Women: pillars of peace and change
As in countries all over the world, International Women’s Day was celebrated this 8th of March in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a whole and in both Kivu provinces, South and North Kivu, where the main theme was “men and women united for change and peace”. With this theme as a starting point, several questions were asked as to whether it is possible to have a union between women and men at the moment, with the aim of change and of consolidating peace in this country. Can we talk about unity of men and women in this country where the disparities between the sexes are so profound? Can we talk about peace to the thousands of women and girls who have been the victims of sexual violence when they still haven’t seen their executioners (perpetrators of rape) brought to justice? I would like to know how a woman can participate in the process of change in this country when her presence remains virtually non-existent in most of the places where decisions are taken.
The disparities between the sexes in this country in general and in both the Kivu provinces are particularly evident in the areas of education, the labour market and participation in politics. We can still see that access to education seems to be more difficult for girls than for boys for several reasons, notably early marriage, pregnancy, sexual harassment etc. Inequality in the field of education has repercussions on the labour market, making it difficult to employ women. An analysis of the institutional sector shows that women are virtually absent from the organized sector (the formal public and private sector) which means that 97% of women in both Kivu provinces work in the informal sector, compared to 85% of men. Moreover, 4% of men occupy executive posts compared to just 0.1% of women. The reality is that in both Kivu provinces, women work mainly in jobs which are insecure and badly paid.
When it comes to politics, the participation of women in instances of decision making is marginal. This is evident in almost all the institutions of the country in general and in both Kivu provinces in particular. One example of this is that several weeks ago in Kinshasa, President Kabala reshuffled his government team and in the new team, which consists of 43 Ministers, only three are women, which is unjust given the role that women play in Congolese society. In both Kivu provinces there is not even one female governor or vice- governor, not a single female territorial administrator except for the city of Bukavu which is led by a woman but which is under the pressure of its hierarchy. In the DRC the political system has long been dominated by men, and that is moreover linked to our customs, which often reduce women to objects. According to these customs a woman must always submit to a man, a woman may not under any circumstances speak in the presence of men, a young girl does not have the same rights as a boy when it comes to education; in short, a woman must content herself with household chores such as going to the fields, doing the cooking and so on.
According to the UN and several human rights organizations, there were 14,000 cases of sexual violence in East DRC in 2009. These acts of rape were generally committed not only by the national armed groups and by foreigners but also by the armed forces of this country (FARDC) which were charged with protecting the population. All these victims of rape are today calling for justice to be done and we can see on the part of the government the absence of an obvious willingness to try the perpetrators of rape, beginning with the officers of the FARDC who have been implicated in the serious violations of human rights here in the East. How can we aspire to lasting peace without justice? We want to know who did what and why he did it. This same government is trying to convince the population that an amnesty should be granted to all these warlords, in the name of peace. What amnesty can you offer someone who has raped a three-year –old girl?
Today the perpetrators of rape roam freely without fear; that is the situation for some FARDC officers, notably General Jean-Bosco NTAGANDA, who is being sought by the International Criminal Court but still protected by the government of Kinshasa, and Innocent ZEMURINDI in North Kivu. These two men still hold posts of responsibility within the national army and they have not stopped intimidating the population. The actions of the country are thus a help towards generalised impunity, and this is unacceptable! As for the Congolese judiciary, which should have stopped these perpetrators of rape, it lacks not only the means but also the will to do so, because the judiciary in the DRC is extremely corrupt. The only chance of bringing these perpetrators of rape to trial is to turn to the international justice system. The international community should not spare any effort to put pressure on the government of Kinshasa to stop the people responsible for the violations of human rights in the east of the country once and for all.
Change in the DRC as a whole and both Kivu provinces in particular must begin with the socio-economic development of the women, and that must begin with promoting the education of young girls, because as they say, “When you educate one girl, you educate the entire nation”, and with the participation of women in the various instances of decision making. The peace we are still dreaming of in this country will not become a reality as long as we do not shed light on the responsibility of all the people involved in the atrocities experienced by women and girls in East DRC. We ask that THE INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL TRY THE CRIMES OF RAPE WHICH HAVE BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST THE WOMEN IN EAST DRC.
The fight for women’s rights in the DRC in general and in both Kivu provinces in particular is a long-term battle and it will require effort on the part of all women and those men who have taken up the women’s cause. Furthermore, the international community in general and Sweden (a country in which women’s rights are undisputed) in particular should support the Congolese organizations which are fighting to promote women’s rights.
TOGETHER, WE CAN DO IT!
Each day should be an 8th of March
To celebrate the international women’s day, the 8th of March, we planned to protest for having women’s rights defended. More than 150 women from the outskirts of Durres met, a furious rain was “knocking” at the institutions doors. Many slogans regarding their rights and their social plagues were carried by them, while asking more attention from local governors.
On the main road, constructed last week, women were getting their old shoes wet in the puddles. The rain made the slogans wet, but the women voices were still strong. Education, employment, economic aid, to be treated as Durres citizens were just few of the requests - the dreamed luxury of these women.
Of course no one from the local governor’s office was there to calm the crowd and answer to their demands. They were, together with the employees (women), planning a party to celebrate the 8th of March; what dresses to put on and how to avoid wetting their new and expensive shoes. Biologically equal, but different in the social status. The women who worked in these institutions were equally blind and deaf as their chief to the crowd. Despite the rain, the crowd was for them the sad decor of the cold day of 8th of March.
No answer from the inside of the offices, they were observing the crowd from behind the windows. In the streets pedestrians running to get away from the rain were not involved in the protest. I bet they were asking: Against whom are they protesting? Citizens of Albania are used to political meetings, and automatically suggestions are activated when you see protesters: against Socialist or Democratic Party? But politics should be more than that. Human rights should be above politics. The request to defence the human rights is simply a battle to survive, to improve, and to inherit.
We stood in the rain protesting. At the same time the municipality had their own 8th of March arrangement about the commitment between the women NGO:s to reduce domestic violence and achieve gender equality. The commitment was called “The Promise To Fight Social Injustices That Penalizes Women”.
Obviously we who stood in the rain were not invited to the ceremony although “Association for Women with Social Problems” since 10 years is a leader on women issues in the Durres district. With this protest we just signed our exclusion from the partners’ list of municipality… Anyway we will keep protesting because each day should be an 8 march: to fight for our rights.
Apathy
The past two weeks our organization through constant communication with a Belgrade women's organization found out that our former client, is currently in Serbia and seeks for protection. Namely, the woman has a long history of brutal psychological and physical abuse and violence which she suffers along with her 3 underage children from her husband.
The woman after all the trauma she survived, physical, psychological, verbal attacks, aggression, humiliation and open threats to her life, decided to left the home and go in Serbia where she was born.
Even though, she knew the risk of coming back home in Macedonia, she couldn’t stand to be apart from her children and to suffer even more. So, she asked for help.
Yesterday, the woman returned to Macedonia and as she arrived, from the train station early in the morning she was immediately taken to the center which provides shelter up to 48hr, until finding long term solution. I was suspicious that there are no more people who are concerned to help in serious situations, but my coworkers unconditionally agreed to take a part in the whole procedure. I have no words to thank them for everything they done and for the way they are.
As a part from the solution was to send a request with official act to the Centar for Social Welfare from X city , that we need urgent protection and shelter for the woman. Still, the procedures of making formal decision from the above mentioned institution take some time, and having that on mind, we took the woman from railway station to center where she can stay up to 48h, while receiving an answer for her further protection and sheltering. 1 hour ago we received an official act from the Centar for Social Welfare that our request (singed from 3 institutions involved in this case) is refused
The act beautifully states that:
1) the Centar for Social Welfare acts upon cases where there is an open threat of force where someone’s life could be in danger.
According to them everything what previously happened the woman, all official acts previously submitted to the Center and to the police where the case was several times reported goes up in smoke !
2) According to the law on blablabla, users of social welfare are citizens of Republic of Macedonia. Just for clarification, the woman is Serbian citizen and has not Macedonian citizenship . She was married in 1992 in Macedonia, where she lived, except of occasional stays in Serbia, where was escaping due to escalation of violence.
So, this professionalism from the Center for Social Welfare fully to be harmonized with the legislation I find incredible and marvelous! Makes me for a moment to feel so miserable and insignificant. I nearly wish to have their rigid professional expertise!
So, it is ignored that in the meantime the woman may be killed, the possibility of happening of brutal violence over again is ignored as well, no attention is paid to the entire history of physical violence, psychological torture, violence against her children, the basic reason for existing of institutional protection is ignored entirely, but it is beautifully emphasized the harmonization with damn official gazette , article such and such in order to meet the inviolable expertise of system’s institutions .
I want to take a bow to the Centar for Social Welfare, to express my humility and to apologize for my arrogance for seeking their help and cooperation for such case which clearly wasn’t challenging enough for their attention. Maybe, if tomorrow a woman dies, they are sorry for that, but they are simply doing their job, fully harmonized with the existing legislation. Applause, please!
Avatar inspires peace camp
Coming home last night from the cinema, I found out that "Avatar" has served as an inspiration for the weekly demonstration against the Separation Wall in Bil'in, that same morning. Demonstrators dressed as the N'ibi people from James Cameron's film sent out the message of a universal struggle against colonialism:
http://www.bilin-village.org/english/articles/testimonies/Bilin-weekly-d...
For those of you unfamiliar with the name, Bil'in is a Palestinian village in the West bank. It is a site of weekly demonstrations against the Separation Wall and the occupation, for almost five years. Over these years, Bil'in has become a symbol for a popular struggle of Palestinians, Israelis and international activists. http://www.bilin-village.org/
Peaceful demonstrations and injured or killed demonstrators are no longer news. And so, the creative element of performance certainly helped the demonstration to draw some public attention to their messages. Nowadays, blue people with pointy ears and long tails can actually attract more sympathy than real people under real occupation, struggling to live their lives in safety and dignity.
There are some thoughts I would like to share after watching "Avatar". Please do not read further if you intend to watch the movie and wouldn't like to encounter spoilers.
"Avatar" is considered a breakthrough in 3D movies. People in the movies were amazed by the magic of the 3D glasses and the ability to see beautifully made nature landscapes in 3D. I couldn't help thinking about the actual nature and its resources, which are being destroyed as I write these lines. Forests which are being destroyed, lakes being dried, nature reserves wiped out to be used for real estate projects. All of them are also in 3D. I am afraid that sooner than we think, the only forests we will be able to see in the world, are those that require special 3D glasses. Hollywood – the cultural production of the capitalist order – extends us the courtesy of being fascinated by the process and ignoring the actual 3D worlds passing by, never to return.
So far about the format. But then, there is also the content. "Avatar" does tell a story of "happy end" colonialism. It is Hollywood, after all. The natives remain on their planet, and the bad guys (capitalist corporations and their military units) go back to Earth – after causing some irreversible damage, of course (but they will come back, bigger, stronger, with deadlier weapons – they always do). Hollywood is not there to educate about history. It is there for entertainment. And it is not at all entertaining to face the true consequences of colonial projects: violent erasure of histories, cultures, human lives and human worlds.
Nationalism and Oral Sex
I think it is easier to move a mountain in Armenia than talk about female sexuality.
How can you talk about something that does not exist in the first place? Yes, women in Armenia are “walking heads” and “working hands”, with no bodies of their own, no vagina not even a clitoris (what’s that?), hmm pleasure? Female orgasm? Cunnilingus? Yuk!!! Nope never heard of; is that healthy? Isn’t that a “dirty” thing to do? Should “good” girls know about this?
We don’t talk about sex in general; we don’t hear about it in the classrooms since most of the teachers are too embarrassed to cover the issue, which is, ironically enough, part of the school curriculum. At University, awareness campaigns on healthy living or “how to protect yourself during sex” are almost non-existent since you are not supposed to have sex before marriage in the first place, especially if you are a girl. So why talk about something that is against the rules of the society, better keep everyone in the dark… and well protected! Protected not from STIs, unwanted pregnancies or violence but from the threat of collapsing the Armenian nation and threatening the security of the country. But the interesting thing is that the control focuses on women’s sexuality.
Oddly enough, it seems that what I do with my own body as a woman, if I engage in sexual acts or not, when and with whom I decide to sleep with is closely linked with the nation’s faith. For that purpose, the nation’s defenders and perpetuators of the Armenian values (leaders, authorities, health workers, teachers, priests, fathers and mothers, brothers and uncles) take the liberty to decide in my place how I should act and how I should use my own body so that I don’t harm the whole nation’s reputation by thinking about my own pleasure and well-being.
One of the first word that a child learns is “amot” (shame) . So whatever you do that transgresses the limits of “predefined” unwritten laws, the word falls on you like a slap in the face: “amot e”(shame on you!). A small child runs in the house wearing only underwear “amot e”, exploring innocently your body while taking a bath at age 4-5 “amot e”, asking questions on anything related to anatomy and sexuality “amot e”, two people kissing each other in public “amot e”. And the word stays with you, especially if you are a woman, throughout your life. And even if there is no one around to remind you out loud, it still resonates in your ears.
During our monthly “my body, my right” workshops at the women’s center, young women talk about all kinds of myths they learned to believe: men are more sexual than women. It is ok for men to have extra-marital affairs since there are things that they can’t do with their “good” wives and the mothers of their children (like oral sex). Men can’t control their sexual urges but women can. The important thing is that men have pleasure during sex; women can live without it, etc.
Men cheating on their wives are considered normal and very much tolerated by the different spheres of our society. As for women cheating on their husbands, they are labeled as “sluts”, “whores”, not worthy of being called “Armenian women”.
Men can have sex before marriage; it is awkward if they don’t. Young women having sex before marriage are “pjatsadz” (damaged) thinking of their own sexual pleasure and not fit to become housewives or mothers.
Even oral sex is mostly for men. Most of the participants in our workshops will never even consider doing that even with their husbands. They are taught to believe that it is “dirty”, “unhealthy” and “amot” and only prostitutes can engage in such acts.
Meanwhile, young women are having sex, secretly and dangerously. But nobody is talking about it openly; nobody is acknowledging it. AIDS/HIV is on the rise, abortion as well and several other diseases on the side. But, HUSH! The nation is safe!
Through the windows of activism
The political image of Serbia, through the windows of the LGBTIQ community can today be presented in several ways. By political engagement of certain activists of the LGBTIQ community, we imperceptibly lost the significance of a “movement” that has been building and destroying itself for the second decade now. The adoption of Anti-Discrimination Law, the organizing of the Pride Parade and better media visibility of the community are the three most important activities in 2009. Through the window of a radical feminist and lesbian activist, the stated three themes represent an intermezzo in the total activism, the meaning of which is reflected in the creation of “safety” in every life situation. Therefore, if we are discriminated on the street, in our families, at work, at school or university, at the doctor’s or yet in a song, we actually need much more than a law, we need a Pride Parade on the way to our favorite café as well and we first need to understand and accept the picture and tone of our reality. We are currently in the “mute” phase of waiting for the successes and failures to be confused, the successes and failures of the responsibilities of the state, political leaders and individuals that, while building their own heroism, fell asleep over big and important responsibilities.
The Anti-Discrimination Law was adopted in March this year. Certain LGBTIQ organizations had been working for years on designing and pointing out to a need for this law. Every LGBTIQ organization, at that moment, had a certain archive of cases of discrimination and deprival of basic human rights. Namely, it was clear why we had impatiently greeted the adoption of this law. Moreover, it is perfectly clear how much more effort and work is needed in order to stop the “storing” of discrimination and violence over the LGBTIQ population. Our next move should be to educate the institutions and strategically “promote” the law through activities of working with the LGBTIQ population and finally to present ourselves with the results via the media. I still wonder why we haven’t strengthened the LGBTIQ “movement” with a clear position that after the adoption of this law we will not allow further discrimination and violence. I will not mention here the candid views of Mayor Djilas during the organizing process of the Pride Parade, but I will mention a brutal “nonchalance” of violence over the LGBTIQ population when a member of the state police abused an apprehended transgender Roma woman. Have we heard apologies? Have we heard frank words from the public officials concerning this violence? The answers to these questions are our everyday lives and the certainty of enforcing the Anti-Discrimination Law. Serbia in fact presented itself with a HATE CRIME YouTube video and expressed its attitude in this way.
To incompetent and unprepared politicians the Anti-Discrimination Law became interesting when the Serbian Orthodox Church withdrew it from the “market” because it felt that God’s peace couldn’t be received in return. Then the “democratic” fathers appeared that saw their political positions exactly through the support to the adoption of the mentioned law. Therefore, from the very start the adoption of the law had to do with personal positions of those that saw in it all only their own benefit. The media gave greater importance to the opinions of those that could further manipulate with the Anti-Discrimination Law, while the LGBTIQ community managed only to promise regular usage of invitations to discrimination. Which at the same time means: You just go ahead and discriminate us, at least now we can press charges against you. I had a feeling that at that very moment I had become an experiment in optional tolerance. Certain LGBTIQ organizations and individuals were also unprepared to make use of the moment of the adoption. There was unnecessary singling out of the individuals that did not make a single strategic media advance but only diverted attention to themselves. In return, they received nothing more than some prime time on the local television.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLJQg95xxKs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPVeFhkG8Cg
Moreover, the same thing happened with the attempt to organize and failure to hold the Pride Parade. I still lean towards a conclusion that today our greatest need is to revitalize the LGBTIQ movement and that this is more important than fetishism of our own heroism, because the LGBTIQ community is in fact still not autonomous. We receive support in our individual lives, in activism and struggles for our rights from the activists of the peace movement, from feminist organizations, from human rights bureaus, from friends and many others that can truly represent the LGBTIQ “movement” together with us. There are a number of examples of such support. The most recent example was on October 31st – the LGBT solidarity action carried out by the Antifascists in Action. This was a short parade at the Plato in front of the Faculty of Philosophy.
In order for our social surroundings to accept the reliabilities of its intolerance and discrimination, a great deal of effort and work is required. Through the windows of activism, we still see judgment, hatred, humiliation and discrimination of the LGBTIQ population. Imagine quite an ordinary day in which you would have to think about what kind of hair you are wearing, what kind of clothes you have put on, in which gender you are speaking, how many times you must present your partner as your roommate… Imagine you have to send someone you’ve been living with for ten years away to some friends for a couple of hours when you have relatives visiting… Imagine that somewhere at some corner or in a dark passage, a fist or a boot is waiting for you because you are holding hands with your loved one… Do you know when will I, a radical lesbian and feminist, stop recording and publishing various examples of discrimination? WHEN I HAVE WIPED WITH YOUR INDIFFERENCE ALL THE STAINED WINDOWS THROUGH WHICH THE LGBTIQ POPULATION IN SERBIA MUST WATCH ITS REALITY. WHY DON’T YOU WIPE THEM YOURSELVES?
