Tareto Maa: changing FGM/C practices from within.

 How good it feels, after a period of absence,to write a blog post about something so important to me on International Day of Zero Tolerance to FGM, 6th February 2011. And how proud I feel to not only write about such a passionate subject of mine but to say I, and others with me, are  doing something concrete to help eradicate this practice.

A year ago, I was privileged to discover a truly grass-roots project, headed by one FGM survivor, a woman named Gladys Kiranto. This blog post is to highlight her work, my own journey in aiding her to fulfill a desire to build a refuge centre for girls fleeing FGM/C and to provide an education for these young people. Activist in this field know full well that we have many papers, documents, treaties and laws all aimed at preventing and erasing FGM/C  but that it still continues unabated because of the ingrained culture of citizens practicing this tradition. We in the west may be criticised for what is seen as evangelical zeal, to stop what we perceive to be this barbaric torture, by imposing our own standards of civilisation from the outside to within these communities. Yet, how do we really know and understand their problems of poverty and of acceptance, their culture and rites over our own desire for human rights.  This is why grass-roots projects such as Tareto Maa, supported by outside finance, will, drive, work and vision helps people from within the culture that embraces FGM to make the transition from the knife to an alternative rite of passage for a young female in Kenya, as one example.

So let me introduce to Tareto Maa and you can find as a start some information here.http://www.tareto-maa.org/

 What has been so successful to date about this project is that there has been a collective will of local people, who have set up this organisation, backed by the community’s church to make this project prosper and grow, yet in no way are they dismissing the Maasai culture of which they are proud. What has been so special for me is to be an accepted part of something which has started small, and now has grown to an extent that Tareto Maa is spilling out from its borders of the Transmara region, Kilgoris and beyond Kenya. People from America, Sweden and other parts of the world are beginning to see the power that is within Tareto Maa and are increasingly becoming part of the bigger picture. The catalyst for this, which has been the power house of lifting such a  grass-roots project to the tree tops has come from Germany, and more centrally Berlin. Supporters met with Gladys Kiranto  last August in Berlin and it was truly memorable as we talked about the future of Tareto.

 The focus of German assistance is from an organisation called betterplace and you can find this here http://www.betterplace.org/organisations/tareto-maa. Betterplace has been the centre of fund collection and project fund-raising and this last October we achieved the 5000 Euros needed to build our rescue shelter to house new girls fleeing FGM and early enforced marriage. There has also been a second big influence which has lit the touch-paper for spreading Tareto Maa globally. That being the micro-finance organisation Kiva.org and the Tareto Maa group set up by my husband. This has brought not only interest but donations too. You can find our Kiva group here.http://www.kiva.org/team/tareto_maa Finally we have a Facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/update_security_info.php?wizard=1#!/group.php?gid=136018319743141 and we communicate our news and fundraising events there. Our plan is to eventually have all these sites under one roof, via a website. and this is in an early stage of development.

Currently, our number of girls have far outstripped the resources we have. Initially 23 girls were housed by Gladys. This year, with our promotion and hard work, we now are looking after over 70 girls. For the Maasai tribe the ” circumcision” season starts in December but this year it arrived earlier and there was a race against time to get the shelter complete. Hindered by heavy rain which made roads impassable to get the raw materials where they needed to be, never-the-less, the shelter was up for the new year and the girls celebrated with a party.

So where do we go from here? Our next push is to create funding via individual child sponsorships so all the girls can go to school. This is a big step but so far we have secured 16 child sponsorships. Education is so important for the child’s future and for her to not only support herself but to help her family. This is where dear READER you can help. Please we need more people to sponsor a girl. The cost in English money is £21 a month or 70 pence per day  If you want to help in the battle against FGM and wish to do something in a direct way, this is what you can do. Also come and join us on any of our groups, or on betterplace as a supporter. Spread the word about us and leave any comments on this blog. All this is very much appreciated. Please leave a comment here if you would like more information re: the child sponsorships and I will contact you personally.

TOGETHER WE CAN HELP ERADICATE FGM. SUPPORT US TODAY AND START MAKING A DIFFERENCE ! THANK YOU.

Hitting Women on Facebook

Facebook is as popular, if not more popular than twitter or any other social networking site. I know many people who use it, like it and gain great pleasure from it. There are many groups big and small, some typical ones and some quirky ones. People make friends and it seems a great place of enjoyment. People making friends who want to connect. 

Causes and concerns are set up as groups, and I recently have been attracted to Facebook by joining a woman’s group with an interest close to my heart.

However, I was horrified beyond belief yesterday when I saw this. A group set up called Hitting Woman. At time of writing it has attracted 65 fans from 24 yesterday afternoon and appears to be growing strong. The picture attached to the group’s page states just what it is: a site that appears to encourage the abuse and violence towards women.

