, but I was enraged, and kept going back for more. A third man was trying to snatch my smart phone out of my other hand. He was the one who had pulled my friend Maged Butter and me into an abandoned shop — supposedly for safety's sake — and he wouldn't let go of my hand.

Mona Eltahawy, 44, from New York City, is seen with both arms in casts after being released by Egyptian security forces in Cairo on November 24, 2011. Photo: AP/ Courtesy Mona Eltahawy

It was November. Maged and I had come from Tahrir Square to Mohamed Mahmoud Street, the frontline of clashes between protesters and the military, following a violent invasion of Tahrir by police and soldiers a few days earlier. Almost 40 people had died — including a distant relative — and 3,000 were wounded.

Maged tried to pull me away. “Enough smacking the groper, let the phone go.” It's clear to us both now that those men we'd met among the protesters on Mohamed Mahmoud Street had entrapped us. They worked with the security services, who were a few metres away, just beyond no man's land, and their job was to hold on to us until the riot police came.

And when they did come, I was the only one left in the deserted shop. I thought Maged had managed to escape, but he later told me he was nearby being beaten, able to see riot police beat me, too. “You were smart to defend your head,” he said. He needed stitches to his face, and still has contusions to his head and chest.

I suffered a broken left arm and right hand. The Egyptian security forces' brutality is always ugly, often random and occasionally poetic. Initially, I assumed my experience was random, but a veteran human rights activist told me they knew exactly who I was and what they were doing to my writing arms when they sent riot police conscripts to that deserted shop. Bashar al-Assad's henchmen stomped on the hands of famed Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat. Our dictators tailor wounds to suit their victims' occupations.

As the nightsticks whacked at my arms, legs and the top of my head (in the week that followed, I would discover new bruises every day), two things were at the front of my mind: the pain and my smart phone.

The viciousness of their attack took me aback. Yes, I confess, this feminist thought they wouldn't beat a woman so hard. But I wasn't just a woman. My body had become Tahrir Square, and it was time for revenge against the revolution that had broken and humiliated Hosni Mubarak's police. And it continues. We've all seen that painfully iconic photograph of the woman who was beaten and stripped to her underwear by soldiers in Tahrir Square. My phone fell as the four or five riot policemen beat me and then started to drag me towards no man's land. “My phone, I have to get my phone,” I said, and reached down to try to retrieve it. It wasn't the Twitterholic in me that threw herself after the phone, but the survivor. For the first three or four hours of detention, I knew they could do anything and no one would know. In the event, it was near-miraculous that, while I was at the Ministry, an activist with a smartphone came to discuss setting up a truce between protesters and security. As soon as he signed me in to Twitter, I sent out, “beaten arrested at Interior Ministry.” And then his phone battery died.

Most people detained the same week I was taken in ended up at a police station or jail, but for some reason I was taken to the Interior Ministry and was then handed over to military intelligence for almost 12 hours. The sexual assault couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, but the psychic bruise remains the freshest.

The orange midnight air — a cocktail of street lights, an adjacent school on fire, and air that was more tear gas than oxygen — and the black outlines of the helmeted riot policemen invade my thoughts every day, but I feel as though I have dissociated myself from what happened. I read news reports about a journalist whose arms were broken by Egyptian police, but I don't connect them to the splints around my arms that allow only one-finger typing on a touchpad, nor with the titanium plate that will remain in my left arm for a year, to help a displaced fracture align and fuse.

But the groping hands — that, I know, happened to me. Sometimes I think of them as ravens plucking at my body. At one point I fell. Eye-level with their boots, all I thought was: “Get up or you will die.” They dragged me to the Interior Ministry, past men in plain clothes who were wearing the same surgical masks that we Tahrir-side civilians had worn against the tear gas. I almost shouted out, “Are you friend or foe?” Their eyes, dead to my assault, were my answer.

I began to panic. “They're probably going to charge me with spying.” I had lived in Israel for a period, where I had worked as a Reuters correspondent.