This article has been published in the first number of the Journal Transnational Journal.
Universal jurisdiction, universal war crimes
99 feminist Israeli, Palestinian and international organizations addressed the British government in demand to maintain universal jurisdiction.
We in the Coalition of Women for Peace, initiated a letter to the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and to the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, demanding that they not restrict the principle of universal jurisdiction in the UK. Universal Jurisdiction enables local courts to prosecute foreign war criminals – among them Ehud Olmet, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni and other high ranking Israeli officials - who are responsible for the war in Gaza last year.
Following the news on an arrest warrant issued against Livni in Britain, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called her to express his opposition to the arrest warrant, telling her "you are always welcome in Britain".
What does this mean – an opposition to the arrest warrant? How can you oppose an arrest warrant? It is not a legislative proposal, it is a warrant based on the British law. Does this mean that he believes that there were no crimes committed during the "Cast Lead Operation" in Gaza? Does this mean that even if they were committed, Britain global attention. Yet, the implications of canceling universal jurisdiction will be a true disaster not only for the Middle East, but for the people of the world at large.
Universal jurisdiction is currently our main tool to prosecute war criminals. Their own legal systems are not likely to do so, and international courts and tribunals lack enforcement mechanisms. Universal jurisdiction enabled to trial war criminals from Ruanda, the Balkans, Chile and so on, including those who committed crimes again women.
Clearly the governments are not taking sufficient steps to protect people in their countries, not to mention – other countries. These are the grassroots, the civil society and the human rights organizations and activists who work relentlessly to create accountability of politicians and military generals for the crimes they have committed. Now, one of their only effective tools is in danger.
In December, 99 organizations from 24 countries (among them 20 Israeli and Palestinian organizations) signed the call. Amazing visibility in the Arabic-language media and too little in the Hebrew and English one. Still, some of the articles got through. The British government is probably on Christmas vacation.
Our Press Release: http://www.gaza-eng.coalitionofwomen.org/?p=202
Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1261364477126&pagename=JPost/...
When will we se and end to the violence in South Kivu?
If you visit the city of Uvira in the Territory of Uvira/South Kivu as a female rights activist, if you walk through its various streets, you will have the impression that the situation for women and young girls is quite normal. But if you take a minibus or a taxi and head north of this small town, more precisely to the rural areas, you will discover quite a different reality. This reality is quite simply the difficult conditions in which the majority of women in this part of the territory of Uvira live.
Katogota, a village situated 80 km from the town of Uvira, is known for the notorious massacre of 14/05/2000, which cost the lives of over 300 people. This massacre left many orphans and widows.
Dear readers, I like to tell you about the physical abuse to which the women in this village were subjected every day, by soldiers who were thought to be guaranteeing their protection. The soldiers were form the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, FARDC, taking part in the Kimya 2 operation. The Kimya 2 operation consisted of tracking a rebel Rwandan movement, which had been sowing terror and misery among the civil population of North and South Kivu since 1994. But instead of protecting the population against attacks, soldiers violated the women, taking over their fields, since more than half of the agricultural work is done by the women in this village.
The widows remain the potential target of these soldiers when it comes to sexual violence in this village. And why is this? It’s a difficult question to answer. A 36-year-old widow was raped in her home by two soldiers from the Kimya 2 operation on the night of the 12th of November 2009. “Around midnight, when I was fast asleep, two soldiers who were armed to the teeth turned up at my house then broke down the door of my house and ordered me not to cry out. They told me to stay on the bed and not move. The first soldier mounted me without a condom, then the second, and so they took turns. Afterwards they left and told me not to speak to anyone about what had happened or they would kill me. Two days later they returned, but this time I was able to cry out before they entered my house. After the second attack I decided to move and now I am staying with a neighbour. I recognise the faces of the soldiers who raped me but I can’t denounce them for fear of reprisals,” she says, who is by no means the only person to be subjected to rape in this village.
A young woman aged 23 was also the victim of sexual violence on the part of the military from the Kimya 2 operation. On the afternoon of the 27th of October 2009 while she was on her way to the river KISE, which is just a few hundred metres from where she lives. Her path crossed a group of eight soldiers who intimidated her with their weapons and forced her to undress and then to lie down on the ground. In this way, one after the other they mounted this woman and had sex with her. The rape must have lasted about one hour and after this cowardly act the rapists forbad this woman to talk to anyone about what had happened; this is a strategy they use to conceal their crime!
Acts of sexual violence against women are continuing to increase in the rural areas of South Kivu thanks to the impunity from which the perpetrators benefit. They are not worried, because they are never pursued. We believe that the local media could play a leading role in denouncing these crimes of rape but apart from a few, they never make it to these rural areas to gather information concerning sexual violence.
What is increasingly deplorable is that the majority of these rapes are carried out without the use of condoms, which increases the risk of catching HIV/AIDS because all forced sexual contact increases the probability of micro-lesions around the mucous membrane of the vagina, which could become points of entry for the HIV virus. There is also another aspect, related to the safety of the food, because the soldiers from the Kimya operation take over the fields from the local population, which creates a situation of famine in the village. The women of this village wish that the United Nations Organization Mission in DR Congo, MONUC, would come to their aid, and in particular keep them safe.
When will we se and end to the violence in South Kivu? This is a question that yet remains unanswered.
Amarilda and university
In Porto Romano, an outskirt of my city, there is no high school and the pupils have to travel for at least 6 km to the nearest school. Not all boys and girls can go to high school - because they need to work or is going to be married in early age.
Amarilda was one of a few lucky girls from her area who went to high school. Her strong will to go to school was a torment for her mother. She had always been an excellent pupil, but her father wanted to find a husband for her. Amarilda´s father come from the north of Albania. In that area Kanun (an informal but very strong tradition and custom referring to family honor) is beyond every laws and he was threatening to kill his daughter if she continued in school.
Her little brother, tired of the bad character of the father, had supported Amarilda, but he was not strong enough to face him. Their neighbours, who witnessed the every day violence and quarrels, tried to convince Amarilda´s father to quit threaten his daughter, but in revenge he was furious and violent especially against his wife.
Amarilda’s mother was beaten every time she prayed that he would let their daughter frequent the school. During all the last year of her school, we, teachers and local governors in the area pressured a lot and convinced him to let his daughter go to the university
This year Amarilda is a student for jurisprudence. Her family is poor and she is waiting to receive a scholarship from the Municipality. Endless documents had to be prepared on this purpose; some of them need the signature of her father.
When Amarilda’s mother politely asked her husband to sign the request for the scholarship he beated her again. With the mother’s blood on the walls Amarilda’s father signed the start of a new life for Amarilda, as a student. Amarilda’s mother lay on the floor with that paper finally signed, waiting to regain her forces, clean her face and run to the Municipality for the scholarship.
Amarilda is afraid to go back home, but she has promised to study hard for every drops of tear and blood her mother shed in her defence.
A powerful woman
In the middle of October my organization had the opportunity and great pleasure to welcome an extraordinary and amazing woman as a guest for the event “Woman Has the Power”. Our guest was Ms Madi Sharma, member of European Economic and Social Committee, successful entrepreneur deeply involved and dedicated to combating discrimination, creating job opportunities, and promoting gender equality.
We in Macedonian Women’s Rights Center run a Woman Economic Development Programme, as a tool for improving women's economic status in the Macedonian society. The poverty, not having efficient financial means and economic dependence, of women are the most common problem.
Facing this issue, we decided to do an event for economic empowerment of women, regaining strength and self esteem. Originally, the idea of this event came as a follow up of the study visit “Combating discrimination: Legislation and good practices” in Brussels this April. Namely, in one of the sessions where I got this wonderful chance to met Ms. Madi Sharma for the first time.
Ever since she came to Skopje in October, she gave me and my coworker’s lots of optimism, hope and positive energy. When she started to talk, we saw from up-close how women power can materialize in one powerful woman. She presented the importance of inclusion of women in the economy, in the process of entrepreneurship as well, and the significance of having equal employment opportunities for men and women which is necessary to be ensured. Madi talked about how a failure can motivate you to try again and again and again. She was talking about persistence and deep beliefe, about self confidence and taking chances.
She brought out many creative ideas for our women and I can use them weather on project bases or for creative workshops.
The speech was very inspiring and I sensed how I can use it for a personal development and thus become stronger. I immediately started thinking about finding a mentor and consider opportunities to learn from strong people and situations.
Ms Madi Sharma is not just another woman who is fighting for human rights and holding plain speeches on love, peace and unity. Back in time, she was married woman with two children living in an arranged marriage. She became victim, or more precisely, survivor of domestic violence. Now she is traveling around the world to spread the word of power, simply because that is absolutely possible.
Women who live with gender based violence, like she did ages ago, need help and assistance from the society and civil organizations, but from the women in need as well.
Talking about the future possibilities, after the event our guest wanted to take a walk in our Old Bazar. The Old Bazar is a part in the City of Skopje that has a special atmosphere and where you can feel as the time stopped in the XV century when the Ottoman Empery was ruling. She was interested to look at the architecture, the small shops for gold and silver, to smell the roast meat coming from the old barrooms, to laugh with me at the flashy clothes that hurt your eyes in the Turkish stores (the thing that I must explained that these special-occasions- dresses are not usual fashion in Skopje) and just to spent the last two hours before she was leaving.
I believe that for the spent time, she found a good ground in Macedonia to build a vision together with some enthusiastic women for making changes by developing ideas. While walking in the Old Bazar I can’t help but wonder, with what picture of Macedonia our guest is leaving us? Is it Macedonia as an exotic country? Well, we are having the 28th edition of Skopje Jazz Festival this fall and we are welcoming big jazz stars like Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke for example. There is a picture of Picasso in our museum of modern art that he gave… This county is moving forward and has progressive potential and energy as well. In that regard, that day on the way to the hotel where our guest was staying, along with the terrible traffic jam due to the presence of authorities from the EU institutions, Macedonia received a positive report for the country’s development and making reforms by the European Commission.
As Ms Madi Sharma said - “I hope the disruption to the City and the cost of policing will be worth it!!” So do we. Thank you Madi, you have been an inspiration!
Violence against women: from Vienna to Yerevan
While waiting to board my flight back home, I reflected at what I learned during these past 2 days in Vienna at the OSCE Supplementary Meeting on gender equality with a special focus on violence against women.
This was the first time I was participating in a conference of this scope and representing our NGO, the Women’s Resource Center. All member state representatives were invited; including civil society and government. The discussions where divided into 3 sub-topics: Protection, Prosecution and Prevention. The participants were invited to share their successful practices in the area, ask questions and give recommendations on the issue for better interventions in the future.
For the occasion, I dropped my jeans, colorful blouses and comfortable sneakers for a more “serious” look; black pants, a shirt and a conservative jacket, thinking that in order to be taken seriously by the people participating in the meeting, I needed to make some concessions.
The first day, during the civil society round table, we formed three small groups to discuss the different aspects of violence against women. I was in the group of people discussing prevention. On my right side, there was this nice lady with a long black dress from an Austrian NGO for healthy families, trying to convince me that patriarchy is actually good but poor economy and lack of support for young families and absence of grand-parents were the causes why men sometimes were violent with their wives. I had an intense urge to ask her if she had any origins from Armenia or the Caucasus? Then I refrained to make any humorous remarks, these people were really “serious” about everything and would definitely not appreciate me being sarcastic. On the other side, two women from Kyrgyzstan were trying to explain how bride snapping was an important problem they were fighting in their country and all the European looking participants were going ts ts ts, shaking their heads in real concern. In front of me, a very determined and loud woman from PAX Europe German-Austrian NGO was trying to convince everyone else by using the “poor” Kyrgyz women’s statements, that Islam was one of the causes of domestic violence.
I was shocked, my pants were itching me, I wasn’t sure if it was because of the fabric or the racist, sexist and hetero-normative statements I was hearing in the middle of this peaceful gathering that was driving me mad.
The next day, a judge from Spain, presented the advanced legal system adopted by her government to fight this problem and help women in the most efficient way, another group presented their domestic violence law, others followed bringing on more and more practices from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia, Georgia, USA. Finally, a woman from Solidarity Africa claimed that all state members agree that this is an important issue and have been signing all kinds of conventions, but no one has been monitoring them to ensure that they are being adequately implemented. In my opinion, she is the one who voiced the most important recommendation by urging the OSCE to be stricter in monitoring member countries.
My countries’ official governmental representatives were not present to this meeting; they did not hear all the recommendations. They had not one good practice to present on the issue; they still have a hard time acknowledging that violence against women is actually a real problem in Armenia.
Sadness was what I felt throughout the meeting sessions and afterwards while walking back to my hotel in the cold November evening through the colorful Christmas decorated storefronts of this historic city. I was wondering how long it will take us Armenians to realize, how long before we acknowledge the problem, how long before the draft law on Domestic violence will pass in parliament, how long until women will finally break the silence on violence and abuse?
This November 25, with a group of activists, the Women’s Resource Center will march for the 4th consecutive year in Yerevan to raise our voices on violence against women and girls, to show our support to all those suffering silently in their homes, alone in boarding schools or at the work place.
…
It is so cold at the Vienna airport. Before closing my laptop, I check one last time my emails; I read the one sent by the coordinator of the November 25 events at our Center. As I go through it, I feel anger replacing my sadness; the Mayor’s office that grants permits for all kind of public actions in our city is requesting our presence for a meeting in two days, apparently we need to convince them that violence against women is a real issue in Armenia in order to receive permission to organize a march or a protest.
As I board the plane for Yerevan, leaving behind the peaceful city of Vienna, I think of all the challenges awaiting me there and I try to convince myself to stay calm to be able to persevere one day at a time.
No time for equality
It’s been almost two months since long awaited Belgrade Pride march, named „Its time for equality“, was banned by Serbian authorities.
For me, being part of the organizing crew, it is still hard to believe that all the work, energy, media exposure, campaigning, meetings, our personal lives, safety and everything else that was invested in the previous six months, was erased only 24 hours before this historic event would take place.
Erased so cynically and illegally by the incompetent, cowardly group of those who speak so much, but hardly do anything in favour of those they are supposedly representing. They are called politicians.
But before we get into the ban and what happened afterwards, let me quickly guide you back to March 31st this year, when it all started.
Two major LGBT groups from Belgrade got together and signed a document, making it official that they will initiate and organize a Gay Pride march, first time after Belgrade Pride 2001 ended up in violence. It took eight long years to recover from that trauma and try again. Several other groups and individuals joined the process (including yours truly) and Pride was on! More than 60 local HR NGOs signed a declaration of support at the very beginning. Radical leftists were sure to come, too. A few shy statements from the government officials indicated that “human rights of all must be protected”. Pride immediately got loads of media attention which mostly included insisting on “misunderstandings” between LGBT organizations, public treats made by neo-nazi groups and football hooligans. The tension was slowly building up.
Exit, the most popular music festival in Serbia joined our process; the number of Serbian celebrities who supported Pride was growing and at the same time many Belgrade’s walls and buildings got covered with graffiti calling for “death to faggots” and “stop gay pride”. Those who wanted to violently break Pride got more and more media attention, explaining in details how, where and when would they attack us – while Serbian public prosecutor claimed that those death threats are only a “debate” and cannot be prosecuted. At the same time, few gay activists added to the heated atmosphere by constantly publicly accusing Pride organizers of being heterosexual (!), lead by women and only in the process for the money (even though we all worked for free). Those and similar pathetic attempts to discredit us as organizers went hand in hand perfectly with homophobic statements made by local politicians. The mayor of Belgrade, who have an unfortunate inability to recognize the importance of such basic freedoms and equality, called for “homosexuality to remain in four walls”, at the same time expressing more concern about possible damage that violent homophobes would cause to buildings and buses – than to human beings who happen to be sexual and gender minorities.
Pride was in the media every day for couple of months and everyone had their opinion about it. Within families people divided on those who would come and support LGBT’s and those who would try to beat us. And the very LGBT community was afraid, more than ever. We were all afraid, of course, but one of the major messages of Pride was that we cannot just sit and wait for our basic rights to be given to us – we have to stand up and fight for them because the state and society will always have “more important problems to deal with”. I’m not sure how many of “us” were ready to do just that. In fact, I’m afraid that the number is very small, because it’s so much easier to stand aside, watch others do it for you and see what happens.
Even though I find this attitude very disappointing, I can understand the fear. But at the same time it’s really sad to realize that basic solidarity is so rare. If one won’t stand up for them selves when they are suffering the injustice, it’s hard to believe they would be willing to help others in similar situations.
The week before Pride
Accepting and acknowledging the high risk was one of the first steps we as organizers made. The context was such that almost 90% of everything we did had something to do with security of the event, making sure that people come and go home safely. And from the very beginning we got firm and ongoing assurances from the police that Pride would be properly protected. We met them in a million meetings, discussing every little security detail, making almost military-like strategies together with experts from Serbian Ministry of defence. Naively, we believed coz we had no reason not to. Until one week before when Pride one of the police chefs said in a TV talk show that they still didn’t rule out the possibility of banning our gathering.
Wait, wait, what did he just say?!
And so in the week that followed, we, already completely exhausted from all the stress, 15 hour working days, threats, responsibilities, homophobia, constant public exposure and similar activist “commodities”, ended up in vertigo of manipulation, intimidation, pressures and trade attempts staged together by heads of state and police.
At the same time, they still claimed in the media that Pride would be protected. Even the president said so, not that anyone cares what he says.
One day they said we could have Pride at the announced location, but that we have to cancel the walking part because it’s “too risky”. Then the next, they said we can’t have it there either, we should move out of city centre and there “everything would be fine”. They didn’t bother to explain how. Should I mention that those trade attempts were done “orally” – non-officially? Then, when we refused, they started mocking and dismantling all our security plans, everything we have been going through with them for the past months – only few days before one of the riskiest events our city and country has ever seen! And then, it was time for the grand finale. Only 24 hours before Pride, Serbian Prime minister himself, acting as a police messenger, handed us the document that notifies us that “event has been moved to another location because it represents such a high risk that it cannot be protected”.