I reported the page immediately. But what the hell is Facebook doing allowing this on here? There appears to be no e-mail contact anywhere to write to the site. I wrote my comments of complaint by clicking report this page, under the title inappropriate content. A standard message flashes up on the screen, that no personal replies will be made.

Ok, Facebook is a big place and it can not be expected to reply to every comment made- perhaps. Yet, this site is still there. I have a feeling it may have been taken off once already to only be put back on again. Other sites such as flickr and Twitter do have an proper vetting system where individuals can have accounts suspended if violations of conduct occur.

I would need to look into this with Facebook. So I need your feedback here and your help. For those of you who know Facebook far better than me, I need to know what we can do to shut this group down and ideally to suspend the accounts of the individuals who have joined.

I realise the problem here that you can pop up with another name and start all over again with these sites, if suspended. Facebook, as with other social sites, need to look into this. There must be something we can do. Or sadly, is this an example of sinister activity that we just have to sit by and can do nothing about???

I have posted comments and links on my wall and feed on Facebook with no response to date. This is another way for me to highlight this appalling little group.

Reviews have been left on the site and I have been tempted to write my own comments which would make people see me in a new light.  I think you would be surprised by my language and word usage there. However, I have not done so, as does this not give them the attention they crave? And I don’t think such sick bastards would care two hoots about what I have got to say to them anyway. The only message that would get threw to them is, if women rose up against them and gave them a bloody good hiding such as they would want to give us. Then they might get the message.

So what can be done? I have already said to Facebook that I will be shutting my account down within the week if this is not sorted and will encourage anyone else to do so. I know I have no right to ask anyone to do this but it would be great if people did and tell Facebook just what we think. My one account closure isn’t going to make a scrap of difference to them. But it is my statement to say I won’t participate in a site that allows this. It is my principle here.

Your comments and suggestions please. But most of all your actions are appreciated!

The Silent Sexual Genocide of Females

The 6th February is International Female Genital Mutilation Day and is dedicated to the aboilition of what one survivor has described as vaginal genocide.

Many blog posts today, supporting this day of awareness, will speak out in various tongues all over the world, the terrible statistics of one of the most hideous and silent crimes done to girls and young women in 28 African countries alone and others nations worldwide.

My blog post is aimed at those who have some basic knowledge of the mutilation and torture that FGM is and how there is an aim to see the crime abolished by the next generation- if the practice has any chance of ceasing at all by then.

How can we stop it? How can we change the cultural attitudes and the empowerment of men over women’s bodies? A practice so entrenched in tradition that girls, unless controlled by suppression of their sexuality at this most basic, hideous level,will not be able to marry and have any chance of surviving in their country at all, with honour and acceptance by their own people, both men and women. ( Yes, the women’s attitudes have to change as well).

We have passed International laws aiming to outlaw it by making it a criminal offence. Reports and manifestos are written detailing how FGM should be stopped. There are groups and individuals, survivors of the practice worldwide and NGO’S working tirelessly day and night to stop this practice, with meetings, articles, voices and committees. Strategies, targets and polices are all there. Detailed research giving some idea of the scale is well documented,( though correct figures as to the scale of the problem may never be known), given the difficulties of collecting data out there in rural areas and tribal villages, where deaths are hushed up and suffering quietly hidden away. 

Yet, As I write this post, one girl approx every 15 seconds are having their genitals hacked into, removed, some never to heal. To bleed, to have infections, to develop gangrene and yes, even to die. The survivors can have a life time of injury, of pain and health complications. Go to any FGM website to discover the facts and the misery that embodies FGM, for yourself, in terms of health and mortality.

My own thinking has changed in recent times as I delve more into this sensitive and totally complicated subject. One answer to me seems clear. FGM has to be tackled on the inside, by the people, for the people. You can’t crack a nut with a sledge hammer. It would be easy for “us” the uncut to roller-coaster in and say STOP! You can’t do this. It doesn’t work. Such pressure has been met with a wall of resistance, eg, in the Gambia in 1997. An opinion that “We” the un-cut know nothing about how these people live. What problems they are up against, of poverty, of basic lack of education. Of a status that means that if you are uncut then you will be deemed inferior, unclean, unmarriageable and are stigmatised.

I have read literature over and over about the education of girls being the key, which yes, I agree with in spades , but how can we change the attitudes of The Husband, The African man, The Muslim man, The Chief Elder of the tribe, the Father figure and say?

” You do not need to mutilate your women, rip out their clitoris to subdue and control them. To make them sexually faithful and compliant. They will and can give you so much more without you doing this”

If we are ever to abolish FGM, the political will of all the Governments,where this is practice occurs  have to be on-side. But also, there needs to be  a cultural shift of attitudes of the people whose lives are directly affected by it . That is the mine-field of work that lays ahead. And we are still a long, long way from achieving that goal.

