The Blackbird Whistling, Or Just After

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days - Palme d'Or Winner Tackles Totalitarianism, Reproductive Rights

  In 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, filmmaker Cristian Mungiu offers an unsparing view of life under Communist Totalitarianism in 1980's Romania. Under the oppressive rule of Nicolae Ceausescu, even cigarettes and gum require black market finagling. Appliances are often shared and contraception is virtually unavailable.

In an effort to populate the country, the pill and IUD are illegal, and other forms of birth control exceedingly scarce. In 1966 abortion, except under relatively rare conditions, became punishable by imprisonment for both the patient and the doctor and the potential revocation of the doctor's medical license. Employers mandated gynecological exams and were required to report pregnancies to the state, whereupon women were monitored by the state until delivery.

It is a reality that some Americans would consider appealing. (Well, maybe not about the appliances and gum...) These Americans should see 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

The reality of the situation in Romania, in what has been termed the Golden Age of the Breeding Machine, is that for the first several years birth rates in Romania increased. After that they slowly returned to pre-1966 levels. In concordance, maternal death rates steadily rose.

But don't expect to find politics in 4 Months, or even any historical context. The film is shot without music and often in long, stationary shots where characters move in and out of frame. It provides little context and little exposition.The film opens simply, as two friends, in mid-conversation, prepare themselves for a frightening and dangerous night where, we eventually discover, one will help the other procure an illegal abortion.

Although based on the experiences of two real women, this film makes no judgments. It's not pro-life and it's not pro-choice. It steps back and lets a human story tell itself, as though we were given a peep through a keyhole back in time to another reality were two girls, desperate, determined, and terrified, seem a lot like girls I've known.

Mungiu insists it's not a film about abortion, but rather totalitarianism. It does illuminate a world were personal choices are controlled by the state and reveals the oppression and tragedy that can result. Would the outcome be so different in the United States if unmarried youth were restricted knowledge of and access to birth control, and abortion illegal?

We are not so far from this as we might think. Consider the billions of dollars spent on abstinence-only programs, the appointees of President Bush in the Office of Family Planning, global aid for HIV/AIDS restricted by mandated abstinence programs, and the fact that Roe v Wade is an issue in the Presidential campaigning of 2008...

But aside from social or political implications, everyone should see this film for the mastery of the film itself. It's approach to the art of film making borders on revolutionary and Mungui's lack of sentimentality is (in my view) heroic. We've had enough heart-warming fantasy-comedies about unexpected pregnancy. If abortion were to become illegal and comprehensive sex-ed neglected, we wouldn't have a country full of Juno's. We'd have a country full of unintended pregnancies, and the tragic (anti)heroines of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days...

"Coaching Boys Into Men" NY Campaign on Violence Against Women Seen as "Boybashing" by Men's Rights Group

Here's the print ad. What do you think?

The men's activist group The New York Coalition of Fathers and Families recently staged a protest against the ads, which are sponsored by New York's Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. The ads will appear in print, and in TV and radio spots throughout the state.

Some people recognize that domestic violence awareness efforts and aid services routinely fail to target male victims. Jan Brown, Founder and Executive Director of the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Men and Women, works daily to provide support to, and raise awareness about, male victims of domestic abuse. (Although interestingly, the organization targets heterosexual couples only. Men abused by women.)

The critics of these ads, however, seem motivated by open aggression and hate. The ads may focus on domestic abuse against women specifically, but they persecute no one. The NY Coalition of Fathers and Families accuses the ads of painting all men as abusive by default.

Radio commentator Glenn Sacks writes that

if it really were a "Domestic Violence Public Awareness Media Campaign," we'd be made aware that women are just as likely to attack their male partners as vice versa, but any mention of that is strictly verboten.

He neglects to back up his claims with any statistics. I guess we take him at his word...

But more than that, there are lots of ways to disrespect women. Demeaning, shaming, and destructive behavior goes on every day in the absence of physical violence. It seems like this is a concept beyond these protesters. At least, if you take a look at the comment to Sacks' post.

And the ad doesn't try to peg boys as necessarily destructive toward women. Will a boy necessarily avoid vegetables? Play with matches? Neglect his homework? No, but he might. Especially if the behavior is common in his environment and no one talks to him about the importance of these issues.

I mean really, a protest? I know that courts are skewed toward women when it comes to divorce and child custody, but picking a fight over ads teaching respect is about as helpful to their cause as NOW's New York chapter accusing Ted Kennedy of  "the ultimate betrayal" for endorsing Barack over Hillary. It's ill-intended, counter-productive, and just plain embarrassing.

"The Greatest Silence" - DRC Documentary Wins at Sundance

"The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo," a feature-length documentary by Lisa F. Jackson, was awarded a Special Jury prize at Sundance last week. The film is unflinching in the face of the mass rape, mutilation, kidnapping and torture inflicted upon as many as hundreds of thousands of women and children in the Congo. Jackson, herself a survivor of gang rape in the US, interviews Congolese victims and rapists alike to uncover the world where such cruelty thrives.

Since 1998 an estimated 5.4 million people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a result of ongoing insurgent violence, which  has displaced more than 500,000 people from their homes in the last year alone. Most deaths occur from malnutrition, untreated injury, and disease.

The ongoing violence and instability has rent the nation into enclaves of virtual lawlessness, where atrocities are committed with impunity by nearly every side, including rebel factions, Congolese soldiers, and UN aid workers stationed in DRC.

At the very end of a long line of suffering are the Congo's women and children. After visiting the Eastern Congo, Eve Ensler described it as "hell." Lisa Jackson describes it as "a literal heart of darkness."

Yet, even with 5.4 million dead in less than a decade and the ongoing rape and mutilation of hundreds of thousands of women and children, there remains little global awareness about the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Hopefully this film, and the less-publicized documentary Lumo, will raise awareness and much needed funds and aid to this devastated area.

Note: On January 23, 2008 a peace signing took place between the Congolese President Kabila and representatives of General Laurent Nkunda, leader of the dominant Mai-Mai faction. The lasting implications of this agreement are as yet unclear.

Further Reading:

The UN Mission in the DRC

The Panzi Hospital in Bukavu

V-Day and UNICEF report: V-DAY and UNICEF Call for an End to Rape and Sexual Torture against Women and Girls in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

Friends of the Congo

The Greatest Silence Link Page

See also Blackbird Posts:

"Like Rwanda But Worse" Rape As a Weapon of War in the Congo [Part 1: History of the Conflict

Rape As a Weapon of War in the Congo [Part 2: The Savagery]

Rape As a Weapon of War in the Congo [Part 3: The Healing and What You Can Do To Help]

"The Boat Must Be Rocked" - Congresswoman Slaughter on KBR Rape Case

Members of Congress are finally demanding accountability for the actions of US contractors in Iraq and around the world. Spurred by the lack of charges in the recent case of Jamie Leigh Jones, who was gang raped by fellow KBR employees while working as a contractor in Iraq, Reps Louise M. Slaughter (NY-18), Jan Schakowsky (IL-9), and Ted Poe (TX-2) have drafted letters to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The letters deliver, Slaughter says, a much needed "wake-up call" to the White House. Over 110 members of Congress have signed the letters.

In a special posting on Feministing, Slaughter writes

Yesterday, I, and over 100 of my colleagues, took a serious step to breaking the dangerous “boys will be boys” attitude that has been allowed to fester for far too long among United States government contractors in Iraq and around the world.

...it appears that the Departments of Justice, State, and Defense would prefer that the American public forget what happened to Jamie Leigh Jones.

It appears they do not want to rock the boat.

But this boat must be rocked.  Because what happened to Jamie Leigh Jones was not an isolated incident. 

[...]

It is increasingly apparent that there are many women working for United States government contractors that are regularly subject to sexual harassment, assault, and rape. And what is even more apparent, the perpetrators of these heinous acts are not held to account and justice is almost never served.

[...]

We will not rest until these answers meet our satisfaction and there is a guarantee that criminal offenders are punished to the letter of the law and that contractors, getting rich on massive taxpayer funded contracts, are held to account.

It must be the Bush Administration’s unequivocal position that individuals working as United States government contractors, whether at home or abroad, have the same rights to treatment, services, and proper legal recourse when they are victims of a violent crime.

The letters demand that DoD and the DoS detail their efforts to maintain the safety of Americans working for US contractors abroad.

Further Reading:

The Jamie Leigh Foundation - Jones' non-profit is "dedicated to helping United States citizens and legal residents who are victims of crime while working abroad for government contractors and subcontractors." Also lots of info on her case.

Jone's testimony to a House Judiciary Committee.

