Since 1991, Tostan has brought its holistic, human rights-based, 30-month non-formal education program – the Community Empowerment Program (CEP) – to thousands of communities in ten African countries: Burkina Faso, Djibouti, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Somalia, and Sudan.

Community-led development

The goal of the CEP is to provide its participants – 80% of whom are women and girls living in rural areas – with the skills and knowledge to improve their lives in a sustainable way. Developed methodically over the past 20 years through an ongoing process of community consultation and careful revision, the CEP has become today one of the most unique and effective community development programs in Africa.

The Aawde (a Fulani word meaning “to plant the seed”) is the literacy and economic empowerment component of the Tostan CEP. This module takes place during the last year of the program and focuses on literacy, numeracy, project management and post-literacy (which aims to solidify literacy education and provide resources such as work/exercise books to the newly literate).

Let’s face up to facts: Post-literacy and retention of literacy skills in the long term have always been issues for most NGOs working in education. The lack of availability of books written in national languages in the villages is obviously an issue and makes it difficult for participants to practice their new skills in the long term. But the relative lack of interest of most of our participants in reading books in the first place (West African societies are mostly of oral tradition) encouraged us to re-think our post-literacy strategy as a whole in 2008.

With mobile phone networks rapidly expanding to reach the vast majority of Senegalese citizens, and with mobile phones already commonplace in even the most remote villages, mobile technology quickly appeared to us as to be a promising new pedagogical tool for literacy.

Mobile phones for literacy

With a mobile phone, you can text (for less money than placing a call), calculate, convert currencies and check the date and time. Add to these very common features the iconic system for facilitating navigation in the menu (a word, an image), and you get yourself a complementary pedagogical tool to the traditional blackboard and piece of chalk!

In other words, the increasing accessibility of mobile technology and the cost-efficiency of SMS texting present a new motivation for literacy, while providing an innovative training tool in the long term, as phones remain in the village after the Tostan program and are being used on a daily basis after the class. But there is more.

Mobile phones can indeed be used in complement traditional communication methods in order to increase the scope of community-led events and more efficiently diffuse innovations and collective decisions, while amplifying the voice of traditionally marginalized individuals. And “spreading the news” within the community and beyond is, as we all know, critical to long term social change.

Catalyzing social mobilization and organized diffusion of social change

Developed using UNICEF’s RapidSMS platform, the “SMS Community Forum” is a cheap, practical, flexible, SMS-based application that allows a community member to disseminate information to a virtual network of his/her peers by sending a single text message to a server. The Community Forum has been vital in publicizing community activities and events such as vaccination campaigns and literacy group meetings and in spreading news about positive social change in a village to its neighbors. Or even poems!

“Puvoir tuché tt l monde come si l monde été une ronde: simpl ingégn 1guin d temp TOSTAN ns t some reconéçen” (“Being able to reach the world as if the world was just a round dance: easy, well-thought, a gain of time. Tostan, we are grateful”)(Message sent by a participant to the RapidSMS Community Forum in August 2009)

And it actually rhymes in French!

In 2010, Tostan will be launching a new project using RapidSMS: “Jokkondiral!”, a website that will allow Tostan’s rural participants to communicate via SMS texting and voicemail with their relatives in the diaspora. Engaging all actors – and especially the extended networks abroad – is indeed crucial. The pre-requisite to social change is to facilitate a transversal, honest and non-judgmental discussion.

Facilitating. That’s what Tostan has been doing for the past 20 years in the field, addressing difficult issues like female genital cutting or forced and child marriage through debate and discussion.

Today, mobile technology has the potential to be one of the platforms where this discussion can happen. This won’t replace the consensus-building exercise “under the baobab tree”, but will help raise the questions and suggest the possible solutions.

Allow me to wrap up.

1. Obviously, mobile technology by itself is not a panacea for most of the issues facing the field of development. On that topic, I strongly recommend that you read Ann-Ryan Heatwole’s brilliant blog post (“Myths and Realities about Women and Mobile Phones”) or the ICT4D Jester’s blog, which I always find very inspirational.
2. Mobile technology remains however the most advanced technology available in rural Africa TODAY. It needs adjustments, and will surely evolve, but if correctly introduced to the field, it certainly has the potential to amplify the positive impact of development programs like Tostan’s CEP.
3. By helping the most socially, economically and geographically isolated people in Senegal to understand the stakes of their community’s development, and then by teaching them to use the most advanced technology at their disposal to complement (not replace!) the pre-existing means of communication, Tostan is extremely confident that mobile phones can accelerate positive social change.