There has been progress with local initiatives at grass-roots level which has seen the change. Alternative rites of passage, where the tradition of the girl reaching maturity can be honoured, without the need for cutting is one example. A softer approach where this subject is raised with sensitivity and care has produced more lasting results.To go into a country and condemn FGM will just fail in the large part. Discussion and help with community projects, healthcare, clean water and a working and committed knowledge of helping these people in other areas of their lives will potentially reap more benefits in the long-run.

 Local women empowered to set up communities where health and living standards in villages can be improved creates the intial focus of change. Local and international charities can facilitate and tap into this work and be seen as a help not as an interference. This is one way of gaining something so vital: trust not condemnation and what can be viewed as potential interference from outsiders.

We must not forget the mutilators themselves. We  see these people as The Enemy but they to can often be victims of circumstance. The mutilators are held in esteem in their communities. These women are often paid, and could be facing extreme poverty themselves.This work may be their main life-line for income. These are women who can be grandmothers and birth attendants whose efforts are not seen as being harmful by some. (However, the mutilated have often a different view on this and rightly so). Their practice is seen as ensuring a women’s  rite of passage to maturity and eventual motherhood. Motherhood is held in high esteem, where a women’s value is measured by her ability to have children. These women feel they are giving a right and just service to their communities, even when the consequences of mutilation is terrifying and life-changing for the girls involved.

I have read initiatives where mutilators are found alternative employment and are encouraged to abandon the practice, when practical and acceptable solutions are found for them. And when their own attitudes to the need for FGM changes but are not imposed on them. We just have to keep working with these people. But the people who need to work with them ideally need to be one of them, who have an in-depth understanding of their daily lives and their principles.

 If men can see  the benefits to themselves, as a result of their women being educated, in better health, by not being mutilated, then their attitudes might begin to change. Women running small businesses with micro-financed loans via Kiva is one example which benefits the whole family.This may be one way of seeing that their status need not be threatened and where their family can prosper with them as the head. That their standing in the community will be increased, if their wives and families can work and improve the family’s prosperity.

I am still not sure how best it is to approach the male thinking over the unneccessary need to control a woman’s fidelity. But I do know that women desperately need good contraception and basic family planning, which is one of the biggest health and human rights needs of women today in the Developing World. I need to research this more and welcome your views.  We need to educate the girls. But we need to educate the boys as well.

Finally, the whole value of a woman’s price and a woman’s life has to be addressed. This violence has to stop. It’s just a question of how, taking all the difficulties into consideration that we can do it. We have to work as a team, to connect, to speak together, to share ideas and to act together, so that the “inside” can change and we can watch, do and share in it’s happening and success.

 At least 480 girls will have been cut by the end of writing and editing this post. How can we stop, just one, two, hundreds, thousands, all of them? This is my mission, my cause, my fight, even to save one. This is why I write and work and will do so forever as long as I can and have a voice.

This is Zero Tolerance Day to Female Genital Mutilation. We can stop it. We must stop it. And today or tomorrow is not soon enough.

Women and the Sky (part three).

This blog’s aim is to give a conclusion to the previous two posts and to re-enforce how much impact reading “ Half the Sky” has had on me. As I stated in part two, once I had read this book, then my feeling was that I had to take some positive action.

This list is what is being done now,with even greater emphasis, and what will be done in the future:

1) It was soon clear, by chapter two, that sponsoring a child would be definite way of lifting, or at least considerably reducing a child’s risk of being sold into sexual slavery. There was no surprises when this was stated as one of the points raised at the book’s end. I have looked at suitable child sponsorship websites and most likely will be choosing Action Aid. My choice of country will be India, where the highest rates of prostitution and child sexual slavery exists. The aim is to have an Indian child sponsorship in place by the end of January at a cost of £15 per month. This will be a firm long-term commitment.

 2) I already had heard of Kiva and have two loans already in place for two women. One lives in Peru and one In Africa. Once the money has been re-paid I will then look at helping another two women.

3) Networking with other people is hugely important. I have forged more links with people, via twitter, WordPress (blog) and Facebook and this has been hugely exciting and rewarding. I recently met with people from FORWARD at Amnesty International London and this was very positive.

4) My strong interest in FGM/C is well-known among my closest friends and contacts. However, I have written very little about it and have been very silent in many ways surrounding this subject. This has been because I felt sometimes embarrassed writing about it, talking about genitalia and circumcision. A very sensitive subject many could find offensive. However, the silence is now off on this and I will be showing more of what I am learning, reading and doing as well as campaigning against it.

