The Right to Love and the Magna Carta

The White House on June 26, 2015, Washington, DC.  Photo credit: Ted Eytan.

The United States Supreme Court slip opinion
of Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. _ (2015).

For the United States, Friday, June 26, 2015 will go down in the history books. In a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires states to license marriages between two people of the same sex and to recognize such marriages licensed in other states. I distinctly remember two months earlier, on April 28, when the Court heard oral arguments in the case.  On that day, all I felt was trepidation. I could not imagine being a citizen of a country that denied such a basic right.

The morning of June 26 was bright and sunny. I had not set my alarm so did not wake up to National Public Radio, like most weekday mornings. I was enjoying the quiet. After breakfast, however, I logged onto Facebook and KA-BOOM!

"[T]he right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment couples of the same sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty."

That morning, President Obama gave one of the most moving speeches of his presidency, referring to the Court's decision as "justice that arrives like a thunderbolt." (You can watch his speech to the right.)

As so many around the world expressed, #LoveWins! With a strike of the pen (or these days, hitting of the [enter] key), the United States joined the club of 20 countries that recognize the right of same-sex couples to marry, most recently including Ireland.1 Those countries are Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Uruguay, and certain states of Mexico also protect same-sex marriage.

For me, as a lawyer advocating for rights of the poorest, the Court's decision also is a win for the concept of "liberty," coming 800 years after another event in the history books: the June 19, 1215 sealing of the Magna Carta.

The Magna Carta, once a simple agreement between an English King and his 40 barons to avoid civil war, is a charter of liberties that the King guaranteed, subjecting the King and England's future sovereigns to the rule of law. It is now the seminal document of liberty. Among other rights, it guarantees:

"[T]o no one will We 

deny or delay, right or justice."

The Magna Carta. 

The Magna Carta inspired the American Declaration of Independence (1776) and influenced the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).  Its principles are arguably the West's most significant global export.

In its time, the Magna Carta guaranteed rights for the male elite. While I too celebrate the constitutional recognition of the right to marry whom we love -- to the point of years, the 800-year anniversary of the Magna Carta is a stark reminder to me of how far we still have to go as a global community.















1 On May 22, 2015, the people of the oh-so Catholic country of Ireland voted to amend their Constitution to extend the civil right to marry to same-sex couples -- the first country to do so by popular vote.  (In contrast, the people of 17 of the 50 American states had denied such a right by ballot.)

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.

Documentary Unravels Honor Killings of American Sisters

By Suzanne Mahadeo

The Price of Honor is a documentary that shares the story of Amina and Sarah Said, two teenage sisters from Texas who were killed by their father. It's a film that starts off tragically and ends with the sound of your own heart snapping in your chest. Before the opening credits even begin, you hear the haunting 911 call that Sarah made to the Irving, Texas police department on the day she and her sister were murdered in their father's taxi cab. That recording will stay with you long after you finish the film.

American teenagers, Amina and Sarah Said

The Said sisters' story has touched thousands of people and the documentary will undoubtedly affect many more. It unravels the personalized story of two typical American teenagers. Footage used from old home videos shows them jumping on trampolines, taking up an after-school job as a cashier, and practicing Tae Kwon Do in a suburban strip mall dojo. Seemingly innocuous footage until you realize that the girls didn't know they were being filmed. The person lurking behind windows holding the camera was their father, Yaser Said, the man responsible for their deaths. He is still wanted by the FBI more than six years after he murdered his daughters in what has been deemed an honor killing.

Yaser Said murdered his two daughters near Dallas and is still wanted by the FBI.

I asked Amy Logan, the Consulting Producer of The Price of Honor, about the difference between domestic violence and honor killing.

"With 800+ million women and girls living under the honor code, honor violence is not only a global problem, it’s a pandemic that global leaders are failing miserably to address for the crisis that it is," she said in an email. "Domestic violence is usually defined as taking place between intimate partners, whereas honor violence mostly occurs between a female and her blood relatives. Both kinds of violence are motivated by control issues but honor violence occurs because the female is actually considered property of the male blood relative whose honor is at stake if she steps out of line. And with honor violence, the family and community often support the violence, even coercing it with threats of ostracism."

