Author: Susan Pearce

Domestic workers in the UAE: new protections?

Dr. Rhacel Salazar Parrenas describes the lives of Filipino women who are domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates based on her ethnographic interviews and observations. They are cleaning, cooking, caring for children, and keeping households running, for their employers, who may be UAE citizens or foreign-born people employed in the UAE. We learn their struggles and limited rights due to employer abuses, and the constraints of the kafala system–the employer contract system that UAE and other countries use. Although there was a new law regarding the kafala system, offering worker protections in 2016, Dr. Parrenas wrote that these reforms have not reportedly been experienced by domestic workers. Here is her piece. In her book, she notes that a survey of nationals in neighboring Qatar–which also announced reforms–found that 88% opposed the reforms because “it lessened the dependency of foreign workers on their employers.” (Parrenas, Unfree, p. 26)

In September 2022, the UAE passed a new law specific to domestic workers. Among the provisions is this: “forbids hiring anyone under the age of 18 as a domestic worker and prohibits discrimination, sexual harassment, forced labor, or any act that is considered to be a potential act of human trafficking.” There are requirements for time off and limits to the number of hours per day that workers can be expected to work. Will these reforms make a difference? The question can be applied to any new human-rights / anti-discrimination laws globally. How are they implemented and enforced? Do workers understand their rights? How do they claim those rights, particularly if they are not honored? There is something about the intimacy of the closed-door household that invites a particular vulnerability to workers inside those spaces. Here is the new law.

Facebook and Human Trafficking

Good morning,

Some of you may be posting about this, but it popped up as the top CNN story:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25/tech/facebook-instagram-app-store-ban-human-trafficking/index.html

Their own report admitted that FB is used in all stages of “the human exploitation lifecycle (recruitment, facilitation, exploitation).” I am aware that mail-order marriages use social-media platforms. It is relevant to our final paper research that Apple is policing Facebook: so these media institutions are in internal battles over social justice (or is Apple concerned about image and customer growth?)….

This news comes as Facebook is also under scrutiny for enabling racist content and organizing around “Stop the Steal” and January 6.

You may know that Facebook hires sociologists… think about why they would want us!

Dr. Pearce

 

Pronatalism Strips Autonomy from Women

1 comment

By Chelsea Silvia

In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, shadowy female figures glide silently through the streets and the bedrooms. In the Republic of Gilead, their destinies were defined by their reproductive parts, with the handmaids’ only task being to bear children for the wives of the Commanders. Handmaids endure a violent re-education process for women who are both fertile and reject the laws of mandatory pronatalism. Running this process are infertile Aunts who constantly remind them of the serious threat of exile to the environmental apocalypse known as the Colonies or to employment as forced sex workers known as Jezebels if they don’t conform.

While it is highly unlikely that this fictious society will become a reality, there is always a possibility of some aspects of it lie in our future as the US moves toward restricting women’s autonomy in making reproductive health decisions by valuing pronatalism. I call for feminist researchers to take a stand today by increasing the amount of research and public awareness of the harmful effects of this agenda and ideology.

Pronatalism is define narrowly as the policy or practice of encouraging the bearing of children, especially government support of a higher birthrate. Rulers and legislators can pass policies that incentivize birth and prohibit attempts to engage in family planning or that limit access to contraceptives and abortions. In other cases, governments may not enact policies, but the society as a whole is swayed by an overall ideology of natalism, defined as a belief that promotes the reproduction of human life. Natalism promotes child-bearing and parenthood as desirable for social reasons and to ensure the continuance of humanity. This set of persuasive cultural norms forces women into reproductive and childbearing roles. These roles are harmful towards both women and their families who do not conform to the expected norms. Motherhood varies from woman to woman, which is why society should not force certain roles on all women.

It is my personal choice to abstain from having children in the future. While the United States is not a particularly dominant society regarding pronatalism, I have still directly felt the effects of natalist ideas directed toward women.  “You’ll change your mind one day,” people tell me. “You’re too young to make that decision.” But in fact, I am not too young. I am a strong independent woman, who doesn’t particularly care for children. I am an advocate and user of assisted reproductive technology services, or ART services, which aid with family planning – including a wide range of services from various birth control methods to in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.

