VAW - Do something!

A new study on women's old issues

2008-04-06T09:43:00.000-07:00

A new UN report, which the BBC reported under an uninspiring title "Women face bias worldwide - UN", is out. No kidding? Of course women still face bias worldwide. Do we need a new report to still lament that "70% of the world's poor are women and they own just 1% of the world's titled land". I thought we established that half a century ago. Shouldn't we by now start looking at changing policies to improve the situation of women?

Image credit: US Women connect

While I'm still on a roll being cynical, let me ask what the UN has done for women lately through its agencies - UNIFEM and UN Division for he Advancement of Women? I am aware of all the awareness endeavours that the UN is making, but I still believe that we have to move towards
making some fundamental policies globally. Other human rights abuses cause an international out cry, get air time on television etc, but we are still talking about discrimination of women as if we just found out about it.

If you are in S. Dakota

2007-10-08T17:33:00.000-07:00

October is the month of violence against women awareness month. S. Dakota is holding its fifth Take Back the Night rally on October 10th. Here are the details.

Photo: Women Resource Center

A Biblical & historical context of sexism

2007-10-08T17:06:00.000-07:00

Professor Ali Mazrui, a renowned African scholar has an interesting article here entitled Kenya: Battle of the Sexes - a Historical Paradox.

In this article - which is the first part of a two-part article - Prof. Mazrui explores the various theories explaining the underlying problems of gender-based power struggle.

Photo: Personal website of Prof. Mazrui

First, among humans, the senior partner in the creation of new life is the female -woman the mother. Second, the senior partner in the destruction of life is the male -man as the warrior. Third, it is the power of destruction that has given the male dominion over the female -man as the ruler. The argument here is that the origins of male dominance do not lie in economic but in military specialisation. Women till the land, the means of production. They control the womb, the means of reproduction. But they do not control the means of physical coercion -spear, the bow and arrow and, later, the gun.

Read the full article here.

Regaining self-esteem

2007-08-22T15:07:00.001-07:00

The R.O.S.E. Fund is a national non-profit organization committed to assisting victims of violence against women regain their self-esteem. The organization conducts an annual celebration to recognize the strength and achievements of survivors of domestic violence. The next event scheduled for October 9, 2007 at the Fairmount Copley Plaza, Boston, MA. More information here. For more information contact Jone Victoria at jvictoria@rosefund.org.

He hits you because he loves you?

2007-07-08T07:11:00.000-07:00

Face the Issue's website asks the questions we all are scared of asking ourselves. Listen to Halley Berry's, herself a survival of abusive relationship, short but powerful narration on violent relationships.

The reasons why people don't realize that they are in abusive relation is complex. What I learnt and got stuck with me is that the abuser is "launching a campaign" against the abused. Often, the abuse begins subtly - ignoring, scolding, insulting, verbally abusing, controlling, jealousy.... All red flags of an abusive relationship.

Here are the questions that Face the Issue help us ask.

What are the symptoms of abuse?

Does your mom, dad, sibling, girlfriend or boyfriend:

• Seem like two different people, constantly switching between two personalities?
• Act extremely jealous of others who pay attention to you, or use jealousy to justify his/her actions?
• Make fun of you, put you down, or embarrass you in front of other people?
• Control your friends and/or your behavior emotionally or sexually?
• Have a history of bad relationships or past violence, always blame his/her problems on other people, or blame you for "making" him/her treat you badly? • Push, slap, bite,kick or choke you?
• Try to get you drunk, high or messed up or try to get you alone when you don’t want to be?
• Try to control you — by being bossy, not taking your opinion seriously, making all of the decisions about who you see, what you wear, what you do, etc. ?
• Threaten to kill you or commit suicide?
• Talk negatively about people in sexual ways or talk about sex like it’s a game or a contest?
• Stop you from seeing or talking to friends, family or limits your outside involvement?

You know you are in a abusive relationship if you answer yes to any of these questions, you may be in an abusive relationship.

Do you know anyone who might be in an abusive relationship? Do you know someone who should learn about these "red flags"? E-mail this article to them. You never know, you may save a life.