(The comment board is unfortunately peppered with "well-intentioned" comments that drop phrases like "hot" and "understandable" and "asking for it." The most surprising is the commenter who is shocked to have offended, believing to have simply offered up a compliment.)

ABC Coverage of Jones' Case.

Take Action:

Sign a petition urging the Senate to promptly pass H.R. 2740 - The MEJA Expansion and Enforcement Act of 2007, (or the Clarification of the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act.) This expands culpability to all US contractors outside US boarders and requires the FBI and Department of Justice to track and report on related criminal activity. NOTE: Bill has passed in the House, use form for Senate only.

Speak out to the Department of Defense and the State Department.

No "Right" Way To Be A Woman in Power - Barriers of Sex & Race in '08 Election

Gloria Steinem writes a brief yet interesting op-ed in the Times today about Clinton's struggle against the gender barrier verses Obama's against the racial barrier. She writes

I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together. [...]

But what worries me is that he  is seen as unifying by his race while she  is seen as divisive by her sex.

What worries me is that she is accused of “playing the gender card” when citing the old boys’ club, while he is seen as unifying by citing civil rights confrontations.

What worries me is that male Iowa voters were seen as gender-free when supporting their own, while female voters were seen as biased if they did and disloyal if they didn’t.

What worries me is that reporters ignore Mr. Obama’s dependence on the old — for instance, the frequent campaign comparisons to John F. Kennedy — while not challenging the slander that her progressive policies are part of the Washington status quo. [...]

This country can no longer afford to choose our leaders from a talent pool limited by sex, race, money, powerful fathers and paper degrees. It’s time to take equal pride in breaking all the barriers.

The piece doesn't explore any of these issues, but it does bring them up in a mainstream media that has so far demonstrated an awkwardness and general avoidance of the topic - as though pointing out that Clinton is being regarded differently because she's a woman is sexist in itself.

In September, Chris Matthews asked Senator Chris Dodd if he found it difficult to debate against a woman. The feminists rolled their eyes and angrily blogged about it. I thought it was a fair question. It simply took at look at the issue from a different point of view.

Gender restrictions in our society, even the ones that deem women are weaker and dictate that gentlemen don't fight with, pick on, or bully women, effect both sexes. In this case, how do you come out swinging in the verbal slug-fest of a presidential debate, when a gentleman is taught to treat women gently, pay for dinner, and open doors? Image is everything to campaigners, and while aggressive against another man is, well...manly, the same demeanor against a woman may well label you a brute.

Whether this is insulting or sexist isn't the point of the question. The fact that these pre-conceptions exist (and what is a political campaign if not the careful juggling, polling, and pandering to the pre-conceptions of targeted voter groups?) is reason enough to acknowledge them. The very act of not-acknowledging these differences, of perpetuating the long-standing silence surrounding issues of gender and race, is to normalize the stereotypes, to authenticate them, even.

Does gender or race have anything to do with competency in the oval office? Of course not. But when a society is ingrained with so many unfounded fears, insinuations, skewed perceptions, and unspoken assumptions, it becomes clear that many voters believe gender and race have a lot to do with it.

Granted, an informed debate on gender stereotypes is not likely to break out on Hardball, but Matthews was one of the only mainstreamers to ask an obvious question, rather than avoiding the question so as not to offend, in the pretense that the reality which keeps the question relevant doesn't exist.

Then again, with so much else to consider - health care, national security, choosing a new commander-in-chief - how many Americans want to hold a mirror up to their own deep-seated views of gender stereotypes? Maybe blaming the media is too easy. I have enough trouble finding people who recognize sexism in everyday life, let along those who want to talk about it, or worse yet, admit their own long-standing notions. Is this too cynical?

Self-Immolation A Growing Trend in Afghan Women

In Afghanistan, a growing number of women, primarily aged 10-40, attempt to flee lives of hopelessness and despair by setting themselves on fire.

It is difficult to accurately estimate the number of Afghan women and girls who attempt to kill themselves with petrol and a match. Anywhere from one hundred to several hundred cases of self-immolation have been reported each year since 2002. A New York Times article reports that in 2004 the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission recorded 40 cases in six months in the city of Herat alone. These reported numbers are exceptionally low, however, because families often hide the incident or try to lie about the method of death.

Reported cases are almost entirely of those who survive, even briefly, and find themselves being treated in a local burn unit. Yet even these women often attempt to lie about their wounds, insisting the incident was accidental. The staff at the burn unit in Herat's Regional Medical Center have learned to discern the truth. Fuel-soaked clothing and little evidence of an attempt to stifle flames strongly point to self-infliction. Dr. Ghafar Bawar, a plastic surgeon who consults at the unit, explains

"When an accident happens, they try to stop it. In self-inflicted burns, a high percentage of the body surface area is affected. When it is more than 40 per cent of body surface area burnt . . . it's usually self-inflicted."

For many western readers, it's hard to understand what would drive these women, many of them teens, to commit such a desperate and agonizing act. It's important to recognize Afghanistan's deep-seated culture of female oppression and the utter lack of options perceived by most women.

Many Afghan women, especially in rural villages, live in a state of near slavery. They are kept uneducated and have little or no control over the most basic aspects of their lives.

Forced into marriage as a young teen, (the youngest reported case of self-immolation was a nine year old child), to a man possibly decades older, an Afghan girl must obey not only her new husband but any of his male or female relatives. She endures daily beatings and other, often sexual, abuses. She cannot read or write and has been prohibited from learning a valuable skill or trade. All she knows of the world is what she has been told, and what she is told cultivates hopelessness, humiliation, and the constant threat of violence. Even her own voice is useless to her. If she speaks out she earns only ridicule or further punishment.

Where can she turn? A few girls are lucky enough to learn of a shelter for abused women and child brides, though even fewer are able to escape. Illiterate and isolated, most women have no idea that any escape is possible. In their minds, they have nothing.

No courts, no police, no divorce, no justice, no escape.

When the Taliban were toppled and Hamid Karzai took power at the end of 2001, it seemed Afghan women would enjoy a life of more freedom and stability. Unfortunately, many women live under nearly the same oppression, humiliation, and violence that they suffered under the Taliban.

Let's take a closer look at the reality of life for most Afghan women, shaped drastically by recent Taliban rule and related gender beliefs which, for too many, still linger.

Life Under the Taliban

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan, through continued insurgency and civil war, from 1996 until nearly 2002.

Under Taliban rule, Afghan women were oppressed in literally every aspect of their lives. In what has been referred to as gender apartheid, women were placed under house arrest, denied the ability to work or gain an education, and required to shield themselves from all males except very close relatives. The windows of her home were painted black, lest an innocently passing male catch a forbidden glimpse, and she could not leave her home at all unless escorted by a close male relative and sheathed in full burqa. When outside the home, she was careful to both speak and step softly, lest her presence be seductively audible to strange males.

Any woman who had lost all male relatives in the years of ongoing conflict was literally trapped in her home.

Unable to seek medical treatment from doctors who, under Taliban rule, were necessarily all male, women frequently died of treatable ailments.

Anyone caught defying the new laws risked public beating and execution. Speaking too loudly or or inadvertently flashing an ankle or wrist earned a woman a public lashing. Women caught unattended outside their homes, assumed to be attempting to flee, were often stoned to death. Women in the presence of a non-related male were charged with adultery and hanged.

Today...

In 2002, when the Taliban lost control of Afghanistan's central government, the lives of many Afghan women brightened. For the most part, educated, urban women returned to work or school and as their country worked to rebuild itself, they strove to reclaim their lives.

Unfortunately, Afghan women in poor, rural areas, continue to live under the same oppression and abuse as before. While Taliban law is no longer in effect, many rural areas are governed by tribal law, which remains uninfluenced by the Afghan government. In many territories, warlords rule with impunity and throughout the nation societal norms give males full dominance over women, who are treated with violence and contempt on a daily basis.

Three women initially held positions in President Kazai's cabinet, however all have since been replaced by males, including the Minister of Women's Affairs. A 2006 article in the Christian Science Monitor explains

Women's inclusion in Afghanistan's government, which the international community has been using as an indicator of democratic progress, is actually regressing. The interim Supreme Court has consistently sided with conservatives [...] It has issued bans on women singing on television... and upheld the marriage of a 9-year-old girl, even though Afghan law sets marriageable age at 16.

Afghan women are repeatedly denied equal access to legal representation and due process. Nearly 80 percent of the women in prison have been convicted of zina, engaging in sexual activity outside marriage. But the majority of those convicted were simply trying to escape domestic abuse and seek refuge outside their oppressive households.

