Belonging Together: The Making of Justice and Art

“What does poiesis have to do with slavery?”

Shadow of Monique Villa, CEO of
Thomas Reuters Foundation. Photo: Deborah Espinosa

That is how internationally renowned artist Anish Kapoor began his 14-minute keynote address during the 2014 Trust Women’s conference recently held in London. The conference, which puts "the rule of law behind women’s rights," gathered advocates and activists focused on solutions to women’s economic empowerment, including women’s access to land and financial services, as well as on the global fight against modern slavery. A short video captured the breadth of issues covered. Notable speakers included two Nobel laureates, Muhammad Yunus and Kailash Satyarthi, CEOs of many major corporations and NGOS, and survivors of the slave trade.  

The Trust Women two-day gathering was highly cerebral, sometimes academic, and always stimulating. It also was visually compelling.  Each theme was introduced with a 2- to 3-minute multimedia piece, including Women and Finance, Access to Land, and Slavery and the Supply Chain. (All of Trust Women conference videos are available here.)  

We learned that 35.8 million people are working in slave-like conditions around the world in violation of their human rights on a daily basis.  We were challenged to consider whether the supply chains of goods we use everyday include forced labor or debt bondage, including considering the human rights abuses necessary to sustain "fast fashion."

We were also encouraged to consider how responsive cities are to women's needs, including safety, particularly given their typically greater reliance on public transport for going to work and taking care of child and household responsibilities.

And for me, a women's land rights practitioner, of utmost interest was the panel on the issue of women's access to land, which Trust Women aptly described as the "biggest challenge to women's empowerment."   

So imagine my surprise when, amidst this dialogue, sculptor Anish Kapoor took the podium. “What does poiesis have to do with slavery?", he asks. I wasn't familiar with the term “poiesis,” but I imagined it referred to poetry. Later, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that poiesis is actually a much broader concept dating back to Ancient Greece — more like "a making” or the "making of art.”
    

No doubt Mr. Kapoor's words meant many things to many people.  For me, his words caused my soul to soften. I had steeled myself for a day on the global slave trade, and there he was opening a part of me that I’d purposefully locked down.

The artist and advocate in me heard him liken the making of art to acts in pursuit of justice — and that the time is now.   

“Does my making have truth?  Or is it that belief and therefore beauty is something that lies in the future?  Is it something that is always out of reach? . . .  Freedom and beauty are the future — only possible because of what we do next."

Kapoor continued:

Mr. Anish Kapoor speaking at the Trust Women
Conference on November 19, 2014.  Photo: Deborah Espinosa

The oppressed, as we all know, are asked again and again to wait for the right time to press for change.  Right time?  What is this right time? 

Always in the future.  The right time for respect and dignity is always in the future. . . . 

Time and courage and beauty are now. I’m linking them together because I think they belong together. . . .  Rights are dreamed of as if they belong in the future. But rights, as we all know, depend on what we do next."

Mr. Kapoor's full speech is available here.

Thank you Mr. Kapoor and Thomas Reuters Foundation for uniting our efforts to make the world replete with justice with the our making of art. They belong together for me, too.

GENDER: Feminization of Migration

Women, who constitute nearly fifty percent of global migration, represent an economic resource in many poor countries, making them the main export commodity. However, key United Nations (UN) policies on human trafficking continue to overlook migrant domestic workers in the Middle East.

Domestic care has become a key feature in the socio-economic fabric of developing countries such as Sri Lanka, eager to alleviate an 18.9 percent youth unemployment rate and lessen possible social unrest, which is lately common in many Arab countries. Dependence on the remittances of nearly 130,000 Sri Lankan women migrating to the Middle East yearly as domestic workers has been welcomed by officials who see this lucrative labour market as a key contributor to economic stability. Indeed, last year, Sri Lankan migrant workers sent nearly 289.8 million in remittances with a record growth of 12.3 percent from 2009.

“The private remittances of Sri Lankan migrants have significantly augmented our foreign currency reserves and the national income. It’s estimated that private remittances this year, 2010 will amount to approximately US $4 billion,” says Sri Lanka’s UN ambassador Dr. Palitha Kohona speaking at a general assembly session last November discussing international migration and development. “Sri Lanka is on the verge of rapid economic take off following the decisive conclusion of a three decade long conflict with the terrorist LTTE. The government is making large investments in infrastructure and developing productive assets so that Sri Lanka’s strengths will be optimized in this post-conflict scenario. We have taken many measures on migration management to ensure that migration becomes a key contributor to national development.”

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), Sri Lankan female migrant domestic workers, who accounted for nearly sixty-two percent of private remittances, contributed to increasing foreign currency reserves, reducing devaluation of the Sri Lankan rupee and the repayment of foreign debts like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

“The Sri Lankan government gets a good profit from us; they must take care of us. They must do more to protect us,” Chandrani, a domestic worker and community leader in Lebanon said in an interview with Her Blueprint. “I became very involved in assisting Sri Lankan women and started speaking to many newspapers about the situation and criticized the Sri Lankan embassy for doing nothing to protect their nationals. As a result, the embassy had me detained and after I was released they made sure I could no longer visit the prisons.”

Despite calls by Sri Lankan officials to halt the large numbers of women migrating to the Middle East due to the growing number of complaints of abuse, the Sri Lankan government had been quite content to allow legal and illegal migration to continue.

Human trafficking

Governments are not the only one’s turning a blind eye. Current UN policies on human trafficking are also failing to assist the thousands of women migrating to the Middle East for domestic work.

According to the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, illegal and legal recruitment agencies in countries like Sri Lanka would technically be described as traffickers. Thousands of domestic workers who are deceived by labour agents and find themselves in forced labour, debt bondage and conditions akin to slavery, which most women encounter upon arrival, would in essence be victims of human trafficking.

However, the stereotypical image of the trafficked victim and the UN’s focus on sex workers leaves many female migrants to fend for themselves. Not only does UN negate male migrants who are tricked into foreign employment but it also ignores that trafficking is in itself a form of abuse and that women are being forced to migrate globally to fulfill developing countries financial needs legally.

“Trafficking victims come to Lebanon legally. For instance, sex workers from Eastern Europe or other Arab countries enter under artists’ visas. It’s like a work permit that’s valid for one month and renewable for up to six months. A recruiter solicits them in their home country and they’re not allowed to change employers, which is a lot like the sponsorship system with domestic workers,” Ghada Jabbour, Gender and Trafficking specialist at KAFA (Enough) Violence and Exploitation told Her Blueprint.

“Domestic workers and sex workers are being used in a system that is set up to work against their rights as workers or human beings,” adds Jabbour.