Sara Mojtehedzadeh

Almost 800,000 Latin American women die each year from medical hazards associated with abortion, and fatalities resulting from the procedure make up 17 percent of all maternal deaths in the region.

To the disappointment of many women's rights activists, President Tabaré Vasquez of Uruguay vetoed a bill to legalize abortion last week. The bill, part of a larger document on sexual health and reproductive rights, would have decriminalized abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. The bill was approved by the parliament and senate, and recent polls indicate that 63 percent of the population in Uruguay supported the proposed legislation.

President Vasquez, leader of the left wing coalition Frente Amplio and a former oncologist, said that he disagreed with the bill on both "philosophical and biological" grounds.

Currently, Uruguayan women can only legally obtain abortions if they have been raped or if the pregnancy endangers their lives. According to a 1938 law, women who have abortions under any other circumstances are liable to serve up to nine months in prison. Doctors who perform the procedure may face a sentence of six to twenty four months.

Abortions are illegal throughout most of Latin America, with the exception of Cuba and Mexico City. Nonetheless, an estimated 3.7 million women in Latin America have clandestine abortions every year.

Abortion is a multi-layered issue interwoven with themes of gender discrimination, culture, and religion. While many gender activists in Latin America argue that abortion is part of women's fundamental rights to health and security of person, the region's strong Catholic tradition militates against abortion's legalization. Many Latin American doctors are against abortion and have been known to report their patients to the authorities after surgeries where complications have arisen.

Yet the criminalization of abortion multiplies the risks involved, often forcing women to seek help from untrained practitioners in unsanitary conditions. Cross cutting the problem of medical safety is the issue of socio-economic inequality. While most middle or upper class women in Latin America can obtain safe abortions in spite of legislation, poor women generally cannot.

According to the Human Development Index and Gender Development Index, inequality is relatively low in Uruguay compared to most Latin American countries. But socio-economic disparities and gender discrimination continue to plague Uruguayan society. In a report issued earlier this month, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women expressed its concern over high incidences of teen pregnancy and maternal mortality in Uruguay. CEDAW also cited high secondary school drop out rates, low public participation and under/unemployment as severe problems for Uruguayan women - especially those of rural background or African descent.

Upon vetoing the bill to legalize abortion in Uruguay, President Vasquez argued that "it is more appropriate to look for a solution based on solidarity, giving a woman the freedom to make other choices and thereby save both her and the baby." Yet when access to education or health care is limited - as it often is for poor or rural women - making informed choices about reproductive health is difficult. Mr. Vasquez's veto reflects both a denial of the structural inequalities that impact women's personal security and health, and a negation of women's right to control over their bodies. For a country which, according to CEDAW, has made important strides toward ending gender discrimination, the veto is a disappointing retreat from the principles of equality and justice.

Alice Welbourn

A Message for World AIDS Day 2008

The criminal prosecution of people with HIV is accelerating insidiously around the world. This article charts developments since Alice Welbourn's openDemocracy report on this ‘war on women' for International Women's Day 2008.

It's a real challenge, this AIDS business: you can't take your eye off the ball for one minute and you are in constant danger of being hit by a bludger. Two to three years ago, we thought we'd won the battle over whether we people with HIV could take our drugs responsibly or not - we thought that particular prejudice had receded. At last, life-saving treatment started to be rolled out across Africa and beyond, creating more people like me - I have now been healthy, living and working with HIV for 20 years, eight of them on anti-retroviral drugs. Hospitals, formerly over-flowing with the sick and dying have emptied. If we are given consistent access to drugs in good time, we now have long life-expectancy. Thanks to this Lazarus effect, whole economies and work-forces - individual lives and families - have been able to get going again. Nonetheless, only around 3 million out of the 9 million of us who need these drugs now are currently able to get them. We are still a long way from the ‘Universal Access by 2010' commitments endorsed again this week by International Development Minister, Ivan Lewis. So that battle isn't over yet: but we have hope

Then a year or two ago, we realised the new battle ground was to ensure that treatment access was being properly rolled out to women, not just for a few months while we were pregnant and gave birth to our children, but for all our lives and whether we are mothers or not. WHO and UNAIDS reports cryptically state that more ‘women' than ‘men' are accessing anti-retroviral drugs. This is being economical with the truth. In reality, what swells the first figure is not women in their own right, but ‘women-who-are-being-used-as-vessels-to-give-drugs-to-unborn-children'. Pregnant women are targeted for ‘voluntary and confidential' testing - translated by health ministries and their staff around the world into mandatory and public testing. They are given drugs until the child is born, so that a box can be ticked to fulfil US government ‘Pepfar' funding commitments to ‘save the unborn child'. Then mother and child are released from health centre ‘care' - only to find that their child succumbs to HIV through breastfeeding because they can't afford an alternative, aren't alert to the need for one, or can't hide an alternative feeding process from their curious neighbours. To rub salt in our wounds, as my previous article for openDemocracy explained, women with HIV are now being criminalised for transmitting HIV to our children, without any regard for the chronic social, economic and medical complexities of this virus.

Alice Welbourn is an international activist and campaigner on women's rights and HIV/Aids, and former international chair of the International Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS (ICW)During the last year, the entire global AIDS community has been brought to the chilling realisation that whilst these and many other important battles were - and still are - being fought, a major war on all of us with HIV has quietly been breaking out worldwide. This war is called criminalisation and its perpetrators are governments we naively looked to to protect our rights.

Personally I don't like warfare. I even find competitive games hard work. I am someone who believes strongly in the power of positive language to create energy and vision and new ways of seeing the world and acting in it. I far prefer to seek mediation and reconciliation, and not to use the language and metaphors of aggression and violence so over-subscribed to by the world's powers-that-be. But in this business of AIDS I often despair of finding the positive language that we need to convey the enormity and urgency of what is going on here, which is why I have had recourse to this militant language. It terrifies me to see how these punitive new measures are being rolled out with such crushing alacrity, unravelling years of quiet, careful, committed and compassionate work.