The reality of life for many rural Afghan women is one of utter helplessness. Once forced into marriage, an Afghan female loses the ability to determine what she does, or where she goes, in some cases ever. Daily beatings are common, as are psychological humiliation and degradation. Rape perpetrated by a husband is not considered abnormal, let alone a crime.

Afghanistan's groundbreaking 2004 presidential election was a passing irrelevance for most Afghan women.  According to a 2007 UNIFEM fact sheet,

• 87% of Afghans believed that a woman needed  a male relatives authorization to vote.
• 35% of women believed they would not have permission to vote.
• 18% of men admitted they would not allow they wives to vote.

 

Additionally,

• 70-80% of Afghan women  face forced marriages
• 57% of Afghan girls are married before the legal marriage age of sixteen.

Why Fire?

Although self-immolation seems to be one of the most abhorrent choices for suicide, it is, for many, the only choice. Although some find access to poisons, most have no way of going outside the home for any needed materials. Other available options, such as wrist cutting or hanging, are not fool-proof enough for their intentions. Fire, they believe, is absolute.

Medica Modiale, an organization dedicated to aiding women in war zones and areas of crisis, conducted the first report on self-immolation in Afghan women. They found:

Self-immolation as a method of committing suicide is so frequent because women feel they have no alternative. They can never leave the house and have no access to medicaments. However, there is flammable material in contrast in every kitchen.

Medica Modiale's  Nabila Wafiq told the Washington Post

"When we asked most people why they committed self-immolation, they said that when they take pills, they don't die, but when they commit self-immolation they believe they will die, 100 percent."

Additionally, women are drawn to fire by the opportunity for retribution it presents. An overwhelming atmosphere of shame and dishonor surround the families of those who choose to who self-immolate. This actually contributes to the death-rate of these suicide attempts, as most women die because they are not immediately taken to the hospital, or not taken at all.

The fact that it is difficult to lie about the method of death, often leaves abusive families with an intended stigma. Unfortunately, this motive backfires on a woman who survives. The shame of her act often means total isolation and neglect.

Wafiq also asserts that the trend is growing, in part, because of news reports of suicide by self-immolation, which fail to mention the tortured survivors of the act, or those who take agonizing days to finally die.

Journalist Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, speaking to RAWA (The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) about "Lifting the Veil", her documentary on  the experiences of Afghan women, explains

There are many ways to die – you can take poison or jump in a river. But I think that if those women had died in that way, it would have been easy for the men of the family to cover it up, saying she had a heart attack, or she fell down or something.

But if you pour kerosene on yourself and you light a match, you're making a statement. You're saying look at me, I am in pain, I am in misery, I am not going to die quietly, I am making a point.

In Their Words...

17-year old Fazela:

"My name is Fazela. On that particular day when I burned myself, my husband -- who is also my cousin -- had a fight with me," she recalls. "He beat me. And after I was beaten, I poured kerosene over myself. Then I lit myself on fire. Before this, I really wanted to leave this house. But he took my burqa and did not let me go outside of the house. Now I really regret that I burned myself."

-- Radio Free Europe RadioLiberty

16-year old survivor describes the moments leading up to her self-immolation

"When he did not have access to heroin and narcotics, he tortured me. After midnight he would hit me. That night he hit me and hit my head. Blood was coming from my nose. I asked him why he was doing it and he hit me even more."

-- BBC News 11/15/06

How You Can Help

Donate to the Afghan Women's Mission and you can specify how you want your dollars spent - general fund, education, awareness, etc... They also have pledge program, volunteer info, and more...

The Feminist Majority Foundation runs a campaign entitled Help Afghan Women. They make it quick and easy to petition the US government, spread the word to friends and colleagues, join an action team, and of course, donate.

RAWA has a range of specific donation needs - used digital cameras, school supplies, medical supplies. They also have all sorts of other ideas of how you can help - from translating articles to arranging photo exhibits. Of course you can always write awareness letters or just send some cash! Check it out.

"Legal Fictions" Lithwick on the Biggest Bush Admin. Assertions of 2007

In Slate this week, Dahlia Lithwick covers "The Bush Administration's Dumbest Legal Arguments of the Year." The way things have been piling up, 365 days is more than enough time to forget a few whoppers. She covers  Gonzales, Libby, executive privilege, waterboarding, and a few that may have slipped your mind by now...

It's also worth while to take a peek at her 2006 retrospective "The Bill of Wrongs: The 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006." Wiretapping, anyone?

Other handy reminders are available via the Huffington Post:

  

Changing Hearts: New Op-Ed Urges Pro-Life Pro-Choice "Partnership"

RH Reality Check has an interesting article by Anna Clark  called "Changing Hearts, From Pro-Life to Pro-Choice."

She chronicles her tale from fervid anti-choice to passionate pro-choice. And no, her change of heart does not involve an abortion in her life.

What I love about this piece is that it humanizes the struggle itself. Clark dislikes the idea of two warring sides and laments that her ideas on reproductive rights would have changed much sooner had pro-choicers bother to talk to her about their beliefs rather than eying her up as the enemy.

It's difficult to not become enraged about the issue itself, but do we need to be constantly enraged at each other? Pro-choicers watch religious, political, and largely misogynistic rhetoric take away the right to our own bodies and futures (let alone our own personal and/or religious or spiritual beliefs.) Pro-lifers believe that sex-hungry women defile their bodies and wipe away their sin by conveniently aborting their innocent babies.

It's emotional. It's volatile. But is it, essentially, for the everyday women who find themselves on one side of the issue or the other, the truth? Are the assumptions made by each side about the other really what's going on in the hearts and minds of women?

I would argue that it isn't. That those at the polar extremes of the abortion issue speak the loudest and get the most news coverage. And then I wonder if, when someone tells me she's pro-life, it's only my own smallness that causes my knee-jerk dislike, even disrespect for her.

Clark writes:

Enemy caricatures mask the greatest strength of pro-choice philosophy: inclusiveness.

Pro-choice society, like democratic society, is predicated on space for those who disagree. When we play sides, we forget there are no enemies in the vision we pursue. Our inclusiveness of those who choose not to have abortions, and even those who judge abortion to be morally wrong, is our movement's power. When we approach anti-choicers as friends, not only do we act on the heart of our beliefs, but we create space for anti-choicers to become our allies.

I'm not sure how I feel about my ability to embrace the total inclusiveness thing, but women speaking openly and non-judgmentally to other women (and men) about this critical issue, can only be a good idea.

Students Active For Ending Rape - Donate Today

Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER) is a national non-profit based in NY, and in the next 24 hours you have a unique opportunity to help them raise a good chunk of change. If they receive the most unique donors between now and tomorrow (Saturday 12/22) at 3pm, they'll win an extra $1,000 in Facebook's Causes Giving Challenge.

Are you reading this too late? Donate anyway and if SAFER amasses the most unique donors in 50 days, they could win $50,000!

The contest is being run by a Facebook charity group called Causes, which was  started by a couple of guys from Berkeley who founded Project Agape: "deploying a platform for large-scale political and social activism on the Internet."

You do have to register with Facebook if you don't already have an account, and the minimum donation is $10. The contest isn't about dollar amounts, just the number of donors. Still reluctant? Here's what SAFER is all about. keep in mind it's run almost entirely by college students.

SAFER is a national nonprofit organization devoted to training grassroots student activists to win improvements in the sexual assault policies at their colleges and universities. Colleges often fail to provide students with basic services to deal with epidemic levels of sexual violence on campus. Survivors of sexual assault are retraumatized with unresponsive and unfair policies that often recreate the oppressions that lead to sexual violence. SAFER seeks to provide student activists with the tools they need to challenge university complacence regarding sexual assault.

SAFER was founded not simply to combat the problem of sexual assault, but to help reorganize the fragmented progressive movement by training a new generation of grassroots organizers. While right-wing organizations have spent millions training and developing their young leaders, progressive organizers lack the skills to combat a growing wave of rightist social control. Young progressives are often overwhelmed by the number of social problems they face, and find themselves unable to commit to one winnable campaign to improve the conditions of their lives.

SAFER believes that by focusing on one deeply felt issue and allowing young organizers to "practice" their skills within the political microcosms of their university communities, we can not only create a less racist, violent and misogynistic environment on college campuses, but also develop effective and experienced direct action organizers who will take their skills into the larger political sphere when they leave college.

In addition to educational resources individually targeting students, faculty, and parents, SAFER has two main projects. The Stories Project encourages survivors to tell their stories, not only to break their devastating silences, but also to demonstrate the depth and pervasiveness of sexual violence on college campuses. The Policies Database Project documents sexual assault policies of campuses all over the country for eventual analysis and publication. They're looking to hire law students to speed the database along (if you know any), and for that and so much more, they need $$$!