Pronatalist societies, such as the Buddhist community in Ladakh, India, experience extreme religious opposition to contraceptive methods, making family planning seen as a sinful practice. Inthe rural areas, the number of children is the highest, mainly caused by the lack of access to ART services.  This directly increases the intensity of pronatalism in Ladakh. Buddhists often point to the authority of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, who happens to support the increase in population. Because Buddhists equate contraception with abortion, contraception is immediately categorized as a sin by Dalai Lama’s comments and practices. Preventing pregnancy is synonymous with preventing rebirth since from a Buddhist perspective, family planning interrupts Bardo, the internal liminal time between death and rebirth. In order to allow women proper choices when family planning, she must break some harmful social norms.

Ponatalist bias perpetuates harmful social norms while undermining a woman’s reproductive autonomy. While the goal of pronatalism is to increase population in declining societies, the effects of the ideology and policies are often harmful. In order to combat these flaws, both men and women must work together to begin to redefine pronatalism to mean pro-birth for those who choose it, keeping the notion of choice at the center of reproductive freedom.

Chelsea Silvia is a Junior at East Carolina University. She currently studies German language and culture and cultural anthropology. Chelsea has been a part of the largest student organization on campus for her entire college career, where she plays mellophone for the Marching Pirates. Chelsea is also the German Ambassador for the Foreign Language and Literatures Organization. In her free time, she loves to hike.

Systematic Rape: Weapon of Choice

1 comment

By Kyli Lepine

Have you ever wondered exactly how realistic video games are? Warlike video games such as Call of Duty have become increasingly popular in modern society, typically with a rifle as the weapon of choice. The game is based on the events of World War II and includes a variety of explosions, enemy bases to overthrow and plenty of victims to destroy.

However, games like this neglect to highlight the true weapon of choice during war, systematic rape.

Sexual violence against women has been a vital weapon of war since the beginning of humanity with reported accounts during armed conflicts in Rwanda, Germany, Bosnia, Cambodia, Uganda, and Vietnam. The relationship between sexual violence and war is defined through Skjelsbæk’s Three Conceptualizations:

  1. Essentialism- any and all women are potential victims; This is used in order to establish a sense of militaristic masculinity.
  2. Structuralism- women are targeted based on membership to a specific ethnic, religious, or political group; This is used as form of “ethnic cleansing” to punish a specific group.
  3. Social Constructionism- both men and women are targeted. This is used to establish dominance and masculinity in the attacker and submission and femininity in the victim.

The true events of World War II resulted in over one million mothers, sisters, and daughters being gang raped in Germany alone. Some reports of up to 20 men in uniform at a time. The Soviet Red army participated in a form of Essentialism when they raped any and every woman no matter their age. The goal was to show militaristic power over Germany in every possible way.

The Rwandan Genocide is the clearest example of Structuralism in reference to wartime sexual violence. The Hutu militias are responsible for the systematic rape of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi women and girls. The targeted gang rapes were often preformed in public town squares so the girls would be humiliated, afterwards they would be mutilated by a machete or deliberately infected with HIV. The ultimate objective for the Hutu was the systematic ethnic cleansing of Tutsi minorities from the population of Rwanda.

A few consequences of wartime sexual violence can be death, disease, and mental subversion. If these women were not killed immediately after the attack, she was at risk of committing suicide or contracting a purposed disease (HIV, AIDS). Survivors of wartime rape typically experience higher levels of Post-traumatic stress and anxiety than non-sexual survivors of war.

The consequences did not stop with the survivor, they often extended to the child conceived as a result. Some women would commit infanticide or abandon the babies at birth. Malicious terms were created to describe these children, such as “War Child” or “Fruit of Hate”. They were isolated, discriminated against, and often disowned by family members.

Attention needs to be brought to the fact that systematic rape during war is a grievous act of inhumanity. This can be achieved by:

  • Informing and Encouraging others to share their story and demand to be heard. Ignoring rape harms women by reinforcing the belief that “female” is synonymous with “victim”.
  • Forcing informative sexual education on both girls and boys. Girls are often taught to avoid the dangers of men, all within the age old saying “Boys will be boys”. Girls are taught that we must accept the advances from men because “they don’t know any better” Ideas of hyper masculinity encourage aggressive behavior in men which endangers women under the promise of sexual rewards.
  • Removing the stigma that sexual violence is a result of sending men to war. Wartime rape is not performed for the pleasure of the attacker, but to humiliate the victim under a vicious attack.
  • Petitioning for United Nations to enforce militaristic reform on systematic rape as a tool of war.

