Dear Working Group Members,
You have sent many suggestions for resources to the Working Group. We have
compiled them here for the period 17 - 23 June. We hope these resources will
be useful in your efforts to end violence against women.
Thanks again for all your messages!
Warm regards,
the Moderators
******************
RESOURCES SUBMITTED TO
THE END-VIOLENCE WORKING GROUP
17 - 23 JUNE 2002
Contents
A. ARTICLES/NEWS
1. Sexual Violence Rampant, Unpunished in DR Congo War (Human Rights
Watch Press Release)
2. What is being discussed in anti-trafficking circles? An interview with
Sonomi Tanaka, Project Officer at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Philippines
B. CAMPAIGNS
3. USA: Unprecedented Million Dollar Settlement: Sheriff Held Accountable
in Domestic Violence Homicide
C. URGENT ALERT
4. Sudan: Alawiya Mohamed Abdullah sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery
D. PUBLICATIONS
5. Council of Europe publication "Violence against young women in Europe"
6. Video: Rape Culture, Prostitution, & Homelessness: Systems of Violence
Against Women & Girls
E. UPCOMING EVENTS
7. Conference on trafficking (Honolulu, 13-15 November 2002)
************************************************************
A. ARTICLES/NEWS
1. Sexual Violence Rampant, Unpunished in DR Congo War (Human Rights
Watch Press Release)
(Brussels, June 20, 2002) Forces on all sides in the Congo conflict have
committed war crimes against women and girls, Human Rights Watch said in
a new 114-page report released today (available online at:
http://hrw.org/reports/2002/drc/). The report documents the frequent and
sometimes systematic use of rape and other forms of sexual violence in
the Rwandan-occupied areas of eastern Congo.
"War continues to rage in eastern Congo. Within that larger war,
combatants carry out another war -- sexual violence against women and
girls," said Alison Des Forges, senior advisor to the Africa division of
Human Rights Watch.
The report, which is based on numerous interviews with victims,
witnesses, and officials, details crimes of sexual violence committed by
soldiers of the Rwandan army and its Congolese ally, the Rassemblement
congolais pour la d�mocratie (RCD), as well as armed groups opposed to
them � Congolese Mai Mai rebels, and Burundian and Rwandan armed groups.
These combatants raped women and girls during military operations to
punish the local civilian population for allegedly supporting the
"enemy." In other cases, Mai Mai rebels and other armed groups abducted
women and girls and forced them to provide sexual services and domestic
labor, sometimes for periods of more than a year.
Some rapists attacked their victims with extraordinary brutality. In two
cases, assailants inserted firearms into the vaginas of their victims
and shot them. In other cases combatants mutilated the sexual organs of
the women with knives or razor blades. Some attacked girls as young as
five years of age and women as old as eighty.
Assailants often attacked women and girls engaged in the usual
activities necessary to the livelihoods of their families: cultivating
their fields, collecting firewood, or going to market. By doing so, the
assailants further disrupted the already precarious economic life of the
region.
Medical services in eastern Congo have nearly totally collapsed, leaving
most victims of rape and other sexual torture with little hope for
treatment of injuries or of sexually transmitted diseases, including
testing and post-exposure treatment for HIV/AIDS. Some experts estimate
that HIV prevalence among military forces in the region may be higher
than 50 percent. Rape in these circumstances can be a death sentence.
The report also documents the rejection of some women and girls by their
husbands, families, and wider communities because they were raped or
because they are thought to be infected with HIV/AIDS. As one such
ostracized woman told Human Rights Watch researchers, "My body has
become sad. I have no happiness."
With the collapse of official services, Congolese churches and civil
society organizations have used their scarce resources to assist the
victims. Local organizations which have also documented sexual violence
in the region contributed to the report.
"Commanders of regular military units and heads of armed groups alike
must get their men in order," said Des Forges. "Combatants must direct
their violence against recognized military targets, not against helpless
women and girls who happen to cross their paths. Those who abuse women
must be held accountable for their crimes."
