New crackdown on women activists in Iran

- Elahe Amani, Special Correspondent – Women News Network – WNN

 
Photo image: Khashayar Elyassi

While the global community marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a year-long celebration of “Dignity and Justice for All,” there is neither dignity nor justice for women in Iran . And there are certainly no rights, either.

On June 12, the third anniversary of National Day of Solidarity of Iranian Women, nine women’s rights activists were arrested outside the Rahe Abrisham ( Silk Road ) Gallery just before the start of a small, peaceful assembly planned to commemorate the day.

Aida Saadat, Nahid Mirhaj, Nafiseh Azad, Nasrin Sotoodeh, Jelve Javaheri, Jila Baniyagoub, Sarah Loghmani and Farideh Ghaeb were arrested by Tehran security police, along with photographer and reporter Aliyeh Mohtalebzadeh. Of these nine women, five were journalists. All nine were released the following day in the early morning hours.

On the same day, a small group of women decided to go hiking on a local trail to commemorate the day. They were threatened, harassed and stopped by police forces.

On the following day, Mahbobeh Karami, a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign demanding changes to Tehran’s discriminatory laws, was arrested. Her family has not heard from her since and can’t even find out to which detention center she was taken.

June 12 is an important day in the history of Iranian women and the struggle for equality and human rights. It was on this day in 2005 that thousands of women gathered in front of Tehran University and demanded changes to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Not since March 8, 1979, when 20,000 women gathered to object to a compulsory hijab, had women organized a large demonstration. In 2005, the failure of reformist policies, along with a historical opportunity, laid the groundwork for various women’s groups, networks and organizations within the movement to come together and protest violation of their rights.

June 12 has been chosen by Iranian women’s rights activists as the National Day of Solidarity in the struggle to change discriminatory laws against women and girls, and to change the societal structures that have denied full and equal citizenship to women. Many consider this day to be the day the women’s movement declared her independent existence and identity as a social movement, one which often has been marginalized by political parties.

In 2006, during a peaceful gathering on the first anniversary of the June 12 Day of Solidarity, 70 women activists were arrested, and many others were sentenced to up to six years in prison, all for demanding changes to discriminatory laws for divorce, polygamy, child custody, inheritance etc.
The government of Iran claims that these activists are a threat to the country’s national security!

It has been reported that since June 12, 2006, women’s rights activist have been arrested 156 times, and collectively been sentenced to more than 30 years in prison, with a collective bail set at approximately $1.6 million. This is the price that Iranian women have to pay for demanding their rights.

Just in the last two months, during the crackdown on enforcing “Islamic Social Norms,” 1,098 women were arrested, accused of not fully observing the Islamic dress code. Women deemed inappropriately dressed are usually hauled to a moral detention center, where they must sign a written pledge not to repeat the offence, and are forced to await family members to bring them more modest clothing.

Photo image: Khashayar Elyassi

The Iranian people face many challenges in their daily life. Basic freedoms such as the right of assembly and freedom of speech and the press are shattered; there are more than 10 million people living under the poverty line; and the safety and security of women fighting for human rights is more fragile than ever: Women are being harassed and undignified in public for not observing the Islamic dress code; women’s rights activists are continually denied the right to freedom of association and assembly; and even meetings in private homes are often broken up by security forces.

Of course, this treatment is not limited to women’s activists only — other activists, be they labor, student, teachers, journalists or ordinary citizens who dare to demand their rights — are harassed, arrested and jailed regularly.

“The way the government is hounding them, and keeping some of them under surveillance, is an indication of its fear of the scale of this movement,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement on June 13. It also reported that at least 14 websites that defend women’s rights were blocked by the authorities last month.

Iran is one of the world’s most repressive countries toward bloggers, and is on the Reporters Without Borders’ list of “Internet Enemies.” It was ranked 166th out of 169 countries in the latest World Press Freedom Index. Many of the bloggers and cyber social justice activists are women.

Shirin Ebadi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, said in a recent interview with The Guardian newspaper: “Since the world started focusing on the nuclear program, the human rights situation in Iran has worsened every day. The morality police interfere more in people’s everyday lives. They recently announced they would carry out inspections in private homes and companies. In Tehran, there was also a plan to target hooligans on the streets, but it led to a lot of innocent young people and women being arrested.”

But the struggle goes on.

Despite the continuous prosecution of Iranian women activist and human rights defenders, the Iranian women’s movement is one of the most inspiring women’s movement in the world today. Iran’s women continue to challenge fanatic interpretations of Islam, demanding secularism and reforms to strict patriarchal social norms and discriminatory laws in the constitution and leading the way for women in other Muslim majority societies.

Ancient Greek historian Thucydides once said, “Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured.” The support of Iranian men like student Amir Yaghoub-Ali, who was arrested and jailed for working on behalf of the One Million Signature campaign, and the solidarity of other progressive-minded people and organizations around the world that have supported the cause, are statements of the strength of a movement that will just keep moving forward.

As U.S.-Iran relations remain a hot political issue, and the threat of a military strike continues to receive media attention, we must not allow the recent history of Afghan women to repeat itself here. We must remember that in the mainstream U.S. media, there is a short time span between reconstructing the image of brave Iranian women and collateral damage. Learning from their Afghan sisters, Iranian women will never allow the West to make them the poster child for women’s oppression and the justification for a military strike that would “rescue” them from the atrocities of religious extremists in Iran.

Iranian women are bold and brave, confident and hopeful. Their desire for democracy, dignity, justice and respect for human rights will be achieved through the building of a movement inclusive of all men and women who believe in eradicating discriminatory laws, together and with the support of international forces that are taking a stand against militarization, globalization and religious fundamentalism.

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This Jan 2008 Everywoman TV - Aljazeera news production - covers the daily life and human rights struggles for women in modern Iran. 11:51 min.

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- Humanitarian special correspondent and Director of Technology for Student Affairs at California State University, Elahe Amani, is a 2007 Lillian Robles Award winner for her outstanding community service, social education efforts and feminist activism. -

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©2008 Women News Network - WNN

Lys Anzia - Women News Network - WNN

World Food Programme delivers food to Haitian women - Image: Peter Casier /UNWFP

The fight for women against hunger and malnutrition isn’t getting any easier.

Rising food prices and lower food assistance programs worldwide are causing the ability to help women and their families reach the lowest levels of output since 1961.

As food prices increase, the biggest losers are the ones who “have not.”

Global women suffering under severe poverty are often cut short in receiving food allotments worldwide as they try to feed their children and themselves.

The women of Haiti’s Port-Au-Prince are in their own battle against hunger. With 80% of the Haitian population below the poverty line, women are the section of the population that have been hit the hardest. Recent riots in Haiti, protesting the shortage of food, prove crisis levels of desperation and hunger has begun to seep deep into the community at Port-Au-Prince.

To help the situation, the women of Haiti have tried to come up with a solution to the, as yet, unsolved problems of food shortage. Mud cakes or cookies, made from the yellow clay of Haiti’s central plateau region are the recent answer for many of Port-Au-Prince’s poverty stricken women. Providing the cheapest food available, the cakes are made palatable by adding salt, flavoring and shortening.

These cookies are made by women in an attempt to replace the dwindling and often expensive supply of rice in Haiti. They have now become a common staple for many Haitian families caught in the cycle of poverty and malnutrition.

But the cookies come with a hidden price. Eating the cookies up to three times a day may eventually harm the health of both women and their families, as bellies are filled and bodies go unnourished. While the cookies are filling, this dirt is not what it seems. Some of the clay that is trucked in from the outer regions of Hinche may in fact be hazardous. Not to mention, the soil itself has little food value.

While the cookies are consumed regularly to stave off daily hunger, a woman and her children may be exposed to dangerous heavy metals or parasites from the soil used to make the cookies.

Studies of the sites where the clay is harvested to make the cookies does need more assessment. On soil safety Dr. Gerald N. Callahan, with the Department of Microbiology, Pathology and Immunology at Colorado State University states in the report, “Eating Dirt,” that, “Dirt can pose a health threat, especially near sites of industrial contamination.”