Prominent human rights lawyer, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, speaking at the Sophia Forum inaugural lecture in London last week, compared this criminalisation of people with HIV to that other imposition of punitive and restrictive legislation, which has curbed all our human rights, in response to terrorism over the last few years. She described how hysteria and fear of the ‘other' has encouraged governments to ‘reach for the law' in a vain attempt to ‘control' the spread of HIV, along similar lines to their 'war on terror'. She also highlighted how prosecutions for HIV transmission in the UK have unevenly targeted men who were refugees or asylum seekers. To take her analogy further, and to quote from her book, Just Law, ‘the flames of public fear are fanned by government rhetoric and behaviour'.

Will we never learn from history that the law is a blunt instrument in relation to public health concerns? The experience of American prohibition springs to mind, as does the case of Typhoid Mary. Baroness Kennedy chose to recall the response to the arrival of ‘Grandgor's distemper' in Edinburgh in 1497. She described how King James decreed that all those with this new condition, probably syphilis, must either be banished to an off-shore island or branded with an iron on the cheek to let all know of their condition. Kennedy continued, quoting Justice Michael Kirby of Australia: ‘Panic. Alarm. Banishment. Cruelty. Public stigmatisation. Law. These are the melancholy companions of disease and epidemics. The question .... is whether, in the five hundred years since King James IV issued his Proclamation against Grandgor we have advanced in our appreciation of the limits and opportunities of law in the face of a public health crisis'.

The answer is, tragically, no: this very week we learn that parliamentarians in Indonesian Papua are planning a new bye-law to insert micro-chips into people with HIV who are sexually active. Next month Uganda, once the beacon of good practice in relation to a compassionate AIDS response - and now a major recipient of US government funding - plans to introduce legislation making couple-disclosure compulsory, despite three women being killed by their husbands this year alone because of their HIV status. ‘Wilful transmission' will henceforth be punishable by death. These are just the latest in a long line of moves around the world to criminalise, isolate and alienate all of us with HIV in ways which are unjust, unworkable - and terrifying.

To complicate matters, various women's rights groups around the world - including some well-intentioned positive women - have promoted these punitive laws, imagining that they would curb the spread of HIV from men to their multiple female sexual partners who are fearful of negotiating condom use.

Too late, several women activists have now realised that these laws are dangerous for them also, who are the first to be tested - in ante-natal clinics - and who often therefore bear the brunt of the shock and blame. Such laws are generated by powerful patriarchal hegemonies like our own in Britain, where male establishment heterosexuality and women's subordination are institutionalised. Thus it is women - and others who are least able to defend themselves, including, gay men, asylum seekers, injecting drug users, migrant workers and people in prison - who are most likely to be targeted by the introduction and use of such legislation. In truth, there are very few women - or men - in the world who are really hell-bent on spreading this virus. It is fear of rejection that smothers disclosure. Yet these laws, like the virus itself, take no heed of the social, economic or other circumstances of those on whom they are unleashed. Criminalisation only serves to exacerbate fear - in all of us, positive, negative or not knowing our status.

This year we have also learnt much about the effectiveness of care, treatment and respect for people with HIV. Recent medical studies have confirmed that people with HIV who are given love and support are more likely to take their drugs regularly, cope with side-effects and maintain the high level of adherence needed to enable the drugs to work. People whose drugs are working well and who have an ‘undetectable viral load' and no other sexually transmitted infection can have unprotected sex with someone else with negligible chance of transmitting HIV to them. Moreover, pregnant women with HIV, with an undetectable viral load, can give normal birth to a child with 99.9% chance of the child being HIV-free.

This World AIDS Day, on the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, can we send out a concerted message to parliamentarians worldwide, calling on them, as Helena Kennedy did so powerfully, to put the human rights of all, including people with HIV, first in whatever they do to curb the spread of this pernicious virus? Punitive laws should be consigned to the dustbin of history. Parliamentarians, law enforcers, health workers, the media - and we the public at large - should be learning about the power of compassion in healing both bodies and minds. We must between us keep up the pressure to roll out universal treatment, and recognise with humility how HIV may affect each and every one of us. One day these laws may terrorise your family too - I hope they never do.

 A photo-essay by Nick Eastlake

The wind whistles, dogs howl. This might all be in your head but when you’re heading out on a windswept autumn evening it does not take much to get you scared. Especially if you see a shadow in the opposite entrance of the park you need to cross to get to your tube station. Still, lurking, male.

Spot the Danger

To combat that fear of dark streets and some of the dangers they contain a legion of women heeds the call of the London Feminist Network (LFN) and comes out one late November night in London’s West End for the 5th incarnation of the Reclaim the Night march. The event’s history goes back to 1977 when the Yorkshire Ripper was terrorising the north of England and the police were advising that, to avoid attack, women should stay inside after dark.

What do we want? – Safe streets! When do we want them? – Now!

Such a curfew was contested then and is contested now. Many of the protestors feel that an unholy alliance of inconsiderate policing, laissez-faire laws, and the media from lad’s mags to women’s glossies conspires to turn them into sexual objects only asking to be hunted down on a Saturday night such as this. They will have none of that.

Why we are marching

Tourists with digital cameras take snaps of the marchers with their hundreds of placards reading ‘End Violence Against Women’. Locals use their mobile phones. Some lager lads think it is a carnival, put on their empty takeaway boxes as silly hats, and hoot and holler. The manager of a famous lap dancing venue en route parks his beamer on the other side of the road and keeps a close eye on this precious money-spinner as the women march by. He needn’t have worried. The police are en garde.