To act against this injustice, considering supporting many of the organizations who are working to end the use of systematic rape on women during war, such as:

These organizations provide firsthand opportunities to assist these women through emergency shelters, hotlines, and escape routes as well as initiatives towards the prevention of wartime rape. They enforce women’s voices in governmental institutions to ensure they are complying with their commitments to end systematic wartime rape.

Within the manifestation of the next war, may it in your backyard or across the globe, it is our responsibility to ensure that a woman’s body is no longer considered a continuation of the battlefield.

 

Kyli Lepine is senior at East Carolina University who will graduate in December 2020 with a double major in Anthropology and International Studies and a minor in Ethnic Studies. After graduation, Kyli hopes to pursue a career in international human rights or cultural diversity reform. In her spare time, Kyli enjoys playing with her dog, Azkaban.

The Talk and Unplanned Pregnancies: Unsafe Abortion in Latin America

4 comments

 

By Salma Zoe Diaz Diaz

 

We all know what the talk is, that excruciating moment when your parent sits down next to you and says, “we need to talk.” You hold your breath as they stumble over their words “when you decide to have sex, one day…”. You feel yourself going a deep crimson in heated embarrassment as they stammer on “… just remember to be careful.” You both heave a huge sigh of relief that it’s over and you can get on with life again but in truth, we need much more from our parents. We need ‘the talk’ to be far more honest and open than that. It’s the responsibility of each parent to try to give their child the space to talk about anything. That environment needs to be created from the moment a child is born. Whenever a child enters puberty, they feel embarrassed about their sexual feelings, especially admitting to them in front of their parents. However, that’s the parents’ job; they should suck up the embarrassment and do what needs to be done anyway. Ensuring your child is safe is far more important than feeling uncomfortable.

Each year there are thousands of unsafe abortions performed in Latin America, including in my country of Peru. According to the Guttmacher Institute, during 2010–2014, an estimated 6.5 million induced abortions occurred each year in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the proportion of all pregnancies in Latin America and the Caribbean ending in abortion increased between 1990–1994 and 2010–2014, from 23% to 32% Yet, they point out that more than 97% of women of reproductive age in Latin America and the Caribbean live in countries with restrictive abortion laws. Abortion is not permitted for any reason in six countries. Nine others allow it almost exclusively to save the woman’s life, with only some offering limited exceptions for rape (Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Panama) and grave fetal anomaly (Chile, Panama and almost half of the states of Mexico).  Fewer than 3% of the region’s women live in countries where abortion is broadly legal—that is, permitted either without restriction as to reason or on socioeconomic grounds. Therefore, women, especially young women who experience unplanned pregnancies are likely to resort to illegal and often unsafe abortions that will have major health consequences for them.

 

In my case, I got pregnant in the summer of 2019. I felt alone and embarrassed with myself. I considered getting an abortion but before I could even make that decision, I had a miscarriage. I was heartbroken and still lonely, as the father of my baby decided to ignore me and block me without even knowing that I was expecting a baby from him. I tried and tried to find a way to tell him, but when I finally found a way, it was too late. I decided then, that I didn’t want to tell him anymore. I kept it away from everyone and it made me feel lonelier and sadder. I wanted to forget about what happened. Neglecting a problem is never the answer as it keeps consuming you from the inside. When you’re the only one that knows, you tend to feel hopeless.

Recently, one week ago, I decided to tell my mother what had happened. I saw the pain in her eyes as she realized that she had failed at gaining my complete trust. I couldn’t tell her because I felt like she was going to be disappointed but when we are parents, that’s what we need to be. Parents. No matter how bad the situation is. I now know that and I wouldn’t be able to keep that big of a secret to my mother or my father ever again. This might be different for a lot of people as their parents may not know how to be a good parent. However, this is not only for our present parents but for our future parents.

When young adults don’t have the proper information given to them sometimes, this can lead to unplanned pregnancies. This, in turn, can cause someone to go through a difficult decision such as picking whether to have an abortion or keep the baby. This is where parents should take the initiative to make their child feel safe about this issue they are facing. If the parents are not supportive of their child, this can lead to unsafe abortion. Unsafe abortions have a very high risk of health issues later on in life, such as infertility. This can also cause mental trauma in patients that go through unsafe and safe abortions.