“Trust me, if I see someone eating those cookies, I will discourage it,” said Executive Director of Health Ministry in Haiti, Gabriel Thimothee.

The mud cookies of Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

Today, worldwide food shortage is at an all time high in many countries. As food production goes down, crisis proportions of hunger related disease and death is rising at an alarming rate. Since 1996, international food production and distribution has lessened steadily. As a result, hunger among women and their families has risen proportionately and steadily each year for the last 12 yrs.

Humanitarian Air Service flights for the UN World Food Programme to Darfur, Sudan in June 2008 have, also, just been cut as the fees for flying delivery helicopters increase. Nearly two-thirds of the 77 million dollar budget for food assistance programs in crisis locations worldwide has been unfunded to date. This leaves many women at the very bottom of a sinking program, with a diminishing chance to receive any aid for food.

Women suffering in the wake of this global disaster are specific victims of an ever increasing danger. The danger of long-term excruciating, unsolved one-way starvation.

While hunger itself is not gender specific, many victims of hunger are caught in the denial of food based on their gender. Out of 854 million people who do not get enough food to eat, 70% are women. This means that close to 598 million global women live today with daily lives of hunger.

Shortages of water or contamination of water, along with lowered crop production, also contributes greatly to food production decreases. Natural disasters, too, are destroying crops as hurricanes increase in one area and droughts affect another region. The effects of carbon based fuels on climate change, too, are altering the ability for food production to maintain previous levels.

As the availability of imported foods from global markets declines, food sources that are more scarce are being made available only to the most prosperous industrialized nations. The production of non-petroleum, ethanol based, fuels has also begun to divert the current world stash of corn and other grains - all staples in diets across the world.

In Mexico, corn tortillas are a standard staple of the diet. Up to ten tortillas are eaten each day by many in Mexico. As the food crisis reaches all corners of the world, women of Mexico, who once paid 30 US cents per corn tortilla, are now paying close to double that figure to supply themselves and family with food. This places women suffering at the lowest level of poverty in Mexico to go completely without one of the most important food sources in their diet.

Tortilla shop in La Noria, Mexico - Image Mathew Hickey 2008

On the scale of problems arising from food scarcity, girl toddlers and infants have separate conditions that make food shortage often more severe in their case.

Under tragic circumstances of neglect and abandonment based on gender, many girl-children worldwide are often held back from receiving their due share. Often the dwindling supply of family food is kept from the girls as their male siblings receive a larger quantity of any food available. Many times the males in the family also receive the higher quality of food.

It is common in many areas of rural Central India for girl-children to often be the last ones fed. Mothers, too, often feed themselves last after all their children have eaten, as they try to feed their children first on what little food is available. As children receive less and less food due to the worldwide shortage, mothers attempting to feed their children, many times, receive no food.

In trying to understand the main causes for global food shortage, can we find a way to help solve the problems of world hunger and its backlash against women? The history of the decline in food production and solutions to improving food distribution and safety can all be found in the public record.

Use of pesticides, new agrochemicals and biotechnological seeds has produced a devastating effect on women and their families worldwide. According to a 2003 Environmental Health Perspectives report by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Science on the effects on women on the use of increasing pesticides with crops states, “Hormonal changes in puberty and menopause increase a women’s risk of autoimmune diseases linked to pollution.”

Pesticides on food crops create greater exposure, especially for women in global rural areas, that reach levels that are often too high and too toxic. Chemicals used to treat the soil or dust on crops has been proven to have harmful effects on the reproductive system of women. Children under 12 yrs of age are especially vulnerable to pesticide poisoning coming from farmers clothing and/or from food crops.

“Hunger and diminished access to health services, including reproductive health care, are also taking a heavy toll on women, adolescents, and other vulnerable groups across Southern Africa,” said UNFPA Zimbabwe Representative, Etta Tadesse, in 2003.

In rural Zimbabwe, malnutrition due to food shortage makes pregnant mothers much more likely to experience miscarriage, infection and other reproductive failures. Without food availability or safety, women are placed at health risks unequal to women living in the industrialized world.

In 2007, two years after the onset of the severe food crisis in Niger, Maimou Issoufou from the village of Sanam, died before delivering her second twin. Even though she received help to get to the nearest hospital as soon as possible by the assistance of two members from MercyCorps, Maimou could not survive.

Hunger had caused Maimou’s body to become so weak she did not have the strength to deliver her second baby. Because of this, Maimou and her second twin died on the way to the hospital in Filingué.

By MercyCorps last estimate, 10% of Niger’s 12 million people are under-nourished.

Women at the food bazaar Null, India - Image Akshay 2008

The UN World Food Programme estimates that 50% of all pregnant women in developing countries are suffering from food related deficiencies that can be fatal. Iron deficiency has been indicated as a cause of death for 315 million global women who have died during childbirth. Instead of food scarcity, pregnant women need an even greater supply of food during pregnancy, supplying more nutrients, to keep themselves and their developing baby well and alive.

In 2006, approximately 4,000 “crop widows” were created in Andhra Pradesh, India as cotton farmers killed themselves in record numbers due to the severe pressures of debt and crop failures. Cotton has not been the only crop to cause women to lose their husbands to suicide. Farmers growing food crops like soy, onions, sugarcane, groundnuts, spices and grapes have also committed suicide in India in record numbers, leaving their wives to pick up the pieces.

In the small state of Kerala, as many as 150 grape farmers committed suicide in 2007 as farmers succumbed to lost crops and rising bank debt.

Hardships for many other farmers in India has created desperate measures. Bad weather along with the rising costs of fertilizer and equipment have caused farmers to face incredible losses. Even the new bioengineered seeds, which came with the promise to create more bug resistant crops, ended up creating fields that have not been able to re-seed automatically.

India’s National Crime Records Bureau, 2002 - 2007, now estimates that the sucides of farmers has created, at the smallest count, - 87,567 widows.

Because of these deaths, a new generation of women farmers has now been forced to take over fields with soil that is heavy with bank loans. The crisis has left crop widows in a state of great emergency and change.

These widows face extra hardships as legal sanctions in India give them no rights to their husbands land. If this isn’t hard enough, many crop widows have tried to take on the full responsibility of the debt loans left to them by their husbands. Without legal rights or legal recourse in gaining the land, many widows end up, during this process, with an eldest son or brother-in-law who often legally takes over ownership of the debt-ridden property.

Owning only 1% of the land in Sub-Saharan Africa, women farmers provide 80% of the foodsource today for the Sub-Saharan region. A region where 43% of the population lives on less than $1 USD per day. As women work in all aspects of food production from field to market they are cut short on government assistance. Women farmers in the Sub-Saharan regions receive only 10% of agricultural credits given to small farmers and only 7% of farm extension services.

“In sub-Saharan Africa - and this is equally true of other regions with the persistence of hunger - women bear full responsibility for the key issues in ending hunger: family health, nutrition, sanitation, education, and increasingly, family income. Yet women are denied - and systematically denied - the information, education and freedom of action they need to fulfill these responsibilities,” said Joan Holmes, of The Hunger Project, at the 2003 Policy Forum: Women’s Leadership and the Future of Africa.

What women need today is a “field of their own,” said award winning Indian scholar on women and agriculture, Ms. Bina Agarwal, Professor of Economics at the Institute of Economic Growth at Delhi University.
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This short film shows the production of mud cookies by women in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti 2007. Women suffering under severe shortages of food are now using the cookies as a major food source for themselves and their families.
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For more information on the world food shortage:
Food Policy Report No. 18
The World Food Situation - Dec 2007
New Driving Forces and Required Actions
by Joachim von Braun
Link to:
The International Food Policy Research Institute
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Sources for this article include the UN-WFP, US National Institute of Environmental Health Science, UNHRC - Human Rights Council, Global Fund for Women, UN Special Rapporteur - Jean Ziegler, National Geographic, The Hunger Project, Radio Netherlands Worldwide, Center for Disease Control, US Central Intelligence Agency country reports, NGO Committee on the Status of Women 2007, PBS news, MercyCorps, CSE – Pollution Monitoring Laboratory, UNFPA, The Institute of Science in Society – ISIS and MaximsNews Network.
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©2008 Women News Network - WNN

By Shuriah Niazi with Lys Anzia - Women News Network - WNN

- Manual Scavenging Girl, India - Matt Corks 2006 image -

“In some urban slums of many major cities of India, and more so in the case of semi-urban areas, dry toilets are a sad part of the common reality,” said Dr. Sam Paul, National Secretary of Public Affairs, All India Christian Council, a human rights organization based in Secunderabad, India, in a recent report for the All India Christian Council on March 28.

