Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Bangladesh open cast mine threatens fundamental human rights, warns UN

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 11:31 AM PST

Rachel Salmon
WVoN co-editor

The United Nations has warned the Government of Bangladesh that a planned open cast mine will threaten the fundamental human rights of people living in the area.

The mine is planned for the Phulbari region of North-Western Bangladesh.

Last month, WVoN reported on a campaign to halt the development of the massive mine and a coal fired power station, which could displace up to a quarter of a million rural people.

The mine would reportedly extract 572 million tonnes of coal over the next 36 years from a site covering nearly 6,000 hectares.  The project would destroy 12,000 hectres overall, 80 per cent of which is fertile agricultural land.

Opponents also claim the project could cause irrevocable damage to the Sunderbans, one of the world's largest mangrove forests, as the mined coal would be transported through the area before being exported.

The UN statement, issued on behalf of seven independent human rights experts, comes after US-based human rights group International Accountability Project submitted an urgent appeal for action to ten UN human rights experts in September 2011.

The statement said: "The Government of Bangladesh must ensure that any policy concerning open-pit coal mining includes robust safeguards to protect human rights.

"In the interim, the Phulbari coal mine should not be allowed to proceed, because of the massive disruptions it is expected to cause."

The statement confirmed opponents’ fears that the Phulbari development would displace vulnerable farming communities and threaten the livelihoods of thousands more by causing irreversible damage to water sources and ecosystems in the region.

The experts were concerned that a national coal policy, currently being discussed by a parliamentary committee in Bangladesh, might allow open-pit coal mining and therefore allow the Phulbari project to go ahead.

"We welcome Prime Minister Hasina's acknowledgement that coal extraction in Bangladesh would threaten densely populated areas.

"Mixed messages, however, are emerging and investors continue to push forward," the experts warned.

Speaking to WVoN, Rumana Hashem, one of the leaders of the campaign against the mine in the UK, welcomed the statement and hoped the Bangladesh Government would take the findings seriously.

Kate Hoshour, senior research fellow, at International Accountability Project, added: "We are extremely pleased to learn that seven UN experts took coordinated action this week by calling for an immediate halt to the project, and are hopeful that their action will avert a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe in Bangladesh."

The Vagina Monologues and International Women’s Week

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 09:30 AM PST

Jane Osmond
WVoN co-editor

As part of International Women's Week 2012, the University of Warwick Students’ Union in England are featuring three performances of the Vagina Monologues.

I went to see the first performance on Thursday, and for those who are not familiar with the play, it is based on author and playwright Eve Ensler's 'Vagina Interviews' with women across the globe, which in turned inspired the annual V-Day, a global activist movement aimed at ending violence against women and girls.

Ensler, whose books include I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around The World, also wrote the powerful HuffPost piece 'Over it' in November last year which addressed the prevalence of a global rape culture, perpetuated by rape ‘jokes’.

Having seen the Vagina Monologues once before, in a production that featured professional actresses in a local theatre, I kind of knew what to expect, or so I thought.

This student production, though, took my breath away.

Performed in a small, intimate space, the female actors – a mixture of theatre and English students – were magnificent.  The monologues they performed were a fusion of hilarious and tragic vignettes, paced to keep the audience laughing and crying in turn.

Directed by Kate Arnold, Rhiannon Roberts and Sophie Rees, the actors played their parts with complete confidence, inhabiting the characters of the real women behind the stories. As Rees commented:

I think a lot of the actresses have truly engaged with the content – how can you not? It’s a very powerful piece. And even if you haven’t gone through anything like it, you can still identify with a lot of the sentiment.

Asked how the selection of the stories was made, Rees explained that the script is determined by the V-Day foundation, and the requirements have to be strictly followed:

The script was sent to us after we applied to do the show. They’re quite strict about how it’s done – you can’t change much at all and the order and monologues are already picked for you.

This production included stories from a woman whose boyfriend made her shave her vagina and how uncomfortable that made her feel; a 72 year old woman who had never had an orgasm after being told – as a young woman – that she was ‘too wet down there'; a woman who met a very 'ordinary' man who awakened her to the fact that her vagina was actually part of her, and a harrowing story about life after rape in Bosnia war camps:

There is something between my legs.