The governments in Latin America need to provide safe places for women who conceive and would like to have abortions as well as therapy places that can provide counseling for their trauma. Abortion is the taking of human life in a horrific fashion – the baby is ripped apart. We also have to realize that a lot of countries don’t have the privilege of providing safe abortion methods. Especially in Latin America, where I’m from, as it is viewed as an inhuman thing to do. This is why it was very hard for me to come to my parents when I found out I was pregnant. In Latin culture, abortion is a very delicate topic and a lot of my family members are against it.

As a country and world, we should all be more open to these delicate topics such as “the talk,”  and unplanned pregnancies. Abortion rates run high in the world, and unsafe abortion is a common factor. In order to steer clear of unsafe abortion, parents should face the embarrassments that they may feel and put it to the side when it comes to their children. This will help with keeping young adults safe if they choose to have an abortion with an unplanned pregnancy. Young adults are just looking for support when it comes to these types of issues. Having support from their parents and loved ones in times like these are very important to one’s mental health, and physical health. This is why parents should know better and not just make decisions that are not going to make the situation any better, like kick them out of the house or yell at them for being stupid. First, they need to take care of the current “problem” and after they come up with a solution, they can talk about it. At the end of the day, we all make mistakes and as a parent, you have to be supportive and help your kids learn from these mistakes.

However, the burden to solve the issue of unplanned pregnancies should not just be on the parents. Governments that refuse to liberalize laws restricting abortion should have to provide better sex education in the schools along with free access to contraception. Governments could also institute classes for parents about how to talk frankly with their children about sex and birth control. Without that, young people will continue to get pregnant and then choose the more horrifying option of unsafe abortion, risking their physical and mental health in the process. We owe them better than this.

 

Salma Zoe Diaz Diaz is a junior at East Carolina University. She is set to graduate in December 2021 with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in Ethnic Studies. After graduating, she plans to continue her education and complete a Master’s Degree.

Human Trafficking and Criminal Justice

3 comments

By Victoria Sluder

Sold, captured, and scammed. These are the methods by which men, women, and children are trafficked every year. In recent years, women and children are the primary targets for trafficking of all kinds due to poverty, unstable political climates, and errors in the criminal justice system. There are protocols put in place for obligatory purposes, but they are contradictory at best and have a lot of grey area. The United Nations Protocol on Human Trafficking defines trafficking as:

Trafficking in persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or        receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs… The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons.

While this protocol defines trafficking, it does not define how this crime should be punished and incorrectly defines other forms of sex work as trafficking. It does, however, discuss the services and opportunities available to victims as well as offer suggestions to states about how to follow the protocol. It should also be mentioned that even though this huge protocol was put in place in 2000, human trafficking is still an enormous problem around the world, with an estimated 20-40 million active victims. Traffickers average about $150 million dollars a year in profits of which $99 million comes from sexual exploitation. In 2018, the United States reported that 52 percent of their criminal human trafficking cases involved children specifically.

Because there is no universal method to prevent and crack down on trafficking, it is up to individual countries to determine how to best handle the issue. For example, many Southeast-European and Mediterranean areas do little to address the problem considering trafficking continues to occur in large numbers, mainly due to the high amount of traffic in the area which create a hotbed of trafficking prospects because of the transient population. In these countries, many previous victims have stated that traffickers arranged documentation for them to travel to the area and stay there. When many had to renew visas local governments did not ask any questions and so did nothing to stop the exploitation.

While many countries do have laws and protocols against human trafficking, enforcement is often lax because traffickers have the funds to bribe officials to look the other way. Law enforcement may even receive a different status because of their ties which allows leverage for trafficking and similar crimes to continue because they are not reporting the trafficking like they should be because of the benefits they receive from not doing so. This violates not only laws against human trafficking but also the oaths that many officers take to “protect and serve”, their enabling of the problem is a gross injustice to victims that need rescuing from their exploitation.

Aside from the corruption in law enforcement agencies of all levels, there are the issues that many find within the United Nations’ Protocol on Human Trafficking. The Protocol is a band-aid over the gaping wound that is human trafficking. It was an attempt to provide some assistance to victims as well as suggest that each state involved create some kind of legislation in response to trafficking crimes. The incentive for legislation in and of itself leaves a lot to the imagination because it does not establish how severe traffickers should be punished or even what class of crime trafficking is in different areas (I.e., felony or misdemeanor). The Protocol also is contradictory in how it addresses voluntary sex work, and that the migration of voluntary sex workers is not exploitative or coincides with trafficking.

