The WIP Contributors tag:thewip.net,2012:/contributors//4 2012-02-03T08:13:59Z Articles and columns by The WIP Contributors Movable Type Enterprise 1.53 When Breast Implants Are Ticking Time Bombs: The PIP Scandal tag:thewip.net,2012:/contributors//4.156950 2012-02-02T08:01:01Z 2012-02-03T08:13:59Z by Aralena Malone-Leroy -France- • PIP plant back door. La Seyne sur Mer, Var, France. Photograph courtesy of Flickr user... Aralena Malone-Leroy by Aralena Malone-Leroy
-France-



• PIP plant back door. La Seyne sur Mer, Var, France. Photograph courtesy of Flickr user marcovdz and used under a Creative Commons license •
In late December 2011, while most Europeans were doing last-minute holiday shopping and preparing for gargantuan meals and family festivities, hundreds of thousands of women spent achingly sleepless nights, worried that their breast implants might be giving them cancer. The French Ministry of Health had just released a statement recommending that women with breast implants manufactured by the French company Poly Implant Prothèse (PIP) have them removed, even in the absence of signs of rupture or other complications. All medical fees for the “preventive” process would be covered by national health resources.

This announcement, which concerns more than 450,000 women worldwide – approximately 30,000 in France and 40,000 in the United Kingdom alone, with thousands more in Spain and Italy, as well as Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Argentina, Ecuador, and Venezuela – came nearly 12 years after the first alarm sounded on the substandard quality of the PIP breast implants.

]]> In early 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent a damning report to the PIP factory. The “low-cost” implants contained industrial-grade silicone (including such chemicals as Baysilone, a fuel additive, and Silopren and Rhodorsil, used in rubber manufacturing) instead of the required medical-grade silicone. The rupture rate of the PIP implants was dangerously high, over 1 in 10. PIP stopped selling the unsafe implants to the United States, but they remained impervious to the health risk of their faulty products and continued to market the low-cost implants elsewhere. It was not until April 2010 that PIP was shut down by the French government and the implants definitively removed from the French and international markets.

Why it took nearly 10 years for French authorities to finally remove PIP silicone implants from the market is one that the government will attempt to answer over the next few months. Xavier Bertrand, Minister of Labour, Employment, and Health, has ordered France’s two main regulatory agencies for drugs and medical products to disclose the tests and controls that allowed toxic silicone implants to be sold.

Twenty cases of cancer have been reported in French women with the PIP implants. One woman passed away due to lymphoma. While official statements continue to deny any direct link with the implants and cancer, the dangerous rates of rupture and inflammation caused by leakage of the industrial-grade silicone is proven and condemned by the government.

Italy, the Czech Republic, and Germany have all released official recommendations that women with PIP implants have them removed. But not all health officials are recommending removal. While suggesting that patients schedule appointments with their surgeons to have the implants checked for leaks or ruptures, health department statements from Britain, Israel, and Venezuela deny any urgency for removal. Other governments suggest that clinics have a “moral duty” to remove the implants for free, if necessary.

The ambiguity of these differing government stances is confusing at best, criminal at worst. In Iceland, Saga Ýrr Jónsdóttir, a lawyer representing women with PIP implants, decried her government’s refusal to pay for the removal of non-leaking implants, saying that, “It’s like telling you that you have a ticking time bomb inside you but that it won’t be removed until it has exploded.”

Much of the scandal surrounding the PIP implants is about whether or not national health plans should cover the costs of removal. Most agree that women given PIP implants for reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy are entitled to financial compensation to have those implants removed. Women who underwent elective cosmetic surgery, however, are regarded less as victims and more as losers in a crap-shoot. Commentators declare that they chose to have the unnecessary plastic put in and should suffer the consequences.

There are undeniable risks associated with cosmetic surgery, particularly with breast implants. Post-operative infections, chronic breast pain, nipple numbness, and rupture and leakage of the implant, are a few of the documented known risks.

As the PIP story unfolds, however, the gross negligence exhibited by the French government in failing to protect women from a toxic product cannot be minimized. Anyone considering getting breast implants is responsible for informing herself of the complications that can and do arise. But in France, the consensus remains that it is the role of the government to guarantee the safety of approved medical devices and procedures. It is the responsibility of doctors to remain vigilant about the potentially life-threatening risks that low-cost medical products pose.

In Britain, the Association of Breast Surgery, the British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive, and Aesthetic Surgeons, the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, the Federation of Surgical Specialty Associations and the Royal College of Surgeons released a joint response that makes the obvious clear: “This situation raises again the need for better regulation and surveillance for all surgical implants, and the surgical profession believes mandatory databases should be the next step – not least because this issue has exposed poor record-keeping.”

Cosmetic surgery is a frightening hallmark of our times. While literally hundreds of thousands of women’s lives are in potential danger due to PIP’s knowingly dangerous manufacturing practices, how many more women and men are also risking their lives to sculpt their given bodies into ones dictated as attractive by society, Hollywood, and fashion magazines? Botox, liposuction, face-lifts, collagen injections, and breast lifts have all become commonplace procedures. Does it take a PIP scandal to wake us up to the dangers of cosmetic surgery?



Aralena Malone-Leroy earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in French and international studies from Santa Clara University, and a master's degree in mass communications and journalism from San Jose State University. Aralena lives in France and is the news editor for The WIP.

]]> Borei Keila Evictions Highlights Economic Hierarchy Among Poor in Cambodia tag:thewip.net,2012:/contributors//4.156345 2012-01-26T00:52:10Z 2012-02-02T00:25:00Z by Michelle Tolson -Cambodia- On January 12th, 2012 I traveled 45 km outside of Phnom Penh with a group of... Michelle Tolson by Michelle Tolson
-Cambodia-


On January 12th, 2012 I traveled 45 km outside of Phnom Penh with a group of human rights workers and journalists to a relocation site for the evictees of the Borei Keila slum, which had been demolished the prior week. Deeply tanned faces lined with anguish peered out of makeshift shelters. Grief was the dominant theme as they shared stories of the eviction proceedings. Up on a hill, the beautiful temples of Udong contrasted with the temporary homes below fashioned from tarps and blankets, propped up by sticks.

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• Borei Keila demolition site, Cambodia. Photograph courtesy of the author. •Forced evictions, like Borei Keila, are termed 'land-grabs' by local human rights organizations such as LICADHO, the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights. They have become a common occurrence as Cambodia develops. In Cambodia land ownership is recognized informally through a village or community leader. The World Bank estimates that 80 percent of Cambodia’s land is state owned.

In 2001, the World Bank began documenting and formalizing existing ownership of land. The process was meant to facilitate development, allowing families to officially register their assets and better plan for the future. The initiative, however, had been seen by displaced communities as contributing to the loss of their land. The World Bank then sponsored an independent report, Cambodia: Land Management and Administration Project. It found that The World Bank was inadvertently guilty of contributing to the very process it was seeking to avoid by not paying more attention to areas where conflict of land titles were likely, such as timber-rich forests and Phnom Penh.

The process was complicated by history. The Khmer Rouge moved an entire population out of Phnom Penh and into the countryside on a forced labor campaign in the mid-seventies. Those that survived the genocide returned to find that someone else had moved onto their property. As all documents had been destroyed, informal settlements became the norm in the absence of another verifiable means of proving ownership.

In 2011 the forced eviction of approximately 20,000 people at Boeung Kak Lake, an area deemed to have high real estate value, brought land grabs to international attention. According to the independent report Boeung Kak Lake was classified as State Public land by the government, which means it cannot not be privately owned. Without consulting the inhabitants, the land was leased to a private developer. When the classification system was questioned, the land was quickly reclassified as State Private, which can be leased for development.


• Residents in relocation site for the evictees of Borei Keila, Cambodia. Photograph courtesy of the author. •
The independent report contends that The World Bank should have facilitated the informal settlers in gaining land titles as they were sitting on a negotiable asset. To remedy the situation, compensation was offered to the settlers, though far below the real estate’s assessed value. Reporting that intimidation was used, many reluctantly took the compensation and accepted relocation several kilometers outside the city. Residents who refused were forced out violently, with compensation withdrawn and protestors imprisoned. Human rights organizations sought international intervention, which resulted in The World Bank putting pressure on the Cambodian government by withholding funding until compensation was offered to everyone.

The Borei Keila eviction case, now in the spotlight, highlights the sad story of the economic hierarchy within Cambodia – those with enough money to buy off large companies and community leaders and those with out money who become homeless in the eviction process.

On the early morning of January 3rd, 2012, demolition crews began destroying homes. Some residents could retrieve their belongings; others were still inside and forced to climb out of the rubble. When the private development company Phan Imex had leased the land in 2003, they had promised to build 10 replacement buildings for displaced residents. In April of 2010, after completing eight buildings, they reportedly asked to be released from their contractual obligations to build the other two, citing the project to be more expensive than anticipated. This resulted in the displacement of the remaining 300 families.

Parliament member and human rights activist Mu Sochua was present, reporting live via her Facebook page. Her posts suggest a sense of solidarity with the residents rather than a call to physically attack the police as has been suggested by the government. Eventually all residents had to leave. Their belongings were destroyed and they had nowhere to go. Phan Imex offered the 300 families relocation to an area of undeveloped land 45 km outside the city.


• Protesters at the US embassy in Cambodia. Photograph courtesy of the author. •
The official statement from the municipality of Phnom Penh failed to acknowledge the informal system of land titles. They claim those denied new housing were illegally “squatting” and accused the protestors of attacking without provocation.

On January 5, a group of displaced Borei Keila residents went to the US Embassy to plead for international intervention. Local blogger Faine Greenwood captured the moving call to action. Boeung Kak Lake evictees also arrived on the scene, gave a rousing speech, and encouraged the Borei Keila group to not give up. This grass roots organizing was led by women and delivered to a group of mostly women and children. The US embassy declined to meet with the evictees.

After observing the embassy action, another reporter and I went to the Borei Keila site. We found the area fenced off with police and armed guards waving us away as we approached. Former residents were not allowed onsite and families camping at the area were forced out. One week later the despair at the relocation site was obvious. Forty-five kilometers from schools the children attended and jobs the parents held, the site was without water, shops, or supplies.

Mu Sochua called the evictees together to share their stories. A woman tearfully recounted how her land title documents were destroyed when the Phan Imex demolished her building and now she cannot prove that she was a Borei Keila resident. As the community leader will not recognize her, she is considered to be illegally squatting at the relocation site.


• The relocation site with parliament member Mu Sochua, reporters, evictees, and human rights groups. Photograph courtesy of the author. •
Another man also explained how the community leader would not recognize him. With great emotion, he says that he lived next to the community leader for 13 years, yet he pretends he does not know him. He too is denied his small piece of land in this area, and is now considered to be camping illegally. He used to drive a motorcycle taxi for work but cannot do that from this location.

A woman says how she was promised an apartment on the 6th floor of the new building. She says that those who were allowed to move to the new building gave Phan Imex money, but she had no money to give. At this new location the well water is dirty, there is no food, and she has three children to care for.

About 100 families have made it to the relocation site but only half have officially been given land to build, financial compensation, and some food to eat. This group resides on one end of the relocation site and is in the process of building small wooden houses lined with tin. On the other end is the group not recognized by Phan Imex. Apparently the families given the land have given the community leader money. Our translator relays the theme.

“If you have no money, you have no land. We have no money because we are poor.”

Mu Sochua urges the two groups to work together. “We have two groups here; one with land, and one without land. You have to work together because you both lost your homes. You have that in common.”

As we walk from the tents and tarps to the area where the families are rebuilding no one comes out to talk. Mu Sochua, appearing frustrated, approaches reporters and human rights groups, “It’s a classic case of divide and conquer. Yet they do not see it.”