So how did Amina and Sarah "step out of line" in their father's ignoble eyes? They fell in love with boys their father did not approve of. 

Joseph Moreno and Amina Said had young love that ended too soon.

Amina dared to exert her human spirit and fell in love with Joseph, a boy from her martial arts class. When Amina and Sarah were not being sexually abused by their father, they daydreamed of their future. Amina and Joseph would pass sweet notes to each other, chat on the phone, and even held hands for an entire day at Six Flags. 

In the documentary, Joseph sorrowfully reminisces about a young love that ended with gunshots and wounds that would never heal. Filmmaker Neena Nejad said that one of the important reasons for making the film was because, "I felt like it gave people like Joseph and Ruth [his mother, who was also very close to Amina] some sense of closure.” (You can also read this touching article by Joseph called "My Teenage Sweetheart Was Killed To Preserve Her Family's 'Honor'" in Business Insider.)

Visiting Amina Said's tragic grave site.

Even as much as those involved with making this film wanted to bring Amina and Sarah's story to the public, there were terrifying implications that came along with seeking justice for the girls. Filmmaker Xoel Pamos said, "Something that really shocked me while trying to reach out to several friends of the girls was the fact that they wouldn't talk to us because they were scared. I think these people think, 'if Yaser was capable of killing his daughters, what would he do to us who are totally unrelated?' We had one very ugly episode involving threats coming directly from Yaser's family when we approached them to explain their side of the story. We decided to make those interactions public because that's the best way to protect all of us. Those who are featured in the film were offered to blackout their faces but nobody wanted to do so. They knew the risks by coming forward and talking, but telling Amina and Sarah's story was more important." 

Amina Said

Neena said that "telling the story of Amina and Sarah outweighed the risks! I feel that people that make death threats are weak and scared because you are opposing their belief system and they react in this way to gain some sort of self worth—so I don't pay much mind to them."

Perhaps we should follow Neena's lead, because fear of speaking out against honor killings is implicit in why the practice has gone unchallenged to this day. "The very reason that honor violence has gone on unabated since 5000 BC," said Amy Logan, "is because of this conspiracy of silence around it. If somebody—or a lot of somebodies—doesn't speak up, it will only continue and probably grow. We decided to break the silence around this atrocity and start calling it exactly what it is: community-sanctioned terrorism against half a culture’s population (female) to reinforce the system of male power and privilege." 

This documentary should serve as a start to a very important conversation. It's currently being screened at film festivals around the country before it can be distributed online or in theaters. Add The Price of Honor to your Facebook feed to keep up to date or go to the film's website to find out about future screenings.

Sarah Said

"We've been lucky, as we have encountered wonderful people along the way who always supported our work, including Muslim and non-Muslim individuals, and we are thankful to those people," said Xoel Pamos.

And what can you do? Amy Logan shares,

"We hope that after watching our film, people will feel tremendous empathy for women and girls living under the honor code—there are 800 million+ of them! We hope they will tell many others about the film (#CatchYaserNow), donate to the Catch Yaser Said Campaign Fund, and join our mailing list to stay updated on the case."

"It’s important for people to see The Price of Honor," Amy said, "so that they can really understand an atrocity that is happening right in our own back yards in the USA. If we bury our heads in the sand, we cannot prevent more of these crimes."

The Power of Voice

Wanjiku[1] has little formal schooling.  She goes about her daily life with a baby on her back and several more at her dusty feet. She tends the crops, cooks the meals, collects the water, and tries to ensure that her children get more of an education than she did.  

Depending on the wishes of her husband, Wanjiku may or may not go to the market, be involved in a women’s group, or handle cash. She may or may not participate in household decision making and rarely owns the land that is the main source of her family’s livelihood.

Women and girls in her remote village are seen but not heard — an all-too-common custom in traditionally patriarchal communities.

But not anymore in one community in Kenya.  

A Justice trainee practices her public speaking skills,
guided by Justice Project staff.  Photo: Landesa/Deborah Espinosa 

You see, Wanjiku now knows that Kenya’s Constitution, which Kenyans adopted by national referendum in August 2010, guarantees her — and every person — the right to freely express him- or herself, a right that includes the freedom to seek, receive, or impart information or ideas and the freedom of artistic creativity (art. 33).  (The right to self-expression is also within the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.)  And along with learning about her rights, Wanjiku was trained in the art of public speaking — a simple curriculum grounded in the right to voice her opinion.  The training included techniques and tips on how to speak in public as well as opportunities to practice speaking on a subject of importance to her.  

