This tree once shaded Hanshaw's driveway and mailbox—but now it marks the place where her house used to stand, before Hurricane Katrina struck Biloxi, MS.
As cars rumble past, Hanshaw maps out the landscape of memory. "That's where we found my daughter's bed, afterward," she says, indicating a red SUV a few rows away. "This was my backyard. This was the front porch."
Hanshaw was out of town on August 29, 2005, when Katrina's winds drove the Gulf of Mexico into her neighborhood. Thirteen feet of water crashed through the streets that day, filling her house with mud, scattering her belongings, tearing the bumper off her car. The waters swept inland to downtown Biloxi, flooding the hairdressing business she'd run for 21 years. Months later, all the homes on her block were bulldozed to build this parking lot for the Imperial Palace casino.
Hanshaw says the storm brought her not just destruction, however, but also transformation. As executive director of Oxfam America partner organization Coastal Women for Change (CWC), she has turned her losses into strength—by becoming an advocate and role model for others, her fellow survivors.
"This is a left-behind community," Hanshaw says emphatically of East Biloxi, the close-knit, predominantly African-American and Vietnamese neighborhood where she was born and raised.
You only have to walk the streets here to see what she means. Many houses in this once-vibrant neighborhood now stand abandoned, their boarded-up windows turning a blank face to the street. Some damaged homes, like Hanshaw's, were razed after the storm, leaving behind only vacant lots. Others are flanked by boxy white trailers, where families live cramped together as they await government grants, insurance settlements, or other resources they need to finish rebuilding.
A few restored houses gleam with new paint, "For Rent" signs propped up on the lawn. But rents have nearly doubled since the storm, and good jobs are hard to come by—so many displaced residents can't afford to move back home.
"We need affordable housing—not projects, but homes that people can pay for on a living wage in Mississippi," says Hanshaw. "But the message right now is, "if you're not rich, get back."
Hanshaw points out that Biloxi's beachfront casinos and wealthier neighborhoods began rebuilding soon after the waters receded. But somehow those funds never reached this mostly low- and middle-income neighborhood.
Today, she can recite a litany of things lost and not yet replaced: The public library. Funds for small businesses. Elder care programs. Playgrounds for low-income kids.
By training women, people of color, and low-income people to make their voices heard in the Gulf Coast recovery process, CWC aims to give people the means to speak out about these and other pressing community needs.
The group has convened a public forum to discuss rebuilding efforts with Biloxi's mayor and city councilors. Several CWC members have since been appointed to the mayor's planning commission. CWC has also sent delegations to Jackson, MS, and Washington, DC, to urge legislators to provide more affordable housing for people left homeless by the hurricanes.
Until they see results, Hanshaw says, they will continue to push for change at the local, state, and federal levels. "This is our community," she says. "We want it back the way it was&mdsah;or better."
Hanshaw's personal transformation—"from cosmetologist to activist," as she calls it—began three months after Katrina. She was shuttling between relatives' houses and a FEMA trailer, which gave off formaldehyde fumes that made it hard to breathe. Though more people fled Biloxi every day, she says she couldn't abandon her lifelong home.
Then a friend asked her to join local women who were meeting together wherever they could: a funeral home, the local NAACP headquarters, a church. The women talked about rebuilding, both their community and their lives. "Those meetings were part of our recovery, emotionally," says Hanshaw.
Among the women was Oxfam's Safiya Daniels, who encouraged them to voice their concerns about the pace of recovery in East Biloxi. Equipped with training and startup funds from Oxfam's Gulf Coast recovery program, the women formed CWC in early 2006. Soon after, Hanshaw was appointed the group's executive director.
These days, about 20 core CWC members still come together at regular evening meetings. They still borrow space—a beige cinderblock room in the Church of the Redeemer, a few blocks from the waterfront—but their discussions now center on community outreach and upcoming advocacy opportunities. Members of Oxfam's Gulf Coast staff often join in to provide advice.
Hanshaw believes that all women in the community should be able to attend the meetings. With prices rising at the pump, and few options for public transit, she'll even buy members gas cards so they can afford to drive over.
"I'm going to train you if it kills me," she says, explaining her passion to empower those around her. "You're all going to be powerful women."
Advocacy remains at the heart of CWC's activities. But as the group evolved, members realized that in addition to advocating solutions, they had to create their own.
