On Gratitude Versus Suffering: Resiliency Can Rise

The 16 Days of Activism is a worldwide campaign to end violence against women. Photo credit: UN Women.

Today is Thanksgiving in my country of origin. It is the holiday in which families and friends gather to share a long meal and be together. To talk. To laugh. To be thankful.

In France, where I live such long meals happen quite often, to the point I grow tired of dining. Sometimes at long dinners here, I remember myself as a small child at my grandmother's Thanksgiving table covered in pumpkin pies, growing more and more restless in the sunroom of their lovely home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania because the plastic chair cover was sticking to my tights from sitting so long.

How far I have come from those days. In some ways. In fact, during the past two years, I have learned more about resiliency and growth because living in a foreign country is like shaking off any idea of cultural rules and trying to not judge myself or others for not understanding what is often perceived as cultural givens. Points of growth come from understanding that the phrase, "It's cultural," somehow gives credibility for why things are the way they are.

Upon some reflection, I have come to the conclusion that this Thanksgiving I am most thankful for my ability to summon resiliency. I imagine that by working nonstop most of my life for certain goals that I will attain them, that if I do not give up, eventually, I will look up and one day, the goal will arrive. This is not to say, any goal just arrives or all of them. It is to say that through effort, determination, and resiliency that keeping on, eventually, leads one to true change.

As an athlete, that happened for me. I ran two ultramarathons with a heart problem when most cardiologists said that I could not. Then opted due to more severe heart complications during graduate school to have a heart surgery that confirmed what I had always sort of known, that my heart issue was far more severe than thought for the seventeen years preceding. Yet, I remember laying on the surgery table wide awake, watching my heart beating on the screen completely outside of my own body's control, and the cardiologist actually asking me if I was sure I had supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) because he could not find it. I thought to myself, this man has my heart in his hands, literally, yet he knows nothing of my life story. Of what brought me here, to this moment. He has no idea how often during races, I had to ensure that I took care of myself better than everyone around me because my SVT was not just a quickened heart rate; that when my SVT launched, my chest rocked, my eyes rolled back in my head, my lips sucked in and the loss of oxygen usually rendered me unaware within minutes. He does not know the moment I decided to do this was watching my baby sister's distressed face in the streets of Paris as I tried to calm my SVT because I swore with only four days in Paris, she would not spend her last full day in a hospital. Instead, I just looked at him and said, "Yes, I am sure. I am positive, I have SVT."

A few minutes later, he found the problem in the core of my heart.  He then called in another cardiologist for a second opinion because the risk had grown enormously.

I walk often by the Institute that performed the successful heart surgery as it is around the corner from my pink cottage. I stare inside and think back to how I willed myself on that table to keep going and now my heart problem is resolved. The same way I willed the 17-year-old girl from a violent home to believe in my own education and my dreams to live in Manhattan. The same way I willed the 25-year-old homeowner trying to protect my property before the global financial crisis on a publishing salary. The same way, I willed the 28-year-old to move to Paris to study French at Sorbonne. Just keep going, eventually I will get there. And, I have. I stood this May one year after my heart surgery and walked the stage earning my Master's degree, a goal that took more years than I dare count.

Yet, that moment the cardiologist questioned a reality so real to me reminded me starkly of the times in my life when I have shared incredible truths, risked intense vulnerability, only to have someone stare back at me with disbelief and question that truth. And, often those times had to do with me as a victim of violence. It reminded me of the British police detective who erred constantly as he investigated my sexual assault, which had happened in a very well-known London hotel. It reminded me of the ninth grade history professor who gave me a zero in his class even after I told him my final paper was late because I had been having heart problems that no one seemed to understand but kept telling me were from anxiety, although I remained completely silent of the swell of domestic violence occurring in my family's home at the same time because of my own personal shame and the culture that grew that.

On this Thanksgiving, my thoughts are focused on why culture is often used as a blanket reason for why things are the way they are. Not American culture. Or French culture. But the pervasive global culture that accepts women worldwide are harmed.

Two days ago, on November 25,  international organizations and NGOs worldwide launched the 16 Days of Activism to end violence against women. The violent stories I replay in my mind from my own life trying to make sense of my own story. The stories I have listened to from young women in Congo, Mozambique, South Africa, France, the United States. The frequency of violence is astounding.

According to the World Health Organization, "Estimates suggest that one in three women globally have experienced either physical or sexual violence from a partner, or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives, and that levels of violence against women and girls remain extremely high."

And, that in some parts of the world, sexual violence is endemic – reports of non-partner sexual violence are as high as 21% in areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

Violence against women is a global pandemic, not confined to any one country or region. UN Women says, "around 120 million girls worldwide (slightly more than 1 in 10) have experienced forced intercourse or other forced sexual acts at some point in their lives." In the United States alone, the World Bank estimates that, "annual costs of intimate partner violence have been calculated at USD 5.8 billion."

That is outright and costly human suffering from every angle.

What does most research suggest as the way to end violence against women? UN Women suggests the current culture of shame and discrimination that surrounds violence against women has to shift.

Violence against women and girls is rooted in gender-based discrimination and social norms and gender stereotypes that perpetuate such violence. Given the devastating effect violence has on women, efforts have mainly focused on responses and services for survivors. However, the best way to end violence against women and girls is to prevent it from happening in the first place by addressing its root and structural causes.

Change has to happen. In response, from November 25 to December 10, the 16 Days of Activism calls on governments, organizations, advocates, and you to call for an end to gender-based violence as a basic human right. The United Nations urges participation in Orange your Neighbourhood, to wear orange to reflect your support in breaking the stigma that surrounds violence against women. To change the culture of acceptance to that of nonacceptance.