Wanjiku learned and practiced during a USAID-supported project called, Enhancing Customary Justice Systems in the Mau Forest, Kenya (aka the Kenya Justice Project), designed and implemented by the international NGO Landesa. The Kenya Justice Project piloted a model for improving women’s access to "informal justice" related to land, meaning the all-male, village institutions that resolve disputes but have a reputation for holding entrenched biases against women. Much to our surprise, two months after the pilot’s end, the community elected — for the first time in its history — 14 women as elders, serving alongside male elders resolving disputes. One year later, 22 women were serving as elders alongside men.  

A Justice trainee shares her knowledge of women's
rights in Kenya's Constitution. Wanjiku resides
in all of us. Photo: Landesa/Deborah Espinosa

The women had decided on their own to run for election. No doubt, there are many factors that contributed to this outcome.  

This was the first time I’d included public speaking in the design of a women’s rights project, and so at the end of the first training session, I asked the women to share their thoughts about whether training on the right to self-expression and public speaking was worth including again in a project design.  Every woman in the room eagerly raised her hand, offering to share her opinion. Up until that point in the project, we’d never had full participation in a single session.

As the women shared with us how they felt, I was struck by the fact that along with the women’s timidity and discomfort, a glimmer of pride shined through. They explained how growing up as girls they were not supposed to speak directly to an adult. And so they believed that their opinions were unimportant, and certainly never worth sharing. The room shook with potential.   

Although the short-term impact evaluation did not try to measure a causal relationship between project outcomes and the public speaking activity, specifically, I am convinced that this activity was a critical component to the success of the pilot. Knowledge of their constitutional rights to express themselves, combined with practicing public speaking in a safe and supportive environment, gave the women Justice trainees the courage to dare step out of their comfort zones. And dare to reach for one of the most powerful positions within their community — an elder resolving disputes.      

The community has made many other advances supporting women's rights and empowerment, including greater awareness among men and women of their constitutional rights to land; procedural improvements in elders' resolution of disputes; a requirement of spousal consent for land transactions; and, most recently, an increase in economic development, led by women in the community. 

Wanjiku’s courage to find her own voice is the inspiration for this column on the relationship between the arts (in its many, many forms) and women’s rights and empowerment. This column is certainly a step out of my own comfort zone.  Along the way, please share your voice — we have a lot to learn from each other!

[1] In Kenya, "Wanjiku" is an iconic representation of the "ordinary, Kenyan citizen," the common person. "Her power rests in her ordinariness."        

The Freedom Traveller

[Editor's Note: This post is by guest contributor Momal Mushtaq. Momal is a women’s rights activist and an aspiring social entrepreneur from Pakistan. Her work in development and media communications, with focus on youth and gender equality, has been recognized by global awards, including a first place award from the United Nations for her work with women. She writes here about her relationship with freedom and equality, and how traveling is her means to self-growth.]

As I flipped through the recent issue of my favourite youth magazine, flashes of the past illuminated the dusty recesses of my mind, like studio strobes in a television studio. My mind was pulled back into another universe that revolved around a clingy but optimistic and determined 20-year-old who had not figured out her purpose in life. But, as fate had it, the winds of change swept my life in its path, and Life, with her capital letter and dignified simplicity was never the same anymore. It seems that by giving a girl a kaleidoscope, black-and-white Life was doing her bit to usher me into modernity and colour, a whole new world, a world so beautiful that there was no looking back for me afterwards.

Travelling changed my life; it is as simple as that. They say that you can learn about different cultures by travelling to places, but travelling taught me more about myself than anyone else. It widened my perspective; helped me become more accepting of other beliefs, ideologies, and lifestyles, and most importantly, it taught me to love myself and my body.

Here's how.

A New Perspective on Life

Back in university, like many other girls in my class, a private van would pick up and drop me off. If I had ever wanted to go anywhere else, like the shops or the hospital, my father or brother would accompany me to and from the venue. I thought that was maybe how life is supposed to be. It is only when I had experienced an alternative way of living that I started questioning my previous lifestyle. During my time in Canada, Germany and the US, nobody stared at me or passed nasty comments as I walked by alone. I could go wherever and whenever I wanted to!