I do not know what it is.

I do not know where it is.

Not now.

Not anymore.

Not since.

For Rees and her team, this production is more than just another play, it is a political act which raises much needed money both for the V-Day foundation and CRASAC, a local charity that supports women who have experienced rape and sexual assault.

The final performance takes place on Friday 9th March in Leamington Spa.

In addition, there is a comprehensive programme of events for International Women’s Week put together by Helen Gould, the Women’s Campaign Officer.

Gould, who is currently studying English literature, ran for the post because she started ‘seeing sexism everywhere’:

I think it started with literature and seeing how male authors represented women through the centuries and I thought ‘wow it really hasn't changed’ and so I started to look into modern feminism.

The positives of this post are that you get to meet people who are just as enthusiastic as you are and you gain a lot of experiences in arranging events, speakers and campaigning in general.

Highlights of the programme include the WOT Monologues performance from Kairos WWT and Caste Away Arts, both of which work with marginalised women, and takes place on Thursday March 8th.

Other events include: ‘The Glass Ceiling: Fact or Fiction’ with Guardian columnist Cath Elliott; a ‘Men and Feminism’ discussion; a focus on a ‘Say No! To Domestic Violence’ educational project in schools; a mock trial on domestic violence and diminished responsibility and a charity open-mic night with Warwick anti-sexism society.

Full details of the programme can be found here.

Dark side of the Baby Show – arms trade links and “unscrupulous” advice

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 07:30 AM PST

Rebecca Schiller
Birth doula and writer 

This weekend, as bumps and buggies meandered across London for 2012′s first Baby Show (billed as ‘baby and maternity shopping at its best’), I wondered how many expected this to be an uncomplicated chance to choose high-quality essentials surrounded by support and well-researched advice?

In reality each £20-poorer attendee at this heavily marketed mecca found themselves unwittingly linked to the arms trade and exposed to some highly contentious advice from unregulated self-styled baby gurus.

Let me deal with the apparent links with the arms trade first.

While the vast majority of ticket-holders will have come away none the wiser, the Royal College of Midwives joins a growing list of organisations speaking out against the event’s links to the UK’s trade in weapons, branding the show’s current conduct as ‘abhorrent’ and ‘unscrupulous’.

Although the event organisers are keen to keep the smiling pregnant women side of business away from the precision weaponry side, Clarion Events, the company behind the show, have a seemingly insatiable appetite for owning and running arms fairs alongside their family-friendly roadshows.

Despite an initial public outcry upon taking over the Defence & Security Equipment International (DSEi) fair, which led in 2008 to UNICEF rejecting promised Baby Show-related donations, Clarion Events has not only continued its dual relationship with birth and death, but expanded the latter purchasing six more arms fairs in the past five years.

Consumers are largely unaware that their ticket-price goes straight to a company whose DSEi fair’s guest-list sported, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), “an all-star cast of tyrants, despots, and human rights abusers.”

For those in doubt about whether the Clarion Events portfolio matters to the every day Baby Show attendee, Ian Pollock of CAAT reminds us what the direct results of the arms fairs are:

“The fact that Clarion Events run the Baby Show while also organising the DSEi arms fair is unconscionable.

“Bahrain‘s presence at the last DSEi is particularly horrifying in light of the violence taking place right now, violence that is being carried out with British-made weapons.”

RCM spokesperson Sue Jacob is also clear on their position.

“As a caring organisation that believes in providing universal care to women and babies (some of whom have themselves been victims of war) we object strongly to links between the Baby Show and the arms trade.

“It is abhorrent that Clarion Events is putting money before people and the RCM calls on them to break their links with the arms trade now.”

While many remain entirely in the dark on the ethical mismatch of Clarion’s portfolio, their seeming lack of regard for the parents and babies at the heart of the event radiates out from its shady roots and into the on-the-day experience.

Moving to the second point about the promotion of apparently self-styled baby gurus, the Baby Show’sFacebook wall gives some indications of the many concerns raised as visitors question the credentials and query the advice of speakers like Alison Scott-Wright and Jo Tantum.

On Facebook Corrine Rooney asks Tantum to provide evidence for her claims during the show that: “All babies can sleep 11pm-7am at three months, or about 12-13 pounds.”