The pattern seems to be if one has money to give to a large company evicting you from your home or to the community leader who vouches for your identity, one has connections and a voice. Those without money to spare, find themselves displaced to homelessness and blamed for it. While NGO’s are the greatest ally and hope for this group, the new NGO draft law imperils civil society’s ability to criticize government and survive.

Ten civil society organizations in Cambodia issued a statement condemning the lack of accountability on the part of Phan Imax and the government. Amnesty International has created a petition to draw international attention to protesting evictees.

On January 18, in the Kratie province, four unarmed villagers were shot by a private security firm as another forced eviction was underway. Villagers blocked a main road into the area, demanding accountability from the government. Prime Minister Hun Sen condemned the shootings and agreed to return the land. Later the Secretary of State of the Ministry of Environment clarified that only villagers that could prove their land had been taken away illegally would be entitled to the land - a statement that has become all too familiar.

Michelle Tolson is currently traveling and living in Asia. She has an MSc in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Michelle has written several articles for The UB Post, an English newspaper in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia about gender violence, civil society initiatives, and cultural topics.

]]> Interview with Nobel Laureate Tawakkol Karman: President Saleh Must Stand Trial tag:thewip.net,2012:/contributors//4.155746 2012-01-19T16:04:27Z 2012-01-26T01:56:59Z by Wojoud Mejalli -Yemen- I met with the Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman in Oslo during the Nobel... Wojoud Mejalli by Wojoud Mejalli
-Yemen-


I met with the Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman in Oslo during the Nobel Peace Ceremony on December 10, 2011. After the ceremony, a few minutes were stolen away from other concerns to have a cup of coffee and learn the latest, both personally and politically, from my old Yemeni friend. She shared with me her perspective on recent political changes in our country, the rising youth movement in Yemen, and the relations between the East and West, especially after the Arab Spring.

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• Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tawakkol Karman at the Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, 10 December 2011. Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2011. Photo: Ken Opprann. •Tawakkol Karman, age 32, is the first Arab and Yemeni female activist and one of the youngest leaders in the world to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her methods of promoting non-violence during the Yemeni Revolution. Karman heads Women Journalists without Chains and is a prominent defender of press freedom and women’s rights.

Tawakkol Karman is sweet, easy to approach and talk to about everything. She has this halo around herself that makes you believe that women can lead countries with their genuine passion for change and belief in freedom. A symbol of the Arab Spring, she will continue to fight until the Yemeni honorary President Saleh is charged with crimes against humanity.

Karman is a member of the Central committee of the group for Reform of the Joint Parties, which represents the opposition in Yemen. It also represents the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. There are many parties in Yemen, but the most organized and efficient ones in Change Square today are religion oriented like the Al-Islah Party and the newly created Al-Oma Party in the North. The party in control now is the ruling party Al-Moutamr, which belongs to President Saleh.

According to many international and local human rights organizations, women in Yemen face systemic discrimination and endemic violence with devastating consequences. Our rights are routinely violated because Yemeni laws as well as tribal practices treat women as second-class citizens. I asked Karman what she thinks about the future of women in Yemen given that the leading party and the one that she represents are Islamists.

“I’m proud of the Islah Party in Yemen,” Karman tells me. “All parties, whether they are Nasserites, Socialists, or Islamists must merge and find common ground and that is what is going on now. They should all participate in politics.”

She went on to tell me “women can find a place and fight for their rights as is happening now as we speak. Young people including women are still in Change Square all around Yemen. They all basically demand justice. If they come from the Socialist or the Islamist party, it doesn’t matter because they all agree on basic rights like respect, which must be accepted by everyone.”

Karman understands Western anxiety towards the Islamist movements in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) Region, but argues, “In these times, the West should also understand us and say that ‘we understand you.’”

“I think that there is nothing to worry about in Yemen. All religions and different beliefs can live peacefully with one another, as long as they respect, have space for each other, and spread equality,” she tells me.

In reference to the two Nobel laureates she shared the prize with, she adds “The time of victimizing women in the world is now over - look at the three amazing leaders given the Prize today, this is the future!”

President Saleh signed the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) initiative on the 23 of November 2011. The deal involved the transfer of his powers to Vice President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in return for immunity from prosecution. A national unity government has been created, one evenly divided between the opposition and Saleh's ruling party. But it did not speak directly of the role of youth and women. It was as if this revolution was for the sake of the opposition, who gave in the moment they got a chance to be in power.

The GCC initiative and its mechanism only addressed formal political parties, and disregarded those who were the fuel for the people’s revolution: the youth. Also, it overlooked powerful political groups such as the Houthis and the southern secessionists. Since these important groups were not part of the discussion, they do not feel ownership of it, and therefore feel that it is not binding for them.

These groups will most likely be excluded from the unity government that divides seats between the JMP (Joint Meeting Party) and the ruling party. In addition, since the JMP is made up of different political parties, it is unclear the extent to which parties - other than the dominant Islamist Islah party - will be represented.

Women were mentioned very briefly in the implementing mechanism, despite the fact that they were part of the revolution from the beginning. The mechanism states that women should have “appropriate representation” in the new government. The vagueness of the term “appropriate” will create widespread debate, and of course the interpretation will differ from group to group. Women’s groups and organizations need to push for real representation at the decision making level and to be part of all the important committees, including the parliament.

I asked Karman what she thinks about the new governmental reconciliation division. Is it possible that this is a divided Yemen, but in political terms?

“There is nothing to worry about; change has to start at some point, and it has begun now. Yemeni people will get their rights and power back, along with money, which will eventually come along to the hands of citizens. Saleh should be put on trial and that is my first priority now” she tells me. “In order for the country to go forward, we have to punish the dictator and those involved with him.”

In regards to the role of the youth at the moment, the ones who started the revolution, Karman tells me a new forum of a Yemeni youth political movement will be working soon because the country is in need of young people driving change by their own hands, just like what happened with the revolution. “Young people are the ones driving the Yemeni revolution, and they have managed to keep it peaceful so far and not like what happened in Libya or what is happening in Syria now. We have a lot of ‘on hold’ tribal revenge issues in the country, and still people want Saleh to go on trial and seek justice.”

After the deaths and injuries of hundreds of peaceful protesters and civilians, the immunity clause given to Saleh and his close allies who are around 500 members, feels like ‘a slap in the face’ say many young Yemeni activists. The immunity clause violates the youth’s demand to legally pursue and prosecute corrupt officials that caused, assisted, and incited the killing and injuries of peaceful protesters. From a diplomatic standpoint, the immunity clause was a necessary compromise in order for Saleh to agree to sign.

Yemen’s interim government and the parliament have agreed to grant President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and anyone who has worked under him, amnesty against prosecution.

Yet, as Karman tells me over coffee, “Saleh should be put on trial for the sake of Yemen!”

About the Author:
Dr. Wojoud Mejalli is a Yemeni dentist, activist, and a freelance journalist. She is one of the founders of Female Reporters without Borders and was the first female vice president of the Yemeni Youth Council.

]]> 2011: A Last Look at Some Great Documentaries tag:thewip.net,2012:/contributors//4.155333 2012-01-14T08:01:01Z 2012-01-19T16:41:02Z by Jessica Mosby -USA- 2011 was another great year for movies. For me, it started in January at the annual... Jessica Mosby by Jessica Mosby
-USA-


2011 was another great year for movies. For me, it started in January at the annual Sundance Film Festival with a full slate of must-see films, and kept that momentum for the next eleven months. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to write about all my favorite films or film festivals as they were happening; so as we move forward into 2012, I want to take a look back at five of my favorite documentaries that screened at the San Francisco Bay Area’s top three Fall film festivals: Mill Valley Film Festival, San Francisco’s DocFest, and San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival.

]]> One of my favorite things about film festivals is the post-screening Q&As. I love hearing what a filmmaker has to say about their film. I also love that film festivals give me the opportunity to see films that never make it to the theater. This is particularly true for non-fiction films, as many people have the misconception that documentaries are “boring.” I strongly disagree! I often leave documentaries feeling that the events of real life are much more exciting and genuinely surprising than the fictional events depicted in most mainstream films.

Reviewing powerful documentary films and interviewing many of the filmmakers for The WIP has made the last four years truly exceptional for me. When I started writing for The WIP in August 2007, I could not have anticipated the way that The WIP and films I have reviewed have influenced my life.

Since 2007, the world has changed dramatically. I am particularly interested in the way that documentaries reflect these changes. At film festivals I often hear the current moment referred to as the “Golden Age of Documentaries.” Technological advances make it possible for almost anyone to inexpensively film, edit, and stream a film. While the worldwide recession continues and the arts are first on the chopping block, documentaries are still able to celebrate the culture that exists even in the darkest of moments.


• Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash with Elmo greeting a young fan in the film Being Elmo. Photograph courtesy of the filmmakers. •

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey
Being Elmo is my favorite documentary of the year. I had heard constant praise about the film, but did not have a chance to see it until Mill Valley. During the 85-minute film, I laughed, I cried, and I fell back in love with Elmo. Filmmaker Constance Marks tracks puppeteer Kevin Clash (best known for his character Elmo) from his Baltimore youth where he dreamed big about being a puppeteer to his current success on Sesame Street. What is most inspiring about the film is how Clash was mentored and encouraged by fellow puppeteers, including the legendary Jim Henson, and unconditionally supported by his family. Clash was the first African-American puppeteer on Sesame Street, and has used his fame to connect with audiences and mentor young aspiring puppeteers. The film takes a more serious tone when looking at the impact that Elmo has had on the lives of viewers. It is hard to hold back the tears when ill children appear on Sesame Street to meet their beloved idol Elmo in person. Elmo’s fame has come at a cost for Clash, whose personal life has suffered under the weight of professional obligations. Being Elmo is a surprisingly in-depth and loving portrait of the internationally famous furry red puppet and the man behind him.


• The cast and crew of Big in Boollywood finish the film with a big Bollywood style song and dance number. Photograph courtesy of the filmmakers. •

Big in Bollywood
The South Asian Film Festival is a great opportunity for Bollywood enthusiasts to see films on the big screen. The best documentary at this year’s festival is about what it is like to become a Bollywood star, or rather, be Big in Bollywood. Being seen by over one billion people in your first big role is a rather dramatic way to kick start your acting career, but that is exactly what happened to the Indian-American actor Omi Vaidya. After struggling to be cast in bit parts in the United States – often as the stereotypical “Indian” guy – Los Angeles native Vaidya gets his big break when he is cast as the fourth idiot in the Bollywood blockbuster 3 Idiots. When Vaidya and his filmmaker friends, Bill Bowles and Kenny Meehan, travel to India for the film’s premiere, little do they know that within weeks Vaidya will be crowned Bollywood’s newest comic star. Being a Bollywood celebrity, especially when almost everyone in the world’s second most populated country has just seen your film, is not all fun and swag. Vaidya must contend with being recognized everywhere and the crushing crowds vying for his autograph. What makes Big in Bollywood so much fun for all of its 70 minutes is that the filmmakers are Vaidya’s friends – even in the most stressful moments of notoriety, everyone is having a good time.

First Position
DocFest’s First Position follows six premier ballerinas aged nine to nineteen as they compete at the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix competition. Being a ballerina is hard, and filmmaker Bess Kargman artfully builds the tension and suspense as she follows her subjects from their relentless practice schedules to the nerve-wracking stage at the many rounds of the Grand Prix competition. At stake are the life-changing scholarships and employment opportunities awarded to the top dancers at the competition. While ballet is very competitive and outright stressful, the commitment of the young ballerinas and their families is inspiring. Kargman captures the down side of ballet – that to be good it must be your entire life. Sacrifices, especially financial, are required if a dancer is to make it to the top tier of the profession. And not everyone is good enough, so heartbreak is inevitable. To be so devoted to your art, especially when you are obviously gifted at a young age, makes First Position an enthralling documentary – even for viewers who have little interest in dance.