“You're safe now, I'll protect you.” A senior plainclothes officer reassured me. “If I wasn't here, there would be no one protecting you from them. See them, over there? Do you know what they'd do to you?” He was pointing to a mob just steps away. Even as the officer offered hollow protection, he did nothing.

It was an older man, from the military, who ended it. “Get her out.” “Why are you at war with the people?” I asked him. He looked me square in the eyes, fought his tears and swallowed. He couldn't speak. Others asked me again and again: “Why were you there?” “I'm a journalist, I'm a writer, I'm an analyst,” I said. But really I wanted to tell them I had longed to touch courage. It lived on Mohamed Mahmoud Street where young men — just boys in many cases, with their mothers' numbers written on their forearms in case they ended up in a morgue — would face off with security forces. Some of those who survived the tear gas and the bullets — rubber-coated and live — lost eyes. Security sharpshooters liked to aim for the head.

For months, Tahrir Square had been my mental touchstone: in New York City, where I live, and wherever I travelled to lecture on the revolution. But it was impossible just to stand by in the square and watch as the Motorbike Angels — volunteers who came on bikes to aid the overworked medics — zipped towards the field hospitals with their unconscious passengers, asphyxiated from the tear gas — and often worse — from the Mohamed Mahmoud frontline.

“If I die, I want to be buried in my Moroccan djellaba. It's laid out on my bed, ready,” tweeted blogger and activist Mohamed “Gemyhood” Beshir. The hits of tear gas he inhaled pushed him back, so younger men would break his fall and fill in for him on the frontline until he recovered.

Throughout my detention, I demanded medical care for my arms, and showed my captors the increasingly dramatic bruises developing on my hand and arm. Most asked me to make a fist. “See, it's just a bruise. You wouldn't be able to make a fist if you had a fracture.” And I told them deliberately graphic details about the sexual assault. Eyes would twitch and look away. No one wanted to hear.

I'll be damned if I carry this alone, I thought. And so I went on and on, until finally they heard, and one of them yelled out: “Our society has a sickness. Those riot police conscripts who assaulted you, do you know what we've done for them? We've lifted them out of their villages, scrubbed them clean and opened a tiny door in their minds.” “That's exactly why we're having a revolution,” I responded. “No one should have to live like that. Who created that misery they live in that you ‘rescued' them from?” I also let it be known that I was a U.S. citizen, and asked for a consular representative to be called. I knew that, as an Egyptian-American (I moved to the U.S. in 2000), I would be spared many horrors that countless unnamed Egyptians suffer. But I also anticipated the flip side. “Aren't you proud of being Egyptian? Do you want to renounce your citizenship,” the military intelligence officer asked me. Blindfolded, bone-tired and in agony from my fractures, I replied: “If your fellow Egyptians break your arms and sexually assault you, you'd want someone in the room you can trust.”

Last week's images from Egypt of the woman stripped down to her underwear and beaten have further unmasked the brutality of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), the military junta that runs Egypt and which must be tried with crimes against the Egyptian people. I'm unable to look at any of those images of beatings because I feel the nightsticks fracturing my arms all over again. If I hadn't got up when I fell, they would have stomped on me as they stomped on that woman.

I spent the first two weeks back in New York on a painkiller high. It numbed the pain, as well as my ability to write. Once a week, I see a psychologist who specialises in trauma; an orthopaedic surgeon has operated on my left arm to realign the ulnar shaft and fix it in place with a titanium plate and screws, and I have regular physiotherapy. But this week's massive women's march in Tahrir has sharpened my focus once again. When a woman who took part wrote to tell me I'd helped to inspire the march because I'd spoken out on Egyptian TV about my beating and assault, I was finally able to cry. They were the tears of a survivor.