To read more about the Jokko Initiative, please visit our blog or download our concept note.

Photo credits: Tostan

Our future is beyond our vision but not beyond our control - Senator Edward M. Kennedy

It has been several months since Ted Kennedy died. Discussions about health care and a public option and/or the sad state of public education in the USA – to mention just these two major issues- would have had a much deeper moral dimensions and sane practical solutions had he been walking the corridors of the Senate today. He was a human rights senator!

Yes! Senator Kennedy embodied unrelenting commitment and took control guided by a tireless, well-defined dedication. He told his children that he was able to reach some of his goals, not because he was smarter, but because he was determined to do all he could to change the future. Often beyond his reach, he saw on the far horizon a possible new world order. He imagined and re-imagined communities that rise out of poverty, women and men overcoming poverty’s humiliating consequences where people exchange their equality for survival.

A new culture based on human rights

He did not articulate his vision by quoting human rights norms and standards, but intuitively, he practiced and fought for human rights as a way of life, encompassing a holistic vision that stands to fulfill humanity’s age-old hopes and expectations. He might have spoken about human rights as a promise to belong in dignity in community with others, or in the words of Nelson Mandela—create a new political culture based on human rights.

If those of us working to make this world a better place took the time to learn, discuss and know human rights as a moral imperative that we have for one another, our vision can extend beyond the “shimmering horizon,” vertically and horizontally.

Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of human rights as “unconditional love,” calling on all to accept it as guided by a moral authority, calling for a society where all people realize human rights as a way of life.

Human rights as a way of life

Allow me humbly to ask you to walk with me into this discourse about human rights as a way of life, slowly and thoughtfully. Let us join in bringing a new expansive meaning to this overarching holistic vision and practical mission through learning and dialogue.

At part of the recent 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the Elders, of which Jimmy Carter is a member, issued an enthusiastic call: All HUMANS have RIGHTS. With all the respect I have for these great people, I sent them a note asking, “But do the humans know them?”

If all women, men, youth and children know, own and internalize human rights as relevant to their daily struggles, the inclusivity, universality indivisibility, and interconnectedness of human rights will have people participate proactively and positively in the decision that determine their lives. They will join in breaking through the vicious cycle of humiliation and make this a secure and nurturing place for all. If we choose the path to fulfill the extraordinary promise of human rights, we can be in control and chart the destiny of humanity. We have no other option.

A tool for action

The words human rights are in our daily vocabulary. They exist mostly as a litany of civil and political violations. Instead, they can be understood as a positive and powerful tool for action that offers a unique strategy for human, economic, cultural and societal development. FDR spoke of freedom from fear and freedom from want. He said that necessitous men and women cannot be free. This moral and political insight laid the infrastructure for the International Bill of Human Rights. This Bill included the UDHR, and the two Covenants: one on Political & Civil Human Rights (ICCPR), and the other on Economic Social & Cultural Human Rights (IESCR). The name “covenants” connotes a biblical term that speaks to a moral authority, acknowledging the sanctity of life. (It is important to note that in many countries around the world, those that have ratified Human Rights Covenants and Conventions placed these instruments on par with the legal authority of their constitution. Not in the USA.)

Great moments of transcendence

Throughout human history of wars, famine, humiliation and intolerance come great moments of transcendence that liberated us and allows us to walk away from slavery towards freedom, endowing us with real, vital and meaningful hope and tools for action. It is our responsibility to recognize and capture these magical moments and do all we can to have people know the meaning of human rights in their lives. (Imposed ignorance is a human rights violation.) And when they learn they reinvent their lives, adding a vibrant link to the chain of humanity’s expectations for dignity, equality and life without discrimination.