"Anti-gay amendments are the Happy Meal toy of Republican politics." - A Meandering Post on Gay & Women's Rights

"Anti-gay amendments are the Happy Meal toy of Republican politics." So says Chris Kelly, who has a good piece in Huffington today about Florida introducing a new Marriage Protection Amendment on the 2008 ballot. Forgive the dripping sarcasm, he makes a good point.

So come on down! And while you're in there, marking the magic X that proves you're not a homo -- and that your life wasn't a squalid waste of everyone's time, because at least you got yerself hitched -- why not also vote for a Republican president?

Something for you.  Something for the GOP. It's a get-out-the-vote win/win.

The amendment is being pushed by John Stemberger head of Florida4Marriage, which according to Kelly is

a Republican front group, run by a personal injury lawyer, to lure gay-hating boobs into the voting booths next November.

Although the the Federal "Defense" of Marriage Act applies to Florida, this push for a change to the state constitution is a "just in case" measure to firm up wording that clever homosexuals may, at some point in the future, use to challenge the definition of marriage and ultimately subject children to the "vast, untested social experiment" that is same sex marriage.

They get much of their support material from "Focus on the Family" who, when not embroiled against the ignoble war on Christmas, is  propagating the gay-is-evil Christian world view with gems like these -

• No society needs homosexual coupling. In fact, too much of it would be harmful to society and that is why natural marriage and same-sex coupling cannot be considered socially equal.

• It is an affront to African-Americans to say having past generations being prevented from taking a drink from a public water fountain or being sprayed down by fire hoses in a public park was on par to laws preventing a man from marrying another man. The comparison is shameful.

• Supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) did not just dream up the need for such an amendment. We have been forced into this battle because a very small few want to constitutionally redefine marriage for all of us. Same-sex activists brought this fight to all of us. (Er..."very small few?")

A little more digging at family.org, and I discovered the predictably misogynistic take on heterosexual marriage. The best bits are "What I Didn't Know About Men - Seven Revelations". These include - men need respect, men are providers, men want more sex, and...

Men care about appearance.
What that means in practice: You don't need to be a size 3, but your man does need to see you making the effort to take care of yourself — and he will take on significant cost or inconvenience in order to support you.

There's plenty more, of course, including a the follow-up section "You Are Her Prince Charming", but you can check it out yourself, if you're so inclined.

Rape as a Weapon of War in the Congo [Part 3 - The Healing & What You Can Do to Help]

If you want an intimate glimpse into the lives of victimized women fighting to reclaim their lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo, start with Lumo - One Woman's Struggle to Heal in a Country Beset by War.

This documentary details the story of then 20 year-old Lumo Sinai who, like tens or hundreds of thousands of others, was violently gang-raped and left for dead by militants in the DRC.

The Goma Film Project gives the following synopsis:

Lumo is a feature-length documentary about a young Congolese woman on an uncertain path to recovery at a unique hospital for rape survivors.

The agonies of war torn Africa are deeply etched in the bodies of women. In eastern Congo, vying militias, armies and bandits use rape as a weapon of terror.

Recently engaged to a young man from her village, 20 year-old Lumo Sinai couldn’t wait to have children and start a family. But when she crossed paths with marauding soldiers who brutally attacked her, she was left with a fistula — a condition that has rendered her incontinent and threatens her ability to give birth in the future. Rejected by her fiancé and cast aside by her family, Lumo found her way to the one place that may save her: a hospital for rape survivors set on the border with Rwanda.

Buoyed by the love of the hospital staff, and a formidable team of wise women known to all as “the Mamas,” Lumo and her friends keep the hope of one day resuming their former lives, thanks to an operation that can restore them fully to health. A feisty young woman with a red comb perpetually jutting from her hair, Lumo faces the challenge of recovery with remarkable courage and sass. As she and her friends recover from surgery, they pass the days by gossiping and sharing their dreams of one day finding love.

But when it looks like her operation may have failed, Lumo’s faith is thrown entirely into question.

On this uncertain road to recovery, Lumo shows that the solidarity of women can bind the most irreparable of wounds.

American filmmakers Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Nelson Walker III take a unique approach that grants them the unlikely trust and acceptance of these brutalized women. They encourage the women to pick up a camera and participate in the filming (not unlike Ann Jones providing women with a means of self-expression and independence through photography in Cote d'Ivoire).

The filmmakers held nightly screening sessions, which both amazed and inspired the community of healing women. They also gave the women freedom to film whenever they chose and ensured that whenever a woman preferred not to be filmed, anyone with a camera desisted immediately and without question.

The film is shot in an observational style with no additional narration; the women themselves tell the story.

The culmination of these choices produces a striking result. The women pay little attention to the camera and the viewer is left with the astonishing "fly on the wall" privilege of looking into these women's lives: their horrific tales, their broken bodies, their fight to reclaim a piece of happiness, of purpose, their laughter, their jokes, their support, their jealousies, their triumphs, and their despair.

The film follows the women through their process of healing, both physically and psychologically, but it is careful not to paint a fairytale of recovery. When women heal from successful fistula surgeries, they leave the safety of the hospital and re-enter a climate rife with sexual violence and instability. Many times a woman's rapists will still have control of her village when she returns. It is not uncommon for a woman to heal and return  months later with further injuries.

Few hospitals exist to help these women, and those that do are underfunded, under supplied, and understaffed.

At the  Panzi hospital in Bukavu, Dr. Denis Mukwege is the only physician in a facility of 300 beds, most of which are filled with women waiting surgery to repair traumatic fistulas. Ironically, the hospital was founded as an operating room and maternity ward to serve the many women in southern Bukavu who have no assess to obstetric care. It was soon apparent, however, that the greater need was care for the growing number of victims of sexual violence.

Eve Ensler, founder of v-day.org,  wrote an extensive piece about her visit to DRC and Panzi, published in (of all places) Glamour Magazine. She begins the article with

I have just returned from hell. I am trying for the life of me to figure out how to communicate what I have seen and heard in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

According to Erika Beckman, project manager for PMU Interlife, in an email to Susannah at The Reverse Cowgirl

...we receive approx. 200 rape victims a month at the hospital. We have both in-patients (women with more severe wounds) who reside at the hospital, and out-patients (less severe wounds) that stay in our "transit homes" where they are taken care of in-between treatments at the hospital. All women that come here receive the treatment, operations and training for free. Their children they might have with them are also cared for, as well as accompanying relatives or neighbours.

Women stay here on average 30 days for treatment, many women need multiple operations to be rehabilitated, and many need to heal in between the operations too. During their stay here, the women are taught how to read and write, they are taught different handicrafts and how to be self-sustainable. They are also given legal counselling and guided by lawyers if they wish to press charges against their perpetrators. (Currently we have 14 cases pending, but sadly because of the weak judicial system in DR Congo, perpetrators are always let off the hook).

The best evidence of the importance we have on the raped women that we treat is that many have told me that they would not have survived if they did not come to Panzi. Many women are, as you can understand, suicidal after the rape, but here at Panzi, except for medical treatment, they are also given their value back by our excellent staff and fellow victims who support each other, sing together to relieve the pain, work together on handicrafts and laugh together. They are truly amazing at finding small things to be happy about in life and really encourage each other in this way. [Em.mine]

The Panzi hospital, in partnership with V-Day and Unicef, is raising funds for a City of Joy.

City of Joy will be a refuge for healed women, survivors of rape and torture who have been left without family and community.  City of Joy will offer a safe haven, providing educational and income-generating opportunities, and support women in becoming the next leaders of the DRC.

Donate through v-day here.

Lumo was filmed in the HEAL Africa Hospital in Goma. HEAL Africa (Health, Education, Community Action, and Leadership Development) started as a part of Doctors on Call to Service (DOCS) and is now run by Dr Jo Lusi and his wife Lyn. They work to train Congolese medical staff, counselors and activists on dealing with issues like gender-based violence, and HIV/AIDS.

As seen in the film, they send one of the "Mamas" into the countryside with a truck, rounding up women with traumatic fistulas and transporting them to the hospital. Although women often have had no idea that help was available, they remain terrified and many need to be persuaded to make the journey to the hospital.

To help the women re-integrate into communities that had ostracized them, HEAL Africa sends the women home bearing valuable gifts such as seeds and a gardening hoe, or a pair of ducks or a goat. The women also return with new self-sustainment skills that increase their value to the village. Many become literate during their stay at the hospital.