The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UN-HRC), at a 2002 meeting of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, said, “Public latrines - some with as many as 400 seats - are cleaned on a daily basis by female workers using a broom and a tin plate. The excrement is piled into baskets which are carried on the head to a location which can be up to four kilometers away from the latrine. At all times, and especially during the rainy season, the contents of the basket will drip onto a scavenger’s hair, clothes and body.”

In spite of the modernization of many parts of India, the age old custom of using dry – non-flush – toilets have exposed many bio-hazards to women in India who work as manual scavengers. Manual scavengers are, “exposed to the most virulent forms of viral and bacterial infections which affect their skin, eyes, limbs, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. TB (tuberculosis) is rife among the community,” continues the UN report.

This is only a fraction of the suffering women manual scavengers face today in India. Labor slavery, severe discrimination and lack of the most basic human rights are only some of the challenges.

A 2005, US Department of Health, report states that disease for women manual scavengers can be “passed directly from soiled hands to the mouth or indirectly by way of objects, surfaces, food or water soiled with faeces.”

Women working unprotected are in grave danger of contacting countless diseases through their daily and close contact with human waste. Some of these diseases, in addition to TB, include: campylobacter infection, cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis, hand, foot and mouth disease, hepatitis A, meningitis (viral), rotavirus infection, salmonella infection, shigella infection, thrush, viral gastroenteritis, worms and yersiniosis.

Facing the dangers of daily contact, “Ninety percent of all manual scavengers have not been provided proper equipment to protect them from faeces borne illness,” said a recent, Jan 2007, report on safety by India’s TISS – Tata Institute of Social Sciences. This includes safety equipment like gloves, masks, boots and/or brooms.

The use of hands by women manual scavengers, along with the certainty that they will have direct skin contact with human waste, is a very dangerous combination that is contributing to serious health conditions. Chronic skin diseases and lung diseases are very common among women manual scavengers.

To add to the danger, “Removal of bodies and dead animals is the third most common practice of manual scavenging, preceeded by sewerage sweeping, and the carrying of night-soil by basket/bucket or on the head,” continued the 2007 TISS report.

In spite of its being “illegal” the practice and use of manual scavengers continues in many low-income urban and rural parts of India today.

But the law is clear.

The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine Act of 1993 states that, “No person shall engage in or employ for or permit to be engaged in or employed by any other person for manually carrying human excreta; or to construct or maintain a dry latrine.”

Legal loopholes and non-enforcement of the law on manual scavenging continues in many parts of India, even as organizations protecting the rights of manual scavengers present detailed reports. At present the ST/SC All India Commission, representing the lowest castes and tribes in India, has much more to do to strengthen legislation on India’s illegal industry.

On the first week of July this year, the United Nations will be hosting two dozen women manual scavengers to tell their life stories to the UN General Assembly. One of them is Usha Chomar, from the town of Alwar in Rajasthan district of Western India.

Remembering her childhood in India at the age of seven, Chomar recounts, “When I was a little child I would often insist on taking a broom from my mother so I could do the scavenging. The disposal of human excreta was the only thought that dominated my mind.”

“The worst part of this primitive toilet system is the method of clearing these human feces. Men and women, often right from their teens, invariably the Dalits of the Dalit do this ignoble job,” continues Dr. Paul in his March 2008 report. “They literally sweep the feces with their hands using two small metal sheets collecting them into a bucket or bin to be eventually dumped into another larger container (sometimes sealed but often kept open) the contents of which is periodically disposed of far away.”

“I remember the first time I had to carry a basketful on my head. I slipped and fell into the gutter. No one would come to pick me up because the basket was so dirty and I was covered with filth,” said manual scavenger Safai Karmachari Andolan, Sept 2006, for The Hindu news magazine - FRONTLINE. “I sat there, howling, until another woman scavenger arrived,” continued Safai. “She hosed me down and took me home. But that day, I felt like the most unfortunate child in the whole world.”

Making up 98 percent of the majority of manual scavenging workers, these women, also known as “Valmikis,” come from the very lowest castes in India.

As India juggles its many traditions, with an incoming tide of new technological advancement from the modern world, legal solutions in the crisis for women manual scavengers are being lost in India’s longstanding “bureaucratic” shuffle.

The 2007 dateline, set by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation to end the practice of manual scavenging in India, has now been reached without success. “2010 might be a more realistic deadline,” admitted Kumari Selja, rural agriculturalist and Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister.

Placed on the bottom of the list in India’s legislation, women manual scavengers are trapped by Indian society and caste discrimination, as they endlessly bound in cycles of poverty, inequality and lost opportunity.

According to the 2006 FRONTLINE report by The Hindu Times, “There are approx 50,000 - 60,000 scavengers (both men and women) in Gujarat alone” in the same city that hailed the birth of India’s Mahatma Gandhi.

“Mahatma Gandhi raised the issue of the horrible working and social conditions of Bhangis (manual scavengers) more than 100 years ago, in 1901, at the Congress meeting in Bengal. Yet it took about 90 years for the country to enact a uniform law abolishing manual scavenging,” says Dr. Sam Paul.

- Cleaning the sewers of India -

Inheriting the work of manual scavenging from her mother-in-law for 15 years in the village of Tonkakala in the Dewas district in Madhya Pradesh of Central India, Rekha Bai unwillingly continued her position as a manual scavenger. “I did not like this work. But I was forced to do this to make both ends meet. There was no alternative,” she confided.

Rekha tried to stop carrying night-soil after struggling for years with the hard conditions surrounding manual scavengers in Tonkakala. Finally, she decided to give up her “detestable work.” Soon after quitting she had to resume, due to pressures placed on her to continue by her family, neighbors and community. Today, in spite of the struggles in finding new work, Rekha has been able to change jobs and move on.

The outcome in the case of Laxmi Bai of Devgarh village is not as good. After struggling with the work that “no one wants to do” she quit as a manual scavenger, but resumed her work again after staying away only two months.

Vimla Bai and Dhanna Lal, two other women from Devgarh village, faced many similar dilemmas as they worked for years under detestable conditions. Even though they are still considered to be “untouchable” by India’s society at large, they have managed to push through to finally free themselves from the work of manual scavenging.

The Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh has almost ended the practice of manual scavenging. But it is continuing unabated in other districts of Central India. Even though the “illegal” act of carrying night-soil is steadily on the wane, the basic problems for women manual scavengers remain the same.

Struggling to find the means to a new livelihood in India often makes changes impossible and out of reach for women manual scavengers.

Women working in the “night-soil” industry are often caught in an endless bind of indebtedness to the upper-caste neighbor households they serve. As they accept loans from employers for their “illegal” work, the women are trapped in an ongoing cycle of debt. These “impossible” loans, coming with a standard 10 percent finance charge, often leave the women workers in a state of perpetual obligation, servitude and bondage.

Unable to pay back any loan, with very little money, many women reach a point of great personal crisis. “Their poverty is so acute that, in desperation, some Bhangis resort to separating out non-digested wheat from buffalo dung,” continues the 2002 UN-HRC report.

To shift away from their labor as “night-soil” workers, many women in India try to seek work as farm laborers to help sustain their families. But they are often met with discouraging news. Getting these jobs are not easy. Today charity assistance and some government aide is available to help women locate new jobs. But, unfortunately, the jobs are scarce. Most jobs available are usually reserved for men.

Vimla Bai, who worked many years as a manual scavenger in Devgarh before she broke free, confided, “It is not easy to get any other job after giving up this work. People do not want to employ us due to (our) untouchability.”

Despite prohibitions in India, “untouchability” continues to be accepted as part of the normal cultural landscape.