"We find ourselves still doing direct service," Hanshaw says. "That's not our mission, but we see there's no housing going up here that's affordable, no library, no activity center, or anything for the children. ... So I have to do what's in my face right now."
Among other activities, CWC founded its own in-home child care program to address a shortage of affordable day care. It sponsors senior appreciation dinners and computer training for East Biloxi's elderly residents. And it's taking steps to help locals prepare for the next, inevitable storm.
Meanwhile, Hanshaw speaks out about the fight against climate change in Oxfam's Sisters on the Planet and served as an official timekeeper at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. But if you ask her what she's most proud of about her work, she'll say that it's "women stepping up," whether in Biloxi city council meetings or on the national stage.
"Throughout this whole process," she notes, "we've created more leaders."
With additional reporting by Steve Greene.
]]>"I'm not famous," said the slogan on his T-shirt.
And that's probably why you haven't heard very much about Milongo's problem'or the problem of countless Congolese women caught in a war that has used their bodies as a battlefield. Rape has ruined their lives. And now, it's creeping into their villages, too, corroding what's left of community life after so many years of conflict.
But since it's happening in a place that's far away, in villages whose names we can hardly pronounce, we don't pay attention. We should—because it's a horror that stalks us, too. About 132,000 women a year in the United States report they are victims of rape, or attempted rape, says the National Organization for Women. That's one of the reasons Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act in 1994—to combat sexual assault.
Now, there's a new protection bill set for debate in Washington. This one would take the first steps toward guarding the safety of women everywhere—even in countries where governments are not up to the task. Proposed by US Senators Joseph R. Biden and Richard Lugar, the International Violence Against Women Act would require the development of a five-year strategy—supported by a $175 million annual investment—to support programs targeting violence against women. Among them would be public awareness campaigns and a strengthening of criminal and civil justice systems.
Additionally, through increased training for aid workers and expanded reporting requirements, the bill would tackle the violence women and girls suffer during humanitarian crises and conflict—times when women are particularly vulnerable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Democratic Republic of Congo. John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary for humanitarian affairs, told a reporter last October that the sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world.
But what makes these attacks even more insidious is the consequence of speaking out about them: There is danger in challenging Congo's culture of impunity. Justine Masika lives with it daily—behind the barbed wire wall erected around her house to keep her safe. She is the head of a Goma-based group that has helped more than 7,000 women who have suffered from sexual violence. Last year, soldiers punished her for her truth-telling and advocacy. They invaded her house and attacked her daughters.
But Masika is not alone. Others, like Lamia Milongo, are fighting back, too. When the soldier abducted his 12-year-old daughter to claim her as his "wife," Milongo put his own safety aside and went in pursuit. He rescued her and returned her home unharmed. But the daughter of his neighbor was not so lucky. Her rescue came too late. Now, at 15, she is pregnant, shamed, and facing a life of hardship and poverty since in Congolese culture women who have been raped are often cast off by their communities.
Sexual violence is a plague the world should be rid of. Mothers like Masika need our help. So do fathers like Milongo. We took an important step here in the US in 1994. Now it's time to take the next one—into our global community—with passage of the International Violence Against Women Act.
]]>But it wasn't until an 80-year-old woman from Walikale in North Kivu was brought to Masika that the full weight of what was happening became clear, galvanizing her resolve. In the war that was sweeping the region, rape was being used as a weapon not only to degrade women, but to humiliate their husbands and whole communities, too. Masika realized the women and girls of eastern Congo needed organized, pro-active help—and Synergie des femmes pour les Victimes de Violences Sexuelles was born.
Its mission, says Masika, its director, is threefold: to raise awareness about sexual violence toward women, to take care of those who have been sexually abused, and to push for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Since 2003, the organization, an Oxfam partner, has worked with 7,018 women—women like the one from Walikale, who so desperately needed help and for whom there was none available. Raped and left dumped in a field, she was rescued by a hunter and eventually brought to Goma, the capital of North Kivu. But she was penniless, and despite her serious injuries, the hospital would not treat her. And there she died.
Hers is just one of too many stories of sexual abuse and abandonment—of violence that is still rippling through the remote hills of the eastern provinces, that continues to torture its victims with shame, and that now, in a newer twist, has begun to corrode the core of traditional communities, too.