Purpose behind the United Nations

These moments of transcendence, such as the drafting of the UDHR, gave the United Nations its overarching purpose and radiated forcefully the vision for economic and social justice. It was articulated by Member States into human rights norms and standards relevant to the lives of all women, men, youth and children of all places, cultures and religions. During the years, these were framed as Conventions on the elimination of racism, on the human rights of women and of children, of migrants and recently the disabled and more to come.

Many of us gaining this insight acknowledge, spontaneously, our social responsibility and take control of the future to become agents of change. If the community knew human rights directly and without bias, the discussions taking place now would have been moot. Sadly, most people do not know about the many important moral, political and legal benefits Human Rights puts in our hands to claim. (Those working to bring about genuine health care reform for the benefit of all people need to speak of access to health care and other elements of good health as a human right for which we have no other humanely valid option.)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

More than 60 years ago, Eleanor Roosevelt, joined by men and women from more than 80 countries, gave the world the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a “gift” that meant to remove the chains of colonialism, and to never again have humanity experience genocide. The Declaration delivered to humanity a new space to belong, calling for democracy to be a delivery system of human rights—moving charity to dignity.

The human rights framework encompasses the best of Socialism and Democracy, giving us a vibrant political and moral way to conduct our lives with the protection of human rights laws. It makes so much sense.

Making positive change

It is a painful wonder to me why many working to change the world do not use this powerful tool for action. Is it because many international human rights organizations focus mostly on violation and do not bring a comprehensive message to all of us who yearn to realize our hopes and expectations embedded in the rich and powerful human rights agenda? (Indeed economic colonialism is alive and thriving, and genocide did not vanish. There is much to be cynical about. This, fortunately, does not prevent me from being a fanatic about human rights.)

Having facilitated programs in 60 countries for the last 20 years, I find it so gratifying and amazing how people develop systemic analysis and critical thinking when introduced to human rights as a way of life. Can we do it in the USA? People spontaneously distinguish symptoms and causes. Honest discussions between women and men about patriarchy and the causes of human rights violation lead to critical thinking and changing attitudes and behavior necessary for sustained realization of human rights. (The good news is that the City Council of Washington, DC, following a learning program throughout the educational system, and now entering the larger community, has declared Washington, DC a Human Rights City.)

No other option

Human Rights are the banks of the river where life can flow freely, and when the floods threaten us, people who know human rights strengthen the banks, avoiding the floods. A grassroots movement sharing the knowledge of human rights will strengthen the banks of the river.

There is no other option!

Last year, the US debate over health reform took an ugly turn over the issue of maternity care, when Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona blithely declared “I don’t need [it].” Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan replied: “I think your mom probably did.”

The media furor over this exchange has long since died down. But I personally cannot stop thinking about it. This exchange raises issues far too important and enduring for just a flash of media attention, issues essential to the search for common ground on abortion and the fostering of universal human rights. Pro-choicers in the US pointed out Kyl’s hypocrisy as someone who calls himself “pro-life.” Many pro-lifers condemn the same contradiction.

Problem of maternal healthcare

There is plenty of scientific evidence to back up the outrage against Kyl. According to data gathered by United Nations agencies like United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the US ranks 29th globally in infant mortality and 41st in maternal mortality, in large part because of racial and class disparities in health care access, and because of US providers who have economic incentives not to follow the best practices available.

Healthcare for mothers: A basic right

In support of universal health care, Childbirth Connection points out that 85% of US women give birth at some point in their lives and 4.3 million do so in any given year. Twenty-three per cent of hospital discharges are of childbearing women and newborns, who account for a far larger proportion of total hospital charges than any other group of patients. As well as involving so much of the population and the health services sector, maternity care offers unique opportunities to improve the life courses and health outcomes of mothers, fetuses, and newborns.

Globally embraced documents of the universal human rights movement also support the outrage against Kyl, even though the last two of these have yet to be ratified by my country, shamefully enough. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights identifies “medical care and necessary social services” as human rights, and “motherhood and childhood” as “entitled to special care and assistance.”

CEDAW, the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, asserts the responsibility of states to “ensure to women appropriate services in connection with pregnancy, confinement and the post-natal period, granting free services where necessary.” According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, states have a responsibility to implement every child’s right to ’special safeguards and care…before as well as after birth.” This includes the “diminish[ment] of infant and child mortality” and the ensuring of “appropriate pre-natal and post-natal health care for mothers.”