However, when I returned to Pakistan, it began to hurt me more than ever to realise that the country is sinking below the waterline with a barrage of social problems hitting her from all directions. From the scourge of poverty, the stink of corruption, the madness of extremism to what-not! Almost half of Pakistan’s population -- her womenfolk -- sits back at home, not because they want to, but because they don’t have a choice. There’s no law restricting free mobility of women in Pakistan, but the harassment that they face on streets or while taking public transportation have limited their movement. Those who can, drive private vehicles, which is rather expensive. Or, they travel with a male chaperone.

Since I could not take it any longer, I decided to launch the Freedom Traveller (TFT), an online platform to connect and empower female travellers, especially from countries where freedom of movement for women is highly restricted. On TFT, women of all nationalities and beliefs could actively network, share knowledge and resources, and map their experiences during their travels. That is the least I could do, considering the resources that I had. I felt that if women read about other women who are courageous enough to travel alone in their communities or across borders, other females would be encouraged to follow suit.

Freedom is an abstract quality that mature minds acknowledge exists. It is something you can talk, write, or think about, but if you have not actually experienced it, you cannot feel her essence. I developed a strong desire to help women experience what it really means to be free because I have been freed from the grinding restriction of mobility that my life had suffered. Enabling women to be independent would also have an positive impact on the country’s economy, too.

I also knew that I could not go about preaching the message of freedom if I did not practice it myself. That could be the reason why I had learned to drive -- so I could move about more freely in Pakistan. Occasionally, I go for a jog and ride a bicycle around my neighborhood but, in my heart, I know that it is never as comfortable as it is abroad, because every time I venture out I sense creepy eyes boring into me. But, that is not an excuse to give up. To change, I have to be the change, the flag bearer of the coming revolution, the freedom rider of this century!

I have promised to challenge myself every summer for the next ten years. This year, for instance, I cycled all the way from Muenster to Aachen, Germany -- some 200km, to be precise! I did it to prove to every female around the world that there is no one stopping them from achieving their dreams. The unashamedly ecstatic waves of pleasure I had felt riding a bicycle, accompanied with a great sense of accomplishment, cannot be simply put into words. That is why I am not even going to describe it, because you should try it.

Fark Bans Misogyny and Maybe, Just Maybe, We Can Now Read the Comments

Drew Curtis - photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

On August 18, Drew Curtis, founder of Fark.com, an online link-aggregation community that was a precursor to the more widely known and used Reddit, announced that the site would be "adding misogyny to Fark moderator guidelines." In his message to users, which has since received thousands of comments, Curtis said, "if the Internet was a dude, we'd all agree that dude has a serious problem with women." One glance at this post on the now defunked subreddit "hotrapestories," where users repost stories from subreddits that serve as support groups for survivors of sexual assault, provides a small snapshot of the sort of behavior Curtis alluded to in his comments. He then got more specific and listed out some of the content that Fark mods will now be deleting from the site. They include "rape jokes," "calling women as a group 'whores' or 'sluts' or similar demeaning terminology," and "jokes suggesting that a woman who suffered a crime was somehow asking for it."


While the majority of people reporting on the news have been incredibly supportive of the announcement, like Nina Bahadur of The Huffington Post and s.e. smith of xojane, there are those, such as Amanda Hess of Slate, who combine their support with a certain amount of skepticism, wondering whether policing misogyny, especially on a site like Fark, is even possible. As Hess points out in her piece,

"telling members of an anonymous Internet message board to stop hating women is, unfortunately, a monumental ask.  But instructing posters to refrain from pushing the boundaries of acceptable human discourse...is an irresistible provocation.  The gray area between vile offensiveness and dark humor is where Fark's commenter community thrives."  

The community, it seems, is partially built upon a foundation of oftentimes offensive one-upmanship that has made the site feel unwelcome to some women. But in many ways, being female and safely moving around the Internet can resemble a particularly difficult level of Frogger. As Caitlin Dewey of The Washington Post points out, much of what makes this announcement so noteable "relates to a core ethos of Internet communities:  the idea that moderation, particularly on divisive issues, is akin to censorship  -- and that censorship is the bane of the transparent, social Web." The policy, she continues, is less a minor change in the rules of one relatively small website, and more a statement on Internet culture writ large.