• Gene Sharp with his world-famous book From Dictatorship to Democracy. Photograph courtesy of the filmmakers. •

How to Start a Revolution
Politics remains a popular documentary topic. In the midst of the Occupy movement I saw How to Start a Revolution at DocFest and could not believe how timely what I was seeing on screen was to what was going on outside the theater. How to Start a Revolution is a must see for anyone inclined toward activism and social change. Filmmaker Ruaridh Arrow documents the Nobel Peace Prize nominee and non-violent manifesto writer Gene Sharp, whose book, From Dictatorship to Democracy, describes 198 nonviolent strategies to start and win a revolution. Sharp’s barebones operation, run out of his Boston townhouse, has influenced revolutionaries around the world. His devotion to nonviolent sociopolitical change is truly awe-inspiring. But, as Sharp’s age advances and his health declines, the future of his work is in jeopardy. The influence of Sharp’s writing is evident in Arrow’s interviews with revolutionaries around the world who have been inspired by From Dictatorship to Democracy. Every Occupy protester should put How to Start a Revolution in their queue.

• Portrait of Francesca Woodman and her father George Woodman taken by Francesca Woodman in 1980. Photograph courtesy of Lorber Films / Betty and George Woodman •

The Woodmans
I had wanted to see The Woodmans ever since I missed it at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival. Finally this year’s DocFest made that happen. After a year and half wait, the documentary did not disappoint! Filmmaker C. Scott Willis documents the short but prolific life of photographer Francesca Woodman who committed suicide in 1981 at age 22. While her talent did not translate into much success in her lifetime, posthumously she has become revered and her photographs sought-after. The Woodmans, a riveting 82 minutes, shows Francesca Woodman’s parents and brother, also artists, competing for the same spotlight where her start burns especially bright. Her mother, Betty Woodman, is a noted and successful ceramicist. But her father, George Woodman, has never achieved the level of artistic fame he believes he deserves. The parents, particularly George, are devoted to promoting Francesca’s career and contending with that very fame in their continuing their careers. Simultaneously, both parents are still grieving for their daughter. Family drama aside, Willis puts Francesca Woodman’s talent on full display; thirty years later, her photographs still seem very of the moment.

San Francisco’s MOMA currently has an exhibition of Francesca Woodman’s photography on display until February 20. - Ed.

About the Author:
Jessica Mosby is a writer and critic living in Oakland, California. In the rare moments when she's not traveling across the United States for work, Jessica enjoys listening to public radio, buying organic food at local farmers markets, trolling junk stores, and collecting owl-themed tchotchke.

]]> With No Money, Kenyan Farmers Find Way to Feed Hungry tag:thewip.net,2012:/contributors//4.155015 2012-01-09T19:18:21Z 2012-01-13T23:54:44Z by Rachel Muthoni -Kenya- When they hear cries of their fellow countrymen hit by acute food shortage, Kenyan peasant farmers... Rachel Muthoni by Rachel Muthoni
-Kenya-

When they hear cries of their fellow countrymen hit by acute food shortage, Kenyan peasant farmers in more productive areas have no money to donate. While they may feel the need and the wish to feed other hungry Kenyans, these farmers cannot reach out with financial help.

More than 3.6 million Kenyans are in urgent need of food assistance. Within Rift Valley, which has a population of about 10 million people, millions languish in hunger, depending only on relief food. Yet other Kenyans in the Valley are struggling to find ways to dispose of produce following a bumper harvest.

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• Women at Paka, East Pokot, pick cabbages donated by farmers from Nyandarua and Nakuru counties. Photo by Rachel Muthoni. •“I have been feeding my cattle with cabbages for lack of market. I had planted two acres of the produce and no one has bought a single piece,” says Michael Mwangi, a farmer at Taboga, Nakuru County.

An initiative, dubbed “Kenyans for Kenyans,” has asked well-wishers, through local media, to donate cash through cell phone money transfers. But Mwangi, along with other peasant farmers, does not have money to send. Some farmers do not even have mobile phones, let alone know how to use a money transfer service.

Then, some farmers in Nakuru and Nyandarua counties came up with a way to help that surpasses the value of a monetary donation. When local administration announced that the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) would be collecting fresh produce to ferry to starving Kenyans, Mwangi was more than willing to donate his surplus cabbages.


• 80-year-old Chepomoi Chadar enjoys a carrot at Paka, East Pokot, where fresh produce was donated by peasant farmers. Photograph by Rachel Muthoni. •
“I felt relieved. I always had a feeling of guilt as I chopped up cabbages to feed my cattle when there were Kenyans who slept with empty stomachs,” Mwangi tells me. With no other source of income save for his small-scale dairy and crop farming, Mwangi had no money to donate to starving Kenyans.

“I do not even have a phone, but I heard through my church minister that KRCS would collect fresh produce from our area,” says Maina Gachuhi, a farmer at Kirima, Naivasha District. “I had a chance to feed a hungry Kenyan somewhere.”

Maina had a bumper harvest of Irish potatoes and carrots in his four-acre piece of land. But lack of market demand caused a lot of it to rot in the land, costing him hefty losses.

“Now I feel better. Having donated three bags of potatoes (each bag weighing 110 kilograms) and two bags of carrots (each weighing 90 kilograms), I feel relieved. I fed someone and my harvest did not go to waste after all,” says Gachuhi.

When the food was transported to Paka, in East Pokot, residents celebrated with joy. But what shocked many was the announcement by the area assistant chief, Wilfred Namulet. “Fellow Kenyans, this food has been sent to you with love by other Kenyans whose areas received a lot of rain and had a bumper harvest.”

The villagers could not believe there were areas in Kenya where people had enough to eat. In this remote, dry part of Northern Kenya, most people rarely travel. Save for the few with money who can afford local tours, it is not a custom for Kenyans to travel even within their country.

The villagers’ joy could not be hidden after they received the food. “I have never tasted this fruit,” said a cheerfully smiling 80-year-old Chepokamoi Chadar as she munched a carrot. To her, this was more than a Christmas party, for she was assured of at least two meals in the next few days, thanks to the kind farmers.

“I wish we had irrigation schemes. I think the government should start such projects. This way, we could also produce our own food,” said James Loktari, 67. “Can‘t [the government] empower us so that we too can become givers of food rather than receivers?”


• Fresh produce donated to residents of Paka, East Pokot by farmers from Nyandarua and Nakuru counties. Photograph by Rachel Muthoni. •
Though he has been a pastoralist all through his life, Loktari said he was ready to adopt crop farming if only to save him from depending on relief food. He blames the government for allegedly neglecting people from his area, adding that even if they had irrigation, they would have no roads to transport produce to the market.

I had gone to Paka with a team from KRCS who was distributing food to more than 250 families in this area. The roads in East Pokot are in poor condition. I have visited several areas within the district and there is no single tarmac road. The ones used are dusty, rocky, and some parts have deadly potholes. The villagers lack radio sets and have no access to newspapers for the few who can read. No wonder they did not know that there are parts of Kenya where people have surplus produce.

“At least these people will get a break from the normal maize, beans and supplements that the government supplies,” said South Rift Regional Manager Patrick Nyongesa. According to Nyongesa, KRCS is willing to supply more produce to drought-hit areas as long as the farmers could take them at an accessible point. Accessibility to farms, he says, was the main challenge that his team faced as they moved produce from one farm to another.

“If only the farmers could bring produce to central places, where our lorries have access, then KRCS could give them a chance to help their needy countrymen,” Nyongesa tells me. Despite the fact that small-scale farmers contribute a large percentage to the Kenyan economy, such farmers often have to bear with poor roads. The roads, especially during rainy seasons, are so bad that buyers avoid getting produce from some areas, causing farmers from those areas hefty losses.

So far, KRCS has distributed more than 600 bags of Irish potatoes at Nginyang, Mogotio, Marighat and other districts where people are facing a food shortage.

The government has a hard task empowering pastoralists in areas like Turkana, Pokot and Wajir. While there are areas that could be rather fertile, the problem is lack of water. If the government invested in harvesting water, raising dams, and digging wells, then areas known for drought could form a big part of the country’s breadbasket.

If Kenyan peasant farmers are feeling the pain of food shortages, then the government should feel more pain and look for a lasting solution. In this way, Kenya would no longer have to cry to the international community for food aid, and hunger would no longer be a national disaster.

About the Author:
Rachel Muthoni is a Kenyan journalist. She holds an International Diploma in Journalism and Media Studies and has worked in international and local media for the last seven years. She is pursuing a bachelors degree in Communications and would like to tell many stories about under privileged people to change their lives for the better.

]]> Occupy the Media: The Women’s International Perspective in 2012 tag:thewip.net,2012:/contributors//4.154637 2012-01-02T21:25:17Z 2012-01-09T19:49:17Z by Katharine Daniels, Executive Editor 2011 was a remarkable year. People no longer conceded to sit idly while unjust economic... Katharine Daniels by Katharine Daniels, Executive Editor


2011 was a remarkable year. People no longer conceded to sit idly while unjust economic policies and governments denied them prosperous futures. Around the world citizens began to occupy the establishment. At these global protests and uprisings women were common symbols - holding placards, marching in the streets, and speaking truth to power.

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• "President should go." February 1, 2011. Photograph by Flickr user monasosh and used under Creative Commons licenses. Photograph published on The WIP February 8, 2011 •Whether it was in Egypt or Wisconsin, Libya or Chile, Tunisia or Spain – people took their power back. The year was inspirational. Yet, what we have learned since we began publishing The WIP is that we cannot rely on the dominant media to stay on top of these stories – to amplify the voices of the voiceless who rely on media coverage or their stories disappear.

Since our launch in 2007, we have discovered that our women writers are less interested in the opinion and politics that dominate commercial news media, in particular the 24-hour cable news cycle, than they are with human rights. Profit-driven news organizations are under great pressure to boost ratings and one way to guarantee that is by featuring politics, talking heads, and sensational news.

The news media undoubtedly has a large influence on audiences. There is a correlation between what stories the dominant media focuses its attention on and what the public later perceives as important. Imagine if instead of the Republican primaries day in and day out, anchors spoke of the devastating crisis in education facing both girls and boys? Imagine if the headlines portrayed the human face of climate change – the starvation, the thirst, and the resulting wars extreme weather patterns cause in countries far away from the perpetrators? Imagine if the dominant media told us day in and day out that 925 million people - more than the populations of USA, Canada, and the European Union combined - do not have enough to eat?


• Afghan women marching against street harassment in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 14, 2011. Photograph taken by Massoud Hossaini, Hadia, and published on The WIP July 26, 2011 •
One of the most important things I have learned as executive editor of The WIP is that while we live in a world that is deeply sexist, many are willing to turn a blind eye to that reality in the pursuit of ideological beliefs. Whether it is the pursuit of democracy in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya or the pursuit of stability in Afghanistan, the inequality between the sexes is still perceived as a ‘women’s issue.’ It is left to be fought for by feminists rather than seen as a societal issue for which we all bear responsibility, and when rectified, we will all flourish.

While The WIP is clearly a partner in the fight for equality, I did not use the label ‘feminist’ until I taught women’s studies this fall and discovered a classroom full of American students who had never heard of Gloria Steinem. The names Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Emma Goldman were equally absent from their vocabularies. Although I embraced the label and wore it proudly during my course, I could not help but feel the coat is worn and out of style. I do not know anybody who does not believe in equality. Most of the women and men I know, love, and associate with, do not don the label ‘feminist’, yet they all qualify. One new year’s resolution could be to get everyone I know to embrace their inner feminist but not only would that be time consuming and a divergence from my vision, it would also not be nearly as effective as what I hope to see The WIP continue to do in 2012.

My resolution is to work even harder to bring the issues our community cares about out of the confines of labels like ‘feminist’ and into the realm of society and the mainstream. My resolution is to declare the importance of these stories and these issues every chance I get and to not let my fear or shyness deter me from having that conversation. My resolution is to grow The WIP’s imprint from the thousands to the millions - to see our writers stories not just on the pages of The WIP but in publications and papers throughout the world. Their issues are our issues and are critical to challenge the influence of the dominant media. These stories – that often center on gender inequalities and human rights – are key to opening the dialogue for peace, equality, prosperity, and the health of our people and our planet.