She suggests Tantum looks at this leaflet produced by UNICEF and endorsed by the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) and the RCM which clearly states that: ”…the majority of infants continue to breastfeed between one and three times a night for the first six months of life.”

While advice on baby sleep can seem harmless to the initiated, FSID’s involvement informs us that misinformation is often far from benign.

In responding to critiques of her advice, Tantum, having completed three years of training with the Nursery Nursing Education Board, alleged that fellow Baby Show speaker Alison Scott-Wright’s discussion on reflux was unacceptable to the point of danger.

Tantum’s post on the BabyCalm website called into question Scott-Wright’s credentials and opinions stating that she “has no right to be called an expert, especially in reflux, she has no qualifications medically and non medically.

“She stood on stage and told a lady to stop the medication she was giving her daughter. No-one should be telling the mother that except her GP/paediatrician.”

Breastfeeding was another area in which those with the relevant qualifications found occasion to be anxious about the choice of expert.

Clare Byam-Cook is a former experienced midwife but with no known additional training in the infant feeding area. On hearing reports of her Baby Show talk the RCM stated that Byam-Cook shows a “total ignorance of breastfeeding principles.

“Breastmilk is produced on demand and every mother and baby are a unique pair. In the vast majority of situations an exclusively breastfeeding mother will produce the exact amount her baby needs.”

When a wealth of research, information, support and highly qualified experts abound, it is hard not to see The Baby Show’s choice of speakers as another victory for cash at all costs.

International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) Charlie from Milk Matters felt that “one can only speculate why a baby event would be reluctant to present such [an appropriately qualified] person” and that at future events she “would like to see a specialist who was also IBCLC accredited as breastfeeding is a pretty sound science.”

The RCM also suggests The Baby Show changes its outlook and approach as “these shows have an ethical responsibility to ensure they seek experts who give advice based on proper evidence, knowledge, experience and understanding.

“A lot of people believe they can give advice but it isn’t regulated and unscrupulous people have the audacity to play on women’s vulnerability at this time. This is at best thoughtless and at worst dangerous to mother and child.”

But with the growing awareness of Clarion Event’s expanding arms-related earnings it is hard to imagine the RCM’s preferred breastfeeding organisation, Best Beginnings, leaping at the chance to appear at a future show.

As the more ethically-minded speakers, companies and sponsors step away from the Baby Show its potential to confuse and even endanger the 80,000 annual attendees and their offspring can only continue to grow.

For moral and commercial reasons it must only be a matter of time before the Baby Show has to part company with the rest of Clarion’s portfolio or wait as the public and businesses vote with their feet.

This article was originally published on the Huffington Post.

The feminist poets of Mumbra

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 05:30 AM PST

Mohammed Wajihuddin
Journalist 

In a modest flat off a dusty lane in the Muslim-majority town of Mumbra in India, a group of young girls is sitting in a semi-circle.

Before they entered the apartment, they were all covered with the black veil, the unofficial dress code of any conservative Muslim mohalla in the subcontinent.

But now, faces kissed by the sunlight, they await their turn at something equally liberating: poetry.

The young poets, initiated into the art two years ago, are gearing up to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8 with yet another poetry recitation session.

Emotions – some raw, others mature beyond their tender years – flow as the girls' words become banners of dissent.

Their poems protest the many inequalities that women face – female foeticide, financial dependence on men, unrequited love and the curses of divorce and widowhood.

The group came into being after Iranian-American poet Roxy Azari conducted a two-month-long poetry workshop for the young women in 2010.

Azari, then on a Watson Fellowship, toured seven countries to engage young Muslim women and train them to express themselves through poetry. Her first stop was the 27-year-old Mumbai-based advocacy group Awaz-e-Niswan.

"Three days a week, Roxy would visit Awaz-e-Niswan's Rahnuma Library at Mumbra and discuss socio-political issues with us. Then she would ask us to pen our feelings," recalls Saba Khan who coordinated the poetry workshop.

Both Awaz-e-Niswan and Rehnuma Library basically counsel and educate women on their rights, and the poetry sessions held now are an adjunct of the same philosophy – a desire to be free from the oppression of men.