Hey hey – Ho ho Sexual violence got to go

Many organizations involved in managing the fallout from assorted forms of male sexual aggression join the rally at Friend’s House following the march. Aravinda Kosaraju from the Coalition for the Removal of Pimping (CROP) speaks out against sophisticated networks grooming girls as young as 11 and calls for a change of law similar to that recently introduced in Norway. Jane Gregory from Bradford Rape Crisis Centre looks across the border to Scotland where these important refuges for women are annually corefunded with £50k each. The decline of funding is a constant theme, not least in Imkaan’s Gita Patel’s moving fairy tale that asks the audience to make a Happy End possible by signing a petition on their website. There are many others organizations who send a speaker or set up information stands to rally support for the women in their care.

See you in the frontline

A standing ovation is reserved for Finn Mackay, the LFN’s founder. In her speech she truly rallies the audience against our society’s sexualization of the young, objectification of women in magazines, ads and TV shows, all of which combine into one big brainwash: according to her, women currently spend more than £1 billion every year on plastic surgery and more teens would like to become glamour girls than doctors. She notes that an interest in pole dancing would at least get them into P.E. In the past, she reminds her audience, women had to fight for everything, be it the right to vote or equal pay: she promises to keep on fighting. At stake is the mindset of both men and women.

Zorro will steal your heart

One young marcher I talk to is not comfortable with the policing of the march. ‘How are women in charge of the street chaperoned like this?’ Of course, the statistics are shocking: each day there are more than 100 rapes, the same amount of attempted rapes, and nearly 1,000 sexual assaults. Yet the conviction rate is only 5.3%. (British Crime Survey, 2001). But, she suggests, women shouldn’t become counted victims in the first place. Women have to learn to defend themselves and each other.

I feel more threatened by police than men

Martial arts might be a better bet than pole dancing. To quote Finn Mackay one more time: ‘We know it’s always safer to resist.’ For a karate black belt, even that lurking figure in the park on the way home seems less of a threat. On close inspection, this time, it is made of metal and advertises a Trim Trail. ‘Exercise is good for your general health…’ … But it might have been different.

Make my day

More pics on flickr or join the march.

Craig Barnett

 

London to become 'Olympic City of Sanctuary' for 2012

London joined 11 other UK cities in a making the commitment to become a 'City of Sanctuary' for people claiming refuge in the UK with a launch event at St Martin-in-the-Fields last week.

Sheffield became the first official City of Sanctuary in September 2007,with the support of Sheffield City Council and over 70 local organisations. Since then, the idea has spread rapidly, with new groups of local volunteers setting up in cities including Bristol, Swansea, Oxford, Leicester and Bradford.

London is the latest city to form its own group, with the ambitious aim of building a grassroots, city-wide movement of support for people seeking sanctuary in the capital. Alexandra Feachem, from the London City of Sanctuary group, said, "Our ambition is to see thousands of London  organisations, from top businesses, football clubs and cultural institutions, to community groups and residents associations, all pledging their support for declaring London as an Olympic City of Sanctuary. Then for the Mayor and the GLA to take up the idea, so that by 2012 we see refugees at the heart of the Olympic Celebrations."

At the meeting on 12th November, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell spoke in support of the new movement from his own experience of supporting a refugee doctor who had been targeted by a death squad in Iraq for his sexuality. Neil Gerrard MP, also welcomed the initiative, as a way of bringing sanctuary for people who are persecuted back into the mainstream of British culture.

Craig Barnett, the national co-ordinator for the City of Sanctuary movement, encouraged Londoners to seize the opportunity to make a difference to the way the UK treats people in need of safety. "Cities are powerful," he said, "a whole city which is committed to offering sanctuary can't be ignored as just another lobby group. By building a network of Cities of Sanctuary across the country we can change the whole debate about refugees, and transform what is politically possible to improve the way we offer them safety and welcome."

Further information about the City of Sanctuary movement at: www.cityofsanctuary.org

 

 

 

Susan Griffin

Palinism - taking advantage of feminism for personal gain

Susan Griffin responds to The Wrong Turn...

I think we ought to memorialize Sarah Palin's candidacy with a new word, Palinism, to be defined as the practice of taking advantage of feminism for personal gain without supporting the rights of other women. (see also opportunism.)

Palinism offers rich territory for understanding how so many years of discrimination work to subvert and distort the most basic impulses women have. Within the enthusiasm some women have shown for Palinism, particularly among those who are aligned with or to the right of Bill O'Reilly and Phyllis Schafly and who until quite recently argued that women ought to stay at home to raise their children, Palinism offers a way out of an old conundrum.  When seeing women like Hillary Clinton out there speaking and achieving, if despite their best intentions these women find themselves wanting an equal right to participate in world affairs, they find that with Palinism, a woman can have her cake and eat a substantial slice of it too.  Just like Sarah Palin, as they defend all the fundamental tenets of male domination, including an opposition to abortion, they can work in tandem with men who favor domination and might over others, be they people, nations or other creatures. So these women will not have to relinquish the protection they believe that white fathers give them. They can be safe and adventurous (or mavericky), obedient and powerful, helpmates and in the limelight, all at the same time.

But there will be more chapters, believe me, in this story. We are already seeing one of them evolve. A little taste of power can be addictive. Especially when the brew is not diluted by any philosophies that preach equality. Pretty soon, many helpmates who perform on a big stage will want their own shows. Palin herself has acted out this chapter already in fact, as a helpmate to a male mayor and then a male governor, both of whom she replaced in short order.

And that brings me to the beauty queen part. I don't fault Sarah for being beautiful. And would I like more beauty queens to enter politics. You betcha! And do I feel sorry for the long line of dead ducks she's left behind her on her ambitious trail? Nope. And here's why. Do you think these guys would have given a woman with less appealing physical attributes the leg up (excuse the pun) they gave to Sarah? As far as I'm concerned, they've all been hoisted on their own petards. And do I fault Sarah for using her beauty? Nope, not at all.(Though I do question the $150,000 wardrobe her party paid for) But again, folks, sisters, isn't it feminism here again that is losing out, different (and wrong) standards applied to us again?