The really interesting question here is less whether Fark can enforce these new guidelines and more whether it should. In 2011, Anil Dash wrote a post that makes the argument that, contrary to the seemingly ubiquitous statement on websites that "we are not responsible for the content of our comments," webmasters are in fact under a moral obligation to control the tenor of conversation on their sites. While it is true that the online world can be a hateful and horrible place, it does not have to be the web-based version of the Wild West. Ignoring persistently cruel behavior because, well, it's the Internet, is, in many ways, counter-productive. By turning a blind eye to abuse, many webmasters are creating a safe environment for cruelty while at the same time one where those seeking support, amusement, or an exchange of ideas feel stifled and threatened. Free speech for the mean-spirited does not necessarily translate into free speech for everyone. Take, for example, Zelda Williams' recent departure from Twitter as a result of the harassment she endured following the tragic death of her father. The comments and images she received were so cruel, that her use of a popular social networking site was made completely unbearable. Her freedoms of speech and of expression were hindered and nothing was done about it. She is by no means alone in her experience. In 2013, a well-known Canadian feminist blogger went into hiding after being doxxed and then sent dozens of death threats by the men's rights group Equality Canada. This is the extreme result of what an entirely open Internet culture can foster and shows that what happens on the Internet does not always stay on the Internet.

It will be interesting to see in the coming months what kind of effect, if any, these new commenting policies have on the bro-culture over at Fark. Given the comment thread that resulted from Amanda Hess' article, it seems as though Fark mods will be fighting an uphill battle, but a worthwhile one.  And perhaps down the line, other sites like Reddit and Gawker, as well as social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, will follow suit and curb the online abuse that so many people face.  Because, honestly, while of course we have the right to say hateful things to strangers for no good reason other than our own amusement, why should that environment be fostered and protected while those who feel a moral obligation to kindness and respect are sent running offline?

Fark Bans Misogyny From its Forums, Proves It's Possible [Huffington Post]
Fark Bans Misogyny in Comments, Setting a New Precedent for Bro-Culture Websites [xojane]
Fark Wants to Ban Misogyny.  Is That Even Possible? [Slate]
This is What Happens When You Try to 'Ban Misogyny' from a Major Website [The Washington Post]

International Museum of Women Merges with Global Fund for Women

In an inspired move to broaden global outreach and awareness for women's rights, we have merged with the Global Fund for Women.

To read more about this exciting news, read the full announcement and check out our FAQs. For the time being, IMOW is thrilled to share these details regarding the merger. 

Mapping a Better Future for Girls Across the Globe

One of my vivacious nieces turns seven this week. Topping her list of wishes for a birthday gift are a globe or map of the world and a kids' encyclopedia, followed closely, of course, by a Lincoln Logs set; specifically, "the girl kind with pink roofs." As I contemplate the bubbly enthusiasm this first grader harbors for learning about and building her world, I also think of Wadley.

Wadley is one of nine inspiring girls profiled in Girl Rising, the new film by Academy Award-nominated director Richard E. Robbins. The stunning film is the heart of the 10 X 10 Campaign to educate and empower girls worldwide.  At age seven, Wadley shared my niece's love of learning but the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti demolished her home and school. She showed up at school everyday, insisting that "I will come back every day until I can stay." And come back she did, a testament to her spunk in the face of gender discrimination and to the incredible promise education holds for transforming the lives and livelihoods of girls, their families, and communities.

From: girlrising.com

Last week's Women Deliver 2013 Conference, which brought together over 4,500 leaders and advocates representing 149 countries, concluded with a passionate call to invest in the future of girls.  The closing day's panels focused on the need to prioritize girls and women in the work leading up to  the 2015 Millennium Development Goals deadline and in the current global conversations about mapping new goals for the post-2015 future.  Helen Clark, the United Nations Development Fund Administrator and Former Prime Minister of New Zealand, acknowledged that life has changed for the better for many girls and women since landmark global commitments were put in place.  Like many others, however, she also articulated a "burning sense of injustice that many girls and women do not enjoy fundamental human rights" including equitable access to education, healthcare, and safety.  Clark and other panelists called on members of the global community to add their voices to the conversation about imagining and building a better future for girls, women, and their families.  Many panelists also stressed the importance of listening to the visions of others, even when these differ from our own, and fostering the sorts of communication that can lead to effective joint action.