I think today of the many loved friends, family, and colleagues I have in my life, and visually if we all sat down at a Thanksgiving table how so many of us would be wearing orange. How so many of us have experienced violence in some way. And, how all of us have channeled that experience in our own way to heal and find resiliency.

Then, I think of all the incredible women I have met all over the world who have found or will need to find that kind of resiliency to move beyond the suffering that comes from gender-based violence, and I am thankful for the strength that can be forged in a collective culture that does not accept violence against women. It reminds me to stay resilient in my pursuit to ensure greater human rights for all of us everywhere. Because, if we just keep going, one day, through effort, determination, and resiliency, that keeping on will lead us to true change: women everywhere will be safer. And, that will be the worldwide culture, just the way things are.

The 16 Days of Activism ends on December 10, Human Rights Day.  

McKayla Maroney and the Celebrity Photo Leak of (August) 2014

Much like Loren Lynch did in her first post here at Her Blueprint, I feel I ought to tell you a little bit about myself. I have, for most of my adult life, made my income tending bar. One of the great things about this particular line of work is the opportunity to meet an incredible array of people and learn about a diversity of topics including, of course, quite a bit about yourself. Through the almost 6 years I have spent working at a small local pub in Brooklyn, I picked up two valuable pieces of Rebekah-specific information:  I do not particularly care about beer or mainstream sports.

As someone who considers herself something of an academic, I read far too much about the severity of head injuries in football and hockey to be able to see past the brutality inherent in those two sports and through to the games themselves. I find baseball boring and, though I was a big Knicks fan back in the 90's (I had a thing for John Starks), I am not terribly attached to basketball. The one sport that I watch religiously, that I can talk your ear off about (and yes, I know it is not mainstream although this is something I simply do not understand) is elite women's gymnastics.

http://flickr.com/photo/71035721@N00/2972933329

For most people here in the United States, women's gymnastics is a once-every-four-years sport. In an Olympic year, they watch all the team and individual events on NBC and fall in love that particular quad's American it-girl: Mary Lou Retton, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Gabby Douglas. But for us all-the-time fans, there is so much behind those Olympic moments. These young women have, by age 16, already spent the previous 12 years in the gym. What their bodies and minds allow them to do is absolutely breath taking. Forget the athleticism which I could never dream to possess, these girls have more focus at 16 than I have at 31, a fact which is at the same time mind-blowing and enviable. It is interesting because for as much as I would love to see these girls get the attention and appreciation that all their hard work and talent deserves, I think the sport stays more pure, and the athletes more protected from the negative aspects of mainstream fandom, because of the lack of big money and the lack of exposure. Unless, of course, they are one of the lucky five to make it to the biggest stage in women's gymnastics: the Olympic Games. Once that happens all bets are off and no one knows this better than 2012 Olympic team champion and vault silver medalist McKayla Maroney.

Previously known only for her sky high vaulting, Maroney made an error in the Olympic vault finals that resulted in her being awarded the silver medal behind Romania's Sandra Izbasa and spawned the now famous not impressed face. It was that face, and her regular social media updates, that made Maroney something of a celebrity beyond the gymnastics world. Unfortunately, being in the public eye does come with certain drawbacks. This past August, McKayla Maroney found herself embroiled in a massive scandal when nude photos of her and roughly 40 other female celebrities were stolen from compromised Apple iCloud accounts and leaked via the imageboard 4chan and then widely disseminated using social media sites such as Imgur, Reddit and Tumblr. As is often the case, the victims were blamed for their own victimization, with people taking to Twitter and comment boards to tell female celebrities that if they don't want nude photographs of themselves on the internet, they shouldn't take them in the first place. In the case of McKayla Maroney, this issue took on another layer of complexity when it was discovered that the leaked photographs were taken when she was under 18, and therefore considered a minor under United States law. As a result, Reddit removed all of the photographs of her with the explanation that they are "considered CP (Child Pornography), and break reddit's site-wide rules (in addition to international law...)" At the same time, a group of concerned citizens put together a "We the People" petition to get the US Government to charge Maroney with "production and possession of sexual material containing a minor," stating that the government should not let her "get away with a crime that would get a normal teenage girl landed on the sex offenders list."

This petition is, of course, absolutely ridiculous and unlikely to gain any real traction. It is an example of victim-blaming at its finest. The absurdity of it becomes especially poignant when placed alongside the recent scandal involving the Ravens star running back, Ray Rice. When a few weeks ago TMZ released the February video of Rice knocking his then-fiancee unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator, it sparked a national conversation about domestic violence and the role of organizations such as the National Football League in combating it. Even among those who were understandably outraged, there was an undercurrent of victim-blaming as well as a noticeable presence of those who were opposed to Rice's indefinite suspension. Rice acted violently upon another person, Maroney was acted violently upon, and yet we, as a society, still don't seem to be clear on the true definition of "victim," especially where women are concerned. There should be no question as to who was in the wrong in each of these situations, and yet there is.

McKayla Maroney, in spite of it all, is at her Los Angeles gym day after day training for a chance at a second Olympics. The odds are against her, not because of this scandal but because no woman has made two consecutive US Olympic Gymnastics teams since Dominique Dawes and Amy Chow did it in 1996 and 2000. One thing I am certain of, though, is that she will be out there competing on the national and international stage in the years leading up to Rio 2016, if not at the Olympics themselves. She will be out there with the knowledge of all that has happened, and in a skin-tight leotard no less, and I have no doubt that she will show everyone exactly what she is made of. She, along with all the other gymnasts from the US and abroad, are fantastic, hard-working athletes who deserve our respect, just as all women do.