The criminal justice system fails to provide justice to victims in many ways. For example, sometimes there is not enough evidence to convict someone of trafficking, there are people with deep pockets involved that can pay off DA’s or judges, and when a trafficker is convicted they may only serve a small amount of time compared to the amount victims and the public feel they should serve. An example of this is the case of a young woman who was trafficked in Kathmandu. She managed to escape and her family pressed charges against the men who sought to traffic her, amidst threats and intimidation, they won the case but only the men who were of lesser financial situations received jail time and a small amount at that. She felt the case was a bittersweet victory and ended her tail asking where she would truly find justice. There is also a heavy stigma attached to many trafficking victims around the world, these stigmas are also a method of confinement many traffickers use to hold their victims because it is a sad truth that if they did escape, they would face judgement for being involved in sex work of any kind- whether it was forced or not.

The need for reform in response to the global issue of human trafficking not only lies within the criminal justice system but also within governments around the world. There are many methods that states all over the world use to appear to be progressive while actually doing nothing to address the problem. Many states will exaggerate numbers of victims and hide the accurate statistics, like in the United States who reported over 50,000 women and children who had been trafficked in 2002 when there was actually between 15-18 thousand. Others will focus solely on women and ignore men and the increasing number of children who are also being exploited, and lastly, claiming that trafficking is a “human rights issue” while doing little to nothing to prosecute traffickers for violations of human rights (like in the case above where offenders were only prosecuted for a short time for a small offense). Ignoring the growing problem of trafficking in persons is a gross injustice to the millions (yes millions) of people who are trafficked every year and they deserve justness.

Many point the finger as to who is responsible for fighting the war that is human trafficking but at the end of the day it boils down to the criminal justice system, whose role is to protect and serve, and governments around the world. Human trafficking happens closer to home than a lot of people think, and it is also our responsibility as citizens to put the pressure on those in charge, reform needs to happen and clearly those who care need to kickstart the process so victims can feel the justice they have been deprived of for so long.

Victoria Sluder is a criminal justice major with a minor in leadership studies. She plans to attend East Carolina University for her Masters in psychology and remain active in the Student Government Association.

 

The Importance of Educating Women

3 comments

By Taylor Smith

 

Many women all over the world value education above all else, but they are denied the opportunity to attend school.. A girl named Faith from Maasai Mara, Kenya, wanted an education, but when she turned 13, her father decided that it was time for her to marry and that she needed to stay home. He even doubled her chores so that she would not have time to study during the day. Faith did not give up and worked through all hours of the night completing her chores so that she could study during the day. Faith applied to a secondary school called Kisaruni. Unfortunately, she was unable to get in because her grades were not good enough. She went into a deep depression and her father hated to see her like that. He knew that she could have gotten into the school if she had more support and time to study. He had a change of heart and Faith was able to study and bring up her grades which eventually lead to her acceptance. Faith later went on to graduate because she never gave up fighting for her right to an education. If Faith had not fought for herself, she would have been married at 13 and would have had to rely on her husband for support. Now since Faith graduated, she can go on to have a job, gain independence for herself, and have control over her own life.

 

In 2019, 9 million girls at the primary age level were not in school, compared to the 3 million boys. But why is that? One reason is early childhood marriage. There are many cultural and religious reasons why childhood marriage is practiced today. One major reason is poverty. Parents can sell a child into marriage to settle debts or gain income for the in-laws although doing this puts the child at risk of never gaining an education and not being able to get a proper job to make a steady source of income. So, because of childhood marriage there is also a cycle of poverty that will not be broken unless something changes.

 

One other reason for girls not attending school is child labor. Sometimes parents might need children to help around the house in order to provide for them. Lots of times this work is seen as women’s work and the parents keep the daughter home over the son because a male’s education is seen as having more value than a female. So, the daughter stays home and helps with chores while sons go to school.

 

Another reason why girls are not going to school is pregnancy. The school may have rules restricting pregnant girls from attending, sometimes girls may not go because of embarrassment or stigma facing them. According to the World Health Organization one million girls under the age of 15 and 16 million girls from ages 15-19 are pregnant. Having to look after a baby is a full-time job so going to school or even classes can be impossible for them.

