Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

UK aid pays for India’s poor to be “forced, duped and drugged” into sterilisation

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 01:00 PM PDT

Ilona Lo Iacono
WVoN co-editor 

Tens of millions of pounds in aid from the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) have been spent on a programme that has forcibly sterilised women and men in India.

Poor men and women have been "forced, duped and drugged" into the sterilisations, which are often carried out in unsafe and unhygienic conditions.

DfID said last year: “We condemn forced sterilisation and have taken steps to ensure that not a penny of UK aid could support it. The UK does not fund sterilisation centres anywhere."

However, DfID has apparently overlooked concerns that aid money may be spent on stripping men and women of their reproductive rights and their safety: £166 million was earmarked for population control programmes in India.

Many women have died as a result of botched operations; others have suffered miscarriages, and yet more have been left bleeding and in pain without post-operative care.

Health rights activist Devika Biswas brought a Public Interest Litigation before India's supreme court earlier this month, saying that “inhuman sterilisations, particularly in rural areas, continue with reckless disregard for the lives of poor women”.

She cited the case of a sterilisation camp in Araria district, Bihar; she was an eye-witness to one private doctor, working for an NGO, sterilizing 53 women in just two hours.

The operations took place in Kaparfora Government Middle School, without basic amenities such as running water and sterilising equipment.

The doctor, who did not wear a surgical gown or cap, and neither washed his hands nor changed his gloves, operated on the women at night, by torchlight, using school desks as operating tables. He was aided by unqualified staff, who lay the women out on paddy straw when their operations had been completed.

Biswas said that neither the NGO nor the surgeon conducted pre-operative tests to determine suitability of the women for sterilization.

“As a result of these operations, three women were left profusely bleeding. Another woman was operated, despite being three-month pregnant. She miscarried days after the procedure.

“The surgeon left immediately after operating 53 women between 8pm and 10 pm. After the surgeries, all 53 women were crying out in pain. Though they were in desperate need of medical care, no one came to assist them,” she said.

Throughout India, Biswas said, rural women are routinely dehumanised in similar camps. “Reports and fact-findings from Maharashtra, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh demonstrate that standards of hygiene, consent and care are routinely ignored in sterilisation camps."

On April 9, 26-year-old Bala underwent sterilisation at just such a camp in Nagaur district, Rajasthan. She died, allegedly of vasovagal shock, after her emergency post-operative transfer to a community health centre.

On February 9, a 35-year-old mother of six, Rekha Wasnik, who was pregnant with twins, bled to death in Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat district.

She had been given no pre-operative check-up and sources in the district say she died of "sheer negligence"; her post-mortem report described "external and internal bleeding” in her uterus, from injuries caused by a sharp and pointed instrument as the cause of her death.

Dr Anita Parashar, who performed the operation, told the Times of India that she made the first incision and found that Wasnik was pregnant. "So I stitched her up and told her to undergo an abortion.”

Dr Parashar said that she received a call later to inform her that the woman was feeling "unwell".

Both men and women are routinely offered lottery tickets, electrical goods and even cars in exchange for being sterilised; often, the promised goods do not materialise.

In Madhya Pradesh, men have even been offered gun licences in exchange for vasectomies, under a scheme launched in 2008.

After a survey found that most men refused vasectomies because they did not want to lose their "manliness," the Government decided to offer a gun licence as a "bigger symbol of manliness".

In 2012, poor Indians are still sometimes forced to accept sterilisation in return for medicine or vaccines, either for themselves (in the case of a 16-year-old boy with a fever), or for their children. Some have even been threatened with the loss of their state food rations if they do not agree to the procedure.

Still others have woken, confused, after being drugged and operated on, perhaps with a little money in their pocket as compensation.

NGOs and officials continue to meet their quotas by any means possible, whether to stave off penalties or to earn bonuses for themselves.

London 2012 uniforms made in ‘sweatshop’ conditions despite ethical agreements

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 11:00 AM PDT

Ilona Lo Iacono
WVoN co-editor 

Olympic-branded clothing and footwear is reportedly being manufactured for adidas under sweatshop conditions in Indonesia, in violation of ethical standards agreed to by Games organisers.

The Independent reported on Saturday that the licensed gear, to be worn by London 2012 volunteers and British athletes, is being manufactured in nine locally owned and managed Indonesian factories where violations of workers' rights are widespread.

The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) has publicly placed great importance on the sustainability of the Games, with an approach "based on the WWF/BioRegional concept of 'One Planet Living®’".