• Photo of young boy taken March 20, 2011 that became symbolic of the Syrian revolution. Photograph courtesy of Sham News Network and published to The WIP on April 28, 2011. •
Recently I asked our writers why The WIP is important to them. Overwhelmingly they cited the opportunity to highlight voices and perspectives rarely seen in the mainstream media. A WIP Contributor from Egypt wrote how “few publications highlighted the role of women in the popular uprising that brought an end to 30 years of tyranny and corruption.” And how much she appreciated and respected “the freedom to honestly report these voices for an international audience.”

From Nepal, a public heath physician told me how widely her article on ‘Safe Birthing’ was disseminated throughout the country. Her WIP story led to a subsequent policy adopted by the government guaranteeing one Assistant Nurse Midwife at each Village Development Committee.

In Pakistan, a senior editor from a leading publication shared with me the frustration of always being in the news “for the wrong reasons.” For her, The WIP equals “the space to project social issues which are generally brushed off as women's issues in the male-dominated world of the news that focuses on politics.”

On December 11, 2011 WIP contributor and a featured speaker at our 2008 event Women As Agents of Change, Leymah Roberta Gbowee was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In her Nobel lecture, Leymah told the audience, “We succeeded when no one thought we would, we were the conscience of the ones who had lost their consciences in their quest for power and political positions. We represented the soul of the nation. No one would have prepared my sisters and I for today — that our struggle would go down in the history of this world. Rather when confronting warlords we did so because we felt it was our moral duty to stand as mothers and gird our waist, to fight the demons of war in order to protect the lives of our children, their land, and their future.”

I envision the day when our media is made up of stories like Leymah Gbowee’s. When that happens, I believe our priorities, as nations, will be very different. Please join The WIP in 2012 to share untold stories, where woman’s rights are human rights, and where what is happening to people on the ground everywhere is the news.

Happy New Year to all our community from everyone at The WIP.

About the author:
Katharine Daniels is the founder and executive editor of The WIP.

]]> Cancer in Kenya Should Not Be A Death Certificate tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.153682 2011-12-20T16:05:58Z 2012-01-02T21:53:02Z by Joyce J. Wangui -Kenya- Biopsy, mammogram, and chemotherapy are words all too familiar with cancer patients. Death is another... Joyce J. Wangui by Joyce J. Wangui
-Kenya-


Biopsy, mammogram, and chemotherapy are words all too familiar with cancer patients. Death is another word often at the tip of many tongues as patients describe the disease. Kenyans are coming to terms with cancer, hitherto perceived as a disease of the West and the rich.

Grim statistics show that over 60 Kenyans die of cancer and its related complications every day. In fact, cancer is Kenya’s third leading cause of death, killing more people than HIV and Malaria combined.

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• State of the art technology at Aga Khan University Hospital's cancer centre in Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph courtesy of Aga Khan University Hospital. •According to David Makumi, manager of the cancer programme at Aga Khan University Hospital and vice president of the Kenya Cancer Association, “Almost a third of cancer incidences are preventable, while another third of local cases could be treatable if early diagnosis and sufficient resources were available.”

July 12, 2011 marked a new beginning for cancer patients and those at risk in Kenya – the launch of The Africa Cancer Foundation. The first of its kind in Africa, it will include advocating for early diagnosis and treatment of cancer as well as quality cancer care.

“Screening, screening and more screening, should be our national anthem if we have to fight cancer,” says Kenya’s minister for medical services Professor Anyang Nyong’o, himself a cancer survivor.

Since he was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year and sought proper treatment in the U.S.A., the minister has vowed to ensure that no Kenyan would die of any form of cancer. In Parliament, he has been on record advocating for the medical rights of middle-class and poor Kenyans.

Cervical cancer, the biggest killer of all cancers affecting women, is the second most common cancer after breast cancer, Makumi tells me. It accounts for 20 percent of cancer deaths among women. According to the WHO/ICO Information Centre on HPV and Cervical Cancer report Human Papillomavirus and Related Cancers in Kenya, Summary Report 2010, 2,454 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year, in which 1,676 die annually. The irony is that Kenya has facilities to treat cervical cancer but information surrounding diagnosis and early treatment is accessed by a paltry number of Kenyans.

“People tend to seek treatment when the situation is dire. We have no culture of routine medical check-ups,” says Mary Onyango, a breast cancer survivor. She notes that any woman who succumbs to cervical cancer is to blame for ‘carelessness.’ With no intention to offend women, Onyango decries the ignorance associated with early screening.

Dr. Shahnaz Shariff, Director of Public Health and Sanitation believes, “Early screening is the surest way of treating the disease in its infancy.” He adds that women should take advantage of screening centers at public hospitals. Noting that screening for cervical cancer is available in the country, he reiterates that no woman should die of the disease.

Collins Wambasa, a clinical officer in Nyanza Provincial General Hospital notes, “We still have gaps as far as information is concerned.” Wambasa attributes lack of routine screenings among Kenyan women to the negative perception associated with cervical cancer screening.


• David Makumi, manager of the cancer programme at Aga Khan University, Nairobi. •
The Kenya Cancer Association (KENCASA) has been instrumental in bridging the information gaps that exist in cancer awareness by initiating outreach programs in churches, schools, and women’s networks. In a bid to save Kenyan women, the Kenya Cancer Association has partnered with the ministry of health, Kenyatta National hospital, and other likeminded organizations in mainstreaming the disease in all health programs. “KENCASA was very instrumental in drafting the National Cancer Control Strategy, which is a 5-year government plan to reduce the incidences of cancer and improve the quality of life of those who develop cancer in Kenya,” notes David Makumi proudly.

Contrary to popular belief that cancer is mainly inherited or caused by environmental hazards, as well as bad luck, medical research shows that lifestyle changes are a major contributor to the many forms of the disease. In fact, a recent report from the Kenyan government National Cancer Control Strategy, 2011-2016, shows that “about 40 percent of cancers are preventable through interventions such as tobacco control, promotion of healthy diets, physical activity, and protection against exposure to environmental carcinogens.”

In 2009 while living in South Africa, I was on cloud nine. The KFC’s, Mac Donalds, Shoprite, and Checkers supermarkets were my second home. In my quest to fit in my social circles, I was always dining out. My house was along the busiest street in Africa - Long Street, endowed with pubs of all sizes. With South Africa known for best wines, I earned an accolade of heavy drinker from friends and foes alike.

I did not realize the health problems I was inviting to my body. I experienced difficulty breathing as I had became unfit. My weight jumped from 59 to 66 kilos and my Body Mass Index was almost surpassing the normal 18.5. Physical fitness was a peculiar word for me and I can count the number of times I ate a fruit.

A turning point came during a seminar on the need to adapt a healthy lifestyle. I regretted the carefree life I led as it pertained to my health. One year down the line, I am a changed person. Having lost close friends and relatives to cancer, I have chosen to live a healthy life. I exercise daily, eat healthy, and if I am to drink, I limit my wines to twice per week.

“Cancer is not a death sentence and, just like HIV, we can battle it,” Makumi said during the Africa Cancer Foundation launch event attended by medics, cancer patients, survivors, government officials, diplomats and corporate organizations.

Though Kenya is involved in an uphill battle against cancer due to lack of resources, lack of infrastructure and trained personnel, and the prohibitive cost of treatment, Doris Mayoli, a breast cancer survivor, believes that cancer can indeed be over come.

“I had to come up with a motto - Live on purpose…You can either choose to believe that the disease is a certificate to an early grave or believe otherwise,” says Mayoli.

With her book Ashes to Beauty, that chronicles her time with cancer, and her larger-than-life smile, Mayoli now traverses the whole country, telling people of her triumph over cancer. She sticks to the adage that cancer is not a death certificate and that people should live their lives on purpose.

Mayoli has formed an organization, Twakutukuza Trust, to help poor people, especially in the rural areas, access the necessary resources of managing cancer. Twakutukuza, a Swahili word meaning “we praise you,” incorporates singing and dancing among cancer patients and survivors in a bid to give hope to the hopeless and also raise funds to help the poor access treatment.

About the Author:
Joyce J. Wangui is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya and writes for various online media agencies. She earned a Diploma in Mass Communication in 2002, and started her media career in Rwanda in early 2003 where she worked as a senior political reporter for The New Times, a state-owned English newspaper. Joyce is an active member of Highway Africa; an annual gathering of African journalists in South Africa and the Deutsche Welle Global Media forum held in Bonn, Germany. She is currently pursuing a one-year correspondence degree in International Journalism.

]]> Giving Childbirth Back to Women through the Support of a Doula tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.153095 2011-12-12T17:42:34Z 2011-12-20T17:07:36Z by Jenny Shapiro -USA- During my three years at International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR), I have been... Jenny Shapiro by Jenny Shapiro
-USA-


During my three years at International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR), I have been fortunate—and humbled—to work with incredible colleagues whose dedication to securing sexual and reproductive health and rights for all is unsurpassed.

As Project Design Coordinator, I know my work is vitally important, particularly at a time when several large global health donors have withdrawn from Latin America and the Caribbean. The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has “graduated” the majority of countries in our region, despite the inequalities that persist, as has the UK Department for International Development, USAID’s counterpart in the United Kingdom. The Netherlands, one of the region’s significant donors, is currently phasing out its final project in Colombia, and the Danish government will be pulling out of Nicaragua, a country it has supported for many years.

]]> • The author with a newborn baby she helped to deliver. •Despite this trend, last year IPPF/WHR Member Associations provided nearly 29 million vital health services and worked to promote the sexual rights of every woman, man and young person. But sometimes, working on these issues from behind a computer screen is not enough. For many of us, our mission is more than our 9 to 5. We live and breathe the commitment constantly, both in and out of the office. We march for reproductive rights in the United States, spread the word, and continue to seek opportunities to expand our knowledge of the field.

While we are often challenged to defend the right of all women and girls to decide if, when, and with whom to have children, the equally important right to choose the way in which a woman brings her baby into the world often does not receive the attention it deserves. Rich or poor, childbirth is a defining moment in a woman’s life—whether the experience is positive or not, it is one that she never forgets.

When I realized I wanted to play a role in that defining moment by helping to give birthing back to women, it was a “light bulb” moment. I realized my desire was to help women give birth in the setting of their choosing with a compassionate, skilled birth attendant who is sensitive to their desires and the importance of the overall experience. It was in that moment that I decided to become a doula.

A doula is a Greek word that means ‘a woman who serves.’ Today, the term is used to describe a woman who provides information and physical and emotional support to a pregnant woman and her family members and/or friends before, during, and immediately after the birth of her baby. The doula’s role is to help the mother achieve the birth experience she desires by providing her with the accurate, non-judgmental information she needs to make her own informed decisions about labor. Once the baby is born, a doula helps establish breastfeeding and then conducts a postpartum follow-up visit within the first month to help the mother reflect on the birth and refer her to additional resources as necessary.

Most importantly, a doula must possess the knowledge and understanding needed to help the mother feel more comfortable, even when she is unable to vocalize her feelings and needs. This means knowing when to get a cool cloth for her head, discovering where she may be holding tension and suggesting ways to release it, as well as when to recommend a different position or how to encourage her when she is fatigued or at a loss for how to go on. The doula reminds the mother that the intensity she is feeling is normal and is bringing her closer to meeting this beautiful little human she has created. You would be surprised how often women forget they are having a baby!

According to the position paper published by DONA International, the oldest and largest doula association in the world, Drs. John Kennell and Marshall Klaus, in the late 1970s, found, almost accidentally, that introducing a doula into the labor room not only improved the bond between mother and infant, but also seemed to decrease the incidence of complications.