Not all women manual scavengers are from the Dalit community. The Tarana village of the Ujjain district region use women members from the Muslim Haisla caste to carry night-soil. Using baskets on their heads they work at the same pace in the same way as all other women do in India who gather human waste. There is no formal training in this occupation, but the expectations are clearly outlined.

Even though the usual discrimination against “untouchability” for this job does not apply inside the religion of Islam, the Haisla women are still greatly “set-apart” due to their work as manual scavengers.

“I did not like carrying night-soil. But there was so much pressure of family and society that I had no other option,” said Taslim from Kayatha, India. “However, I decided to give up this work after the social workers persuaded me. It is my endeavor that no other woman in this area may have to do this work again,” she added.

Just how much money do women manual scavengers in Central India get for their work? In one month the usual pay, for removing human waste, averages 20 to 30 rupees - approx 50 cents to a little more than one dollar USD - from each household. On special occasions or festivals, women manual scavengers might even manage to get one sweet roti or some throw-away clothes from those who employ them.

The JanSahas organization of India began eight years ago, in 2000, to help women scavengers find a new life. Starting first by helping women find alternative employment in the rural and urban areas of Dewas, Ujjain and the Indore districts of Madhya Pradesh, JanSahas finds it is an “uphill” climb to help, educate and empower the women.

Assistance for women working in the “night-soil” industry is challenged today by a dichotomy of legislative inconsistencies. According to law, children can receive scholarships for their education only as long as their family continues to work as scavengers. Indian government officials say these scholarships are meant only for the children of people engaged in “insanitary occupations.” But once women manual scavengers quit their work it becomes clear – there are no more scholarships for their children.

“This is the reason that many women have returned to this work after quitting it once,” said Mr. Ashif Sahikh from the office of JanSahas.

“My grandsons and granddaughters were discriminated at school when we used to work. Now that we have quit, we are no longer in a position to send them to school,” said 54 yr. old Mannu Bai from the small village of Sia, who’s population is only 2,500.

In rural Sia, many manual scavengers wait for the ripening of crops to find new work. When the jobs do not become available, women and their families wait again to get permission from Sia’s legislative office to work cleaning sewage from the drains and gutters of the village. After only 15 days, though, according to the rule of law in Sia, even this meager and difficult work must be given to another waiting family.

In 2002, recommendations by the UN-HRC outlined two solutions to improve the terrible conditions facing women manual scavengers in India. The first solution: “The Government of India should press all states to implement The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993, and prosecute officials responsible for the perpetuation of the practice.” The second solution: “The Government of India should ensure that all manual scavengers are rehabilitated according to the law in all states throughout the country.”

It’s a shame, after 60 years of independence, after reports, meetings and humanitarian outcrys on the continuing use of manual scavengers in India, that the government of India has still failed to eradicate this inhuman practice. Many of the regional State governments of India have actually denied the existence of dry latrines and the practice of manual scavenging.

Several affidavits and counter affidavits showing the existence of dry latrines and manual scavenging are now due to appear in the 2008 Indian Court.
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This 2003 film, shows the degrading conditions for a Dalit woman manual scavenger. Without protective gloves, masks or shoes she works to clean the dry latrines.
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To see other reports, actions and programs on women manual scavenging:

Safai Karamchari Andolan 2008 report on manual scavenging in India
Public Affairs Centre - Bangalore, India
TISS - Tata Institute of Social Sciences – Ongoing Field Action Projects, Dalit and Tribal Issues
Dalit Freedom Network
Anti-Slavery.org – UN Commission on Human Rights. 2002 report
All India Christian Council – India government report resources

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Journalist Shuriah Niazi is a WNN correspondent based in Central India. In 2006, he received an award recongnition at the sixth Sarojini Naidu journalism awards hosted by The Hunger Project - India. Lys Anzia, is journalist and director for Women News Network - WNN.

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©2008 WNN - Women News Network

by Thingnam Anjulika Samom - Panos correspondent
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Women News Network - WNN

Manipur Children eat kobok, a local sweet. Photo image - Ratan Luwangcha-Drik

When food is scarce in many parts of rural India, girls are fed less than their brothers. But in the north-eastern region it’s a different story.

Tucked away near the Himalayas in the north-eastern corner of India is the state of Manipur. Hitting the national media mostly for its separatist movements, the remote area suffers its share of poverty and hardship.

Struggling to feed the family is a fact of life for many in Manipur and the six other states in the region. Undernourishment in children as a whole is higher than the national average. But there is some evidence to suggest that when mothers enjoy greater equality, their daughters will stand a chance of better health.

Dr. L. Ladu Singh, at the International Institute for Population Science in Mumbai, is one of a team of researchers who studied the weight of 2,469 children aged under three in Manipur and six other north-eastern states. They discovered that, on average, infant girls weighed more than boys the same age.

The research team was intrigued by this finding in a country where girls are often discriminated against. In other areas of India, especially in rural parts of northern states, discrimination against the girl-child starts at birth, and it can lead to denial of food, care and education, as well as practices such as female infanticide.

Dr. Ladu Singh believes a clue to the small weight advantage enjoyed by these north-eastern girls lies in the social status of their mothers.

“Possible reasons for the well-being of the female-child in the north-east could be late age at marriage of the mother, lesser number of children, good traditional feeding practices and greater literacy,” he explained.

Manipur lies close to the border with Myanmar. Here the female literacy rate is higher than the national average - 60.5 per cent according to the 2001 census, compared to the national figure of 53.7 per cent. Its women-run market is said to be the largest of its kind in South Asia. Women’s groups in the state are renowned for their social activism.

In their study published in the Asia-Pacific Population Journal, Dr. Ladu Singh and his co-researchers conclude that the education of mothers is the single most important factor in determining whether children are well-nourished. By contrast, they claim the father’s background seems to have little impact.

At seven months old, Jelly is one of the more recent arrivals in the village of Ningombam Leikai, in rural Manipur. She is already eating the same rice, fish and vegetables that are cooked for the entire family. This is in addition to breast milk and supplementary cereals.

“She’ll eat anything - bananas, biscuits, roasted puffed rice..,” said her 25-year-old mother Olivia, a housewife from the Hindu Meitei tribes who live in the plains of Manipur. She beamed as she fed her daughter dollops of sticky, slightly salty rice. Rice, the staple diet, is the first solid food to be introduced among the Meiteis.

Jelly, it appears, is not being fed more than the boys in her village. Rather, in the absence of gender discrimination, girls and boys in Manipur are being fed the same amount.

“How can the same hand give more to one mouth and less to the other?” asked Ibemcha, of Thanga Ngaram village. Ibemcha has a son and two daughters.

Manipur’s health minister D. K. Korunthang echoed this view: “Why should we feed our daughter less? Boy or girl, they are our children. Why should we discriminate? In fact, among the hill tribes, we are happy when a daughter is born, for she brings wealth. At her marriage we’ll get mithuns (large South-East Asian wild oxen) and so many other things. Having a son means more expenses,” he laughed.

Manipur is not free of gender bias. Some Meiteis admit they would prefer sons.

Forty-two-year-old Angoubi, a government employee in Imphal, waited 20 years hoping for a son to carry the family name. After nine daughters, she gave up.

What’s more, while it is true that women enjoy a relatively high social status in India’s north-east, they also do most of the work in the fields and carry out household chores. Many suffer exhaustion, leaving them depleted of nutrients.

Based on their belief that the status of mothers holds the key to children’s nutrition, Dr. Ladu Singh and his fellow researchers advise that if communities want well-nourished children, they should find ways for women to do less onerous work. They argue it is now “imperative to bring about a change in the occupational practices of the region” to improve the nutrition of mothers and also that of the next generation.
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In many parts of rural India today mothers do feed girl-children less than their sons. This UNICEF report shows nine-month-old twins Devki and Rahul who were brought by their mother to the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre in Kolaras — in the Madhya Pradesh district of India.
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Thingnam Anjulika Samom is a freelance humanitarian journalist based in Imphal, India. _______________________________________________________
 
Click HERE to view human rights reports by Panos-London.
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©2008 WNN - Women News Network

- March 2008 Women News Network - WNN Report / Amnesty International

Violence and extreme poverty in rural South Africa place women at grave risk of becoming infected with HIV, according to a new report by Amnesty International. This undermines the ability of women who are HIV positive to seek and obtain treatment, thus worsening a national epidemic that is one of the worst in the world.