The faces of victims of a global epidemic

2007-06-28T01:55:00.000-07:00

What’s in a name? The politics of portraying victims of violence against women

2007-05-16T04:03:00.000-07:00

There was this video I watched while taking a training course to become an advocate for battered women. It is about a Caucasian woman from an upper class who was in an abusive relationship. Throughout the short clip, the woman kept on mentioning that she didn't get out of the relationship because she didn't see herself as a battered woman. She thought the term "battered women" applied to law class and mostly black women. Of course, she had 1001 other reasons why she stayed in the relationship.

However, the main story of this woman was that she didn't even know what to call herself or the situation she was in. Admitting that she was a battered woman would mean seeing herself as a law class and uneducated woman, which was not her.

If battered women themselves have a problem with the term because of the image associated with it, what chance is there to effectively teach potential victims and abusers about VAW?

Sokari brought to my attention a recent UNIFEM public service announcement video "Let's end violence against women". A London-based advertising agency produced the video for UNIFEM. The images that stayed with me from the promo video are women living in extreme conflict areas, all women of color and all obviously from a non-Western culture. To me it's yet another wrong depiction of a wide-spread problem as the problem of those poor, far away, less fortunate, less educated… people. The danger with this type of half-accurate portait is that it obscure the reality and send out a wrong message – it's "their" problem not mine type of obscurity. Ask any advocate working to raise awareness about the challenges of VAW, and you will hear that it's making people understand the magnitude,the different forms of the problem, the red flags, the fact that it's a campaign by the abuser against the victim and so on.

Ironically, the video states that 1 in 3 women is a victim of some type of violence against women - globally. And yet, it failed to show the diverse type of women who are affected regardless of economic status, education, race, religion, geographic location etc. It would have been an eye-opener if there were also images of women in business suits and brief cases, doctor’s gowns….

Just out of curiosity, I checked out UNIFEM/USA's website to see if they have any projects in the USA. Typically, the site talks about the plights of those far away women in Afghanistan and Darfur. Nothing about, for example, domestic violence in the US. You search the site for "domestic violence in the US" and you get a page sounding like "web-searching 101 - fool!" I thought the 1:3 ratio of abused women was world-wide not jut poor countries-wide. I really wonder why UNIFEM/USA won't have a single project on VAW in the USA. Why?

What you can do
Write UNIFEM and urge them to come up with a more powerful and more accurate public announcement. As it stands, their recent video pushes the problem to somebody else denying the urgency of the matter at all levels. Write your concerns to:

Ms Noeleen Heyzer
Executive Director
304 East 45th Street
15th Floor
New York, NY 10017
UNITED STATES
Tel: +1 212-906-6400
Fax: +1 212-906-6705

While you are at it, also ask why UNIFEM/USA doesn't support any VAW projects in the US?

Financial autonomy against VAW

2007-05-07T07:21:00.000-07:00

Violence against women knows no boundaries. It affects women regardless of their geographic location, culture, religion, education, class and income. However, research indicates that poverty adds a new dimension to violence against women. One of the commonest tools in violence against women is depriving women of their right to economic independence. Women stay in an abusive relationship if they are dependent on their partner particularly when children are in the picture.

In most of rural Africa for example, women have no or very little income and often money is a source of abuse against them. Poverty coupled with civil wars has a more devastating impact on the safety of women. In places such as Rwanda, Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kosovo... civilian women had to deal with rape in addition to the devastation of their families, homes, villages and entire towns.

There are NGOs which are actively involved in teaching law-income women how to set up small businesses in developing countries. I particularly like this project by Business Council for Peace. It gives business people the chance to mentor women in Afghanistan and Rwanda in starting and building businesses. I think this approach of becoming a member of BPeace and transfer your skills directly to the women who need them is a much better approach than blindly sending money to a far away project and hope for the best.

If you always wanted to make a difference directly in the lives of hundreds of women, here is your chance.

Alarming Bush trends

2007-04-26T17:18:00.000-07:00

The progress that VAW campaigners, activists & survivors had celebrated since Congress' historic Violence Against Women Act of 1994 is being sidelined by Bush's lack of commitment to violence against women. Two problems - shifting the control of program funding from Congress to the Department of Justice and insufficient funds.

