The campaign for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence kicked off yesterday. Coordinated by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, the campaign runs from November 25 to December 10 every year and since 1991, has helped raise awareness about gender violence and has highlighted its effects on women globally. For more, go here.

So here’s what I thought you should know about. UNFPA has a list of the five most under-reported forms of violence against women. Brace yourself. It’s not pretty. The list includes bride-napping, breast-ironing, traumatic fistula, femicide and child marriage. Bride-napping and child marriage are reasonably common terms so here are definitions of the other three.

Breast-ironing, a traditional practice in a number of West African countries that involves crushing the breasts of young girls in order to deter male attention;

The epidemic of traumatic fistula in Africa, which is caused by gang rape and often the forced insertion of foreign objects into the rape victim. This results in the tearing of the delicate tissues separating the birth canal from the bowel and/or the bladder. Seriously injured and psychologically traumatized, the victim is left incontinent, leaking faeces, urine, or both. Too often, her family and community rejects her, to live out the remainder of her life as a pariah—doubly stigmatized—both by the rape itself and its terrible consequences.

The ongoing femicide of women in the Central American country of Guatemala. Unlike the killings of young women in Ciudad Juarez, on the El Paso/Mexico border, the wholesale murder and mutilation of Guatemala’s women continues to be enacted under a cloak of media silence and official neglect.

Sometimes, one may well wonder what the point of knowing such things is. Most of us think we live fairly powerless lives with little ability to move or change anything in the wider world out there, let alone in distant Guatemala, Mexico or Kenya. Well, the 16 Days Action Kit may change your view about how much (or little) you can do. In a nutshell, you can:

I would say that’s quite a few different options and at least a few of them are easy to do even if you’re busy, a man, a “non-feminist”, apolitical, and “not the activist type”. To go a step further, it seems to me that no. 1 is a no-brainer and should be possible to do all year round and not just for these 16 days. What do you think?

Over at The Nation, there’s an article on an interesting new book called The Politics of the Veil by historian Joan Wallach Scott, which examines the French obsession with the Muslim’s woman’s headscarf or foulard islamique. Muslim girls in France often face non-admission or expulsion from school when they choose to wear a headscarf. The Politics of the Veil gives us a history of the controversy and Wallach Scott’s research is apparently “broad and exhaustive.The article is a snapshot of what one can expect from the book and gives a brief history of the controversy. It also talks about some of the different factors involved in this debate — secularism, national identity, the idea of a homogeneous European female identity, and sexual liberation. She makes an interesting point about the last.

In reality, both Islamic Sharia and strict French laïcité produced gender systems that essentially deprived women of the right to dispose of their bodies as they wished. Indeed, in Islamic tradition, women are urged to be modest and to steer clear of tabarruj. This Arabic noun has its roots in the verb baraja, which means “to display” or “to show off,” and the noun can be translated as something like “affectation.” In A Season in Mecca, his narrative book about the pilgrimage, Moroccan anthropologist Abdellah Hammoudi uses the term “ostentation” to translate tabarruj, “the invariable term for a bearing that is deemed immodest or conspicuous, a hieratic stance.” Similarly, the French law born out of strict definitions of laïcité warned schoolgirls about displaying “conspicuous” signs of religious affiliation. In short, the battle between the two modes of thinking was played out in women’s bodies.

As usual, individual freedom is forgotten in the bid to fit people into strict ideological moulds. It is disturbing how even ideologies that originally start on the premise of “freeing” a certain group of people end up being restrictive and determining, and therefore ultimately oppressive, in their own way.

The headscarf issue is complex because it is rooted in several questions. How does one negotiate the path between religious freedom and secularism? What does secularism mean? The absence of religion or the freedom to practice whatever you want. If it is the latter, where do you draw the line when it comes to regulated institutions like schools? The Sikh turban, the Muslim hijab, the sacred thread worn by Hindu Brahmins, the Christian crucifix pendant — all of these are religious symbols. Banning one while allowing others is unfair but the more ‘visible’ ones tend to come under more fire than others.

Also, how realistic is it in this age of global migration to hold on to ‘national idenity’ with steely fingers. As people move around more and there are more migrants in every place, there is bound to be upheaval and redefinition of national identity. Whole masses of people cannot be expected to drop all the habits, customs and affiliations that they have been practicing for centuries. They probably would not be able to even if they tried.