The Mubarak regime used systematic sexual violence against female activists and journalists, and here's the SCAF upholding that ignoble legacy. But to quote the women in Tahrir this week: “The women of Egypt are a red line.” My body, and mind, belong to me. That's the gem at the heart of the revolution. And until I return to Egypt in January, healed once again, I will tell that to the SCAF over and over. 

A Cry From Afghanistan

The UN estimates that nearly 90 per cent of Afghanistan's women suffer from some sort of domestic abuse

The extraordinarily high levels of violence taking place within Afghan households, which is documented in this report, indicates an environment in which women are valued less than men and where hurting or even killing women can be acceptable and enjoys impunity. In Afghanistan, as in every other country in the world, the presence of domestic violence is symptomatic of deep-running inequality between men and women and of social institutions and political structures that condone and perpetuate this inequality.

Possible reasons for higher incidences of domestic violence along the border zone include greater levels of armed conflict in this region as well as the influence of the Taliban with its oppressive ideology towards women. Insecurity limits the reach of the central government into these zones, restricting the availability of public services such as schools, hospitals, courts, and police forces, compared to the rest of the country. The availability of support services for victims of domestic violence is even scarcer than in other provinces as both local and international non-governmental organizations find it more difficult and dangerous to work in these areas.

mistreatment by family members :  “according to the findings of surveys on domestic violence conducted with women in 4,700 households in 16 provinces located across Afghanistan in 2006.”

·         30.6% – husband

·         23.7% – mother-in-law

·         16.5% – none of those listed

·         10.4% – sister-in-law

·         9.9% – brother-in-law

·         7.4% – father-in-law

·         1.5% – husband’s uncle

The Story of Aisha:

Bibi Aisha, 18 years old from the southern Afghan province of Oruzgan

 When she was 12 Aisha was given to her husband as a payment to settle a dispute “a practice in Afghanistan that goes by the fitting name of "baad".

6 years later Aisha fled her husband’s house after being beaten and mistreated by

Her husband and her in- laws, she escaped to the only place she could go, back to her family home. It was here that the Taliban arrived one night and demanded that the girl be handed over to face justice. She was taken away to a mountain clearing, where the local Taliban commander issued his verdict. She was then held down by her brother-in-law, while her husband first sliced off her ears and then cut off her nose. Aisha passed out from the pain but soon awoke choking on her blood, abandoned by her torturers and the ad-hoc judiciary of the Taliban.

According to Time, the Taliban commander who awarded the punishment later said that Aisha had to be made an example "lest other girls in the village try to do the same thing".

The Happy Ending:

Thanks to an American medical facility in Afghanistan, Aisha was transported to a safe shelter in Kabul and in August she was flown to the U.S. by the Grossman Burn Foundation to stay with a host family.

In December 2010 she had a prosthetic nose fitted at the non-profit humanitarian Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital in California as part of her eight-month rehabilitation.

Dr Peter H Grossman said they hoped to give Aisha a more 'permanent solution'.

This could mean reconstructing her nose and ears using bone, tissue and cartilage from other parts of her body.

Ref:

The United Nations Development Fund for Women

www.womenforwomen.org

New york Times magazine

www.nytimes.com

The Guardian

www.guardian.co.uk

Daily Mail

www.dailymail.co.uk

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

www.rawa.org

No More Child Brides: Fire with Fire

At the end of the class, I can recognize a very shy girl. By teaching for more than five years, I now easily identify girls with Intrapersonal IQs and this girl is definitely one of them. She can write better than any other English classmate of her and she can definitely make up stories to excuse her lateness. I ask her to wait for me outside so that I can talk to her. 
"I want to be a math teacher," says the 17-year-old, her printed green scarf falling on to her lap. "I tell my parents, ‘Do whatever you want, but educate me. Let me go to school.’"

In northern India, where one in two girls is wed before the age of 18, the rate of child marriage is dropping.
Welcome to the front lines of the fight to stop child marriage in a country where nearly half of all girls wed before age 18. The weapon of choice: cash.

