Archive for Human Rights

Nepalese Girls Trafficked to the Gulf

November 27, 2009 at 9:50 am · Filed under Human Rights, South Asia ·Tagged ,

Barely a year ago, Lalita Rai, 22, travelled to Kuwait escorted by a local job broker, who had promised her a good position at a beauty parlour. Instead she was tricked into working as an unpaid servant for a local household. As soon as she got into a taxi from the airport in Kuwait, the broker took her passport and showed her to the house. He promised to return to fetch her, but she never saw him again. Lalita protested against working as a servant, but she was beaten and locked in the house. “It was a trap. I had trusted this man,” Lalita says now while sitting in her house in Nepalgunj, nearly 500km southwest of the capital. Finally, in October this year, she escaped, although she refused to say how she returned to Nepal.

Jamuna Chaudhary, 18, underwent a similar ordeal. Tricked into working as a domestic servant for a household in Abu Dhabi, where she had gone with the help of a local broker, she was sexually abused by her employer and his friends. “I am lucky to be alive and back home,” said Jamuna, who finally escaped with the help of the Nepal embassy in Abu Dhabi, which arranged and paid her flight home.

Foreign incomes

Foreign employment has become an important source of income in Nepal, with remittances contributing 18 to 22 percent to gross domestic product, according to a 2006-2007 report on trafficking in Nepal by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). [http://www.unodc.org/pdf/india/Nat_Rep2006-07.pdf]

Gulf countries are one of the main trafficking destinations for labour. 

Nepal usually pay attention to the trafficking of Nepalese girls to India’s brothels but it often forgets that large numbers of women are also trafficked to the Gulf. The trend of trafficking to the Gulf for labour is a growing problem, as it is often a challenge to control this. This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed strongly, or a lot of Nepali women will face enormous risk of being trafficked and victimised.

It is difficult to prevent such movement to the Gulf, since the women travel through neighbouring India, and from there they fly to the Middle East. The traffickers, posing as employment agents, easily take the women through the open 1,690km border between India and Nepal’s south, choosing areas where there are no police checks.

In 2008 alone, nearly 17,000 girls and women were rescued from traffickers as they were crossing the border.

Better enforcement needed

A large percentage of the Nepalese female workers are illiterate and impoverished and they have no choice but to work abroad for the sake of feeding their families, and they do that even at the risk of being killed.

The Nepalese government introduced the Foreign Employment Act in 2007, which helps to protect and guarantee women’s security and rights when seeking jobs abroad. However, implementation of this law – which forbids women from working overseas in informal sectors such as domestic service because of the abuse they are subject to – has not been enforced strictly.

Meanwhile traffickers are difficult to prosecute. Unfortunately, the traffickers go scot-free due to a lack of enough evidence, and it is difficult to prove their crime.

According to the government’s Foreign Employment Department, more than 20,000 Nepalese women work abroad, mostly in the Gulf, and many are at risk. These women cannot even report to the police, either in Nepal or abroad, as they have no legal contract. The only way to protect them is to increase police vigilance and prevent them from being trafficked across the border.

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When Will the Judiciary Start to Confront State Agencies about the Missing Persons

November 20, 2009 at 12:52 pm · Filed under Missing Persons in Pakistan ·Tagged , , ,

Pakistan is seeing little progress in the hundreds of missing person’s cases still pending. Pakistanis continue to be regularly ‘disappeared’ after arrest.

With the police force exposed as increasingly negligent and corrupt, the responsibility of identifying such cases and intervening has long fallen to the judiciary. Judges taking suo moto action is widely believed to have been a major motive behind the sacking of the Supreme Court judges in 2007 by Musharraf.

Yet despite the restoration of the Judiciary with its Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in March after a long civil struggle and with the support of current Chief of Army Staff General Kiyani, there has been a marked decline in the response from the courts to appeals from the family of the missing.

Leading figureheads in the lawyers’ movement, such as Mr. Ali
Ahmed Kurd, former president of Supreme Court Bar Association, have been renewing their criticism of its performance. The change has been raising questions about the court’s allegiance to civil society versus its sense of obligation to his supporters in the army.