---------
2. What is being discussed in anti-trafficking circles? An interview with
Sonomi Tanaka, Project Officer at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Philippines
Resource Net
Friday File, Issue 82
Friday, June 21, 2002
What is being discussed in anti-trafficking circles?
An interview with Sonomi Tanaka, Project Officer at the Asian Development
Bank (ADB), Philippines. In her interview Sonomi Tanaka speaks about the
situation of human trafficking in Asia and the highlights of the Regional
Workshop held in Manila, May 27-29, 2002, entitled: Combating Trafficking
of Women and Children in South Asia.
By Janice Duddy
1) What is the current situation of the trafficking of women and children
in South Asia?
Because of the clandestine nature of human trafficking and methodological
difficulties, it is not possible to get reliable statistics. Some
estimates show that every year 1 to 2 million people are trafficked
worldwide, of which 225,000 are from South Asia. Other estimate show that
over the last 30 years, trafficking for sexual exploitation alone has
victimized some 30 million Asian women and children. However, what we do
know, from various studies is that although human trafficking in South
Asia is a centuries-old phenomenon current issues such as poverty, war and
conflict, globalization, and improved communication and transport links
have magnified the speed, magnitude and geographical coverage of human
trafficking.
Among the three countries included in our study, Bangladesh, Nepal and
India, Bangladesh and Nepal are mostly countries from which people are
trafficked while India is both a sending, receiving country and a transit
country from which women and children further move to the Gulf States,
Southeast Asia, and so forth. Our study showed a need to examine
intra-country trafficking further, especially in India - one study
indicates 90 percent of trafficking in India is internal.
Trafficked women and children mostly end up in the sex industry, sweat
shops, domestic work which often involves sex services to employers and
others, forced marriage, begging, camel jockeying and other exploitative
forms of labor.
An example of a stereotypical image of a trafficking route in South
Asia would be that of a girl from a poor hilly village in Nepal who is
trafficked to a brothel in Mumbai. However, the realities are much more
complex. Women and children are not necessarily trafficked from their
points of origin. They may first migrate, with their family's, to the
nearest big city. Then while working in a restaurant they are 'recruited'
to go to work in Kathmandu but they end up somewhere else. From there,
being trapped in a brothel outside the country. Or, in rural areas or
cities, some women may take a job opportunity in a nearby construction
site where they are forced to perform sexual services for laborers and
then they are trafficked to another place. Traffickers go to great lengths
to hide their activities and change their paths and methods frequently so
it is difficult to identify specific routes. The issue is that trafficking
is no longer a geographically confined activity. Traffickers exist
everywhere; they play on people's vulnerability, desperation, and lack of
opportunities.
In South Asia, perhaps more than anywhere else, such vulnerabilities are
strongly linked to gender discrimination together with other forms of
social exclusion such as ethnicity and caste. Girls and their family are
under pressure to find ways to earn money for dowry payments, which could
easily lead them to debt bondage, or fraudulent marriages, which are the
most common causes of trafficking. When her husband forces a woman out of
'normal' marriage due to death, migration, violence or desertion she has
extremely limited options for survival. This is due to the fact that many
women lack education, productive assets, skills, and access to public
services. Further, societal expectations of female submissiveness create a
fertile ground for traffickers to exert control on them. Some caste groups
have traditionally designated girls for sex work, and here again, such
practices attract perpetrators.
2) How do you see this situation impacting larger geographical regions?
As I said, the exact proportion of trafficked women and children ending up
outside the Region is not clear. However, because of factors of
globalization and modernization one can conclude that trafficked persons
are increasingly spreading outside the Region. You often hear stories of
Bangladeshi boys, working as camel jockeys, rescued from the Gulf. Also,
as quoted by the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women,
"Traffickers fish in the stream of migration". Traffickers take advantage
of migrants who are vulnerable, who are away from their communities and
families - especially women and adolescents. However, migration policies
in many countries do not allow women to migrate for unskilled labor or to
migrate without being accompanied by a relative or a guardian. But the
realities are that many individual women are migrating for survival within
and outside their countries. This makes many female migrants 'illegal'.