In another incident just last month, British MP Jack Straw sparked off an argument around the niqab because he said it was a “visible statement of separation and of difference” and asked women visiting his surgery to consider removing it. The niqab, unlike the hijab which covers only the head, is a veil that covers most of the face, leaving the space around the eyes open. From the BBC report.

Mr Straw was putting women “into a very awkward position by compromising the faith they believe in and that is ill-placed”, Council of Lancashire Mosques chairman Hamid Kureshi told BBC Radio Five Live.

And a political rival - Liberal Democrat constitutional affairs spokesman Simon Hughes - questioned whether it was Mr Straw’s place to question the way that members of the public dressed.

“I don’t think it’s the job for somebody who represents the whole community to say to somebody who comes through the door, ‘Do you mind if you dress differently in order to talk to me?’,” Mr Hughes said.

With time, European countries will need to loosen their construct of national identity and give up on conventional notions of people looking and behaving tidily similar. Diversity does breed some amount of chaos. And chaos is not always bad. We cannot pay lip service to concepts like racial equality and diversity without making space for what that means in real terms. All people come with baggage. People from different races, religions and sexes come with different kinds of baggage. Asking them to leave that baggage at the door is hardly in keeping with the larger goals of unity and tolerance.

The World Toilet Summit took place here in New Delhi earlier this month. Delegates racked their brains to come up with ideas for innovative toilets. And if you can’t help a smirk at that, consider this:

Due to the absence of an organised sanitation system, 1.8 million children across the world die of diarrhoea annually, and close to half the population in developing countries suffers health problems caused by water and sanitation defects, at any given time. The World Health Organisation estimates that 200 million people are infected with schistosomiasis — a disease caused by lack of access to hygienic sanitation facilities. Experts say open defection contaminates water and helps the spread of diseases like diarrhoea, which kills at least 4,900 people everyday, worldwide….(more).

Nothing remotely funny there, unfortunately. According to this video report, self-cleaning toilets and a fourteen-year-old inventor who has come up with an idea for preventing sewage disposal from trains at railway stations were part of the annual summit.

This UN report says that lack of sanitation facilities dooms 3 billion people to a life that is primitive and devoid of basic dignity. Apart from causing disease, lack of proper sanitation facilities can have more indirect impact as well — such as on girl’s education. Girls tend to miss school when there are no sanitation facilities because it is difficult for them to go out in the open. When there are no separate facilities for boys and girls, they don’t attend school during menstruation. It’s worse when there are no latrines at home.

In many cultures, girls and women wait until after dark to defecate if they have no latrine in the household, experiencing discomfort and sometimes serious illness as a result. When girls and women have to walk to a place distant from their home for excreta disposal, particularly at night, they are vulnerable to harassment and assault.

It’s hard to imagine people living without latrines — something that so many take for granted in this era of designer bathrooms and spa treatments — but the number of
people without access to latrines and toilets increased by some 400 million over the last decade. And with increasing migration and urbanisation and burgeoning slums, it is likely to keep doing so unless solutions are provided quickly.

On a lighter note, here’s a hilarious CWS commercial via The Bathroom Diaries. Enjoy.

Some time back, genital mutilation in Egypt came into sharp focus when a thirteen-year-old girl died on the operation table. Now, the tides may be shifting slowly, but undeniably. According to this NYT article:

But now, quite suddenly, forces opposing genital cutting in Egypt are pressing back as never before. More than a century after the first efforts to curb this custom, the movement has broken through one of the main barriers to change: It is no longer considered taboo to discuss it in public. That shift seems to have coincided with a small but growing acceptance of talking about human sexuality on television and radio.

For the first time, opponents said, television news shows and newspapers have aggressively reported details of botched operations. This summer two young girls died, and it was front-page news in Al Masry al Yom, an independent and popular daily. Activists highlighted the deaths with public demonstrations, which generated even more coverage.

At the forefront of this movement is anthropologist Marie Assaad who has been fighting the barbaric practice for around 50 years. In the beginning, she started off with outright condemnation but realizing that this was not working, she employed more strategic moves. She got Islamic scholars and health care workers to endorse her views and dispel illusions. She also managed to garner support from other powerful women in the country.

I think there’s much to be learned from her strategy when it comes to overthrowing age-old, ingrained customs and patterns of behaviour. Give people arguments they can relate to. Win supporters in different key groups, especially the ones most likely to oppose you. And be tenacious.

Even as recently as 2005, a government health survey showed that 96 percent of the thousands of married, divorced or widowed women interviewed said they had undergone genital mutilation. The battle is far from over, or even close to the finishing line. But at least, it has started in earnest.