A way of reducing abortion?

As a pro-lifer who affirms all of these universal human rights, I also recognize another dimension to guarantee maternity care for all, something that concerns pro-choicers, too, for different but often overlapping reasons. Along with being a right on its own, universal, guaranteed maternity care is also, not one whit less importantly, an indispensable way to alleviate situational pressures upon women towards abortion. In particular, it is helpful to reduce pressure upon the poor, including the global poor, women who have disabilities or who carry disabled babies, women of color, immigrants and refugees, and students.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 57% of US women who have abortions are economically disadvantaged. Lack of access to free/affordable health care, including family planning services and both maternity and pediatric care, is both a cause and consequence of economic disadvantage. This also helps to explain, for example, the fact that African American women have five times as many abortions as white women.

Consequences on the poor

The consequences of denying maternity care are even more dire for the global poor. Although the withheld funds have thankfully been restored, my own government quite recently withheld $34 million per year from UNFPA, the world’s largest force for proper maternity care and other solutions to abortion, like family planning. (Contrary to what some US pro-lifers believe, UNFPA has an official policy of not promoting abortion.)

This defunding may have caused nearly 800,000 induced abortions, as well as 2 million unsought pregnancies, 4700 maternal deaths, nearly 60,000 cases of serious maternal illness, and over 77,00 neonatal and child deaths.

Even in such a wealthy nation as the US, many women’s and children’s own life and death stories also validate the right of maternity care. Although my poverty was nothing like the deep poverty of so many in the world, I vividly remember how challenging it was for me in 1986-87 as a student with disabilities to hold onto the expensive private insurance plan my daughter and I so desperately needed throughout and beyond that medical and emotional roller coaster of an unplanned, high-risk pregnancy.

Two decades later, when my college student daughter became pregnant herself, she and her baby–who turned out to have a life-threatening but correctable gut impairment– were also subjected to uncertain coverage. My grandson is a year and a half now, but we are *still* fighting the plan’s refusal to pay for his mom’s emergency asthma treatment in the eighth month of pregnancy.

And yet we were all the “lucky” ones. I can’t imagine how any of us would be alive today without the access to proper health care we somehow managed to have. I shudder to think what might have happened otherwise. This inter-generational story is but one deep source of my conviction that US society, not only Senator Kyl, must stop already in its dismissal of maternity care, a matter of life and death, as some lightweight thing that one can access only via fluke.

A universal problem

To regard maternity care as simply an option that “I don’t need” is to wash one’s hands of collective responsibility for mothers and babies and therefore to have complicity in those situational pressures towards abortion. This responsibility extends beyond those who are mothers or wish to become mothers, to every member of society. Countries that regard maternity care as everybody’s business and everybody’s concern, such as the Netherlands, have abortion rates that are a small fraction of the high US rate.

Every single one of us grew inside the body of a woman who needed access to proper health care to keep both herself and her baby alive and well. I only need to look at the faces of my daughter and grandchild and my own in the mirror to know that universal, guaranteed maternity care is a moral and political imperative everywhere. A rich country like mine must do all it can to make guaranteed maternal healthcare a reality not only for its own residents, but all women and children throughout the world.

This post is a response to the post Are pregnant women expendable?

The crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has flared up once again: 10 years of tension, on-and-off warfare and violence have taken their toll on the population, who are being displaced yet one more time. More than 5 million people have died during this warfare, thousands of women have been raped, and thousands of children have been recruited as children soldiers. On the following videos we bring you calls for action from the DRC citizens pleading with us to take a stand to stop the humanitarian crisis in the DRC.

Previous Posts on Global Voices has focused on this resurgence of violence: D.R. of Congo: Blogging From the War Zone and DR Congo: Fighting Continues, giving us an overview of the dramatic human rights violations, the clashes and fights arising between UN forces, government and rebels, and the internal displacement of people leaving their villages, cities and towns, running away from the violence.

Bukeni Waruzi, a DRC native who is the project coordinator for the African and Middle East region for Witness.org, writes an article in The Huffington Post about the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and also posts a video commentary explaining the political situation, the historical roots for the crisis, and a call to action for all citizens to bring attention to this crisis, and try and force the authorities to intercede in benefit of the civilians taking the brunt of the conflict.