Donate to HEAL Africa here, and they'll tell you what each dollar amount will buy. For example, $20 buys a sewing kit for a woman who has learned tailoring skills, $50 pays for tuition and supplies to send one child to primary school for a year, $300 pays for a woman's fistula surgery.

Donate. Write a letter to Congolese officials (v-day has a template). Link to a blog or article. TALK to people. Tell them what's going on and what they can do.

Act now. It's so easy for most of us. Just act.

Gang Rape Isn't A Crime When...

Two disturbing items in the news today.

Contractors in Iraq Answer to No One (again)

ABC News is reporting on Jamie Leigh Jones, then 20, who was drugged and gang-raped by male Halliburton/KBR co-workers after working only four days in the Green Zone in Iraq. She had earlier requested to be moved from an almost all-barracks, and was told to "go to a spa." (To what? Relax?)

After the rape she was locked in a shipping container and warned that if she sought medical help, or revealed to anyone what had happened, she would lose her job.

Eventually, Jones was able to contact her father via cell phone and tell what happened, which

led to the State Department's involvement to dispatch members of the US Embassy in Baghdad to rescue her from the container.

The rape kit with evidence of the attack had "disappeared" since being shipped from Iraq to Washington through KBR security. Although later recovered, it was missing vital photos and doctors notes.
Two years later, not a single charge has been filed.

Read her story in her own words here.

ABC reports

The Justice Department has brought no criminal charges in the matter. In fact, ABC News could not confirm any federal agency was investigating the case.

Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.

She has recently filed a civil suit against both Halliburton (who says it's improperly named) and KBR (who says no external investigation is necessary because they're handling it all themselves...) Her lawyer, Todd Kelley, feels that

KBR and Halliburton created a "boys will be boys" atmosphere at the company barracks which put her and other female employees at great risk.

"I think that men who are there believe that they live without laws," said Kelly. "The last thing she should have expected was for her own people to turn on her."

Three other female KBR employees have also come forward.

And...

The 10-Year Old Was Asking For It...

The Guardian reported today on the rape of a ten-year old aboriginal Australian girl

by nine males aged 14-26. Queensland District Court judge Sarah Bradley gave

suspended sentences and probation for the rapists, one of whom was a repeat sex offender, because - in her own words

"...probably agreed to have sex with all of you."

Probably? Agreed? A ten year old child. Nine men.

Wrap deep-seated racism in deep-seated sexism and I suppose you come up with thinking like this.

Australia has been attempting to address the "toxic levels" of sexual abuse against Aboriginal children following the Northern Territories' June 2007 report "Little Children Are Sacred", which details the "endemic proportions" of sexual abuse.

Widespread disgust and outrage has ensued since the late October sentencing, and Queensland's attorney-general, Kerry Shine, plans to appeal Bradley's decision.

Although the Prime-Minister is "appalled and disgusted", the town's Mayor oddly refused to comment on the case, saying only "I think this is all a lot of crap," and asserting that Aboriginals are really the ones with power. The men are said to have come from affluent families and Mayor Pootchamunka seemed afraid that further comment would imply his involvement in the light sentencing.

Rape as a Weapon of War in the Congo [Part 2 - The Savagery]

It is difficult to write this section because what I am about to describe is nearly unimaginable. But it is true and it is happening. Not to one woman. Not to ten, or one hundred, or one thousand. Not to ten thousand. It's happening to hundreds of thousands of women throughout the DRC. It is happening right now, this second, as you read this.

Women, children, babies. Raped, tortured, mutilated. Many times in front of their families. Many times for days on end. They are gang raped. They are raped with objects. Sticks. Rocks. Bayonets. Guns. They are raped with the sheer intent to destroy - body and soul. Women have had firearms discharged into their vaginas, blowing out their female anatomy, yet surviving. Girls under the age of three, women over eighty.

Women are left with wounds, infections, STDs, and traumatic fistulas. A traumatic fistula is a tear in the wall between the vagina and the bladder and/or the rectum, leaving the woman entirely incontinent.

Having been raped these women are frequently and "justifiably" abandoned by their husbands. Bearing the stench of incontinence, they are often ostracized by their villages. Unable to bear children, they lose their primary value as mother or wife.

Individual stories are nearly unbearable to hear. Congolese human rights activist Christine Schuler Deshchyver describes:

Babies. The last baby who was raped, it was in April. She was ten months old, so a very small baby. She was raped. The same gang raped the mother during two weeks. Then they came to Bukavu into my office. I wanted to bring the baby to the hospital, but she was so injured she died in my arms. Ten months—can you imagine that? And these people, these women in Congo, are just begging for life, not begging for money, just the right to live in their country safely.

The New York Times recently reported:

“I still have pain and feel chills,” said Kasindi Wabulasa, who was raped in February by five men. The men held an AK-47 rifle to her husband’s chest and made him watch, telling him that if he closed his eyes, they would shoot him. When they were finished, Ms. Wabulasa said, they shot him anyway.

***

Honorata Barinjibanwa, 18, [...] said she was kidnapped from a village [...] raided in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree, and she still has rope marks ringing her delicate neck. The men would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her, she said. [...] She is also pregnant.

The HRW  report cites a Congolese doctor in eastern DRC specialising in the treatment of rape victims:

"In peacetime, the demands on Congolese women are limitless; but in this war, the most insane fantasies have found their expression. When seven soldiers rape a women or little girl, and thrust a knife or fire shots into her vagina, for them the woman is no longer a human being, she is an object. And since there are no longer any laws or rules, combatants pour out their anger and their madness on to women and little girls."

Particularly horrifying is the indiscriminate targeting of victims. Even in times of war, certain standards of decency usually remain - at least in a percentage of the terrorizing population. But no code of ethics seems to stand in the DRC. According to an Amnesty International report:

All levels of the population in eastern DRC are affected by sexual violence. Survivors hail from all ethnic groups, all social strata and all age groups,(24), from rural and urban districts. Those raped may be seriously ill, physically or mentally disabled or pregnant. In some areas, rapes of men and boys are common. In the words of one rapist[...], "It makes no difference".

John Holmes, head of the U.N. Emergency Relief Operations described DRC's intensity and frequency of rape as "the worst in the world," explaining

It's the scale and brutality of it. It's the use of it as a weapon of terror. It's the way it's done publicly, for maximum humiliation.

Prevalence of Rape

In the first six months of 2007 the UN reported reported 4,500 instances of rape in the Southern Kivu province alone. However, only the most extreme cases are reported. Keep in mind that a woman who admits to being raped bears the stigma of it for the rest of her life. She exposes herself and her children to abandonment by her husband. If she is unmarried, admitting lost virginity makes it nearly impossible to find a husband, which is essentially the only way to make a place for herself in Congolese society.

Rapes are reported when a woman requires life-saving medical care and must admit what has happened in order to get it. That is, if she has manages to discover that medical help is available and to safely traverse many miles to arrive at one of the few hospitals able to treat her condition.

Therefore, the actual number of rape cases is much higher than 4,500 in six months. Holmes estimates that "many -- perhaps most -- attacks go unreported." Most? So the actual figure may be ten times higher, though probably more. And remember, we're only talking about South Kivu - a province with a population of 245,000. If we add in the population of surrounding rural communities, it's still less populated than, say, the city of Boston or Tuscon. Using the reported number of cases only, that would lead to 9,000 (90,000) women brutally mutilated, beaten, and raped in a single year. That's 750 (7,500) women every month. 173 (1,730) every week. 25 (250) per day. In an area with the population of Boston.

Information from the Stephen Lewis Foundation gives even higher figures:

In October, 2006, UN Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, reported that "In the eastern Congo, over 12,000 rapes of women and girls have been reported in the last six months."

But Jean-Marie Guenhenno knows that the number of rapes that go unreported as usually ten or twenty times higher than those that come to official attention, and vastly higher still during a war. [Em. mine]

Who is raping the women? Who isn't.

Although much focus is placed on the Interahamwe (Rwandan Hutus who perpetrated the 1994 genocide), virtually every militant group is a danger to women. Perpetrators also include the Congolese army and any of dozens of armed civilian factions. Even UN peace keepers have been cited as some of the worst offenders.  Activist Christine Schuler Deschryver explains:

All of them are raping women. It is a country sport. Any person in uniform is an enemy to women.

Next: Rape as a Weapon of War in the Congo [Part 3 -- The Healing]

"Like Rwanda, but Worse" - Rape as a Weapon of War in the Congo [PART ONE: History of the Conflict]

Women in the People's Democratic of Congo have been enduring barbaric sexual atrocities during the country's violent civil unrest for more than a decade. Yet the western world seems to hardly have noticed. This is the first in an ongoing series documenting the situation in a country where women and children are inhumanly brutalized, where even the most unimaginable forms of rape have become common weapons of war.