Don't get me wrong here. I think Sarah's very, very smart. But she is not educated. And she's not very swift at thinking through a question logically either. She must have fallen asleep during her civics and history classes. And this is a real problem. I find it insulting to equate ignorance with where you are on the pay scale. This is another rather unpleasant part of Palinism. A Palinist candidate pulls off a skilled impersonation of the way a working or middle class person thinks and talks, while at the same time promulgating policies that favor the rich over ordinary people. In Sarah's case she grew up talking that way, then learned to use her "gs" when it seemed to help her career. After becoming a millionaire and a governor, and then running for VIP of the USA, Sarah re-introduced and perfected her woman of the people parlance.           

Do you feel yanked around by this? I do.           

My Dad was a firefighter. And by the way, he would not have liked to be called "Walt the fireman" as if he were a cartoon figure like "Bob the builder." He was a three dimensional sort of guy, with a range of ideas and dreams like the rest of us. As a kid I used his working class grammar until my grandmother taught me another way of thinking. I will forever feel a great ambivalence toward that. Grateful that I learned to speak in a way that would help me to go on to college and become a writer. Sad for the subtle disdain toward my father that shaded her lessons.

Now Obama has been to Harvard and his oratorical skills show that. But boy am I glad both he and Michelle are such good talkers. Why? Because both of them and Joe Biden have put into words something that has been causing me great anguish over the last eight or more years. How much ordinary people are suffering in America; how bright kids without rich parents can't go to college like I did now, how young people like my daughter and son-in-law will be saddled for years with the crushing debt they had to take on to go to school. How working people's salaries never rose with the profits so many made over the last decade even though prices did. How more people are hungry now than I can remember.

So I say forget all the Palinist populist rhetoric. I don't mind if you say "votin' '" instead of "voting", if you give us policies that help working and middleclass people.

And there is one more thing. I suppose it's predictable that Palinism would have to include a fair share of the contemporary version of McCarthyism. When what you promise isn't all that appealing (or fair or just) you can always call your opponents "reds" or "socialists" or say that they "pal around with terrorists."  Name calling is an important element of Palinism, because, being driven more by ambition than common cause, Palinists lack a coherent approach to our problems. Except for fear and hatred, they don't have much to give us, whoever we are, men or women, black, brown or white, rich or poor: the message is really empty. 

Susan Griffin's -- most recent book, Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, On Being an American Citizen, was published by Trumpeter Press in April 2008. Susan Griffin is an author and social thinker, whose writings on the historical fate of the female body (Woman and Nature), pornography (Pornography and Silence), and war (A Chorus of Stones) combine the personal and the political in unusual juxtaposition.

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Yassmin Manauchehri

Esha Momeni, an Iranian-American 28-year old graduate student studying arts and media at California State University, Northridge, was arrested on Wednesday October 15th in Tehran, Iran. Esha is a member and volunteer of the One Million Signatures Campaign --a grassroots movement that has emerged inside Iran demanding gender equality. She had flown out to Iran from Los Angeles in July to visit family and friends. While there she was also working on a film about the One Million Signatures Campaign to submit as her final graduating project at CSUN.

Esha now sits in Iran's notorious Evin prison after being pulled over by police on the pretext of having made an illegal turn at an intersection. Authorities subsequently entered her parents' house and removed items such as books, camera footage, and computers. The authorities thus far have not mentioned to her parents or her lawyer what the charges are, if any.

Members of the Campaign in both Iran and California are working tirelessly to spread the word about Esha's arrest, which comes as a surprise considering the fact that all she was doing was filming campaign members and those interested in gender related issues. It should be stressed that all her activities were in accordance with the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I am also a member and volunteer in the campaign and would like to write a few words about my friendship and experiences with Esha Momeni. I will not give a melodramatic soliloquy on the matter, nor do I feel the need to interject with a character defence. What is obvious is that as a woman, a friend, a confidante, and a mentor Esha Momeni stood up for me, and all the other women and men in or outside of Iran that have raised their voices for change. But as we gaze from wherever our "outside" may be, Esha is still standing for us, even if it is in the 209th ward of Iran's Evin prison.

 

Sara Mojtehedzadeh

For some time now, the New York Times has been running a series of articles entitled "Generation Faithful" which examine the changing dynamics of youth culture in the Middle East.

With economic stagnation on the rise and with few credible political identities to which to turn, the articles conclude that many Middle Eastern youths are drawn to Islam as a means of coping with their individual and collective frustrations.

One article in particular highlights the Islamicization of young Egyptians, who are often forced by economic constraints to postpone marriage. In a society where marriage represents "the gateway to independence, sexual activity and societal respect", these kinds of delays are often unbearable for young men and women who are thirsting for autonomy, personhood - and each other. Enter religion.

Like Egypt, marriage is an exceedingly important marker of prestige and social stature in Iran. Yet as Iranian youth undergo the same economic and social frustrations as their Egyptian counterparts, they seem to be becoming less rather than more pious.

Undoubtedly, Iran's Islamic tradition and spirituality has deep roots. Ironically however, it appears to have been in the post-revolutionary era that young Iranians have begun to question the deeply entrenched institution of marriage and embrace new conceptualizations of sexuality and gender relations.

This may partly due to necessity. As in Egypt, the troubled Iranian economy cannot provide enough work for its young people, who represent around two thirds of Iran's total population. The age of marriage in contemporary Iran has soared from the pre-revolutionary era, when 18 was the average age of marriage for women; it is now 27. In one survey, 97 percent of Iranian youth stated economic constraints as their primary reason for postponing marriage.

But challenging traditional norms with regards to sex and gender may also be a means of venting political frustration. Since they are expected to follow a strict code of Islamic conduct in public places, Iranian youth seem increasingly determined to express defiance through their individual, private lives - including sexual activity.