A campaign by Médicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders) to raise awareness on the stark state of the DRC will start on November 20th. The Condition:Critical project will collect voices from the war in Eastern DRC, starting off with a documentary to be published on the launch date. The trailer is extremely moving, starting with the poignant testimony of a child born and raised during the war, who perceives his future as a bleak path leading only unto death.

A first-hand account on the impact of this war is told in this interview on the Virunga National Park blog where Ranger Benjamin from the Kalengera Patrol Post, tells how he witnessed rebels killing his father and murdering twenty other people from his village, shooting them one by one. He ran into the forest and then decided to walk to the refugee camp and tell his story to peers and authorities. He makes a heart wrenching call for action for the international community to pressure the CDR’s government to take action regarding the dire situation they are living in.

What can we do? Bukeni Waruzi has three suggestions for actions we can take:

* Write to President Kabila to urge him to stop mass rape, recruitment of children and bring an end to the conflict: http://hub.witness.org/DRCinCrisis
* If you’re a blogger — embed this video interview talking about the crisis: http://hub.witness.org/DRCinCrisis
* Urge your local media to cover this issue — write to the editor and write your own opinion piece

On Witness’ The HUB, there are many other videos providing different aspects of the humanitarian crisis: the violence, the refugee crisis and the epidemic rape of women and girls. The Ushahidi project has already deployed a taggable map to geographically locate and report incidents of violence and human rights abuses through SMS and web reporting

This blog post was originally published on Global Voices Online on November 15, 2008.

Robert Dijksterhuis, Jac SM Kee, Monia Azzalini,Paula Fray, Thenjiwe Mtintso and Laila Al-Shaik. Credit:Miren Gutierrez/IPS

Violence against women was discussed at a conference held in Rome in November, where many talked about the importance of raising awareness of the issue through the media.

ROME, Nov 26 , 2009 (IPS) – “You don’t need to go far, it is all around us,” said Robert Dijksterhuis, head of the gender division in the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to a room mostly full of women. “Up to one in three women around the world has been abused in some way – most often by someone she knows,” he added, quoting UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund) numbers.

The audience, a group of committed women – and men -, had gathered in Rome to discuss this widespread emergency and the role media have in relation to it in a conference organised by the IPS news agency and supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the city of Rome.

The U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) reports in the paper “Violence against women worldwide” that up to 70 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime – the majority from husbands, partners or someone they know. Among women aged 15–44, acts of violence cause more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic accidents and war combined.

And violence against women is pervasive.

In South Africa, a woman is killed every six hours by someone she knows; in Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day. In São Paulo, Brazil, a woman is assaulted every 15 seconds. Rape of women is widespread in armed conflicts such as those of Colombia and Darfur, Sudan.

This phenomenon affects not only developing countries, but also the developed world. In the U.S., 83 percent of girls aged 12–16 experienced some form of sexual harassment in public schools, and one-third of women murdered each year are killed by partners; in the European Union between 40 and 50 percent of women experience unwanted sexual advancements, physical contact or other forms of sexual harassment at their workplace.

However, according to UNFPA, civil society, media and politicians have begun only recently to join their efforts to change the perception of the phenomenon of violence against women, trying to knock down the wall of indifference and misconstruction that has always surrounded it.

And this is where the media comes in.

According to the Italian Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Vincenzo Scotti, “communication can be one of the most powerful tools” in the fight against this type of violence.

In “Changing cultural and social norms that support violence”, the World Health Organisation (WHO) confirms that media – which have been successful in addressing a wide range of health issues – could play a bigger role in fighting violence.

Meanwhile papers like “The influence of media violence on youth”, published by the American Physiological Society, show how female victimisation in storylines reduces the perceptions of violence in the reality.

This problem is exacerbated by the under-representation of women in media and misrepresentation of their role. Media Monitoring Africa – a watchdog organisation that promotes fair journalism – denounces the scarcity of women working in the media and the marginalised way in which they are portrayed, often limited to victims or someone’s relative.

“The influence of women in journalism is one of the most central problem areas in feminist media research,” acknowledges a report entitled “The Gender of Journalism”, authored by Monika Djerf-Pierre.