Many are questioning how this level of sexual violence grew to such dramatic proportions. Although atrocities and rape in wartime are common, U.N. leaders consider the intensity and prevalence of horrors in the Congo to be "the worst in the world."

It's interesting to note that, according to a recent NY Times article

Many Congolese aid workers denied that the problem was cultural and insisted that the widespread rapes were not the product of something ingrained in the way men treated women in Congolese society. “If that were the case, this would have showed up long ago,” said Wilhelmine Ntakebuka, who coordinates a sexual violence program in Bukavu.

Contrarily, an Amnesty International  report asserts that it is precisely women's lower societal status that allows for this type of targeting in wartime.

"When you lift the stone of sexual violence, you will find another stone of the treatment of women more generally, which is effectively slavery. Women do everything: they walk miles for food or water, they care for the children, they cook, they clean, they cultivate the land and they earn the family income… That is the female condition in the Congo. "

 -- Expatriate woman psychologist working in DRC, interviewed by AI

In the very least, Congolese law leaves nowhere for these women to turn as crimes of rape, torture, mutilation, kidnapping, and sexual slavery are committed with nearly 100% impunity.

A 2002 HRW report summarizes women's status in Congolese society.

Even before the war in Congo, women and girls were second class citizens. The law as well as social norms defined the role of women and girls as subordinate to men. Although women are often a major-if not the major-source of support for the family, the Congolese Family Code requires them to obey their husbands who are recognized as the head of the household.

Women and girls are also subordinate by custom and practice. A woman's status depends on being married and girls tend to marry at a young age. It is generally considered more important to educate boys than girls[...] Literacy statistics for Congo (also) show gender-specific discrimination.

Male household heads often settle violent crimes against women and girls outside the courts. Some have "resolved" rape cases by accepting a money payment from the perpetrator or his family or by arranging to have the perpetrator marry the victim. [...]

Women and girls who are raped suffer significant loss of social status[...] In cases of the death of women and girls by murder or negligence, the family of the victim sometimes agrees to accept the equivalent of a woman's bride price as compensation and does not pursue the case further.

Congolese views about women and the issue of sexual violence were clearly demonstrated in 2005 when UNICEF spearheaded the first march against sexual violence in the boarder city of Goma. Hundreds of brutalized women donned black head scarves and nervously took to the streets. In a PBS interview, American filmmaker Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt describes the event:

...the march ended up being more chaotic than we imagined because every one of the bystanders, male or female, heckled the women marching. Their position was, "Why are you doing this? This is stupid. What is sexual violence?" On an official level, there aren't any adequate laws against rape, and no one has been convicted of rape in 40 years, other than three or four people who were not soldiers.

Let's take a quick look at how the climate in the Congo escalated to create an atmosphere conducive to these horrors.

Rwandan Atrocities Bleed Across Boarders

The Democratic Republic of Congo has been torn by conflict almost since its origins. Although women have long suffered pervasive injustice in this climate, sexual violence crescendoed to horrific levels and epidemic proportions in the wake of civil violence that was instigated by the atrocities in neighboring Rwanda.

(If you need a refresher on the Rwandan genocide, go here, here, or here. Read this. Watch this.)

For three months in the spring and summer of 1994, a rush of Rwandan Tutsi refugees fled to Zaire to escape mass genocide at the hands of the Rwandan Hutus. Under government directive the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) slaughtered over 800,000 Tutsi men, women, and children before being overthrown by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPP). By 1996, a large number of RPF members, (known also as Interahamwe)  fled the new government and  crossed the boarder as well. Human Rights Watch  summarizes:

The government responsible for the genocide then led more than a million Hutu into exile in Congo, then Zaire, where civilian refugees and the military together established themselves in camps along the border. Under the direction of the defeated political and military leaders, soldiers and militia reorganized and rearmed within the refugee population, preparing for new attacks on Rwanda.

In late 1996 the Rwandan government sent its troops into the Congo, asserting the need to impede preparations for attacks on Rwanda as well as any obligation to protect the Banyamulenge, Congolese of the Tutsi ethnic group, who were being threatened by local and national Congolese political authorities.

The Rwandan soldiers together with combatants of the Allied Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo...a hastily organized coalition of Congolese forces, attacked the camps and killed tens of thousands of Rwandans, many of them unarmed civilian refugees. Hundreds of thousands of refugees then returned to Rwanda, some of them voluntarily, some of them forced to do so by Rwandan government troops. Some two hundred thousand Rwandans fled westward through the forests.

Many of the civilians were massacred in the following months by RPA or AFDL troops but several thousand ex-FAR and militia members regrouped to resume fighting the Rwandan government forces in Congo and later in Rwanda.

During this time, the Zairian government was toppled by a rebellion and a man named Kabila came to power and reinstated the country's former name - the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the instability following the coup, Kabila began to lose favor and troops from neighboring Zimbabwe, Angola, Chad, and the Sudan quickly became involved in an effort to encourage stability.

As of 2004 nearly four million people perished in the conflict and a 2006 Economist article considers this period to be "the bloodiest since World War II."

In 2001 Kabila was assassinated and replaced in power by his son. Since then there have been two rounds of general elections, but little has been done to stabilize the country's rampant and savage violence. Varying factions fight each other and the government, and ethnic contentions conflate the violence.

Congolese citizens are left trying to survive amid a state of near constant destruction and uncertainty. Rebels take control of villages, or simply destroy them by killing the men, raping or kidnapping the women, and burning the village to the ground.

Over one million Congolese are displaced, especially in the eastern part of the country where the Interahamwe militant faction "Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda" is particularly active. Starvation and disease are rampant.

In this environment of political and economic struggle, racial hatred, and lawlessness, one across-the-board "enemy" stands above them all - women.

Next: Rape as a Weapon of War in the Congo [Part 2 - The Savagery]

 

Women in War Zones - Ann Jones Blogs "16 Days" from Cote d'Ivoire

Check out the fabulous writer/photographer/activist Ann Jones as she blogs for 16-Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (Nov 25 - Dec 10). She's in the Cote d'Ivoire  with the International Rescue Committee in an effort to "give women in war zones the opportunity to speak, loudly and clearly."

The IRC hopes to encourage national reconciliation by working in three different areas, serving three different populations with different needs. But what all three sites have in common is strong programs in “Violences Basees sur le Genre”—Gender-Based Violence.

Why? The answer is painfully simple. In any war, women and children are the principal victims. Offer any humanitarian program to assist people violated, deprived, damaged, or displaced by war and you find yourself serving women and their children, all of whom, in one way or another, have been victims of the violence of war and of additional violence done to them as women.

She will blog once a day through December 10th. Check it out. And don't miss the post where she teaches the women how to use digital cameras.

Then I send the teams out to take photos. They huddle to consult with each other about the cameras. Is it this button, or that? How hard must I push?

The first team finds a subject. One woman holds the camera firmly, as I’ve taught them, and points it. All heads converge at the viewing screen. What next? A teammate reaches over the camera-holder’s shoulder to depress the shutter button. An icon appears on the screen to indicate whether the subject is in focus. “It’s green! It’s green!” say the team mates. “Push! Push!” The button-pusher’s finger comes down. “Click!” The women scream. They jump up and down. They throw their arms around each other while the camerawoman holds the tiny camera aloft for safekeeping.

Priceless.

*** Further Reading ***
CÔTE D'IVOIRE - Targeting women: The forgotten victims of the conflict

The IRC - How You Can Help

Ann Jones Bio

Exonerated - "What is a Person Worth?"

The Times did a short piece on falsely-convicted prisoners who are freed in light of DNA evidence after years, sometimes decades in prison. Twenty-eight states offer these citizens no financial compensation and most offer no programs to help them reclaim their lives.

Although the article cites two men paid over $300,000 and over $1 million, this is the exception. Of the 22 states that do offer financial recompense, the amounts vary from $5,000 per year, max $25,000 (WI) to $100 per day (CA).

The impetus to shell-out to the wrongly-imprisoned is hampered by the inclination to focus on the previous records of some prisoners, or to view the prisoner as a perfectly plausible criminal, innocent of this particular crime, but likely guilty of unknown others.

When pressed, politicians find it hard to deny that the innocent who will never regain the life they would otherwise have know deserve ample compensation. However, state Rep. Thomas R. Caltagirone of Pennsylvania, co-chairman of that state’s House Judiciary Committee, asks

"Once you open up those floodgates, where do you get all the money to pay for these falsely charged people? How much money is it going to require? How much is a person worth?”