Our Daughters, Our Wealth, launched in 1994 by the northern state of Haryana, gives poor families $11 when a daughter is born, and also deposits money into a savings account. If the girl turns 18 unwed, she is eligible to redeem the bond, worth 25,000 rupees (roughly $500, or one third of an average yearly income). The earliest of the program’s approximately 150,000 enrollees turn 18 next year, offering a rare chance to study whether the program offers a solution other states—and countries—can use.

Young brides become young mothers with fatal consequences: pregnancy and childbirth complications top the causes of death among teenage girls, and babies born to mothers younger than 18 face a 60 percent greater risk of dying in their first year than babies born to older mothers. Girls who marry are forced to leave school, a costly loss: World Bank data show that for each year of secondary education, a girl’s future wages climb 10 percent to 20 percent.

The $500 payment is hardly a game-changing sum in India but the program’s designers say the state is sending a message about the worth of girls, traditionally seen as burdens to be fed until they move to their husband’s home, where in-laws benefit from their work.

While economic theory says scarcity increases value, Haryana’s low number of girls is endangering girls—and leading some families to seek earlier marriage for their daughters’ protection.

“Educated people are respected in society,” says 17-year-old Natasha, who is now in the 11th grade and says she wants to study accounting and work in a bank. “It is good to go outside the home and earn something.”

Natasha’s mother is one of many women who never had the chance to study because their families made them wives when they were only girls—an injustice they vow to fight. “I will use the money for her education,” says Natasha’s mother, whose parents arranged her engagement before she had turned 14. “I fought with my parents to stay in school. I don’t want her to have to do the same thing; I want her to have a better life.”

By Elaheh  Zohrevandi

Awful, much?

Ibadan—A 29-year-old man, Sabitu Akilo, was yesterday arraigned before an Ibadan Chief Magistrate’s Court, Iyaganku, for raping an 11-year- old girl.

Police Prosecutor Adewale Amos alleged that the accused person committed the offence on December 7, at Olodo area, Ibadan, where he forcefully had unlawful carnal knowledge of the girl.

Amos said that “by so doing, you thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 218 of the Criminal Code Cap 38 Vol. II Laws of Oyo State of Nigeria, 2000.”

The accused pleaded not guilty to the charge.

However, the Magistrate, Mrs. Fatima Badrudeen, remanded him at the Agodi prisons and adjourned the case to January 18, 2012, for hearing.

Sourced from: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/12/man-29-arraigned-for-raping-11-yr-old-girl/

No More Rape Culture!

Around this time, last year, the world slowly awoke to the prospect of Self-Determination in the Middle East. The skin of Dictatorships was throbbing as the veins of protest under simmered with the drive to overthrow despotism and replace the defective governmental system with Democracy. The world watched as the first domino collapsed, with Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution. The second domino shook precariously and finally fell, as Egypt sent Hosni Mubarak out of his post. The third domino took much longer to rock- as a dictator’s iron fist clamped down on his people, eventually ending with his bloody end. Even as I write, so many more dominoes are shaking.

The confluence of a culture of silence and a culture of rape is a lethal mix.
Sourced from www.sparksummit.com

In another part of Africa, a hunger crisis sparked by geographical vagaries and fuelled through relentless efforts of a faulty governmental policy has left Somalia broken. The world is focussed, sending aid, supplies and food in all the proportions it can afford. South Sudan entered its much sought after status as a “state”, and is handling its own brand of crisis, with world attention that empathizes with the cause. But even as women in Africa take beating after beating no one seems to hear their cries.