Since their original studies, published in 1980 and 1986, numerous scientific trials have been conducted in many countries comparing usual care with usual care plus a doula. According to a recent review of 21 randomized controlled trials in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, women who received continuous support were less likely than women who did not to have any anesthesia, give birth with vacuum extraction or forceps, give birth by cesarean, have a baby with a low 5-minute Apgar score (an exam conducted at one and five minutes post-birth to assess the baby’s health and responsiveness), or report dissatisfaction or a negative rating of their experience. Women who had continuous support also were found to have shorter labors.

The reviewers concluded, “Continuous support during labour should be the norm, rather than the exception. Policy makers should consider making continuous labor support a covered service, and hospitals should implement programs to offer continuous labor support. In present maternity care environments, benefits of continuous support are likely to be greater with companions who are not hospital staff members than with members of the hospital staff.”

Because the initial research that led to the “birth” of the modern doula is relatively recent, the official profession has not been around very long. To this day, I still sometimes get a perplexed look and the subsequent, “What is that?” when I tell people I am a doula. However, the word is getting out little by little. In fact, there is currently a movement in New York State called “Doulas for All,” working to get the state’s Medicare Redesign Team (MRT) to recommend to Governor Andrew Cuomo that doulas are covered under New York State Medicare.

My first birth was for a woman I deeply respect and admire, and a colleague at that. Before her labor, I met with Maria Antonieta, her husband Amando, and her parents to discuss their desires for the birth and how I could support all three of them in achieving the birth she desired. We practiced positions and the breathing techniques that I would offer in labor and clarified what they could expect from me before, during, and after labor.

On “labor day,” June 9, 2011, I met Maria Antonieta and her family at the hospital at 5pm. Because her contractions were erratic, we strolled up and down the labor and delivery floor until they achieved textbook regularity. I brought her ice chips and FrozeFruits to keep her hydrated and maintain her energy. Her mother, her husband, and I worked together as a seamless, well-oiled machine. When contractions got more intense, our focus turned to taking them one at a time, letting each one go forever as the wave receded. Amando held one hand, her mother held the other, and I pressed on her knees coaching her on her breath and helping her to focus as the intensity returned. I was astounded how time stood still. Ten hours flew by and I never left her side, not even to go to the bathroom. It was beautiful to see how Maria Antonieta’s whole body calmed at the gentle touch and soft whisper of her husband, reminding her that their baby would be in her arms soon. She was born in the early morning hours on June 10, 2011.

Their adorable daughter Sabina is now nearly six months old and continues to thrive. Maria Antonieta and Amando could not be happier with the new addition to their family. I returned to my 9 to 5 job with a refreshed love for the work I do and a renewed commitment to supporting women and families in whatever way I can—whether that is in birth or avoiding an unwanted pregnancy. Thanks to becoming a doula, it is in more ways than one.

About the author:
Jenny Shapiro is the Project Design Coordinator at International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR). She holds a Master's in Nonprofit Management from Milano, The New School for Management and Urban Policy and a B.A. in American Studies and Spanish from Brandeis University. Jenny is a trained birth doula who works to give the birth process back to women and empower them as they make the transition to motherhood.


]]> Why are Women Dying from a Preventable Disease? tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.152725 2011-12-06T22:25:08Z 2011-12-12T18:50:42Z by Dr. Carmen Barroso -USA- Diseases such as diabetes and cancer cause tens of millions of deaths each year, many... Carmen Barroso by Dr. Carmen Barroso
-USA-


Diseases such as diabetes and cancer cause tens of millions of deaths each year, many of which are premature. Once the burden of rich countries, these non-communicable diseases are increasingly affecting individuals in low- and middle-income countries where they impose heavy burdens on already fragile health systems. Among the most deadly—and preventable—of these diseases is cervical cancer.

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• CIES clinic in Bolivia where 400,000 health services are provided annually. Photograph courtesy of IPPF/WHR. •Women in developing countries account for 80 percent of all new cases of cervical cancer worldwide and new research shows this rate is continuing to rise. Effective screening programs are largely unavailable in poor countries. As a result, most women with cervical cancer reach health services only after the disease has reached an untreatable advanced stage, condemning them to a horrible death.

Following the earthquake in Haiti, International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region’s colleague PROFAMIL was one of the few local organizations providing essential health services. PROFAMIL faced the daunting task of maintaining operations while rebuilding its reproductive health clinics and replacing lost or damaged equipment. Their determination to meet the overwhelming demand for services, including visual screenings for cervical cancer, resulted in a staggering $225,000 projected budget deficit for the organization. Despite these setbacks, PROFAMIL continued to provide vital care and information to more than 26,000 people -- and out of the tragedy an innovation emerged.

Visual Inspection with acetic acid—or vinegar—is a new screening technology developed specifically for low-resource settings. It does not require sophisticated lab equipment, assessment is immediate, and in many cases the client can be treated immediately. It is highly effective in detecting precancerous lesions, and because it is just $3 dollars per screening, this method is more cost-effective than Pap smears, which cost $40 dollars.


• CIES operates fourteen clinics and mobile health clinics in hard-to-reach communities in Bolivia. Photograph courtesy of IPPF/WHR. •
PROFAMIL has now trained all of its clinical staff and community health educators on how to use the visual screening method. It allows staff to detect precancerous lesions with the naked eye and provide simple treatment. The organization is currently working with the Ministry of Health to train new medical graduates in this technique, which has been proven to identify up to 79 percent of women at high risk of developing cervical cancer.

In Medicine on the Move, Leona Adolfo, a nurse at PROFAMILIA in the Dominican Republic, says, “If this project didn’t exist, there would be more women with cancer.” A community member agrees, “If it weren’t for PROFAMILIA, I’d be dead. I didn’t have any money to go to the doctor or anything. But—thank god for PROFAMILIA—I am alive.”

Human papillomavirus, or HPV, is an extremely common infection that causes cervical cancer. In the United States, over six million women and men get an HPV infection every year, a statistic that has led some doctors to claim that it is nearly as widespread as the cold virus. Yet unlike the common cold, HPV is transmitted sexually, making it a political hot potato.

HPV vaccinations could be part of the assistance the United States provides poor countries to improve women’s health worldwide, but this year’s budget reduces foreign assistance for reproductive health and family planning, and Republicans intend to further slash these programs in 2012.


• Adolescent girls in Bolivia where cervical cancer rates are alarmingly high. Photograph courtesy of IPPF/WHR. •
The loss of life from cervical cancer is even more forebodinging because the disease is entirely preventable. Vaccinating adolescent girls against HPV could drastically reduce the incidence of cervical cancer in places like Bolivia, which has alarmingly high rates. International Planned Parenthood Foundation/Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR) member CIES provides nearly 400,000 health services annually – including Pap smears and family planning – through fourteen clinics and mobile health clinics that operate in hard-to-reach communities. In partnership with the government and a Gardasil access program, CIES offers the vaccine in schools, health centers, and mobile clinics to ensure widespread access. To date, more than 78,000 girls have received vaccinations.

Vaccines, however, are only one part of the broad strategy that is needed to combat this disease. Simple and smart investments in screening and treatment in developing countries are critical, and recent breakthroughs in cervical cancer prevention provide an historical opportunity to dramatically reduce the disease in the developing world.

A comprehensive approach that includes screening, pre-cancer treatment, and HPV vaccination could save the lives of the nearly 300,000 women who will die from cervical cancer this year. Combating the disease requires resources, cooperation, and a commitment to securing universal access to reproductive health. It also requires sexuality education so young people learn how to protect themselves, and investments in emerging technologies such as a rapid HPV test.

As Sarah Nyombi, a member of Uganda’s Parliament once wrote, “Given the tools that are available, even one cervical cancer death is too many.” Hopefully, world leaders will reach the same conclusion and make cervical cancer a higher priority on the global health agenda.


• Lucella Campbell, Senior Program Advisor at PROFAMIL, speaks
about the work being done in Haiti. •


About the Author:
Dr. Carmen Barroso is the Regional Director of International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region.

]]> A Moral Argument for Bullfighting: More Humane than Eating Meat tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.152432 2011-12-02T18:24:31Z 2011-12-13T21:37:15Z by Victoria Aitken -UK- The social networking world is an odd one – you see your friends less, but know... Victoria Aitken by Victoria Aitken
-UK-


The social networking world is an odd one – you see your friends less, but know more about them - and real catching up has been replaced with the dubious substitute of half a dozen status updates on your newsfeed each day. But the upside is the strange tide of news about semi-strangers that drifts across your screen. Alexander Fiske-Harrison is one of those.

Xander, as he is known, a writer and actor, kept popping up on my screen with pictures of him doing one of the strangest and most controversial pastimes left in the western world – bullfighting.

]]> • Alexander Fiske-Harrison bullfighting. From the book Into The Arena. Photograph by Nicolás Haro. •I thought bullfighting, something that no one took seriously any more, was put on for tourists so they would think Spain was still in touch with its “roots.” This view was encouraged by recent headlines that bullfighting is being banned in the province of Catalonia at the end of this year.

Then Fiske-Harrison’s book, Into the Arena, came out, and unexpectedly enthusiastic reviews from the British press rolled in - “compelling,” “lyrical,” “thrilling,” “engrossing,” “informed,” “morally searching,” “never loses his moral qualms” - from titles like the London Times, Financial Times and the Mail on Sunday. So I read the book and came to understand a little more about the horrors - and the potential beauties - of this quintessentially Spanish pastime.

Into The Arena vividly paints a picture of the bullfight as a three-act spectacle honed over the centuries into something resembling a ritual sacrifice. Various parts are open to improvisation, not least because the half-ton-plus fighting bull does not know the script but also never sees a man on the ground in his five years running wild on the ranch. As Fiske-Harrison points out, the cruelty of it, unlike that of the slaughterhouse, has the sole virtue of being completely in the open.

• Alexander Fiske-Harrison, far right, running with the bulls. Photograph by REUTERS/Joseba Etxaburu. •
According to Fiske-Harrison’s research, one in four matadors die in the ring, the majority at the very last moment when he stops luring the bull into a charge with the cape and instead charges the bull himself. Spaniards pay good money every year – sometimes thousands of dollars – to watch this. More astonishing still are the statistics taken from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior. There were more fights in 2008 than ever before in Spanish history - 1,345 to be precise.

The book is extremely well researched, from biology to philosophy, from economics to sociology, all of which Fiske-Harrison has majored in at some time or other. What saves the book is the novelist’s writing style - the information drifts into the reader amidst the sometimes lyrical, sometimes brutally spare prose. This, and the fact that, as a Method actor, Fiske-Harrison felt that he could not write the book without having fought a bull himself, provides the terrifying but saddening and thoughtful conclusion.

So, it was armed with these various conundrums – how such an ancient and brutal pastime is so popular in modern Spain, and how someone like Fiske-Harrison could bear to spend time in a world so steeped in blood and danger - that I went to meet him.

How on earth did you get into bullfighting?

There was a piece in the famously pro-animal Daily Mail attacking bullfighting, and I saw a deep flaw in their argument. Everything that they said was wrong; in fact, the word they used “evil” about the corrida de toros – as it should be called – can also be said about eating meat. And yet, the vast majority of people think there is nothing morally wrong with that. What is more, one thing that is wrong with the industry that supplies our habit of eating meat – which is clearly not nutritionally necessary – is that [animal] welfare in factory farms is terrible and the environmental damage is worse. Fighting bulls, I knew from Spanish friends, were bred in wild conditions on ranches kept in the same condition as nature reserves. If you banned it, animal welfare would get worse – five-year life spans in the wilderness would become 18 months in the corral; 20 minutes in the ring in punishing combat conditions would become hours in terror in the slaughterhouse – and the environment would get worse with it.

That’s a nice justification, but what was the origin of your knowledge?