The NY Times reports on an internal study of 137 exonerated prisoners following their release:

The New York Times found about half of them struggling — drifting from job to job, dependent on others for housing or battling deep emotional scars. More than two dozen ended up back in prison or addicted to drugs or alcohol.

“Some people feel, ‘All right, it’s over now. You’re out, you’re free, so what are you complaining about? What’s the problem?’ ” said Darryl Hunt, exonerated in North Carolina after serving 18 years for murder.

“The problem is that we’re free physically,” he said. “But mentally, we’re still living the nightmare every day.”

*** Further Reading ***

Life After Exoneration

Larry Peterson: Beyond Exoneration

What Do States Owe the Exonerated?

The Innocence Project

Sexy Blonde Convinces Your Man to Spend Big & Spend Right This Christmas

An article in the Wall Street Journal alerted me to a new service retailers offer women shoppers. (Yes, according to the article it's all women and it exclusively targets those who buy them gifts - their men and their grandmothers.)

Apparently a woman creates a wish list at the participating boutique of her choice and sales reps from said boutique call the unsuspecting husband, boyfriend, father, or grandmother and inform them what to buy her for the holidays.

Ugh. Okay, whatever. But the site Net-A-Porter takes it one step further. "Santa's Little Helper" is a customizable video clip to be emailed to your man (sorry grandmas) detailing what you'd like to see under the tree. You get to pick from cute little sobriquets like "Honey Bunny", "Captain", "Stud", and "Big Boy", and choose your personality/body type - "Stylish/Curvaceous", "Devious/Leggy", "Minxy/Petite".

Next you pick three qualities from a terribly macho list of adjectives (one of which is, actually, "macho") to describe your man. Is he "rich"? "Acomplished?" "Attentive?" "Housebroken?" Now you get to choose his ultimate nightmare (good one, no?) --  "aesthetic downfall", "financial ruin", "global disaster", and what he would most like to win - "X-factor", "the Superbowl", "Scrabble". Finally, from a drop-down list of six items, you choose "what you really want." Your choices? "

• A cocktail ring
• A fabulous tote
• A pair of Louboutins
• A slinky party dress
• Some gilded Jimmy Choos
• Dangly earrings.

What more would a woman want?

Another click and your blonde 007-ish temptress will use her velvety voice and ego-stroking skills to lure your man to perfect holiday purchases with phrases like "She's lucky to have a man like you," and "if she's happy, you're happy."

The email comes attached with your specific requests - complete with links to where he can whip out his American Express Gold Card and go to town.

I suppose I'm not exactly offended by this, after all it's  hitting its demographic square in the wallet, which is its aim.  I guess it must be the demographic itself that I find so appalling. The WSJ article quotes a 24 year old woman explaining the beneficial effect retail sales calls have on  her father

"If it's someone else telling him about it, he won't respond like, 'Oh, that's too expensive...This time, he may be more likely to go in and look at my items without passing judgment."

Some men loved the idea, admitting themselves clueless to the intricacies of their wives material desires (one NFL player cringes recalling how he once purchased a Luis Vuitton bag for his wife that she - gasp - already owned!) and so corporately busy that this makes life easy.

I guess so. But I can't help feeling disturbed. Could it be because I don't know the meaning of phrases like "cocktail ring" and "pair of Louboutins"?

"Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise." World AIDS Day 2007

Living in the United States today, it might seem like the ravages of HIV infection and AIDS are largely contained. After all, it's treatable, preventable, and I don't know anyone dying from it...

...yet today still 70% of (HIV) infected people don’t have access to life saving therapies. Many still face stigma, economic deprivation and rejection because of their infection. Many still don’t have access to basic information or simple interventions that will reduce risk. This is not the time for complacency nor apathy. It is the time for compassionate leadership that recognises that the voiceless are often those who suffer most- who can they turn to if their leaders do not listen and heed their cries.
--Archbishop Emeritus Desmond M Tutu

The truth is every day 6,000 people die from AIDS. Of the 33 million people infected with HIV, more than 25 million of them are in Africa. 2.3 million are children, although children under five years of age who lose a parent to AIDS, have a lower survival rate due to poverty and abandonment issues.

Maybe you've been tested for HIV, but try this AIDS test, and in the very first question you'll learn that AIDS claims as many lives as American fatalities in the Vietnam War - every single week.

Here's some perspective - to date AIDS has killed the equivalent of the populations of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin combined. Think of the entire population of your child's school. The population of your home town. The nearest city. Every single person dead. Now think of five cities. Twenty cities. A state. Three states. Three states. 25 million people.

Now remember that 33 million people are currently infected and nearly two-thirds of these are not receiving treatment. How many more statefuls of people need to die before we, as individuals, do something to help? Maybe you're already helping. But if you're not - why are you waiting?

Donate here, or here, or here.   Raise Money.    Do EBay.  Volunteer.     Buy stuff.     Walk.

It may be tempting to view AIDS as less of a threat than it once was. While technically true, it's still killing at an alarming, and in many areas, growing rate.

2007 marks the first World AIDS Day able to celebrate real progress against the disease. The global total had been holding at about 40 million in the late nineties and since then the rate of new infections has also decreased. Antiretroviral drugs have been largely successful in treating HIV and efforts to bring medicines to developing nations are beginning to pay off.

Nevertheless, despite these advances, experts warn that, though we've won some battles, we're still losing the war. According to an AFP article

"Despite substantial progress against AIDS worldwide, we are still losing ground," says James Shelton of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in a commentary appearing today in The Lancet, a London medical journal. Despite progress in the drug rollout, treatment is still only available to about 10 per cent of those in need, notes Shelton. In developing countries, "the number of new infections continues to dwarf the numbers who start antiretroviral therapy in developing countries", he says. [Em. mine]

*** More info - ways to help ***

Global Health Reporting - Comprehensive list of AIDS organizations.

Avert - US AIDS organizations, by state.

 

 

 

What's Wrong With This Picture? - AI's New FGM Campaign

Came across info on this on Feministing and Salon. A Swedish ad firm came up with a new campaign for Amnesty International against female genital mutilation.  I'm surprised by how many people consider this a great ad campaign. Yes, the images are beautiful and striking, but they are also completely ineffective.

I responded on a couple boards with the following:

Neither the images nor the text come close...

I'm really disappointed in this campaign. Neither the images not the text come close to conveying, or even suggesting, what really happens to these girls.

First of all, they deceptively convey only one part of one type of FGM. (The other part would have been cutting off a good chunk of "petals" before sewing.)

Consequently, the rose isn't DAMAGED at all! It's not MUTILATED. It's a lovely image of a rose that has been sewn in the middle. In fact, the rose is so unblemished it appears that the stitches could be removed and it would bounce back into its former perfection. The text doesn't describe what female genital mutilation really is and it doesn't suggest the physical, emotional, and psychological consequences of the act.

Given that the actuality of this horror is beyond what anyone unacquainted with it could or would imagine without being explicitly told, this is just too vague to be of any consequence. FGM is so unpleasant to contemplate and so removed from most of our everyday lives that the only way to get someone to fully experience the stomach-turning, chill-inducing discomfort of recognizing what it really is, is to be BLATANT.

And, I'm sorry but in the pink image the "clitoris" is healthy and thriving and absolutely untouched.

Too artistic. Too (thriving, unblemished) beautiful. Too vague.

What do you think?

...Coming up next "Female Genital Mutilation and Male Circumcision - Why They Don't Equate"

Scientists Plead -- "No More Ab-Only Funding!"

President Bush has proposed increasing funding for abstinence-only education to $204 million in 2008, despite the fact that the programs promote marriage as the only acceptable family structure, stigmatize and encourage silence in sexually abused youth, deny information to sexually active youth, and ostracize and condemns LGBT youth based on views that are entirely religious in origin. (This is not to mention all the studies, surveys, and reports that follow, which demonstrate the danger and sheer ineffectiveness of the AOE programs...)

In fact, abstinence-only programs have such freedom with the federal dollar that they recently broadened their target base to include all unmarried adults under the age of thirty! The escalating nature of this climate prompted a group of scientists to rally against Bush's proposal with a hard-hitting, fact-filled response backed with plenty of scientific documentation.