This meant that Pride, the way we planned it, and where we planned it - was banned. No time to make an official complaint, or to logistically move to a completely different area.
Oh, I forgot to mention before that Pride would have an estimated 500-1000 participants. An estimated group of a similar size was expected to try and attack us. And the Serbian state said it’s powerless. It cannot protect us from those who, on many occasions, publicly said who they were and how they planned to attack us.
It also turned out that police order to move Pride to another location was illegal. No law in Serbia allows them to move public gatherings, they are only allowed to protect or ban them. For this and refusing to protect a discriminated group from practicing basing constitutional rights, we have filed a constitutional complaint to Serbian court and will soon be suing Serbia with the European court for human rights.
Few leaders of neo-nazi groups were arrested for trying to stage an illegal protest on the Pride day. They were released 30 days afterwards and to this day they were not prosecuted for hate speech, threats and calls for lynch, murder and violence – all crimes by Serbian laws.
On the bright side, a group of antifascists organized a solidarity flash-mob action with LGBT. Rainbow and pink-black flags were waving in the centre of Belgrade. And the struggle continues....
Real change
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was interviewed in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23clinton-t.html?_r=3&ref=mag...
I totally agreed with one of her statements that “democracy means nothing if half the people can’t vote, or if their vote doesn’t count, or if their literacy rate is so low that the exercise of their vote is in question”. The understanding of this should come to those countries which today face gender inequality problems in their societies. I also agree with the fact that gender equality can be achieved through empowerment of women economically, politically and socially. And here the main question comes: how can this economic, political and social empowerment be exercised in the countries where that deep-seated cultural resistance exists.
Living in a country (Abkhazia) where the culture and traditions play important role in the society, I see the process of women’s empowerment as a quite complex and long-term one. It is a general belief that empowering of women should start with education (ensuring the access to education for girls) – of course education promotes the women’s empowerment process. There is another opinion that economically independent women have more power to make decisions. But my observations of gender problems within my own country make me believe that the real economic, political and social empowerment of women just can be achieved if there is a real understanding of the traditions and culture deeply rooted in the consciousness of the society.
There are a lot of examples when economically independent women are still not independent in decision making. Or like when a woman who was betrayed by her husband still has no right to leave him because of of reasons created by the society in order to follow the traditions. But a boy can refuse to marry a pregnant girl because of his “respected” parents since it is a big shame on his family.
All these are traditions which do not allow us to accept the reality even if we are well-educated, and economically independent. These are the values which are being given to us since the childhood and when you grow up, become educated and try to understand what is good and what is bad through analyzing the existing reality you are still not able to get rid of these traditional and cultural values which are deep inside you…
Avoiding unwanted pregnancies and preventing sexually transmitted diseases
In South Kivu many school girls do not go back to school after the summer holidays. For various reasons, but in particular, poverty and an inability to pay school fees or early pregnancies. Among girls aged 15-19 years old 22.3 percent have given up their studies as a result of pregnancy or marriage.
The organisation “The Circle of Exchange for Youth Development in the Great Lakes Region” (CEDEJ-GL) decided to organise a series of workshops for adolescent girls in the area during the recent school holidays: “How to avoid unwanted pregnancy and prevent sexually transmitted diseases”.
Abandoning school as a result of pregnancy or early marriage can have a long-lasting damaging effect on the adolescent girls future. The education of girls and young women is essential for the emancipation of women. Studies on this subject prove there is a link between women’s education and the birth rate. Women with higher level of education have fewer children. Education has also a positive influence on the health of their children.
Poverty and lack of sex education are the main reasons that young women get married or become pregnant. Another major cause of unwanted pregnancy is the rapes committed on adolescent girls here in South Kivu by armed groups and government forces.
Pregnancy before the age of 18 involves numerous health risks; the risk to girls aged between 10 and 14 of dying during pregnancy or childbirth is five times higher than the risk to women aged 20-24. Early pregnancies are linked to early sexuality and for adolescent girls, whose bodies are still developing, the risk of catching sexually transmitted diseases spread by HIV and AIDS is increased.
Another consequences of early pregnancies is that mothers will have more children than those whose first pregnancy takes place later. Early pregnancies also sometimes end up with abortion, at least one abortion in ten here in South Kivu involves women aged between 15 and 19. The majority of abortions take place in dangerous conditions, which increases the number of maternal deaths.
The workshops we held this summer are one way to help adolescent girls to avoid early pregnancies. Other possible solutions are abstinence, responsible sexual behaviour (which necessitates young girls being able to negotiate safe sexual relations with their partners), the promotion of male and female contraception, education in human values and giving sex education a more prominent place in the families, the schools and other environments.
In certain districts some adolescent girls did not respond to our invitation because their parents didn’t allow their daughters to take part in such workshops on the excuse that they might adopt wild behaviour, a common myth about sex education.
To sum up, civil programmes and workshops about sex education and the importance of education are essential if the girls of South Kivu are to be able to pursue their education in the same way as the boys.
Activism blues
My body is loosing it’s mind, I don’t know what is really hurting more; the fact that I can’t move my swollen knee or the fact that things are getting out of hands and I am sinking in a kind of a nervous breakdown.
I am an activist and work passionately on women’s rights in my country. But some days, I experience an “emotional fall” which is usually accompanied by a physical illness that gives a tragic look to it. During those times, demons start roaming around, as they have been for the past couple of days when I was stuck in bed with an infectious swollen knee, unable to move.
During times like this, I start doubting and questioning everything; my work, my approach, and the things I believe in and fight for.
Fear is the second thing that comes to my mind; fear of not being able to do things as they should be, fear of hurting others, fear of being harassed for my work, fear of putting others in danger.
Loneliness comes when everything else fails. She stays with me until the end of this crisis situation to remind me, that not every moment you will find solidarity around you, that sometimes when you are pushing the limits too far, chances are that loneliness will hang in there for a while. And when I am talking about loneliness I am not assuming that nobody is around you, helping out. I mean more that nobody really understand your moves or opinions on certain things. And you feel alienated from the rest and if you are living in a region like South Caucasus, it’s common to feel like that most of the time.
I am writing this while in a lot of pain (knee pain) and if I read it again tomorrow I will probably not put it on the blog, because often it is difficult to admit that your work is emotionally draining you. It is hard because, most of the people around you will jump on this opportunity to tell you loud and clear: “enough already, why do you want to save the world, think of yourself first!”
But the thing is, I am thinking of myself when I am jumping actively in defending this or that issue related to women in my country and when I am actively working on this or that project, traveling around the regions, listening to women, their pain and their needs, as well as mine, that I am trying to listen to and find solutions for.
Tomorrow will be a better day. I am sure of it. I need to hang in there until the pain goes away. I mean the knee pain.
Female journalists threatened to death
“Stop interfering in things that don’t concern you, or you will die”.
That’s what you can read in text messages sent in the last few days to two female journalists working for Radio OKAPI, a radio station born out of a partnership between MONUC and a Swiss foundation, Hirondelle. It must be remembered that Radio Okapi is the only media which covers the whole of the DRC.
In these text messages, the women are being criticized by the death squads for denouncing the acts of sexual violence committed against women in South Kivu. And who could have been making these death threats against the female journalists? The fact is that this is a difficult question to answer but what is true is that the eastern part of this country is living with the knives out; there are countless militia, and weapons are in circulation everywhere, which leads us to think that these threats might come from the militia who have been implicated in the sexual violence, and why not from certain members of the armed forces who also commit acts of rape on women.
Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, is a town known not only for the illicit trafficking of ore which always feeds conflicts but also for the assassination of civilians. Opinion makers, such as traditional leaders, priests and journalists are particularly vulnerable. Let us remember that three journalists, two from Radio Okapi and one from Radio Star, have been assassinated in this town in just over two years and several investigations have revealed the role played by the soldiers in all these murders. Unfortunately, up until now no-one responsible for these murders has been tried. According to RSF (Reporters Without Borders), South Kivu in general, and the town of Bukavu in particular, remains the most dangerous part of the country for journalists.
The threats against these female journalists must be taken seriously, given that their colleagues have been the victims of previous assassinations, and all this is the result of a general impunity which reigns in South Kivu. The guilty know very well that nothing will be done to stop them. Many rapes have so far gone unpunished and the question must be asked whether peace is possible without the rehabilitation of the victims of rape. Justice must be done for the victims of rape because without this justice, peace and reconciliation will remain just a dream in this part of the country, the East.
Have courage, female journalists who are brave enough to denounce the worst humiliation (rape) which women in general and young girls in particular are subjected to. Above all, do not give in to the death threats.
Another weapon against the civil population
Rape is often used as a weapon of war by the armed groups which operate in the east of the DRC with the aim of intimidation, forcing the civil population to flee their homes, but there are plenty of other methods used by these same armed groups to intimidate, plunder and force the civil population to flee. In this article, I would like to describe another strategy which these groups use and whose aim is the same. This strategy consists of “burning down the homes” of the civil population.
It’s Tuesday 25/08/2009, just gone 23.00, in Nyakabere, a village situated 54 kms from the town of Uvira and surrounded by armed men. After surrounding the village, they proceeded to make it disappear, and going from door to door they began to wake these peaceful citizens and force them to leave their homes. “When they came to our house, they made us go outside and then run away taking only an item of clothing of our choice, leaving everything else inside the house. We didn’t know where to go in the middle of the night, so we decided to take shelter in the bush. Behind us, they (the attackers) first looted our house, taking all our belongings, and then they started to burn down our homes,” says Nabintu , a mother of six who lives in the village.
According to the testimony of those present, this armed band burned down more than 50 houses and threw a hundred families out onto the street. This scene was repeated on 29/08/2009 in Luvungi, another village, 49 kms from the town of Uvira, where this band of criminals set fire to still more villagers’ homes. Who are these attackers and why are they turning on the civilian population? Opinion is divided as to the identity of the perpetrators; according to FARDC (The Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo), these men are the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda), an armed group made up of former genocidal murderers who continue to sow terror and despair among the Congolese civil population. According to the civil society in Uvira, which has carried out surveys in the area, and eye witness accunts, the men who attacked Nyakabere on the night of the 25th and Luvungi on the night of the 29th, came from the ranks of the FARDC. And what could have motivated this attack? The fact that the government had not paid their salaries for several months. “These soldiers, who have not been paid since the 4th of May, have turned on the civilian population with the aim of despoiling their belongings, “ concludes the report from the civil society.
The civil population remains the target of the various armed groups which make the laws in the Kivu on the one hand and on the other they remain the target of the FARDC which is supposed to protect them. As the American Secretary of State, Ms Hillary Clinton, emphasised on her latest visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo last month, the solution to the problems undermining the East of this country lies in the commitment of the governments of the sub-region and in the creation of a genuine Republican army which will be in a position to protect the population against the massacres, the looting and the raping of women and young girls. I believe that if the governments of the region act to find a solution to the problems posed by these negative forces, then tomorrow we will not be talking about the FDLR/ Interahamwe. I also believe that if the Congolese government commit themselves to paying their soldiers regularly we will no longer witness the phenomenon of plundering.
Practicing democracy
Irina, Ghana, Salome, Gayanee, Aynur, Pervana, Mirinda, Natia, Nanuka, Nur, Tako, Knarik, Viktoria, Inna, Lara, Nona, Leila, Nilufar, Nana…
These are not just simple women, these are 24 active young women from South Caucasus, who grew up mainly in regions where war, conflict, corruption were and still are part of the daily worries and learned to see each other as the “enemy”.
Three years ago we all had a chance to meet in Istanbul for the first time during a seminar for young women where we got a chance to raise our voices, talk about our pains, cry and laugh. A new friendship was born and a network was formed believing that peace starts with us collaborating for a change in our respective regions.
This year, the Young Women’s Network of South Caucasus is meeting in Sweden for the first time to talk about Activism and learn from the different experiences of local NGOs in Stockholm. Among the interesting guests, we had good presentations and talks from Amnesty International on how to conduct public actions, Hanna from Idyll talked about queer feminism and a representative from Glöm Aldrig Pela och Fadime related to us the many awareness campaigns to stop honor related violence in Sweden.
Today, the last day of our seminar we decided to take the opportunity and practice democracy. We will be heading soon to one of the busiest squares of Stockholm’s city center and hold a 1-hour public action to talk about our region, to raise awareness about war, but most of all to show how our friendship is possible and a sure way for a sustainable peace in our region.
I will be honest, we are worried a little. Practicing democracy is not an easy thing in our respective countries. Sweden is a safer place to start our journey of activism and will give us the strength to continue our journey.
When will we have social justice in the DRC?
The DRC in general, and the East in particular, are seeing the emergence of anti-values on a huge scale as a result of the structural impunity at the top of the State. People do not know whose authority to believe in. If a child is not punished or reproached within the family he may not realize that he has done something wrong. And at that very moment, each time, he risks confusing right with wrong, and vice versa. Let us be clear, they say, that what is evil is always evil, even if everyone is doing it, and good will remain good even if no-one does it.
Let’s take a good look at the social justice system in our country, the DRC. Today the whole world aspires to peace, to stability. But how can this peace become a reality unless everyone feels the same way? Marginalization, exclusion, discrimination will never result in lasting peace in a country.
It is with tears in my eyes that I wish to tell you about the injustice frequently suffered by the Banyamulenge community in general and the women of this community in particular. The Banyamulenge are a Nile people and an ethnic minority in South Kivu. They are originally from Rwanda and the majority of them arrived in the DRC in 1959 as a result of the fighting in Rwanda between the Hutu and the Tutsi. For a long time they were wrongly regarded by the various communities in South Kivu as being the cause of the troubles which affected the East in particular and the DRC as a whole. An example of the unjust practices to which they are submitted can be seen in what happens at the border control at Kavimvira (the passage which connects the town of Uvira /South Kivu with the capital of Burundi). At this border checkpoint, the Banyamulenge, and particularly their women, are frequently searched in a degrading manner. Under the pretext that the women may be carrying weapons in their clothing they are examined right down to their intimate parts. Sometimes they are forced to undress to prove that they do not have weapons hidden in their clothing. And the strange thing in all this is that they are searched by men. This is not always the case with women from other communities such as the Fuliru, the Bembe or the Vira who also cross the border at this checkpoint. The Banyamulenge women remain traumatized and many of them have stopped traveling because they fear such humiliation.
I have chosen not to remain silent nor to bow my head in the face of this unjust situation which brings shame to the women in my country. It is not possible to aspire to lasting peace in this country when there is still a group of the population which is so marginalized. Social justice must become a reality immediately, with no more delay, because the DRC needs social justice for its sons and daughters.
Racism cannot be justified
If the Swedish newspaper wouldn't have published its bizarre article about Israel and organ trafficking, Israel really would have to plant it there.
Isn't it comfortable to occupy newspaper headlines with this useless story, instead of dealing with the actual political events today? And isn't it comfortable to mention Holocaust in order to shut the mouth of the state that just took on the EU presidency?
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has apparently decided that attack is the best defense. And so it tries to force Sweden to interfere with freedom of speech, and to accuse Germany in releasing irresponsible statements out of context, when they demand to put an end to the settlements in the Palestinian Territories. Out of which context exactly is it?
When Israel is so angry, there is no anger left to anyone about the thousands and a half people killed in Gaza last January, as it is still under siege; about the house demolitions and eviction of entire families in East Jerusalem from their lands; about the ongoing construction of the Separation Wall; the murder of peaceful activists in non-violent Israeli-Palestinian demonstrations; the expansion of settlements in the West bank, and the many other actions that make living in this place intolerable.
The Israeli media is filled with racism and hate speech in every form. The government of course would never interfere, because racism and hate speech became the norm. In this recruited and patriotic media, independent journalists with critical thinking are struggling to keep their jobs.
I am pretty much certain that both Israel and Sweden are more interested in this political theatre staged in our newspapers, than in generating actual change in the political reality in the Middle East. More and more Israelis are now coming to the conclusion that massive international pressure is the only factor likely to influence Israel's politics and put an end to the occupation [see an article by Neve Gordon http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gordon20-2009aug20,... ].
However, during the January bombardment of Gaza, Sweden and the majority of European countries stood in silence, mumbling a few confused words. With the increasing power of the right throughout Europe, many of the left parties were isolated in their anti-war position within right-wing parliaments.
As for me, I am much more concerned with the actions Sweden will take in the course of its EU presidency in relation to the Middle East. I advise them to be concerned with the same thing.
A word about anti-Semitism. Last Thursday I met with an Italian delegation of young people to Israel/Palestine. One of them asked me, don't I think that Israel, because of its politics, is responsible for the increasing anti-Semitism in the world.
People, who believe that, tend also to believe that 9/11 caused increasing Islamophobia.
I think that the only thing responsible for anti-Semitism is anti-Semitism. People choose their own narrative of explanation for current events.
You can choose to see 9/11 as a proof for your prejudice against Muslims, or you can choose to see it as a chance to rethink relations between global capitalism and violence.
You can choose to see the Israeli occupation as a proof for your prejudice against Jews, or you can choose to see it as a chance to rethink colonialism and ideology of apartheid.
If you consistently choose the first option and direct these events toward strengthening your hostility or hatred, I am pretty convinced that the racism was there long before the event that gave a chance to "justify" this racism. Racism cannot be justified.
Democratic society in the frames of traditions
is it possible or not – I am often asking to myself.
As it is known across the generations the Caucasian peoples follow the traditions which form our way of thinking, behavior and thus, our life-style. Traditions which are carefully inherited by the old generation to a new one are certain frames within which you should exist otherwise you are at risk to be condemned by the society you live in. Another way the term “Caucasian traditions” can be interpreted is a lot of limitations and taboo in many spheres of our life and the worst thing here is that we are living as we are used to, without asking ourselves whether we are happy with that.
We are told by the older generation that traditions are good and necessary – they help to preserve morality. But what are the consequences of that morality – when a young unmarried girl having delivered a baby leaves him at maternity hospital being afraid to be stained; when a husband leaves her bride having learned that she is not virgin; when a wife endures the roughness of her husband and does not leave him just because she knows that a divorced woman in Caucasus has no right to private life and happiness. And these are our traditions which we keep on following.
Of course, each thing has its advantages and disadvantages and our task here is to decide what overbalances for each of us.