Be it DR Congo or Delta State, women suffer under the brunt of rape. A recent news article speaks of nuns being raped. The article explained that an innocent attempt by some Catholic reverend sisters to render spiritual cover to some depraved communities in the Delta State has actually landed them in trouble. The Catholic nuns were, according to the news item, ambushed and raped by men who had guns in tow, just as they were approaching the community at nightfall to evangelise and pray for the sick in the area. The reverend sisters were allegedly too scared to report the issue to the police. However, it was said that the police had begun a manhunt for the rapists. Although the incident is being discussed in low tones, neither the church nor the victims are willing to take action against the suspected rapists. This culture of silence coupled with a relentless pursuit of a culture of rape is a lethal combination to the preservation of the rights of women and the accordance of respect that they rightfully deserve to enjoy. No law, no rhetoric will ever make a difference in the backdrop of a society that is so terribly embedded in murky waters such as this.

The situation needs to be resolved from all angles- the issue of rape needs to be targeted by addressing the condition civil society. Thanks to the mistreatment meted out to the women, what with so many of them raped and traumatised with sexual assault in a manner so terribly bereft of compunction, today, many of these women suffer under the brunt of a stigma that puts a permanent pockmark on them. Seriously- when will this culture of rape stop? Will it ever stop? Is it asking for too much that a woman’s modesty be respected and honoured? Is it too much to hope that a woman is given the freedom to enjoy her dignity?

Don't Mess with Us!!!

When an image of a girl being beaten up and stripped by soldiers on a street did the rounds on the internet, it was no surprise that it went viral. Activists world over were flabbergasted at the sheer callousness of the soldiers for putting the girl through that, people were outraged at the display of flippancy in the soldiers’ treatment of the girl. The biggest display of antagonism came from thousands of women in Egypt, demanding the end of military rule in the country.

And what a movement it was!

On the evening of December 21, 2011, thousands of women walked the streets of Cairo, shouting out their anger at the flagrant disrespect of women and denouncing the brazen indecency in the soldiers’ behaviour exhibited in the beating, stripping and kicking of female demonstrators at Tahrir square. Drag me, Strip me, My Brother’s Blood will cover me, they shouted aloud. Demanding to see the top military officer in the country, Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the women shouted out, Where is the Field Marshall? The girls of Egypt are here!

Not since 1919, has Egypt witnessed such a large scale demonstration by its women. About 82 years ago, a march against British colonialism was the only other instance of a massive display of women’s activism in Egypt. The burst of outrage is particularly commendable as being a rarity in the Arab world. Egypt has been strictly rooted in patriarchy, in its culture and social setting, to the extent that several attempts through this year in the hope of bringing in women’s protest events into fruition actually fizzled out before materializing, and the only one that did, actually wound up ending in physical harassment of the women protesters by a bigger group of men.

In Egypt, women were jostled out of politics almost entirely. Even when the winds of change blew over the country, swinging it into action in overthrowing its dictator, women who were at the helm of affairs during the initial rounds of the revolt were few and far between. Revolutionary coalitions that sprang up in the aftermath of the despot’s ouster did not have room for many women in prominent roles. The demonstrations against military rule that have come up in the wake of the military authority’s obduracy in the wake of a full-blown affinity for power have happened to descend into chaos as fights erupt between the youngsters and the police, as rocks fly full arcs between both factions.

The military rule in Egypt has been the denounced by most displeased observers. Human Rights groups denounced them for their ridiculous invasive virginity tests on women who were detained after a protest in March this year. However, despite the gross violation of their rights through these disgusting measures, only few women spoke out against the humiliation. This is evidently because of the hotbed of conservatism that Egypt is.

The demonstration by the Feminine Face of Egypt isn’t just a representation in an open challenge to the militia after their hero, an anonymous female protester was stripped and beaten, and another who attempted to rescue her was brutally beaten and now remains in a coma. It is a strong message that they send to the militia, that the protesters wanted more than anything, to dent the military council’s efforts to project the protesting masses as mere hooligans and arsonists. The women demanded a place, a voice, a reserved right in politics in Egypt. This demand hits the recent election victories of the conservative Islamist factions squarely in the face. The march brought out such a massive range of women out to the streets- housewives who came out into the demonstrating arena for the first time; mothers with newly born children, young university students. Most women had the traditional Muslim headscarf in place, some had veils covering their faces entirely. The assemblage was replete with chants demanding empowerment and “gallantry” from their male counterparts.