Earlier this week, professionals from institutions such as Columbia, Yale, and the University of California sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urging her to discontinue federal funding for abstinence-only education. The letter went on to cite the mountain of recent documentation demonstrating the inefficacy and potential damage of these programs. They note the condemnation of abstinence-only teachings by the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

The opinions of these organizations is further enforced by recent Congressional testimony from former Surgeon General Richard Carmona:  

Dr. Carmona's testimony confirms the political motivations behind abstinence funding and the failure to address issues of efficacy and scientific accuracy. He suggested that ideology and theology have taken priority over women's health in the current administration. Dr. Carmona reported that the Bush administration "did not want to hear the science but wanted to, if you will, ‘preach abstinence,' which I felt was scientifically incorrect."

The letter  highlights “multiple deficiencies” in ab-only ed and expresses “surprise and dismay” that Congress proposes to “extend and even increase” funding abstinence-only education programs.   They attach various national and international studies and surveys, which fortify their position, including those sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and  the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By design, abstinence programs restrict information about condoms and contraception - information that may be critical to protecting the health of young people and to preventing unplanned pregnancy, HIV infection, and infection with other sexually transmitted organisms. They ignore the health needs of sexually active youth and youth who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning for counseling, health care services, and risk reduction education. Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions. 

The letter goes on to show that little evidence supports the efficacy of these programs to promote abstinence or reduce pregnancy and STDs in teens, while strong evidence suggests

…that many comprehensive sexuality education programs, which include information on both abstinence and contraception, do help young people delay initiation of intercourse.

AOE did succeed in heightening teenagers' doubts that condoms were effective in preventing HIV or other STDs. (Presumably decreasing the likelihood they will be used for this purpose once the boy or girl becomes sexually active.)

Virginity pledges were shown to temporarily delay the onset of sexual activity, but once these teens did begin to have sex they were much less likely to use condoms or seek reproductive health care of any sort.

Abstinence-until-marriage programs, which recently extended to target unmarried adults up to 29 years of age, presented an increasingly unrealistic goal as the average age of the onset sexual activity has lowered to 17, while the average age Americans get married is around 26 and continues to rise.

The letter also cites the 2004 Congressional Report , headed by Rep. Henry Waxman, that found disturbing inaccuracies in ab-only educational materials. 

The U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Government Reform - Minority Staff found that 11 of the 13 most frequently used curricula contained false, misleading or distorted information about reproductive health - including inaccurate information about contraceptive effectiveness, purported health risks of abortion, and other scientific errors. Recent reviews of these abstinence curricula from Santelli and colleagues at Columbia University have found similar inaccuracies, particularly misinformation about the efficacy of condoms and contraception.

At the very minimum, the report can be summarized as finding that AOE programs typically

• grossly underestimate the effectiveness of condoms and other contraceptives in preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs);
• make false claims about the physical and psychological risks of abortion;
• offer misinformation on the incidence and transmission of STIs;
• replace scientific facts with religious views and moral judgments; and
• distort medical evidence and basic scientific facts.

Lets look at this in a little more detail. The Washington Post reported:

Many American youngsters participating in federally funded abstinence-only programs have been taught over the past three years that abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, that half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus, and that touching a person's genitals "can result in pregnancy," a congressional staff analysis has found.

In addition, the report found education materials that asserted

• A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
• HIV can be spread via sweat and tears.
• Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse. (Actually, it's less than 3% when used consistently and correctly, as much as 14% with incorrect or inconsistent use)

One curriculum, called "Me, My World, My Future," teaches that women who have an abortion "are more prone to suicide" and that as many as 10 percent of them become sterile. This contradicts the 2001 edition of a standard obstetrics textbook that says fertility is not affected by elective abortion.

Another curriculum tells youth that a long list of personal problems — including isolation, jealousy, poverty, heartbreak, substance abuse, unstable longterm commitments, sexual violence, embarrassment, depression, personal disappointment, feelings of being used, loss of honesty, loneliness, and suicide — “can be eliminated by being abstinent until marriage.”

Similarly, other curricula teach that mental health problems are a consequence of sexual activity, without considering the evidence that these problems might themselves cause premature sexual activity, or that they might have a common origin.

 Gender roles got roped into the fray, with materials that often

present as scientific fact notions about a man's need for "admiration" and "sexual fulfillment" compared with a woman's need for "financial support."

Another cirriculum instructs: “Women gauge their happiness and judge their success on their relationships. Men’s happiness and success hinge on their accomplishments.”

One book in the "Choosing Best" series tells the story of a knight who married a village maiden instead of the princess because the princess offered so many tips on slaying the local dragon. "Moral of the story," notes the popular text: "Occasional suggestions and assistance may be alright, but too much of it will lessen a man's confidence or even turn him away from his princess."

As you might imagine, abstinence groups were displeased with the report and found all sorts of ways to call it inaccurate, especially since the teaching materials are all still in place. Choosing the Best responded to the fairytale criticism by explaining that the story

is designed to illustrate the differences in communication style between men and women. In addition to missing the point of the story, Waxman fails to mention that this program is for older teens, deals with “Making Marriage Work” and presents widely accepted, mainstream relational principles that encourage the development of listening and appreciation skills in a marriage relationship.

I guess the Choosing Best people consider this perfect justification for a federally-funded youth-targeted parable -- taking fault not for critics' interpretation of the message, which they uphold, but jumping to clarify the story's "age-appropriateness" for teens and supposedly sound application to marriage.

Just for good measure, here are a few tidbits from a Seicus Fact Sheet "In Their Own Words: What Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs Say"

* “There are always risks associated with it [premarital sex], even dangerous, life-threatening risks such as HIV/AIDS. Using contraceptives does not change this for teenagers.” - FACTS Middle School, Student Handbook, p. 50

* "...students who do not choose to exercise self-control to remain abstinent  are not likely to exercise self-control in the use of a contraceptive device.” - Game Plan, Coach’s Clipboard, p. 27

* “AIDS can be transmitted by skin-to-skin contact.” - Reasonable Reasons to Wait, Teacher’s guide, Unit 5, pg. 19

* “A guy who wants to respect girls is distracted by sexy clothes and remembers her for one thing. Is it fair that guys are turned on by their senses and women by their hearts?” -  Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p. 94

* “One thing that sex education and the media fail to communicate is the power of sex. Spies, who are trained not to give away government secrets, even lose their sensibilities and give in to the power of sex, often because of what a woman is wearing.” (SPIES?!) - WAIT Training, Workshop Manual, p. 86

* “These are simply natural consequences. For example, if you eat spoiled food, you will get sick. If you jump from a tall building, you will be hurt or killed. If you spend more money than you make, your enslavement to debt affects you and those whom you love. If you have sex outside of marriage, there are consequences for you, your partner and society.” - Sex Respect, Student Workbook, p. 11

Seen enough? Let's move on...

It gets even worse when our Christian Conservative abstinence "values" actually hamper the country from effectively saving lives in other countries that we've agreed to help. The letter to Pelosi cites the grotesque findings of the Government Accountability Office, which reported that  AIDS–ravaged countries qualify for US aid only if they spend one-third of the donated resources on abstinence-only education. This was mandated without  regard to overriding health and  poverty issues, deeply embedded cultural and religious differences, and rampant gender inequality which can eliminate a female's option to abstain.

As a result, thousands needlessly fall ill in the absence of pervasive condom education and dispersion because  we'd rather impose our Puritanical views of abstinence-over-information, in which most of our own citizens don't believe. This restriction also greatly impedes our ability help the sick and dying, as it doesn't allow funds to be allocated based on areas of need - at least not 33.3% of them.

Whether the letter will do any good or not remains to be seen. It would certainly seem that some response is called for. Read the letter for yourself with links to all the studies cited at RHRealitycheck.org.

*** More info (if you really need it)
Physicians Oppose Inaccurate and Dangerous Abstinence-only Sexuality Education in Texas Textbooks

The Case Against Abstinence-Only Sex Education (article w/Shelby Knox on BeliefNet)

PBS Documentary: The Education of Shelby Knox

A self-described "good Southern Baptist girl," 15-year-old Shelby Knox of Lubbock, Texas has pledged abstinence until marriage. But she becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex ed when she finds that Lubbock, where high schools teach abstinence as the only safe sex, has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs in the state.

Five Years of Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Education: Assessing the Impact

MSNBC:  

    Doctors denounce abstinence-only education

    Abstinence-only sex ed defies common sense: Education  policy spreads ignorance, sends confusing message to teens

Abstinence-Only Goes Beyond Teens

The federal government's "no sex without marriage" message isn't just for kids anymore.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

NoMoreMoney.org (for Abstinence Until Marriage Programs)
    *  In Their Own Words: What Abstinence-Only-Until-Marriage Programs Say
    * Harmful Consequences Abstinence Only Doesn't Work