Recent media reports on war, migration, slavery and kidnappings that let bares unequal treatment of women
16 Thursday Oct 2014
16 Thursday Oct 2014
16 Thursday Oct 2014
In a blog “ISIS Declares Itself Pro-Slavery”, Ben Mathis-Lilley wrote on Slate that “ISIS’s English-language publication Dabiq has announced that ISIS is enslaving women and children of the Yazidi minority group.” At The Atlantic Monthly, the same thing reported in an article “The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour.” The magazine stated that “the enslaved Yazidi families are now sold by the Islamic State soldiers.” Writing on the same issue, David Rothkopf, who is the CEO and Editor of the Foreign Policy Magazine Group wrote on Oct 13, 2014 “As I have written before, the systematic repression of women is history’s greatest injustice and one that must be addressed before any era can rightfully call itself just or modern. But beyond this core concern, in a world in which one of the greatest international threats comes from the spread of Islamist extremist groups, it is urgent that we also realize how essential empowering women are to defeating jihadists.”
He wrote: “The correlation between the repression of women’s rights and instability in the modern world is absolutely clear. Each year, the World Economic Forum produces a Global Gender Gap report. In 2013, it tracked 136 countries on the education, economic empowerment, health, and political empowerment of women. Consider the world’s hot spots for extremism. Some, like Somalia, Libya, and Afghanistan, don’t even make the list. But of those that do, Nigeria ranks 106, Bahrain is 112, Qatar is 115, Kuwait is 116, Jordan is 119, Turkey is 120, Algeria is 124, Egypt is 125, Saudi Arabia is 127, Mali is 128, Morocco is 129, Iran is 130, Syria is 133, Pakistan is 135, and Yemen is dead last at 136. On the issue of economic empowerment, the bottom 10 from No. 127 to No. 136 are Turkey, Jordan, Morocco, Iran, Mauritania, Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Syria.
On other lists, a similar correlation between repression of women and extremism and instability can be found. A 2011 Newsweek list on the best and worst places for women put (in worsening order) Sudan, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Niger, the Solomon Islands, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Yemen, Afghanistan, and Chad as the bottom 10. Saudi Arabia, the Central African Republic, and Nigeria were just barely better. India, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Nepal, Peru, Turkey, Sudan, Afghanistan, and the DRC made it on to a similar Marie Claire 10 worst places list this June. And yet another ranking showed the bottom 10 (in worsening order) as Iraq, Pakistan, India, Somalia, Mali, Guatemala, Sudan, the DRC, Afghanistan, and Chad.
Mr. Rothkopf also said, “Not only do countries that treat women badly do badly economically, politically, and socially, but countries in which extremist ideologies have taken root frequently treat women worst of all.”
Human Rights Watch also released a report on the situation. From the firsthand accounts in the report, we know that captive women and girls are sold as slaves to ISIS fighters, and boys are sent to be trained as soldiers. From other outlets, we could get it that almost tens of thousands of Yazidis (at minimum) have been made into refugees, while hundreds and perhaps thousands remain captives in the Islamic State.
Another Reuters report “Migrants snared in multi-million dollar kidnap racket on U.S.-Mexico border” by Gabriel Stargardter and Simon Gardner on October 11, 2014 says that “tens of thousands of Central American migrants are being kidnapped, abused and extorted by Mexican gangs just yards from the United States in a growing racket that may be worth up to $250 million a year.” They say, “They are held captive in small houses packed with dozens of fellow migrants, where they are ransomed for up to $5,000 a head, but women who cannot pay face rape.”