An earlier post about this is here.

If you’ve been wanting to visit Brussels, here’s a worthy excuse. Interestingly titled “Dynamic Cities Need Women”, this international forum in December will apparently draw over 700 participants from all over the world “to discuss best practices and innovative policies and their impact on gender development and equal access to services in urban areas in order to make cities and metropolises liveable for all.”

The core of the conference is a series of workshops on gender-related issues in different regions in the world as well as a host of topics like technology, health, basic education, urban safety and sustainable development in the context of gender.

According to the website:

The main objectives of this international Forum are to promote a gender-sensitive approach and to present and discuss the best practices to empower women as citizens and decision-makers.

The initiative is jointly spearheaded by the Government of the Brussels Capital Region and the Metropolis Women International Network and it will end with a declaration to take gender mainstreaming into account during future decision-making.

Incidentally, Belgium was elected as a member of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women this year in recognition of its commitment to the promotion and fulfillment of women’s rights.

Internationally acclaimed writer Elif Shafak talks about how Abdullah Gul’s election as president is causing ripples in Turkish society about its political and secular beliefs. The crux of the matter is that Gul is a former AK Party member, which is often referred to as an Islamist party, and his wife Hayrunisa Gul (now the first lady of Turkey) wears the headscarf, a problematic symbol that is at the heart of the controversy. But Shafak points out that:

Not all covered women are giving a political message. Similarly, not all covered women are “ignorant” or “repressed”.

More significantly, the structure of the Turkish family constantly brings together covered and uncovered women.

Sometimes the mother-in-law is covered but the daughter-in-law is not. One sister is covered but not another.

Even taking a stroll along a crowded street in Istanbul will show us how covered and uncovered women live together all the time.

Turkey’s role in history has always been significant. Not only does it lie at the intersection of two continents, it also combines other forces.

Within the amazing diversity of the Muslim world, Turkey occupies a unique place.

In an age when the number of people who believe in a clash of civilisations escalates every day, here is a country that is predominantly Muslim and staunchly secular at the same time.

The discussion on the president’s wife and the position of women in Turkey lies at the centre of all these massive political debates.

It will be interesting to see how Turkey reconciles this latest challenge to the coexistence of divergent views. Meanwhile, Hayrunisa Gul has asked an Austrian couturier of Turkish heritage to redesign her headscarves. Perhaps, in a bid to prove that headscarves can be modern too?

An earlier post about Turkey here.

Thirteen-year-old Kenia from Madagascar has been in and out of hospital for the last few years. Among other things, she suffers from anorexia and incontinence and has had to undergo a colostomy. Kenia was sexually violated by her uncle when she was nine. She is just one of many children in sub-Saharan Africa, whose life has been maimed by sexual abuse. The problem is devastatingly common according to this article and abuse cases are on the rise in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya and other African countries.

WHO called it a “silent health emergency” three years ago. In their report, they pinpointed the causes as “economic poverty, and in some cases, affluence, armed conflicts and the breakdown of family and social systems”. They also pointed out that:

There is usually a strong element of denial and guilt if the suspected perpetrator is a family member. If a girl is sexually abused, she loses her worth for marriage. The child lives with the trauma but without professional and social counselling and support. The mother’s low status in the family and certain social taboos prevent reporting of such incidents. The superstitious belief that sex with a virgin is a cure for HIV/AIDS is accentuating the problem.

Like in Kenia’s case, the problem usually strikes frighteningly close to home. According to studies cited by Advocates for Youth, 51 percent of children between six months and 15 years of age receiving medical treatment for sexual abuse in rural South Africa have been abused by a neighbor, an acquaintance, a lodger or a stranger. In Zimbabwe, half of reported rape cases involve girls less than 15 years of age and girls are most vulnerable to sexual abuse by male relatives, neighbors and school teachers.

What is even more horrific at some level are the quick-fix solutions sought. In Zimbabwe, rape cases are sometimes settled out of court. The perpetrator either pays compensation to the girl’s father or pays a bride price and marries the girl.

The emphasis is on avoiding the costs that the family will have to incur financially (for treatment) and socially in terms of public shame and dishonour. In such cases, the child herself is a forgotten entity.

