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Recent Resources for Feminists
 August 24 2010
SOUTH AFRICA: Climate Change Policy Ignores Women FarmersBy Kristin Palitza
 The government's plans for adaptation offer little to smallholder farmers, who are among those most vulnerable to climate change (Kristin Palitza/IPS)
CAPE TOWN, Aug 24, 2010 (IPS) - When asked if they have already felt the effects of climate change, Mary-Anne Zimri and Katrina Scheepers eagerly nod their heads. The two small-scale farmers say lack of rain this winter has foiled their planting season, ruined their harvest – and drastically slashed their income.
"We have been hit on all sides," says Zimri, who together with Scheepers belongs to a farming cooperative in Wuppertal, a small hamlet in South Africa’s Western Cape province. The coop specialises in rooibos tea, but also plants vegetables and keeps livestock.
"We normally start planting rooibos in July, but this year it has been too dry to plant," says Zimri. For decades, she and her colleagues have relied on the steady rains of the South African winter to irrigate their crops. But now, a change in weather patterns has caused a noticeable reduction in rainfall, she says.
Since the coop does not have access to an irrigation system, Zimri and her fellow farmers have to fetch water from the river and carry it in buckets for several kilometres back to their fields. But what they can carry is not sufficient to generate a good harvest.
Not only the rooibos has been affected. Reduced rainfall also meant that their animal feed did not grow as expected, and the farmers’ vegetable harvest is much smaller than the previous year. "It’s not only us. Most farmers in the area lost their crop because it’s been so dry," says Scheepers.
To make matters worse, due to unusually low winter temperatures, frost has burnt the coop’s potato harvest. "This has never happened before; not in the last 50 years," she notes.
The farmers are in a tough situation. Their remote community, 75 kilometres from the nearest grocery shop, has always relied on the vegetables the farmers grow for food security. Adding to the difficulties, the coop now has to buy animal feed at extra cost.
For most members of the coop, who rent land from their local church for a small fee, the drastic shortfall in income means that they have to find seasonal jobs on commercial farms in order to survive. But these jobs are usually badly paid and without job security or benefits.
To learn more about ways for small-scale farmers to adapt to climate change and about related legislation, Zimri and Scheepers attended a roundtable discussion titled "Women and climate change adaptation: a focus on food security", organised by the World Wide Fund (WWF) for Nature and held at the University of the Western Cape on Aug. 18.
"The issues of climate change, poverty, environment and gender are tightly interwoven and cannot be separated," explained WWF South Africa national climate change policy officer Louise Naudé during the meeting.
"Women farmers are particularly affected by climate change, food insecurity and disaster, so we have to drive gender equality and decrease women’s vulnerability in the sector."
Research has shown that women are more likely to feel the effects of climate change because they have less access to resources. Changing weather patterns increase poor women’s work burden on gathering water and firewood. Girls may be forced to forgo school in order to contribute to the increased household work.
Where traditional land tenure is practiced, women may lose land normally reserved for growing crops for household consumption to give way for commercial crops.
The South African government, through its Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA), is in the process of developing a national climate change policy. Consultations with a few environmental experts and civil society organisations took place in May.
The content of the draft document remains confidential, but according to gender experts, who have been provided with a draft of the policy, it does not once mention the words "women" or gender", despite the fact that most small-scale farmers are women and women are the most vulnerable to climate change and disaster.
"An effective climate change policy must begin and end with people, but this document ignores that," says Dorah Lebelo, coordinator of advocacy group Gender CC – Women for Climate Justice.
"We need to urge government to build a just and sustainable policy. The DEA should mainstream gender into the document," she insisted, suggesting that gender organisations throughout the country make submissions to ensure that women’s issues will be included in the climate change policy.
Lebelo is also concerned that the consultation process in May was not inclusive enough. "Only a few stakeholders were consulted, which is in no way a substitute for full consultation with women, those who are affected by climate change the most," she noted.
She further disapproved of the fact that consultations were requested largely via email. "The DEA works on the assumption that people can read and write and thus excludes 24 percent of South African adults who are profoundly affected by climate change, especially women," Lebelo further explained.
It also means that small-scale farmers, most of whom are women, who don’t have access to a computer and the Internet, will be largely excluded from the process.
From the confidential draft document, it appears that the South African government mainly plans to promote large-scale, market-based climate change adaptation solutions, such as nuclear power or genetic modification, and not ones that can be accessed by women.