In response to this institutional indifference, family members of the missing have taken to camping outside the Supreme Court complex in protest. The court recently relented to one group, stationed there from 2 to 17 November, and assured them that the fate of their loved ones would be examined and their cases tried. But the judges involved have since done little more than make clichéd remarks about the ultimate good of the Supreme Court, while showing no willingness to flex the judicial muscle; suspected perpetrators from the state agencies have not been called or held to account. The proceedings are, in fact, starting to resemble a publicity stunt.

Over the past few years the court has heard from various persons who were arrested illegally by intelligence agents and who were tortured in covert military torture cells for months at a time; more than enough to paint a convincing picture. On this basis alone, as people continue to vanish after arrest, the court is obliged to pursue the issue to the very extent of its ability.

The most prominent case of state abduction is that of three political activists from the Balochistan province who were kidnapped on April 3; they were taken from a lawyers’ office by plain clothed officials in one of the state’s conspicuous white vans. Their bodies were found six days later (http://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3145/)
The lawyer and other eye witnesses are willing to testify, but the
courts are not looking into the case.

The most recent case brought to attention is the struggle of a couple in Punjab to ensure a credible investigation into the disappearance of their son, who vanished during a hospital transfer under the custody of police tp://www.ahrchk.net/ua/mainfile.php/2009/3306).

NGOs have estimated that during the current civilian government around 100 persons have gone missing after their arrest, and efforts to uncover their fate have mostly led nowhere.

Political groups in Balochistan have reported that out of the 4,000 supposedly arrested there, not more than 200 have been brought to trial in courts and the remainder are unaccounted for, out of the reach of their relatives or lawyers.

The Supreme Court itself has more than 400 cases of disappeared persons pending.

Though statistics may vary, the size of the problem is beyond dispute.

Enforced disappearances thrive in societies with ill-functioning,
dependent judiciaries, which fail to hold state agents accountable for their actions. Under autocratic governments and military regimes a nation’s judges become markedly subordinate, and these are the issues Pakistan continues to struggle with.

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Nisar Baloch Accuses Karachi Nazim of Murdering Him

November 13, 2009 at 7:55 am · Filed under Human Rights, MQM ·Tagged , , , ,

Human rights defender names his alleged murderers shortly
before his death

Mr. Nisar Baloch, aged 46, was shot dead on November 7, 2009 in Karachi by motorbike riders.

Police have refused to mention the names of the murderers in
the First Investigation Report (FIR), owing to the fact that the
accused persons belong to ruling political party, MQM.

On November 6, the day before his murder, Nisar Baloch addressed members of the press at a press conference and clearly stated that the City’s Nazim (mayor) Mr. Mustafa Kamal, as well as the Town Nazim of the SITE town, had the intention to murder him. He stated further that he would be murdered the next day by the above people and by activists of the MQM Altaf Hussain group. He blamed the party in ruling alliance for their encroachment onto the land of Gutter Baghicha, an amenity plot of 1017 acres.

Clip_6His death is the second incident in the victimization of housing
rights defenders in the past five years in Karachi.

During both incidents, the MQM was in power. The son of Baseer Naveed, radio broadcaster and leader of the resistance movement against the construction of the Lyari Express, was abducted on November 8 2004 and his body was found with torture marks on the wall of Naveed’s radio station, two days after his abduction. Nisar Baloch was another activist in the movement against the construction of the Lyari Expressway, through which more than 300,000 people were supposed to be displaced.

Mr. Nisar Baloch was a well-known figure who worked against the
grabbing of amenity plots by the government and other such powerful people. The land of Gutter Baghicha, a park, was declared to be an amenity plot in 1972. However, when the MQM took control of the city’s mayorship in the early 1990s, parts of the Gutter Baghicha were illegally allotted to officers of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC). The local people of trans-Lyari resisted, and refused to allow the KMC to encroach upon the park. The Karachi NGO Alliance, (through which Mr. Nisar Baloch was running the people’s movement against the grabbing of this parkland) got a stay order from the Sindh High Court against construction in this park. However, the MQM, which has remained in power since 1989, (whether the ruling government was civilian or military,) did not respect the court’s order. The details of other land-grabbing incidents by the MQM can be read about below:

 http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/16-ardeshir-cowasjee-i-own-karachi-and-can-sell-it-ii-759-hs-05

 http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/16-ardeshir-cowasjee-i-own-karachi-and-can-sell-it-3-159-hs-06

 http://dawnnews.tv/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/columnists/ardeshir-cowasjee-i-own-karachi-and-can-sell-it-4-ts-03