5) Finally, my training for a local race in May for my women’s causes goes on - all be it the snow has halted training at the moment.  There may have to be some changes to the races’ aims because of the weather and my own difficulties with training over the last three months. However, the beneficiaries for this effort will be FORWARD and the Women’s Resource Centre UK. There will be a separate blog about the race in the next month.

I have only made five statements here because I intend to fulfill each one of them. I don’t often make a New Year resolution but I made one this year which for me applies to all areas of my life. To set achievable goals that I can do, can stick to, and that I will see through to the end. To work when work needs doing and as well as recreation. 

 With this in mind, I will now get on and work on these. In six months, I will give an update saying what has happened as a result.

Women and the Sky ( part two)

A review of the book ” Half The Sky. Turning oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide”.  Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. (2009) USA.

“Leave your heart behind”, I told myself as I was reading chapter six. A particular section I was struggling with was the story you may have read in my earlier blog, the Prologue about Mahabouba.

If anyone dares venture into this book they need two things: first, the ability to desensitize themselves from true horror (that is fact and not fiction), and secondly, a strong and compelling interest in the human rights and dignity of woman, with a desire for change and justice. I met the second criterion easily. The first had to be soon learned, otherwise I would have never got to the end. 

Half the Sky gives you little time for polite introductions. You are transported right at the very start, into the author’s world of grimness. A compelling force of authority on their subjects which hooked me in right from the outset.

The first five chapters are fast and as dark as any Black Hole in space. The vastness of suffering and human rights abuses, involving young girls and women, which is the main focus of the book, has detailed first hand accounts and knowledge which is well argued and presented. In fact, this is what impressed me most about this work. The incredible depth, research and detail with compelling authority  these authors clearly had in their subject areas.

This is no light weight book which can require lazy reading. I think we have well established that fact already. The book, whilst easy to read in its language use, took much of your concentration and thinking. Not only because you became so absorbed in the people stories and lives but you needed to keep up with all the detail of names and events. I sometimes had to re-read certain sections.

In spite of this, the first 100 pages of the 252 was finished by the first evening of introduction. This is a ” can’t put it down book” in all of its awesome content. Those first 100 pages discussed and informed you about the types of violence against women, including sexual violence. Sexual trafficking, prostitution, rape, honour killings and maternal health was a heady and unbelievable cocktail of jaw dropping stuff. I gasped and held my hands to my forehead several times as I tried to comprehend just what I was absorbing from the words on the page.

Other subjects discussed later concentrated on what could be done to help the empowerment and emancipation of these girls and women against the violence committed mainly by men, in a world where a female has no voice and  treated as if they are little more than cattle in a market stall.

Family planning, shamefully lacking and one of the most urgent health needs of women worldwide is addressed. Education- the key to a females future and her best weapon against violence, disease and poverty is discussed in length. Micro-financing, so women could lift themselves out of poverty was another tool, and the each story told was exhilarating and uplifting, in what most readers would view, as an extremely compelling but depressing read.

Female Genital Mutilation, initially is touched upon and I thought it was going no further, to my disappointment. However, in Chapter 13 ” Grassroots and Treetops” it re-emerged with, for me, fresh and enlightening material. An in-depth analysis about how hard this extreme form of violence is to eradicate is explained in a way which totally turned upside down my perception of the subject: how off course I was. How little I really knew of a subject that I thought I had a firm grasp on. For me it was like tearing up the rule book, the thoughts, the arguments and starting all over again. (It would take another blog to explain this more fully).

I wanted to cry at the success stories, like Edna’s hospital, to admire Jane and her 34 million friends and to despair at how the rescued girl from the brothel  saved but then voluntarily returned. Why? Not because she did not want a better life, but unbeknown  to me, before I read the book ,was her addiction to drugs; given initially to break her will and to make her incapable of fighting off  rape and prostitution, which lead her back to her prison of violation.

Anyone reading this book is unlikely not to want to do something at the end. There are four main suggestions about what the reader can do and a whole host of website addresses where you can get more information. Using Kiva to help micro-financing new businesses and sponsoring a child are two important ones suggested.

“Half The Sky” (for me personally) is the best written work on human rights centered around women that I have ever read. No work has ever whipped up my sense of urgency and longing to do something with meaning and purpose in this area. In my next blog- part three, I will be writing about what I intend to do as a result of reading this book. I have enormous respect for the authors, who clearly had put their own safety at risk to visit, speak to women and girls, and to come back and a write a book that so deserved the Pulitzer Prize it received.

Finally, I urge, implore anyone out there who cares enough about the dignity and rights of women to go out with care and  a dare to read this book. You need a strong heart and a hard stomach for the job but this is a one such work that demands a read.

Women and the Sky: Prologue (part one).

This is one of three blogs linked together by one incredible book.  