Once labeled illegal, in order to hide themselves from the police etc.,
they do most unthinkable things - playing into the hands of traffickers
for perceived 'protection'. The message of safe migration for women needs
to be disseminated widely, and a series of safe migration measures must be
put in place. Changing the attitudes of a receiving country is always
difficult, however.
3) Could you please speak about the activities that led up to the
Regional Workshop?
The Regional Workshop in late May was a culminating activity of a
ten-month-long Regional Technical Assistance - or RETA in short. The RETA
has included three South Asian countries - Bangladesh, India, and
Nepal. It has had two broad objectives - one, to enhance the Asian
Development Bank's (ADB) understanding of how its poverty reduction
programs and other programs can be used to support anti-trafficking
efforts in South Asia; and two, to contribute to capacity building of key
stakeholders in these countries. This will be was done by providing new
analytical and operational dimensions and by supporting ongoing
consultative processes to follow up on various commitments reviewed or
developed under the Second World Congress against Commercial Sexual
Exploitation of Children (or the Yokohama Congress) in December 2001 and
the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Convention on
Preventing and Combating Trafficking in Women and Children for
Prostitution signed in January 2002.
The RETA has had two major components. The first one is research.
Three country reports and a Regional Synthesis Report supplemented by a
Regional Study on Legal Frameworks have been prepared, mostly based on
secondary data and an extensive consultation with committed stakeholders
in the Region - Government, NGOs, academics, private sector, and donors.
Also discussions were held with some ADB staff. The country reports were
discussed at the national consultation workshops held from late March to
early April in the three countries. The second component was the exposure
visit of a South Asian delegation to Thailand in mid-May. The National
Youth Bureau of Thailand, and other partner organizations and resource
persons from the Mekong Region, were invited to share their experience of
developing an inter-agency and multi-stakeholder collaboration in Thailand
to combat trafficking. As well they shared their experience of developing
a draft Memorandum of Understanding between Thailand and Cambodia and
various bilateral legal arrangements that are currently under discussion.
Such information and exchange was highly welcome by the South Asian
delegation, who are exploring practical ways to implement the recently
signed SAARC Convention on Trafficking.
Many stakeholders have carried out similar studies, and as a matter of
fact, in the beginning of the RETA, there were some skeptic voices asking:
"Why another study?" "No government wants to lend money from ADB for
trafficking projects. What can ADB do in this area?" From within the ADB,
there were also voices: "What is the relevance of the topic to our
operations?" Now, we can proudly say that the value added by the RETA is
two-fold: its comprehensive coverage, and its identification of specific
entry points for ADB operations in mainstreaming anti-trafficking
concerns. Our RETA went beyond the current anti-trafficking programs to
look at the root causes of vulnerability of trafficking and identified how
to link up anti-trafficking initiatives with the broader programs that
address such root causes. Very few studies have done that before.
4) What were the main focuses, themes, and events of the Workshop?
The key objectives of the Regional Workshop were to discuss the findings
of the Country and Regional Reports prepared under the RETA; to develop
practical recommendations for ADB in how to mainstream anti-trafficking
concerns into its operational activities; and to provide a venue for
inter- and cross-regional exchange of information and ideas.