As part of The Lancet's special edition for the 2013 conference, Women Deliver published a We Have a Dream flipbook, inspired by Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech, to capture people's dreams of "The World We Want for Girls." As Richard Horton says in the introduction, "A dream enables us to begin again, to renew our hope, to revivify our vision."

In Victoria Melhado's submitted poem entitled "Caribbean," she states:

Last night, I dreamt about the 'world we want';
Heard the pitter-patter of playing little feet,
Saw children smiling with missing front teeth, 
Little girls with ponytails, in frilly dresses and bobby socks-
Looked so sweet and neat.
Then suddenly, I awoke
to the frightening cries of abandoned babies;
The longing stares of hungry and malnourished children;
Bruised bodies and battered hands of girls who had been raped-
And given work too hard for their age,
I saw tears running down their pain distorted faces;
Feelings of hurt and betrayal seeped from their broken hearts.
Oh I wish we could have the world we want!...

The sometimes wrenching and often hopeful submissions to the flipbook, like the provocative conversations at the Women Deliver conference,  challenge us to articulate our own dreams of a future for girls. They ask us to examine how we can better listen to the dreams (and perhaps, sometimes, nightmares) of others. What's your dream of a world you'd want for your niece, your sister, your mother, your neighbor, yourself?  How can we all speak our own truth to power yet also find a language that enables us to build a map for transformation together?   Your vision may be shaped, as mine has been, by the dreams and experiences of others: by watching Girl Rising (airing in local theaters and on CNN on June 16th), reading the We Have a Dream flipbook, watching the video archives of the Women Deliver conference, talking to your family and friends, and getting out into your own community.  Then, find a way to contribute your voice to the global conversation.

As Women Deliver President Jill Sheffield noted in her closing remarks, "inspiration's natural result is action." Looking into the eyes of Wadley or the girls we encounter everyday,  we can be inspired to help build a world, piece by piece, in which girls' dreams can become reality--sometimes even including pink roofs, makeshift school roofs, and all! 

If you'd like to act after being inspired, some options to investigate include the 10 X 10 Fund for Girls' Education,  or Catapult, the crowd-funding community focused on improving the lives of girls and women.  You may also be interested in learning more about Girl Up, the United Nations Foundation campaign to involve American girls in addressing the challenges of girls worldwide.

Abortion and Unnecessary Death: A Multicultural Issue

For too long the word abortion has been associated with politicians; it has become a slogan of where your politics lie. Last month, we saw a victim to the ping-pong of abortion politics. It took the death of Savita Halappanavar to bring a human face to this issue, an innocent victim killed by warped policy.

Savita Halappanavar died on October 28, 2012 of blood poisoning, after being denied a termination that could have saved her life. Savita has become an unlikely hero of the abortion rights movement. Extreme politicians such as the UK’s Nadine Dorris claim that women who seek abortions are young, reckless, or career women who have "convenience abortions." Savita was the antithesis of this. A 31-year-old dentist, a married Indian woman who had immigrated to Ireland. Savita was admitted into hospital miscarrying her 17-week-old pregnancy. She asked for an abortion and was denied.

 Her husband recollected "Savita asked if they could not save the baby could they induce to end the pregnancy. The consultant said: 'As long as there is a fetal heartbeat we can't do anything.'" Again on Tuesday morning, the ward rounds and the same discussion. The consultant said it was the law, that this is a Catholic country. Savita (an Indian Hindu) said "I am neither Irish nor Catholic," but they said there was nothing they could do.  Ireland, a Catholic country, has some of the world’s strictest laws regarding abortion. The controversy before Savita’s death was that women in Ireland had to travel to Britain to receive an abortion. This, of course, created huge barriers in terms of time frame, cost, and access. And in Savita’s case she was too ill to travel to England.