The 124-page report, based on interviews with rural women living with HIV, describes oppressive relationships with male partners, economic marginalization and severe inequalities.

“Rural women in South Africa are disproportionately affected by poverty and unemployment,” said Mary Rayner, Amnesty International’s South Africa researcher and author of the report titled “I Am At the Lowest End Of All.”

“They continue to experience discriminatory attitudes and practices — particularly from male partners and live in an environment rife with high levels of sexual and other gender-based violence.”

The South African government has gradually improved its response to the HIV epidemic through the adoption of the Department of Health’s widely-welcomed five-year plan to combat AIDS, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Still, 5.5 million South Africans are HIV-infected (about 10 percent of the population), one of the highest prevalence rates in the world. Fifty-five percent of those infected are women. South African women under 25 are three to four times more likely to be HIV-infected than men in the same age group.

The report offers specific recommendations to the South African government to address the urgent needs of women with HIV in rural areas. The report calls on the government to urgently intensify efforts to prevent violence against women through stepped up policing and prosecution, and to address the economic inequalities that block HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment and care. Additionally, the report urges the government to widen access to health services for women in rural areas, and help them with the consequences of HIV, including safety concerns, when disclosing their status to male partners.

Many women interviewed by Amnesty International in South Africa said they were often unable to protect themselves against HIV infection because they felt at risk of violence from male partners when they suggested condom use.

One woman told Amnesty International that her husband, a truck driver, spent much of his time on the road. On his days off, he visited her but refused to use condoms when she asked him to do so. After he abandoned the family she became sick, and discovered at the local clinic that she was HIV positive.

Several other women interviewed by Amnesty International described being beaten and forced to have sex by husbands who refused to use condoms.

“Women’s lives in rural South Africa are scarred by persistent violence in their families, homes and in under-policed, unsafe communities,” said Michelle Kagari, Deputy Director of Amnesty International - Africa.

“The co-existence of epidemics of both HIV and violence against women has raised the costs of violence for South African women and girls both physically and psychologically,” said Kagari.

While there are many good reasons to increase testing for HIV across South Africa, the situation is complicated in a context of gender inequality and violence, poverty and social stigma. Women are currently tested in greater numbers than men. When they receive limited psycho-social support, disclosing their status can leave them vulnerable to abandonment, threats of violence and other consequences of stigma and discrimination.

The great majority of rural women interviewed by Amnesty International said that their male partners were reluctant to test for HIV or refused to be tested even when there were strong indications the men might be HIV-infected.

Many of the women faced abuse from their partners when they tried to access health services for HIV-related treatment and care.

“When a woman’s partner is in denial about his own HIV status, he may resent her going to the clinic or taking medication,” said Rayner.

“In the context of pervasive gender inequalities, stigma and violence facing women, particular attention must be paid by those providing HIV testing to anticipate and address possible adverse consequences for women once they disclose their HIV positive status and start treatment.”

Effective treatment for HIV and AIDS requires regular visits to hospitals and clinics for treatment and care. Rural women living with HIV in circumstances of poverty and unemployment face constant challenges in having regular access to food and often cannot afford transportation to health clinics for treatment.

Also hampering treatment in rural areas is the fact that South Africa’s health system is currently facing severe shortages of essential medical and staff necessary for providing a comprehensive service.

Amnesty International USA is currently campaigning in the U.S. Congress for passage of the International Violence Against Women Act, which would provide U.S. aid and support for efforts overseas to prevent violence against women, including medical treatment for victims, economic empowerment for women, programs to change social attitudes, and legal reforms.

“Violence against women is so widespread and deeply rooted around the world that to have an impact the U.S. government must take a comprehensive approach with a consistent vision,” said Maureen Greenwood, an advocacy director for AIUSA in Washington DC. “This legislation could make a difference in places like South Africa, where it is clear that violence against women affects the spread of AIDS with dire consequences.”

To read complete March 2008 124-page report go to: Amnesty International

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- Footage of life in South Africa and an interview with Desiree Boyson, a community AIDS activist who voluntarily serves the people of Wentworth in Durban, South Africa. -

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©2008 WNN - Women News Network

- by Sally Chiwama in Mporokoso, Zambia — with Lys Anzia of WNN

Kapenda Buyamba was only a small six yr. old child during the early days of the bloody civil war in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1998. Today, Kapenda is only 16 years old, but she has already been married for three years.

As if that is not enough, Kapenda is pregnant and expecting her second baby. Her first child is two and half years old.

A 2007 Population Reference Bureau data reports that the current average life expectancy in Zambia is 38. Forty-six per cent of the population in Zambia is now under the age of 15. Thirty-five per cent of all girls in Zambia give birth before the age of 18.

These are sobering statistics for one of the most vulnerable part of the refugee population in Zambia - its child-brides.

Today, many refugee child-brides are looking to the future as they sort through choices that will affect the exact home-base location for them and their children for years to come. Just children themselves, these young mothers are facing endless adult decisions. One of them, is where to spend the rest of their lives.

According to a 2007 report by the UNHCR – the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, more than 400,000 Congolese refugees are still living in exile in countries surrounding the DRC. A volunteer repatriation program by the UNHCR was begun on May 2007 to bring Congolese refugees home over a three-year period, but conditions inside the Democratic Republic of Congo may not be safe for women to return.

Kapenda Buyamba, who lives today at the Mwange Refugee Camp in Zambia, is just taking each day one day at a time. She says she got married at the tender age of thirteen and a half after being impregnated by a boy who is now her husband. As a teenage refugee girl from a war-torn nation, Kapenda says that life in the camp today leaves her “not much to do.” But family responsibilities fill her daily routine. At the camp there is little food for her family so Kapenda has had to fend for herself.

The Mwange Refugee Camp, near the northern border of Zambia, was established in 1999 as a refuge for people who fled the often fierce fighting between government and rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This refuge has been especially important to women and their children. Even as recent as 2007, reports of terrible sex-crime atrocities against women inside the Democratic Republic of Congo continue.

After being invited by the DRC government to come and observe in 2007, UN Special Rapporteur on Women and Violence, Dr. Yakin Erturk, reported (in July) that the actions of rebel factions inside the South Kivu Province areas “requires immediate action.” In the first six months of 2007 alone, over 4,500 sexual violence cases have been documented by the DRC government, UN and civil society organizations.

According to Doctors Without Borders, the North Kivu Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo has been host to intense violence since August 2007. With little security measures in place, Doctors Without Borders has declared that the Kivu region of the DRC is now under a “permanent state of emergency.”

“Violence against women seems to be perceived by large sectors of society to be normal (in the DRC),” said Dr. Erturk in her recent UN report. The extent of sexual violence against women includes “unimaginable brutality,” said Erturk as she described sexual crimes perpetrated by DRC rebel factions, Congolese security/police forces and even former militiamen in the DRC. Specific actions of violence against women cited by Dr. Erturk include the atrocities of gang rape, sexual torture before family witnesses and even forced cannibalism.

With cooperation of Zambian Ministry of Home Affairs and a commitment by the UNHCR to protect and educate refugee girls, the Congolese refugee women in Zambia are pushing forward in spite of all odds to re-establish and re-heal their own society. Some girls are wishing to return home while many others definitely do not.

Kapenda is not ashamed today to say that she is attending first grade at the Mwange camp. “Nimeowa nilikuwa na myaka kumi na tatu — I got married when I was 13 years old,” she said in Kiswahili, explaining the clear facts of life.

Today, exact figures with the numbers of early marriages in the Mwange camp are difficult to obtain, as so many camp marriages go unregistered and are deemed unofficial. Kapenda Buyamba is probably one of the many girls whose marriage will never be documented anywhere.

In facing the ongoing challenges of Congolese child-brides, sexual and gender based violence has been an issue for discussion at the Zambian refugee camps. Namanda Mateele, Project Manager for HODI — a non-governmental Zambian organization that works to insure food for women at the Mwange Refugee Camp — says that her work in the camp also focuses on issues of sexual and gender based violence (SGBV). Thanks to the combined efforts of UNHCR in cooperation with Zambian officials and society organizations, a 50% reduction in the occurrence of SGBV in the refugee camps has been observed for the year 2007.