Of course, there is no reliable data to confirm that sexual activity is on the rise (few would dare ask and even fewer would dare answer). But many observers agree that the shift in attitude towards sex and gender is palpable. Moreover, it does not seem to have escaped attention of the Iranian government. Last year, the Iranian government started actively promoting temporary marriage, or sigheh, as a way to solve Iran's "social problems".

Temporary marriage is a Shi'a custom endorsed in the Quran under Surah 4:24 and intended for sexual enjoyment (rather than pro-creation, like permanent marriage). The practiced died out in the Sunni community when it was outlawed by the Second Calif Umar in the 7^th century, but the ruling was considered illegitimate by Shi'a Muslims. Thus, the practice has continued, though it has traditionally been looked down upon by members of the Iranian middle and upper classes.

When a man and a woman enter into a temporary marriage contract, they specify the length of the relationship - which may range from one minute to ninety nine years - and the amount of financial compensation the woman receives. When the contract expires, the marriage automatically dissolves without divorce process. Children born of a temporary marriage are legally legitimate.

For the Islamic Republic, promoting temporary marriage is likely an effort to re-assert control over changing Iranian values. But will the policy stem the tide of change, or merely accelerate it?

Strong cultural taboos continue to militate against the use of temporary marriage, and some Iranian feminists condemn it for being little more than "thinly disguised prostitution". Even some religious scholars question the policy, which they believe will allow wealthy men to take advantage of economically disadvantaged girls.

But some women such as Shahla Sherkat, a prominent Iranian feminist, believe that temporary marriage could be a useful institution. Sherkat believes that as a result of temporary marriage "sexual relations will become freer, youth can satisfy sexual needs, sex will become depoliticized, our society's obsession with virginity will disappear."

If Sherkat is correct, temporary marriage will indeed be an interesting variable in the rapidly changing youth culture in Iran - especially for women. Indeed, it may allow youth with a legal way to bring their private lives in to the open, in a more direct affront to the Islamic Republic's rigid control of the public sphere.

Racha M

I was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and lived there until I graduated high school, when, with the exception of my father, my family moved back to our native Beirut.  I have returned only twice since then. The first time we were escaping the July 2006 war in Lebanon. Although it wasn't a pleasant experience, being back in my childhood home was an oddly comforting one. Earlier this year, my second trip after thirteen years' absence was to help organise a training workshop involving sixty or so male participants from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. That trip was not pleasant either, but this time, because of the glimpse it gave me into the scale of the challenge facing women in the Saudi workplace.

I have several Saudi female friends who work or have worked in Riyadh - in advertising, banking, dentistry, the UN, and business development - so I could draw on their experience. I remembered what to expect in terms of getting around Riyadh (with a driver), going to malls (keeping a head scarf handy to cover my hair), and eating out (with my girlfriends, in the families section). These things came back to me readily enough, although I occasionally tried to get into the driver's side of the family car before remembering where I was. I also knew that there would be complete separation between men and women in the workplace, more so in the public sector than in the private sector where there is less scrutiny.

The workshop I was organizing was in partnership with one of the Saudi ministries, so in this case segregation would be strictly enforced. The way this was usually handled was either to have split-level theatres with the women seated in the balcony and the men in the stalls, or to use separate rooms altogether, with the women watching the presentations on a screen. Either way, female attendees could participate in discussions via the microphone system. But on this occasion, I was the only female among the participants. We had anticipated that other women would show up, but in the end, none did.

Moreover, I had come to Riyadh at a rather tumultuous time. Reform was in the air; just recently women had been allowed to stay unaccompanied in hotels for the first time, giving businesswomen that extra freedom to travel for work meetings, conferences and business opportunities (albeit they had to register with the police). On the other hand, the Saudi government had come under studied questioning from the United Nations Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women for various restrictions placed upon women in the Kingdom.

At the preparatory stage, I had no problems coordinating with our partners in the Saudi ministry via phone and e-mail, and they raised no concerns about the logistics of my attending the workshop. Upon my arrival in Riyadh, however, I had a difficult time getting into the ministry for a scheduled meeting. Women were not allowed in the building, I was informed at the door. After much back and forth over the phone between the security guard at the entrance and one of our partners from within the ministry, I was finally let in. It was an awkward situation initially, but once inside, everyone interacted with me comfortably and I was never made to feel out of place.

The next day, the first of the three-day workshop, was when I first started to feel that my assumptions about working seamlessly alongside my male colleagues had perhaps been premature. Showing up bright and early to help set up, I was curtly directed to the women's entrance of the large banquet hall where the workshop was being held. I looked around the women's section, where I would watch the proceedings alone for the next three days. There was a small snack and coffee table to one side, a round lunch table set with cutlery for one, and a large screen and projector at the front of the room. The men's and women's sections were separated by a lobby that would serve as the dining area for the rest of the participants. I knew this because I peeked through the doors and was sharply reprimanded for doing so by one of the caterers setting up the buffet.

I called my contact at the ministry (because I couldn't cross the few meters to actually talk to him face-to-face) to inquire where I was required to be and whether he needed any help. He asked me to stay put and came over to collect all the materials needed for the workshop. I didn't see him or anyone else involved in the meeting again. I was informed that I should stay on the women's side of the building, with the adjoining doors firmly closed. I asked whether it would be possible to sit at the back of the men's section to be able to better participate in the sessions - I was only one person after all - but after some discussion with various participants I was firmly told that this wouldn't do.

In all fairness, I wasn't supposed to be the sole woman participant, having to face solitary confinement for three days, but that's not really the point. Had there been other female participants, they would have missed out on some of the most important aspects of such a workshop - networking and meeting new people - both impossible to do in such a segregated setting. And so too would their male counterparts. As I had discovered only the day before at the ministry, it seems that on a more day-to-day, informal level, men and women are perfectly able and willing to work together. Yet, in a larger, public venue such as a regional workshop, the collective mindset becomes rigid and inflexible.