The Workshop was held in the ADB Headquarters in Manila, and was attended
by key government agencies, such as Ministry of Women, Labor, Foreign
Affairs, Overseas Employment, Home Affairs, and police; NGOs and donors
from the three countries; a resource persons from Thailand; and observers
from Manila. Interested ADB staff also participated. Day One focused on
the discussion of the country reports. Day Two focused on donor
presentations and sector-specific case studies in the morning. In the
afternoon the participants were split into two groups for the field trip -
Group A visited Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) of the
Philippines, an agency under the Department of Labor, to learn about the
Philippines experience of migration management based on the Government-NGO
collaboration. Group B visited the 'Halfway House' at Manila Domestic
Seaport, a successful rescue and repatriation model based on an innovative
partnership among the Philippines Port Authority as Government, Visayan
Forum as an NGO, and shipline companies as the private sector. Day 3
discussed the sectoral and regional issues. In the afternoon, group
discussions developed specific recommendations to ADB operations as to how
to include anti-trafficking initiatives into ADB's support to (i) empower
women and girls; (ii) improve and enforce of labor standards; (iii) and
ensure good governance.
5) In your opinion what were some of the highlights of the Workshop?
The discussions centered around five core issues. First, links with
poverty - the need for those working on anti-trafficking initiatives to
approach various anti-poverty programs run by the government was felt to
be important. Second, gender discrimination - various economic, social,
and legal measures were suggested to narrow the gender gap. Third, links
with migration. It was generally agreed that safe migration initiatives
should be part of anti-trafficking programs, but the 'legitimacy' cultural
acceptance of women's migration was debated. Fourth, everybody agreed on
the importance of a strengthened focus on the demand side. However, there
were various views on how to curb the demand for exploitative forms of
labor. For example, concerns were expressed regarding the difficulties in
extending social protection measures to employees in the informal sector
economy and enforcing the core labor standards in the South Asia context.
Fifth, governance and legal issues at local, national, and regional levels
were discussed.
Usually, a Regional Workshop of this nature closes with the adoption of a
joint statement by the participants. But we decided not to do this, as
there are already too many such statements. Rather, we really wanted the
participants to acquire new and broader perspectives, to contexualize
their anti-trafficking activities into a bigger picture of current
political, social, and economic environments. Also, we had wished that the
Workshop would raise awareness among ADB staff of this issue. I think the
workshop was successful on both ends.
6) What are the next steps for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in
relation to the trafficking of women and children?
The most immediate task for us is to finalize and publish the reports for
further outside dissemination. In the meantime, we will continue to work
on sensitization within the ADB by disseminating the sector guidelines
produced under the RETA.
But more importantly, we would like to start acting on the key
recommendations for mainstreaming trafficking concerns. For example, in a
road corridor project, especially those that connect poor villages and
cities, we can start developing community awareness components and
ensuring codes of conduct for contractors of civil works. Such components
could be developed in partnership with HIV/AIDS components. Another
example is the legal literacy component of women's empowerment projects
can potentially include anti-trafficking and safe migration messages.
Social protection projects can also target the urban informal sector,
which is often fertile ground for trafficking. Finally, our support for
regional cooperation - within such sectors as transport, tourism, and
trade - can include a social development working group which, will look at
the impact of increased mobility of people within a region.
Another RETA is being considered for the Mekong Region, but details are
yet to be decided.
So, all in all, ADB will continuously be supporting the anti-trafficking
initiatives in the Asia Pacific Region through our extensive poverty
reduction programs.
7) Where could interested people obtain copies of the RETA Country Papers
and documentation from the Workshop?
All the draft country and regional reports, Workshop program, and
presentation materials have been posted at ADB's external
Website: http://www.adb.org/documents/events/2002/reta5948/default.asp
The feature website is: http://www.adb.org/Gender/reta5948.asp
Please also visit our gender website: http://www.adb.org/Gender/
Based on the valuable comments and discussions at the Workshop, the draft
reports are being finalized and will be posted on the same site around
mid-July. So please keep an eye on it!!
----------
B. CAMPAIGNS
3. USA: Unprecedented Million Dollar Settlement: Sheriff Held Accountable
in Domestic Violence Homicide
In the first ever monetary award by law enforcement for their failure to
protect a domestic violence victim leading up to her homicide, the Sonoma
County Sheriff's Department agreed to pay a million dollar settlement in
the landmark federal civilrights lawsuit of "Maria Teresa Macias vs. Sonoma
County Sheriff Mark Ihde."
