Exiled Voices for Justice
14 May 2010 Leave a Comment
in Amnesty International, Children's Rights, Corporate accountability, DRC, Human Rights, Immigrant Rights, Women's Rights
Next up, I tabled two films for Amnesty International for the local Exiled Voices for Justice film series.
Which Way Home, which screened at UW two weeks ago Saturday, was about unaccompanied migrant children. While I was aware of the issue, I had no idea the number of children heading north from Central America and Mexico on their own, hopping trains.
Some of the children were as young as 9. While some of them had trouble with their step-fathers, they usually were close to their mothers at least, wanting to give them a better life. Sometimes the parents sent them, as the US police officer notes above. A grandmother and a child who came at 9 were interviewed, with their faces hidden as they aren’t legal. Even though the child almost died in the desert, it was worth it to give her a chance at a better life. It’s hard to get your mind around poverty so desperate.
The panel included two young men who came here themselves as children, and had found foster homes. The Lutheran Community Services’ Refugee and Immigrant Children’s Program is an organization that helps them find homes locally and took part in the panel as well.
You can find more information on how to help at: http://www.refugeechildren.net/
Lumo, that Sunday’s movie at Seattle University, is about a young woman who is a survivor of a brutal gang rape by soldiers in the Congo. Rape very much is a weapon of war in places like the Congo, with many women like Lumo suffering from fistulas, internal damage that causes urinary incontinence and infertility.
HEAL Africa set up and the hospital for survivors where Lumo and others are treated. Learn more at: http://www.healafrica.org/
Jeanne Muliri Kabekatyo (Mama Muliri), from the hospital, was one of the speakers on the panel. She is the pioneer of HEAL My People, HEAL Africa’s gender-based violence program.
Another speaker was Wemba Koy-Okonda, who fled the first Congolese war in 1997, and was granted asylum in the US in 2002. Wemba-Koy founded OKONGO, an organization that both teaches newly resettled Congolese refugees and asylees English and technical skills; and serves people in the Congo in promoting health through public awareness and food self-sufficiency, condemning sexual violence against women and girls, and asking people around the world to help end violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Read more online at: http://www.okongo.org/
What’s fueling the war in the Congo? Mining. Mining for blood diamonds? No. Something closer to home to even more of us, maybe even especially those of us who are activists. . .
I’ll give you a hint – Can you hear me now?
Most of us involved in human rights know to ask for that certificate that your engagement ring isn’t a blood diamond, but do we know what’s in our cell phone in our pocket or running our laptop?
Urge your US Representative to co-sponsor The Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128), introduced by Congressman Jim McDermott (or if you live in the Seattle area and he’s your rep, be sure to thank him).
Learn more and take action online at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/drc
30 Years? Time for US to Sign for Women’s Rights
18 Dec 2009 Leave a Comment
in Amnesty International, Human Rights, Women's Rights Tags: CEDAW, Citizens for Global Solutions, United Nations
Friday, December 18 is the 30th Anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Amazingly, the U.S. is one of only 7 countries who have yet to ratify the treaty, putting us in the company of countries like Sudan, Somalia and Iran (Nauru, Palau and Tonga round out the list).
Amnesty International is joining with Citizens for Global Solutions and other organizations in urging President Obama to take a lead in ratification efforts for CEDAW; believing that “(t)he treaty needs visible leadership and support from the President to gain Senate advice and consent.”
AI and the other organization are urging their members and other women’s human rights supporters to call, e-mail and use their social networks to contact the White House and spread the word through their networks.
Take action online here:
Further information, including successes and countering myths about the treaty are available at:
Global Solutions: http://globalsolutions.org/cedaw
CEDAW: Treaty for the Rights of Women: http://www.womenstreaty.org/
Thirty years is too long. Ask President Obama to take the lead in urging congress to ratify this treaty.
Seattle Human Rights Day & AI Write-a-Thon
14 Dec 2009 1 Comment
in Amnesty International, Aung San Suu Kyi, Bhopal, Burma, Homeless, Human Rights, India, Seattle, Women's Rights Tags: ACLU, Adrien Wing, Alisher Karamotov, Azam Farmonov, Birtukan Mideksa, China, Comunidad a Comunidad, Ethiopia, Human Rights Day, Joe Martin, Legal Voice, Ma Khin Khin Leh, Nepal, Pride Foundation, Rita Mahato, Shi Tao, United Nations, Uzbekistan, Victrola Coffee House, write-a-thon
I celebrated Human Rights Day twice this year. Only twice. Down from the 4 events, out of 5 possible, last year, which was the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Sarvenaz & Aisha table for AI
Our Amnesty International group co-sponsored the Seattle Human Rights Day on December 10 this year, so we got a table before and after the event and collected a lot of signatures and new members for our listserv.