People are hasty to label the Saudi people and government as unappreciative of what women have to offer in the workplace. My feeling is that this is not so much an underestimation of their potential, as a skewed residual sense of the need to protect women in keeping with tradition.

Yet, Saudi women are poised to become a powerful force and there is huge potential. Saudi women wield a lot of economic power, whether in investments, real estate, liquid assets or as silent partners in family-run businesses. Female graduates currently outnumber male graduates (at 56.5% last year). But only 5.5% of women of working age are currently employed.  Cabinet decisions on the Kingdom's Five-Year Development Plan in 2005 included policies designed to introduce broader employment opportunities for women. Implementation, however, is hindered by deeply ingrained societal norms. Until this changes, equality in the workplace will be a long time coming.

Helen Coskeran

Iranian women are a force to be reckoned with. Their various campaign groups, such as the One Million Signatures Campaign, are going strong and there are success stories which show the strength of their cause. Perhaps as a result, two disputed articles proposing a relaxation of the polygamy laws and discriminating against women who marry foreigners in the Iranian 'Family Protection Bill' have now been scrapped by the government. And rightly so. Those groups, aided by the involvement of high-profile figures like Shirin Ebadi, who have voiced concern about the bill, must be encouraged by this. So let's hope this brave, united and ongoing pressure on the government will encourage the removal of the remaining contentious articles and help to create a Family Protection Bill that does protect the family...

Jane Gabriel

Legal reform in Egypt establishing Family Courts with mandatory mediation ( see Mulki Al-Sharmani: Egypt's family courts: route to empowerment? )   and the introduction of no fault divorce proceedings known as ‘khola'  is prompting discussion about relations between men and women in marriage, including women's sexual rights. As the government and women's rights organisations talk about further legal reforms, the assumptions of the law makers are increasingly being called into question.

Mulki al Sharmani and Sawsan Sherif  are based at the Social Research Centre of the American University in Cairo and have been monitoring the work of two family courts, looking at how the reforms are working for women on the ground. They spoke to Jane Gabriel in Cairo about some surprising findings of their research.

Listen now.

Helen Coskeran

This September marks the fourth anniversary of the establishment of the Control Arms Foundation of India (CAFI). But they'll not be celebrating that this Saturday. Along with other organisations concerned with arms (including the UK's Campaign Against the Arms Trade), they will be marking the Global Day of Action for Arms Trade Treaty in New Delhi. This is to demonstrate their belief that international law and UN legislation is not enough to control global arms trade. In 1995, a group of Nobel Peace Laureates developed a model Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in order to regulate and standardise this trade. This Saturday, these organisations will push for this model to be adopted and for the recommendations in it (including a requirement for states to consider human rights and humanitarian concerns when transferring arms) to be put into practice.

CAFI believes that women have largely been left out of the international arms debates until now and should now take the lead in discussions. For this reason, women from all walks of life, among them survivors of incidents involving guns and other arms, will speak alongside men this Saturday. Members of CAFI will speak on the progress of their work to date and members of parliament, academics and journalists will give speeches and lead interactive debate and discussion with students, faith leaders, policy-makers and members of civil society.

It is fantastic to see members of a civil society organisation working together on this issue. And it is no wonder, for twelve people die through guns violence on a daily basis. India has also been shocked by a recent spate of school shootings - a horror previously associated with Western countries. One example of the action taken against arms violence was a ‘Day of Activism against Increasing Armed Gun Violence on Women in India' showing the gendered dimension of this violence; the highest number of war-time gun casualties are among women and children, and the North East India conflicts have also seen women as the most seriously affected victims - not only because some have been shot dead, but also the economic and social effects on women when their husbands, sons or brothers are shot. But it is tragic that this has become such a problem in the largest democracy in the world which, since 2007, is the globe's second most heavily armed country. Earlier this year, the founder of CAFI, Binalakshami Nepram spoke at a session on ‘The Impact of Guns on Women's Lives' and told of CAFI's demands that women in an Indian household must first consent to the purchase of a gun by their husbands, fathers or any other man. The idea is that, by giving women a say in the guns held under their own roofs (and assuming that their consent will not always be forthcoming), the flow of firearms into private hands will be reduced.

This work is positive. But that it is necessary almost defies belief. How can it be that the UN's first attempt at controlling arms trade ever, did not take place until 2001? How can it be that Binalakshami had to dedicate her speech to as many as 5000 female victims of gun violence in Manipur, where the annual death toll has now reached 300? There is a long way to go. And events like this Saturday's show the excellent work being done in increasing awareness and taking each small step towards an Arms Trade Treaty.

Helen Coskeran

It sometimes seems that human violence knows no bounds. Recent reports of the brutal honour killings of five Pakistani women have shocked the world. And the reactions from the Pakistani parliament do not do much to ease that shock. When a terrible event occurs, the world looks for explanations in order to begin to deal with it. And even then the shock, horror and disgust will remain, for this is a crime we will never be able to understand.

Honour killings have been a concern to human rights groups for several years. All these deaths are disturbing but these had a particularly cruel twist, with the woman being buried alive. Such inhumanity and disregard for human life suggests that the perpetrators felt these women did something terrible to deserve this punishment.

Their crime? Doing what women all over the world do every day; choosing their own husband to marry through a civil court, away from the traditions of their tribe. The tribal elders then ordered the abduction and shooting of these three teenagers and their two female relatives, who were then sent alive to their graves. And while a female politician attempted to bring the case to the government's attention, another spoke up in defence of the tribal chiefs who ordered it.

The mind boggles and the heart sinks. How could this be defended? And who would expect that the words to justify and explain this would come from a member of parliament? Pakistani teenage girls have long known that choosing independence could cost them their lives. And now they face the knowledge that their killers may be spoken up for at the highest level. Their families will be rendered helpless.

But we must not lose heart. If politicians in Pakistan and other countries where honour killings are practiced, are forced by their own electorate and the west to stop explaining these away simply as ‘tradition', then these women can be given hope, and these shockingly brutal deaths will not have been in vain.