“Half The Sky. Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide”. Written by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, for me has been one of the most stunning books I ever read and certainly the most powerful. The actual review of the book comes in part two. In part three, I shall be describing what impact the book has had on me personally and what I am doing  as a result.  

This prologue is to set the scene and to give a taste as to what is to be reviewed. Written in my own words and not copied, I wish to impart a story of amazing power and depth. Of one girl whose plight touched me the most, in a subject area passionate to my heart. Here the story unfolds.  Please read on:  

 

 The hyenas were circling around her. Mahabouba couldn’t move her legs at all, her childbirth injuries had left her immobile and her baby was dead. Now she was fighting to stay alive herself. Shouting and waving a stick at the wild beasts, her determination and force to stay alive was overwhelming. She wanted to live. All through the night the hyenas circled around her little hut, and all night long Mahabouba fended the animals off, until they had at last disappeared by the morning light.  

  The door of the hut, where she had been placed, had already been taken off, so that this 14 yr old girl, frail and critically ill, could be eaten by the wild beats. No one wanted Mahabouba because she was cursed: cursed by smell and odour.A river of misery that had become her short life, of leaking wastes and rotten flesh.  

Mahabouba was cursed by a condition known as Obstetric Fistula, common in Africa, now eradicated in the West by it’s modern maternity care. But this young girl lived in a very different world to the one most of us know. Her own personal world was beyond darkness, it’s injustice and cruelty beyond most people’s reasoning and comprehension.  

This culmination of this terrible scene of unimaginable terror, suffering and misery is one link in a chain that would eventually transport this tender, frail and desperately sick child to a white building on an edge of a city. An edge of hope, health and dignity which can be restored for as little as $300. Mahabouba found herself at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.  

The torment did not begin and end there for this girl. For her, prior to this terrible event, other serious trauma had already befallen her. Sold for eighty burr, ( $10), she became the second wife of a sixty year old man who had raped and beaten her. The first wife was also jealous of her younger rival. Mahabouba was only 13 at the time, and this wife beat her also. When she became pregnant, the girl knew that she and her baby would likely be beaten until both their lives perished. She fled and ran away when she was 7 months pregnant.  

Eventually she returned to her family village, but being pregnant and married no one wanted to have anything to do with her or to take care of her. Eventually an Uncle took her in.  

Mahabouba endured, like many African girls or women, her labour alone. There was no skilled Midwife to help her and she had received no anti-natal care. After 7 days of labour, her child already dead, Mahabouba lost consciousness. The baby’s head obstructed in an immature pelvis and birth cana,l had already restricted vital circulation leading to permanent injury of nerves and tissue.  

Eventually -someone by this time had summoned a birth attendant, she awoke: a miracle in itself. ( Most babies are eventually delivered still born) but a fistula remains. A hole in the bladder, or rectum, or both, where urinary and faecal incontinence results. This is when these girls are ostracised by their families. Known as the modern-day leper and divorced by their husbands these girl and women are outcasts, taken to a little hut like Mahabouba’s and left to die.  

But Mahabouba was one of the few where a miracle can happen and somehow she survived. Knowing that she would die, if she stayed in that hut and with a still unbelievable will to live, she crawled on her arms and pulled her body towards a village, where she had heard of a western Missionary who could help her. ( Nerve injury to her pelvis caused her inability to walk)  

Half dead and a day later, she arrived at the village and managed to find the man who would save her life. He took her in and nursed her sufficiently well enough to save her and then transported her to the fistula hospital.  

Eventually, Mahabouba with physiotherapy learned to walk but the damage to her pelvis could not be repaired fully and she was left with a colostomy. At first, after her recovery, she was given simple jobs to help out. But the medical and nursing personal at the hospital realised that this girl had potential. She was taught to read and write and given more responsibilities. Now she is a Senior Nurse Aide at the hospital and can be seen walking around it’s corridors in her nurse’s uniform, having found life and purpose helping others who had suffered the same dreadful fate.  

The World Health Organisation estimated, and it is only an estimated since no reliable and exact data can be calculated, that in 2005, 536,000 woman died in pregnancy and childbirth. That does not take into consideration many more thousands upon thousands of women injured in the way I have just told by this story  

99 percent of deaths occur in poor countries and the women who suffer this appalling and PREVENTABLE injury largely are left to die. Only a lucky few receive the treatment they need.  

My words can never fully convey the magnitude of what I have just tried to describe. I hope you will read the next blog to find out more about women like Mahabouba, whose outstanding courage against the dark tide of violence effecting women worldwide is an international scandal and outrage. 

To find out more about Obstetric Fistula see Here 

　  

　  

　  

　  

Addictive Poison or Freedom of Expression?