“Our organization also addresses issues such as early marriage, rape and gender based violence among the refugee community,” said Namanda Mateel. “We have formed an SGBV youth group with 56 girls and boys after we realized that there was a lot of sex happening among the adolescents.” Mateel added that youths attending the youth groups are encouraged to put their education ahead of anything else at the camp. “One of the most important tasks is to try to convince the girls that have fallen pregnant to go back to school,” she said.

The tenants of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) outline clearly that preventing “too early” marriage is part of a broader approach of building a “protective environment” for children. This tenant is now being encouraged at the Mwange Refugee Camp. This policy in discouraging sexual relationships between children too young also aims to shelter children from further types of exploitation.

From its beginning in 1989, the CRC outlined four basic rights for all refugee children. They are: the right to survival; the right to develop to the fullest; the right to be protected from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation and the right to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

Two young girls who were raped in the DRC. It is not permitted to show the faces of these young girls.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most comprehensive international instrument that exists today for the definition and enforcement of human rights of children in refugee camps. It is the only international human rights instrument that consistently uses both masculine and feminine pronouns throughout and makes it explicit that the rights contained therein apply equally to all female and male children.

In great contrast to life in the camp, many current conditions today in the DRC are extremely dangerous for women and children. “Nothing (in North Kivu) has improved for people, who continue to flee the violence. The displaced persons often stay close to the area where they live because they continue to hope to return home. They might be two hours walk from home, but are attacked on the roads and in the fields. Rape victims are often attacked while working in or returning from the fields,” recently said Romain Gitenet, Head of Doctors Without Borders, as he worked from an area inside the DRC.

“Nime furahi sana, kurudi kwa shule (Am very happy to come back to school),” said Mitwelle Mwelu, a 12th grade pupil from Mwange Refugee Camp who is married with three children and who also decided to go back to school. Mwelu says she is very happy now writing for her final exams. When she finishes high school she will also be able to work. She says that her husband encourages her to work hard on her studies as he is a teacher at her school.

According to the UNHCR, many girls today are caught in the stigmatization of their society’s inferior views. They rarely have the opportunity to express their own concerns, let alone have their own views taken into account. Many girls are also deprived of their inheritance rights, dragged into early or forced marriages or forced to suffer under many family obligations.

In certain cases, Congolese refugee girls may become targets of sexual predators. Or they become victims of trafficking as they are exploited in the sex-trade and labor markets. The dangers of staying in the camp, though, are small in comparison to the current critical danger of violence for girls on returning to areas like the Kivu Province.

Zambia is currently hosting approx 113,000 refugees. The UNHCR states that, “In any refugee population, approximately 50% of the uprooted people are women and girls. Stripped of the protection of their homes, their government and often their family structure, females are often particularly vulnerable. They face the rigors of long journeys into exile, official harassment or indifference and frequent sexual abuse even after reaching an apparent place of safety. Women must cope with these threats while being nurse, teacher, breadwinner and physical protector of their families.”

Over the past seven years, refugee women worldwide have escaped from areas of war in Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Today, close to 18,000 Congolese refugees are living in the Mwange refugee camp situated 35 kilometers Southwest of Mporokoso District.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is entering a moment of hope after suffering from one of the bloodiest conflicts of the last half century. Four million people have died since 1998 and 1.5 million people remain displaced from their homes today. As refugees return to the DRC from camps in surrounding areas, they face many difficult situations. 

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Additional sources for this article include IRIN Africa, Doctors Without Borders, The Post – Zambia, UN Press News, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ReliefWeb, UN Radio, Reuters Alertnet, PRB- Population Reference Bureau Report 2007, UNFPA - United Nations Population Fund, Center for HIV Information - University of California, UNHCR – the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and The 2007 DRC Country Report of Special Rapporteur — Dr. Yakin Erturk.
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©2008 WNN - Women News Network

- Lys Anzia – Women News Network - WNN

- Kurdish refugee camp in northern Iraq in the aftermath of the Gulf war -
(Jasper Young/Panos Pictures)

As the sufferings of Kurdish women increase today, acts of self-destruction increase dramatically.

According to a recent (9 Feb, 2008) report by BBC news - Iraq, “This semi-autonomous area (in northern Iraq) is relatively safe, the economy is flourishing and it is regarded in the West as a liberal haven in an often-conservative region. But since the fall of Saddam Hussein there has been an alarming trend – hundreds of women have died after setting themselves on fire.”

Self-immolation, the act of suicide by fire, is an act of terrible desperation. It is also an act of protest. Something Kurdish women have known for centuries.

Suffering doubly today under the conditions of domestic inequality and societal discrimination, many Kurdish women face internal struggles without being able to access help or proper resources.

The history of Kurdish women has documented many generations of strife and renewal.

Divided by the British at the end of World War I in 1918, Kurdistan and the Kurdish people faced conditions that have contributed to the loss of the Kurdish culture. Following the first World War, Kurdistan merged into the regions of Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. According to a 2003 International Kurdish Women’s Studies Network report, 25 to 30 million Kurds live in the Middle East. In the 1990s, after military conflicts in Iraq escalated, 1.5 to 2 million Kurds left the region.

In Syria, a 1996 Human Rights Watch report states approx 8.5 to 10 percent of the Syrian population of 13.8 million, show that “stateless” Syrian-born Kurds “make up the highest percentage of non-Arabs in the region” while they have, at the same time, been denied the right of Syrian citizenship. Under “foreign” designation, in Syria alone, Kurdish women are not allowed to marry Syrian citizens.

In addition to the sanctions found in Syria and other countries, Kurdish women are not allowed to vote, own property or obtain government jobs. Sanctions against receiving medical treatment at hospitals is also part of the ongoing Syrian discrimination against Kurdish women. Sanctions in other countries surrounding Kurdistan, have also had a history of discrimination, prohibiting even the use of all Kurdish language.

Today, as Kurds have fled from regions that have created vast discriminations and hardships for Kurdish women and their families, the Kurdish diaspora can be found stretching from nation to nation – from regions as far away as Australia to Canada.

The Kurdish diaspora involves a “complex of national, international, and transnational political-economic relations,” quotes the 2007 Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies.

The act of “statelessness” for Kurdish women and girls, who live outside the Kurdish governing territory in Iraq, is a constant cultural issue.

“With Kurdish women being women of a stateless nation, they have always been subsumed under the categories of the dominant state authorities. This situation appears for Kurdish women living in their homeland as well as for Kurdish migrant and refugee women,” said Rotterdam, Netherlands humanitarian pediatrician, Dr. Ayten Adlim, Sept 2005. “Along with difficulties to receive appropriate medication for common diseases, Kurdish women face even more sever problems in finding treatment for disorders resulting from violence,displacement, war and torture,” she continued.

The growing numbers of self-immolation cases among Kurdish women in Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan, makes a strong statement. It is a clear indicator of the vast degree of internal stress Kurdish women are facing today as they balance struggles between domestic inequality at home and external cultural/social discrimination.

Today, more than 5 million Kurds live in Iraqi Kurdistan. More than half of the region is governed under the direction of the Kurdistan Regional Government. The rest comes under Iraqi government regulation.

- Kurdish population density in the region -

“I think that women do not want to really commit suicide but they want, in fact, to make their cry for help to be heard and say that they are facing injustice,” said Iranian professor, Mohlsen Janghorbani, of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

“The way they kill themselves is a real tragedy,” said Chilhura Hardi, manager of the women’s radio station – Radio Khatuzeen – in the northern Kurdistan controlled region of Iraq.

The situation of discrimination for Kurdish women in Europe is also a pressing indicator of stress among Kurdish women.

“A high number of Kurdish migrant and refugee women in Europe suffer from psychological and physical health problems created by the experiences of violence, war and migration; often leading to Post Traumatic Stress Disorders (PTSD),” said pediatrician, Dr. Ayten Adlim, in 2005.