I was taken to my first fight by my parents in 2000. They’d seen the great fighters of the 1960s like El Cordobes, but had no love of it; to them it was just ‘Spain,’ and they thought it would be arrogant to visit Spain without getting to know it a little. I was astonishingly lucky and my first fight was “good” – the dominant features were the technique and courage of the matador, not the blood and suffering of the bull – and then my second was the reverse. I realised it was morally-borderline and that was interesting. In theatre, in art in general, there are certain things you look for, and the morally-borderline is one: Shakespeare, Dostoievski, they all walk the line. It was later that I realised that almost all of the arguments lined up against it are either answerable or false. That was when I decided to write my book.

Why do you say almost all?

You will always have to ask questions about why people want to watch an animal injured and then killed. We like to watch death – be it false in Elizabethan drama or Hollywood film, or real, like the nature documentaries that the BBC makes so well – but it takes real darkness to directly fund it via a box-office. However, if welfare is equal or better, let’s be honest with ourselves.

• Alexander Fiske-Harrison training in the arena. Photograph by Marie Kristin Köberlein. •
Okay, but how did you end up getting into the arena, as your title says? It’s one thing to think something’s justifiable; it’s another to risk your life in the pursuit of research for it.

Hmmm, that’s always the killer question for me, as I don’t have an answer. I don't know. I remember that my literary agent liked the idea of me writing a book because my background at university fit the topic, biology at Oxford for the animal behaviour, philosophy post-grad at London for the ethics, but the real thing was that I might be able to bring my knowledge of theatre to bring out the drama. I studied acting at Stella Adler in New York when Marlon Brando was the chairman, and he always had the firm belief from his “Method Acting” technique that in order to make art about something, first you had to live it. Then, as I got to know the major matadors, they all asked me, as a young man who is relatively fit, healthy, whatever... why don’t you get in the ring? Then it became clear that this was something I could do... wasn’t bad at... and then came the question of la hora de verdad, ‘the moment of truth.’

What is the moment of truth?

The bullfight is not a fight, that’s a term in the English language that came from our obscene medieval hobby of setting dogs on a bull – bulldogs – and seeing how many it took to kill it. As I describe early on in the book, the bullfight grew out of knightly jousting, but the nobleman on the horse became less important and his former servant on the ground who finished off the bull – the matador, or ‘killer’ – became the dominant figure and did so by getting the bull to pass him in more and more impressive ways before finishing it off with the sword.

At first, the people were most impressed by the man who could bring the bull closest, but like with any activity, the practitioners got better. So, it ceased to be even the illusion of a contest, and it became devoted to the matador’s elegance, with the danger as background music to add drama. However, the one moment that could not be changed was the kill, when the matador had to take the route that required the most courage, charging the bull with the sword straight at the horns so that the point enters the body cavity aiming for the aortic artery, before he deviates to the side out of the way of the rising horn tips. That is the moment of truth, and the moment when the majority of the 52 major matadors who have died in the ring did so, out of 325 major matadors who have fought in the past 300 years.

Speaking of courage, your photos from the running of the bulls in Pamplona this year, after the book had come out, seem extremely dangerous.

I ran because it’s hard to let go of a thing like the bulls. It was an amazing two years I had in their world – with the animals, and the men who breed them and the men who kill them, even though they love them – and a part of me wanted to be close to all of that once more. There aren’t many things like this left. As the great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca put it, “Bullfighting is the last serious thing left in the world today.” He knew what he was talking about.

About the author:
Victoria Aitken has been published in The Sunday Times, Style Magazine, The Daily Mail, Tatler, The Daily Telegraph, and The Guardian. She was born in Lausanne, Switzerland, educated in Germany, Switzerland, and Washington, D.C, where she earned a B.A. in international relations from Georgetown University.

]]> Filmmaker Amy Glazer on the New Economics of Marriage and Seducing Charlie Barker tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.152052 2011-11-28T13:53:56Z 2011-12-02T18:48:38Z by Jessica Mosby -USA- Charlie Barker is a guy who has it all – almost. He has a beautiful successful... Jessica Mosby by Jessica Mosby
-USA-


Charlie Barker is a guy who has it all – almost. He has a beautiful successful wife, a large New York City apartment, a loyal best friend, and a once-promising acting career that he is hoping to restart. The current lull in his professional life seems temporary; he is just waiting to be cast in the next big thing.

But the next big thing turns out to be a young woman freshly arrived in the Big Apple. Clea (played by Heather Gordon) sets her sights on Charlie (Stephen Barker Turner), and soon the two are involved in an affair. Charlie’s wife Stella (Daphne Zuniga) inevitably discovers the affair, and Charlie then finds himself alone and broke.

]]> Seducing Charlie Barker was adapted for the screen by playwright Theresa Rebeck from her play The Scene. What attracted Director Amy Glazer to the project is the story: “about women, by a woman, interpreted by a woman.” Glazer previously directed Zuniga and Gordon in a stage production, and worked closely with Rebeck on the film adaptation.

I was particularly interested in seeing Seducing Charlie Barker and interviewing Glazer about a film that captures women’s financial and professional successes changing the dynamics of romantic relationships and conventional ideas about marriage. Gloria Steinem famously predicted in the 1970’s that, “We’re becoming the men we wanted to marry.” This statement is notable when discussing Seducing Charlie Barker as the demise of Charlie and Stella’s marriage is the consequence of Charlie’s inability to keep pace with his wife. Charlie punishes Stella for her successes, even though she is enabling his artistic endeavors.

When I met Glazer, a professor at California State University San Jose and accomplished theater director, at a café near her home, I was excited to discuss with the director this female-authored script starring two strong female leads.

What specifically, about the play The Scene, appealed to you and made you think it would make a good movie?

To be perfectly honest, a patron came to see the play and fell in love with it. [They] said, “This writing is terrific, this dialogue is terrific, it should be a film, and I’ll produce it.”

What attracted me to the play originally is what attracted me to making it into a film. It’s a story about women, by a woman, interpreted by a woman… Theresa Rebeck is a strong, sharp, terrific, important writer. She’s really an amazing woman. Luckily, because I had directed her play and because she trusted my work, she was willing to hand it over to me and say, “I trust that when you turn it into a film, you will do right by me.” I certainly have. It’s completely true to the impulse of the characters – the story, the writing, and the dialogue. It is very much her; it’s just been adapted for film.


• Charlie (right), played by Stephen Barker Turner, and best friend Louis, played by David Wilson Barnes, in the film Seducing Charlie Barker. •

Was it difficult to balance making the film with your other professional responsibilities?

Absolutely. It really was. During that time, I had colleagues who covered classes for me. Also, so many of my students were working on the film, I never felt like I was moonlighting because I was servicing a good number of students behind the scenes and in front of the scenes. I would say 60 students from preproduction all the way through. They were amazing. Most of them have gone on to have professional careers. Some of them had professional careers and came back to work on the film with me.

John Cassavetes was the image I was going for in terms of both the way I was shooting, the kind of work I was trying to create, and a kind of a cinéma vérité – a sense that is authentic even if the tone is satirical. But also in the way he worked with his friends, people who he trusted, and people who trusted him. So many people in the theater community gathered around me; every actor in this film is from a theater tradition.

Can you speak to the gender dynamics and new economics of marriage in the film, and if that attracted you to the script?

It attracted me tremendously because I was living it. One of the reasons I picked this play is that my husband, who for many, many years had been a big time publisher, had just lost his job. My husband and I were living through the same dynamics. For the first time, I was the one supporting the family. The pressure was on me to keep my day job and to get other directing jobs…The irony is that he was available to help us with the producing of this film because he was around, and he was so smart and capable. So whenever we needed any kind of publishing type materials, he was our go-to guy. It actually made it possible for this to all come together. Now all is well that ends well. The film is getting its release, my husband is back working, and I no longer have to identify so closely to the story I was telling.

I did identify. At that moment in particular, I remember working on it in both the play and in the film, it was a hard moment. Even though we hear it at so many film festivals and it’s won so many awards at film festivals, at that moment [when Stella cuts Charlie off] we hear an audience vocalize their surprise. If a man said it to a wife, “No more clothes. I pay the bills around here,” we wouldn’t even notice it. But when the woman said it, it is so dangerously cruel. Yet I felt empathy for her, like “Get any job!” There is a point you get to when the stress in your life becomes oppressive and you feel like, “I’m working so hard and we’re not making ends meet. Do something.”

I really identified with Stella. I really understood. Charlie’s lack of empathy for what she had to go through so he could be an artist, so he could get the job that had meaning to him – it still resonates with me. It’s so easy for us to vilify the woman that is now in that position. I really didn’t want to do that. I wanted Stella to be sympathetic. I didn’t want her to be wimpy. She is idiosyncratic. She is definitely a control freak – and guess what, so am I.


• Daphne Zuniga in the role of Stella in the film Seducing Charlie Barker. •

Casting Daphne Zuniga helped, as she is very likeable.

Yes, it’s really true. She is incredibly likeable. It’s also helpful, particularly with new works, because it’s all about narrative. It’s all about crafting a strong narrative. When I work with a new writer on a world premiere, that’s what we’re looking at. When we have previews, we’re watching an audience [to gauge their reactions]. I used what I know as a theater director in that regard, to arrange the pieces in a narrative that I thought would be successful.

What’s next for you?

We have four plays in development at different stages. What’s next is the same thing. I really love the indie paradigm. I love being able to make movies my way, to control the material from beginning to end, and to be part of the producing...Definitely, for me, being able to do both [theater and films] is the way to go. I love being a hybrid.

About the Author:
Jessica Mosby is a writer and critic living in Oakland, California. In the rare moments when she's not traveling across the United States for work, Jessica enjoys listening to public radio, buying organic food at local farmers markets, trolling junk stores, and collecting owl-themed tchotchke.

]]> Juvenile (In)Justice in Kashmir tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.151440 2011-11-21T08:01:01Z 2011-11-28T15:07:02Z by Nusrat Ara -Indian administered Kashmir- My heart sinks as I look at the collage, carried by almost all the... Nusrat Ara by Nusrat Ara
-Indian administered Kashmir-


My heart sinks as I look at the collage, carried by almost all the local newspapers, of children standing before judges in the local court. Looking forlorn and lost, the children are handcuffed and accompanied by police officials.

The newspapers report that the children were booked on charges of stone pelting. They had been kept in the local police station for a week before coming before a magistrate who directed them to a juvenile home, recently opened due to an outcry by human rights groups and civil society.

]]>
• “kids-and-stairs” Photograph by Flickr user yuge and used under a Creative Commons license. Srinagar, Kashmir. •Accused of taking part in stone hurling protests, juveniles have been arrested and charged with attempted murder, assault, and rioting. The past three summers of unrest in Kashmir have exposed teenage boys to the discrepancies in juvenile justice laws. Hundreds of children have been incarcerated on alleged charges of stone pelting despite protections under Indian law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which qualify children under the age of 18 as a juvenile.

Authorities book teenage protestors under the Jammu and Kashmir Public Safety Act of 1978 that allows for detention without a trial for up to two years. Recently, in cases where the accused are arrested for disturbing the public, the detention period has been reduced from the existing one year to three months. In cases where the accused are charged with threatening the security of the state, the detention period has been reduced from the existing two years to six months.

Pressure from human rights groups has pushed the government to make amendments in the much-misused Public Safety Act (PSA). On October 29, Indian-administered Kashmir approved an ordinance to update the PSA to address the detention of juveniles and to reduce the detention period for public disorder cases. Yet, rights activists in the region say the bigger problem is that the protections already provided for in the existing laws are not given.

For example, 14-year-old Faizan Hakim was accused by police for taking part in stone pelting protests and arrested in February. After the family secured bail from a local court, the police produced another case against him. Another bail was followed by another case, and the family secured bail a third time. Just when the family was expecting his release, Faizan was booked under the Public Safety Act and he was moved to a jail in Jammu province, 200 miles away from his home. He was released after over a month in detention, and only under sustained pressure from Amnesty International.