Two days ago, I watched a programme on the BBC called Hardcore Profits. It discussed the porn industry and how company investments, such as pension funds as one example, were directly placing money into organisations that had links with pornography. Vodaphone, BT, Google and the Christian Brotherhood- a Catholic organisation and investment fund were a few named in the programme. The ethics of their involvement and investments were discussed.

This blog is not concentrating on this isssue specifically, though it will be touched on, but instead I wanted to share my feelings centering around the women who work in this industry. This blog has not been researched from an academic view point, as conducting a search on porn was not something I felt I wanted to do, because of obvious safety and decency reasons.

A friend told me once that porn was addictive poison and it polluted the Internet. Yet, 70 million searches for porn are done everyday in the UK on Google alone. People who are accessing this material are clearly wanting to see this type of poison, if that is what it is? And they do this for all sorts of reasons. I stand in no judgement here.

Few of us can claim that we have not seen an adult content film. Sex is dished out in spade fulls on main stream TV. I for one have enjoyed seeing TV programmes  like Rome, and I have stumbled across what would be viewed as soft porn, when scanning the hotel TV channel on a trip to Holland. But what is the dividing line between what is viewed as a nice bit of hot sex on TV and what is seen as pornography?

For me, my definition of porn is where the film has been made just for the sex it shows and is explicit content. The problem for me surrounding the ethics of porn is where a cut off is made between a sexual act which is considered normal human behaviour and where abuse, unusual acts and sexual violence begins. This conondrum then left me with several questions and a complex process of thinking began.

During my reading around woman’s human rights, I have encountered many stories of women selling their bodies in prostitution, and being forced into sexual slavery and the porn industry, in order to feed their families and help educate their children. It is not done through choice and it is often the only means they have to afford even the basics to survive. My heart goes out to them in their plight, knowing the dangers they face, the risk of HIV and the dangers of assault and even death.

So you can imagine my reaction when, in this programme, I saw a woman, young, not poor and educated deciding to become a porn star because it was easy money and a way to earn enough for the luxuries and a nice holiday. I frankly wanted to slap her. Indeed I was angry. Here, I was trying to do something in the world to act as a catalyst for change and to protect such woman. Yet, before me on TV, was my own kind, throwing this effort back  hard in my face. And for what, the nice extras and a holiday. Fueling an industry becoming ever more sick and evil?

I don’t know the figures nor hard core facts- excuse the pun,  but it is argued that  pornography is forging ahead in more and more extreme acts of sex, which is degrading and de-humanising. This being directly influential  in today’s world of rape, sexual assault and violent crime to both woman and men. I have indirect contact with people who work in this field of violence and who are here to pick up the pieces that such crimes create. I admire their work immensely.

So my arguments/questions are  these:  For women who decide to fuel this industry by actively taking part, are they indirectly harming their own female gender? And does their right to do with their bodies as they please, for profit, overide any fundamental  human right for the protection of women against sexual violence ? Do we have a wider responsibility to society to deter such actions? And do these women who choose really know what they are signing up for?  Should we just turn a blind eye, or actively do all we can to prevent this activity, by legislation, education and any other means? Does that censorship of action in turn take away  liberty; which human rights activists argue is fundamental to humanity and freedom of expression? The right to choose!

In another programme watched, a woman frankly told how porn work had left her in her thirties with urinary incontinence. Certainly for her, where she worked, six weekly check ups were necessary and a certificate to prove infection free status was vital for her to star in another film.

 In Hardcore Profits, women admitted that the use of condoms were discouraged. I have also seen documentaries where the pressure of a woman to look like a porn star for their partners encouraged them to have painful labia reductions and other types of cosmetic surgery. Young men readily admitted that the woman they viewed in porn were what they considered normal in real life. Their sense of what a normal female looked like was completely distorted from reality.

In this programme, the lady concerned had little or no knowledge of porn and had only seen and participated in one film. In my naivity, I was shocked at what is seen as entertainment. In fact, I had to ask my husband what the act of a double anal was because I had no idea. The sex acts discussed were frankly, in my view, disgusting and were such a million miles away from any basic human rights and dignity I believed in. I was appalled. 

I know porn is here to stay. Yes, my sweeping statement would be to shut the lot down and to do that people would have to stop investing in companies that has links with it and individuals would have to stop watching it. The film makers would then have no audience and no income. But I know this thinking is all pie-in-the-sky stuff. The product is there and people want it.

The tentacles of pornography is everywhere and even I don’t want to stop using my igoogle or my gmail. I have used services from phone companies. It is impossible to avoid. So I am left with many unanswered, unsolved and awkward questions.

 The purpose of this blog is to raise awareness, encourage debate and look at the wider issue of women who participate in this industry by choice, against the moral and ethics of those choices, when comparing woman forced into this industry, who have no voice or say in their decision making. Also, for the general public, how our choices in what we invest in and what services we access can indirectly feed such a industry and what we should do about it, or not?

