Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Allegations of rape at women and children’s shelter in India

Posted: 11 Jun 2012 05:45 AM PDT

Auveen Woods
WVoN co-editor

An investigation has been launched after it emerged that women and children in a sheltered home in North Eastern India had been raped and forced into prostitution by both the head of the shelter and local police officials.

On May 10, a team from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights raided Apna Ghar shelter run by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Bharat Vikas Sangh, and rescued 94 girls.

This week in testimonials to a four-member committee initiated by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, former inmates of the shelter revealed that they were gang raped, forced into prostitution and tortured to induce abortion when they became pregnant.

In shocking statements two of the inmates, one deaf and mute and the other mentally challenged, said that when they became pregnant, their stomachs were stepped on and sticks inserted inside their private parts to force abortions.

The two girls  in question were raped repeatedly by several men including the son-in-law of the head of the NGO.

One of the girls became pregnant twice.

Reportedly inmates were specifically asked whether police officers sexually abused them with almost all those questioned confirming that they had.

Inmates said they had been drugged by both police officers and the head of the NGO into being compliant.

Other girls have spoken about being brutally assaulted as punishment for being disobedient or for trying to escape.

Neeti (name changed) a victim from the Apna Ghar shelter said:

“I tried to escape from the shelter, but was caught. As a punishment, I was disrobed and I was almost strangulated. I was also beaten with a stick on my foot because of which I was unable to walk for several days.”

Jaswanti Devi, who ran the shelter, has been arrested along with her daughter, son-in-law and a relative.

Devi is a recipient of a number of state awards for “empowering women”.

Rohtak, where the shelter is located, is the home town of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, the leader of the Indian National Congress.

Prior to these revelations the Apna Ghar shelter for women and children was getting grants amounting to millions of rupees from the state and central governments.

The Haryana Police have admitted in the High Court that Devi, who has been charged with trafficking, torture and bonded labour, may have not just sold inmates but also children of the mentally challenged inmates.

However a report by the High Court has revealed that Devi is being given special treatment out of fear that she will name government and police officials who conspired with her.

The shocking stories emerged after three girls from the Apna Ghar shelter escaped in the first week of May to Delhi and reported the abuses to the Delhi police.

Author uncovers India’s surrogacy problem in new novel

Posted: 11 Jun 2012 04:15 AM PDT

Aisha Farooq
WVoN co-editor

Indian author Kishwar Desai highlights the problems surrounding India’s growing and unregulated market for surrogate mothers in her new book entitled Origins of Love, published last week.

The novel follows social worker Simran Singh as she comes across an abandoned newly-born girl, whose adoptive parents have mysteriously died, and whose surrogate mother has long since disappeared.

As Simran delves into the story of the child’s birth, she uncovers the startlingly dark and highly dangerous side of private surrogacy practices within India.

Surrogacy contracts are usually private and unregulated, Desai explains in a recent BBC4 interview.

As a result, surrogates have very few rights and are at risk of exploitation.

Although fictional, the book describes the very real and serious health risks that many Indian surrogates face.

Many are encouraged to have more pregnancies than their natural cycle permits. Excess use of fertility drugs risks long-term damage to the surrogate’s body and ovaries.

In one surrogacy case, Desai recalls a mother who “was forced to carry four embryos in her womb out of which the healthiest one was allowed to live and the rest were removed during pregnancy”.

Caesareans are commonly used in order to time the birth of the baby with the arrival of the commissioning parents.

Last month a surrogate mother suffered from convulsions during a routine check-up. An emergency caesarean was carried out in order to ensure the safety of the baby. The mother later died.

About 25,000 babies are born through surrogacy in India every year, in an industry worth $2 billion, Desai reports in The Guardian. Over half of these are “commissioned” by overseas Western couples.

“India is becoming a baby factory,” Desai claims in an interview with The Times of India. ”Rich people in the country can afford designer babies now.”

Women who offer themselves for surrogacy usually come from relatively poor and deprived backgrounds, and are in desperate need of money to support their families.

Although draft laws regulating the practice of surrogacy and IVF treatment were drawn up two years ago, they are still awaiting government approval.