Clearly, the values which uphold law and order in this country have deteriorated to a state of abjection. When a man says in a press conference that he will be killed the following day by the mayors of Karachi and the SITE town, and the police fail to provide protection to him because of the political pressure they are under, it is clear that the situation is deplorable. Even the journalists present at the press conference did not take Baloch’s apprehensions seriously, and did not give coverage of his concerns to the public. Furthermore, the police at the Soldier Bazar Police Station, in whose jurisdiction this murder occurred, have refused to put the name of murderer on the FIR.

Housing and resettlement policies in Pakistan are unclear and
ambiguous, leaving room for manipulation by those in ruling political parties, and the opportunity to grab land and convert it into commercial plots.

About half of Pakistan’s population lives in slum communities, and often in a state of squalor. Judicial negligence, combined with the inaction and ineffectiveness of the courts in dealing with the housing needs of the people and matters of land-grabbing, has benefited the land-grabber tremendously.

The government of Sindh should act immediately to arrest the culprits on these murder charges including, Mr. Mustafa Kamal, City Nazim and Mr. Izhar Uddin, Town Nazim of SITE town, (the name of the latter was stated by Mr. Nisar Baloch during his press conference, one day before his death,) and the high officials of the Karachi Police, including the Chief Police Officer and Station Head Officer (SHO) of the Soldier Bazar Police Station. A thorough inquiry should be conducted into the extra-judicial killing of Nisar Baloch.

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Do Hijras ve the same Sexual Desires as Women?

November 12, 2009 at 9:01 am · Filed under Human Rights ·Tagged ,

Clip_4When the petition for looking into the plight of Khawja Saras
(transsexual/transvestite) was filed in the Supreme Court of Pakistan,
it caught everyone by surprise when the Court issued a directive to the four provincial social welfare departments to research into the issue.

The case is lovingly referred to belonging to those who are fond of getting
penetrated and are at the bottom in the sexual act.

The Court decision is in English and is mainly focused on looking into human
rights violations of the populations of transgender and/or
transvestites and finding ways to ensure equal rights and equal
opportunities to these populations.

The decision is to look into the matters of transgender and
transvestites. In Urdu, the two terms are being translated as Khawja
Saras but what needs to be understood is that the specific institution
of Khawja Saras does not exist anymore. It ended somewhere in 19th
century when the patronage of this institution seized to exist because
of the end of nobility in what is now India .

The terms that are used to define behavior manifestations in male that
do not conform to his biological make up are terms that are mostly
derogatory and fall short of clearly defining the different identities
that exists within this specific population.

It does not work on many counts and some of main ones are:

 It is a requirement for a Khawja Sara to be castrated, whereas, most
of the existing population of the male who manifest feminine behavior
and have a desire to be like a woman are not castrated.

Secondly, the institution that created spaces for such population
does not exist any more.

 Thirdly, the elements of sanctity and respectability inherent in the
institution of Khawja Sara are not there any more

However, what is out there currently is a population that has some of
the following features, amongst others:

1. The population may or may not be emasculated .

2. The spaces that exist are the households of Gurus. These households
are supported by a code of ethics that the community has evolved for itself. No outside patronage is available to safeguard the interest of these households.

3. The population has been marginalized and ridiculed to the extent
that they have internalized their own marginalization and consider
themselves as dysfunctional and a burden on the mainstream society.

Any form of activism for the betterment and uplift of the community
has to be designed using this as a backdrop.

First of all, one has to understand that there are different identities within this larger population and the English term transvestite may be the only term that may encapsulate some of the characteristics that describes the Zenana identity but not all as the zenana identity has lot more than just
being interested in cross dressing or manifesting female behavior.