If the Office on Violence Against Women in the Department of Justice, then...

Critics fear the administration would eliminate or deemphasize certain anti-violence programs and add funding for new, untested programs. That, in turn, could deny victims access to what advocates say is a "well-rounded" menu of programs that was carefully considered by Congress and signed into law by the president.

The other issue is funding problem. The Bush administration has not funded some programs at all while severely under fund others.

Children exposed to violence.......$20mil/year approved.....Not funded
Sexual assault services act.......... $50mil/year approved.....Not funded
Shelter & services........................$175mil/year approved.....$50mil/year short
Civil legal assistance for victims...$65mil/year approved...$26.5mil/year short
Campus grant to end VAW...........$15mil/years approved....$6.1mil/year short

If you are a survivor, activist or campaigner of VAW, submit your story to Stop Family Violence. They will compile all stories to help the Bush administration understand the gravity of the above matters.

Cursors of societal malfunctions

2007-04-18T19:26:00.000-07:00

My condolences to the families of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, to the students who lost friends and their sense of safety at what was supposed to be home away from home, to the staff who are going to be burdened by helplessness and possibly the guilt of not protecting their students. It's a bloody mess - literally and figuratively.

Inevitably, such tragedies bring bigger social issues to the spotlight. In the same way that Imus' racial and sexist comment opened the door for criticism of Hip Hop's (some, as the industry people would like us to differentiate) female-demeaning culture, the Virginia Tech massacre is opening up doors for various issues. From what I have read so far, heated online debates about violence against women, gun control, immigration and racial profiling are going on.

Jill at Feministe RIGHTFULLY connected some dots about female students being easier targets in past school shootings, pointed at the "theme of misogyny" and caused a mixture of reactions.

To me, whether Cho's crazy actions were triggered by one or several girls is besides the issue here. What's interesting is to see where people stand with regards to issues surrounding violence against women (VAW). The 262 comments on Feministe's post alone are worth reading because they reveal extreme view points on VAW. I belong to the camp which brings VAW discussion at every opportunity. My reasoning is that while 1:3 women is abused in her life time in one form or the other, discussing and arguing about VAW as often as possible is necessary. Several decades after the feminism movement we are still debating whether a woman who has been a victim of violence carries any responsibility for the crime committed against her. Insensitive, ignorant and loaded language such as(via Feministe)"This is the face of the teenage student who may have sparked the biggest gun massacre in US history", calls for commenting/correcting/bashing. It is dangerously misleading and falls in the category of "she got raped because she was asking for it" type of stupidity.

Jefferson of Neither Blue nor Red is discussing gun control in his post What’s wrong with the NRA and suggests some points that Congress should consider. I don't necessarily agree with Jefferson's suggestion that non-US citizens should not be allowed to own a gun. Considering the fact that previous school shootings were committed by American citizens, this argument won't achieve much. Guns should not be easily available for purchase like hot donuts. Period.

It is unfortunate that we still need Bowling-for-Columbine for some sort of progress towards gun control in America. While writing this post, my daughter interrupted me with that hurried excitement that only a young child has and said to me "Mommy isn't it awesome that in America people can change the law if they don’t like it?" Well, today is not a good day to answer that question. I didn’t want to kill her excitement with "Well, 67% of Americans want tighter gun control, but because NRA has politicians in its pocket, it doesn’t matter what the majority wants." I just gave her an unconvincing "Yeah". It is my sincere hope that something positive will come out of this madness and terrible tragedy. I also hope that the debate that re-started is not going to wear off and we resort to sending our kids to school in stab-proof hoodies and bullet-proof vests.

Further reading
Inside Cho's troubled mind
Earlier signs of trouble
Church leaders for tighter gun control

No reason (whatsoever) for these facts & figures

2007-04-13T02:49:00.000-07:00

One blogging-year later, I'm still fascinated to see how people end up on my blogsites (because my blogs are tiny and not world famous). One reader came to this blogsite from Singapore while doing a Google search on "the reasons for acid throwing on women". That left me wondering, is there really any reason for violence against women? A woman says no to a man and he throws acid in her face. That's a reason? I'm so baffled by this that I even looked up the word 'reason' on the web dictionary. It means "the rational motive for a belief or action". Rational is the key here. Feeling rejected, threatened, challenged,insulted, being furious... can't reasonably justify throwing acid or being violent against a woman.