“It’s tough to calculate how much the migrant-kidnapping business is worth,” the report says. “In 2009, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission estimated the business generated around $50 million a year, but security experts say that figure has since surged.” On how the gangs get paid by these kidnappings, the Reuters reports wrote, “Officials on both sides of the border say almost all extortion transfers are made via payment transfer company Western Union. Prominent anti-kidnapping activist Isabel Miranda de Wallace said most abductors ask for the money to be sent to retail bank Banco Azteca, which uses Western Union infrastructure. A Western Union spokesman said in an email to Reuters it was aware of the issue and worked closely with law enforcement to avoid its services being misused. And the bank Azteca, as quoted, said: the bank “fully complies with anti-money laundering regulations and has implemented additional programs in specific areas such as Tamaulipas where authorities have expressed concerns about illicit activities.” Then how the money remittances occur? Reuters say, “The kidnappers typically ask for the funds to be wired to a proxy account of someone who is either pressured into receiving the cash, or receives a commission.”
It’s almost fairly discussed who the elephants in the room are. But, “it’s just not fair. People shouldn’t have to go through ordeals like this.”
16 Thursday Oct 2014
Posted Inequality, Politics, Society
in16 Thursday Oct 2014
Children and women of the farming families including the tribal are being sold out because they are the poorest and most vulnerable. And the more that gets sold off, the more who get sold out, the greater the amount of cash that changes hands, the easier it is for the misinformed to swallow the deceit of bogus notion of ‘growth’, as we know as the GDP of a country. Inequality breeds this vulnerability for the poorest because nobody is present to protect their rights. I’m not despising… Look at India. Doesn’t the Nobel this year remind us that “India has 60 million child slaves”, of which, a Nobel is achieved for saving some 80,000 children, which isn’t just a proverbial drop in the ocean?
Before we realise it, the culture, politics and the economy of the countries having most slaves have become colonised by powerful private interests and the world is cast in their image. The prevailing inequality and the economic systems in those soon become cloaked with an aura of matter of factuality, an air of naturalness, which is never to be viewed for the controlling dominion culture or power play that it really is.
Persons, organisations and entities that are profiting from the slavery help maintaining the inequality status quo, and all achieving control by altering mindsets via advertising, clever PR or by sponsoring major global events, by funding research in public institutes and thus slanting findings and the knowledge paradigm in their favour or by securing key positions in international trade negotiations in an attempt to structurally readjust retail, construction, food production and agriculture etc. They do it by many methods and means.
The issue demands an answer but we perhaps know who the villain in the room is. Should we go on ponder through as to whether growth and inequality reduction go hand in hand or not, whether one has to be considered prior to the other, or whether a policy focus on inequality reduction weakens or strengthens the growth objectives of countries producing maximum number of slaves?
As always, there are two ways to look at these questions, if we go through the middle-of-the-road. One might first be tempted to discount recurring incantations that have little impact on actual policies and results in terms of inequality reduction and conclude that this is wasted time and resources at an era when growth concerns loom large all across the world and resource constraints call for demonstrable value-for-money. Or one might conversely consider that the legitimate frustration with insufficient results does justify more research and more debate (but no action), possibly differently, about the issues, because this is where value-for-money lies as the best way to go on learning about these unmet challenges and to help change mindsets and policy incentives and priorities, however slowly.
15 Wednesday Oct 2014
15 Wednesday Oct 2014
Tags
#ChildLabour, #ChildMarriage, #DomesticSlavery, Bangladesh, Commercial Sex Exploitation, Dowry, Inequality, Sexual Abuse, Society
Every year child marriage sentences millions of girls and young children to a life in slavery. This is a crime that flourishes in the shadows of society all over the world largely because the women and girls forced to marry are not seen as equal or able to make these decisions themselves. We can speak up for the victims of forced marriage who can’t speak for themselves and raise awareness that this crime is a form of modern slavery and that it needs to end, now.
Let me cite my country’s situation. While the practice of child marriage has decreased in Bangladesh over the last 30 years, it remains common in rural areas and urban slums, especially among the poor. Bangladesh has progressed much in girls’ education, decreasing maternal mortality at childbirths and women’s empowerment, but this is a dark side that is still lingering behind, and needs improvement. This is one area where the Bangladesh Government shows exhaustion, which prompted them to lower the marriage age of girls to 16. But many people and organisations, local and global, defers with this government initiative. The legal age of marriage is 18 for girls, however three-quarters of women aged 20-49 were married before age 18. The practice of arranging child marriages remains common, especially in rural areas and in urban slums, where many families believe that the onset of puberty signifies readiness for marriage.