The Great 2014 Celebrity Nude Photos Leak is only the beginning [The Guardian]
Ricky Gervais and Fox News take the lead in victim blaming over celebrity nude photo leak [Salon]
The Leaked Photos of McKayla Maroney Were Taken When She was Underage, and Reddit is Freaking Out [Business Insider]

A Conversation on Congo with Kate, Model and Human Rights Advocate

Kate is pictured here visiting the Grassroots Reconciliation Group in Uganda.

Since last November, the over decade-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has once again surged. The latest outbreaks are forcing displacement of hundreds of thousands of Congolese people, escalating already rampant sexual violence, and creating larger death tolls. Since 1998, the conflict in Congo has resulted in the death of 5.4 million people. Cumulatively, this is a higher death count than the total number of lives lost throughout all of World War II.

The United Nations recently expanded its peacekeeping mission in the DRC. Yet, it is the work of NGOs, individuals, and those passionate to make lasting change in Congo who also lead the way for urgent change. In this new series, Her Blueprint talks with people who have chosen to take on Congo as advocates. Their lives are entwined with the DRC, showing that no matter where or who we are, we share our world.

Kate Tickel is co-founder of Congo-Sourced, Conflict-Free, a model, mother of a young son, and a human rights advocate based in Los Angeles. Last year, she was nominated for the Trust Women Hero Award, announced at the Trust Woman Conference in London. Kate recently answered some questions about why she is so dedicated to advocating for Congolese women and for conflict-free minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Her Blueprint: Can you share a bit of your journey to how Congo in particular has come to be your focus and your current activities surrounding advocacy? As mentioned, I believe you started your own organization and are working with the Nobel Women's Initiative?

Kate:  My journey into advocacy has been very personal, and so informed by my own experiences as a woman and a mother. I was always a little in love with Africa. I read Gorillas in the Mist, about Dian Fossey and the silverback gorillas in Rwanda, as a girl. I fell in love with the entirety of that story: with Dian, with gorillas (I was and still am an enormous animal lover), with the descriptions of Rwanda and the mists and mountains. I was from rural Tennessee and there was something in my bones that understood eastern Africa intuitively, that mix of beauty and poverty. Then I read Philip Gourevitch's book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed Our Families. It was an impossible story to recover from; it set a seed for activism. I had joined Amnesty International by the time I was ten or so. While I was still a teenager, I moved to Los Angeles to model, and started to travel constantly. I always had one foot in activism; I was always the girl in the makeup chair talking about Zaire. But there was no particular focus except the next job; I had such a peripatetic, gypsy lifestyle. And then motherhood happened, impossibly, at a young age, (I'd been told that because of a medical condition motherhood could never happen). I didn't necessarily feel a connection to other mothers, but for the first time I felt a strong connection to womanhood and to other women, this shared experience of being female. I noticed myself becoming fiercely protective of other women.

And then about three years ago I saw the headline for an blog post, "Does Your Cell Phone Contribute to Rape?," and I clicked on it. It was a brief article detailing what was happening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, how five and a half million people had been killed in the conflict there, about how gender violence was being used as a weapon of war, and about how the minerals being looted by the armed gangs there were in just about every piece of electronics on the market. It was an epiphany; I don't know how often in life we know the moment when our life has just changed, but I knew it to be that moment. All the air went out of the room. Who would ever look at their laptop and say, "I wonder how many girls were raped in the manufacturing of this laptop?" My first reaction was that fierce protectiveness over those women and girls; I couldn't sleep that first night, thinking of them. Thinking, "These women are so much more than the worst thing that has happened to them."

It took a few months of immersing myself in every lecture, every conference, every white paper, every book on not just Congo but the nature of conflict, gender violence and genocide; my education is still constantly ongoing. In the meantime I was talking to everyone I knew about Congo, and about "conflict minerals" (also known as the 3TGs: tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold). Groups like the Enough Project and Human Rights Watch had been instrumental in passing Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Act, which requires companies to disclose if the minerals in their products are sourced from Congo. Companies were citing overwhelm at the prospect of having to audit their supply chain, there were several regulatory agencies whose criterion had to be met to certify the minerals as clean, and confusion about the auditing process. In the meantime, there were concerns about the possibility of a de facto embargo happening in the Kivu provenances of eastern Congo, which is the most conflicted area; companies might just wash their hands of the whole issue and stop buying from Congo altogether, which would hurt the mine workers already the most vulnerable. So I worked with a risk management company to develop an audit process that would integrate all the regulatory agency supply chain templates, while building in a provision that encourages companies to source from Congo, and that's how Congo-Sourced, Conflict-Free happened.

Along the way, I became aware of a group called Stop Rape in Conflict, which addresses gender violence and rape as a weapon of war. They were hosting a panel in New York with the Nobel Women's Initiative, and I was able to meet Jody Williams, and Dr. Denis Mukwenge, who runs the Panzi hospital in Congo. That was a huge moment. The two groups are working together on a United Nations initiative, The International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict. If you've never met Jody Williams, you don't know how impossible she is to decline; when she says "You need to come work on this campaign," you go work on the campaign. It's incredibly inspiring to be working with so many strong women, the activists and Peace Laureates who came before you.

Her Blueprint: I know you recently visited DRC. Can you share one experience there that elucidates why you are so committed to advocating for a conflict-free Congo?