"Priorities seem to be placed on technologies not on lifestyle changes that ordinary people can implement in their daily lives," explained Lebelo.
"Instead, gender experts should lobby government to encourage the participation of communities and particularly women in decision-making, planning and governance of climate change related matters.
"We need people-centred solutions that are context-specific, participatory and use local knowledge," she stressed. "Ultimately, we want to create environmental circumstances where women are in control and don’t depend on others."
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 Thursday 26 August 2010
Putin Fires Darts at Gray Whale from Crossbow The Associated Press
  Prime Minister Vladimir Putin leveling an arbalest as he sails on a rubber boat in Olga Harbor off the Kamchatka peninsula during a scientific expedition to study grey whales on Wednesday (Alexei Druzhinin / Reuters/RIA Novosti)
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fired darts from a crossbow at a gray whale off the Pacific coast on Wednesday in the latest in a series of man-versus-nature stunts designed to cultivate the image of a macho leader.
Putin held his balance in a rubber boat that was being tossed around in choppy waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula, and eventually hit the whale with a special arrow designed to collect skin samples.
"I hit it on the fourth try!" a beaming Putin, kitted out in a black-and-orange waterproof suit and a black beanie, yelled to a camera crew from the boat.
A biologist with him displayed the skin sample and said it would allow experts to determine where the whale came from.
When the boat skidded onto the beach, a buoyant Putin hopped off and made a beeline for waiting reporters. Clearly in his element, Putin replied jovially to a question as to whether the endeavor was dangerous.
"Living in general is dangerous," he quipped. Asked why he got involved, he simply said: "Because I like it. I love the nature."
But nature may be under threat by a seismic survey being conducted nearby by Russia's top oil company, Rosneft. The International Fund for Animal Welfare released a statement on Wednesday condemning the two-month, pre-drilling survey as potentially damaging to the gray whales. In the course of exploration, oil companies use seismic air guns and other sources to produce pulses of acoustic energy through the water. Scientists say this is damaging to much marine life, and the timing is bad for the whales, which are currently in a narrow feeding window to store fat for the entire year.
During his eight years as president and during the past two as prime minister, Putin has learned to use television to cultivate the image of a rugged leader beloved by the Russian people.
His mastery of the medium has been on full display in recent weeks as he has taken command of efforts to extinguish wildfires that swept across much of western Russia and to help the thousands of people who lost their homes.
The message has been that it is Putin, rather than his junior co-leader President Dmitry Medvedev, who is equipped to look after Russia, its people and environment. Putin has been canny about his plans to run in the 2012 presidential election, but has excluded running against Medvedev, saying the two will come to an agreement. Whatever the decision, his action-man lifestyle shows that he is not about to recede from public view.
He has been photographed fishing bare-chested in the Altai republic, and was shown on television diving into an icy river and swimming the butterfly stroke.
In April, he attached a satellite-tracking collar onto a tranquilized polar bear. He also has shot a Siberian tiger with a tranquilizer gun and released leopards into a wildlife sanctuary.
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 Dublin ~ Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Prostitutes forced to take more risks, says charitySTEVEN CARROLL
Scroll down to also read the horrific details of the dangerous, brutal and tragic lives of women who worked in the many brothels of pimp Thomas J Carroll's "Family Business"
THE DEMAND for prostitutes has not decreased during the recession but male punters are forcing sex workers to take bigger risks to earn money, said Ruhama, the charity for women affected by prostitution.
Prostitutes working both on the streets and in brothels are being forced to engage with men who refuse to wear condoms and are being subjected to more physical and emotional abuse, according to the charity’s chief executive Sarah Benson.
Speaking following the publication of Ruhama’s annual report, Ms Benson said: “Women in 2009 reported horrific levels of sexual, physical and emotional abuse. The reporting of rape and sexual assault was almost universal.
“Women reported having been punched in the face, the stomach, being kicked down stairs, beaten for refusing to have sex with men, being locked in and refused food, being burned, being bitten.”
 Ruhama saw its caseload increase by 20 per cent last year. The charity, which provides counselling, accommodation, education and outreach services, engaged with 196 women, of which 66 were believed to be victims of trafficking.
Two of those it assisted were children when trafficked to Ireland, with one girl aged just 15 when she was first brought here.
Almost half of 26 women trafficked into the State last year were from Nigeria, and Ruhama said most were in their 20s and located in the Dublin region. Others came from Romania, Kenya, Somalia and Slovakia.