Apart from the tremendous psychological impact on a child, sexual abuse can also lead to infections, sexually transmitted diseases, internal lacerations and damage to internal organs. Young girls are vulnerable in multiple ways — because of age and gender — and in poorer families, because of economic disadvantages as well. WHO has suggested guidelines for child sexual abuse prevention here. The guidelines recommend, among other things:

…a set of priority interventions such as vigorous advocacy and communication, enhanced law enforcement and the development of a standardized protocol for clinical care and management.

The education of the child is an important component. Child sexual abuse often occurs in familiar spaces, among known people. The effects are also often exacerbated because the abuse is continued over a period of time. Children must know how to recognize abuse, yes. But equally crucial is that they feel that they can immediately talk to their parents about it. The conviction that they will be heard, and believed, no matter how close the perpetrator is to the family is vital. In many families, parents and children communicate at a superficial level constrained by misguided notions of propriety. Parents are loathe to discuss anything remotely related to sex with children because they want to preserve their innocence. This silence can be dangerous.

In more traditional societies, efforts must be made to delink necessary information on sexual matters from conventional ideas of morality. Children are often aware of their vulnerability, and scared as a result of this awareness. This fear leads to an inability to speak up. Providing them with a safe harbour is important. Stop It Now!, an organization that works in this area, provides tips here on what adults can do to prevent child sexual abuse — and help their children prevent it.

Schools can and should play a pivotal role in creating awareness and sensitivity. Unfortunately, many of our educational systems are floundering under antiquated notions of what must be taught and what can be omitted. So while, children are taught the names of people who fought wars 5000 years ago, they are not given information on how to protect themselves. Self defence, which should be a priority, seldom figures on the curriculum. Increasingly, the skills taught at school are irrelevant to what is required for survival in the real world.

The challenges are graver and more complex in societies where families have broken down and schools are poor, understaffed and lack resources. Meanwhile, Kenia’s situation remains bleak.

A surgeon who examined her this month said a full recovery was unlikely. The uncertainty preys on Kenia, her mother said. “Sometimes she tells me, ‘My body is hurting. I have so many problems. I don’t go to school. I just feel this sickness all around me,’” she said.

Betombo, who sexually abused her, is a free man. Kenia’s parents want justice for their daughter but they’ve almost given up hope. It is for girls like Kenia that the long journey towards change must continue. And the silence must be broken.

Budour Ahmad Shaker died while undergoing female circumcision in Egypt. She was 12. Hopefully, her tragic death will not be forgotten. The horrific incident and resulting public protest has prompted Egypt’s health minister to announce a formal and absolute ban on female circumcision, or female genital mutilation.

Female circumcision involves the removal of the female clitoris, which conservative families believe is a way of protecting a girl’s chastity. The practice is common among Muslim as well as Christian families in Egypt and other African countries. According to The Economist report, a nationwide survey carried out in 2005 revealed that 97% of married women claimed to have been circumcised. But a more disturbing trend is that two-thirds of circumcisions are performed by doctors.

The Guardian says that female circumcision was made illegal in Egypt in 1997. But there were loopholes that many medical professionals took ample advantage of. Shaker’s untimely death has brought to the forefront something that too often we relegate to the back of our minds. Not only is this a primitive rite that reinforces discriminatory attitudes towards women, it is also painful, sadistic and potentially deadly!

Of course, it will take more than mere legislation to change something so ingrained. It’s important that doctors (whom we think of as ‘healers’) be held to task for wielding scalpels of destruction. But unless the larger cultural issues are addressed, people will continue to practice it on the sly and endanger the lives of their little girls by taking them to quacks. I think it’s important to sensitize people, especially parents, about the dangers of this practice and hold them accountable as well. Shaker died because of the effects of anaesthesia. No doubt the doctor was responsible (and he has been arrested). But were the parents any less culpable?

The BBC website has a discussion on the issue of FGM and the counterpoint comes from some people who say that if a woman chooses to have the operation, there’s nothing wrong with it. Well, firstly, a lot of girls are circumcised before they become women so the question of choice is a little irrelevant. Secondly, to make an informed choice on the matter, a woman should have equal access to information about the pros and cons, which I doubt is the case most times.

The defense for practices like FGM, which are deeply entrenched in any society, is usually the protection of culture. But what is culture? Not a static museum piece but an evolving phenomenon. As we move into an increasingly globalised world, we need to arrive at some things we universally agree on — the meaning of words like murder, genocide, suicide; what constitutes human rights violation; what constitutes child abuse. By all means, let’s celebrate our differences and protect our individual cultures. But let’s not forget that at the core, we are all human beings.