Thus, in the frames of “Caucasian traditions” it is very difficult not to break one of the main principles of democracy – “freedom of choice” since we do not choose we just follow our traditions…
Roma housing struggle continues
As I wrote before, people who are organizing the Universiade 2009 in Beograd first used their bulldozers and removed parts of the Roma settlement next to the block of newly-made buildings where sportiest from around the world will be accommodated during this students Olympics event. Campaign and protest were made, but it seemed that most of Beograd’s citizens don’t really care or think that Roma people deserve to be sent “where they came from”.
Probably empowered by such a situation, our city government made another shocking move in the middle of June – this time they put a two-meter high fence around the settlement – blocking the way to the only water supply for the people living there.
The purpose of it – well, our city leaders think that poverty is something to be ashamed of – so by putting this fence for the time of Universiade they are “only” trying to “protect” sportiest from the “ugly” sight of poverty.
After some human rights organizations protested, cisterns with water were sent there.
People of good will then organized an action to use their bodies as weapons to break the fences.
The sexual violence machine rolls on in East DRC
Operation “KIMYA 11” which was launched jointly three weeks ago by the armed forces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC) and MONUC on the high plateau on the plains of the Ruzizi (Lemera, Kidoti, Kiringye) in South Kivu and which consists of the disarming and forced repatriation of the FDLR (Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda) is having disastrous consequences for the civil population in general and the women in particular. According to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) 35,000 people have already fled the fighting and 20,000 of them have gathered in the villages of Kamanyola and Luberizi, which border on Rwanda and Burundi respectively. More refugees from the combat zones are arriving each day in the town of Uvira, causing a serious logistics problem as the need for shelter was not foreseen by the local authorities. Some of these refugees are sleeping out under the stars and others spend the nights in schools with no support whatsoever.
This operation is being conducted without any plan to protect the civilian population and in particular the women, who are the main target in this type of conflict. According to information from the refugees, the women and girls are being subjected to sexual abuse by certain elements of the FARDC, the MONUC and the FDLR. And this recurrence of inhuman behavior by the fighting forces is a result of the impunity which has become commonplace in the DRC. The perpetrators of rape fear no-one. This is a deplorable situation which is undermining the dignity of women. For this reason, we call upon the protagonists to show respect to the civil population by putting an end to this kind of behavior, and the international community to put pressure on the Congolese government and the FDLR so that the perpetrators of rape can be brought to justice without delay.
Enough is enough.
Family voting
I was waiting for the end of the election process here in Albania before writing my txt. But as far as I can understand it will not end with the creation of the new government nor with the resignation of socialist leader (determined as the principal cause of the lose of left wing in this elections)
Of course I am not writing for this. I would like to announce that we will have 11 women in more as MPs for the next 4 years (21 in total). This is a good thing in terms of numbers but talking about what they will bring in the parliament – this is too early to be judged. Different backgrounds of these women can (should) affect decision making process in the parliament especially for drafting and improving the legislation.
In this case my glass remains half empty because I’m still wondering if these new politician women recruited so unexpectedly (at least for us) by the parties, will be strong enough to resist to the harsh politics. While talking for this achievement in the context of representation of women not so far away, in those areas when they were elected as MPs, rural women are not so lucky. Many of them cannot vote, although by law they have this right. It is still a privilege of the man to vote for the whole family expressing his own political preference.
I was an observer during the last elections in one of the communes of Durres and I was keeping my notes regarding the number of women presented in the voting centre. Often more than two women were accompanied by one or two single men. He was walking in the head of the queue and after him three, four… nine women were walking silent, watching the ground. He was the head of the family the one to decide for all of them; wife, daughters, sisters in law, nieces. They were physically present in the voting centre at least to sign in the voter’s registry while the votes for all of them were putted by him in the voting box.
In some other cases when the woman had to vote by her own her lovely husband was there to support her and to be sure she will not mistake the name of a specific party “misusing” so her vote. Unfortunately these elections were considered very important for Albania who aspires to become an EU member. Achievement of the standards remained an issue of a secondary importance while elections were perceived as the battle among the prime minister and the leader of Socialist Party. When both of them were waiting the results they didn’t forget to mention the standards the citizens and EU countries were waiting but it was to late…
Gender Equality Law BiH: We will not go back on human rights!!!
The Working group for the new draft of the Gender Equality Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina decided to take out the harassment and violence based on sexual orientation. Together with organizations Rights for All, Organization Q, Woman and Society, Center for Legal Aid for Women and numerous others, CURE firmly stands against such a move as it clearly violates the rights of many individuals, and the point of the new draft is to improve the law. Taking out sexual orientation as a basis for gender based violence from the law that is supposed to guarantee gender and sex rights for all is out of question, and we will not go back with human rights! As repeated several times at the Public Discussion on the new draft of the Law on Gender Equality (held on June 25th in Sarajevo), not only by civil initiatives' representatives but by a Federal prosecutor, several lawyers and other professionals, this type of change is unacceptable and would mean a serious setback for human rights in our country.
As one of the „reasons“ for this serious violation of human rights and an attempt to exclude persons whose rights are violated on the basis of their sex, gender and/or sexual orientation, the representatives of Gender Agency BiH stated that „this issue“ would be resolved through the Anti-discrimination law. Just to remind you, it is the law still on the waiting list for adoption, and since December 2008. Another illegitimate excuse for the outrageous attempt to go backwards through laws is this statement by Alma Como, member of the Working Group on the new draft of the Gender Equality Law BiH, also representative of the House of Peoples, member of the Joint Commission for Human Rights, rights of children, youth, immigration, refugees, asylum, and ethics of the joint Commission for European Integrations:
"For “the other status” you can subsume everything listed here which I do not like – this sexual expression and sexual orientation. I am saying it openly. I do not want it to be listed/included in the law. I do not like it written into the law. I think it falls under some other category and we can subsume it all under some other status."
Read it here: http://www.parlament.ba/sjednica/1/0/142.html (in local languages only)
At the Public Discussion on the new draft of this important law, no members of the Working group were present (and no Parliament representatives as their sessions take place at the same time as public discussions not only in Sarajevo, but also Mostar and Banja Luka). The sanctions for perpetrators remain as before, 6 months to five years.
Tell the Gender Agency that we will not go back with human rights!
Check out the draft here: http://www.arsbih.gov.ba/?PID=7&RID=344
Civil initiatives plan to do all it legally takes to ensure that the Gender Equality Law of this country guarantees the rights of everyone as planned.
“Illegal” anti-imperialist protest
In the meantime, Beograd was host to US vice president Joseph Biden, with unseen security measures, police everywhere, all kinds of public gatherings forbidden along his route (that was, by the way, conveniently, not published for security reasons) and other more subtle undemocratic measures. Nevertheless, several organizations announced their protest to such a situation, but of course, it was the anarchists that were the most direct.
Aware that staging a protest would probably be considered illegal, about 20-30 people gathered at the central square, but chose only one to read the „Anti-imperialist Manifesto“ out loud, which was followed by burning of an American flag. He was arrested immediately, faced „express trial„ and was sentenced to 10 days in prison!
Several days later, another „illegal“protest was staged in solidarity with the unfairly sentenced „comrade“, and another arrest happened! Undercover police took one of our friends who was reading the „Manifesto“, without any explanation. They put her in an unmarked car and try to drive away, but for some time, about 50 of us sat on the ground around the car and didn’t let them pass. That’s when police officers in uniforms showed up and used force to move us.
She was sentenced with a 100 euro’s fine, not jail. And a benefit concert is being organized to collect money to pay for it.
Involving women in decision-making could put an end to sexual violence in East DRC
The raping of girls and women is a matter of real concern in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Incidences of sexual violence in the East, noticeably in South Kivu, are reported every day. Just two weeks ago, 3 women were raped in Kisharo (North Kivu) by soldiers from the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR). We can see that every time there are clashes between government troops and rebel troops, (MAYI MAYI, FDLR), it is primarily women who are targeted. We wonder why it is always the women.
What is even more serious is that our leaders show no political will to put a stop to these atrocities.
What could put an end to these war crimes?
I believe the proposal made by Helen Clark, the Administrator of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) might be one path towards a solution which could help to eradicate this form of sexual violence. On her recent visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Helen Clark said: “The involvement of more women in the administration of public affairs could help to put an end to sexual violence in the East.”
Also according to Ms Clark, “Strengthening the status of women and promoting the participation of women in the electoral process and the administration of public affairs could have a positive impact on the eradication of sexual violence.” This pronouncement comes at exactly the right time, just as the DRC is getting ready for local elections. In the DRC, as in South Kivu, women are under-represented in decision-making bodies even though they make up almost half (49.4%) of the population in this province.
The provincial government (South Kivu) consists of 12 members, only 3 of whom are women; the national parliament consists of 32 representatives from South Kivu, only one of whom is a woman. In the provincial parliament there are 36 members, 3 of whom are women. In addition to these two institutions (Parliament and Government) South Kivu has local authorities, local councils, cities, neighborhoods, districts and chieferies which are practically all run by men. Note: I can’t find any other word for Chefferies, and most of the articles on the internet actually use the French word Chefferies – it’s to do with the local tribal leadership.
What is the root cause of this marginalization of women in politics?
The main causes of this marginalization are tradition and the low level of women’s education. According to custom, a woman cannot lead a man because the woman is always inferior to the man, and must submit to him at any cost. If you look at the way in which elections are organized here in the Congo, it is always the men who get themselves elected; to change this situation the policy of setting quotas which so far has been applied in Rwanda, Burundi and recently Egypt must also be applied in the Congo to allow many more women access to the decision-making bodies. I believe that if there were many women in parliament, laws supporting women’s rights would be passed without any major obstruction. I also believe that if women were represented in all the decision-making bodies then no-one who committed an act of sexual violence would go unpunished.
Becoming a theatre producer
Earlier this month we were working around the clock on the campaign FREE GAZA: 10 Action Days Against the Siege. It was organized by us at the Coalition of Women for Peace in cooperation with the American organization CODEPINK: Women for Peace and the wide Coalition Against the Siege comprised of diverse peace and human rights groups in Israel.
This intensive campaign included daily protest actions at the Gaza border, in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the West bank, lectures and workshops on aspects of the Israeli occupation, the blockade of Gaza, and radical feminist action for peace.
But perhaps the most unique activity of this campaign was a 10 minutes theatre play "Seven Jewish Children: A Play for Gaza" by Caryl Churchill, staged in the Rabin Square in the heart of Tel Aviv. The play was directed by Samieh Jabbarin, a Palestinian theatre director, actor and activist from Jaffa, who is currently held under house arrest in his parents' house in Um El Fahem ever since his participation in non-violent protests against marches of extremist right-wing groups in Um El Fahem – Arab-Palestinian city in Israel. He directed the play from his home, creatively using phone, skype and web-camera - an original way to stage a play. Everyone contributed their time, energies and passion in this hectic 4-day production: director and his assistant, well known actresses, a design artist, a musician, logistics assistants, etc. More than 200 people came to see the play, and a good article in the Guardian appeared as well: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/jun/12/caryl-churchill-seven-jewish...
So for a few days, from an activist and a fundraiser I became a theatre producer. In an ocean of despair, lack of energies, increasing attacks on activists and legislative attempts of political silencing, this explosion of creativity reminded us that there is always something to do, some way to disrupt the social order of complicity.
In the script of the play, these were the words meant to be told to a girl in a family that immigrated to Israel, which touched me the most. This is my story too.
Don’t tell her we’re going for ever
Tell her she can write to her friends, tell her her friends can maybe
come and visit
Tell her it’s sunny there
Tell her we’re going home
Tell her it’s the land God gave us
Don’t tell her religion
Tell her her great great great great lots of greats grandad lived
there
Here's a link to the play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoyDYJIz-tI&feature=related
And here's the full script in English: http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/files/downloads/SevenJewishChildren.pdf
Belgrade Pride begins
I’ve written earlier about the announcement of the decision to hold Gay Pride in Beograd this year – so, here’s a bit of an update. Now, I must warn you that this story has a bitter beginning, but hopefully a happy ending sometime later this year.
In the previous month or so, several LGBT groups and a few individuals started meeting and working on organizing Pride. I also joined after several initial meetings, uncomfortable with a fact that I had to sign a contract (!) in order to join. Now, how did this happen?
Well, one of the groups tried to control the process. Then, their imposed “leadership” fell apart once the rest of us found out that this group was working behind our backs from the beginning - totally unnecessary and against everything we agreed on. The whole thing culminated three weeks ago when this group sent public announcement to all media, saying that Pride will happen on 23rd August, announcing it in a way that they chose the date in agreement with other LGBT organizations, which, wasn’t true.
Well, you can try to imagine the situation where you are working with someone and then you find out from the media what they are actually doing.
Finally, a denial was sent to media and this group was expelled from the process. The whole situation, of course, caused big damage.. Some homophobic media couldn’t wait to write about “big fight within the gay community”, the gay community is angry at all of us, homophobes happy, everyone else who initially supported Pride is now confused...
Typical isn’t it?
Well, as part of the Belgrade Pride 2009 organizing committee I can say that we are facing a great challenge, even bigger than a few months ago – but “the show must go on”.
Safety is a number one priority in organizing this event, and its gonna happen only if police agrees to give its guaranty.
A safety study is soon going to be made in cooperation with security experts and police and only after we are assured that we will receive protection we can move on to other elements of the event, such as its route, program and so on.
In that way, hopefully people will regain their trust, and come to support this political protest for freedom from violence.
More news and updates in my next blog ;)
The human body needs more than sport
It needs information. It was for this reason that on the 23rd of May 2009 CEDEJ arranged a workshop for the young girls from the ladies football team in Kavimvira to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS and sex education.
The photos you see here were taken in Kavimvira during the workshop. Kavimvira is one of the 14 districts which make up the city of Uvira. The district has a population of less than three thousand, the majority of whom are young girls. The ladies football team in this district has been helped by CEDEJ since 2008. The help consists of providing material support (such as balls, whistles, tickets) and moral support through awareness and education.
The team is made up of 30 young girls aged between 12 and 20. It includes young girls who have talent but are sadly lacking the equipment (kit, boots, balls …..)
The African traditions and religious beliefs observed in our society are a major obstacle to sex education. In our families, talking about sex is taboo, which means young girls do not know enough about HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and sexually transmitted infections (STI). In the course of this workshop we noticed that few of the participants had enough information about using male and female contraception. During the discussion, a young girl called KANEKEMBO Dada asked this question: “How can you see if someone is infected with HIV/AIDS?” What this question actually shows is that too many people don’t test themselves to see if they are HIV positive.
Do not tell anyone
Last month I was invited to moderate a training seminar on sexual rights and health for a group of lesbian, bisexual and trans women. The training was on a week end in one of the resort cities of Armenia, one hour away from the capital and organized by one of the organizations, which in addition to teaching HIV prevention and promoting safe sex, are also helping out and offering psychological and legal support for the LGBTQ community of Yerevan, but mostly homosexual men. The Armenian society at large is very intolerant towards homosexuals and there is a lot of violence and aggressiveness towards them.
At first the head of the organization came to our centre and wanted to meet with us, he had heard about the Women’s Rights Trainings that we were conducting regularly at the Women’s Resource Center and asked us to help out with the first training week-end for LBT women only.
Anush and I prepared a 2 day seminar on gender and feminism, sexual identity, health and rights, prepared some hand outs specific to health and rights issues related to lesbian women, did lots of translations, since most of the participants knew only Armenian and little Russian.
We arrived late afternoon at the soviet style cozy little hotel and unpacked. The head of the organization had already started the training and was giving a speech on the different definitions of sexual orientations.
I knew some of the participants and it didn’t take us a long time to get acquainted with the others. It was a very supportive and friendly atmosphere.
Katia didn’t mind talking about her sexual orientation during one of the many discussions we had during the seminar. She was lesbian, was attracted to women all her life but was getting married in a couple of months with a straight man. It was her choice; she told me the last time we strolled down the quite streets of the hotel resort, going from one chalet to the other that “that was the right thing to do anyway here in Armenia”. She was getting married because she wanted to have kids and a family, a one accepted by her relatives, parents and neighbours. Then she said that she could always have a girl friend, a lover, but her surroundings will know her only as her “best friend” and nothing more.
Amalia, another girl and a friend of Katia thinks that she will probably do the same. She loves women and until 17, she thought that her attraction towards women was a “perversion” and a “sin” until she started browsing on the Internet and finding lgbt sites and learning more about her orientation. Even though Amalia was the toughest looking girl among the group and the most self-assertive, she agreed with Katia that it was almost impossible to have a “normal” life in Armenia after coming out as a lesbian.
Sergik had changed her name, she had a girl name and she changed it to a man’s name and introduced herself as that. Since her childhood she always wanted to be a boy. At 13 she started dressing like an Armenian boy, with very short cut hair, a shirt, tie and a suit. When I saw her, I was struck by the elegance and the neatness emanating from her personality. She had a very soft voice. She was a very gentle person with a friendly smile that touched almost everyone. At first she was very shy, not speaking much. Then when I was doing a small exercise “the unfinished sentences on the vagina” where I start a sentence saying “if your vagina wanted to dance, which dance would that be…” and the participants would finish the sentence. It was Sergik’s turn and when I started “if your vagina could talk, it would say…” and she continued by saying with a smile “cut me out and throw me already, and replace me with a penis” everybody started clapping and laughing, it was such an honest reply filled with anger and frustration and lots of humor… and Sergik was feeling so happy and relieved.
After the training, we gathered in one of the rooms for celebration and drinking. Sergik gave interesting and daring performances and monologues about her life as a trans in Armenia; she talked about how they kicked her out of theatre school because of what she represented and making everyone uneasy about her gender. She told sad jokes about the incidents she had at public bathrooms, how many times she had to take down her pants to show her sex and confirm that she was in the right place and not a pervert.
In this small room of a remote soviet style resort, women were feeling free to kiss each other and dance with each other, laugh at Sergik’s stories, help each other, cover up for each other to just get through the day safely, get through life safely.
N.B: the events are real; the names have been changed for protection.