Clip_5What are Zenanas?
Zenanas describe themselves as individuals who are born with a body of
men but with “rooh” (literally meaning spirit) of women. The realization of being different hits any such child early and generally he desires and prefers to keep a female demeanor than a male one. Initially all remains well till the child is reaching the adolescence; this is when the male in the household get nervous and start exerting both mental and physical pressure upon this child to conform to his biological form, which for this child is difficult to
understand.

In search of his identity, this child now starts a painful journey, where he is alone and all sorts of abuse and deception is waiting for him. The child is harassed and ridiculed all the way till he finds solace in one of the zenana guru’s household. What needs to be understood here is that no matter how gruesome the treatment is at the gurus house, this remains the only family structure for him as his own family has disowned him and do not want to have anything to do with him. The guru is the mother, the father, the brother and the sister and most of all this is the only space where this child has the freedom to be what he wants to be. This child is not willing to trade this freedom for anything in the world .

How does the so called transvestites or in Pakistani context Zenana community benefits from the Court decision?

1. Provision of an alternate system of support if the Guru-Chella
(disciple) relationship is abusive:

The petition that was presented before the court briefly touched upon
the evils of the Guru-Chella relationship. The description of this
relationship in the petition and what follows projects it as one of
the most exploitative and abusive situation equating it to a form of
slavery.

The benefits of the relationship should not be forgotten. The foremost thing about this relationship is that it has built in checks and balances that are provided by the zenana code of ethics and any diversion from it is heavily penalized. Therefore, there are monitoring mechanisms that are in place for checking out accesses. How effectively those mechanisms are used? If courts want to do away with the Guru-Chella relationship then, it would have to provide an alternate support system which is better than the existing one, and has all the safety valves in place, or through a sensitized and trained social welfare department make sure that the child remains safe at his
biological home and the family understands this child’s special needs.

2. Equal opportunities translates into equal rights:
From the very day that the directive/decision has been made public,
there is a sudden surge of zenanas on different talk shows on most
private and state owned television channels. Zenanas are suddenly part
of exotic and everybody is trying to get on the bandwagon of
exploration. Well meaning moderators are coming up with suggestions
for a “better and respectful life”. Mostly one gets to hear the following:

“Why do you not get into stitching clothes or cooking or get hired
as household help. You have such good skills. Why do you have to
humiliate yourselves by dancing and getting teased?”

Why are the moderators not offering choices such as access to
education, access to information and access to wide variety of choices
that are there for others in the society? Equal rights generally do
not exist in a vacuum. Equal opportunities have to be provided for
people to enjoy and sustain equal rights.

3. The threat of Section 377 of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC)
The PPC criminalizes sodomy. Section 377 clearly states that any such act is un-natural offence and puts it in the same category as bestiality. What is the significance of Section 377 in this matter? The reason that this section is mentioned here is that most of the zenanas do not go through surgical process and remain men as per biological definition, however, since they are women from within and have the similar desires as a sexual being. They are
attracted to other male for sexual gratification. This brings the zenanas on the radar of section 377, and makes their sexual life punishable.

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Do the Mentally Retarded ve the Right to Refuse Abortion After Rape?

October 31, 2009 at 9:43 am · Filed under Human Rights, India ·Tagged ,

foetal_attraction_thumb_200Do the mentally retarded have the right to take their own decisions? Whether or not there exist support systems that should equip them to take informed ones?

The Indian Supreme Court judgement in September 2009 on a contentious issue—whether a mentally retarded orphan can decide whether or not to deliver a child conceived from rape—has raised more questions than it has answered.  

The matter relates to a 19-year-old girl living in a state-run orphanage in Chandigarh who was raped a few months ago by the very guards who stand watch at the facility. The resulting pregnancy and the question of whether the foetus should have been aborted “in the best interest” of the girl has got lawyers, administrators, jurists and disability activists across the country in a tizzy.

In its much-awaited verdict, which took the line that the pregnancy should continue, the Supreme Court has relied mainly on the fact that this girl, who is mentally retarded, “consented” to bearing the child.