Helen Coskeran

Today’s globally aware digital generation is used to constant requests to sign online petitions on various issues of international concern. Sceptics aren’t sure how much good those few mouse clicks do – do those signing even know exactly what they’re signing for? Would other types of action, like demonstrations, be more effective in raising awareness for a particular cause? We’re all guilty of skipping the small print and preferring the comfort of our own laptops now and again.

Also in openDemocracy on the One Million Signatures campaign:

Roja Bandari, NWI Blog (May-June 2007)

Elahe Amani, “A rare victory for women’s rights in Iran” (28 March 2008)

But the One Million Signature Campaign is a far cry from these online drives for mouse clicks. It does not have the usual time limit, but the signatures it seeks are very specific: Iran’s women and men. This petition is not for Westerners but for those directly affected by the discriminatory family laws it works to change. And there is no running total on the website of the amount of signatures collected. Given the difficulty in collecting some written petitions, the organisers felt it would be unrepresentative to reveal the running total after one year.

And as the campaign approaches its second birthday on 27 August, the total is still unknown, but their work goes on. There is plenty of it. Whether a woman signs the petition or not, she is given information about the implications of Iranian family law on her individual situation. To date, over 1000 campaigners have been trained in educating others and collecting their signatures. And all this is not without risk. Activist after campaigner has been arrested or imprisoned for his or her part in the fight against laws which reduce women’s rights to divorce, limit freedom of expression, reduce restrictions on polygamy and divorce for men, give automatic custody to a father after divorce and even demand taxes on dowries, the one safety net for women considering divorce. And yes, you read that correctly – his or her part. Men who sympathise with and work for this cause are also being imprisoned; no one is safe.

But the campaigners are not giving up. Their website is blocked by authorities; they start another. Peaceful protests are broken up using violence and arrests; they organise another two years later. These women and men are truly an inspiration. They continue to work in the face of adversity, overcoming threats and challenges and persisting in their original aim to reach a million signatures and adding new aims along the way. And we in the West cannot email our MP, we cannot sort this one out with a few mouse clicks. We can only watch in awe and voice our solidarity with these brave people who will not let legislation violate their human rights. Happy birthday, One Million, and here’s to plenty more years of courage, education and progress.

One man's experience of the UK asylum system, as told to openDemocracy at Sheffield's City of Sanctuary, as part of Refugee Week 2008.

When I came out of Afghanistan it was during the Taliban, and I think all people know about this difficult time for our country.

We people over there in Asia, especially in countries like Afghanistan, we are talking about Europe - not only UK but Europe - as democratic countries, as countries where you receive fair treatment. And so when I came here I was expecting that "they will listen to my story, and they know about our problems - especially the problems of Afghanistan - and I will be definitely granted indefinite leave to remain and I can stay there and improve my life".

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Robert Spooner

Asylum Seeker Support Initiative - Short-Term (Assist) is a Sheffield-based charity dedicated to helping destitute asylum seekers in the area. Coordinator Robert Spooner explains why the group was formed, and details some of their current work.

I work for Assist, Asylum Seeker Support Initiative - Short-Term, because we didn't think it was going to be long-term, but it obviously is now. Its been 5 years since the initial meeting which grew out of a conversation club, and the discovery of injustices happening to people being refused by the Home Office when they had very good reason for not going back home. This small group met, and within about 3 months we had got enough money to start helping those who are entirely destitute without money or anywhere to live and with reduced access to health services. So since that time we've been telling people - I myself am a local preacher in the Methodist church - as part of my preaching telling people what was really happening and people responded by giving us money.

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Racha M

A few weeks ago, my online chat with a friend in Beirut was cut short when he disappeared without warning for the better part of half an hour. He explained nonchalantly when he signed in again that he had been distracted by the sound of gunfire outside. Apparently, a prominent political party leader had been holding a press conference, and as sometimes happens in Lebanon, overzealous supporters would take to the streets and fire celebratory gunshots after the fact. My friend then signed off, saying that since the shots seemed to have died down, he was joining some of his friends downtown for a bite to eat. People who don't live in Lebanon might find such a flippant comment strange, but I wasn't surprised. Just before I moved to London a couple of months ago, my friends and I would even time our outings around these press conferences, making sure to get home before any potential clashes could break out between opposing political parties.

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Patricia Daniel

In her second report from Women's Worlds 2008, Patricia Daniel explores women and the global economy: New Zealander Marilyn Waring argues feminists must develop a new economic paradigm, and Sonía Parella Rubio examines a global care crisis.

Another wonderful speaker, New Zealander Marilyn Waring renowned academic, formerly the youngest member of the NZ parliament, anti-nuclear campaigner and currently gender advisor to the Solomon Islands, updated for us her seminal work from 1988: Counting for nothing - what men value and what women are worth.

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Patricia Daniel

In the first of two reports from Women's Worlds 2008, held in Madrid 3^rd-9^th July, Patricia Daniel is taken from Cambodia to Egypt, through moving presentations from Somaly Mam and Nawal el-Saadawi.

Held every three years since 1981, the international interdisciplinary forum Women's Worlds continues to flourish: located each time in a different capital, it has travelled across the five continents and more than 40,000 people from over one hundred countries have taken part. It provides the opportunity to explore all areas of academic study - and of life itself - from a feminist perspective. In Madrid there were discussions on fourteen different themes, with 130 invited speakers and hundreds of other contributions in exchange workshops every afternoon. This tenth event took as its overall theme "New frontiers: changes and challenges" and its slogan, open to a number of interpretations: "Equality is no utopia."