Raising a voice
I found how for me, the most important thing when getting involved in some specific activity, is to put in a bit of passion and to enjoy the process of helping others. It’s that inner drive to find things that can be fixed, and then try to fix them. A thing either you have it or not and from that point you can measure whether you belong there or simply, you don’t. Having said that , I’m happy having a position in this job when I have the right and liberty to encourage women to take control of their own life, push them to reach into their little inner voice of hope, consider better prospects because raising the voice is important. Unlike many other women activists or human rights defenders who even though having strong ambitions , motivations and thus concerned with change, they don’t have the tiniest possibility to talk , write or express their worries due to the attack of the concept of human rights, twisting it’s values.
The idea of the universality of human rights is promoted as equal treatment of all human beings and having those rights by the virtue of being human. But, the irony is that even though all of those conventions, declarations, treaties are adopted by the states, the people are being treated as animals. There is not much of humanity or dignity I suppose. I could hear about this with my own ears – people around the world striving to achieve what matters, reporting news without fear of reprisal but unfortunately, for the price of their own life.
At the Global Forum of Freedom of Expression this June dedicated for celebrating the freedom of expression I could hear many powerful stories about journalists being killed, forbidden to receive awards for their work, books and newspapers banned, radio stations closed … One of them I find really touching. A statement from the Ethiopian journalist Serkalem Fasil was read showing the political pressure of the state authorities . In 2005 she was writing articles critical of the Ethiopian government during the parliamentary elections and arrested afterwards for publishing them. If found guilty, she could be sentenced to death. At the same time when she was arrested she was already pregnant . Her partner was arrested as well, for writing articles in independent newspapers at the same time. Where she stayed during the pregnancy was described as dirty humid cell full with rats, cockroaches and fleas. Her health was seriously affected , but in June 2006 she gave birth into a police hospital to a baby boy. The baby was so weak, that needed immediate medical treatment in incubator . According to the irrational hospital procedures, a singed approval from a parent was needed for carrying the baby into an incubator. Since the other parent was jailed as well, there wasn’t any chance or possibility for helping the Serkalem’s baby boy, which means that the state condemned the baby to death . All of the sudden, as this statement was read, behind the speaker, on a wide screen a huge picture showed up – it was Serkalem smiling holding her boy, happy to have him alive.
Not everyone’s story has a happy ending. There are still lots of human rights defenders or activists that when gathering, transmitting disseminating and commenting information, suffer from the oppressive political regimes of those who have decision making power or power to make impact and pressure the media. They have mission to spread the opportunity of free speech without censorship, self-censorship or limitations, because they are not to serve as propaganda machines, but exist to make a change, because raising the voice is important.
War, poverty and Aids
According to the UN the war in the Congo has cost around 3,000,000 lives. In my opinion, these figures do not reflect the reality because we register huge numbers of deaths as a result of the war every day.
Recent statistics on the rates of prevalence of HIV/Aids in Sud Kivu show that 7.2%, 7 people out of every 100 between the ages of 15 and 24 have been infected during this pandemic.
Those most at risk are young girls, as a result of the socio-economic conditions (poverty, marginalization… ). Looking at these figures, it appears that our province, Sud Kivu, has the highest rate of infected people in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
What has caused this accelerating spread of HIV/Aids in Sud Kivu?
Although here are very many reasons, war and poverty are the fundamental causes.
The war: during the war we witnessed the massive arrival of various troops from neighbouring countries (Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi) in Sud Kivu. These countries, according to UNAIDS, The United Nations Joint Programme on HIV/Aids, are registering a much increased rate of prevalence and according to some of our sources, the majority of these troops were HIV positive. As soon as they arrived on Congolese soil these troops committed all forms of sexual violence.
Belinda, a young girl who lives in a village in Makobola (in the Fizi Territory) was raped in front of her parents and her brother in 1999 when she was 12 years old by 6 soldiers from the Rwandan army. Here is her account of what happened: “I remember, it was the 30th of December 1999 at around 9 in the morning, in the middle of our preparations for the end of the year festivities, we heard gunfire a few metres away from the village, as we were getting ready to run away we were surrounded by the Rwandan soldiers and they forced us all to sleep on the ground. I was with my parents and my 4 brothers. A soldier made his way towards me and forcibly undressed me and suddenly he was on top of me and began to rape me, when he had finished he called to his friends to come and do the same, it was very painful and my parents were crying because they didn’t know what to do. Afterwards, they left me bleeding on the ground and went towards my mother to rape her, luckily their superior arrived and stopped these bad soldiers from hurting my mother. My shocked parents took me into the bush where we stayed for 2 weeks. We were afraid to return to the village and nearly all our houses had been burnt down by the Rwandan soldiers. Until then I didn’t feel good, I was very weak, sometimes I lost consciousness. When we got back to the village I was evacuated to a hospital in Uvira where they tried to look after me and after I’d been screened they told me I had HIV/Aids. It was like being struck by thunder for me and for my parents. I didn’t want to live, I begged to die immediately. I never stop asking myself why my executioners spared my life. I’m sure they wanted me to suffer and I am suffering, that’s why I will never forgive them.”
Weakened by illness, Belinda continues to lead a difficult life, full of grief and trauma. The regular armies of our neighbouring countries are not the only ones to have committed acts of sexual violence in Sud Kivu. The armed groups which operate in our province are not the remnants of the main army. These armed groups, consisting mainly of Mayi Mayi and the FDLR (the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) commit all kinds of sexual violence every day without a care. Toyi, a young girl of 13 living in Kitundu, a village situated 20 kms in the mountains overhanging the town of Uvira was raped by 2 armed men on her way back to the fields, at the beginning of April.
What is so bad is that the Mayi Mayi are now training in order to be integrated in the the Congolese armed forces (FARDC). FARDC who are supposed to protect the population, are also involved in sexual violence.
Toyi’s case shows how often acts of sexual violence still take place today in Sud Kivu. What is sad is that the majority of perpetrators of rape are not brought before a court of justice and those who are, are not tried because of the corruption which undermines the judicial system.
Another factor which is at the root of the of the spread of HIV/Aids is the indescribable poverty in which countless families in Sud Kivu live. As a result of this poverty some parents force their daughters into prostitution in order to earn something for the family. The war has produced and continues to produce many orphans and this means that some young girls find themselves responsible for their younger brothers, and not knowing what else to do to meet their needs they decide to turn to prostitution. Other girls have several sexual partners and by doing do they think they will be able to earn a lot of money, which increases the risk of being infected by HIV/Aids.
In short, I would like to say quite simply that war is not a good thing because it is the source of all evil. The young girl is used as a weapon of war because she is a victim of violence and other degrading acts which affect her physical integrity.
Let us all say “No” to war and “Yes” to peace.
Call the police!
Last month, seven activists of New Profile were taken by the police for interrogation, and their computers confiscated. New Profile is a feminist movement which works to de-militarize the Israeli society. In August 2008 New Profile and CWP ran a terrific Internet campaign which encouraged young Israelis to re-think military service by presenting positive role models of women and men who chose not to serve in the army.
According to the Israeli law, military service is obligatory for all Jewish men and women, with limited exceptions (religious reasons, women who are married, etc.). Consciousness refusal of non-religious people is not an acceptable reason.
The public discourse was dominated by attacks on New Profile. Not surprising, when military service is considered a sacred and patriotic act of every responsible citizen and a good son/daughter, if of course they don't want to be disgrace to their families.
In response to the police interrogation (just a part of a long history of political persecution of activists), we issued a solidarity call, collected endorsement of 24 feminist organizations, and published an ad in the national media.
On April 30 we also organized a protest action next to a police station in Tel Aviv. With stickers and signs like "Danger! A Feminist Activist!", "Call the police!" and "Peace activists are interrogated, war criminals go free" we demanded to be interrogated by the police as well. If feminist peace activism is a crime, we should all be questioned, and we submit ourselves voluntarily.
The police was apparently non-interested. They were not willing to let us into the station. However, they did demand us to demonstrate at another location, even though the protest was entirely legal and did not require police permit. As the request obviously missed the entire point of the action and we could not comply, they began using force and violence. After the activist was holding the megaphone was taken and dragged violently by more than 5 police men, I shouted "leave her alone", and was taken into custody myself.
Eventually, we were six women and two men (held in separate rooms by gender) in the police station, some with serious browses – courtesy of the police department. They were willing to release those of us who were not charged with attacking a police officer (a bogus charge, as always) but they stayed in solidarity with the rest. And so we spent the afternoon, evening and part of the night at the station and most of the night in a detention center with quite a few cockroaches as roommates. However nothing was as shocking, frightening and humiliating than the basement of the Tel Aviv district court house, where arrestees are held before the trial. The court house I visited so many times – listening to hearings, waiting for the release of other activists, paying bail. It was the first time I saw and was inside the cages in its basement. We have supported each other and ourselves by singing loudly and probably driving the guards crazy with our musical" talents".
Eventually we were released on the next day, and most chances are that charges will not be made. The judge ordered the guards to release us from the leg cuffs in the court room, with strong applause of friends and activists who waited for us long hours in the court. It seems to me that every judge, not to mention every person, should spend some time in prison. When you visit the back yard of this society, it certainly changes the way you think and feel about it.
Here's a video from the protest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXT08cISAMI
ACTIVISM - INSIDE AND OUT
Today is not same as yesterday. My strength is changeable depending on many stories going around me. And I can't influence them (politics, economy, history repeating, catastrophes, important dates, emotions of my street, emotions of my town...). But there is a fact - when I woke up every morning, without knowing what is happening in the outside world,
I am 100% radical feminist and lesbian activist, I am proud, I am loved, I am beautiful, I am strong...and I don't give a damn who and what is going to disturb that. This is the right I gave to myself. And as I described myself, I can change this mood only if I see an old women begging in front of a drugstore, if I see violence in the street, if I see discrimination, racism and pure nationalism. Sometimes I can even smell how strong it can be, even among 12 year old boys. And this can make me feel not so 100% because I am not able to react and help every time. And this can stay inside of me and sometimes this can ruin my day. And than I see hundreds of faces...totally blind and deaf to even notice what is going on…they are walking on the street licking their ice-cream, talking on their mobile phones, showing each other their new clothes, picking their noses …… and this makes me a bit weaker.
And then I start to think and think and think.
Well my conclusion is that this kind of world doesn't exist. Sorry if this is very radical opinion… but I like to live in reality. And I like to say to my self: Lori you do give a damn and you can be disturbed. And this is ok because your activism has two channels - inside and outside of you…
Actually my point is researching how to jiggle the world which has less power than me with the world which have more power than me. And how to send right messages on right addresses. How can I say: You have the power to give life to those who are born before you!!!!!!
Maybe I can imagine that one important politician got stuck in an elevator with a Roma woman for days…..and after learning from each other things can be changed….but this movie still don't have a scenario.
And yes, I just wanted to tickle your minds. I am not over with my point. Honestly, I don't need it in this moment now….I still need to hope and continue to fight…… maybe break few more walls until more people recognize that there is some activism inside our outside of their existence…. And than we can fill all elevators together….You never knows who can get stuck…..
And when you think you are burned and there is nothing more you can do….when the bright clouds don't find your place on earth….then you can grab a heritage your sisters and brothers left for you and say I have: SOMETHING INSIDE SO STRONG. And don't forget that this story comes from the stomach of a radical lesbian feminist. It is morning and I woke up again 100% me.
(Labi Siffre)
The higher you build your barriers
The taller I become
The farther you take my rights away
The faster I will run
You can deny me
You can decide to turn your face away
No matter, cos there's....
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
The more you refuse to hear my voice
The louder I will sing
You hide behind walls of Jericho
Your lies will come tumbling
Deny my place in time
You squander wealth that's mine
My light will shine so brightly
It will blind you
Cos there's......
Something inside so strong
I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just not good enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
I'm gonna do it anyway
I'm gonna do it anyway
Something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me wrong, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Brothers and sisters
When they insist we're just good not enough
When we know better
Just look 'em in the eyes and say
I'm gonna do it anyway
I'm gonna do it anyway
I'm gonna do it anyway
I'm gonna do it anyway
Because there's something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Because there's something inside so strong
And I know that I can make it
Tho' you're doing me, so wrong
You thought that my pride was gone
Oh no, something inside so strong
Oh oh oh oh oh something inside so strong
Ironic!
State institutions seem to be striving to support victims of domestic violence through (fascinating) strategies and legislation. Despite the group of experts who has worked on these papers, the responsible institutions for victims of domestic violence are not yet aware of what they should do and what responsibilities they have.
It has passed almost two months since the last decree for the further increase of the taxes in the Court. It means that a victim of violence as anyone else MUST pay 32 euro (from 16 euro before the decree) just to start their process in the Court if they decide to divorce. For every judicial proceeding they have to pay another euro. But most of the women have no one who can pay their taxes and it seems like it costs less to turn back home suffering the violence until the last breath.
They knock at our door-they don't know where to find the other doors-the ones described in the strategy rows.
While the Mayor of Durres suggests to the victims of domestic violence that they come to us for help, we check our pockets to pay their taxes.
We have to…
Since I was a child I have heard that a girl should get married, should have children and have a marital status in the society and if not it is a big shame on the girl herself and the family as well. This was like a program which was being put inside our minds. Thus after I graduated I was sure that my next step should be an “obligatory” marriage which is quite “important” for the society I live in. But when I started to lead my professional life I understood that I was not ready to sacrifice my professional ambitions to family values.
In my mind a family is a partnership where you should always be ready to compromise. And what if, even being about 30 years old, you do not feel that you are ready to make compromises, what if you understand that priority for you personally is your career and your success in your professional life. But unfortunately society does not want to understand and accept that.
In our society girls are being convinced that the main happiness for them is a successful marriage, which is totally unacceptable in my mind – why shouldn’t I be able to decide what makes me really happy and what does not. As a consequence we today face situations where girls get married not because they fell in love but mainly because they have to.
In this regard I often ask myself why we should live according to the plot which is imposed by our society instead of leading the life we actually want to…
Bawili
She’s 13 years old, and she lost her father during the 1998 war. She hasn’t had the opportunity to go to school like other young girls.
Here is a brief portrait of this young girl, called Bawili, who has to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning every day to do her household chores.
Before she became a maid, Bawili lived with her mother and two brothers in a village called Kagando in the Uvira territory (in the Democratic Republic of Congo).
When her mother was no longer able to support her children she decided to give Bawali to a family who needed a maid. As a gesture of thanks, the family which welcomed Bawili into their home gave her mother a skirt.
In the city of Uvira, around 70% of the people in domestic work are young girls. They live in inhuman conditions, often mistreated by their masters and mistresses, and they do almost all the domestic chores, such as the washing up, the washing, cleaning the house, preparing the meals, all for a monthly income which varies from 10 – 15 US dollars.
Their masters subject them to sexual violence. They force the maids to have sexual relations with them otherwise they will find themselves looking for a new job. These girls are also subjected to physical violence at the hands of their masters.
Bawili, who I was fortunate to meet on the 26th of April confided to me: “My day starts at 5 in the morning and ends at 10 in the evening, and during this time I work very hard without a break for a rest. If my mistress comes home and isn’t satisfied she insults me and sometimes slaps my face. If anything gets broken, such as a glass, I’m the one who has to pay for it and she takes the money out of my pay. At the end of the month they halve my pay and I have no right to my money, it all goes to my mother.
If I told my mistress to pay me more she would say: You eat here and you want us to pay you more, and if I insisted she would threaten to throw me out. But I’d give up this job tomorrow if I could find something else.”
This is a summary of Bawili’s testimony.
The rights of these young girls are totally ignored and their futures are being compromised. Poverty forces some parents to exchange their daughters for wretched sums of money. What makes this so serious is that the state which should be protecting these young people is doing nothing to put a stop to this practice. As an activist I find this unacceptable, which is why I would like to sound the alarm bells on behalf of these young girls who have no voice and no–one to speak up for them.
Thank you.
Trying to enjoy the routine
I decided to write about a cheerful topic this time , but unfortunately after deep thinking nothing good or positive crosses my mind, I know I may look so spoiled to say so, and I know lots of people in the world suffer more than we do here in Gaza. U can't imagine how awful life is here, every day becomes harder and worse than the day before, plus today just like yesterday and the day before and probably like tomorrow, u can't feel the pain till you are sick!
This routine of everyday life and waiting for the unknown is killing me. Every day u do exactly the same thing without any change, it’s like knowing exactly what you are going to do in the next week day by day, also it's like waking up in the morning going to the office doing ur duties going back home - that's it , and if I you decide to have fun with friends the main subject will be about the situation here, how bad it is, so everyone complain on their own way, so i will end up with depression and gloominess as if I need to hear these conversations.
And the worst part of all is that I have to enjoy it. (who can enjoy the routine?!! no one, but I HAVE to enjoy it, no alternatives)
I mean to live with the routine is a MUST otherwise your done, no choices, can you believe that!! I am now working from home since a week, to be honest I get really bored, but it's better this way than hearing something I really don’t want to hear
And the weird part is I'm laughing, smiling and making fun of everything all the time, anybody who meets me definitely will think I'm the happiest on this planet
Guys, do u have any idea how we can enjoy the routine?!
Vanished life
She served the best tea in Shushi. I always visited her during my stay there. It was a long process; first she boiled the water in this old samovar, then prepared the concentrated tea in a small Chinese teapot with red magnolias on it. Then she took out the beautiful set of blue teacups, gently kept in an old shoebox under her bed. And the final touch was the delicious raspberry jam prepared from freshly picked fruits of her garden that she presented in a very antique crystal jars. Everything was so neat in her small one bedroom house and everything smelled of fresh lavender and mint. The old and broken windows were covered with hand sewed flowery curtains. The kitchen didn’t have running water and lacked basic necessities but she managed well and improvised a cooking area and a small container for washing the dishes with water, poured manually from another small metallic container fixed on the wall. The bedroom was very simple and dark. A large bed was placed in one corner and covered with different kinds of covers, sheets and pillows all neatly folded. On the other side small carpets lay on the floor to cover the holes of the wooden floor. But what impressed me most was the silence in this house and the inertia. It seemed to me that nobody really lived there.
But somebody did live there; her name is Laura, she is an Armenian refugee from Baku, Azerbaijan. She managed to flee the city, just before the war started. She left all her belongings there. The only thing she took with her was that old shoebox with the tea set and some of her official papers, a couple of family photos and the key of her apartment there.