In a small mudbrick building propped on the edge of a dirt road in Kilungutwe, a crowd of villagers has gathered. It's dark and sweltering inside, but every inch of every bench is taken, and more people crowd at the door and window. They have come to discuss the troubles in their village—the extortion they face at the hands of soldiers, the difficulty they have in getting enough to eat—and now the talk has turned to sexual violence.
With anger still in his voice, Elisha Ezigobe, one of the local chiefs, describes the abduction of his 12-year-old daughter. A soldier took her for his wife—without Ezigobe's consent. As soon as he learned what had happened, he headed for the soldier's camp, dismissing any concern about the repercussions he might face in confronting armed men. He was determined to rescue his daughter.
"I took my girl and left," Ezigobe said through an interpreter. "I had my machete. I was going to fight back." His outrage scared the soldier off, and Ezigobe returned his daughter—unharmed—to their home.
But the man sitting next to Ezigobe was not so lucky. His daughter, too, was taken by a soldier. A night passed before he was able to find her and bring her home. Now, at 15, she is pregnant.
There are many stories like this, says Ezigobe, and some fathers are afraid to stand up to the soldiers.
But it's not just military men who are the perpetrators, say others in the roadside hut. Community members have turned into culprits, too—with few serious consequences for their crimes. If the abused girl is 17 or 18, the solution is often to have her marry the rapist. If she's younger, the local chief could order the man to make some kind of reparation—such as a goat—to the girl and her family.
Why is all of this happening now?
"They're asking themselves that question," says Jacqueline Tshilemba, a community educator for APIDE, one of Oxfam's local partners that is working with the people of Kilungutwe. "What they can see is this culture has happened since the war. It happens all over the place and no one gets punished."
At the root of the problem, says Josee Lotsove, is a society that views women as inferior. Lotsove is the coordinator for a local women-based organization called Association des Mamans Anti-Bwaki, or AMAB, an Oxfam partner headquartered in Bunia. Along with those traditional attitudes about women, she says, is the Congo's weak judicial system, which often fails to hold offenders accountable.
When perpetrators are arrested, adds Marie Kanyobayo, it's possible for them to pay a little money to the authorities and buy their freedom. Kanyobayo is the head of another women-based organization called Union des Femmes pour le Developpement, also an Oxfam partner.
It's at this foundation of impunity that Masika, the head of Synergie, is chipping away. Part of Synergie's work involves educating village chiefs and other local opinion leaders—teachers, pastors—about the nature of what has been happening to women, about the catastrophe that it has become, and about the importance of villagers accepting survivors back into the community fold.
But the work comes with great risk.
For speaking out about a problem that has devastated the lives of so many women, Masika and her family have themselves become targets. Last September, six military men came to her house in the early evening and tortured her two daughters, 22 and 20. Masika has since sent them to live in Nairobi, and an aid organization has paid to surround her house with barbed wire to protect her.
Masika admits that sometimes the challenges are so daunting that she's not sure she can continue with her advocacy. But she knows that her voice—and the voices of all the volunteers who work for Synergie—are essential in helping to protect the rights of women who cannot, or dare not, speak out for themselves.
In the Congo, the consequences of rape are far-reaching and affect whole families. Rape heaps shame upon its victims. Women often find themselves cast off by their husbands, and forced into complete self-dependence. Young girls who have been raped lose their chance for marriage and for having a family of their own—and the position of honor that being a mother brings.
At a medical center in Goma where Synergie carries out some of its work, women who are recovering from sexual abuse confront its ugly legacy: possible HIV infection and lives of hardship, including the need to find ways to support themselves. Here, they are learning to weave baskets from long strips of plastic, a skill that will help them earn a living when they are well enough to return to their villages.
But for some, the psychological wounds are so deep they don't want to leave the security and support in which Synergie has wrapped them. For others, the road home is crowded with obstacles that may prove insurmountable. One 36-year-old woman tells of in-laws who are trying to turn her children against her, accusing her of being promiscuous after she was abducted and held as a sex slave and later, in a second round of horror, raped and left pregnant by a government soldier.
For Amina, a volunteer who has been working with Synergie since its founding, the stories she hears from women and girls who have been abused weigh heavily on her. Many of them have become her friends, and she knows that Congolese culture will dictate the future they face—likely one of great difficulty.
Given how sweeping the problem of rape and sexual violence now is, might that culture become more understanding, and even forgiving?
Amina sits quietly for a moment before she replies. A weariness seems to frame her answer. Women are speaking out more, she says. In the past, they kept silent. But as for real change, she can't say when that will come.