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Zainab Magdy

Being a young woman in a patriarchal society and having what our society calls feminist tendencies is not easy. I study English literature in Cairo University and 95% of my professors are women. When you are a 17 year old who is still trying to find herself and is surrounded by women who are strong, talented and independent, you start wondering why the society around you gives more importance to males and treats you as the inferior sex. Unlike many young women my age it was easy for me to understand and embrace feminism and gender equality because of the women I am surrounded, with beginning with my grandmother and mother, to my professors and friends. Knowing these women has definitely changed my perspective. I came to be more tolerant. I came to realize that our society does not just rate women as inferiors, but there are stereotypical images of men that all boys are expected to grow up and fit into. Those images do not just erase the male's identity but they enhance the ideas of male superiority and at times chauvinism. Being aware of that changed my anger into positive anger and that was when I started writing.

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Rosemary Bechler

Thank you - all the MigrantVoice authors and bloggers for writing at short notice with passion and point. In a week we have moved beyond the shy introductions stage to 'pleased to meet you' and opened up a conversation on some of the big issues which has provided much food for thought. This excellent introduction will remain open not only for newcomers to browse, but for comment and addition.

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Marie Lyse Numuhoza

I came to the UK seven years ago as a young refugee from Rwanda. Eager to integrate, I joined a local refugee community. I coordinated activities that brought together young refugees. They enabled them to meet and share ideas, learn from one another as they settled into the society. On the other hand though, the media at the time was not portraying a positive image of refugees and asylum seekers. So much was said about them being bogus, that they were here to take over all jobs and take benefits that the British people had worked for for so many years.

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Rosemary Bechler

Sonja Linden started out writing 'verbatim plays' and I like many others can testify to the 'palpable effect' these first hand accounts of detention and forced removal have had on her audiences. The Darfuris or Rwandans whose words and experiences she drew on thank her, however, in particular, for making their characters feisty and rounded - not just victims, however innocent. It's a moving account.

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My name is Nora Hussein I would like to provide a slightly different account on the topics of refuge, belonging and integration, as I believe the issues are very closely linked.

I am a second generation British Somali female, currently living in London. My father first came to the UK in the early sixties as a migrant worker and was later joined by my mother in the early seventies. I consider myself to be British born and bred, and yet I have a strong affinity and link to my ‘home' country Somalia: a country that I have only visited for barely two weeks in my entire thirty years - a country, which ever since I have been old enough to comprehend, has been embroiled in turmoil and civil war. And yet when I was there in 1999, although amenities were very basic, and life in general on a completely different par to what I was accustomed to, I encountered a strange sense of belonging.

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Craig Barnett

I just heard from a good friend of mine that his wife and daughter have been refused permission to return to their home in Britain. My friend, who writes a blog under the pen-name ‘Jeremiah', is married to an African woman who was refused asylum in the UK. They have a two year-old daughter together, but the UK government wouldn't allow Jeremiah's wife to stay unless she went back to her own country to apply for a visa. Under the threat of arrest and deportation she finally agreed, after arranging a safe house where she and her daughter can stay in relative anonymity, as it is still unsafe for her to be recognized there. Mother and daughter have spent the last four months in hiding, waiting to get the necessary documents and then an appointment with the British embassy. And then they refused her.

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Zrinka Bralo

"The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that aren't so" said Mark Twain and it rings very true to me when I think about the migration debate all around the world. Last week I read a very bizarre story in the Sun about 12 people who lived in the attic of an empty house in the Midlands, and how  Read the rest of this post...

Jenny Allsopp

"Ok, now give me youthful enthusiasm!"

We all beam up at the camera as the local journalist takes photos of us preparing banners for Refugee Week; balloons, laughter and colourful paint. ‘Maybe we could paint ‘Refugee Week' on one of your faces?' The irony kills me; reluctant for a foreign face to appear in relation with this issue unless they are a criminal or footballer, a pretty white face is a lovely stage. For one day only it will be me, the lucky one to be branded with the colourful stamp of ‘refugee' while I hold a balloon next to me to represent a whole sub-population of faceless individuals. And why is this the case? Firstly, for many misguided people my face seems to fit the image of community in a way that of a foreigner does not. Furthermore, refugees themselves are often reluctant to come forward in the public eye and challenge this, and who can blame them given the public backlash these issues often face: it is a vicious circle...

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Grace Davies

On Tuesday this week, London's Trafalgar square was transformed into a temporary "refugee camp" by the UNHCR in an awareness raising initiative to highlight the ongoing situation in Darfur, which saw similar scenes in 20 countries across the world. Zrinka blogged earlier this week about her own unexpected reaction to the exhibition. The hope is that the day-long camp had an impact on those who know nothing about Darfur, the UNHCR or refugees in general, the "absent majority" as Jenny put it in an earlier post.

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Jenny Allsopp

Rosemary and Zrinka have raised some extremely important questions - not only ‘who cares for who', but what makes us care, and how we choose to express it. I would like to try and shed some light on the second two questions in light of my experience campaigning on asylum issues.

It seems to be a question of proximity, both in terms of coming into contact with the issues and our ability to act. People are more willing to deal with refugee and asylum issues when it is a question of isolated acts of human kindness; we find it easier to perceive an asylum seeker as a charity case than a dignified human being with ‘political baggage'. The same difficulty is encountered with many other social issues, especially homelessness: however complicated the problem is, a small donation is a concrete step towards a simple (and deserving) end, whilst interacting with the system is an up-hill struggle which rarely boasts such direct rewards.

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MigrantVoice roundtable

In 2002, the government made it illegal for people claiming asylum to work. In April 2008, the Refugee Council and TUC launched a joint campaign, Let Them Work campaigning for the right to work for asylum seekers, as a fundamental human right. On our own discussions and interviews with refugees and asylum seekers, together with campaigners and activists, work was often identified as the most important policy change that would improve the lives of asylum seekers in the UK.

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Jonathan Cox

"Politically correct brigade strikes over word ‘asylum'" screamed the headline in the Sun following the Independent Asylum Commission's first report of conclusions and recommendations, Saving Sanctuary, in May. "Should we ban the word ‘asylum'?" the BBC asked.

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