First there was a brief presentation by Students for Bhopal on the recent 25th Anniversary of the Union Carbide leak and the ongoing environmental disaster urging us to take action. The Hush Baby video below was shown, with the warning that it is graphic and disturbing (because of the birth defects still being suffered by the children of Bhopal).
For more information see the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal:
Communidad a Coumunidad accepts the UN Award
Human Rights awards were then given by both the city and Seattle Chapter of the UN Association. Awardees included Suk Lin Zhou, a young woman who helped for an ACLU chapter at her school; Pride Foundation; Comunidad a Comunidad, a Bellingham grass roots, women-led organization working with farm workers on food justice issues (and winner of the UN award); Joe Martin, advocate for the homeless; and Legal Voice, which helps protect women’s legal rights.
Joe Martin accepts an award from the city
Joe Martin accepted the award on behalf of his fellow rabble-rousers who advocate for the homeless. Joe said that especially struck me as both true and sad was that a book written during the 60’s “war on poverty” didn’t say much on homelessness, because in spite of so much bitter poverty, there weren’t many homeless yet back then. We’ve went backwards, in some respects. I’ve noticed the increase just in the time since my family first lived in Portland, a city large enough to have a homeless problem, in 1978, and especially with teenagers, who I don’t remember seeing many of on the streets back then.
Professor Adrien Wing – Keynote Speaker
Professor Adrien Wing from the University of Iowa was our keynote speaker. She talked about human rights and Muslim women, including the banning of head scarfs in schools in France as well as being forced to cover in some countries in the Muslim world. She talked about various layers of oppression and privilege, such as the freedom of travel to other countries with a US passport when their residents can’t travel freely here. Also the fluid nature of race and perceived race as a social construct depending on where you travel. Micro-credits for women are a positive development, and help raise all of society. Dr. Wing contrasted the hundreds spent on micro-credits vs the billions to be spent and to be spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We tabled for a while after the program as well, also checking out the tables and exchanging information with the other event co-sponsors and honorees.
Casey and Sofia write for freedom
Then on Saturday, December 12, our local AI group took part in Amnesty International’s Global Write-a-Thon, holding our event at the Victrola Coffee House on 15th in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.
Sofia from our group arranged everything with the coffee house, and we had a section in the back of the cafe with our actions and writing material laid out. Some of us found room at the tables back there, and others disbursed to other tables throughout the cafe, writing letters for up to 2 hours.
Rita Mahato
Some of our cases were well known to long time group members, such as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar (Burma) and journalist Shi Tao of China. Others were less well known, such as Birtukan Mideksa, a member of the opposition party who disputed the elections in Ethiopia; Alisher Karamatov and Azam Farmonov, human rights defenders of farmers in Uzbekistan; and Rita Mahato, who is receiving death and rape threats for her work helping women in Nepal against acts of violence.
Most of the people we wrote on behalf of are prisoners of conscience, in prison solely for their beliefs; while others, like Rita Mahato, face threats in their work as human rights defenders which their government and local authorities do not take seriously and will not defend them from. Like all of AI’s ongoing letters, faxes and e-mails, Amnesty International sections from around the world take part in our annual write-a-thon, in the weeks around Human Rights Day.
People world wide writing letters for the freedom and safety of prisoners of conscience is the very idea that Amnesty International was founded on, and still at the very core of how we work, even though cases, issues and the methods we use (including on line actions) have expanded. The basic, seemingly crazy, idea; that hundreds of politely worded letters from around the world asking those in power to free those unjustly held would actually bring about their freedom. Yet, in so many cases, it does!
Ma Khin Khin Leh -freed prisoner of conscience
Among those freed from last year’s global write-a-thon is Ma Khin Khin Leh, a school teacher in Myanmar (Burma), freed from 10 years of a life in prison sentence on February 21, 2009. She was arrested for allegedly planning a demonstration to protest the deteriorating economic and human rights situation in Myanmar. Ma Khin Khin Leh was reunited with her daughter, who was 3 at the time of her arrest.
All those letters and online actions, e-mails, and faxes do make a difference!
Aztec Dancers & Altars
15 Nov 2009 2 Comments
in Amnesty International, Human Rights, Seattle, Women's Rights Tags: Dia de los Muertos, El Centro de la Raza, women of Juarez
While I didn’t do much for Halloween this year, on November 1st I attended the opening ceremonies with other Amnesty International friends for the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) altar exhibit at El Centro de la Raza in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. While the Aztec Dancers won’t be there, the altars, including AI’s on the Women of Juarez, will be on display at El Centro de la Raza until the end of this week, November 20.