The announcement came mid-trial at the close of dramatic testimony by Sara
Rubio Hernandez detailing more than 20 attempts by her daughter, Maria Teresa
Macias, to get help with her violent estranged husband, Avelino.
Hernandez outlined her daughter's repeated reports to the Sheriff Dept. of
Avelino's multiple felony crimes including his sexual assaults of Teresa
and her children, his constant obsessive stalking, repeated threats to kill
and restraining order violations. The Sheriff's Department never once arrested
or cited Avelino Macias. After deputies ignored more than twenty reports in
just the last few months of her life, Avelino fatally shot Teresa, then
shot and seriously wounded her mother, Sara, on April 15, 1996.
This landmark federal civil rights lawsuit, filed in October 1996 claimed
that Sonoma County Sheriff's Department violated Teresa's constitutional
right to equal protection of the laws. A July 2000 9th Circuit Appellate
Court decision in the Macias case established for the first time and in the
most unambiguous language to date, women's rights to sue law enforcement
when they fail to act.
With today's testimony and the historic damages award, Sara Hernadez said,
"I have fulfilled my daughter's wish." Shortly before her death, Teresa
told her mother, "If I die I want you to tell the world what happened to me.
I don't want other women to suffer as I have suffered. I want them to be
listened to."
The settlement sends a resounding message to law enforcement around the
country that they can no longer ignore domestic violence victims with
impunity. And it sends an equally forceful message to women everywhere,
that they have a constitutional right to hold law enforcement accountable
when law enforcement refuses to act.
Marie De Santis
Women's Justice Center
(707) 575-3150
www.justicewomen.com
email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tanya Brannan
Purple Berets
(707) 887-0262 or (707) 217-2683
www.purpleberets.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--------------
C. URGENT ALERT
4. Sudan: Alawiya Mohamed Abdullah sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery
OMCT Appeals
17/6/2002: Sudan: Alawiya Mohamed Abdullah sentenced to 100 lashes
for adultery
Women's Programme
--------------------------------------------------------------------
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Case SDN 170602.VAW
Woman Sentenced to 100 lashes
The International Secretariat of OMCT requests your URGENT
intervention in the following situation in Sudan.
Brief description of the situation
The International Secretariat of OMCT has been informed by the
Sudanese Organisation Against Torture (SOAT), a member of the OMCT
network, that a woman was sentenced to 100 lashes of the whip by a
court in Nyala on 4 June 2002.
According to the information received, Alawiya Mohamed Abdullah, from
Kad al Haboub, 6 kilometres east of Nyala in Darfour province, was
found guilty of adultery and sentenced in accordance with Article 146
of the 1991 Penal Code.
Article 146 states that whoever commits the offence of adultery shall
be punished with:-
a) execution by stoning when the offender is married (Muhsan)
b) one hundred lashes when the offender is not married (non-muhsan)
The presiding judge in the court was Judge Mutaz Nasr El Din who
reportedly has a record of handing down other similar punishments.
The sentence was given and executed on the same day without allowing
any opportunity for appeal. No medical checks were carried out before
the execution of the sentence, despite the fact that Alawiya has
recently given birth, is currently breast feeding, and is generally
in a very poor state of health.
The man involved in the incident of adultery was found not guilty due
to lack of evidence against him.
OMCT is gravely concerned for the physical and psychological
integrity of Alawiya Mohamed Abdullah. It notes with grave concern
that corporal punishments, such as lashing, amputation and stoning
are increasingly being carried out as punishments against the people
of Darfour, especially women (see urgent appeal SDN 040201VAW and its
two follow ups).
OMCT unreservedly condemns the use of such punishments which violates
international human rights standards as embodied in the Convention
against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment and the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights to which Sudan is a signatory and a State party respectively.