Although the practice is illegal, it is common for the bride’s family to pay a dowry to the family of the groom. There is evidence that the practice of dowry is becoming more common. In one study, women aged 46-60 reported that dowry was practically non-existent when they married, while 46% of women aged 15-25 reported that they had to pay dowry. Dowry paying is more common in poorer sections of society, and it also reinforces poverty because it often renders families destitute. Despite the cost of dowry, poorer families consider early marriage financially beneficial dowry generally increases as girls become older and more expensive. Early marriage also relieves families of caring for their daughters, because they live with their husband’s family once married.
Early marriage breeds inequality and threatens girls’ education, mobility, health and safety. A child bride usually drops out of school and begins full time work in the home of her husband’s parents, where she often lacks bargaining power and may be reduced to the status of a bonded labourer. Adolescent brides are often much younger than their husbands, since men are not considered ready to marry until they have some financial independence. This reduces equality in the marriage, has a negative effect on the life chances of girls, and increases the probability that they will be widowed. In a strictly patriarchal society like Bangladesh, being without a male protector and provider can render women vulnerable to abuse and isolation from the community.
Child labour is also very common in Bangladeshi society, and national legislation on child labour is rarely enforced. About 8-9 per cent of girls between the ages of 5 and 14 are working but a lot of girls work in jobs that are hidden from view, such as domestic work and commercial sex work. Girls in particular, are often denied the right to work for a wage. For example, 58 per cent of female child domestic workers surveyed in a 2006 International Labour Organisation study received no monetary wages, and when they did receive a wage it was normally collected by their parents.
Child labour can expose children to physical and sexual abuse. Working children who have little or no contact with their families are more vulnerable to trafficking which may draw them into commercial sexual exploitation. Estimates of women and girls working in commercial sex range as high as 150,000. Children who are the victims of sexual exploitation are regularly denied their rights to education and health. A recent study found that only 0.5 percent of girls working in commercial sexual exploitation attend an educational institution. More than half had experienced a sexually transmitted disease.
This is what actually slavery is which is still existing today because it can, and it could because many societies, including Bangladesh, are still primitive, poverty-stricken and suffer severe form of inequality. Mozambique in West Africa, Haiti in the Americas, Pakistan and India, all are harshly pitiable nations where fiefdom is both the culture and economic choice. There is one option: redistribution of wealth and resources; but it may not be the political choice of the day to end slavery.
Data sources:
1. UNICEF and BBS, Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) 2006, Bangladesh 2007
2. World Bank, Whispers to Voices: Gender and Social Transformation in Bangladesh, March 2008.
14 Tuesday Oct 2014
Posted Society
in14 Tuesday Oct 2014
Slavery is alive and thriving, and many of the estimated 30 million modern day slaves might challenge our concept of who is a slave. It might be an indebted laborer, a victim of human trafficking, or, in the case of Haiti, the child working in the kitchen.
Walk Free Foundation used an expanded definition of slavery in it 2013 report what it says is a first-of-its-kind look at the practice in the modern world. “It would be comforting to think that slavery is a relic of history, but it remains a scar on humanity on every continent,” says Nick Grono, CEO the Australia-based foundation that produced the Global Slavery Index 2013, the first of a planned annual publication.
Matthew Schofield of the McClatchy Newspapers described a story (June 20, 2012) about a Cambodian Prom Vannak Anan more than two years ago who fled twice to freedom, first, jumped from a Thai fishing boat on which he was a slave once, and swam for freedom but again chained in Malaysia by a palm farmer, and flees from there after a year. His story puts a spotlight on the people who live as slaves around the world but lacked sufficient detail to focus the issue fully, I must say. The important fact which is to address yet is how human rights can be trampled in a world so sensitive to the violations. Here, I must acknowledge that though hundreds of human rights NGOs are receiving and spending billions of dollars of funds to address the human rights violations, violations are rampant. And the conduct of businesses, maybe are malpractices, which must be addressed as well.