In not permitting the Chandigarh administration to terminate the girl’s pregnancy, the apex court took two factors into account. Firstly, it interpreted the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, as respecting “the personal autonomy” of mentally retarded persons above the age of 18, stating that while, under the Act, a guardian can make decisions on behalf of mentally ill persons, “the same cannot be done on behalf of a mentally retarded person”.

Secondly, since the Chandigarh girl was close to the 20-week limit for terminating a pregnancy when the matter reached the SC, such a late abortion could have endangered her life.  

Some have hailed the judgement as “forward-looking” because, for the first time, it takes the consent of a mentally retarded woman into account in determining whether she can deliver a baby. Chairperson of the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities, stresses that it reflects a shift away from the old thinking that persons with intellectual disability cannot take decisions. However, while she welcomes “the recognition of their legal capacity”, she adds that the mentally retarded need to be provided support to enable them to take proper decisions.

That such support was conspicuous by its absence in the case of the Chandigarh girl, said to have a mental age of between 7 and 9 years, partly explains the controversy over the SC judgement. Even after the rape was widely reported in the media, no institution came to her assistance to counsel her about the implications of motherhood. The SC has taken her childlike desire to give birth to the baby because she saw it as a playmate or toy as “consent”, rejecting the view of a specially constituted committee of psychiatrists, doctors and social workers which expressed reservations about her capacity to take independent decisions.

The problem lies in determining her point of view. The law requires that she be supported in every way possible so that she makes an informed decision. If the woman’s point of view can’t be determined, then the guardian or the court must take a decision in the best interest of the woman.

This is where things become muddled. The National Trust Act, 1999, provides for a legal guardian for people over 18 with mental disability (a term that covers both the mentally retarded and the mentally ill) if they need one, but the Supreme Court judgement clearly states that the mentally retarded do not require such guardians. Moreover, it does not differentiate between mild or severe retardation.

Says a senior counsel for the Chandigarh administration who argued the case in the SC, “The SC judgement errs in making a distinction between the mentally ill and the mentally retarded. The distinction is more legal than scientific and would break down completely in the case of severe and profound retardedness.”

Some disability activists, are not just disturbed, but actually angry with the judgement. “Would any of us have been willing to carry on with a pregnancy conceived out of rape?” one asks .

Questions an advocate working with the disabled, “Does this girl know her baby will grow up surrounded by mentally challenged women?”

The one positive implication of the judgement, despite its imperfections in relation to the present case, is that it is at least a step towards seeing mentally retarded girls as capable of leading a normal life, getting married and having children.

Historically, Indian society has always had a male bias on the issue. Mentally retarded boys are married off (often to girls from poorer families than their own), giving them the opportunity to produce children and live fulfilling lives, but mentally retarded women rarely do so, and the foetuses they conceive are usually aborted. The judgement is a shot in the arm for groups working on getting mentally retarded girls married in the face of these biases.

As director of Muskaan, a centre for persons with mental disability, and the mother of a disabled child, points out, “The whole question is about understanding that the disabled are a part of human diversity and enrich the fabric of our society.”

Meanwhile at the Chandigarh ‘Ashreya’ home for the mentally disabled, the rape victim awaits her baby, oblivious of the legal storm swirling around her. Has she been wronged against by those who are purportedly helping her, or given an opportunity to lead a normal life? The jury is still out on that one.

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Sindh Government Continues to Protect Child Rapists

October 30, 2009 at 11:49 am · Filed under Human Rights, Pakistan Under PM Gillani ·Tagged ,

Senior police officials are said to be preventing an investigation into the alleged gang rapes of female students by a group of teachers.

The family of one victim is being pressured to settle outside legal channels in a feudal jirga court, despite directions from the Chief Minister of Sindh to have the accused arrested. Their case has been compromised by local police, who willfully delayed the girl’s medical examination by a week. This incident shows the freedom enjoyed by Sindh police to work against the law and the public on behalf of wealthy patrons.

If the accused men had been arrested after the first allegation of rape, other young girls may not have suffered the same violation.