 

Yet it is well documented by economists and social scientists that educating girls leads to major benefits for society. The health and safety of these girls is increased with education. Women who are not educated are less likely to seek out medical help for themselves and their families. Mothers who are educated are also more likely to get their children immunized. Educating women on sexual health is also a huge benefit. Having the knowledge to prevent sexual diseases and pregnancy give women a huge advantage in gaining autonomy for themselves. Learning about different contraceptive methods allows women to see which ones work for their body and lifestyle. This also gives women a safe place to ask questions about sexual health. With parents or relatives there might be a fear or certain rules that stops girls asking those sorts of questions. Having a safe place to learn about such important information is crucial for girls to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

 

Women who go to school are more likely to have successful careers. That means that women can afford places to live, provide for themselves and their families, and can save for the future. More women having jobs and making money means more people spending money. More spending means more money going back into the economy. Women who make money will also have more confidence and will be willing to speak up more. This will allow more women to be in a leadership role in their everyday lives. Companies also tend to have better results when there is diversity. Hearing different opinions from different voices makes sure that all ideas are thought about and reviewed. In companies with some leadership roles filled with women the results for that company are better.

 

The biggest challenge that people have to overcome in order to fix the lack of women’s education is the stigma that women do not deserve to be educated. For centuries men have been seen as the “better” gender. It’s almost as if women are a subsection of humans instead of just seen as human. The best way to battle that mindset is get people all over the world educated on the different benefits that come from treating women the way they should, which is equal. To do that there needs to be funding to women’s programs of all kinds, but most importantly funding for women’s education. Education can and should give women all over the world the necessary skills for them to be the best versions of themselves.

 

What’s something that we can do to help this issue? The Malala Fund is an organization that is fighting for women’s education all over the world. The Malala Fund does this by investing in local education advocates, by advocating to hold leaders accountable, and by making sure women’s voices are heard. Investing in local advocates the Malala fund is making sure the people who best know these girls are getting the funding they need in order really make change happen. Holding leaders accountable is crucial because laws can be placed but that doesn’t mean that these laws are being enforced. Making sure women’s voices are heard is a great way to make sure people know the types of issues that women are facing when it comes to their education, what is causing the issues, and what can be done to fix them. To know more about the Malala Fund

visit https://malala.org/

 

Taylor Smith is a senior at East Carolina University who is set to graduate May 2020 with a BS in Communication. She plans to work at The Center for Leadership in Cary, NC, and to further her education in Communication.

 

The Struggle for Knowledge: Women of Sub-Saharan Africa and Their Journey to Equality

3 comments

By Mikayla Goode

The sound of an alarm rings as the sun is dressing the sky to signify another day of classes. As you prep and get ready to start the day, a feeling of dread washes over you. “Why must classes be so early?” “I’m tired of school.” These thoughts can run through any university student’s mind on the daily. Let’s picture something for a minute. Imagine finishing fifth grade and never returning school. Sound exciting? This means you can enjoy being home and playing all day, right? When the new school year comes around, you watch as all of your brothers and male friends start middle school while you sit at home tending and helping with all chores. The further you watch your brothers succeed and be praised, the more trapped you feel in your own skin. A couple years go by and as you turn fourteen, and you are married off to a boy of your parent’s choosing to then take care of his home and bear his children, forever suffering from lost opportunities.

The underlying reality is that education is one of human’s overlooked luxuries. While here in the U.S., we view school as a prison sometimes, we take for granted the hard work and immense payoff education provides us. Currently, with the constant growth of the population, more girls lose the opportunity to receive a thorough education. Sub-Saharan Africa currently holds the largest population of children in general and females in particular out of primary school. In numerous developing countries access to education is limited due to its availability and affordability. Women persuing higher education struggle with the ability to stay safe from the numerous citizens who believe that what they are doing is wrong. Many of these women face discrimination and harassment not only out in public but in their own homes, caused by the deep ideology set in Africa. These attitudes often create an unsafe school environment.

Denying the women of sub-Saharan Africa the opportunity to better their education affects the economy in many ways. An important reason for Africa’s gender bias against the education of women is due to its extreme poverty level. In 2019, seventy percent of the world’s poor lived in Africa; a steady increase from fifty percent in 2014. According to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, as of 2018, women that worked full-time, year-round made only eighty-two cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of eighteen percent.

Why is this important? A large percentage of females living in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from not only the inability to be educated financially, but also from a nation’s outdated ideology. They are discriminated and harassed because of disrespecting the rules place for their gender. While the entire world suffers from the industry monopolized by men, we all as the female gender are suppressed. If the government would support these women and allow access to further their education whether that be primary level to tertiary level, not only will that allow them to succeed and support themselves and their country’s economy, but also aid in the encouragement to prove that women deserve equality in education.