Yes, “modern slavery exists because it’s big business, a $30 billion a year industry, just about the size of the American milk industry. And experts agree that the problem is growing.” The figure is appallingly petite in contrast to the dimensions of the dilemma. It is inhumane, it is crime… Because slavery, where it is economically available and culturally acceptable, and human trafficking, imported and/or kidnapped “slaves from the poorer countries can only is existing and blossom with the connivance of the local elites and law enforcers. In most of the cases, and in most of the places, it is possible because the elites in those places and the legal system endures it; meaning they are part of the problem, not solution.” In Malaysia, Prom was sold back into slavery by police. In most of the countries, the same police, when find out a sex slave in a prostitution, arrests the slaves as if they are criminals. They are treated like a criminal everywhere, not a victim, and the root cause of the problem is never examined by our societies and legal systems. It’s the same when a girl is raped. She faces double dilemma of being violated while struggles to prove her innocence!
13 Monday Oct 2014
Posted Uncategorized
in13 Monday Oct 2014
Tags
Education, Empowering girls, Ending child marriage, Health, Human trafficking, Investing in girls, Rights of girls
It is the time to recommit to empowering girls and ending child marriage and human trafficking, not just because it is morally right but because it is the smartest way to build a more peaceful and prosperous world.
Advancing the rights of girls bring to light the inimitable challenges they face around the world, and reiterating a global assurance to protect and empower them is a huge challenge but urgently necessary. Given worldwide violence, extremism, poverty, and injustice, we cannot afford to put aside the contributions that millions of girls can make to build a safer, more successful, and equitable world.
Studies illustrate that if a girl stays in school, receives health care, gains skills, and is safe from sexual and other physical abuse, she will very likely marry later, have fewer but healthier children, earn a higher income, invest in her family, and break the cycle of poverty and inequality at home and in her community. They will be more likely to use their education to increase agricultural production, improve health conditions for their family, and serve as a leader to a progressive society.
But in many societies, girls remain middling citizens, unable to access basic rights like education and health, and are excluded from decisions affecting their own lives. One of the most serious challenges is the pervasiveness of child marriage and human trafficking. Millions of girls are married before they turn 18, many against their will and in violation of national and international laws and conventions. In the developing countries, some brides are as young as 8 or 9. Young brides have limited education, maturity and economic opportunities, and are vulnerable to health complications from giving birth before their bodies are fully developed.
It is most problematic when child marriage crisscrosses with human trafficking. Children are trafficked for forced marriage, as the demand for child brides interacts with poverty and tradition to fuel a lucrative trade in girls in many countries.
All too often politicians and government officials think of child marriage, human trafficking, and gender equality as “minor” issues. There is nothing “minor” about preventing thugs from abusing girls at home, at workplaces, at refugee camps, or holding the violators accountable for actions against girls, or insisting that girls’ health, education, and safety are addressed in all policy negotiations.
Addressing these problems through holistic approaches that engage girls and boys, women and men, families and communities, and religious and traditional leaders are essential. Married teenagers should get better access to maternal health and other services. Addressing gender inequality and domestic violence through expanded rural education and one-stop programmes for women and girls with legal and medical care is also an urgent need.
Ending child marriage and trafficking can help nations meet goals related to girls’ empowerment and health. In many impoverished countries where most young girls are likely to become farmers, the national and international community should ensure that girls and women have access to the same level of education, credit, entrepreneurship, and other benefits that men have, so that agricultural production can increase.
One of the most hopeful signs coming out from many developing countries is the presence of girls in school today. But, there are also instances that in many countries, girl’s education is discouraged, or neglected. This should change.
Investing in the education and health of girls pays huge dividends, and if we are really serious about development, we should invest in girls.