]]>These community organizations are the leaders in an epic struggle against HIV and AIDS in South Africa. They are doing what the government cannot seem to do: deliver essential services that directly benefit the millions of people in the country infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
"If the government of South Africa wants to address HIV issues, then it needs to strengthen community-based organizations," says Gerard Payne, who works for the AIDS Consortium, a national organization that supports thousands of community groups. He says that the HIV/AIDS crisis is the most significant challenge facing South Africa since the transition from apartheid.
The scale of the problem requires a local, grassroots response, and community organizations are doing their best to deliver it. Many are overcommitted and underfunded. "Whether it is through financial resources, whether it is through training, we need to strengthen them, so we can reduce the rate of HIV in this country," Payne says.
Payne has just been to visit one such community organization, where he stood in the dusty courtyard outside a two-room cinderblock house in South Africa's North West province as a dozen high-energy toddlers played and ran around him. Four of the organization's home-based care givers prepared to make their rounds, visiting patients in their homes to help cook, clean, and remind them to take their medication.
Payne's job at the AIDS Consortium is affiliate coordinator, so he visits the community-based organizations, assesses their needs and capabilities, and recommends a course of action to train the staff. Many must learn and implement procedures for raising and managing money, and develop a strategic vision for what the organization can be and where it can go. This helps the community organizations get past simply reacting to the HIV/AIDS crisis and working towards measures that will help improve the situation.
One example is in the care of orphans and vulnerable children in the community. The government of South Africa estimated last year that there are 1.5 million children under 17 directly affected by HIV: one or both parents are dead, or they are living with the virus themselves. With so many children now in need of a place to live, or at least hang out after school, get a meal, and stay out of trouble, it is the community organizations that are struggling to meet this need, many of them without specialized training or adequate funds. "They may be running a program, but have no idea how to really do it properly," Payne says. "So we will help them get training so they can provide counseling and other services that will help the children. We help them get to a level where they have good infrastructure and are rendering quality services." This can include a curriculum to teach "life skills" to young people so they can learn how to prevent HIV.
Another essential area where community groups can make a big difference is in helping people living with HIV and AIDS to understand what treatment is available and how to get it—a basic level of knowledge known as "treatment literacy." This is particularly helpful for women, who for reasons related to poverty and discrimination may be unable to get to a clinic or hospital—their families may not give them time, they may not have money to pay for transportation, or they may just simply not know that they are HIV positive and need medication.
Gerard Payne says that even if a patient can get to a hospital, he or she still may not understand what they need to do to stay alive. "Patients go there, the staff does a CD-4 count and gives them some medication, but they do not explain anything," Payne says. "Our objective is to educate organizations how to help patients understand the different treatments needed, and their rights to access treatment."
He adds that educating people about their right to treatment is a big step for many groups that are accustomed to delivering food and other care. "Community-based organizations respond to needs: if someone is sick, they go to them once or twice a week and take care of them," he explains. "We are saying they need to take it a step further. That patient is eventually going to get really ill, so they need to understand what care is available, where to access it, and that they must adhere to the treatment."
Seeing organizations grow and become more effective is one of the things that keeps Payne engaged in his work. "Last year I had one affiliate with no money, so I helped them get financial management systems in place," Payne says. "The first 1,000 rand [US $125] they raised was due to the fact that we showed them how to open up a bank account and write some letters to raise money."
"The joy and satisfaction I get comes when someone tells me that the work we do is making a difference," Payne says.
Payne says that South Africa is at a crucial stage in its history. "We have come a long was as a country, and struggled through many hardships," he says. "We are now in a different kind of struggle, and I want to be able to feel that I am contributing in the struggle against HIV."
]]>"He insulted us and beat me up," she says, tears welling up with the memory. Ortiz recounts the ordeal in her dirt-floor house in the department of Ahuachapan, sitting on a simple wood chair, holding her four-year-old daughter Melissa—her youngest. "One of my children said to me, 'Mama, let's get out of here,' so we went outside."
That spring night, outside their blue concrete house, the threats continued. "He insulted me so much... saying I was worthless, I had no future, and that it was better for him to kill me and the children."
Ortiz had to take action because her husband was a police officer and had a firearm. The family took shelter at a neighbor's house, and Ortiz called the police. Her husband was arrested the next morning. She and her children were safe for the moment, but in his drunken rage he had burned all their clothes.