Every time I visit her, I find her well dressed and groomed as if she is invited to a big party. In this cold, devastated and grey city of Shushi, her colorful make-up looks almost ridiculous. She tells me in a sad voice: “ I grew up in a big city, you know, I went to University there, had lots of friends, went to all this different parties and had a wonderful time” then she will add in a very sad voice, “but it will never be the same again, you know? After the war, a lot happened. My life changed completely. I don’t have most of my relatives, my friends are lost too, I feel so lonely”, then she sweeps off a tear, tries to smile again.
Once I asked her, why she decided to bring the tea set? She smiled but this time her smile made me uncomfortable. “It was my wedding gift, a wedding that did not happen …he never came back, but I couldn’t leave it there, I just couldn’t”
After the tea ceremony, Laura washes everything very gently. She puts the teacups in the old shoebox and back in their place under the bed. These short scarce moments of happiness help her continue living a life she never chose.
Bitondo and other young girls
Sexual harassment in schools is a growing phenomenon here.
Exactly what is sexual harassment of pupils in the schools?
The teachers offer to give their female pupils good grades in exchange for sex.
In other words, these teachers who should be safeguarding the morality of these young girls are beginning to destroy it. I can quote the recent example of BITONDO, a sixteen-year-old pupil at a school who was the victim of sexual harassment on the part of her chemistry teacher.
This teacher said he would give her good grades on the pretext that she had not passed her final exam. If she didn’t accept she would have less chance of going on to the next year.
Despite these threats BITONDO resisted emphatically.
One day the teacher invited her to his home for a short meeting, strangely the teacher used violence on the young girl but his target managed to escape.
As an activist I wanted to denounce this situation because it has so many negative effects on the education of young girls, in particular:
young girls stop trying to do well at school
unwanted pregnancies which force the girls to give up their studies
the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS
The Effects of Poverty
I come from a family of 7 children of whom I was the 5th.
Before the war which our country the Democratic Republic of Congo experienced in 1996, my father worked in a sugar company and my mother was in trade, unfortunately they lost everything during the war; my parents never worked again which explains the poverty which enveloped our family as a result at that time.
One day a boy came and then he came on to me saying he was going to marry me, which I refused because I wanted to continue my education. I remember I was sixteen years old at that time.
After my refusal the family of the boy who was approaching me for marriage came to see my parents to tell them that their son wanted to marry me and that they possessed the dowry if I accepted this boy.
To my great surprise my parents came and told me I ought to agree to the marriage and my reply was negative because I explained to my parents that my only wish was to continue my education. My parents had told me that there was no question of me being able to continue my education because they had no possibility of paying for this (my education).
My parents were not interested in my education at that time, for them it was essential that I agreed to the marriage so they could collect the dowry. They were convinced that the dowry would help the family out of poverty but me, I believed in my education. I can tell you that since my refusal I have had a very difficult relationship with my parents who refused to see me. My parents told me that education was not important for a girl, only my brothers had the right to study.
Since then my parents have decided that I should stop studying and I have had to do whatever I can to find the money to finance my education.
At the moment I am studying despite the difficulties but thanks to various conferences of debate arranged by CEDEJ, an organisation of young people I found out about in 2006, I can tell everybody who reads me that I have faith in the future and that one day my parents will see that I was right.
I can also tell you that there are many cases like mine here where parents, because of poverty, decide to force their daughters into marriage with the sole purpose of receiving the dowry.
Thank you.
With Respect, UN-DECIDED
“Together we can do more”; “We are moving forward”; “Integrated and secure Macedonia”…are only part of the slogans of some political parties presented and posted in every corner in Macedonia this month. Day by day we listen in the Press conferences, Press Reactions, Reaction of reactions and all this is endless. Politicians lead us toward imaginary herds, I would get inside the herd but whether I would like to occupy myself with the “principle of the heard” I don’t really know. Their “instant” solutions for the way out of the current situation are only set of texts they interject in our heads and more we swallow their policy more we fall into their clutches.
There are still individuals who have fortunately kept their personal identity and can make a decision themselves, but majority in Macedonia are people to which given political parties dictate the direction of thinking which brings to “forced” identification with the political matrix created by that particular party. Respectively, according to my perception, there are people whose ideals correspond with party’s ideals, who entirely concur with solutions for improvement of the quality of life proposed by the party and whose unreservedness I accept. On the other hand there are people involved in the party for only one reason – the existence which leads to their assimilation and “voluntarily under coercion” functioning. These people simply give themselves over to the will of the political party and with no contemplation they obey the rules of the game. There are also true ostriches among them, proud of their “feathers” and “long legs” but if you ask them about anything related to the current party policy, they would bury their heads. But their temporary employment, with marathon extension of the limited employment contract, so jealously beloved, arouse interest among others to join concrete party, with a hope they will also get employed one day. This appearance is indeed a result of the high unemployment rate i.e. the lack of existential resources to survive in our environment, the lack of alternatives for dignity employment which coincide with their knowledge and skills, all guiding to the shore of political “immersion”.
In a while these entire things place us in the basket of fear and distrust. They are even more intensified in the mutual communication and create negative emotions among people with different political orientation. Sometimes even within the same political party groups are created and considered as competition, which on its merits direct to a conclusion “if you are not for us, then you are against us”. This is actually a crucial prerequisite for long-term confrontations and conflicts, lost of sense for humanity, closeness, friendship and coexistence. Well this is sad; we transformed ourselves into robots, insensitive, running after material things that will provide us comfort, happiness, and we forgot about empathy, love, simple need to be productive, to do and create things, to transfer the gained knowledge to others, to simply avoid the “imitation of life”.
Where am I in all this? I resisted the spring-summer parliamentarian wind 2008 though it all smelled like employments, smooth-spoken promises, handshaking through sardonic smile.
Now for these 2009 local and presidential elections, with a great pleasure in Gulliver’s style I follow the nonsense war between Lilliputians and Blefuscudians. One persistently proving that can do nothing without their “mother” – the central government, while others, the same people from 18 years before, are bit more indigent in their rhetoric. Well yes, I wanted to depersonalize myself and sell my own identity arduously built last 25 years for an employment as a “referent for theater and film art” for which I would require some money from the “mother” for only one performance during 2008 and that wouldn’t disturb any of the politicians, at least not during the election campaign.
As a conclusion I can say one thing solely: “as a biological individual it is alike all other humans, as a social being it is alike some other people, but as a person, the human is UNIQUE”.
With respect,
UN-DECIDED
Ivana Jordanova
Organization of Women of Municipality Sveti Nikole
:Roma housing struggle:
As I stated earlier it has been an eventful start of 2009. And there has just been another incident. Here, i will copy/paste information of what happened, made by activists who were on the spot. The rest of us joined them in protest and will continue to do so until the problem is resolved.
“On Friday morning (April 3rd), the forcible and violent eviction of Roma families living in the Block 67 neighborhood began. The residents of this community say that the demolitions began during a surprise invasion beginning at six in the morning led by heavy police presence and special forces. Police brutality resulted in an emergency evacuation of two women from the community. Peoples’ entire belongings were left behind in the ruins. A part of the community is now spending the night in front of the City Council. They are without warm clothes, blankets, food, and medicine (many people had to leave them behind). Residents say that during the day unidentified youth on motorcycles were provoking and instilling fear in the community.
In the meantime, no alternative housing has been secured by the city government, nor is anyone taking care of these needs. Belgrade’s Major Djilas announced that it is "necessary that they be removed from that area so that we can build a new boulevard necessary for the development of the city, and holding of events being planned in the future." He also threatened to deploy police forces to remove any protesters attempting to bloc the streets. These actions were preceded by a media campaign that justified the expulsion of Roma living in New Belgrade under "security" and "city image" considerations in the lead up to the Universiade 2009. Through his statements, Major Dragan Djilas has contributed to the fascist relationship towards Roma citizens and justified the destruction of their homes. As an "alternative" the city officials are suggesting to remove the building of a fence around the community so that "the city's deformities won't be seen during the Universiade."
Does this mean that the Universiade will be paid for with human lives if necessary?
Our fellow citizens who have been left without home are determined to fight for their rights, their right to life, freedom, housing and work.“
:the Church, the Law & Pride:
Only a week after the riot, the long awaited general anti-discrimination law was passed in the Government and was sent to ratification to Parliament. Or so we thought. 15 hours before the parliamentary meeting was supposed to start, leading politicians got a call from the Serbian Orthodox Church and the parliamentary meeting about the law was cancelled! The church “had a problem“ with two articles of this law. Not surprisingly, those articles were the ones that regulate rights of other so called “non-traditional“ religious groups – and others that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Now, the church, just like all other stakeholders, was invited to numerous public debates in the period of over six months where they had an equal opportunity to express their opinion and influence this law. However, they didn’t bother. They put themselves above the so called constitution and used their influence on our ever-confused government to demand that those two articles be erased from the law. And they almost got away with it!
They got support from all other “traditional” churches (Jewish, Muslim and Catholic) and fabulously manipulated both “people“ and right wing politicians, scaring them with a lie that anti-discrimination law will make gay marriages possible (consequently leading to apocalypse of the Serbian nation). They kept insisting on that non-existing part of the law, even saying that they will be accused for discrimination if refusing to marry gay couples (!). Their counting on traditional homophobia worked oh-so-well coz in no time many politicians believed them and named this a “faggot” law, obviously without even reading it. And even though this law applies to all vulnerable groups, prohibits gender based discrimination, discrimination of Roma, protects children, the disabled and so on... regulates workers and syndicalism related rights – in the eyes of the majority it stayed the “faggot” law and it was finally adopted after 22 days of negotiations, and 500 (!) proposed amendments out of which only 6 were adopted in the parliament. Gender expression was totally excluded. They made a bad compromise, coz discrimination based on gender/sex is now illegal "including discrimination of people who changed their sex", but that still excludes a whole bunch of transgendered people who have no intention of changing their sex.
The question is – what’s next? I don’t think that laws can change people’s minds, but if we say that it is important to have this law, the next step would be implementing it. But, to do so, people need to step out and report violence. For example (I’m talking only of LGBT context here) if you are subjected to violence you have to report it to the police, then go to court, which for many means "coming out as gay" publicly - which is one of the reasons why people never did it in the first place. I don’t really see how this law will change that.
I guess, now it’s up to those who are discriminated to use this law on their behalf, which is a tiny part of the more general picture in which things will change in societal level. Surely, this law will not make homophobes change their attitude and start thinking that we are "normal" but it could at least prevent them from being violent and getting away with it. In some years from now...
Riding on the excitement of mainstreaming LGBT issues in Serbia, activists announced their third attempt to organize a Gay pride manifestation this summer. Surely, I’ll be writing more about this in the near future, but surprisingly general secretary of Ministry for human rights announced it will support the Pride. “Wow” is all I can say! Apparently, things are moving forward when it comes to human rights of queers.
BUT, all this unprecedented LGBT visibility had its price. A popular gay club (one out of two) in Belgrade was attacked and stoned twice within two weeks. Their management announced that it will be closed by the end of April. The countdown is on.
Even though I’m not entirely sure attacks are the reason why they are closing, I’d bet they have something to do with it.
:“Riot" at the Sava:
It’s been quite an exciting beginning of the year here in Serbia. It all began at the end of February when a press conference of an LGBT group, that was supposed to happen in a publicly owned conference centre named by the river “Sava”, was cancelled by its new management. The new director proclaimed that gays are not welcome there.
Needles to say, this triggered much anger on “our side”, knowing that numerous LGBT press conferences had been held there in the last couple of years, without a single incident. A few days later, while trying to think of more concrete reactions, the perfect opportunity arouse. In the same centre, an international film festival started, and one of the first films shown was Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” – the story about first openly gay man who was elected for public office in California. So, this LGBT group staged a protest in front of the Sava centre, about 50 people showed up, gave out some leaflets and were about to leave, when about ten of us who are mostly involved in radical left activism got to an interesting idea. We got into the projection hall and just as the film was starting about 30 of us came out to the stage, in front of 2-3000 people, and tried to explain to the audience what happened at the same place only two days before. So, we shouted “stop homophobia” and were very quickly violently thrown out by security gorillas, but the point was made! We were all over the news! Not only did the homophobe director and city mayor apologize, but we had something that was the closest to a gay riot Serbia has ever seen. And you bet it was empowering!
Burying the red apple
Yes we finally did it and gave a symbolic end to a thousand year tradition imposed on Armenian women to keep their bodies and sexualities under control.
For those who are not aware about this tradition, here is a brief description: the “red apple ritual” is a tradition to prove to the immediate family, the in-laws, the neighbours, close and extended families and relatives, co-workers, teachers, friends, acquaintances that the new bride was in fact pure and a virgin. The ritual consists of the bride’s family and in-laws visiting the newly weds after their first night as a married couple, to insure that everything was “ok”. By”ok” we mean that the bride was a virgin and the new husband is satisfied with his choice. Then the celebrations starts; food, drinks and of course red apples are offered as a symbol of the bride’s virginity to the guests and relatives and whoever is present to ensure that the tradition is kept, that the bride is a virgin and the future of the nation is secured. In some regions a piece of physical proof is sometimes demanded; a bloodstained sheet shown to the mother in-law, for example.
And almost a month ago, on March 8th, the international day of women, while most of the post-soviet republics including Armenia, were distributing flowers to their women and girls, inviting them to supper or offering chocolates and celebrating beauty and motherhood day. We, the crazy people at the Women’s Center, decided to walk down the streets with big posters stating “ Women don’t need flowers and chocolates on March 8, they need rights, equal opportunities and a life without violence!!” and inviting people to the burial of the Red Apple.
After a hectic walk, with police stopping us three times, wondering what we were up to and letting us go after interrogation, and some conservative young men harassing us and mocking our march, we finally started the ceremony of the burial. The place was prepared in the backyard of our centre; the women and some men gathered and started digging the grave where the red apples will rest eternally. One of our members was playing traditional burial music on her flute to accompany the ritual. We were happy, chanting, celebrating the end of a tradition oppressing us and controlling our right to our own body. Another member read a eulogy of the red apple that she had prepared, relating the story of the tradition and its meaning in the Armenian society and stating the importance of this historic event. After burying the last Apple, we gathered around the grave and discussed our personal perceptions of the event.
…
This was not easy, we received a lot of threats and criticism from groups of people mainly conservative young men (who even threatened to come and help us in loosing our virginity or called us whores and sluts or traitors) For the past couple of weeks, just reading the comments on some of the blogs run by these conservative groups gave me the chill. But who said it was easy to change things? Yes we took some precautions; we started locking the centre’s door. We started watching behind our backs to see that nobody was following us… fearing that some bad thing will come out from all of this. We were everywhere, in the media, on the radio and TV. And then we had also groups of girls stopping us on the streets smiling, telling us we did the right thing and that they support us but were too shy to join our march.
So we buried the Red Apple on March 8 in Yerevan, now we need to share the good news with the rest of the country!
For more info and coverage of the Red Apple Burial Ceremony, visit the following sites:
http://frontlineclub.com/blogs/onnikkrikorian/2009/03/burying-the-red-ap...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB5uSaTBGdI&feature=channel_page
http://jezebel.com/5170699/like-a-virgin-armenian-in%20laws-want-to-see-...
http://globalvoicesonline.org/specialcoverage/international-womens-day-2...
http://ditord.com/2009/03/10/tradition-gone-wild-the-red-apple/
Do we care?
When for the first time I set foot in the village of Alagyaz, it was to learn more about the place and meet a former volunteer who use to come to our Women’s Center.
Three weeks later we were back to conduct a sexual health and reproductive seminar for the young women in the village. Mrs Sissee was waiting for us in front of the school entrance and as soon as we finished the course, she approached us intimidated at first, with a forced smile on her face, hiding her pain. We couldn’t do much that day. We felt helpless.
Mrs Sissee was born in 1957, in the Yezidi-Kurdish village of Alagyaz in Armenia. As was the tradition in her culture, her future husband kidnapped her on her way to school, when she was 15 years old. He locked her one full day in his house to ruin her reputation (having spent a day in a stranger’s house without someone chaperoning her was enough to presume that she was no longer virgin and not suitable to get married to someone else).
Her wedding was followed by the traditional “apple throwing on the new bride” ceremony, where the bride stands in the middle of a circle of people and mainly the mother-in-law throws apples towards her head to test the new bride’s strength. If the young woman stays still and despite the injuries on her head does not fall or loose conscious, it means that she will be a good and strong wife and will bear healthy children. And so did Mrs Sisee, she didn’t move a bit, even though it was hurting like hell and her head was almost numb.
She didn’t even smile during her wedding; a good bride should show modesty and is not festive during her own wedding and stays as silent as possible. She didn’t want to cause any shame for her parents.
After the birth of her 3rd child, Mrs Sisse did not want to get pregnant anymore, since the village life was becoming harsher; the textile manufactory where she used to work was closed and the family’s economic situation was becoming more and more difficult. Mrs Sissee was the only breadwinner of the family and continued supporting everyone by working from her home, baking bread for the villagers while her husband wasted most of the money on alcohol.
With the passing years and two other unwanted pregnancies, Mrs Sissee’s health worsened; at first she complained about heart problems, high blood pressure which eventually affected her whole organism. For the past 10 years, Mrs Sissee couldn’t visit any clinic; none were available in her village. After menopause, she was suffering from a prolapsed uterus, meaning her cervix was almost coming out of her vagina. Doing harsh physical work everyday continuously and bearing lots of weight for her regular tasks worsened her condition gradually. Her body was in pain, she couldn’t urinate normally and her heart was not feeling good. Every time she was putting aside some money to see a doctor, somebody would need it urgently; school tuition had to be paid, the electricity, a child’s cold had to be treated with expensive antibiotics, the birth of grand-children, etc.
Now the pain was unbearable and Mrs Sissee approached me and Anush after the seminar we had held in Alagyaz. We felt helpless, but advised her to go to the hospital. But she already had done that. She told us that the hospital was a little far, she walked there one full day, and when she arrived, they told her she had to pay 1000 US for surgery. Which she did not have and that was 5 years ago.
Anush, one of our trainers on sexual health was not ready to surrender. She inquired everywhere, even called the ministry of health and finally found out that Mrs Sissee was eligible for free surgery (because of her social and health status). Overwhelmed by happiness, Anush took the 4 hours trip to the village to announce the good news and accompany Mrs Sissee with all the necessary papers to the hospital.
Today, Mrs Sissee is no longer with us. Her heart surrendered on a very cold February afternoon. The doctor refused to operate a couple of months ago, stating that her health condition was very bad and she couldn’t survive surgery, which would have been possible only a couple of years ago…when they asked her for 1000 US for the surgery. How ironic!