Djerf-Pierre’s study shows that even in a female-friendly nation such as Sweden, “journalism as a field has remained male-dominated.” (Sweden ranks number four in the Global Gender Gap [GGG] published by the World Economic Forum.) Today, almost half of Swedish journalists are women, the study shows. However, three out of four leaders in the media industry are men. In other countries the situation is worse.

According to Dijksterhuis, some of the ways communication can be used in a changing landscape with new technologies are trying to set the agenda; forging stronger linkages with NGOs, media and other actors (an issue that was highlighted by many speakers in this conference); and monitoring the results, since “most information is biased towards men.”

Communications rights should be part of these efforts, said Jac SM Kee, coordinator of Women’s Rights Advocacy in the Association for Progressive Communications. Her organisation is involved in an effort to “reclaim ICTs” (Information Communication Technologies) to end violence and address the intersections between communication rights and women’s human rights, especially in relation to violence against women.

Meanwhile, Mona Azzalini, of the Global Media Monitoring Project in Italy, talked about the biggest global survey about women’s participation in the media, to be released in 2010.

The initiative “promotes a change in the way women are portrayed” and creates a “network of advocacy groups” fighting discrimination and stereotypes in the media. The last monitoring – done in 2005 – was focused on four issues: the representation of women as subjects of information, the journalists, the content of the news including cases of stereotypes and discrimination, and journalistic practices.

The results of the 2010 survey will be compared with the 2005 report, which showed that only 21 percent of the sources are women, and most experts quoted (83 percent) are men. The point of view of women is nowhere to be seen: in politics only 14 percent of the sources were women; while in economic issues, 20 percent were women. Even when the issue is violence against women, most of the voices (64 percent) are men’s.

And how do media talk about these issues?

“Victim means weakness; weakness means violence… Media love violence,” said Laila Al Shaikhli, anchorwoman of Al Jazeera, who spoke about the difficulty of getting the real story, when women are reluctant to speak out and carry on a social stigma, when they themselves participate in the cycle of discrimination, educating children with the same paradigms.

The result is that the image of women comes out distorted.

In Italy, for example, “80 percent of people form their opinions based on TV,” said Emma Bonino, vice president of the Italian Senate. “And I am not satisfied with how women’s images are transmitted in our media. It is a humiliating image… Working women do not exist. The role of media is an important part of whichever strategy you want in place when fighting against violence. It is not marginal or complementary, it is essential to forming the idea of women.”

In Italy, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi controls about 90 percent of the TV audience through his private media empire Mediaset and the state television RAI.

Thenjiwe Mtintso, South Africa’s ambassador to Italy, spoke from the point of view of a gender activist and a former journalist during apartheid about the definition of what is news and its ownership, and who transmits it. Not women, she said. And this is something that has to change if violence against women is to end.

This blog post was originally published on ipsnews.net on November 26, 2009.

Goma, North Kivu, DRC – Coming from the outlining areas of the provincial capital of North Kivu, especially from Masisi, these women await traumatic fistula surgery (gynecological fistula is an injury that can result from violent sexual assault).  With so many victims of rape, the wait time for the surgery can take up to 3 months and may require more than one surgery, sometimes several.

The Democratic Republic of Congo held its first free and fair elections in 2006. But despite this, there’s still no peace in the far east of the vast country. Several armed groups operate there and, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, they use rape as a weapon of war on a shocking scale. The UN says that more than 4000 rapes have been documented in South Kivu province so far in 2007. BBC’s Sarah Grainger reports from Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu and Jenni talks to expert in African womens’ rights Victoria Brittain and Human Rights Watch activist Juliane Kippenberg about the causes of sexual violence in Eastern Congo and the widespread climate of impunity which allows these abuses to go unpunished.

This is a response to the blog-post, “Rape as a weapon of war: What do you think”

In India, the problem of violence against women is a result of a long standing power imbalance between men and women. Men have control over access to property and resources. There is also a sexual division of  labor in India that results in female exploitation–physically, mentally, and commercially.

Oppression in India

Women in India are subject to all forms of violence. Female infanticide is quite common in Haryana and Punjab because there is a preference for sons because male children carry on the family lineage. The education of sons is also considered much more important. In these two states, the sex ratio is lower than the national average.