Actions requested
Please write to the Sudanese authorities urging them to:
i. guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Alawiya
Mohamed Abdullah;
ii. take all necessary measures to secure the respect of the rule of
law in Sudan which includes the respect for the prohibition on
torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment and
amend the Sudanese legislation as a matter of priority, in order to
abolish the death penalty;
iii. guarantee women their human rights, including their right to be
free from discrimination and their right to be free from torture and
inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment;
iv. ensure in all circumstances the full respect of human rights and
fundamental freedoms in accordance with national and international
standards.
Addresses:
His Excellency Lieutenant General Omar Hassan al-Bashir, President of
the Republic of Sudan, People's Palace, PO Box 281, Khartoum, Sudan,
Telex: 22385 PEPLC SD or 22411 KAID SD- Fax: +249 11 771 7 24
Mr Ali Osman Yasin, Minister of Justice and Attorney General,
Ministry of Justice, Khartoum, Sudan. Telex:22459 KHRJA SD or 22461
KHRJA SD (via Ministry of Foreign Affairs) � Fax: +249 11 7740 63
Mr Mustafa Osman Ismail, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, PO Box 873, Khartoum, Sudan, Telex: 22459 KHRJA SD
or 22461 KHRJA SD � Fax: 249 11 7740 63
Please also write to the embassies of Sudan in your respective
country.
Geneva, 17 June 2002
Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this
appeal in your reply
--------------
D. PUBLICATIONS
5. Council of Europe publication "Violence against young women in Europe"
-----------------------------------
Violence against young women in Europe - Proceedings, May 2001 (2002)
-----------------------------------
This seminar brought together youth leaders, project workers and other
professionals and volunteers concerned with the main objectives: to share
experiences and approaches in dealing with violence against young women
accross Europe, to identify educational and social strategies to address
the issue at European level and to highlight the need to combat these
persisting violations of human dignity though legal and educational means.
ISBN : 92-871-4834-1
Format : 16x24 cm, 186 pages
Price : 15 E / 23 US$
Available from Council of Europe Publishing - 67075 Strasbourg Cedex
E-mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Visit our site : http://book.coe.int
Fax : +33 (0)3 88 41 27 80
----------
6. Video: Rape Culture, Prostitution, & Homelessness: Systems of Violence
Against Women & Girls
Escape: The Prostitution Prevention Project,
http://www.escapeprostitution.com is proud to offer our latest
educational video. The video is available for purchase on the Escape
website at $29.99 for personal copy and $44.99 institutional copy.
Please see the Escape website for details
Rape Culture, Prostitution, & Homelessness: Systems of Violence Against
Women & Girls
by Chris Stark, given in 2001at a conference on prostitution and
homelessness hosted by the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless.
In this speech Chris Stark outlines what a rape culture is and how it
functions with prostitution, homelessness and racism to create a system
of violence against women and girls, especially poor and African
American women and girls. She discusses homelessness specifically in
terms of what it means for women and girls who have been sexually
abused; and how the United States is changing from a rape culture into a
prostitution culture, in which all women and girls are expected to
perform sexually as whores. The speech concludes with ideas on how to
end prostitution
Excerpts from Rape Culture, Prostitution, and Homeless: Systems of
Violence Against Women & Girls
Rape is entertainment in the United States. The entertainment
industry makes money off of the selling women as sexual commodities and
also the sexualization of commodities so that sometimes we are confused:
is that an objectified woman or a sexualized female object? Rape culture
sells women and girls as "rapeable" commodities, passive objects,
animals, or lusty sluts, which are chosen by men out of line ups in
brothels, cages, or catalogs of rape otherwise known as pornography.
Rape, and the sexual objectification of women and girls, sell products
from women's cosmetics to the latest chic $500 purses to Ford pick up
trucks.