Azari, famous for her slam poetry performances, left after the workshop for other destinations and better things, but she definitely ignited the dormant poet in a dozen or so young women.

Each member of the group penned several poems, which are now part of a collection appropriately and evocatively titled Bebaak Qalam (Frank Pen).

Three of them – Neha Ansari, Rabia Siddiqui and Faiza Shaikh – collaborated on an imaginative poem titled Agar Main Mard Hoti (If I were A Man) which portrays the many things men take for granted.

For instance: "Agar main mard hoti/Subah der tak soti/Raat ghar der se aati (If I were a man/I would sleep late into the morning/ Come home late at night).

And the poem perhaps expresses a collective feeling when it declares: "If I were a man/I would change the attitude of all men)."

Siddiqui, who studies at SNDT Women's College, Juhu, says that before she joined the workshop she never realised her poetic talent.

"I would occasionally read Ghalib and Faiz, but the workshop emboldened me not just to write poems but even continue my education," says Siddiqui, who adds that her brother did not want her to study beyond Std 12, but her husband is "quite supportive".

"I am restless if I don't write for a few days. I feel good after I have penned a few lines," she says.

Evidently, poetry-writing provides a catharsis to these girls who otherwise have limited avenues to vent their suppressed feelings. They may not take out morchas (protest marches) in the streets but their poems hold aloft banners of protest.

Fauzia Qureishi, by far the most accomplished in this young, bubbly group, has many poems to her credit, but the one about zindan (prison) and azm (ambition) clearly shines through the collection.

The long poem talks about almost everything that a girl from a conservative Indian Muslim family has to face – early marriage, the threat of triple talaq (divorce), the gruelling work at home and the restrictions put in her path.

"It is not just my story alone, but my protest on behalf of all the women who are suppressed and oppressed in a male-dominated society," says the bespectacled Qureishi, quoting a couplet:

"Kab tak kisi ki milkiyat main maani jaaon/Ek mard ki pehchan se kyon jaani jaaon (For how long am I going to be considered a property/Why should I be identified with the identity of a man?).

Mumbra may seem like an unlikely centre for feminist poetry but these young women are taking it there.

This blogpost first appeared on the Kracktivist blog.

WVoN at Million Women Rise march, London 2012

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 04:00 AM PST

Jane Osmond
WVoN co-editor

Saturday saw the annual Million Women Rise (MWR) march in London which I attended, along with another WVoN co-editor, Heather Kennedy.

The MWR coalition is made up of a diverse group of individual women and representatives from the voluntary and community sector outraged by the continued daily, hourly, minute-by-minute individual and institutionalised male violence against women worldwide.

At first, it looked like I wasn't going to make it due my taxi turning up late, a recalcitrant rail ticket machine, and then losing my way from Euston to Bond Street to meet Heather.

However, we made it to the gathering point in Orchard Street in plenty of time and joined a growing group of women formed into orderly lines by a police cordon.

One of the officers on duty told me that he witnessed male violence against women first-hand as part of his job, his wife was a rape counsellor and they both felt that ‘this march was something that needed to happen.’

While we waited to begin, I started talking to the woman next to me – Tina Price-Johnson – the author of at least three feminist blogs (here, here and here).

When asked why she was there, Tina said:

I think it will help the women here to feel supported and all women and men who know someone who has been there. However the march gets publicised, it will help them to know that they are not alone, that there is a way out and an alternative. Even if there was only 20 people here, it would still be effective just for those people.

Another woman, Amanda, had turned up by herself to support women against male violence.  Although her first march in London, she had marched against apartheid  in South Africa.

Ann, a victim of domestic violence. was there to support the women's shelter that had helped her through her own experience.

For Jackie, attending the march was about showing solidarity with all the women and children who have been affected by male violence.  She hoped that it would make violent men pause for thought:

Hopefully men who are guilty of some of this may think twice, and women will see the banners and get information from them.

Walking from Orchard Street to Trafalgar Square was an inspiration.  There were thousands of women– young, old, black, white, abled/non-abled bodied; mothers with young babies, activist groups, voluntary organisations, feminist networks – all with banners flapping in the breeze, accompanied by an excellent female steel band.

Arriving at Trafalgar Square, we were treated to a combination of rousing speeches from different organisations, interspersed with dancing and singing by children and adults.