Discrimination within the household

Within the household, there exists gender discrimination which determines intra-household distribution of food. Because women and girls are given less food than men, malnutrition among adolescent girls and women is quite prevalent in India.

Lack of opportunity to work

Due to lower educational levels, a woman has a much lower capacity to earn. Women from upper castes are seldom allowed to work outside the home. However, work participation rate among low caste women is better compared to that of upper caste women.

Honor killings

Honor killings are quite common in Haryana and Tamil Nadu when young girls marry somebody outside their caste and clan against her family’s wishes.

Women as property

Dowry is demanded from the husband’s side (in-laws) when younger women get married. Newly married women become subject to verbal and physical abuse. In many cases, young brides are burnt to death by her in-laws if the parents fail to meet the requisite dowry demanded. Women are also viewed in terms of their virginity, as chastity is considered as a great virtue.

In terms of family planning, women have been used as the subjects of experiments. Governments promote contraceptives to lower fertility among women, at the behest of multinational corporations and the corporate sector, without thinking about their consequences. Population control and family planning is considered a way to control women’s sexuality.

Photograph posted on Flicker by “Mckay Savage.”

Data on violence against women

In a country like India, it is difficult to rely on statistics pertaining to rape cases. The data may show that such crimes being committed may be going up or down. But in reality, women are afraid of even lodging FIRs (First Information Report) in police stations despite being raped or sexually harassed. The judiciary and the legal system are biased in favor of men. Cases of violence against women are under-reported.

According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau 2007, a total of 1,85,312 incidents of crime against women (both under Indian Penal Code-IPC and Special and Local Laws-SLL) were reported in the country during 2007 as compared to 1,64,765 during 2006, thus recording an increase of 12.5% during 2007. These crimes have continuously increased during 2003-2007 with 1,40,601 cases in 2003, 1,54,333 cases in 2004, 1,55,553 in 2005, 1,64,765 cases in 2006 and 1,85,312 cases in 2007.

The total number of sexual harassment cases were 10,950 in 2007. The total number of cases pertaining to cruelty by husband and relatives was 75,930. There were 61 cases of importation of girls. Altogether there were 38,734 cases of molestation in 2007. (See the URL: http://ncrb.nic.in/cii2007/cii-2007/FIGURES_2007.pdf).

The number of rape cases has increased by nearly ten fold from 2487 in 1953 to 20737 in 2007. Young girls also become victims of child abuse at the hands of their closest male relatives, which they are unable to protest.

What can be done

When women protest against their exploitation, many try to silence them. The experience of Bhanwari Devi, the ’sathin’ from Rajasthan, is a case in point. She was gang-raped for working against child marriage practiced by the upper castes in her village.

According to the NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) 2008, respect for women seem to be the worst in Andhra Pradesh, which accounted for 83.5 per cent of cases under Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act of total cases across the country. Out of a total 1,200 such cases, Andhra had registered 1,005 incidents in this regard. The NCRB data clearly points to the profile of the average rapist – over 75% were known to the victims. In fact, nearly 10% were relatives. Another disturbing aspect was that about a quarter of the rape victims were minors.

During the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in September 1995, the United Nations Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, said that violence against women is a universal problem that must be universally condemned. The United Nations has termed violence against women as a gross violation of human rights. In India, a survey showed that for each incidence of violence, women lost an average of 7 working days.

Role of media

Media that includes television, radio and newspapers can play a positive role in creating awareness about the pitfalls of violence against women. Mass media’s power should not be undermined by our policy makers.

On this past International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women 2009, I was reflecting upon the international non-governmental organizations that focus on the empowerment of women as social change agents.

The Global Fund for Women website indicates “We are part of a global women’s movement that is rooted in a commitment to justice and an appreciation of the value of women’s experience. The challenges women face vary widely across communities, cultures, religions, traditions and countries. We believe that women should have a full range of choices, and that women themselves know best how to determine their needs and propose solutions for lasting change. The way in which we do our work is as important as what we do. This philosophy is reflected in our flexible, respectful and responsive style of grantmaking.”