Is porn a poison or a legitimate right to express our desires and needs? Given all that I have said I believe it is the former.  But you may argue otherwise. How can we deter it’s growth or stop it if we can and should we?

Discussion and comments please. Thanks for reading.

My Definition of Poverty

I have been truly shocked in my recent new readings about poverty. The words from the pages of my book, testimonies from real people with real hunger, have left me unable and inadequate to describe on here how I truly feel. Thinking about this subject, I soon found myself scribbling in my notebook my own definition of poverty and one which I would like to share with you. My definition will still lack in words and knowledge much about what poverty actually means. But here goes:

 

It is a state of mind and body where the priority is simply survival for that day. A gratitude of the miracle and blessing of having a meal to eat, however small. Energy is focused in just living and reaching out to this next day. All energy- the little there is, is spent up absorbed in the toil and grind of living, to see a day’s end and being alive the next.

A concentration of being able to be the provider and to the share the provision to the family around. For the woman, it is seeing her husband return alive for that day, his appearance meaning that her children will eat tonight. The incredible imagination and desperation of cooking with often nothing of any substance. An existence to provide food and the longing for it, which overshadows all other meaning and purpose.

This definition, in my own thinking at least, appears to be the reality of living in poverty, as my understanding of it grows but in my naivety is still being developed.

• Half the world live on less than two dollars a day.
• There is enough food in the world to provide 3,500 calories to each individual person. More than enough to go round for all. 

So what is going wrong?

People need security and safety more than anything else which includes economic growth. I foolishly believed that a key area of change was access to better family planning and contraception, crucially being one way foreword to ease poverty by population reduction. This in essence is true,  BUT, security for these people are the large families produced, that helps earn a coin and who work to bring in the harvests and food. The rock and only support in advancing years when there is nothing else to depend on.

One way in which the rich nations respond, is to give aid, cheques and handouts. How can we eliminate poverty when such actions give some immediate relief, yet fail to give nourishment and life to those in want in the long term? The solution appears to be more complex than I had ever imagined.

What do you think would help? Anyone out there who cares enough to comment?

Discuss!

Reference:

Seabrook, J. ( 2007) The no-Nonsence Guide to World Poverty. 2nd edition. Oxford: New Internationalist.

The Abusing Silence

 

This post is from my friend athinkingman. He has kindly given me permission to re-post it on my site here as I feel it needs the maximum exposure for what is a scandalous event. The people concerned have not been brought to justice and is one example of how human rights are violated in a momentous way. The blog brilliantly written captures the suffering well and with excellence. One voice will say no more. The blog speaks for itself.

 

The following is from the author athinkingman, linked above, and is his latest blog post. Thanks for letting me show this on here.

 

To deliberately malnourish and beat children so that, in some cases, their bones are broken, is bad.  To systematically sexually abuse them over a number of years is evil.  And for some remote, generalized individuals years later to say “Sorry” is not good enough.

The physical scars of endemic emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of thousands of children may have healed (though in many cases the victims of that abuse will carry physical markers with them for life), but clearly the psychological damage will remain unhealed for many of them.  The recent report into Child Abuse within Catholic Institutions in Ireland (Executive Summary of the five volume report HERE), although exposing the staggering scale of the problem, will not help many to heal.  In fact, the failure to name the perpetrators and bring them to justice, will do nothing but twist a brutal knife into a very painful wound.

A child growing up in Ireland several years ago knew two things: 1) adults were always right; 2) adults who were priests and nuns were especially always right. So, when a priest or a nun abuses you part of you thinks that he or she must be right and that you must be wrong.  And you must be very wrong and dirty if they are doing these things to you.  Years later, when you began to question that and found the monumental courage to speak about the obscene acts that took place, hardly anybody listened to you, hardly anybody believed you. Pressure was put on you at parish level.  You were told not to raise the past for the good of the church.

In order for the healing process to continue and not be sent into almost terminal decline, many of the abuse survivors need something more.  From working with several abuse survivors, I suspect many of them might want:

• an acknowledgement from the abuser that what the survivors said happened did actually happen and was very wrong;
• a sense that the abuser has started to try to grasp the depth of the psychological trauma that his or her actions caused;
• an apology.

For many, justice will also need to be seen to be done.  Actions speak louder than words, and the failure to bring the perpetrators to justice says loudly and clearly: “What happened to you is less important than the reputation of the people and institution that did these deeds.  What happened was not significant enough for people to be punished.  You are still not important enough to take seriously.  You can still be abused with impunity.”

No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the Irish Report, and the findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions – in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report.

The document concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders’ paedophiles from arrest amid a “culture of self-serving secrecy”.  It also found that government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes, and humiliation.