“Being isolated and a ‘foreigner’ many women cannot confide to anybody what they have been living through,” added Dr. Adlim, on conditions for Kurdish women living in the Netherlands. “This especially appears for women who are in fear of sanctions either by state authorities or by their own community. The permanent fear of deportation and uncertainty even worsen the situation. Thousands of Kurds being traumatized due to war and torture still have not been recognized as political asylum seekers. Just to give an example: A mother with two children, whose husband was killed by so-called ‘unknown forces’ while she was raped by Turkish soldiers, now has been waiting for 10 years for the Dutch authority’s decision on her asylum application.”

Even under conditions of unending internal and external oppression, while simultaneously embracing the modern and ancient world today, many Kurdish women have attempted to hold on to their own cultural history and memory.

Kurdish women do have a history of pride and accomplishment in social responsibility. As far back as 1919, the Kurdish women’s organization, “Society for the Advancement of Kurdish Women,” was formed in exile in Istanbul by a group of women who had once held positions of authority in Kurdish aristocracy. This organization, while working under harsh circumstances, helped rescue many Kurdish widows and children from the effects of the ravages of World War I. They aimed closely to protect women and children from the forced migrations and Kurdish massacres of post world war.

- Kurdish refugee mother near Suleymaniye, Iraq, March 1991. (image/UN cyberschoolbus) -

In 1999, in a call to action to help women in Iraq who faced various threats from domestic violence to “honour killings,” the Nawa Center for Women in Distress opened its shelter in Iraqi Kurdistan. Its mission is to help women who are suffering under severe psychological stress, following years of domestic violence and oppression.

Founded in June 2004, the KWRW – Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch, a network of Kurdish and non-Kurdish women and men, including community activists, academics, lawyers as well as legal professionals and journalists, works with human rights and women’s rights organizations inside and outside of Kurdistan.

The Kurdistan Women Union – KWU, located in the northern region of Iraq, has also been closely involved in the advancement of Kurdish women. Through KWU promotion of programs, Kurdish women have become more active in Kurdish parliamentary government. The number of Kurdish female lawyers is also on the rise.

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- A short film showing the resiliency of the Kurdish woman. -
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Sources for this article include Kurdistan Women Union – KWU, The Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, BBC News, Human Rights Watch, International Kurdish Women’s Studies Network, “The Solitude of the Stateless: Kurdish Women at the Margins of Feminist Knowledge” by Shahrzad Mojab, Radio Free Europe, Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 2007 and International Free Women’s Foundation – Netherlands.

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©2008 WNN - Women News Network

Shuriah Niazi - Women News Network - WNN

- Because of their caste Dalit women, also known as Scheduled
Caste women, are often given very few equal rights or protections. -

Nineteen-year-old Anita, of Raisen district in Madhya Pradesh in Central India was raped by a group of males, on February 9, 2007, when she was returning home after working in a nearby farm.  Police registered the case and launched a hunt for the accused.

A lower caste woman who was part of India’s “Scheduled Caste” was raped in Chhatarpur district on November 7, 2006 by four men.  According to the report, the woman who was raped had gone to attend to “nature’s call.” Police arrested all four men on the complaint of the woman. 

Pursuing justice is not easy for a lower caste woman in Central India if the crime is rape. It is not uncommon in Madhya Pradesh for women to suffer callous vendettas, including sexual violence, for the actions of their male relatives.

The Scheduled Caste in India, also known as the “dalit” or the “untouchables”, make up only 16.2% of the entire population of India (2001 India Census).

Three years ago, on July 8, 2004, three women of a Dalit (Scheduled Caste) family were allegedly gang raped by thirty men belonging to upper castes at Bhamtola in Seoni district in revenge for a Dalit boy’s elopement with a girl from an upper caste family.  A complaint to the police alleged that about 30 Yadav men raped the Dalit boy’s mother and two aunts, having first paraded them through the village.

These are not isolated incidents. 

Madhya Pradesh has perhaps the highest number of gang rapes in the India.  Shockingly, in the last 1,300 days — from Dec 7, 2003 to June 30, 2007 – 1,217 gang rapes were reported in the state as per the Madhya Pradesh State Assembly records. 

The victims of these rapes were largely women who have minority and disadvantaged status in India. Out of the records, 362 victims were from Central India’s ”Scheduled Castes.”  310 were from the “Scheduled Tribes,” which number 8.2% of India’s total population (India Census records 2001). 381 were from the “backward classes,” comprising only 27% of students in higher education institutions in India (India Surpreme Court finding 2007).  And last, 169 of the rapes listed in the Madhya Pradesh State Assembly were from the “general category.”

“Caste-based discrimination is illegal in our country.  But we see that men from upper castes always treat lower castes like inferior human beings,” said Right to Food Campaign State Convener, Sachin Jain.  “Gang rape is one of the easiest means for men to attack a woman in the villages.  Women belonging to Scheduled Castes and tribes are also coming forward through NREGA (India’s Ministry of Rural Development) and the panchayats (local governing bodies) in the state.  The upper classes take revenge by committing gang rape.  These people once referred to as ‘untouchables’ — have attained positions in local governance but they are still among the poorest and most victimized people.”

A majority of the rape victims are minors that belong to India’s lower classes.  Out of 1,217 cases of gang rape, 726 cases cited minor-aged girls who were victims.  Take the case of 17 year old Kanchan, who was murdered after a gang rape as she was returning from school in Chakki Khamaria in the Chhindwara district on August 10, 2007.  So far on this case police have only managed to arrest one person. 

“Everyone wants to take advantage of (the) poverty of these people. One of the easiest way(s) is rape,” said Shiksha Abhiyan Avinash Jhade, State Coordinator of Madhya Pradesh.

Political analyst and writer Rasheed Kidwai feels that rape is, for the members of India’s rural upper classes, a means to show power rather than sexual gratification.  “It is easy to create dominance through rape on the lower castes.” In a Dec 2005 report from Bhopal for India’s daily news, the Calcutta Telegraph, Kidwai outlined how “a 32-year-old Dalit had her hand chopped off in a village near here (Bhopal) for refusing to take back her complaints of rape against two upper-caste men.”

Madhya Pradesh Chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has stated publically that the government would not spare anyone guilty in cases of mass rape.

But the statistics show a totally different picture.

In 136 cases this year the accused could not be arrested in 64 of the cases.  On state government failures in controlling crime against lower caste women, Ms. Jamuna Devi, leader of the opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, condemned the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government for the increasing incidents of crime against women when she said,  “When such is the state of affairs, how can people of the state feel secure”.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, in a written reply to a public question about rape, has accepted the fact that there was a sharp recent rise in incidents of sexual assaults on women in Madhya Pradesh in comparison to earlier years.  Sandip Naik, State Coordinator for The Hunger Project, who currently works among women in the local governing bodies, believes that only a fraction of rape cases are reaching the police.

While mindful that gang rape is among the most horrendous crime for teenagers and women to report to the police, Sandip Naik urged that victims follow through.  Police role in such cases has always been criticized.  Police have failed to nab the culprits in a majority of the cases.  Unfortunately for the victims, they have to run from pillar to post to even get the case registered.

In the case of a 15 yr old Scheduled Caste girl who was gang raped in Shajapur district - a report was made three months after the crime was committed.  The girl was threatened by her attackers and told not to talk about the ordeal.  A police official, too, told her not to mention her rape.  The police first lodged the case only as a kidnapping.  The girl suffered in silence for months but then gathered the courage to come forward.  She then went for a medical checkup.

“It is seen that in most cases the police had been slow to move against the accused because of the pressure from influential people to hush up the case,” said Sandeep Naik on the rape of the 15 yr old minor.  The fear is not merely of the physical assault on the body, but of stigmatization associated in India with the act.  This fear of stigma associated with this sort of crime prevents these women from talking about it.  In many cases the family and the villagers don’t accept the victims.  Usually people avoid all interaction with them.

Sandeep Naik added, “In (the) case of rape, the girl is punished for the crime of which she herself is the victim.  The same society allows the perpetrator of the crime to lead a normal life, without stigma, after serving the required term in jail - if he is caught and prosecuted”.