The hills in Ahuachapan are bright green after a rainy summer. Blue and yellow butterflies fly lazily among the coffee trees along the dirt roads, and the sun is warm and comforting. It looks peaceful, making the violent confrontation Ortiz describes seem out of place. But in this small country of six million, widespread violence tends to be particularly deadly for women.
El Salvador is still recovering from a 13-year civil war that saw 75,000 people killed and nearly 8,000 "disappeared." It is a politically polarized society, torn between a small business elite, which dominates commerce and the government, and the majority struggling in poverty. Socially, men are dominant: It is a machista culture that holds many women in submissive roles in the family, raising children and doing other work in the home. Roughly half of Salvadorans live in poverty, and women head about 25 percent of households, so the abuse of and discrimination against women contributes directly to keeping them poor and in their subservient role in society.
There is a paucity of data on violence against women in El Salvador, but what few details are available tell a brutal story: In a country about the geographic size of Massachusetts, the rate of "femicide" in El Salvador was 11.15 per 100,000 women in 2005, far exceeding Guatemala's rate (population nearly 13 million) of 7.96 for that same year, according to a 2006 report by the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights. The same report shows the numbers of women murdered in El Salvador inching up slowly from 2001, when there were 211 women killed, to 260 in 2004, before jumping to 390 in 2005. The 2006 total was 437, according to Yanira Argueta, director of the Association of Salvadoran Women. "The situation is critical," she says at a meeting in her office in San Salvador. "Public officials are not sensitive to the problem, and there is no good application of the laws."
Part of the problem is public perception. A 2006 poll by CS Sondeo found that only about 83 percent of people in El Salvador believe that rape is a crime—which means that more than 15 percent don't consider it a criminal act.
Whether rape, murder, assault, or even psychological abuse, violence against women is more than an injustice or a human rights violation: it is an investment in the social status quo that keeps men on top and women below them. And it prevents women from fully contributing to the two changes El Salvador desperately needs: an end to poverty and the building of democracy.
]]>Molina de Vasquez worked hard to get the group established because she wants women to have opportunities to work outside their homes so they can broaden their horizons. "So many women are mistreated by their husbands," she says. "They need to know about their rights and feel capable of doing things."
"I would like to get women to know about their rights and duties, and to increase their self-esteem. We can help ourselves and our families, care for our children, and earn income to change our lives."
When asked why helping other women is so important to her, she says, "Let me tell you a little about my own life; then you will know."
The details come spilling out; she's like someone who walks away from a serious car accident, describing how lucky she is just to be alive. Mistreated by her father, her mother abused, Molina de Vasquez was married at 14 to a soldier. "I thought it was a way to escape," she says, "but my life got worse." Her husband was violent, and his family "used to tell me that my job was to have children and take care of my husband." When she failed to deliver a child for the first three years of their marriage, "I was useless to them," Molina de Vasquez says with a sigh.
But others could see that she was a leader. When their first child went to kindergarten, she was chosen to be the president of the parents' board at the school. "When I told my husband, he was angry. He told me I was not capable of it. I accepted this; he always told me I was good for nothing. For 11 years it was like that."
Eventually they moved to a rural area and things started to improve. Her husband became an agricultural laborer. They had a son. But Molina de Vasquez wanted to do more activities outside their home, like joining a health training program. Although reluctant to allow her to participate, her husband said she could host training sessions at their home. As part of this training, one of Oxfam's partners, AGROSAL, taught the women about their rights and how to prevent domestic violence. It was part of the Vida Diferente campaign to prevent gender violence.
"I started to listen to talks about preventing violence in the home," Molina de Vasquez says. "I learned about my rights." Since her husband allowed her to hold the meetings at their house, Molina de Vasquez took a risk: "I invited him to the talks and training sessions, and he became more sensitive." Together, she and her husband questioned the gender roles and attitudes in the machista culture in El Salvador, and they recreated their relationship. "Now my husband and I solve problems through dialogue, not violence," Molina de Vasquez says. He now recognizes how important it is for her to use her leadership skills. "If someone asks me to do something, I will do it because I know my husband will not say no."
Molina de Vasquez is committed to the new women's organization: "First I would like to get women to know about their rights and duties, and to increase their self-esteem." She says there are practical reasons for this, which leads to the second goal: "We need jobs for all the women. We can help ourselves and our families, care for our children, and earn income to change our lives." For Molina de Vasquez, respect for women and fighting poverty are part of the same struggle.