Although back home now, his trials are not over, as he has criminal cases pending against him.

“Please ask the government to withdraw cases against him. I want him to focus on his studies,” pleads Faizan’s mother Naseema. The family is happy because he passed his high school examinations, which he had appeared for just weeks before his arrest. To help his family during Faizan’s incarceration, the younger brother had to drop out of school.

“We ran into debt, and sold our housewares - copper utensils - to raise money for the jail trips. My younger son had to drop out of school to help at his father’s fruit stall, as he was busy running around for Faizan’s release,” says Naseema.

In the last three years, hundreds of boys have been detained mostly on alleged charges of stone pelting. The Abdullah administration is not only blind to the effects of detention on young boys, but also to the complexities of the families that these detentions affect. In the case of Faizan, not only his life, but also the life of every member of his family has changed because of his detention.

The Juvenile Justice Act of Indian-administered Kashmir, passed in 1997, specifies that minor detainees like Faizan should be tried by special juvenile boards, under juvenile laws, and housed - if necessary - in special juvenile houses. But none of this is happening. In fact, in Fazian’s case, authorities describe him as a 27-year-old despite his childish appearances and a school certificate stating his age as 14.

In 2009, A. R. Hanjura, a Kashmiri social activist and lawyer, went to the high court seeking the implementation of the Juvenile Justice Act. He says that he was forced to seek court help, as despite the laws in place, the state was not providing required protection to children.

“The infrastructure under the Juvenile Justice Act was not available in the state, and still they are not available,” says Hanjura. “They (juveniles) are kept in the same jails where hardcore criminals are kept, they are tried in the same courts … this is defeating the spirit of Juvenile Justice Act.”

The Act, Hanjura explains, provides for rehabilitative measures rather than punitive. “The juveniles have to be brought before a juvenile board, where a magistrate is assisted by two people, one among them should be a woman, and the other should be a social activist acquainted with child psychology. It should be a home type of atmosphere, not a court type. Also, there has to be a special police unit dealing with juveniles, who should not look like police, they should not be wearing police uniform.”

Local human rights activist Parvez Imroz says authorities are trying to prevent the public protests seen in the last few years by arresting a number of people, many of whom are children.

“According to a government statement, 5255 were arrested last year, and out of that we believe that half of them would be juveniles, meaning they are less than 18 years of age,” Imroz tells me.

On the issue of juvenile justice he agrees with Hanjura. “There should be a remand home for these boys where they can be rehabilitated. You cannot lodge them with criminals, which is what is done at present, and when you do so it is going to affect the mental state of these boys.”

In June 2010, the High Court directed the state to come up with the required facilities within three months. Recently the government set up the first juvenile home in the state at Harwan on the outskirts of Srinagar. According to Chief Secretary of the State Madhav Lal, “The juvenile home will act as an important centre of reforms where neglected juveniles and minor detainees could be nurtured mentally and physically to become normal and responsible citizens.”

Unfortunately, a year after, things have not changed much. The situation for boys in Kashmir is rightly summarized by a June 2011 Amnesty International photograph caption, “It’s not much fun being a teenage boy in Kashmir.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Nusrat Ara is a freelance journalist based in Indian-administered Kashmir who is interested in covering issues that have gone underreported in the media. She holds a postgraduate degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from the University of Kashmir and is a contributor to the Women International News Gathering Service (Canada), as well as Kashmir Newz, a Srinagar-based online news content provider. She also reports for The Press Institute and has also worked with various local English dailies in Srinagar. In 2008 Nusrat was awarded a Sanjay Ghose Media Fellowship.


]]> Balancing the Gender Skew in India: A New Name, A New Beginning? tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.150941 2011-11-15T08:01:01Z 2011-11-21T08:33:39Z by Neeta Lal -India- In an innovative bid to fight gender discrimination, Satara district in India’s western state of Maharashtra... Neeta Lal by Neeta Lal
-India-


In an innovative bid to fight gender discrimination, Satara district in India’s western state of Maharashtra recently witnessed a minor revolution. Over 285 Indian girls named Nakhushi, ‘unwanted’ in Hindi, by their disenchanted parents were rechristened in a state-organized ceremony.

Trussed up in their Sunday best, the girls were all smiles amidst the pop of camera bulbs. "My friends will be calling me with my new name now. And that makes me very happy. My earlier name made me feel worthless," 15-year-old Nakhushi, now renamed Muskaan or ‘a smile’, says into the TV camera.

]]>
• "Usual labour" Maharashtra, India. Photograph by Flickr user nvbr11 and used under a Creative Commons license. •But will changing girls names combat their internalized sense of worthlessness and improve the status of women and girls in India?

India has never been a happy place for women. The World Economic Forum’s latest Gender Inequality Index (GII) places the country at 129 out of 146 countries, better only than Afghanistan in South Asia.

Gender bias in Indian society is blatant. Apart from the extreme practices of feticide, infanticide and honor killings, discrimination against Indian girls persists through parental prejudices, lack of educational opportunities, and unfair resource allocation.

The discrimination against the girl child manifests itself everywhere - even in educated, well-off households. A few years back I was shocked when one of my colleagues, a well-qualified woman in her thirties with two daughters, confided in me that she “got her baby dropped” when she found out it was a girl. “I’ll keep getting pregnant until I have a boy. The baby will be born only once it’s confirmed that it’s a male,” she told me with finality.

Was she being coerced into this situation I asked her, concerned about the ease with which she narrated the episode to me. “Yes,” she replied. “My husband hinted that my mom-in-law is keen her son remarry if we can’t have a male heir.”

In the mid-1960s, sex-determination technology was introduced in India as a population control measure. Nobel laureate Amartya Sen famously wrote in 1990 of the 100 million missing women, especially in Asia, and of how these numbers “tell us, quietly, a terrible story of inequality and neglect leading to excess mortality of women.”

The Prenatal Diagnostics Techniques (regulation and prevention of misuse) Act was enacted in 1994 and brought into operation in 1996. After over two decades, it seems little has changed. India’s latest Census figures reveal that the country’s male-female ratio is the worst since 1961 -- just 914 girls for every 1,000 boys. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), 102 to 106 boys should be born for every 100 girl children.

In Satara this equation is a grim 881 to 1,000 boys. For the northern state of Haryana, notorious for crimes against women, including honor killings, the picture is especially bleak - in Duleypur village, the sex ratio at birth is 400 females per 1,000 males.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimates that every day 7,000 fewer girls are born in India than should be. So where does the problem lie? According to a UNFPA population report released in October, an overwhelming majority of the 117 million ‘missing’ girls in Asia are from India and China. They are vanishing primarily due to the increased use of ultrasonography or ultrasound machines.

The moment the UN report came out radiologists in Mumbai were up in arms. “Ultrasound has been around for decades. If it’s such a widely used tool for sex determination then girls should have disappeared in larger numbers by now,” Indian Radiological & Imaging Association president Dr Jignesh Thakker told one Indian daily. The city’s radiologists are already fighting a bitter battle against the Maharashtra government’s recent directive that forbids the use of portable ultrasound machines for sex determination purposes.

Not that the national capital city of New Delhi fares any better. Mara Hvistendahl, the author of Unnatural Selection writes how it is a standard practice for doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences – a premier state-run hospital – to disclose the sex of the fetus to the moms-to-be and even help them abort it if they so desire.

“We need to amplify our voices about sonography's misuse so that public opinion can be built up and stringent action is taken against the wrong doers," says Pramila Kirk, an NGO worker. Kirk advises that if the state government makes software to keep track of all scans mandatory for ultrasound machines, it will dramatically augment the child-sex ratio.

Some doctors believe, however, that instead of spending about USD800 per machine on installing silent observer software, the sum should be invested in pro girl child policies. Experts add that the argument that prenatal diagnostic tests give women a ‘choice’ to select a child of the desired sex is specious. Women’s choices, especially in India’s patriarchal society, are determined by societal pressure to produce male heirs.

This means that four decades after the passage of the landmark Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act that legalized abortion in India, the legislation is being exploited to kill unborn daughters. The Lancet estimates that between three and six million girls have been aborted over the past decade. Sex selective abortion happens because sex determination tests have become a breeze. Woman simply walk into a shop and get the needed test done.

India’s Planning Commission, the country’s premier body that formulates policy, recently relaxed the ban on sex-selection tests in rural areas. At the same time, it is also in the midst of proposing a program to ‘adopt’ female fetuses and give incentives to families and health workers to deliver female babies.

People suspect there are other interests behind the Commission's new proposal. According to human rights activist and lawyer Pramod Kamayani, "female feticide is organized murder. Parents do it because they want to get rid of daughters; the doctors do it for a quick buck and the government looks upon it as an effective and free population control method. With such a well-entrenched nexus in place, how can the situation be improved?”

Perhaps things can be improved by implementing imaginative public policies to set right the gender skew. Already, some state government schemes are providing incentives for parents to embrace girl children and make for more balanced birth rates. Measures like providing bicycles for school-going girls have proved to be efficacious in empowering the girl child.

While giving hundreds of nakhushis a new name is laudable, real transformation will come about only if, along with the name change, mindsets are changed too. Maharashtra is planning to reward couples whose third child is a girl by sponsoring her education and bestowing other financial rewards upon her. Hopefully this will truly lead to a new beginning.

About the author:
Freelance journalist Neeta Lal writes on politics, lifestyle trends, environment and gender issues for news syndicates, internet publications and newspapers like The Guardian, Inter Press Service (IPS), World Political Review (WPR) and Asia Times. She lives in New Delhi with her husband and two children.

]]> A Matter of Life and Health: Villagers in Kazakhstan Fight Big Oil tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.150303 2011-11-07T14:29:15Z 2011-11-15T21:39:18Z by Leanne A. Grossman -USA- The noxious smell of rotten eggs regularly blows over the rural village of Berezovka, Kazakhstan.... Leanne A. Grossman by Leanne A. Grossman
-USA-


The noxious smell of rotten eggs regularly blows over the rural village of Berezovka, Kazakhstan. The fumes come directly from the Karachaganak Oil and Gas Condensate Field only five kilometers away, which emits toxic hydrogen sulfide during oil and gas extraction and refining.

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• Villagers in Berezovka, Kazakhstan have come across large sinkholes, known to be associated with oil extraction. Photograph courtesy of Crude Accountability. •The oil and gas condensate field has been developed by Karachaganak Petroleum Operating (KPO), a consortium of some of the most profitable foreign energy companies in the world: LUKOIL (Russia), BG Group (UK), ENI Agip (Italy) and Chevron (USA). In 1997 KPO signed an agreement with the Kazakh government to establish refining operations on site.

Approximately 1300 people near the plant are living with migraines, dizziness, hair loss, anemia and the deterioration of vision. Village resident Svetlana Anosova, a music teacher and mother of three children and several grandchildren, describes other disorders that it is believed result from changes in the environment imposed by the oil operations: kidney disease, digestive problems, and hearing loss. Her daughter has epilepsy, which they fear results from the field’s pollution, but they cannot prove it.

Due to limited local health care, Rosa Khusainova, director of the House of Culture and a mother of two, had to take out a loan to pay for transport and medical costs to bring her daughter to a doctor in Russia and another in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to treat her severe skin rashes. To travel to Russia takes about three to four hours. To get to Almaty, they must drive or take a bus a good three hours from Berezovka to Uralsk and then take a three-and-a-half hour flight from Uralsk. When the doctor asked her why she does not move away, Rosa replied, “I don’t have the money to move or a place to go. I’m from there. Why should I move? The company should move.”


• Village resident Rosa Khusainova of Zhasil Dala (Green Steppe). Photograph courtesy of Crude Accountability. •
For nine long years Svetlana and Rosa have been organizing villagers to use every legal strategy available to them to protect their families from ill health and to ensure justice is done. The task of information-gathering alone is a big challenge in a country where government offices are historically built on secrecy, not transparency.