Anush was devastated. She had grown attached to the middle-aged woman over the past months.
When we heard the bad news, we looked at each other, couldn’t talk and were thinking …if we only met her a couple of years ago.
Women are still dying in the villages of Armenia (and in other villages) because of the lack of basic health services.
And what are we doing about it?
Where I am
I have wanted to start writing for this blog for some while, but the electricity situation is terrible here in the strip.
Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Zain Rasmi Abu Qasem, I’ll be 26 in October the 5th. My horoscope sign is Libra ( this might be irrelevant, but I consider it one of the important things in my personality). Anyhow, I am still single; therefore I don’t have any kind of commitments. I am a pure Palestinian, born raised and probably spend the rest of my life in Palestine.
I live in a very quiet and peaceful place called Deir El Balah; it's in the middle of the strip close to the sea, it well known for its beaches and date palm trees.
About my family I have 2 brothers and 2 sisters (5 brothers and sisters is a big family) my mother is a home worker and my father is a business man (he owns a factory for plastic printing and packaging) but it’s closed since the last year because of the complicated political and economical situation.
About my brothers and sisters: all of them are out of Gaza except my youngest sister and I, my older brother and sister are in United Arab Emirates UAE and the youngest in Cypress studying business there (he left Gaza by miracle - he waited 3 years to leave the strip)
Furthermore, education was an important phase in my life. I took my High school Diploma from Basheer Al Rayis Secondary School, Gaza. The hard part was when I left for the first time to Ramallah (I was 18 years old by then). Even though it was a small distance, but it was impossible to see my family during the whole period. This was the first time to be away from them, they were four hard years but it was all worth it. I got my Bachelors degree in Journalism from Birzeit University, also I got my professional diploma in Management of NGO's from El Aqsa university in Gaza.
I consider myself as a very responsible and social person. I find it very easy to adapt with any new atmosphere I go into. Moreover I am an independent, communicative person
What I have been through in this war has emphasized how desperately we need to live in peace, especially that we are living in the same area sharing so many common things such as water and borders, in addition to that in our Islamic believes Jews and Muslims are cousins.
Proud and strong
On the airport in Stockholm I felt freedom in the air. I felt safe after a long time. I forgot about the fear, I stopped hiding the book I was reading (lesbian titles in Serbian public spaces can cause you problems, at least some bad comments), I stopped looking behind me and I completely fell asleep in a taxi. Suddenly I felt – I need a rest. How come? Short fly, comfortable hotel, taxi here, taxi there….And yes, I was tired of Serbia, I was tired from work I am working there, I was tired from myself also. I visited Kvinna till Kvinnas offices and I met around 20 wonderful women at their working places. This day ended with a nice (and small…ha ha ha) dinner with a few lesbian friends in a “hetero friendly” restaurant.
Next morning I woke up at 5:30. I was completely recharged and ready for the seminar, I just needed to smoke a pack of cigarettes until 7:45. Than I met Hanna Sällström, Eva Zillén, and Henrik Bergquist. I was much excited to take a part in the seminar and speak about my activism and security. My activist blues was proud and strong. Speaking about my work was a challenge for me in this moment. I was speaking about very bad conditions of work, about fears and threats and about “sleeping” freedom of NLO members. I am publicly out as a lesbian but my freedom is also in a deep sleep. My activist blues ended with applause, my heart was beating loud…beating to tell me …YES BILJANA, YOU SHOULD BE PROUD!!! As modest as I can be I posed for a photographer of Amnesty International in Sweden and gave my card to a few very important persons. In that moment all of them have been important for me. Same day I visited the RFSL organization. My impression is still huge, their work is great. I just missed street activism in the air. I was actually occupied with the thought: when will a 25 year old lesbian activist in Serbia be half the age as her LGBT organization?
The seminar in Göteborg was my next destination. I spent a few wonderful hours with activist Annie Winterquist. We exchanged our experiences, ideas and a “a look in future” about women’s and lesbian human rights. Finally we reached the museum of World culture. We had time to see the exhibition “Pushing the limits”. Eva, Annelie and myself were prepared to start with our huge and important issue. The warm and comfortable space was almost empty until the last moment. When I raised my head after reading my notes the space was full with trustful faces and I started to feel motivating energy. We spoke a lot about activism in Serbia, about lives that lesbians are living (or not living) and about examples from other countries where women’s rights defenders have a “sleeping” freedom too. Eva had such an encouraging voice and Annelie gave me much space to speak. After about 2 hours of speaking the silent smiles and curious eyes showed me full respect for sharing such a long activist blues. And I was proud again. At the end I received so many Scandinavian colorful and different age hugs…I wanted to stay longer and respect those wonderful people more…. but we ran into taxi so fast. Last words I heard from a beautiful young and proud lesbian were: I have a female band with my girlfriend. We want to participate in your lesbian festival in Novi Sad. Is that possible?
YES, YES, YES, EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE…WE PUSHED OUR LIMITS ALREADY, DIDN’T WE?
P.S. There is a song from ABBA with the words …..does your mother know?.......
My suggestion is: Let Kvinna Till Kvinna know first.
So, thank you all for inviting me and giving me to be part of your world too.
My proud activist blues in Sweden
I am a feminist activist since 1997 and a lesbian activist since 2000. I was 23 years old when I discovered that “there is another world spinning…inside of this one” (Laurie Anderson – Freefall). This world allowed me to live the most realistic and powerful life as a young women. In 1997 every day life in Serbia already divided young people in many ways. A big nationalistic and militaristic spoon was feeding young generations at that time and my biggest wish was to escape from this kind of surrounding. During these 12 years Sweden was also on the list of my escape destinations. A dream I can tell. If I did not wait these 12 years probably my visit wouldn’t have been so proud and activist…..mostly blues without back vocals for sure.
But I decided to stay where I am and contribute to the women’s movement and activism. Since 2004 we have Novi Sad Lesbian Organization (NLO) and my activism became much dedicated to fight for lesbian human rights. Kvinna Till Kvinna (KTK) supports NLO programs and activities since 2007. NLO is the only LGBT organization in province of Vojvodina and we need much help with funds and other things. There is also much of centralization in the NGO sector. Sometimes is much harder to be visible inside of the women’s movement than in the local community as a lesbian organization. KTK showed respect and trust in NLO on many levels. We exchanged so many sentences and got to know about each other trough so many words we spoke. With their help NLO became more strong, visible and proud. What is more important – NLO members became more proud of their organization.
As a coordinator of NLO I was honored to contribute for KTK seminars based on Women Human Rights Defenders and Activism. Honestly, after 12 years of my activism, I was for the first time in my life called a women’s human rights defender and was invited to speak about it. I felt stronger, prouder and important. I also used this chance to fell REALLY free. But this is a story on its own, and I will tell you more about this feeling of freedom and pride later on.
What could I possibly write?
Ever since the war on Gaza, I have been trying to write this blog. Each time I began from another moment – the first demonstration against the Israeli attack; the disinformation in the news in Israel; the panic and despair in the eyes of women around me; the pictures on Al Jazeera, the political persecution of anti-war activists.
Every time, after two sentences, I stopped. I couldn't find the strength to keep on writing. Something in this overwhelming helplessness held me tight. Every word and every sentence seemed unbelievably weak, helpless and to a large extent, useless. What could I possibly write against this vast amount of blood, body parts, bombed houses, and complete indifference to human suffering?
What could I possibly write to be heard in this ocean of racist ideology? The fact that I will be writing in English and probably for people from the "First World" gave me little comfort. After all, the dehumanization of Arab and Muslim people is a global phenomenon, clearly evident in Europe and the US.
For example, it is quite easy to forget that the mass-killings and the civil wars in Africa cannot be separated from the history of European colonialism and the subsequent policies of global financial institutions such as the World Bank, IMF and WTO. It is not just the primitive rockets and explosives cooked in one's home kitchen that make our life a living hell. It is also the transparent violence in the well structured bureaucratic channels, institutions and "security" concerns of different sorts. And this is something that the "First World" is really good at.
The silent agreement of world's government (in contrast to the loud protest of the people) to the killing in Gaza showed quite clear that it is not about some emotional sentiment towards Israel, or about various anti-Semitic versions about Jews controlling the media or the economy or the world, but a dominant ideology. The lives of Arabs and Muslims became (as they in fact always were?) so terribly cheap. In fact, this massacre might even save the Western countries several dozens potential immigrants of the wrong race, ethnicity, colour and religion.
I feel so helpless in the face of this miserable machine of ethnic cleansing, this systematic oppression which produces soldiers and leaves little space for critical thinking, for even a chance to imagine a better life.
So how come I am writing all this, without stopping in the middle and feeling the uselessness of it all (even though the urge is quite there, I assure you)?
A week ago, in honour of the International Women's Day, more than 800 women marched through the streets of Tel Aviv. This city of mine, usually so indifferent and Jewish-only, was a site for a radical feminist protest, for an attempt to build Jewish-Arab/Palestinian partnership and solidarity.
We marched under the slogan "Stop Crimes against Women", demanding to stop war crimes, economic crimes, sexual crimes, racist crimes and heterosexist crimes. In the end of this march, we took the portraits of the major criminals – Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Avigdor Liberman, Shimon Peres, and others – and threw them into the trash bin of history, right where they belong. It is perhaps the historical perspective and the certainty the power balances often change, that gives me hope – and new fears along.
Lilith, Eva and the others (dedicated to Sanie)
One ordinary day in my office, just as I was about to take off, the door bell rang. A crying absent minded woman showed up looking for help. After being through hell and high water she decided to put an end to it by getting a divorce. Even torn apart she took a brave start and agreed to the whole procedure. Raised as a traditional Muslim she was continuously judged by her family for ending as a divorcee and as a result - she was excluded from her father’s will. In stead of being quiet, smile, obey the rules and knuckle down she took control of her own life. She didn’t honor their request for silence and so she became a sinner.
This started me thinking that it‘s nothing but history repeating. It started when God created out of clay the first man – Adam. After doing so, God realized it’s not good for man to be alone and he forms Lilith – the woman. Lilith claims that since she and Adam were created in the same way, they were equal, and she refuses to submit to him. Her sin was request for being equal. Later on Eve, who was created to be Adam’s wife and helpmate succumbs to the serpent’s temptation to eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil by sharing the fruit with Adam. She was cursed and expelled from the Garden of Eden. Her sin was being curious.
Thousands years fast forward a woman in Saudi Arabia who was victim of gang rape was sentenced to six months imprisonment for violating laws on segregation of the sexes. Even though the woman was kidnapped, locked in a car and driven away in a farm where being raped by 7 men, due to the law of Sharia she was punished on the grounds of being alone with non related male. Her sin was being physically weaker.
Rape of woman is systematically used as a weapon of war. It already happened in Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina . During the war in Iraq a bold woman called Yanar Mohammed started a revolution by fighting for women’s rights. She was organizing protests, demonstrations, street actions trying to gather as many men and women as possible in order to spread the message of peace and a right of choice free of coercion. After no longer than 24 h she had received threat messages with the title “killing Yanar”. Her sin was being brave.
But, it seems like that there is not an end to it. No matter if the woman claims her rights, trying to bring the best of herself, fighting for equality, a better reality she cannot remain pure in the eyes of the society. One way or another she breaks her “responsibility” not to sin and ends like a sinner. At the end of the day, she even can be guilty of attracting an attention because of her beauty. Just like in the movie “Malena”.
I have found my calling.
Now it has been almost 4 years since I started my career in an International Humanitarian NGO called “Action against Hunger”. First I had worked as an interpreter, but then I realized that in a capacity of an interpreter I have no opportunity to express myself. And at that exact time having a certain experience in the humanitarian sphere I felt that I had something to tell and suggest to my society in the frames of my humanitarian activity. And I was lucky since my decision was welcomed by my supervisor and I evolved from the position of an interpreter to a socio-economist in the three-year program called “Integrated Community and Economic Development.
I am living in a post-war region – it has been almost 16 years since the war ended. After the war our society faced a lot of problems such as poverty, chronic unemployment, and economic decline. In this connection a lot of humanitarian organizations launched their activity on the territory of my country in the framework of their humanitarian missions.
In the difficult post-war period the important and significant role of the humanitarian agencies can scarcely be exaggerated. Among my friends and acquaintances there were many people who had benefited a lot from the relief programs of ICRC, ACH, MSF. And according to them dry food distributed within the several years after the war was the only salvation for them. To tell you the truth the post war period was very difficult for all of us. And having seen all these problems around me I was about to run away from them. But something made me change my mind and I could understand that this is a position of a weak person and such a step will bring to no solution.
Thus, upon graduation from my Institute I had no doubt about my future work – I was strong in my decision to start working for a humanitarian agency.
I am really happy that once I had made this decision and now I understand that I have found my calling.
The program we are implementing mainly aims at providing the material support to vulnerable people through income generating activities. Unfortunately all over the world there are still a lot of people who are on the poverty line. And when I realize that I have the opportunity to do something beneficial for the society I live in, I feel a real satisfaction from the work I am doing.
Today in the world there are a lot of problems. And maybe it is difficult to solve all of them, but still I am totally convinced that we should be responsible for the time and epoch we are living in…
A piece of her story
A few days ago a woman without a name, with an unknown story was found laid on the street; she was not breathing anymore and her blood was the last memory she left for the passengers - strangers who were there to see what happened.
It was the scoop of the day and media broadcasted the news from afternoon to late at night.
About 30 year old, skinny, few cloths worn, no money and a piece of newspaper containing the information on job vacancies; this was what we knew. People showing their regret whispered on the causes of her death...depression, pain, lose of hope, pressure, madness, abandonment, weakness… It doesn’t matter all this!
The piece of newspaper found behind of her body reveals a piece of her story.
Whatever, a mother, a wife or a daughter, she was a desperate woman seeking a job to survive. Everybody can suppose about her individual misfortune but what about her tragedy as a woman?
No one has announced her disappearance and she continues to be the anonymous tragedy in desperate efforts to survive.
Abandoned or not she has tried to find a job outside home in order to (probably) feed her children, parents, a disabled husband or just herself. The labor market is so limited and selective and age, sex, physical appearance, origin and (why not!) fate can decide if someone will have the chance or not. Perhaps the woman has knocked in several doors all closed until she finally, decided to stop worrying, fighting, asking and dreaming for a better life.
Of course she is not the only one who commits suicide. Many women around the world neglecting their self, denying their potential and values have stopped to live although still breathing.
My short skirt
Two weeks ago I went out for a dinner downtown with a group of women working with women’s rights. I always enjoy these dinners because so many times I have heard stories from older women still fighting for their vision, encouraging the younger ones, giving life lessons but most of all showing girl power. For some of those older ladies, if I didn’t know their actual age, I would say that we are compeers. I admire their spirit, sense of humor, wisdom and free minded thinking. But something caught me by surprise…
While I was having conversation somebody call me by my name. I saw an old friend looking at me with happiness. I could not believe it - there was the lady who I met 7 years ago while working on a project for UNICEF. Back then she was one of the most respected coordinators in the office in Skopje. Devoted, hard working, professional . I liked her right away. But I could see some sorrow in her eyes, and it was really deep. She revealed how she lost her husband in a car crash a while ago and after that she was left with a 3 year old boy. She was grievous, breached from sorrow and she needed help. So, since I finished by obligations, I agreed to babysit her little boy. And so I did for 10 months. Everyday, after she was back from work she would give her son the biggest kiss , holding him for half an hour without blink. I know after her husband died that little boys was the world to her, but also that boy was the only man in her life. It was hard looking at her so closed into her inner world , disappointed , wearing black from tip to toe all the time . Now at this restaurant when I heard my name called I couldn’t even recognize her. She was glowing . She had pearly smile, fancy looks and very short skirt. Unbelievable transformation! I saw how she had a companionship and that made me even happier. She was one of those women who knew how to connect with herself and move on, believing in life after love and not doing right things for wrong reasons . Life itself is blessing after all, but we always act like the day is too short for us and we often forget how little things can bringing light into our life’s . I’m glad that she wasn’t holding the grievance forever like it seemed to me back then. There she was – one brave woman looking good in a short skirt.
But then I was hit by sudden surprise. I saw how some of the ladies on my table were looking at her with disapproval like she did some kind of crime. And what was even more ironic- this traditional thinking was coming from the younger ones. It was too cheap for me hearing them , and I couldn’t help my self not commenting on their gossips . Instead of answer on their judgment for my friend’s short skirt, I just told them about the play “My short skirt” at the 10th year celebration for V day in New Orleans, when it’s said: “My short skirt is not an invitation, a provocation , my short skirt has nothing to do with you , my short skirt is not proof that I’m stupid , undecided or malleable little girl. My short skirt is who I am and before you make me cover it or torn it down , get used to it .My short skirt is initiation, appreciation …but mainly my short skirt and everything underneath is MINE!!! “
I’m meeting my friend soon over a coffee and I sure hope she will wear her short skirt again.
Abkhazia is my pain too...
I believe that homeland is always a special part in everyone's life. That's why I am with those IDPs from Abkhazia who live next to me and say that "locals" will never understand the pain they experienced by losing everything because of the war. When I hear these words, I try to recall everything that I have in my mind on conflict in Abkhazia.
... I was born in Kutaisi, I was brought up in Kutaisi and now I live in Kutaisi. In this town, next to me live my contemporaries who can not simply say: “I was born in Abkhazia, I was brought up in Abkhazia and now I live in Abkhazia”. Why? Because the terrible war made them leave their native land when they were very little.
The severity of this war was also reflected on my family's life.
I was just ten years old then. My father worked for the Red Cross Society in the Rescue Team. I remember very well a day when I was playing with other children in the yard. Suddenly my father came running and told us that he had to go to Chuberi, to help the people escaping from Abkhazia. My mother’s and grandmother’s eyes filled with tears but they could not say anything.
For several weeks we had not heard anything from my father. It was impossible to contact him. I was a child, but I felt how my family members worried. At last, my father returned, but I saw a quite different person standing in front of me, with bearded and sorrowful face, older. Time by time, he was recalling stories that were very difficult to listen to.
I could not imagine that war might bring so much damage: frozen, hungry, impoverished children, elderly, women and men with nothing to keep them warm... My father’s eyes were filled with tears, when looking at my sister and me, since we reminded him the children of our age, who had unfairly been punished by the war and, with inconsiderable courage, struggled for survival...