Origins of Love is the second instalment of a trilogy by Desai. Her first novel, Witness the Night, received the 2010 Costa First Novel Award for its controversial subject of female foeticide in India.

Review: Wasma Mansour’s Single Saudi Women

Posted: 11 Jun 2012 02:45 AM PDT

Brogan Driscoll
WVoN co-editor

The gallery that houses Wasma Mansour’s Single Saudi Women photography exhibition is well chosen.

The tiny white room situated a stone’s throw from London’s St Pancras station is as intimate as the images that adorn the walls.

The contrast between the busy street lined with London’s black taxi cabs and the silent gallery makes you alarmingly self-conscious and slightly vulnerable. Apt for an exhibition that explores notions of self-image.

“Pictorial conventions in global mass media exhibit recurring visual tropes which stereotype and essentialise the portrayal of Saudi women,” says Saudi-born, London-based photographer Mansour.

“As a result, such generalisations have suppressed Saudi women's efforts in reconciling with their identities and asserting their sense of individualism.”

As part of a four-year research project, Mansour has documented the public and private lives of Saudi women living in the UK as they attempt to carve out identities and struggle against the inflexibility of dominant stereotypes.

It is interesting to see the juxtaposition of traditional elements of Saudi culture against others.

One striking image taken in a woman’s living room shows a host of family portraits. One photograph stands out in particular despite being at the back – the largest and one of the only coloured photographs, it shows a young woman at her university graduation.

The most poignant set of images is Portraits. While the women’s faces are shielded from view it is clear how much of our perceived identities is constructed by material possessions – we make choices to construct our own, and make judgements on the choices of others.

But, as the photographer reveals, the choice runs much deeper:

“I took the decision to anonymise all participants as a precautionary measure. This stems from my awareness of some negative possibilities, even though minimal, that might happen due to the future outlet of my work.”

Refreshingly, the project resists any attempts to redefine the women or slot them into pigeon holes. Instead it opens a dialogue about the nature of identity and the struggle between individualism and mass perception.

Single Saudi Women is being shown at the Hardy Tree Gallery until 30 June as part of the London Festival of Photography.

Fijian women in New Zealand accuse employer of slavery

Posted: 11 Jun 2012 01:15 AM PDT

Helen Thompson
WVoN co-editor

Two Fijian domestic workers have accused their employer of keeping them in conditions of slavery in New Zealand.

The unnamed Wellington businesswoman is facing 12 charges including exploiting people not entitled to work in New Zealand, not paying the minimum wage or holiday allowances,  providing false information to an immigration officer, and procuring a breach of a visitor's visa.

The women claim that even though their employer promised to pay them $200 a week, they actually received $40 for working a seven-day week, which they say involved round-the-clock childcare plus housework.

Their employer did not provide adequate food for them and they were forced to spend their own money to eat, sometimes sharing a can of sardines when their funds ran low.

They also said that the Wellington businesswoman confiscated their passports and forbade them from talking to anyone outside their workplace.

In a written statement, one of the women said: “I was just like a slave to them.  I did not feel free at all.”

When one of the women complained about their working conditions, the employer told her she could go and work in a strip club, “like a prostitute”.

One woman was employed between June 2010 and October 2011 and received $4560 for this period while the second woman worked from February to October 2011 and earned $1320.

According to Alun McGowan, Labour Inspector, if the employer had paid her employees the minimum wage, they would have earned $66,285 and $34,367 respectively.

However, based on their working hours, they should have earned considerably more.

In October 2011 the Fijian women sought the help of New Zealand immigration officials when they realised their working conditions were exploitative.

This case highlights the plight of domestic workers internationally. According to Suzanne McNabb of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions Women's Council:

“The number of domestic workers is growing internationally but their conditions of employment are among the most exploitative and abusive of any group of workers.”

Backed by international trade unions and domestic workers' groups, the Council endorsed  a “12 by 12″ campaign on 8 March 2012 to encourage 12 countries to ratify an international labour organisation convention to protect the rights of domestic workers and end what McNabb calls “modern day slavery” in several countries.

Such a convention would provide guidelines for domestic working conditions and ensure that cases like that of the two Fijian women, will be less likely to happen.