According to information received from the victim and other local
sources, Miss AK, 15, was gang raped by three of her school
teachers on the morning of October 10. A fellow student and relative of the rapists lured her to a house near the school. After being invited in by the home owner, Mr. Istikhar Jatt, AK was tied up and raped by Shoukat Jatt, Imtiaz Rajpar and Ghulam Mustafa Rajpar.

That evening at Faiz Ganj police station the head officer (SHO), Mr.
Mohammad Husain Samtio, denied AK medical treatment and refused to file a First Information Report (FIR) – as is required by law.

AK’s parents have been advised by the school headmaster not to
complain to the police to avoid reprisals from the teacher’s
powerful landlord connections and damage to their daughter’s
reputation. Allegations in the media have since suggested that the
headmaster’s own daughter was raped by the same men in July.

A checkup was finally authorized on 16 October after civil and
student-led street protests, but a week had passed and much of the
criminal evidence had gone. However the rape was confirmed and an FIR was finally filed. Yet because two of the accused had reportedly taken protective interim bail from the sessions court before their arrest, police only arrested one of the accused, Mr Shaukat Jatt, and Istikhar Jatt, the house owner. Rape is a non-bailable offence in Pakistan, but corrupt police are often able to arrange bail for perpetrators by selecting the information given to the judge. Their bail was extended on 28 October until the 31 October.

After the FIR was filed we are told that the police misconduct grew
more extreme: district police officer (DPO) Gul Mohammad Shar and several other officers tried to pressure the victim’s father to take the case to a jirga, an illegal tribal court, instead. The jirga in
this area is partly run by the father of two of the perpetrators.

Using a lawyer, AK’s father was able to file a constitutional
petition with the Sindh High Court, where the judge has summoned the negligent officers today (30 October) to explain their actions. On October 16 the provincial chief minister also reportedly directed various officers – the Sukkur regional police officer and deputy inspector of police, and the district police officer of Khairpur Mirs – to act on the matter and report to him directly. Yet two accused rapists remain at large. AK has had to leave the area because of threats from them and local police; officers continue to question her father on her whereabouts.

Local media reports claim that cases of rape and abuse have been
connected to these three teachers for a number of years – ever since a local bodies system was introduced that gives much more power to local representatives (mainly powerful landlords), and thus their relatives. The men were neither arrested nor removed from their positions in the school. The Rajpars are part of a powerful local family; their brothers are the chairmen of the union council and town council respectively. Local activists and parents of protesting students have said that they were threatened both by police officers and known henchmen of the landed aristocracy.

It appears that the rule of law has entirely broken down in this
district, with uniformed officials paying little or no heed to it, and
the high court and provincial minister unable to check their power
or that of the local landlords. In any semi-functional system strong
disciplinary action would be needed along with a thorough
provincial-level investigation for corruption. In this case however,
it appears that corruption is so entrenched that a local investigation could not be impartial, and intervention on a higher scale is urgently required. The criminal activity and institutional weakness exposed by these events warrants a top-level probe, with a view to making sweeping, overdue reforms.

This is particularly urgent when considering the total lack of
protection or redress so far being given to minors. That such impunity can be enjoyed by the known rapists of young girls for years shows the lethal stranglehold of a small group of wealthy men over a society, and its children.

The harm of Pakistan’s entrenched anti-women sentiment is also brought to light in this case, with the officers and the headmaster using the fragility of the victims’ reputations as an excuse not to take their attackers to court. It is clear that much more work needs to be done on this issue by the government in Pakistan, particularly in removing the stigma of rape from its victims and placing it on its perpetrators. The first step will be to hold all those accused of rape legally accountable. Any official attempting to intervene in such a case must be held criminally liable.