I was a child then and I understood everything in my way... Now I am an adult, I was brought up in my native town – Kutaisi. Next to me children have been brought up who underwent great fear and terror from the war; the children who, with frozen hands and feet in rainy and snowy days and sad eyes, were asking my father to save them. That time, I – a child of their age – was sitting at home, dressed warmly, under my mother’s care and could not imagine their trouble. But everything was not finished with this.
Already three years I have been with the people, who are called internally displaced persons. These three years have brought me so close to them, and helped me understand that their problems and trouble is my problem and trouble. Thanks to them I have learnt the most important thing in our lives - the value of peace, one who have not passed through war can not simply get at the root of peace...
That’s why I say without exaggeration - Abkhazia is my pain too...
Eka
I would like to tell you the story about one girl. Her name is Eka, she is 20. She was involved in many activities organized in my organization, such as trainings with young people, reproductive health and rights sessions with young girls, she was participating in the series of the session: Bridal kidnapping is violation of my rights where girls were telling boys about the kidnapping and how they felt…
One day Eka was kidnapped. It happened in spring this year in the center of the town, during the daytime, not very far from our office. The witnesses told us later that she was grabbed by armed men, dragged towards the car and pushed in while she was screaming. No one could approach the men, as they were pointing guns to everyone and threatening them.
As it turned out latter she was kidnapped by a man, 45 who took her to the remote village and when her parents with some of the relatives came there, they were still threatening them. They had no way but had left her their although her mother was talking later that Eka had begged her not to leave her in that house…
She was not allowed to see anybody from her family, all the time she was brought from the village to town, she was always accompanied with her new relatives and did not have chance to talk to her mother alone. Everybody knew she was unhappy.
Later this summer we heard that she run away from the house of her husband, nobody knows how she managed it, as she was watched so thoroughly. Her husbands relatives attacked her parents house as they believed that her mother helped her, but they also did not know about Eka anything and where in a terrible situation.
A few days later, Eka phoned back home and told that she had crossed the border and was staying with her uncle.
I do not know anything about Eka after that.
The right to independence
Every nation has the right to independence which first of all gives them the opportunity to preserve their originality. If throughout the history people had not tried to conquer their independence we wouldn’t today have 191 member-states of United Nations. However, these states, which “yesterday” were fighting themselves for their own independence, do not want to accept the independence of other nations which have the same historic rights to it. Of course each case is unique but it does not mean that we can give privileges to ones and deprive these privileges the others.
They say that breaking of territorial integrity somehow threatens the prosperity of the country. In my opinion it only threatens the imperial ambitions of some state leaders who do not want to recognize the independence of other nations – the willingness of others to exist separately frightens them. In this regard I am wondering if these states have the right to declare themselves to be democratic ones. A mature democracy is not afraid of separatism. We should understand that we are not there for state, the state is there for us. When this understating comes to some leaders of some states then there will not be any fears concerning the recognition of independence of others.
When we are speaking about the human rights we should not forget that each person must have a freedom of choice in everything. The HUMAN BEING has the right to arrange his/hers political, economic, social and cultural development by himself/herself therefore he/she has the right to independently create his state.
But today unfortunately we can see an opposite picture. Certain states have the right to live independently – others do not. Certain states have the right to participate in the Olympic Games under their own flags the others are deprived of this right. These facts bring me to understanding that today there is an acute need to push the limits, but first of all the limits of our consciousness.
Are we giving up on political power?
In September a woman, Tzipi Livni, won the leadership elections of Kadima party and is very likely to become the next Prime Minister of Israel. Shouldn't I, as a feminist, rejoice? Certainly not.
Simplistic interpretation of policies such as the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, which stresses the importance of women's presence and contribution to political processes and peace negotiations, could mistaken this for an achievement for women. Or for peace.
Policies often become superficial when the analysis, ideological force and motivation behind them are forgotten, disregarded or silenced. When ideology is cut into pieces and some of these pieces are integrated into policies, it can in fact disconnect those elements from their conceptual and political context which gives them meaning and force and thereby to neutralize them. In other words, there's more to political power for women than several individual figures in leadership positions of right-wing pro-military governments.
The struggle for women to take political power is not just about entering existing political, economical, social and military institutions. With the emergence of radical feminism, or the Second wave, we also speak of challenging these institutions, their legitimacy and the very values they are based on. In simple example, liberal feminism would see a success in women taking leadership roles in the army. Women from radical feminist positions in Israel act to reduce the central role of the army in society and to counter militarism altogether. Having an equal "right" to kill and oppress is not what we fight for.
With Israel being known in the world as a democracy, one might assume that there is a separation between the political and the military systems. This is not the case. The political system is profoundly militarized and intimately bound with the military. Moreover, as long as the state is defined as Jewish and democratic, it puts in question the "quality" of citizenship of Palestinian citizens and other non-Jewish residents. These issues raise the question of whether the parliament, for example, can be a legitimate political institution. By attempting to enter this system, we would recognize its legitimacy de-facto.
So are we giving up on political power? Have the fierce struggles of women's organizations in the UN to pass resolutions securing women's place in peace processes been in vain? Of course not.
What it does mean however, is that in this particular political context, political power may not necessarily be to secure a place for women in the Knesset or other state institutions. For me, political power means creating true partnership between Jewish and Palestinian women (from Israel, from the West Bank and Gaza, in the Diaspora). I am not interested in "representing" the state of Israel. Rather, I wish to be part of a Jewish-Palestinian feminist movement across borders, working to shape the political identity of this region. And we are working on getting there.
Being a girl
I don’t actually know how to explain what is for me being a girl, but maybe I can explain how I feel being one. Well, sometimes I like it and sometimes it sucks. When you are a teenager you easily get confused by all the internal and external changes that effect you. Concerns about the body shape and appearance, love crashes, disappointments, awareness or lack of awareness about obligations at school, future plans, expectations, but above of this lack of self esteem.
The pressure is coming from everywhere – whether the monster make up industry or the great expectations about you coming from the family.
As I was a bit of a tomboy during my teenage years my biggest interest was related to music and I could care less about beauty. I found that music means a lot to me and often to express my emotions I was making playlists of my favorite songs like a little emotional patterns just to go through easily with my emotional condition. It was my way of dealing with joy and depression and it worked.
I discovered my feminine side when I was at age of 21. It was then when I started thinking about how every woman is beautiful just because she is all that – a woman. The beauty industry is twisting the perception of woman’s beauty by all means. To me sincerity is beauty – that makes you a better human and that is something to be striving for, being gallant is beauty - that is something to be learned and charm is beauty and that is something you are born with.Every woman should reach her own beauty and feminity and that is the way of feeling beautiful. And to feel pretty is to feel that you are needed and respected.
Since I started working with woman’s rights I was about to discover woman’s power and woman’s weakness at the same time. I discovered how badly the woman can be treated just because she is physically weaker and how she can be dominated because of traditional customs or society pressure. I discovered the irony of when a woman is beaten it is because she asked for it, if she is raising her own voice and asking for protection she is a bitch, if she enjoys sex than she is a whore and if not she is frigid, if she is raped she must have been provoking … All of that was giving me the sense of gender equality and its great importance in everyday life. It concerns the girls, women, mothers but also men.
I heard a lot how all those feminist activities are either lesbian intentions or a bunch of bitches that want to overpower the men. But the real meaning of gender equality it is that woman wants men as whether loving and devoted husbands, caring boyfriends, fathers or brothers, respectful bosses or co-workers or as true friends. The core of it is respect. When this is achieved that is the time when a woman can actually feel proud of what she is, of being a woman.
Red apple
Anush got married last Sunday in her birth town, Vanadzor. A town situated 1 and a half hour away from the capital Yerevan. When I saw her a day before, she was very nervous. She had met her future husband only 4 months ago and everything was going so fast. The parents were pressuring her to get married for the last 7 years, she was almost 30 and for a woman of her age in Armenia, it was almost too late to find a husband.
So the time was pressing and she did not have the luxury to fall in love, form a real couple, and experience “things”. And by “things”, I mean having any kind of sexual life before marriage. It is almost unthinkable to talk of such things in the Armenian society. Young women are supposed to stay virgin and pure until their marriage. Dating was something that did not exist in the Armenian dictionary. Young couples were allowed to go for 1 or 2 dates alone (and only during certain hours and certain places). After the short so called “dating ritual” it was expected that the couple get engaged and eventually married.
Anush was nervous for the day after her wedding night. She was scared of the “red apple ritual”. The red apple ritual is a very old ritual that is conducted a day after the wedding night. The mother in law with the help of he women relatives goes to the place where the newly wed couple spent their first night to greet them in a way and see if “everything” was ok. By “everything”, I mean if the new bride was pure/virgin and if the new husband is satisfied. In some remote areas or regions of Armenia, a small handkerchief with the blood is even shown to the relatives and the neighbours, to ease their concerns. As a symbol of virginity, red apples are offered to all the guests that day and celebrations follow.
And what happens if “everything” is not ok?
Mariam from another town was virgin, but she didn’t see any blood that night. The whole family panicked and the young woman was taken to the family doctor for a check up. While the whole family was waiting outside, the shy woman was praying that the doctor will clear everything and she would be able to stay with her husband… Gayane from a remote village, north of Armenia did not even make it to the doctor’s office. Her Mother-in-law sent her off, back to her parents, just after the wedding day, ashamed of her not being a good virgin bride.
In our sexuality workshops at the Women’s Center, young women are always concerned about the virginity issue. They fear that something goes wrong, that they will bring shame, that nobody will believe them. Doctors say that the reconstructive operation of the hymen (to restore virginity) is very common in Armenia and costs almost 150 USD. Armenian men have more freedom in their sexual life, before and after marriage. Nobody questions their purity or their common extramarital affairs.
….
Anush’s mother called me yesterday. She was not very happy that I did not show up for the “red apple” event and informed me that everything went well and that now finally she can sleep well at night because her daughter brought pride to the family.
I sometimes wonder how is it possible to accept some unacceptable things and never even attempt to change them.
I wonder how is it possible to change some thing’s that are so deeply buried in a nation’s soul and blood without causing a catastrophe…
Lara Aharonian --- October 2008-----Armenia
With only two shelters
Durres in Albania is a nice city, a quite one where time after time new visitors get surprised by its formal way of living, traditions and family principles. I can still remember that long day just one year ago where in the early morning a woman was killed by her husband in front of her workplace. In the media everyone showed their sorrow and indignation – a formal reaction necessary in such cases - but this story was just one among numerous others.
A pacific protest was organized against this act and for other thousand silent deaths of dreams and hopes of women – mothers, daughters and friends. I wonder who has really heard the voices of the pain of these women!
The increased cases of domestic violence in Albania and the pressure of fulfilling standards in order to become EU members made possible the approval of a new law against domestic violence in June 2006. According to this law the Police Directory has started the application of the Immediate Order of Protection for victims.
How effective has these measures been toward domestic violence reduction?
My answer as a professional layer will unfortunately not be totally positive. We have borrowed models from Europe, but we have not borrowed models for the supportive systems that should help the victims to restart their life and to gain their lost self esteem.
The Immediate Order of Protection (IPO) means that during at least 20 days and maximum 3-4 months the perpetrators have to leave the house and by the law we make the victims of violence believe that her life will be different. Of course the perpetrator almost in all the cases respects the IPO, but sooner or later he can go back home and the law doesn’t guarantee a house for the wife and children where to be safe.
The break of the violence cycle is not always a release for a victim because she is often unprepared and without means to start a new life.
In Albania there are only two shelters for violence victims. We are still late to implement the steps foreseen in the National Strategy for gender equity and domestic violence regarding the housing, employment, education, and for treating professionally the trauma of such victims.
I’m so sorry for being so pessimistic but tomorrow when a woman will nock at our door me and my colleagues will not have much to offer, in spite of the law just the emotional and legal support in the Court.
We cannot fight alone in a time when institutions do not know how they can help and where to start! The law cannot function as long as a victim of violence will need another place to stay, a work to survive and the support to be strong enough and independent!
The violence is an international phenomenon, but right now I have to focus on Albania because I’ll build my future here!
Asylum
While driving back from Shushi (a disputed area between Armenia and Azerbaidjan), I was thinking about the long journey which took me back home. I am an Armenian woman born in Beirut, Lebanon who fled away just after the war of liberation in 1989 when general Aoun wanted to liberate Lebanon completely from the Syrian long-lasting occupation. I was 15 at that time and having a blast camping in the basement of our local church every night after 6 with all the neighbors, while the city was bombarded. Even though the adults in that room were stuck to their radio listening every bit of information with frowning eyes and whispering every now and then ‘ts, ts, ts’ (a middle eastern way of saying ‘oh my god it’s so bad’), guessing which part of the city was under fire or which building was collapsing it did not affect as much us the youth in that same room who were more into playing board games, listening to music and falling in love…
After our apartment was hit with a shell bomb and we almost lost everything, my mother packed all our remaining belongings and her jewels who took us, me, my two brothers and my father to peaceful and ‘politically correct’ Canada. And while sitting in a very calm, nicely colored with perfect benches public park of Montreal, waiting for my dad to pick me up after school, it hit me really bad. I almost collapsed under the tears and cried so hard. Culture shock, post-traumatic syndrome, effects of war, depression, nostalgia, fears… different people called it different names; I call it ‘the awakening’. My life had change drastically.
Due to the genocide that took place in the early 20th century, my grand parents had escaped from their homeland, currently eastern Turkey to finally take refuge in Lebanon. My parents were both born in Beirut and they considered both Armenia and Lebanon as their homeland (as every other diasporan Armenian).
The road taking me back from Shushi to Yerevan, is long and tiring full of potholes. I try to find a comfortable position in the small mashrutka (public transportation, soviet mini-bus) and to sleep, but I am mesmerized by the large mountains, the only thing Armenia has plenty of. I watch the women working in the fields of the Massis region through my small window; everything seems so quite and serene.
I remember how I finally moved to Armenia six years ago with my husband and 2 daughters despite my mother’s tears and father’s ‘ts, ts,ts’. I was tired of being a refugee, a guest, a foreigner, I wanted to come back to my roots, try to build a steady, sustainable life on this land called ‘home’. It was also six years ago when with two of my feminist friends Gohar and Shushan, we started a drop-in women’s center in a very tight and dusty old soviet room on the Yerevan State University campus. At first we were 3, then we became 10, then 21. Today we moved to a new location and the center’s activities are getting bigger and bigger, the volunteers are growing in number and age.
We started a new Women’s Resource Center in Shushi, a sister branch. I make the 6 hour trip almost every month and I often think about this amazing journey from the heat of Anatolia, through the fresh breeze of the Mediterranean Lebanese seashore, across the colorful benches of the green parks of Canada to the mysterious mountains of the Caucasus.
Lara Aharonian – Armenia – 10 sept.2008
War and democracy
Throughout its history humanity achieved great advances in technology but not in understanding of real values. Why we need to face a war to start to really appreciate peace. Why oil, money and territorial frontiers are much more important than the lives of human beings. Why we, humanity, are not able to understand that our lives are limited in time and within this short period we should try to build peace and not to unleash wars.
Today the whole world is speaking about democracy as the fairest system of governance. This fairest system gives us an opportunity to elect those who will be responsible for our lives and fates. In this regard, I am wondering if these democratically elected representatives of authority ask their electors if they want to be at war. Why a person who kills the other person is a criminal and the one who started the war during which hundreds of people died is not considered as such. Why living in poverty we allow our government to spend a huge amount of budget money on ammunitions.
I believe that common people want just to live, work and develop their country in peace and stability; to create families and have children and not to think that tomorrow their sons will have to die for the realization of the ambitious plans of their democratically elected presidents. People are tired of instability and inconstancy in their lives.
I want to be convinced that in the 21st century we will be able to find the ways that will allow us to live in a real democracy where those whom we elect will take the voice of each of us into consideration. I am absolutely sure that the real democratic countries never initiate wars…
On August 25th 2008 I woke up earlier than usual...
On August 25th 2008 I woke up earlier than usual. At 7:30 am we had to be on a bus, making our way to the Induction Base close to Tel Aviv. A young woman, Sahar Vardi (age 18) was there with her father to enter the base on the date she was ordered, in ordered to refuse military service. We were there to support her and protest against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the enlistment of youngsters to serve it. Sahar is the third conscientious objector to be imprisoned among a new group of high school seniors, who signed a collective declaration of refusal to serve in the Israeli army of occupation.
In her personal refusal statement, she wrote: "I have been to the occupied Palestinian territories many times, and even though I realize that the soldier at the checkpoint is not responsible for the wretched policy of the oppressor towards civilians, I am unable to relieve that soldier of responsibility for his conduct ... I mean the human responsibility of not causing another human being to suffer."
There was something encouraging and dis-encouraging at once, in this protest and solidarity demonstration we held at the gates of the Induction Base. It was encouraging to support a movement of 18 years old women and men taking political responsibility. This is not easy, given our reality in which high school seniors choose their military track just like American or European middle and upper class kids choose their college track.
It was dis-encouraging because as we stood there supporting refusniks, dozens of boys and girls entered the base, accompanied by their parents and grandparents, friends and little brothers and sisters, with the aim to enlist. The feelings I can remember from standing there, in just one of our countless demonstrations, are anger and sadness. I felt anger for the blindness and collaboration of these people with the destruction of other people's lives, as well as their own. Sadness, for what this military instrument of the government does to people, for the suffering, death and destruction it will continue bringing.
Almost three months before in Bethlehem, two girls even younger than Sahar, Salwah Salah (16) and Sara Siureh (16) were taken by force by Israeli soldiers from their homes, into administrative detention. They are still held in Damun prison, without charge or trial, and administrative detention orders can be renewed indefinitely. Both were taken from home by female soldiers – women few years older than them, just like the girls we have seen two weeks ago, happily entering military base to join the Israeli Defense Forces.
This is the first time girls under the age of 18 are taken into administrative detention. It has also motivated us in the Coalition of Women for Peace to re-focus our efforts on the struggle for freedom for political prisoners. Updates on our work will be posted on our website (which is now being re-constructed): http://www.coalitionofwomen.org
For additional information about Salwah and Sara and about administrative detentions, please see: http://www.wofpp.org/english/urgent.html
Puss