Disturbing facts & figures

1 in 3 woman is a victim of gender based violence (often with the abuser know to the victim)

UNIFEM declares that universal violence against women & girls has reached proportions of an epidemic.

In 2002, the Council of Europe declared violence against women a public health emergency as the major cause of death and disability for women between the ages of 16 and 44.

World Bank report estimated that violence against women was as serious a cause of death and incapacity among women of reproductive age as cancer, and a greater cause of ill-health than traffic accidents and malaria combined.

In 2003, Center for Disease Control & Prevention estimated the cost of intimate partner violence at $5.8 billion a year ($4.1billion for direct medical & health services and $1.8billion for productivity loses.)

According to a 2005 WHO study, more than 50% of women surveyed in Bangladesh, Peru, Tanzania and Ethiopia have been victims of domestic and sexual violence.

In rural Ethiopia, 71% of women are victims of domestic and sexual violence.

700,000 women in the US are sexually assaulted (almost 15% of them before the age of 17)

An estimated 130 million women have undergone female genital mutilation and 2 million girls and women are subjected to FGM each year.

In India alone, there are an estimated 15,000 dowry-deaths.

I hope that my reader from Singapore will get the answer for his/her search - there are no reasons for violence against women!

NO! The rape documentary

2007-04-04T07:18:00.000-07:00

"Why are we silent about one of the most barberic, intensiley painfu ultimately distractive acts that any community can endure?" asks Johnnetta B. Cole, PhD.

Forms of violence against women

2007-04-02T17:31:00.000-07:00

Violence against women takes various forms and it is committed in different degrees. However, violence is violence and the sooner people recognize that the better.

1. Sexual violence as weapon of war.
2. Pre-natal sex selection.
3. Female genital mutilation/cutting.
4. Date rape
5. Bride burning/dowry related violence.
6. Child marriage.
7. Female trafficking.
8. Domestic violence.
9. Honor/passion crimes.
10.Abduction.
11. Bride kidnapping.
12. Sexual harassment at work.
13. Physical/emotional violence by an intimate partner.
14. Exploitation of domestic workers.
15. Femicide.
16. Forced sterilization/coercive reproductive practice.

Stop stoning of two Sudanese women

2007-03-29T17:06:00.000-07:00

Amnesty Internation reports that...

Sadia Idriss Fadul, from the Fur ethnic group, was sentenced to death by stoning on 13 February. Amouna Abdallah Daldoum, a member of the Tama ethnic group, was sentenced on 6 March. They were both convicted of adultery by a criminal court in Managil province, in Gazira state, central Sudan. According to reports, the women had no lawyer during their trial, and were not able to defend themselves, as their first languages are those of their ethnic groups in Darfur. The court proceedings were conducted in Arabic, and the women were reportedly not provided with a translator. They have yet to lodge an appeal against their sentence.

The AI site has contact addresses where you can send a petition on behalf of Sadia Idriss Fadul and Amouna Abdallah Daldoum. Take a few minutes to send a letter to save their lives..

The reasons for a blog on VAW - violence against women

2007-03-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

A year ago when I was taking a course to become a volunteer advocate for survivors of violence aganist women, I naively said that I didn't know a single woman who was a victim. The course opened my eyes to recognize the variety and degrees of abuse against women and now I see it everywhere. Not so surprising as the statistics is that one in three women is a victim of abuse.

A week after a very close friend of mine confided in me about the violence she and her thirteen year old daughter endured at the hands of the husband, the news about Kamilat Muhisin, a 21 year old Ethiopian woman who was a victim of acid attack, came out. (Updates of Kamila's story are on Meskel Square and Ethio-Zagol. So, the least I can do is creat a blog with some information about violence against women, the types of violence, the campaign against a victim (it's premeditated), global and local efforts to stop VAW , what individuals can do to stop VAW, policies needed...

This blog is also dedicated to raise funds for the organization where I volunteer, Harbor House.

Please help in any way you can - spread the world, share your stories, share what you know, help raise funds... Do something.