The changes in Molina de Vasquez's family are hard to compare to the earlier, oppressive days. "I have overcome it—so why can't I help other women? That is my goal: to help many other women."
]]>One of the goals of the campaign is to increase the number of women who understand their rights and can effectively defend them as Adelina Ortiz did. To help educate the next generation, the campaign developed a program for teachers and schoolchildren in 2007 that teaches young people about how to prevent gender violence and what to do if they are attacked.
"We used to talk about gender equity here," says Patricia Jovel. "But never gender violence." Jovel is the director of a school participating in this new initiative in El Progreso, a village perched on the impossibly steep Quetzaltepeque volcano outside San Salvador. The school, where 850 students from 6 to 16 years old attend classes in two half-day groups, is a collection of six cinderblock classrooms topped by metal sheet roofing on either side of a terraced concrete courtyard sloping down the mountainside. It is a beehive of activity after classes, as without any level area for a playground, the students play tag around the central courtyard in the brisk mountain air. Jovel says the young women who sometimes have to walk home in the dark after school are now better equipped to fend off the young men offering drinks and cigarettes to them. "Thank God there have been no rapes," she says.
The students have learned their lessons well: Karla Sanchez, 15, says it is a matter of her basic rights. "Everyone must respect our rights as children, girls, youth. We all have the same rights, and no one can violate them. And if something should happen, we know we can tell our parents, our teachers, or adults we trust. They are here to help us," she explains patiently. And if these people can't help, she knows where to go. She lists a number of institutions where she can turn for protection: the Human Rights Office; the National Police; and the Salvadoran Institute for the Advancement of Women, known as ISDEMU. As she leaves, Sanchez articulates one essential idea about reporting gender violence: "We should not be afraid of what people say."
In 2007, this pilot project in 53 schools exposed 25,000 students to the key messages of the campaign and trained 1,000 students and 1,000 teachers. The teachers now have incorporated violence prevention into their curriculum, and they work with the trained students. The pilot was supported by the Ministry of Education and was such a success that the minister decided to incorporate it into the public school curriculum nationwide.
Sustained pressure to change societal attitudes toward women is a slow process. One effective way to question long-held ideas and beliefs is to educate those entrusted with defending the rights of women, protecting them in the community, and helping them if they are attacked or injured. These include public officials like police officers, judges, public health officials and doctors, and social workers. The campaign organized a formal training program at the University of Central America (UCA) in 2005, and 45 people attended.
Maritza de Vasquez, a psychologist at the family court in the city of San Marcos, just outside San Salvador, says this training has helped her assist the many women who come through her office. De Vasquez says that women are hearing the messages of the campaign and are taking action to protect themselves. In the steady stream of domestic violence and divorce cases she sees, there is a different attitude. "Women take the opportunity to come here and talk about their situation they come here right away to denounce it," she says. "They are expressing their rights more openly now."
Back in Ahuachapan, Ortiz grows corn and raises sheep to support her children and grandchildren. He husband is in jail awaiting a hearing. "I'd rather see him in prison than anywhere else," Ortiz says. It was her participation in a sheep-raising program run by one of Oxfam America's partners, Association of Salvadoran Agriculturalists (AGROSAL), that exposed Ortiz to the human rights training that helped her defend her own life and protect her children. She points out that in all her training to become a health worker, no one ever educated her about domestic violence or how to prevent it. "The training taught me that women have rights and people are obligated to respect them," Ortiz says. "This made me act, to look for help, and thank God I found it."
]]>The survey report, "In Her Own Words: Iraqi women talk about their greatest concerns and challenges," is being released on International Women's Day to highlight the daily hardships women are facing as a result of years of conflict.
The report also calls on the government of Iraq to begin a 'surge' of investment into reviving Iraq's social welfare and essential services sectors now that the security situation, although still fragile, has improved in recent months. Critical in this effort is robust support from the international community. Such investment would benefit the population as a whole, and perhaps none more than Iraq's at risk women, and in particular, women-headed-households.
"Women are the forgotten victims of Iraq. Despite the billions of dollars poured into rebuilding Iraq and recent security gains, a quarter of the women interviewed still do not have daily access to water, a third cannot send their children to school and since the war started, over half have been the victim of violence. And to add further insult more than three quarters of widows, many of whom lost their husbands to the conflict, get no government pension which they are entitled to," said Oxfam International Executive Director Jeremy Hobbs.