Kate: The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the most beautiful places in the world. There is one piece of folklore that posits that Eden was there, and when you see the waterfalls and complete verdancy, the constant petrichor, the elephants and gorillas, you believe that Congo could be heaven on earth. How is this haven the rape capitol of the world? How can these beautiful jungles harbor such violent militias? When I was first in Goma my driver and I got on very well. He and his wife had just had their first child, a little girl, and he wanted me to meet his family, so I went to their home. My son is French-speaking, as are the Congolese, and when I walked into the house the first thing I heard was the humming of the same French lullabye, "Bonsoir Bon Nuit," that I had sung to my little one when he was a baby. I started singing it too. The world is so small. We sing the same lullabyes. We all live in the same house.

One World, One Rape Culture

Protests in Steubenville, OH. Image courtesy of the CBC.

As the brutal gang rape of a 23-year old woman on a bus in New Delhi continues to outrage the women of India, sending shockwaves to the rest of the world, America is having its own gang rape controversy to contend with.

In Steubenville, Ohio, an old steel town hit hard by the financial crisis, a group of teenaged football players are being tried for the rape and kidnapping of a 16 year-old girl after pictures of her naked body surfaced on several social networking sites. Yet even though the images of the young girl’s unconscious body, which one of her assailants described in a video as “Deader than Trayvon Martin,” had spread throughout Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, convicting the teenaged boys has proven difficult in a town that protects its young football stars with blind adulation, with one local crime blogger being sued by one of the accused students and his parents for defamation. This sense of community denial is reminiscent of the Penn State community’s outrage by the charges against Jerry Sandusky, the college football coach who was eventually found guilty in 2011 of 52 counts of sexual assault of young boys over the span of 15 years.

From the Sandusky affair to the Steubenville assaults to the gang rape on a public bus in India, one thing is clear: the world shares a common culture; a common community that fails to protect its most vulnerable and lays the blame and responsibility solely on the victim. This is what second wave feminists in America call “rape culture,” and its boundaries are limitless.

According to Kavita Krishnan, Secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association, the conviction rate for rape prosecutions in India has fallen from 46% in 1971 to 26% today. Social critic Naomi Wolf notes, however, that this rate is higher than the conviction rates in the UK, Sweden and the US, respectively.

Little wonder, when the legal system in America is so disturbingly flawed, seeped in archaic notions of women as property. For instance, just last week, a man in Los Angeles who infiltrated a woman’s bedroom and had sex with her while she was sleeping was found not guilty to rape charges because the woman was unmarried. The court cited an 1872 law that states:

"[a]ny person who fraudulently obtains the consent of another to sexual relations escapes criminal liability (at least as a sex offender under tit. IX of the Pen. Code), unless he (or she)...masquerades as the victim‟s spouse ..."

Therefore, the law will protect a female rape victim…just so long as she is another man’s property. Such is the state of the “justice” system in America.

In a rape culture, as previously stated, victims of sexual assault are held responsible for the actions of perpetrators. Signs of victim blaming are everywhere in India (see: spiritual leader Asaram Bapu, who said of the bus gang rape: "Mistake is never from one side alone").

In Steubenville, assistant coach Nate Hubbard provides a classic victim-blaming stance. He told the New York Times:

"The rape was just an excuse, I think...What else are you going to tell your parents when you come home drunk like that and after a night like that?"

In fact, the 16-year old victim had no knowledge that she had been violated, because she was drunk to the point of being unconscious, until the pictures started to surface. But this is beside the point.
Other examples of victim blaming are more subtle. Across the United States, universities hold rape aggression defense (“RAD”) courses for students, rather than providing outreach and awareness programs for would-be perpetrators. Although a program that assumes rape is a very real danger and prepares young people for it is commendable, pouring college resources into possible victim education without possible perpetrator education could send a societal message to young people.

Education on all fronts should be a major step in eradicating rape culture. Another should be community involvement in protecting its citizens, since law enforcement officers and the justice system more broadly can never guarantee safety for a society’s most vulnerable.

Many in the US may have wondered, as I did when I heard about the New Delhi rape, why the bus driver didn’t act to protect the young woman as she was being beaten with a metal rod, brutally raped, and left for dead.
As Steubenville Police Chief William McCafferty said of the local gang rape that happened on his watch:  

“The thing I found most disturbing about this is that there were other people around when this was going on…Nobody had the morals to say, ‘Hey, stop it, that isn’t right.’”

The protests in India and Steubenville may help bring awareness of rape culture to their respective communities who have been torn apart by these unspeakable acts of violence. But the culture that binds us all should not be overlooked.

Sexual Harassment, Rape, and Indignity in Indian Society

The week before Christmas, many of us were picking our outfit for the upcoming parties. In Delhi, however, lay a 23-year student fighting for her life after a brutal gang rape. She died yesterday. Her crime: taking the bus home after watching a movie. Her rape has set India on fire, and protests are rampant. It seems that the public is no longer willing to sit back and accept the government's complacent policies towards women.

Delhi, the capital of India, has one of the highest rape rates in the country. India has been deemed by some surveys to be one of the most dangerous countries to be a woman. Sexual harassment on buses and the streets is widespread. Lack of protection for women traveling and walking the streets is further impacted by corrupt police and government policies that fail to protect women. In this case alone, when a Magistrate went to the hospital to take a statement from the hospitalized victim about her horrific ordeal, the Magistrate reported repeated inference from the head of police. Indian Government also actively ignores the safety of women. A report in the Guardian newspaper told of Indian men who had been accused of sexual harassment (and in some cases rape) who had been allowed to stand in Indian elections. Bribery is rampant, the Police turn a blind eye, and politicians blame women and Western culture for provoking men. In a city of 20 million, 80% of women complain of sexual harassment.