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Ms. is Being Adopted by Women to be Recognized

October 19, 2009 at 12:28 pm · Filed under Human Rights ·Tagged , ,

Just about every day, I am reminded that I haven’t quite decided who I am. This morning I filled out the application for an International Driving Permit: circle Miss, Mrs. or Ms. You would think that by now, I would know which it So I did an unscientific survey of married friends and found that none of them had a clue either. At work and out in the world, I’m Ms. Gibbs; at my daughters’ school and the pediatrician, I am Mrs. May; to a few people who’ve known me since I was 2, Miss Nancy. Some friends use their husband’s name, but their e-mail addresses are their maiden name, though that dainty phrase seems to have been banished in favor of birth name. I never understood why, from the perspective of fighting the patriarchy, it was somehow more liberated to bear your father’s name than your husband’s, especially since you choose your husband and inherit your father. In my case, each had an efficient, pronounceable name. How to choose?

When the Obamas called on the Bushes after the election, the newspaper reported that “Mrs. Bush” greeted the Obamas and “Ms. Bush wore a brown suit.” !cid_11.1478773894@web56612.mail.re3.yahoo[1]During the campaign, Hillary Clinton was two women in a single sentence: “Nancy B. White, a retired school administrator in Bloomington, Ind., who cheered Mrs. Clinton on in primary rallies last spring, wishes Ms. Clinton would have stayed on Capitol Hill.”

Silly as it is, this matters. Because words shape our world. Ms. is not some trendy modern social contraption. It was first spotted on the tombstone of Ms. Sarah Spooner in 1767, the handiwork, perhaps, of a frugal stone carver. For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, Mrs. and Miss were deployed to signal age, not marital status. Both were derived from Mistress, a word that, before it put on its feather boa and fishnet stockings, was the title for any woman with authority over a household.

As a handy form of address, Ms. found a foothold in the 1952 guidelines of the National Office Management Association: they suggested using it to avoid any confusion over a woman’s marital state. Twenty years later, when Ms. magazine was born, the editors explained, “Ms. is being adopted as a standard form of address by women who want to be recognized as individuals, rather than being identified by their relationship with a man.” That same year, the U.S. Government Printing Office approved using Ms. in official government documents.

We reconsider it from time to time,” the editors of NYT mused, but “to our ear, it still sounds too contrived for news writing.” Only in 1986 did the Times relent; the editors at Ms. sent flowers.

Evolutionary biologists teach that tying a man linguistically to his wife and children increases the odds that he’ll stick around to help raise them, so using Ms. with your birth name theoretically carries some risk. Over the years, surveys have found that such women were seen as less feminine, worse mothers, more dynamic, less attractive and better educated. Hmm.

I’ve come to realize that the main reason I’ve never resolved my title is that it’s become O.K. not to care. Whether my children’s friends call me Ms. Gibbs or Mrs. May or any combination of the two, I view it as a sign of respect and don’t worry about the particulars. My husband never remotely suggested that he was bothered by my not taking his name; in fact, he’s accustomed to occasionally answering to Mr. Gibbs.

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Vietnam Arrests 5 Bloggers

September 25, 2009 at 9:38 am · Filed under Human Rights ·Tagged

Five individuals, including a human rights lawyer and bloggers, were recently arrested in Vietnam for criticising the government.

So this is the level of  the right to freedom of opinion and expression in Vietnam. ALAIWAH calls for the immediate release of those who remain in detention.
 
ALAIWAH would like to express its deep concern over the recent detention of 5 individuals: Mr. Le Cong Dinh, Mr. Huy Duc, Mr. Bui Thanh Hieu, Ms. Pham Doan Trang and Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh.  

Mr. Le Cong Dinh is a 41-year old human rights lawyer who was arrested by police on 13 June 2009. Police charged him for violating Article 88 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code, “conducting propaganda against the government”, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years imprisonment. 

Clip_6Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh is a blogger who was arrested on 2 September 2009 for allegedly violating Article 258 of the Criminal Code or “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the State”. She had written about sovereignty issues in the South China Sea, where Vietnam and China are engaged in a boundary dispute.  

Mr. Huy Duc is a journalist who was fired on 25 August 2009 from his position in the Saigon Tiep Thi Newspaper after he had posted on his blog an article on the Berlin Wall, presenting political views that were reportedly against the communist government.  

Mr. Bui Thanh Hieu is a blogger from Hanoi whose writings are critical of the government’s handling of several sensitive topics, including relations with China. He was detained by Vietnamese security police on 27 August 2009. He was told that he had violated Article 258 of Vietnam’s Criminal Code, which prohibits “abusing freedom and democracy to infringe on the interests of the state.”  