PETER MUHLY / AFP / GETTY IMAGES

Medical professionals take a Hippocratic oath to save a life first and foremost. Policy makers that value the unborn fetus as more important than the life of a woman, hinder this. When risk of prosecution looms over a medical professional's head, he or she has no incentive to save a woman’s life through abortion. The reality is that it often takes a tragic event like this to bring policy to the forefront of peoples' minds. Unfortunately, unlike other policies such as vitamin fortification that are supported across all organizations, abortion is throttled by religious intervention. Savita, a Hindu, became a victim of a policy against abortion heavily supported by the Catholic Church.

For many, it brought forward the concept that if you are Catholic you are under no obligation to have an abortion. Neither is a Hindu woman, but if a simple procedure such as removing a dying fetus to save her life is requested, this should be available to any woman regardless of religion.

Follow me @rubysinghrao.

In U.S. Elections, Global Women's Rights at Stake

Suffragettes, 1921 (via Wikipedia)

Two very different visions for the future of women around the world are on the ballot today as Americans head for the polls to decide between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. The U.S. media has provided ample coverage of the so-called ‘War on Women,’ that is, the Republican initiatives that give fetuses and embryos more human rights than the pregnant mothers who carry them (Romney supports the “personhood” of a fertilized egg, which could, by law, charge pregnant women with murder if they have an abortion; or worse, demand that a woman carry a child to term even if her life is at risk). But little has been said about what a Mitt Romney administration means to women on a global scale. Romney’s website states:

Mitt believes that life begins at conception and wishes that the laws of our nation reflected that view. But while the nation remains so divided, he believes that the right next step is for the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade… Mitt supports the Hyde Amendment, which broadly bars the use of federal funds for abortions. As president, he will end federal funding for abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood.

Never mind that Planned Parenthood also offers birth control consultations, funding for breast and cervical cancer screenings, and free STD testing among other crucial services for those who cannot afford it. 

Candidate Romney’s agenda for reversing a woman’s right to choose is not confined to U.S. borders. If elected, he will reinstate the global gag rule, or Mexico City Policy, which will disavow any U.S. aid to family planning services that offer abortions. The gag rule also demands that family planning practitioners receiving U.S. aid remain silenced on abortion, no matter what the circumstances, thereby hindering free speech on an international scale. The European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development petitioned the U.S. Congress condemning the gag rule, stating that it “undermines internationally agreed consensus and goals."

Romney also believes in cutting off money for the United Nations Population Fund. Nicholas Kristof, author of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, says that he has witnessed the United Nations Population Fund’s valuable work in “supporting contraception, repairing obstetric fistulas, and fighting to save the lives of women dying in childbirth.”

According to Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics, voter turnout in presidential elections among women has been proportionately larger than that of men since 1980. Here’s to hoping that this trend continues, and that American women realize how powerful their vote could be for the future of other women, children, and families around the world.

International Women's Day: Beyond All Borders

Every year International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 to honor women worldwide. To bring females closer to equity and to expand our rights and our voices globally. From America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and beyond, IWD events are as wide-ranging as the messages. Her Blueprint commends each hosting organization, partner, or individual who participates. We have reverence knowing so many honor this day designed to make our world better, if not best, for females everywhere.

Celebrating IWD
The United Nations' theme for International Women's Day is to Empower Rural Women: End Hunger and Poverty. The goal falls within a year of launching the new UN Women with more direct funding and dedicated strength to women's rights; as the Commission on the Status of Women continues in New York City; and, with the UN already achieving two of the eight MDG Goals before 2015. Imagine how far-reaching the effect of empowering all women to help end hunger and poverty for everyone.

On March 8, CARE and Gender Across Borders invites bloggers, writers, and humanitarian organizations to Blog for International Women's Day. With over 200 participating blogs, the online event's theme is "Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures." Also, on March 8, the International Museum of Women's annual Gala benefit Art Live Lounge will entertain San Francisco's philanthropists and activists with music, dancing, and cocktails in support of our latest exhibition, MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe.


Building Bridges of Peace
Women for Women International's Join Me on the Bridge Campaign continues as one of the most riveting IWD events because it encourages women to gather across bridges all over the world to show mutual support for women in conflict zones to stand together in peace.