Zhasil Dala (Green Steppe), the organization they established, has had to conduct its own surveys of villagers’ health and of the poisoning of the local environment. Air pollution is not the villagers’ only concern. Mutations have emerged in their gardens. Levels of cadmium in the soil are at least two to three times higher than normal. Cadmium poisoning can cause symptoms ranging from flu to dizziness, headache, weakness, chest pain and pulmonary edema. High nitrate levels worry residents too. Emissions from the field are suspected of increasing nitrate levels in both open and closed water sources and in soil. When the villagers had their drinking water sampled by an independent laboratory in Orenburg, Russia, the results showed that the water was not potable.

The vast majority of residents want to be relocated to a safe and environmentally clean area away from the field. Green Steppe mobilizes villagers to demand that the consortium and the government relocate them. The group has initiated many formal and informal complaints to authorities, demanding that their human and legal rights to live in a safe environment be respected. At the Chevron annual shareholders meeting in May 2011, I presented to the board of directors the group’s letter asking for relocation. CEO John Watson incorrectly insisted that Chevron is in compliance in Kazakhstan.

The group has conducted numerous health surveys with help from Crude Accountability and scientists. Upon analyzing air samples that Green Steppe sent to an independent laboratory in California, the lab confirmed the presence of 25 toxic chemicals in the air in Berezovka.


• Village resident Svetlana Anosova of Zhasil Dala (Green Steppe). Photograph courtesy of Crude Accountability. •
In 2003 Svetlana’s courage drew the attention of the BBC. In a film on her life, the BBC reported, “What is certain is that across the former Soviet Union there are countless thousands like Svetlana who have seen no benefit from the free market.”

In January 2011, Serik Ilyasov, a worker at the oil plant, was killed instantly and another man gravely injured when equipment failure released a high volume of hydrogen sulfide. The fastening broke on one of the hydrants through which the gas passed. Records show that only one of the 25 hydrants had been looked at in a safety check. Despite the promise that oil and gas operations at Karachaganak use the best technology available, KPO no more ensures the safety of workers inside the plant than it does the safety of residents outside the plant.

Green Steppe has attempted to get justice through KPO investors. After filing three formal complaints with the IFC, the lending arm of the World Bank, which loaned 150 million USD to Lukoil for the Kazakh oil project, Svetlana and Rosa have decided they will no longer waste their time pleading their case before the IFC’s Office of Compliance, Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO). In fact, I met them in Washington D.C. in September 2011 when they came to testify at a session of the World Bank meetings organized by Crude Accountability on the problems of dealing with the CAO. Originally they thought that if they could just explain the facts of the situation to consortium representatives and the IFC, their concerns would surely be addressed. But they have found, over and over again, that even when officials express sympathy, no action is taken to ameliorate or resolve their plight.

Why aren’t these institutions required to be democratic? Why don’t they provide a fair and balanced conflict resolution process?

The answer is that oil and gas profits prevail over people’s needs and rights. According to the International Information Agency Fergana, “Karachaganak, which has 1.2 billion tons of oil and condensate reserves and more than 1.35 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, is one of the largest active oil and gas condensate fields in the world.” Indeed, in 2010, from worldwide operations, Chevron gained 19 billion USD in profit, and British Gas, 1.15 billion USD. In dozens of regions around the world, communities suffer the same problems. Oil drilling and refining is just too juicy a moneymaker to consider the people most affected by it. Another example of the BG Group’s greed is the 7 percent increased rates on consumers in 2010 when the biggest freeze in 120 years hit England.

While legal safety and environmental restrictions do exist in Kazakhstan, KPO ignores the regulations that protect the citizenry. When they are caught violating environmental laws, such as when dangerous gas flaring erupts, they tie up the bureaucracy by resisting the charges. Even in cases where they are forced to pay fines, the money never gets to the villagers. It stays with the corrupt national government. Hence, the government has no incentive to stop the pollution by pressuring and requiring the oil companies to comply with the actual regulatory limits.


• Sinkhole discovered on a village resident's property. Berezovka, Kazakhstan. Photograph courtesy of Crude Accountability. •
The villagers’ single demand, relocation to a safe area, is neither complicated nor impossible to achieve. The multi-million dollar fines the oil consortium members are forced to pay could potentially cover the cost of building new housing and relocating the village outside the so-called Sanitary Protection Zone. Ironically, the name actually means its opposite. Inside the zone are the dangerous oil operations that release agents that impair the health of residents. The perimeter of the Zone is far too close to the village to ensure the safety of residents—five kilometers. It is evident that air drift and water flow transcend fences.

In the past year, villagers have come across large sinkholes, known to be associated with oil extraction. “I am afraid for those of us living in the house,” said Nagaisha Demesheva, who discovered a large hole on her modest property in December 2010. Imagine if that happened at the mansion of Chevron CEO John Watson or Lukoil CEO, Vagit Alekperov, the 6th richest man in Russia. What it really comes down to is this: Not all human beings are considered equal.

Green Steppe, facing the behemoths of the oil consortium and the Kazakh government at the local, district, regional and national levels, must employ a flexible strategy. While the IFC ombudsman refuses to act, Green Steppe is simultaneously pursuing other methods of obtaining justice. Calling on allies such as Green Salvation, a nonprofit legal group in Kazakhstan, Green Steppe sued the government for failure to protect its citizens. Two families and one business have successfully won the right to relocation. It is a significant precedent although there are still no signs of implementation. In any case, villagers will not be satisfied until everyone is relocated to a safe area away from the toxic emissions that are ruining their lives.

About the Author:
Leanne A. Grossman is a travel and non-fiction writer who has documented women’s concerns and perspectives in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. She is a founding trustee and advisor to Girl Child Network Worldwide, an innovative girls empowerment model initiated in Zimbabwe, which turns victims of sexual abuse into survivors and leaders. Leanne serves on the board of Crude Accountability.

]]> Life-Skills Training to Break the Cycle of Violence in Mongolia tag:thewip.net,2011:/contributors//4.149770 2011-10-31T21:14:09Z 2011-11-15T21:40:45Z by Michelle Tolson -Mongolia- One night while relaxing at home after a long day of horseback riding, I heard a... Michelle Tolson by Michelle Tolson
-Mongolia-


One night while relaxing at home after a long day of horseback riding, I heard a loud banging on a door downstairs. It was a man adamant to be let in. He was probably drunk. This type of thing had happened before. I thought nothing of it, but then I heard a woman scream. I also heard the man yell and throw things. I wanted to help, but I was too frightened. I did not know what to do.

I wanted to call the police, but I did not know the number. Besides, I was new to the country and did not speak the language. Would they even understand me? What was my address anyway? There were other people in the building who were quiet during the episode. Why did they not do anything? I heard the man leave and the woman crying below.

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• Sükhbaatar Square, the central square of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Photograph courtesy of the author. •This experience sparked my own investigation on what to do and how to help were I ever to be in the situation again. I met with Munkhsaruul Mijiddorj, Program Manager at the National Center Against Violence (NCAV) in Ulaanbaatar. She shared with me the complexities of the situation surrounding domestic violence in Mongolia.

Attitudes toward domestic violence have changed over time. Previously thought of as a private matter among family members, domestic violence was not recognized as a societal problem until 2004. It was not considered a matter for the state to intervene in, either with police action or within the court system. And on a societal level, there was apprehension from neighbors to intervene because this was seen as interfering in another family’s matters.

However, due to lobbying on the behalf of domestic violence organizations like the NCAV, Parliament created the Anti-Domestic Violence Law in 2004 stipulating that people have a legal responsibility to report domestic violence. Enforced in 2005, Mongolia’s Anti-Domestic Violence Law changed the perception of domestic violence to a human rights violation that requires intervention legally, psychologically, and socially.

Coinciding with the creation of legislation, NCAV began to work with the police department in Ulaanbaatar. They gave workshops and created brochures to help raise awareness of domestic violence issues. Yet, there is still much to do. For example, there is no formal database within the police department to classify domestic violence cases, which makes monitoring the situation rather difficult.

Another problem is that callers reporting domestic violence cannot do so anonymously under the current law. They must give their name and location - information which many fear could be leaked to the person being arrested. According to the NCAV, the 2005 law needs to be amended to address this concern.

Despite the law, domestic violence is not always categorized as such when reported. For instance, if a man is arrested, he might be held under Administrative Law instead of the Anti-Domestic Violence Law and fined only 15,000MNT (USD 11.56) and detained for 72 hours.


• Men participating in the media event “Man Can Stop Violence” which coincided with the international “White Ribbon” campaign. Photograph courtesy of NCAV. •
In 2005, a program called “Man to Man” was created by therapists and social workers at a detention center that housed men arrested for violence. The program utilized anger management techniques to help men process their emotions with life-skills training. NCAV strongly feels that programs such as these are crucial to transforming problems with violence into solutions. Another program that addresses domestic violence is the Man and Healthy Family Center, a facility that offers programs and temporary shelter to men recovering from alcohol abuse. The service is available for men who actively are seeking to become sober. Many of the employees, in fact, formerly abused alcohol and are now sober.

In 2008, the NCAV launched a media event called “Man Can Stop Violence” to coincide with the international White Ribbon Campaign. The campaign was specifically created to get support from men. The police also became involved, eagerly sporting white ribbons to show their support. This illustrates that men’s involvement can be enthusiastic, if given the chance.

Last spring, the NCAV launched another media campaign against corporeal punishment in a daily newspaper to coincide with an amendment to the Parliament’s Family Law. It had a three-part series: 1) An overview of the case situation; 2) an interweaving of related specialists working together, such as doctors, lawyers, and therapists; and 3) recommended changes, which involved community groups such as the Association of School Teachers and students.

Though there are links between alcohol use and violence, Munkhsaruul Mijiddorj at the NCAV makes it clear that alcohol is not the cause of violence. The problem, she believes, stems from the way men are raised to deal with their emotions. Women are encouraged by society to share their emotional stresses with their friends, while men are expected to be stoic. Life skills to handle stress have not been taught, so emotions get bottled up and alcohol is used as a way to escape from the stress. When a man drinks in a society that makes it acceptable to use alcohol as a way of processing stress, it also makes it easy for him to blame the violence on alcohol. The real problem lies within the man who is not taking responsibility for his actions by actively resolving his stress.

The NCAV has worked hard to dispel the myth that domestic violence is caused by alcohol. Violence is committed by choice. Sometimes these choices are made due to a lack of problem-solving skills and life-skills, which schools do not offer. In time, with more awareness of the problem and through the greater development of civil society within Mongolia, these issues will be addressed more comprehensively.

Children also face the brunt of violence within families, and though various NGOs have reported that children of ger districts comprised of recent arrivals from the countryside that live on the edge of Ulaanbaatar, can face abuse, the abuse is not restricted to one socioeconomic class; it crosses all levels of income. However, lower socioeconomic classes are more vulnerable to stress, which can make it seem like the problem comes from poverty. Yet, just as there are those who drink and do not commit violent acts, there are also many in stressful financial situations who do not harm their children or spouses. Therefore, the solution is learning positive ways of resolving stress.

Incidentally, life-skills trainings are now offered by NGOs working with children from the ger districts, such as New Choice Children’s Charity and the Mongolian Youth Development Services Center. NGOs working with abandoned and orphaned children also offer life-skills trainings in an effort to break the cycle of violence and to increase the self-esteem of the children.

So, what can one do when overhearing domestic violence? Mijiddorj recommends calling the police. If language is a problem, enlist neighbors or friends who speak the language to call on your behalf.

I began this story with a heavy heart, not understanding the violence I overheard that evening in my building. However, I am now inspired and hopeful for the path Mongolia has taken to create a civil society of its own making.


Michelle Tolson is currently traveling and living in Asia. She has an MSc in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Michelle has written several articles for The UB Post, an English newspaper in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia about gender violence, civil society initiatives, and cultural topics.

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