It is no wonder that both men and women took to the streets to protest India’s complacent attitudes to women, particularly rape. The victim was traveling on a private bus after seeing a movie with a male friend. She was brutally attacked by six men on the bus and subjected to horrific abuse. Her companion was beaten with iron rods. Both were dumped on the side of a street after the ordeal. Her injuries were so severe that she had to have part of her colon removed. She was on a ventilator in critical condition for days and was flown to Singapore for specialist treatment. This woman died--all for traveling on a bus.

The protests following her story are not a reaction to her specific case. Rather, they are an accumulation of anger and frustration at numerous attacks on women which have been ignored by the authorities.  Earlier this year, there was public outrage after 12 men outside a bar assaulted a teenage girl. The attack was filmed by an off-duty TV journalist for 45 minutes. The girl later asked, “Why did no one help me?”  The public protesting are rightly asking why it is not safe for women to walk the streets.  Their anger highlights corrupt police and a government that for too long has swept this epidemic under the carpet.

The people of India have spoken. It is time for the government to act.

Follow Ruby on Twitter: @rubysinghrao

Marriage: Which Voice Should a Woman Listen to?

As a woman, one is always told that they should be able to multitask. I must say that I know many women who have been able to carry out this order with no hustle. Sometimes though, there are many voices that keep on talking to women at different stages of life that they cannot seem to balance at the same time. The voices all speak to them in different tones all at once and they never give them peace. Culture, education, and religion all speak to women and give them advice about marriage and sexual reproductive health, but women don’t know which voice to listen to anymore. They are just weary of all these voices.

Image credit: ewehoo.blogspot.com

As young girls, perhaps they were told to be submissive to their husbands. Their aunts and all their female relatives who took on the role of advising them sang the same song to them. Growing up in societies that followed cultural beliefs closely, the girls were trained to be good wives. This was a normal custom in such societies and all girls had to embrace these beliefs and some pre-marriage rituals.

These rituals involved pulling the clitoris to elongate them so that they could satisfy their husbands when they came of marriage age. They were told that a woman’s ability to satisfy her husband in bed would assure her a long and gratifying marriage. Looking back, I think this seems like some absurd custom that young girls were exposed to. How could a tiny part of the woman’s body that the man could not even see when he asked her hand in marriage be the determining factor for a marriage to work? At this age the girls had no right to question their elder’s orders, they just had to obey and wait patiently to reap the results of their obedience in marriage.

Contrary to the lessons of culture, education tells women that they are equal to their male counterparts. They are now enlightened to ask questions like: If I pull my clitoris and elongate them to satisfy my husband in bed, what will my husband do that will change him physically to satisfy me in bed as well. No one from the cultural realm seems to know the answer to this question as they keep on hushing the girl’s questions with the gospel of submission.

Then, there are girls who have been educated that love is shared between two people without the need to change who you are. They have read textbooks and novels all with literature in which women from all walks of life got married and lived happily ever after despite their physical appearance. They have read of the ill effects of female genital mutilation as they have come to know the cultural practices that they were subjected to. They only wish they had not listened to the culture voice as it advised them on marriage.

Education has unshackled these women from the chains of culture and told them to be autonomous. They have gained financial independence that makes them equal partners in marriage. Their husbands are scared of such achievements that they never dreamt to occur to their life partners. When the husbands were boys they were told to take pride in protecting, providing, and professing their love to their wives. One way to profess this love was to beat their wives. Women were also told to take pride in being beaten because they were misled to believe that a beating meant that your husband loved you. The love lay in the fact that he could come back and comfort you after the beating.

Being emancipated by education, some women no longer take any beating as a sign of love. It is an absolute sign of abuse. Most women will not allow any beating to start at all. If ever a beating sees light in a marriage, most women now know legal recourse to take against these marital matters that a husband would have thought to be mightier than a discussion to warrant a beating. Where is the line drawn then between culture and education that will make a woman maintain her marriage?

Sudan Tensions Highlight Difficulties Faced by Women in Conflict

Photo property of: Rita Willaert

Kamila, a resident of South Kordofan, fled the state’s capital of Kadugli after heavy fighting erupted in the afternoon of Sunday, June 5, in Um Dorain--a former stronghold of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) that lies some 35 kilometres southeast of Kadugli. Kamila and other residents became concerned after a large number of soldiers from the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) arrived in the capital, and rumours began to spread that members of the SPLA had requested more soldiers be dispatched to the area.

“The security situation is very bad. Residents of Kadugli town fled their homes with nowhere to run, there’s no movement of people on the streets, the market has become a battleground and basic necessities like food, water and fuel for transporting civilians has run out,” explains Kamila in an interview with Her Blueprint.

MIDDLE EAST: Rape is Never Part of the Contract

If you visited the Middle East, you'd no doubt notice that migrant domestic workers--who represent a vulnerable group, whose rights are often ignored, in contravention to international conventions and standards--are incredibly prevalent.

Mainly from Asia and Africa, they comprise nearly 1.5 million of the workforce in Saudi Arabia, 660,000 in Kuwait and more than 200,000 in Lebanon. With hopes of escaping poverty or conflict in their home countries, many travel under false pretense and find themselves hungry, subjected to poor working conditions, unpaid salaries, abuse and conditions akin to slavery.