For me, the most notable speeches were from a charity that supports children who have experienced domestic violence; Object, which campaigns against the objectification of women in the media and porn industry;  the international Coalition of Resistance against privatisation, and Women in Black,  an organisation that stages a silent one-hour anti-war protest every Wednesday by the statue of Edith Cavell in London.

However, for me, the most stirring speech was from a 20 year old black student:

Today I march for every single woman who has ever been hurt, been beaten, been bruised, told that she would never accomplish anything.

I march for women who have been gang raped, failed by the justice system.

I stand in solidarity with sisters all over the globe. Your struggle is my struggle – sisters, you can never be selective about your activism, you can never be selective about your fight, my struggle is your struggle.

I stand before you a 20 year old young woman, a student, and in this society I am still told that my dreams must be limited, my achievements must be limited, my aspirations can only go so far – all because I am a woman.

I am told what jobs I can and cannot do and I am told by a male dominated society what I should wear.

We must continue to mobilise and organise and educate because right this minute somewhere –  in the UK or around the world – a woman is being beaten, abused,  raped.

We need to demonstrate to her that we are here – she is not on her own.

My sisters, never be afraid to be vocal, let us shout about the issues affecting women, let us be vocal about FGM, about forced marriage and honour killings.

Let us fight back against this government, which is cutting services for women and children – for when they fight, we fight back.

Young sisters I urge you not to look at the media and magazines which portray sexualised and false images of women – your role models are here today – every single women here today is a role model.

You all – every sister, mother, daughter – paved the way for someone like me today to speak and I deeply thank you for that.

Collectively coming together and sharing the same vision, we will end male violence against women.

Time, justice and the forces of history are on our side.

Awesome.

Rape being used as tool of war in Sudanese conflict

Posted: 05 Mar 2012 02:36 AM PST

Auveen Woods
WVoN co-editor

The eyes of the world are – rightly – on Homs in Syria and the deplorable atrocities being carried out there.

But while our attention and the cameras are turned to the east, other atrocities are being committed against the women of the oil rich Sudanese state of South Kordofan.

Since South Sudan became independent last July, levels of violence have increased in the Sudanese province of South Kordofan with rumours of ethnic cleansing, sexual violence and aerial bombardments that have evoked the memory of the carnage in Darfur.

According to Trust Law the International Rescue Committee (IRC) has recorded increasing levels of sexual violence against women and girls who have fled the area:

“Women and girls described attacks in front of family members, by multiple perpetrators and for prolonged periods of time,” Bob Kitchen, the director of IRC’s emergency preparedness and response team, said.

“Some referred to the perpetrators as simply “men with guns” and “military”, the IRC reported.

The story of 22 year-old Nuban Elizabeth Kafi, who was kidnapped by uniformed Sundanese soldiers was reported by the the New York Times:

“Kafi said that she saw 20 to 25 soldiers hold down two Nuban girls, whom she guessed to be about 14 or 15 years old, and gang rape them. The girls died from the rapes and beatings, she said”.

Since the Bosnia War in 1992, rape has been internationally recognized as a systematic tool of warfare.

Reports differ on the exact number of internally displaced people but it is estimated that over 400,000 people have fled their homes with most of the displaced people hiding in the remote Nuba mountains of South Kordofan, as it is difficult to get reliable information.

The Sudanese military has tried to cut access routes from the Nuba mountains where most of the displaced people are staying, not only in an effort to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching the rebels but also to block foreign media, as journalist Ann Curry reported when she visited the area last week.

IRC estimates that some 28,000 refugees from South Kordofan had settled in South Sudan’s Yida refugee camp where many women and girls continue to be raped.

Sexual assaults were reported to have taken place while they collected firewood or sought somewhere to go to the toilet.

Women in the camp have also spoken of worsening domestic violence by their husbands.

According to a UN report, violence began to increase in South Kordofan in May 2011 in the lead-up to South Sudan’s independence.

Southern Kordofan is inhabited by approximately 2,500,000 people, with over 100 ethnic communities the largest of which is the Nuba people.

The Governor,  Ahmed Haroun, is one of three Sudanese including President al-Bashir who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes allegedly committed in Darfur between 2003 and 2004.