The United Nations Fund dedicated to the advancement of women’s rights and gender equality UNIFEM “provides financial and technical assistance to innovative programmes and strategies that foster women’s empowerment. UNIFEM works on the premise that it is the fundamental right of every woman to live a life free from discrimination and violence, and that gender equality is essential to achieving development and to building just societies.”

Similarly, the Hunger Project is committed to empowering women as key change agents as “women bear almost all responsibility for meeting basic needs of the family, yet are systematically denied the resources, information and freedom of action they need to fulfill this responsibility.”

Two of eleven global health strategies at the world’s largest private Foundation – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are focused on women – maternal, neonatal, and child health, and family Planning.

Furthermore, one of the primary objectives of Muhammad Yunus of the famed Grameen Bank (the icon for micro credit) when he established the bank in the 1980s was to “bring the disadvantaged, mostly the women from the poorest households, within the fold of an organizational format which they can understand and manage by themselves.”

It strikes me that some of the largest international NGOs focusing their efforts on women illustrates the importance of empowering women. This blog, too, addresses women as a central to development. I wonder, are women the key to addressing the many global challenges we are facing that this blog has addressed: the economic meltdown and women; poverty and AIDS; youth love and sexuality; motherhood and human rights; climate change and women?

A very small number of participants wrote in from Asia and Europe, and all contributors were male. By joining the conversation, contributors hope to engage others. Click here to read some of the contributions.

Law

A conversation-starter believes that local laws should be implemented in conjunction with ratified human rights provisions and agreements. Such laws should be applied by inter-agency mechanisms, including law enforcement, foreign affairs, social welfare and civil society.

Economic and political policy

A contributor argues that international, regional and national policy must integrate the origin, transit and destination states for those who are trafficked. The approach needs to address those factors that make trafficking possible such as poverty, instability, war and most importantly “traditions, inequality and vulnerability.” There should be a regional database for criminals associated with trafficking and a stronger geographic border policy.

Solutions

It is important for the state to comply with approved human rights agreements. Since criminal networks facilitate trafficking, a solution calls for an “integrated approach covering labor, migration, criminal and human rights dimensions” by practicing laws that abet criminal networks that enable trafficking. Due to risk factors such as poverty, lack of employment and education, it is in the interest of wealthier, or “destination”(“destination refers to the ending place of trafficked women and girls) countries to aid developing countries in order to improve the standard of living of people in “origin” countries (“origin” pertains to the country which is the starting point for trafficking, of which there are many).

In the meantime, education and awareness campaigns could help women understand their rights, and how to avoid the threat of traffickers. This education should not be limited to women. Male involvement is key to proper prevention.

To answer, “How do we protect victims from further abuse and violence?” if women are rescued from trafficking, the state should be responsible to help the women get back to safety and a sustainable existence that includes job training, housing, counseling, language courses, and the like. The best solution may not be for the women to return back to the home or origin country, especially if there are cases where parents had sold their daughters. Women should be assisted to relocate to places where they would not be at risk again.

There is an urgent need to eradicate trafficking, a form of violence against women and girls, often including rape and physical abuse.

• What are some of the best practices in preventing trafficking of women?
• How do we protect victims from further abuse and violence?

Join the conversation

Have your say and participate in the Conversations for a Better World
and Women Watch forum on violence against women. We are hosting a dialogue for those affected, interested or working on violence against women. Become a conversation starter and tell us what’s on your mind.

Women should not be subjects to abuse. Children should not be exploited. Submit your story and let the world know how we can end this human rights violation.

You can help generate an important dialogue that can be shared worldwide. We are looking for opinion pieces, videos, photo-essays, stories, research-findings, and best practices. You can also leave a comment at the bottom of this text.

Why we are doing it

The international community has just finished Violence Against Women Awareness month (October), and the challenges are still there. At least one in three women experiences some form of violence in their lifetime according to the UN Secretary-General’s In-Depth Study on Violence against Women.

Trafficking occurs both for sex-work and non-sex work. According to Globalrights.org, “Trafficking is the recruitment, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining, by any means, any person for labor or services involving forced labor, slavery or servitude in any industry…”

Stay tuned for a summary of this conversation. If you missed the first week of the violence against women conversation, it is not too late to join. We’re getting closer,  and your incredible work is a big part of why.