In response to widespread abuse and mounting reports of withheld salaries, several labour sending countries issued bans restricting female migrants from seeking employment abroad due to the alarming rise in the number of suicides. However, this has only made them more susceptible to traffickers and employment agencies working the black market.

According to the International Labour Union, there are more than 22 million migrant workers--a third of whom are women--currently in the Middle East. Currently the ILO is advocating the drafting of specific labour legislation for domestic workers that extends legal protection in a systematic and comprehensive manner.

Originally from Madagascar, Dima 19, escaped from her employer after being sexually abused several times. She tells her story to Her Blueprint:

"I come from a poor family in Madagascar and before leaving I was told that I would find good employment in Lebanon, and that my situation and that of my family would improve. I wasn’t happy to leave my country and my family but I needed to change our situation so I agreed to take the employment.

The male employer picked me up from the airport and when we arrived to the home he told me to take a bath. He insisted that I leave the door slightly open but I felt uncomfortable about it and pleaded that I close the door but he kept insisting that it was for my own safety just in case something were to happen. So finally I agreed and while I was in the bath he entered and raped me.

While it was happening he kept saying how he had never been with a Black woman and wanted to have a taste. For me, it was humiliating, and I felt empty inside. Afterwards, I was told to get dressed and take care of my household duties, as if nothing had happened. I felt trapped and had no one to help me. When I was able to speak with my family I had to tell them that everything was okay because it would kill them to know that I was suffering.

Some time passed and nothing happened but then one day the Madame said that she was going out and that I should stay but I insisted on not being left in the house with him. Always I tried to make sure I was never left alone with him but she gave me no choice and it happened again. Except this time, he spread my legs apart and tied my hands and legs to the bed and repeatedly raped me. Then he invited two male friends over and they also took turns raping me.

Afterward, I was destroyed and could only think about how I could get away because I couldn’t bear living like this anymore. Luckily I had met another Madagascan woman in the street and she told me the number of the community leader and that if I had any problems, she would help me. So almost a month later, while the family was getting into the car I started running as fast as I could so that they didn’t catch me. Eventually I managed to get far enough that I stopped and went to a pay phone and called the number and the woman told me to take a taxi to the consulate and that they would pay for it once I arrived.

I was told at the consulate that they could help me find new employment but all I wanted to do was leave because maybe I would have the same problems with a new employer and I didn’t want to take the chance. I just wanted to be with my family. I would prefer to live in poverty than to continue suffering in this way."

Cases like Dima are all too common in a labour sector where abuses remain invisible because these women suffer in places that are hidden to the public's eye such as in private homes.

Passport confiscation and the Kafala or sponsorship system, which binds migrant domestic workers to a specific employer excludes them from protection and left in the hands of individuals who have complete control over their lives.

Recently, the ILO set up a website with the aim of promoting decent work for domestic workers and supporting initiatives worldwide by sharing information related to working and living conditions of domestic workers, policy issues and challenges in domestic work, country experiences and knowledge, and practical tools on how decent work may be advanced in domestic work.

MAKE CHANGE: Sign the Congo NOW! Petition

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is said to be the most dangerous place to be a woman. Every week over 150 Congolese women are raped as a weapon of war. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Congolese women have been raped for the past 15 years because conflict has enveloped the region. Death tolls range between three to five million people.

In his new book, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, Jason K. Stearns, who once worked for the United Nations in Congo, traces the story of why and how atrocious acts such as mass rape and genocide continue to be ignored. Recently, a New York Times article cited a study within Dancing in the Glory of Monsters that shows how in 2006 the NY Times gave four times as much coverage to Darfur, although Congolese have died in far greater numbers.

The reason? The NY Times says the DRC's conflict is exceptionally stunning in its complexity, which, frankly, it is. In consequence, enter the creation of Congo NOW!, a coalition of NGO’s and grassroots organizations ranging from Oxfam International to Save the Children that are joining together in order to campaign for the safety of Congolese women and children.

The International Rescue Committee, a member of the coalition, recently sent out a field report about the Congo emergency and highlighted "typical" rape victims' experiences.

I was out in the field farming when several soldiers approached me. I was dragged out of the field against my will. I was held captive and raped repeatedly for days. When I was released, I had nowhere to go to get medical care for my injuries. My family and friends shunned me as a disgraced woman.

How many Congolese women and children have to be victimized before there is a solution to stop mass rape?

According to Kate Hughes of Women for Women International, an organization with rehabilitative programs focusing on Congolese women traumatized by rape, "the Congo Now! coalition has agreed on four policy points to halt sexual violence in the DRC."

1. Stop natural resources fueling the conflict.
2. Address the devastating causes and consequences of the conflict and sexual violence particularly for women and children
3. Protect civilians from violence.
4. Promote nonmilitary and regional solutions to the conflict.

"We have launched the campaign," Kate says, "by starting with an action focused on sexual violence. The action is an e-action targeting Lynne Featherstone, International Violence Against Women champion."

Help support the work of Congo Now! and sign the Congo Now! petition. Your signature brings women and children in Congo one step closer to safety.

Photo credit: Fiona and Studio 9 Films

Libya's Ceasefire and the Safety of Journalists

In a strong move, UN Security Council Resolution 1973 has called to halt military action in Libya to ensure citizens' safety. Arab countries, European nations, and the United States all backed the resolution to force a ceasefire.

France took the lead in negotiations and now promises immediate action to impose the no fly zone. Located in North Africa, Libya has been under the control of Muammar el-Qaddafi for forty years, but in mid-February protestors and rebel groups began an uprising after witnessing successful protests throughout the Arab world.