However, this " vision of a sustainable world, in which people everywhere can enjoy a high quality of life within the productive capacity of the planet" seems, in practice, to have scant regard for workers' basic rights.

While adidas, official sportswear supplier of the London Olympics and the British team, hopes to make £100 million from selling Olympics-branded goods, none of the Indonesian factories subcontracted to produce the products pays its workers a living wage.

Workers, mainly young women, are paid as little as Rp 5,000 (34p) an hour, and work up to 65 hours per week.

Indonesian Textile Workers Federation Secretary General Indra Munasmar says that such low wages make excessive overtime necessary for survival.

He calculated that for workers to earn Rp 2 million a month, "a minimum amount to be able to meet the basic needs of their families", even 65 hours a week in a factory paying so little is not enough work.

Factory employees have also complained of verbal and physical abuse, including being slapped or hit with shoes thrown by supervisors. They say they are sometimes forced to work through lunch breaks and are often unable to take toilet breaks.

One woman working in a shoe factory said that "there are many times when workers are working without payment on overtime, or are not paid properly. Every day there’s a worker who passes out because they’re exhausted or unwell.”

After ongoing talks, LOGOC and the Trades Union Congress, on behalf of Playfair 2012 Campaign, made an agreement in February, under which LOCOG's Sourcing Code, which covers all contracts with suppliers/licensees, is to include adherence to the Ethical Trading Initiative base code.

All LOCOG's commercial partners, suppliers and licensees must comply with standards including payment of a living wage, respect for the right to freedom of association and safe and healthy working conditions.

Playfair 2012 called the agreement "a big step forward, and the first time this has ever happened for a major world sporting event. However, the real test is whether these standards are actually being respected in the workplace."

The Independent reported that none of the Indonesian employees had heard of the ETI base code or LOCOG's complaints mechanism, set up to enable workers to report labour violations.

As recently as February, LOCOG had only had its information material translated into Mandarin, and had not yet disseminated any of it in factories.

According to Playfair 2012, "adidas's own safeguards have failed as this is an industry which defaults to the lowest standards in order to make the most profit."

A spokeswoman for LOCOG said: “We… take these allegations extremely seriously.

“We have spoken to adidas and they have assured us that they are investigating these allegations, the conclusions of which will be made public. ”

British designer Stella McCartney created the British team kit for adidas.

“You shouldn’t have to sacrifice style for sport,” she said, at the launch of the kit.

Neither should you have to sacrifice workers' rights.

Brazilian cannibals say they intended to kill three women a year

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Shanna McGoldrick
WVoN co-editor

Brazilian police are investigating a possible link between the murder of two women in the state of Pernambuco and the arrest of two men and a woman who claim to be cannibals.

The alert was sounded last week when two female bodies were found buried at the house where the trio lived in Garanhuns, northeastern Brazil.

They are thought to be those of Alexandra Falcao, 20, and Gisele da Silva, 30, who were reported missing earlier this year.

According to police inspector Wesley Fernandes, the three suspects, one man and two women, are part of a sect called Cartel and intended to kill three women per year in order to help the "purification of the world and the reduction of its population".

Details of the crime were revealed in a 50-page book written by the male suspect, Jorge Beltrao Negromonte, entitled "Revelations of a schizophrenic", in which he claimed to be obsessed with killing women.

Garanhuns police commander Democrito de Oliveira said at a press conference that the trio had confessed to eating the flesh of their victims.

He also confirmed that one of the suspects claimed to have used some of the meat to make empanadas, a Latin American pastry, which she sold in the town.

Police believe the cannibals lured their victims with the promise of well-paid babysitting jobs, killing them when a "voice" told them they were bad people.

Women at risk as police crack down on prostitution ahead of Olympic Games

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 07:00 AM PDT

Alice Rodgers
WVoN co-editor 

Prostitutes are being cleared from London's streets in an attempt to make the city more presentable for the 2012 Olympic Games.

About 80 brothels have been shut down in London's Olympic boroughs, compared to just 29 in the rest of the city.

In Tower Hamlets the number of arrests made since January has already equalled those made in the whole of 2011.

Toynbee Hall, a London-based anti-poverty charity has expressed concern over the operation, saying that the change are making sex workers "more vulnerable to crime".

The charity said it was worried about bail conditions, which often involve barring women from certain areas and imposing curfews, which they claim might expose them to more risk.