How can we help? Aid for America’s “EFAC: Education for All Children” is a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships based on merit and need for the brightest and most vulnerable youth in Kenya to pursue secondary and post-secondary education. Their message explains that money isn’t the only thing that can help these children to getting an efficient education and rise from extreme poverty. This organization provides an education-to-employment program that will prepare students for careers by developing their leadership and life skills.

To find more information or to donate, please follow the link https://www.aidforafrica.org/member-charities/education-children/

 

Mikayla Goode is a junior at East Carolina University who is set to graduate May 2021 with a BA degree in psychology and a minor in anthropology. Her future plans are to pursue a graduate degree in counseling and work on helping others struggling under the stigma of mental illness. In her free time, she enjoys reading and journaling.

 

Discrimination Against Transgender Individuals in Lebanon

3 comments

By Giana Williams

Nancy, a 35-year-old transgender woman living in Beirut, Lebanon, was woken by armed and masked General Security personnel and was arrested and was taken to a detention facility along with other transgender women. She was tortured and was coerced into confessing to fabricated charges of prostitution. She was thrown into an all-male cell, denied medication for her heart condition, access to a lawyer, and was forced to go through HIV testing despite it being illegal under Lebanese law. She was barely given food and water for nearly ten days during her arrest and when she asked to see a doctor, the guards said, “Leave him to rot and die.”

Believe it or not, these situations often happen to transgender individuals in Lebanon. Many are accused of being sex workers because of their appearance and are sent to detention centers without access to a lawyer. They are forced to take HIV tests and if one of them tested positive, the guards would tell everyone in the cell about them and ruin the person’s life by verbally or physically harassing them. Transgenders in Lebanon are often faced with systematic discrimination because of who they are despite how progressive Lebanon is.

Lebanon is one of the few Middle Eastern countries that’s considered progressive when it comes to the recognition of transgender individuals. It’s not illegal to go through sex reassignment and they have the right to change their legal gender once they do. There are often disagreements on sex reassignment surgery in the Middle East from a religious standpoint; is it changing the way the person was created by God or is it to correct his work? Transgender individuals also do not have access to many basic needs such as healthcare, education, a home, a job, and much more. So why are they still being discriminated against even though their country allowed them to be able to legally change their sex and go through reassignment?

Lebanese people value the family as integral to well-being and health as a whole, so it’s not uncommon in their culture to show social support and integration, but the concept of being transgender or part of the LGBT community is not fully accepted. As a result, transgender women often experience threats to their emotional safety due to a lack of support from family, friends, and the community. They are either cut off or shunned from society, causing them to often feel alone and show increased signs of depression and suicidal behavior. It’s unknown if it’s encouraged in Lebanese culture to seek help for mental illnesses or if there is  a stigma towards it. Either way, transgender people are often unable to get the help they need because of who they are. The lack of ability to receive health care and other basic needs such as education and home are maybe all possible reasons for the increasing signs of depression and suicidal tendencies for transgender women.

It’s hard to say how we can solve a problem or get more people to accept transgenders in a very religious area like the Middle East. Whenever I hear about the anti-LGBT laws in various Middle Eastern countries, which the majority of their laws are based on their religion, I understand from a religious standpoint but not ethical one. Learning about transgender individuals in the Middle East and the things they go through and the discrimination they face in their country is an upsetting thing to read about. Even though there have been debates on gay and lesbian rights in several Middle East countries, transgender rights are still ignored and those individuals are forced to hide who they truly are to avoid the possibility of being abused physically or verbally.

One thing that could be done is for the area to understand tolerance rather than acceptance. It’s okay to not accept someone’s lifestyle due to your beliefs but being tolerant of their choices and recognizing that they feel more comfortable in the opposite gender is one way to progress in the right direction. By being tolerant of their choices, there will be less of a stigma to being transgender and they will be able to have more access to basic life necessities. Instead of discriminating against transgenders and shunning them from society, people in the Middle East should highlight and recognize not only transgenders but everyone else in the LGBT community and the accomplishments they have made. Having them being more recognized in their society could possibly help broaden their views on people in the LGBT community and have them known as just human beings.