El Centro de la Raza
I got there early, thanks to the new light rail system that stops a block away (and maybe a miracle, for people who know my lack of timeliness), and joined in the brunch before festivities started.
Aztec dancers opened with a ceremony in the gazebo of El Centro.
After that, we all went in to view the altars constructed by a number of community organizations.
Altar on the history of slavery
People viewing Amnesty International Altar
Our Amnesty International group constructed ours to honor the murdered women of Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico. As the Amnesty International website notes:
Since 1993, almost 400 women and girls have been murdered and more than 70 remain missing in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, Mexico. While Amnesty International commends the recent measures taken by the Mexican government, the response remains inadequate.
AI Altar on Women of Juarez
Unfortunately, the violence has spread in Juarez due to drug cartels, with some newspapers now referring to Juarez as the “murder capitol of the world.”
According to the London Telegraph:
The city of 1.5 million people just across the border from El Paso, Texas, had 1,600 murders last year but in 2009 that total was exceeded by late summer.
Latest figures from the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office showed there were 195 this month alone.
The annual murder rate has now reached 133 per 100,000 inhabitants, surpassing Caracas, Venezuela. The comparable murder rate in New York last year was six per 100,000.
El Centro de la Raza artwork on the Women of Juarez
On the way out, I realized ours was not the only display on the Women of Juarez. El Centro de Raza’s artwork on one of their stairs included crosses with the names of some of the dead young women of Juarez, with a green glass moon with a face in the center.
Not that the focus of the Dia de los Muertos is all gloom and doom. There is a tradition of welcoming the spirits of your ancestors back (which, I believe is also part of the Celtic ceremonies for Samhain, also on November 1, of which my knowledge is also woefully lacking). There were activities for children, including painting sugar skulls.
The moon was out over El Centro de la Raza by the time I left, hopping the light rail from the Beacon Hill station a block away.
Beacon Hill Light Rail Stop
Artwork inside Beacon Hill light rail stop
Altars will be on display from at El Centro de la Raza through the end of this week. El Centro de la Raza is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday from 10 am – 6 pm and Wednesday 12 pm – 8 pm. Volunteers from our local Amnesty International group will be hosting the exhibit on closing day, Friday November 20.
Ending Violence Against Native American Women
10 Mar 2009 Leave a Comment
in Amnesty International, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Racism, Women's Rights Tags: Native American, Stop Violence Against Women, Tribal Law and Order Act
This week, in honor of International Women’s Day, Amnesty International is urging people to call their Senators to co-sponsor the Tribal Law and Order Act to help protect Native American and Alaska Native women from sexual violence in the U.S.
Amnesty International issued their report, Maze of Injustice – the Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA nearly two years ago.
According to Amnesty’s press release at the time: “Justice Department figures indicate that American Indian and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the United States in general; more than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetimes.” AI also reported in their summary that these rapes are often brutal and, also according to the Justice Department, “in at least 86 per cent of the reported cases of rape or sexual assault against American Indian and Alaska Native women, survivors report that the perpetrators are non-Native men.”
A maze of jurisdictions and the lack of ability to hold the perpetrator accountable especially if he’s a non-native on native land are major issues, in addition to lack of funding for police and health services on native lands.
The Federal Government has also undermined the authority of tribal governments to respond to crimes committed on tribal land. Women who come forward to report sexual violence are caught in a jurisdictional maze that federal, state and tribal police often cannot quickly sort out. Three justice systems — tribal, state and federal — are potentially involved in responding to sexual violence against Indigenous women. Three main factors determine which of these justice systems has authority to prosecute such crimes:
- whether the victim is a member of a federally recognized tribe or not;
- whether the accused is a member of a federally recognized tribe or not; and
- whether the offence took place on tribal land or not.
That’s a lot to have to navigate through when you’ve just been the victim of a violent and traumatic act. It gets worse though.
Tribal prosecutors cannot prosecute crimes committed by non-Native perpetrators. Tribal courts are also prohibited from passing custodial sentences that are in keeping with the seriousness of the crimes of rape or other forms of sexual violence. The maximum prison sentence tribal courts can impose for crimes, including rape, is one year. At the same time, the majority of rape cases on tribal lands that are referred to the federal courts are reportedly never brought to trial.
Amnesty International wants you to call in to your Senators this week, asking them to co-sponsor the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009 to improve prosecution and response to violent crimes against Native American and Native Alaskan Women.
For information on calling your Senators, including a sample call script and fact sheets go to:
http://www.amnestyusa.org/svawlobby/callin.php
Stop Violence Against Native American Women. End impunity.
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