A large majority of women surveyed were not receiving any state support and had become so poor as a result of the conflict that many could not afford to provide their families with clean water, electricity, food, an education and medical treatment.
Oxfam and an Iraqi women's organization, Al-Amal Association, which conducted the survey last year, found that despite security gains some 60 percent of women said that their security and personal safety were was still their number one concern.
The majority of women surveyed also said that access to most services, including drinking water and electricity, was worse or the same in mid-2008 as it was in 2006 when levels of insecurity in Iraq were higher. A quarter of the women surveyed—24 percent—had no access to clean water. Nearly half of those who did have access to water—48 percent—said it wasn't suitable for drinking. Eighty-two percent said that access to electricity had worsened or had not improved since 2006.
"A whole generation of Iraqis are at risk. Mothers are being forced to make tough choices, such as whether to pay for their children to go to school and receive healthcare, or to pay for private power and water services. These are choices no mother should have to make, and they are not only threatening individual families. They are also threatening the future of Iraq itself," added Hobbs.
The survey also found that:
The specific hardships that some of Iraq's most vulnerable individuals cope with on a daily basis, as told by them, have overwhelmingly gone unheard.
Oxfam and the Al-Amal Association, the Iraqi partner organization that conducted the survey in the five provinces of Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk, Najaf and Nineveh, do not claim that the information they gathered from 1,700 respondents represents the situation facing all Iraqis, or even all women in Iraq. However, it does provide a disturbing snapshot of many women's lives and those of their children and other family members. The information presented in this paper was collected over a period of several months, starting in the summer of 2008.
]]>Farmers in this area are typically informed that the government has conceded their land to the mine and that there is nothing they can do about it. Joanna knew better. "I know my rights, and I knew the law would take its course," she said.
Manu had attended a training session with Oxfam America's partner WACAM, where she learned that farmers can only be removed from their land if they have been compensated for it. This helped her make a strong argument. "I told the court that I was there before the company came and that it had not compensated me. So the company has no right to push me off this land."
"And I am still farming there," Manu said, smiling just a little. "I learned this in my training, and it is thanks to this new knowledge that I could do this."
WACAM's training not only helped Manu defend her own rights and farmland, but also helped her become one of the key organizers in her community, Dumasi, a small collection of mud and concrete houses piled on the side of a hill on the road between two larger mining towns, Prestea and Tarkwa. Farmers line the road selling tomatoes and yams as trucks and cars blast past in the dust and heat. The forest looms over Dumasi; dark green surrounds the hardwood trees and small fields that farmers hack out of the dense brush.
Open-pit gold mining has had serious negative effects ranging from housing damage caused by the explosives used to blast apart the pit to reveal ore, just over 300 yards from the village, to pollution of the local drinking water source, the Aprepre River, in 2004 and 2006. Again, training from WACAM has helped Manu and her neighbors push the company to respect their rights and its obligations.
After the mine spilled cyanide into the stream in 2004, Manu and her father immediately collected water samples and dead fish, and sent them to WACAM and Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "WACAM taught us that cyanide is extremely poisonous, but that exposure to the sun reduces its toxicity," Manu explained. "Usually when we complain to the EPA they take 10 days to come here, so that is why we had to get the samples right away." WACAM helped secure medical care for sick villagers and convened a press conference so the villagers could pressure the company to clean up the mess and compensate people affected by the poison. WACAM and another legal aid organization funded by Oxfam America, CEPIL, helped the citizens of Dumasi take the company to court, and they are awaiting a decision.
Efforts like this have helped the people of Dumasi force the company to halt the blasting that hurled rocks into their houses and cracked their foundations. For now the mining has stopped while the company tries to relocate the village—but first it has to negotiate a deal with a group of citizens who will no longer allow the government and mining company to take advantage of them.
The training WACAM provided for the people of Dumasi has helped them defend their rights, but it is also changing the way they think about themselves and others. Manu realized that she can be a leader, someone who can make a difference in her village and the world. "After this training, I can see how important education is, so I am enrolled in school," she said. "I want to be a political leader, maybe a member of parliament."
Manu's motivations and sense of responsibility go well beyond her village. "I see fellow human beings as I see myself, and if they can't defend their rights, then I have to help them," she said. "I am saving humanity."
]]>