There is a long history in the U.S. of disenfranchisement and a war
against poor people, women, and people of color. There is a long history
of displacement and genocide in the U.S., including the stealing of land
and culture from Indigenous people and a 400-year enslavement of
Africans. And after African Americans were freed Reconstruction laws
kept them in chattel status--homeless and unemployed. Vagrancy laws were
constructed and enforced to punish African Americans who had no land and
no home. This is where the stereotype of the Black pimp and ho on the
street corner originated. The stereotype of the Black pimp running
prostitution benefits white men, who are and always have been the ones
who run slave labor, prostitution, and pornography in the U.S.
Homelessness at its most superficial means without house, without a
structure, with out walls around you and a clean toilet and stove and
place for your clothes and bed to lie on at night. Being homeless can
also mean without a land or country or cultural identity. Homelessness
is living without boundaries. It is living in the public space, without
your own space, with out an extended personal space that a house
provides, a definable physical area which keeps you safe, not intruded
upon physically or mentally; a space that separates you from the outside
world, the noise and the chaos.
Homelessness has other meanings. You can be homeless in your head
with a disability or be unable to concentrate. You can be homeless in
body, in identity, in spirit (where you don't believe in your own worth)
because to survive sexual violence you must make yourself homeless. You
must vacate your body and your mind, numb yourself emotionally,
dissociate, fragment, numb parts of your body during the abuse. You
might have confusion about your body size and shape. It is difficult for
women and girls to have meaningful lives, have a worthwhile job, a home,
respectful, caring relationships, hobbies and activities when they don't
have a home in their own bodies or their minds.
Freedom, real freedom, is what women and girls need in the U.S. But
freedom has become such a cheap word. Men, especially white men, have
used it as a lie, as a whitewash to cover their enslavement and
debasement of others such that freedom means freedom over others, which
means look babe, I have my freedom which just so happens to be a
multi-billion dollar rape empire where you are trussed, bound, gagged,
and tortured in sex. Who among us dares to imagine what real freedom for
all women and girls would look like, and who among us dares to have the
courage to work for that freedom? Real freedom that does not mean one
group of people enslaves another in the way that European colonizers
came to the Americas in search of freedom only to build their freedom
off the death and enslavement of others. Real freedom has limits. Real
freedom is not pornographic nor does not enslave or torture or keep down
others. When we say women and other oppressed groups need freedom, we
mean that the no limits pornographic freedom of men must be
http://www.escapeprostitution.com
----------
E. UPCOMING EVENTS
7. Conference on trafficking (Honolulu, 13-15 November 2002)
The Human Rights Challenge of Globalization in
Asia-Pacific-US: The Trafficking in Persons,
Especially Women and Children
Honolulu, Hawaii
November 13-15, 2002
REGISTRATION MATERIALS ARE AVAILABLE on
Globalization Research Center's web-site:
http://www.globalhawaii.org/PDF/trafficking.htm
-----------------------------------------------------
This international conference is co-sponsored by the
Globalization Research Center, University of Hawaii
Manoa and the East-West Center
Trafficking in persons is the downside of globalization,
a modern-day form of slavery that preys on society's
most vulnerable populations: workers, migrants,
refugees, stateless persons, women and children.
Vigorous collective action on the part of state and
non-state and civil society actors is essential to
mobilize the political will to end this destabilizing
practice.
This timely conference will bring together
knowledgeable stakeholders in Asia-Pacific-US with
an action-oriented mandate to provide concrete tools
to prevent trafficking.
-----------------------------------------------------
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF REDUCED PRICE EARLY
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 15, 2002
-----------------------------------------------------
If you are not able to access the web-site, we will
e-mail, fax or mail complete registration brochure.
Please contact:
Nancie Caraway, Ph.D.
Director Women's Human Rights Projects
Globalization Research Center
1580 Makaloa Street, Suite 970
Honolulu, Hawaii USA 96814
Tel: (808) 945.1450, ext. 120
Fax: (808) 945.1455
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-----------------------------------------------------
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