According to the New York Times, "in Benghazi, a coastal city about 400 miles east of Tripoli, the BBC quoted witnesses as saying that the unrest was inspired by the arrest of a human rights lawyer, Fathi Terbil, who has been critical of the government. Around 2,000 people took part, the BBC said, quoting witnesses as saying the police used water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets. The number of injuries was unclear."

By March 5, el-Qaddafi's forces had killed at least 35 people when they opened fire on unarmed protestors in Tripoli and Zawiyah. From there, escalating daily violence has occurred against innocent victims in both Libya and Bahrain.

Captured Journalists Are Safe
Today, four New York Times journalists held in Libya are also said to be freed after finally making contact with their families for the first time on Thursday since their disappearance on Tuesday. The Libyan government held Anthony Shahid, the Times's Beirut bureau chief, Tyler Hicks, Stephen Farrell, and Lynsey Addario. Qaddafi's son Saif al-Islam gave a statement of release citing that the four were taken into custody after illegally entering the country.

"...when the army, when they liberated the city of Ajdabiya from the terroists and they found her, they arrest her because you know, foreigner in this place. But then they were happy because they found out she is American, not European. And thanks to that, she will be free tomorrow."

The "her" Qaddafi's son was referring to Lynsey Addario, the sole female being held, highlights how often gender plays a role for female journalists who are covering conflict and whose work focuses on women's issues in some of the most dangerous areas of the world, such as Addario's Veiled Rebellion chronicling Afghan women's fight for justice amid extreme war and poverty.

Number of Sexually Assaulted Journalists Unknown

In February, journalist Laura Logan was sexually assaulted during a mass "celebration" in Egypt post-protest, but was saved by a group of women from the crowd. In an Op-Ed soon after Logan's return to the United States to heal with her family, reporter Kim Barker's Why We Need Women in War Zones confronted outcomes of Logan breaking the silence around women journalists and photographers being assaulted in not only war zones, but in places ranging from their hotel rooms to mass mobs. She cited that although the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) does keep data on how many journalists are killed in action per year, they do not keep data on how many journalists, either men or women, are sexually assaulted or raped -- even though sexual violence is recognized as a legitimate and pervasive issue. Why not confront it? The CPJ claims that sexual assault of journalists simply goes underreported, even as their handbook to date does not even include a chapter on the topic (though one is being added in a future release).

However, the CPJ has voiced sexual assault as a serious issue for journalists to politicians in the past. "We [CPJ] have advocated for our concerns about sexual violence against journalists on a political level. For instance, we wrote to U.S. Secratary of State Hillary Clinton in September 2009 to raise awareness about the safety of three women reporters covering women's issues and 'femicide' in Bukavu, in Congo. The unstable eastern region, which is rich in minerals but devastated by war and atrocities against civilians, including the systematic rape of women, is currently one of Africa's most dangerous cities for journalists, according to CPJ research."

The Democratic Republic of Congo is often considered to be the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman, whether journalist or civilian. Yet, the importance of women journalists and photographers are inherent in the stories they shape and share about war-torn regions. Barker's Why We Need Women in War Zones reflects, "Look at the articles about women who set themselves on fire in Afghanistan to protest their arranged marriages, or about girls being maimed by fundamentalists, about child marriage in India, about rape in Congo and Haiti. Female journalists often tell those stories in the most compelling ways, because abused women are sometimes more comfortable talking to them. And those stories are at least as important as accounts of battle."

Barker also discusses how unfortunate it would be if Logan's going public made it tougher for female journalists to get assigned to war zones. "The publicity around Ms. Logan's attack could make editors think, 'Why take the risk?' That would be the wrong lesson. Women can cover the fighting as well as men, depending on their courage."

With Libya as an example, hopefully one where all four journalists are released relatively unscathed, the hope is that journalists who risk their lives to grant the vulnerable a voice, join Laura Logan in breaking the silence about sexual violence and assault against journalists to bring formidable change and soon. This weekend two museums on two coasts will exhibit female-focused photography exhibitions demonstrating the strength and voice that women photographers and journalists bring to world issues.

Photo credit: Reuters

Haiti: One Year Later

On January 12, 2010, one year ago today, Haiti's main city of Port-au-Prince was the epicenter of a massive earthquake that left millions of already poverty-stricken Haitians homeless and living in tent cities. Her Blueprint reported on Haiti throughout the past year with stories of hope from Human Rights Watch; reports of displacement and tuberculosis from public health expert and the United Nations Special Deputy Envoy to Haiti Paul Farmer; cited the publications created to voice the taboo: sexual violence against women mounting in the tent cities; then, finally the start of a cholera epidemic that according to the Huffington Post's Cholera in Haiti: A Look from the Trenches remains present. Pictured here are a mother and child being cared for by a female health worker in June 2010. As I write this, I wonder if they are alive. If so, their chances of still being displaced within a tent city are almost certain.

In a press release, Joia Mukherjee, Chief Medical Officer at Partners In Health, an organization leading the post-quake recovery that Paul Farmer founded, shared that current conditions remain rather "grim."

Today, we stand with our friends and colleagues from our Haitian sister organization, Zanmi Lasante, and with millions of Haitians in Haiti and abroad to remember that terrible day -- to remember both those who died, and those who suffered and continue to face the painful reality of a Haiti post-January 12, 2010. This is particularly true for over a million internally displaced people living in crowded Port-au-Prince camps. Yet while there should be righteous indignation about the conditions in the camps, we must continue to highlight the plight of the urban and rural poor throughout Haiti whose struggle against poverty and injustice pre-dated the earthquake and has been made immeasurably more difficult by the disaster. The cholera epidemic -- due to lack of access to clean water and sanitation against a backdrop of malnutrition and inadequate health services in much of the country -- is a graphic illustration of the ongoing need. It is easy to understand that optimism would be in short supply. There are, however, glimmers of hope.