 

Giana Williams is a sophomore communication and anthropology double major who is set to graduate in May 2022. She currently works for The East Carolinian as the arts and entertainment editor and soon the opinion editor over the summer. Her future plans is to go to graduate school and become a foreign correspondent for Japan.

 

 

 

A 39¢ Bottle of Acid for a Lifetime of Scars: The Reality for Victims

5 comments

By Neha Kelkar

Laxmi Agarwal wins Woman of Courage Award

The 2020 Bollywood film, Chhapaak, is based on the life of Laxmi Agarwal. When Laxmi was just 15 years old, she was flung into the streets, pinned down, and attacked with acid in a crowded area. Three days prior, she had rejected an older man’s advances. Instantly, her ears melted and both arms were charred black. At the end of ten weeks, she underwent seven surgeries and required at least four more. For eight years, Laxmi stayed inside, while her attacker was out on bail after a month. Every job application she submitted was rejected and she was shunned by society.

Acid attacks are a premeditated form of violence in which an individual throws acid on another individual, resulting in severe injuries and disfiguration. Those who are attacked find themselves navigating through a new life that leaves them isolated and ostracized. Worldwide, the majority of these attacks are directed against women who are perceived to violate honor codes and prescribed standards of female behavior. They are often perpetrated by family members or close relations. Approximately 1,500 acid attacks are recorded worldwide annually. Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Cambodia and Uganda are countries with the highest reported rates.

Acid attacks generally are designed to maim and humiliate the victim not kill her. There are numerous physical, psychological and socioeconomic effects of acid attacks. Instantly, pain and shock sets in. The eyelids may be burned off, hearing loss is a possibility, and many are diagnosed with respiratory failure from inhaling the acid vapors. During the recovery process, the trauma can lead to depression, paranoia, and fear. Victims are then faced with social isolation and ostracization. Their self-esteem, self-confidence, and professional and personal futures are damaged. The medical expenses add up and place a burden on the families, and victims find it impossible to make a living, or even get married.

Statistics show that 80% of all acid attack victims in the Indian subcontinent are women. In developing nations, acid attacks against women are frequently identified as crimes of passion, such as refusal of a marriage proposal or extramarital affairs. Male attackers use acid to exhibit their perpetual control over a woman’s fate, to humiliate her, or to keep her in a perpetual state of fear.

Such attacks are further perpetuated by the lack of clear regulation of acid sales. There is an absence of law regulating the sale of acid, resulting in the purchase of acid accessible and available to anyone. Dr. Nehaluddin Ahmad proposes that the government should hand out acid licenses so that only those who have the clearance and licensing can receive access to purchasing acid.

For many, acid attacks go unreported for fear of reprisal. For cases that are reported, a small number of those proceed to trials with verdicts. Currently, there is no specific legislation on the subject. The Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC) does not specifically outline charges for acid attacks. The charges are highly generalized, and a perpetrator can be charged under one of four sections. One of those sections is Section 320, which only states “grievous hurt.” Section 320 does not account for the injuries deliberately inflicted by acid attacks. But acid attacks are deliberate. Acid attacks require the perpetrator to purchase acid, knowing it will be used to destroy the primary constituent of a woman’s identity.

The IPC is 158 years old, so it is time for it to be revised by incorporating new sections. These new sections should be unbiased and specific to acid attacks. It should lay out the regulation of purchasing acid by individuals or corporations that have clearance and licensing. All perpetrators should be taken to court, where rulings should be harsher. Perpetrators should be charged with fines and pay off the medical bills of their victims.

The media handle these cases with insensitivity and immaturity. They often discuss what the victim did to endure this amount of trauma. However, with the release of Chhapaak, more and more people are learning the realities of this act. Soon, Laxmi began a campaign against acid attacks. Along with the Chhanv Foundation, she began assisting other victims with treatment and rehabilitation. In 2006, Laxmi successfully filed a petition and the Supreme Court of India passed legislation to regulate the sale of acid, compensate victims, provide victims with treatment and rehabilitation, and access to jobs.

Hopefully, making changes to the IPC to make it more specific to acid attacks and recognizing victims, we can see a decline and eventual end to acid attacks.

 

Neha Kelkar is a junior at East Carolina University. She is set to graduate in May 2021 with a degree in Molecular/Cell Biology and a minor in Gender Studies. After graduating, she plans to pursue her studies in Evolutionary Biology. In her spare time, she enjoys reading.