The conflagration of outrage burst out in response to the shameless indecency on part of the soldiers in Egypt. Video after video streamed a similar scene set in different parts with different officers- demonstrating and protesting women were grabbed, beaten and stripped. The most prominent and haunting picture (and video, of course) of the entire array was the one where a woman lay supine with a pair of soldiers grabbing her arms upwards, and one of them ripping off her veil, revealing a blue bra. The video goes on to show one of the soldiers kicking the woman in her chest. The incident was explained in gory detail at a press conference, when the girl’s friend called Hassan Shahen, narrated that he had told the soldiers that he was a journalist, and she was a girl, and he would take her away from there. But the soldiers wouldn’t listen, and one of them began beating him with a baton. For her part, the poor girl has remained obscure so far as her identity is concerned, and is known only as the blue bra girl.

On the one hand, there are people like you, me and Katherine who denounce this cheap behaviour. On the other hand, there have been a bunch of ridiculously parochial thinkers who have actually questioned the girl’s presence at Tahrir, going on to suggest that she should have been kept home in the first place, and some others who had the gall to remark that she would have wanted the “exposure” because she wore “fancy lingerie”, and still others who believed that she should have worn something under her veil.

As if.

On 19^th December, 2011, General Adel Emara, one of the members of the military council in rule, acknowledged the incident, but laid claim that the incident was blown out of proportion and studied without regard to broader circumstances that would explain what happened. Almost immediately, a stunning repartee stung back from a female journalist who demanded an apology, warning that a woman’s revolution wouldn’t be too far a prospect. The General brushed her remark aside like one would, a stray thread on their jacket.

This is a terribly surprising and callous mentality on part of the military council, and reflects a filthy set of double standards. When about a month ago, Aliaa Elmahdy and her friend Karim Amer posted naked pictures of themselves in an attempt to use their bodies as a sign of protest, all hell broke loose and the two girls were chastised verbally, by orthodox clerics denouncing them as violators of morality and inciters of indecency. Some wanted to punish the two girls based on their Constitution which is based on Islamic Law and Islamic Sanctions. And yet, it is the people from the very same brand of mentality that have beaten and stripped women.

In my research, I came across this website. It explained to me that the Quran says, "Women have the same rights in relation to their husbands as are expected in all decency from them, while men stand a step above them." Sura 2:228. This only specifies the degree of responsibility, not privilege, in man's role as provider, protector, maintainer, and leader of the family. Further down in the same article, the website explains, During the rein of Umar, women participated in law making. Umar made a proposal of a certain regulation concerning marriage. A woman in the mosque stood up and said, "Umar, you can't do that." Umar did not tell her, "Shut up, you are a woman, you have nothing to do with politics, etc." He asked, "Why?" She made her argument on the basis of Quran. In front of everybody, he stood up and said, "The woman is right and Umar is wrong," and he withdrew his proposal. That was the spirit in the early days of Islam. In the most authentic collection of hadith, Hadith Bukhari, a section is devoted to the participation of women, not only in public affairs, but in the battlefield, too, and not only as logistical support. Women carried arms, and when there was great danger to the Muslims, they volunteered to participate even in the battlefield.

Another website explains, According to it (The Quran), both man and woman have been created for the sake of each other. The Qur'an says: They (women) are raiment (comfort, embellishment and protection) for you, and you (men) are raiment for them. (Surah al-Baqarah: 2 : 187). 

What Islamic Law allows for this? What Islamic Law says women should be disrespected? What Islamic Law allows men to shamelessly beat, strip and kick women? Why are there double standards in the understanding of “morality”? When one hand drums a beat saying that women should abide by a certain “morality”, how can the other hand drum up a different drum and say that it is okay for a soldier to strip a woman? Until this warped understanding of Islam ideology changes, it is painfully true that women will always be under the thumb of male domination.