Along with the Haitian Ministry of Health and many partner organizations, Partners In Health calls for an international movement of solidarity, similar to the one that brought an end to South Africa's Apartheid. They also call for Haitians to become actors in rebuilding their country alongside the 10,000 NGOs and foreign-government projects so as to create "development of large-scale public infrastructure including health, education, water and sanitation that will reverse the impoverishment of the Haitian people."

One year later vast work remains to be done for those still living in abject poverty and far worse. Glimmers of hope need to be replaced by strategic long-term plans and bold action. Partners In Health one year report on Haiti is available here.

Photo credit: Doctors of the World UK

Haiti Post-Quake: The Past Ten Months and Counting

On January 12, 2010, Haiti was ravaged by a catastrophic 7.0 earthquake that extensively damaged the country's main city of Port-au-Prince. By January 24, over 52 aftershocks were recorded that measured at least 4.5. Ten months ago exactly, on January 20, the New York Times published Aftershocks, by Évelyne Trouillot sharing those first days post-quake.

The family has set up camp in my brother’s house. I live just next door, but it makes us feel better to be all in the same house. My brother, a novelist, is writing his articles; I am writing mine. From time to time a tremor will make us pause and run back outside, just in case, to be safe. I wonder how long we will have to be so cautious, and I long for normalcy.

We sleep; we listen to the radio; we exchange information. Mostly, we have been trying to stay alive and sane since that Tuesday afternoon a week ago when the earthquake changed our lives forever. It doesn’t help that the earth continues to convulse. Just this morning, we felt another tremor, the most violent since the earthquake itself. Let us hope it did not cause more deaths and damage.

In an already impoverished country, the level of displacement due to this cataclysmic environmental disaster escalated to epidemic proportions. With 230,000 deaths at least, 300,000 injured, and 7.8 billion dollars in damages, in August Her Blueprint published Haiti: Displacement, TB, and Progress?, which cited over 1.2 million people were living in tent cities and that safety and health concerns for women and children were fast-becoming a highly relevant issue post-earthquake. Although Évelyne Trouillot's eloquent Aftershocks calls in vain hope for the short-term aftershocks themselves to not bring more death and damage, what kind of long-term aftershocks are the country facing and what kind of strategies are evolving to protect the most vulnerable?

Six Months Post-Quake

Recently, I spoke with Joanne Blakemore who arrived to Port-au-Prince, Haiti on June 12, the quake's six month anniversary. With a background in third-world travel, humanitarian causes, and relief work, Joanne had done Katrina hurricane relief work as well in Mississippi.

"I was in Haiti pre-hurricane season. Commercial enterprise seemed to be functioning. Children seemed not to be starving. But, I thought it made Biloxi, Mississippi [post-Katrina] look like West Chester. The tents these women and children are living in are miniscule. You can’t stand up in them."

Outright distress, post-traumatic stress disorder, and health and safety concerns was the tone coming out of the camps when Ms. Blog broke the story along with AWID of MADRE's report, Our Bodies Are Still Trembling: Haitian Women's Fight Against Rape, and its findings regarding rape in the tent cities.

"Six months after the earthquake in Haiti, we see a continued crisis of safety and security in the displacement camps that has exacerbated the already grave problem of sexual violence. We found that women are being raped at an alarming rate-every day-in camps throughout Port-au-Prince. The Haitian Government, the UN, and others in the international community have failed to adequately address the situation. Women, especially poor women, have been excluded from full participation and leadership in the relief effort."

Enter acknowledgment of one of the biggest challenges of Haiti along with eviction, education, and myriad health concerns: the safety of women and children.

Nine Months Post-Quake

In September, the tent cities were still just as large as ever with around 1 million people displaced, and the weariness of those contained within them were again being expressed by major news outlets as were the overt safety concerns for women and children. On September 19, the New York Times published Haitians Cry in Letters: ‘Please — Do Something!’. The title of the article is culled from a direct quote from Ms. Saint Hilaire, 33, who shared in a letter posted to the boxes put up by the International Organization for Migration, about how she and her children are "stranded in a camp annex without a school, a health clinic, a marketplace or any activity at all."

"Please — do something!" she wrote from Tent J2, Block 7, Sector 3, her new address. "We don’t want to die of hunger and also we want to send our children to school. I give glory to God that I am still alive — but I would like to stay that way!"

Ten Months Post-Quake and Counting

On October 7, 2010, Bloomberg published Haiti Earthquake Camps Expose Women to Sex Violence, which cites that as a country Haiti had significant problems with sexual violence pre-quake, but that post-quake the numbers are staggering. “Living in squalid, overcrowded and spontaneous camps for a prolonged period has aggravated levels of violence and appalling standards of living,” the Refugees International report said. The humanitarian response to the earthquake “appears paralyzed.”

In fact, the title of the Refugees International October 6 report, Haiti: Still Trapped in the Emergency Phase, shares the exact issue at hand: long-term strategies are not taking shape or evolution. The report explains in detail how "enhancing proper leadership, enhancing the security for displaced women, improving camp management, bridging the communication gap, and decentralizing resources to promote recovery" are integral to moving past the emergency phase into effective long-term strategies for the country's recovery.

Photo credit: Ms. Magazine Blog