Last year, 75,000 people joined the campaign, and there were 464 events in 70 countries and on 6 continents. According to WfWI's website, last year saw the first-ever bridge events in Baghdad and Kabul, "where the women took brave steps to show their strong demand for peace and equality." This year events are planned in Antarctica, Iraq, Kenya, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sweden, Poland, UK, US, and once again in Afghanistan. (You can join an event here.)

A View from Afghanistan
In 2014, America plans to pull out of Afghanistan after more than a decade at war. The image of a better, if not best, world for females becomes a hard-won goal when assessing areas of the world where women and children suffer mercilessly during and after conflict.

A recent New York Times article discussed the heart-wrenching deaths of Afghan infants in Kabul. The children, already displaced to refugee camps, died from cold overnight temperatures simply because they did not have winter blankets in their tents. Their deaths were heavily disputed by Afghan officials.

At the time, I was interviewing Noorjahan Akbar in Kabul about her recent development of Young Women for Change (YWC), a new grassroots organization to empower Afghan women and create social change. Young Women for Change formed, says Noorjahan, "because the youth of Afghanistan, who make over 65% of the population, are not mobilized in the struggle for women’s rights and social justice as much as they should be. The idea behind YWC [makes] it possible for youth around the country to be aware and empowered enough to stand up for women’s rights and start a grassroots movement."

After Noorjahan answered questions for me, I replied with thanks and received this email as her auto-reply.

We are losing more kids. Please help. This winter the weather in Afghanistan has been cruel and cold. As a result many children living under tents and families who can't afford to buy wood are dying. Please help them. How you can help? All Afghans and others living in Afghanistan look around you[r] house and if you have warm clothes, blankets, or shoes please bring it to us, so we can donate them.

If Afghan officials are denying infant deaths in refugee camps, imagine the excessive denial and resistance facing NGOs like Young Women for Change. Noorjahan explains that every male and female who come to work for the organization (pictured here) has to fight extremely hard to be there because of cultural norms. Yet, Noorjahan also shares how incredible the need for grassroots advocacy.

"According to Human Rights Council’s report of 2010, 85 per cent of women in Afghanistan face domestic violence," says Noorjahan.

"Violence in schools, harassment in the work place, street harassment and assault and rape are also very common, but often ignored or silenced. The majority of female students in the universities are likely to be harassed or assaulted at least once during their college years. These issues have led to small number of women going to colleges and universities."

Women for Women International reports that in Afghanistan, 85% of women have no formal education. Sweeta Noori, Women for Women International's Country Director in Afghanistan says,"Women in Afghanistan have the courage to move forward - they want support. They want people to stand with them whilst they walk forward, and then let them go."

Walking forward after war is not a simple act with few steps. It takes many. And, women in Afghanistan have been living in war since October 7, 2001. Yet, Noorjahan reminds war was pervasive even before then.

The [Afghanistan] war has not only made the country unsafe, especially for women, but it has also influenced people’s mindset. Because for over thirty years, due to wars, women were not as active in the social life, now it comes as a shock when women do partake in the society and it causes backlash. In addition, the war has caused Afghans to refuse to think long-term so in our decision making we often focus on now and today, rather than a better future, because we are not sure if there will be a future. Based on this, volunteerism has decreased, and very few youth are willing to work for long-term goals.

In 2011, the Afghan Women's Network launched and ran the Afghan Green Campaign to show women's dedication to being part of the political sphere. Women wore green scarves edged in red and black stripes (Afghanistan's flag colors), into which they sewed messages such as, “Our vote is our future.” Pictured is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who supported the campaign.

What would YWC's Noorjahan say to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about how to improve women's lives in Afghanistan?

I would pledge to focus efforts on empowering women in the grassroots level. This empowerment should be focus on the economical involvement of women. History is witness that when women are part of the economical life of a country, violations of their rights decrease and they are enabled to say no to violence because they can ran their life independently. I believe it is essential to have a government in Afghanistan that will respect women’s rights and put effort into making it safe for all women across the country...

Recently, YWC completed research on street harassment in Afghanistan and is now creating literacy and English language classes for women, posting awareness posters on violence and education for women on the city walls, and launching exhibitions of posters and photos that are about women’s rights. Currently, they are also working on creating a harassment-free, female-only internet café for women in Kabul.