Sachin Jain is of the view that, due to fear of social ostracism, most of the rape cases in the villages are not reported.  “Sometimes it is the victim who hides the crime,” he said as he added that family members also tended to cover-up the case.  These gang rapes are designed to cause not only as much physical pain as possible, but also, as much emotional pain as possible.  Because there is so much shame associated with rape in villages very few women actually report the crime.  Not only do they think that the rape was their fault, but they believe — and rightfully so — that their families will ostracize them if they report the rape.

Many young girls have been kidnapped, gang raped and tortured in Madhya Pradesh in the last few years.  The physical and emotional pain is certainly unbearable.  It is inevitable that these young girls may fall into a deep depression with, of course, no possibility for treatment.
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- Dalit women and their families in Bapcha village in Shajapur district of Madhya Pradesh are living in fear. The pressure from the powerful is so strong that violence is usually not reported or greatly “under-reported”. This is an NDTV news production Sept 2007 -
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Journalist Shuriah Niazi is based in Central India.  In 2006, he received an award recongnition at the sixth Sarojini Naidu journalism awards hosted by The Hunger Project - India.  As a journalist Niazi focuses on human rights and women’s rights development issues.
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©2008 WNN - Women News Network

- Drea Knufken for WNN – Women News Network

It’s not often that you hear about a small group of female media activists playing a pivotal role in a country’s history. . .

In Nepal, a group that goes by the name ASMITA — which means literally, “dignity” and “identity”— has, for the past 19 years, done just that.  ASMITA has many media forms.  It acts as a print magazine, a media campaign for women’s rights, a research group, a media watchdog, a TV and radio producer and a publisher of educational literature.  Most important, it is a primary advocate for women’s rights in Nepal.  Not bad for a magazine that was permitted to start in Nepal only because women were considered “harmless”.

 
               - ASMITA Magazine Cover No. 65 -

In the 1980s, Nepal was not “journalist friendly.”  The national media was by and large controlled by the state - which was governed through an autocratic system.  When ASMITA began, with its core group of women journalists, women’s rights were just starting to emerge as a topic of national discussion.  Sexuality, rape, abortion rights, property rights and other issues relevant to women simply were not discussed.  A group of young Nepalese female journalists, including one of the (2005) 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize nominees, Anju Chhetri, decided then it was time to take action.  They established the ASMITA Women’s Publishing House in 1988 to fill the communication gap between the burgeoning women’s rights movement in Nepal and Nepal’s public media.

ASMITA was the first-ever public media presence to give voice to Nepalese women’s human rights.  Surprisingly, ASMITA was able to launch its media presence because women’s rights in Nepal at the time were silenced and forgotten.

“Anju (Chhetri) and her colleagues were spared scrutiny because a women’s magazine was considered relatively harmless.  They used the opportunity to espouse democracy, and women’s inarguable role in regaining their basic rights.  While using the media to promote the cause of women’s rights, Anju does not demur from also using it to criticize the women’s movement and make it accountable to the public,” reports ASMITA magazine.

Chhetri began, then, to cover topics that reached into the core of Nepalese society with subjects like language, health, prostitution and rape, sexuality and conflict.

Suddenly, Nepalese women’s issues, previously undiscussed, were brought to light.  Chhetri shared information with mainstream magazines and newspapers.  In addition, ASMITA publications for semi-literate rural women were created with a “picture-heavy” format to help rural women know more about current issues, sanitation and women’s dignity.  ASMITA also began to publish numerous booklets and posters for women, including information on Nepal’s women’s legal advocacy and Nepalese women’s land rights.

As ASMITA grew in its outreach intellectuals and policymakers could no longer ignore the thrust of women’s issues in Nepal — nor the fact that they existed.

In 1996, the Communist Central Party of Nepal, commonly known in Nepal as “the Maoists”, started a long fight to institute a socialist republic to take the place of Nepal’s parliament.  Many disadvantaged women before the war were subject to ethnic or caste discrimination.  The Maoists, though, had a penchant for identifying women’s issues, promising class equality and social justice in exchange for party allegiance.  As a result, they were able to recruit more than 20,000 female guerrillas — an estimated 1/3 of their fighting force.  Most of these women fought on the village level and some became party leaders.

Ten years of bloody conflict ensued with more than 12,000 casualties.  Women fought alongside men and were also subject to torture, imprisonment, rape and murder.  During this time ASMITA kept careful records of Nepal’s women through its articles, reports, and interviews.  They found that the Maoist insurgency was actually producing mixed results for women.  On the one hand, the conflict was creating blood casualties and tearing families apart.  On the other hand, the Maoists were steadily helping to advance women’s rights.

“My hope is that Nepali women, so far excluded from government and decision-making, will have an opportunity to put forth their issues and demands in a constituent assembly.  Rights secured in the constitution and in laws will open new arenas to Nepali women for their empowerment and emancipation.  Ultimately, there must be enormous change in socio-economic structure for women’s upliftment.  I know that this will be achieved in the long run.  Until then, we have to continue our activities for reforms, however small,” said Chhetri in a Feb 2006 interview for WorldPulse magazine.

ASMITA wrote about the issues for women during the war when it said, “Polygamy by men was considered as a matter of bravery and pride before the start of the war.”  (Now) “the Maoists have stopped it not only in practice but also prohibited it by formulating law.”  Before the Maoist conflict women were not allowed to inherit property.  In 2001, a new civil code was put in place that allowed women the right to ancestral land.  Two years later, in 2003, the right to abortion for women in Nepal was also passed.

When Nepal’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed, ending the war on 21 Nov, 2006, widows and missing family members were left struggling in the war’s wake.  Single parenthood, with its financial burdens and social responsibilities, had now become much more commonplace in Nepal.

So had the empowered woman in Nepal.

“A lot of change has come among women after the People’s War.  They have become fearless, clever and capable of speaking against grievances.  A political awareness is rising among them.  The untouchability has been demolished from the village,” said Dilmaya Pun, a Nepalese activist of the Chhing village in Rukum in an article by Chhetri and fellow journalist, Manju Thapa in “Samaya” magazine 22 June, 2006.

“More than 13 thousand people have died during the decade of violent conflict.  It is speculated that at least six thousand women have become widows due to the conflict,” said Anju Chhetri in an ASMITA article on conflict engendered widows called “Small Expectations”.

In 2006, as peace agreements were signed between the Maoists and the Nepalese government something was still missing.  Many other women’s rights promises, still, have yet to be delivered. ASMITA reports that “the women who took up arms are hopeful, giving time for a new Nepal to develop.”

“ASMITA has been able to record almost every event of (the) Nepali women’s movement and activities for the past 12 years.”  It is now using this information to create TV documentaries, radio programs and articles to allow the women and children affected by conflict to share their stories.  ASMITA intends to use this documentation to “help punish the guilty in the future (and build) a nation based on the principles of justice and fundamental rights.”

Through its record-keeping advocacy ASMITA has become the most respected archivist today of Nepali women’s history. Covering education, health, employment, environment, human rights, prostitution, rape, violence, discrimination, AIDS/HIV, development policy and planning, women’s movements and feminism, ASMITA has also kept a close focus on the trafficking of women in Nepal. As far back as 1997, ASMITA knew Nepali women were being trafficked, but at the time, nobody knew the scope or implications of this.  In the process, ASMITA sorted through a decade of Nepali trafficking-related media coverage, legal documents and literature to create a report called “Efforts to Prevent Trafficking in Women and Girls: A Pre-study for Media Activism” (June 1998).

In 2000, ASMITA concluded that, “The proportion of Nepali women presently involved in (the) flesh trade at the Indian brothels ranges from 5,000 to 200,000.”  From this information a set of recommendations by ASMITA was given to the public media, the government and numerous international agencies.

“The main problem related to trafficking of women and girls for sexual exploitation is the perpetual existence of Indian red light areas. As far as the red light areas exist, the problem of trafficking is less likely to end. We found that it is not easy to abolish the red light areas from Indian cities. We came to this conclusion after the discussion with several Indian authorities and political leaders. . . We studied red light areas of four major Indian cities Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune for four months. We discussed the issue of trafficking of Nepali women/girls with several NGOs and activists working the sect