Ms. Pham Doan Trang, an editor of a prominent news website named VietnamNet, was arrested on 27 August 2009, for criticizing Vietnam’s policies towards China.  

We understand that Mr. Bui Thanh Hieu and Ms. Pham Doan Trang have already been released and we welcome this positive development. We note with deep concern, however, that Mr. Le Cong Dinh and Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh are still currently detained. We, therefore, urgently call on your government to take steps to protect the right to freedom of opinion and expression in your country and release immediately the remaining detained individuals, Mr. Le Cong Dinh and Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh.

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Asian Legal Resource Centre Levels a False Charge Against Pakistan Army

September 19, 2009 at 12:14 pm · Filed under Human Rights ·Tagged ,

Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC),  a non-governmental
organization in general consultative status in an Oral Statement to the 12th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, has said that in Pakistan, the ALRC has documented cases in 2008 and 2009 in which the Pakistan military is forcing young women and children to work as sex slaves for the military in brothels it operates. This is obviously untrue, and the Government should force ALRC to prove this force, or apologise.

Data collected in separate studies between 2005 and 2008 conducted by USAID, UNICEF, and the ILO indicate that some
120,000 children from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan are
victims of child trafficking each year.

An ILO study in 2005 to 2007 reveals that at least 5000 to 7000
children are sold each year from Nepal to India for prostitution
alone. Girls purchased in Nepal for 400 US dollars are sold to
brothels in India for up to 4000 dollars. This price, with interest,
then becomes the debt of the victim, to be repaid through
prostitution. Many children are also trafficked through the border
between Bangladesh and India.

In Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan, victims of trafficking are dealt
with as criminals by the legal system.

In Pakistan, victims are further burdened with having to prove their case against perpetrators.

In India, owing to corruption within the judicial as well as investigative agencies, victims of trafficking are often vulnerable to re-trafficking.

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Malaysians Raping Burmese Girls in Sarawak

September 11, 2009 at 8:27 am · Filed under Burma, Human Rights ·Tagged , , ,

100-0096_IMGIndigenous tribal girls have been sexually abused by loggers in remote jungles on Borneo island, a Malaysian government report said, in the first official verification of rape accusations involving timber companies.

The report recently made public bolsters claims by the Penan tribal community of mistreatment by the timber industry, which activists say has encroached on the customary rights of ancient tribes over forests and destroyed their ancestral lands.

A team from the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry investigated rape claims by Penan women in November after activists complained that police failed to do anything.

Timber industry officials have said in the past they were not aware of such misconduct by their workers. No company was singled out in the report and timber company officials reached Wednesday declined to comment. All of the companies are Malaysian, as are the accused workers.

A copy of the report provided extensive interviews with Penan women in Sarawak state in Borneo who claimed that timber workers raped or tried to sexually abuse schoolgirls, including some as young as 10 years old.

One teenage girl said she bore two daughters after being raped by a worker who repeatedly intruded into her room. Another girl said she was raped when she accepted a lift to school from a logger in his truck, while several others spoke of similar cases involving their friends.

This sexual abuse mostly occurs due to the victims’ dependence on transport using vehicles owned by logging companies and the presence of outsiders who deal with villagers to buy jungle produce.

The government team did not specifically explain why it believed the rape claims were true, but it interviewed four women with firsthand experience of sexual abuse and many others who claimed that it was a common occurrence in their communities.

The report clearly shows they were raped. Why is the police taking so long to do something? This reflects poorly on the police.

Authorities probed three complaints last year but found nothing with proper evidence for us to proceed in court, adding that activists often did not give specific details to support their claims.

Authorities estimate there are about 16,000 Penans among the 24 indigenous tribes who live in Sarawak, where forests cover about 70 percent of the state. Many of them are impoverished and live in remote areas, cut off from modern education and health care facilities.

Timber is Sarawak’s second biggest export after oil and gas. Malaysian laws do not recognize or protect the indigenous Penan customs and right to land ownership.

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