It is difficult not to conclude that the evil culture of “self-serving secrecy” and deference to the church is continuing.  Whose interests are being served by the secrecy?  Certainly not those of the survivors.

I will let some of the conclusions from the report speak for themselves:

Cases of sexual abuse were managed with a view to minimising the risk of public disclosure and consequent damage to the institution and the Congregation. This policy resulted in the protection of the perpetrator. When lay people were discovered to have sexually abused, they were generally reported to the Gardai. When a member of a Congregation was found to be abusing, it was dealt with internally and was not reported to the Gardaı´.

The damage to the children affected and the danger to others were disregarded. The difference in treatment of lay and religious abusers points to an awareness on the part of Congregational authorities of the seriousness of the offence, yet there was a reluctance to confront religious who offended in this way. The desire to protect the reputation of the Congregation and institution was paramount. Congregations asserted that knowledge of sexual abuse was not available in society at the time and that it was seen as a moral failing on the part of the Brother or priest. This assertion, however, ignores the fact that sexual abuse of children was a criminal offence.

The recidivist nature of sexual abuse was known to religious authorities. The documents revealed that sexual abusers were often long-term offenders who repeatedly abused children wherever they were working. Contrary to the Congregations’ claims that the recidivist nature of sexual offending was not understood, it is clear from the documented cases that they were aware of the propensity for abusers to re-abuse. The risk, however, was seen by the Congregations in terms of the potential for scandal and bad publicity should the abuse be disclosed. The danger to children was not taken into account.

When confronted with evidence of sexual abuse, the response of the religious authorities was to transfer the offender to another location where, in many instances, he was free to abuse again. Permitting an offender to obtain dispensation from vows often enabled him to continue working as a lay teacher.

Men who were discovered to be sexual abusers were allowed to take dispensation rather than incur the opprobrium of dismissal from the Order. There was evidence that such men took up teaching positions sometimes within days of receiving dispensations because of serious allegations or admissions of sexual abuse. The safety of children in general was not a consideration.

Sexual abuse was known to religious authorities to be a persistent problem in male religious organisations throughout the relevant period.

Nevertheless, each instance of sexual abuse was treated in isolation and in secrecy by the authorities and there was no attempt to address the underlying systemic nature of the problem. There were no protocols or guidelines put in place that would have protected children from predatory behaviour. The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care. At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely.

Delara: a prisoner of Colours

The injustice of the sudden death of Delara Darabi on May 1st 2009 prompted me to write this first post, after quite an absence. Having wiped my intended post last week, this was not what I was expecting to write about, but here it is and all the more pressing because of this event.

 Some of you would have read in the newspapers at the shocking execution of an young, innocent, Iranian women named as the above. The message is not only to protest my outrage at this sentence, carried out hastily and in secret, but to state in my own words how it would appear that in some countries a women’s life has an unfair disadvantage. The right for a women to exist appears to be cheaper than for her male counterparts.

Delara took the blame for her boyfriend’s crime of murder of a relative during an attempted burglary in 2003. Her parents said that as a child she would often take the blame for others actions. She was persuaded to do so, because believing she was a minor she would escape the death sentence and save her boyfriends life. Delari was just 17 at the time of the incident. This tragically proved not to be the case. The execution- by hanging went ahead anyway. The Head of the Judiciary had granted a two-month stay of execution on April 19th. Her lawyer was not informed either, despite a legal requirement that he should receive 48 hrs notice.

The courts had refused to consider new evidence that could have exonerated her. It would appear that once she had confessed her fate was sealed. Even though she retracted the confession. As I understand, from the information I have read, her boyfriend received a 10 yr jail sentence.

Whilst Delara was in prison she painted many paintings, depicting her life and agony of what had befallen her. In particular I feel for her parents, who, when the police knocked on their door, let Delara go into police custody believing in the laws of their land would give their daughter a fair trial and hearing. They are understandly devastated and crushed by what has happened. My heart goes out to them in very way imaginable.

For me, it just speaks so powerfully of some women being second class citizens in their own homeland and where their human rights are considered second best and cheap.  The male dominated courts and society in which they live gives them no proper and fair justice.Were there any women judges on this panel?

Delara’s family has to live with this tragedy for the rest of their lives and while the paintings I hope will live on as a symbol for the need of justice and fairness in society, especially when conducting a trail and hearing evidence. I fear this  could easily be repeated  again and is likely to be already doing so. What can we do? I feel so helpless in this. My hope is, at least by writing about it I have done something rather than sitting and doing nothing. 

The video shown here is an extract of the one I saw, which was linked on twitter by Amnesty International -Canada.

Please look. Also, If anybody knows of any other action being taken do let me know.

Thanks.