Indeed researchers found this is what happened during the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, with prostitutes being pushed into more isolated areas, away from the support of other workers and with "less protection to be able to safely negotiate condom use".

"We have a situation where a man who violently attacks a number of clients would not be given the same orders to leave the borough or a particular area" said Miriam Merkova, of Toynbee Hall.

"I absolutely think that it's the image rather than the safety of residents that is the problem."

The Metropolitan Police have said that they are acting "in response to community concerns", rather than in accordance with Olympic plans.

However according to Andrew Boff, a London Assembly member and spokesman for the Conservative group on the Olympics, this increased activity has happened disproportionately in the Olympic boroughs.

"I worry that the current way in which brothels in London are policed is actually preventing women from coming forward" he said.

Elsewhere London's predominantly working-class and multi-ethnic Olympic boroughs have seen the forced displacement of its homeless, rising rent prices, forced evictions and the demolition of public housing; gentrification policies that are often employed in Olympic Games host cities.

Castro says the world needs more women in politics

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 05:00 AM PDT

Alice Rodgers
WVoN co-editor 

Cuban revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro, has said that the world would be a better place if there were more women in politics.

In an essay entitled 'Sweetened Realities that Fade Away', he reflected on the contributions of the  heads of state who attended the Summits of the Americas, in Cartagena, Colombia last weekend.

This meeting, which convenes every three years, is an opportunity for governments of the western hemisphere to discuss the challenges facing the Americas.

Castro was particularly supportive of Dilma Rousseff, the current president of Brazil, describing her as a "capable and intelligent woman".

The ex-president of Cuba pointed to Rousseff's analysis of the economic crisis and her comments about the damaging effects of the Eurozone's monetary expansion on Brazil's national industry.

She was, he said, dealing with the country's economic issues "with authority and dignity".

This year’s Summit was attended by more women leaders than ever before: Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Argentina; Laura Chinchilla of Costa Rica; Portia Simpson Miller of Jamaica; Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago; and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil.

"The women attending the summit either as companions or as Heads of State were the ones who did it best. Once again they proved that the world would be a far better place if they took care of political affairs" the Cuban leader said.

In a continent often stereotyped for machismo it seems that the region is certainly making progress when it comes to women's representation in politics.

That being said, five female leaders from a region of 34 countries shows that there is still a long way to go, as Castro himself observed.

“Some people are Gay. Get over it!”

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 03:00 AM PDT

Holly Peacock
WVoN co-editor 

As part of its Education for All campaign, Stonewall (a lesbian, gay and bisexual charity) worked with some London secondary school pupils and teachers to come up with the slogan 'Some people are Gay. Get over it!'

Supporting the charity, Titan Outdoor Advertising Ltd published 600 bus adverts displaying the slogan across London buses.

As part of a counter campaign, religious groups Anglican Mainstream and the Core Issues Trust cashed in on the success of the campaign using its exact format to inform the residents of London that it is possible to repent and be cured of homosexuality.

Their counter slogan read 'Not gay! Ex-gay, post-gay and proud. Get over it!'

Just days before the posters were due to appear on London buses the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, intervened and pulled the campaign.

Speaking to The Guardian Newspaper Johnson said:”London is one of the most tolerant cities in the world and intolerant of intolerance.

“It is clearly offensive to suggest that being gay is an illness that someone recovers from and I am not prepared to have that suggestion driven around London on our buses.”

Sign the petition against ABORT67

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 01:00 AM PDT

Holly Peacock
WVoN co-editor 

As the abortion debate continues in the UK, the focus for many pro-choice supporters is now on the actions of anti-abortion group ABORT67.

The activist group, which is based in Brighton on England’s south coast, "seeks to change the way we think about abortion" and wants the reversal of the 1967 Abortion Act, which legalised abortions.

So far, their activities have included campaigning outside BPAS clinics, displaying images of aborted fetuses and speaking to women attending their abortion appointments.

If members of ABORT67 encourage a pregnant woman to cancel the termination it posts a message like this one to their facebook followers:

'ANOTHER BABY SAVED AT WISTONS ABORTION CLINIC THIS MORNING. 40 Days for Life volunteer using an Abort67 sticker of aborted baby convinced a mother of 3 born children to not kill her unborn child.'

The Brighton Feminist Collective has started a petition asking organisations that support Abort67, whether directly or indirectly, to stop doing so and to condemn its intimidating and aggressive tactics.

These include the use of "graphic imagery", "misinformation" and "physical encircling to try and prevent people from entering the clinic.”