The Immigrant Council of Ireland estimates there are at least 1,000 women working in prostitution in Ireland at any given time, and Ms Benson said this figure was probably just the tip of the iceberg.
She said legislation in the area of prostitution needed to catch up as many of those running brothels and trafficking women were able to keep their distance by monitoring operations using webcams.
Ms Benson also called for a clamp down on those found to be buying sex and said these people should named and shamed.
Beatrise, a woman who engaged with Ruhama last year, said she came to Ireland having been promised work as a nanny. However, she was forced into the sex trade as soon as she arrived by the man who had brought her here from Latvia.
“[He] said I had to pay back all the money I owed for my transport here. I spoke hardly any English and didn’t even really know where I was – I felt so sick and trapped.”
Despite an increase in demand for its services, Ruhama’s statutory funding was cut by around 20 per cent last year.
“We want to be able to continue to support these women . . . but we are seriously restricted by the funding available to us. We ask people out there who may wish to help to visit our website and make a contribution,” said Ruhama chairman Diarmaid Ó Corrbuí.
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 Dublin ~ Monday, August 23, 2010
Charity for women in prostitution sees cases increaseThe country's leading charity for women in prostitution saw cases increase by more than 20% last year, new figures showed today.
Ruhama assisted almost 200 women affected by the underground sex industry in 2009, of which 66 were victims of trafficking.
Two of those helped were children at the time of being trafficked, with one girl aged just 15 when she was first brought to Ireland.
The organisation said nearly half of the women brought in to the country were from Nigeria, with the majority located in Dublin.
Ruhama's chief executive Sarah Benson warned that the figures in the 2009 annual report were only the tip of the iceberg, with many more women trapped in underground operations.
"Women in 2009 reported horrific levels of sexual, physical and emotional abuse," she added.
"The reporting of rape and sexual assault was almost universal, many women also experienced sexual abuse as children and young women. Some were groomed by family members and partners into prostitution.
"Women reported having been punched in the face, the stomach, being kicked down stairs, beaten for refusing to have sex with men, being locked in and refused food, being burned, being bitten."
Ruhama worked with 59 women through its outreach initiative last year and 137 women through its more intensive casework service, where each person is assigned a caseworker and a care plan.
But despite an increase in demand for its services, the voluntary organisation saw official funding cut by around 20% last year.
Ruhama chairman Diarmaid O Corrbui said the charity was severely limited by the lack of money available.
"We want to be able to continue to support these women and develop our services, but we are seriously restricted by the funding available to us," he said.
"We ask people out there who may wish to help to visit our website, www.ruhama.ie, and make a contribution.
"We will also be continuing to attempt to have our official funding increased, as it's not possible to do the work that needs to be done without increased funding."
Since it was established in 1989 Ruhama has supported more than 2,000 women, many of whom have ended their link to prostitution.
It runs a range of programmes which include personal development, life skills, counselling, accommodation provision and education.
The charity also provides ongoing assistance to victims of sex trafficking including crisis accommodation, befriending, advocacy, accompaniment and repatriation.
Press Association
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Dublin ~ May 25, 2010
Scheme to aid sex trafficking victimsA new Fás-funded training scheme has been set up to help women involved in prostitution and suspected victims of sex trafficking integrate back into society, it was revealed today.
The pilot project, the first of its kind, is designed to act as a bridging mechanism providing the women with educational modules and career guidance and prepare them for possible further training.
The women are provided with a range of courses, including English, literacy, computers, sewing and creative writing, as well as assertiveness work and yoga.
Some 17 people are currently taking part in the employment agency course, which runs until October. Just one woman is from Ireland while the rest are from areas ranging from Africa to Eastern Europe.
Sarah Benson, the chief executive of support group Ruhama, said it is hoped the scheme will continue beyond the pilot phase.
“For Fás, because ordinarily you have to meet certain eligibility criteria... to take this step is a hugely positive outreach that they’re doing in terms of trying to connect with those who are in that position to try and bridge into mainstream Fetac education," she said.
“A serious consequence of engaging people in courses where they aren’t actually ready yet is that they are set up to fail.”
Ms Benson said Fas has provided just over €100,000 in funding for the scheme, which began in January.
Meanwhile Marion Walsh, the executive director of the anti-human trafficking unit at the Department of Justice, said that since the beginning of 2009, 10 people have been prosecuted for offences related to human trafficking linked to Ireland.
Most of the prosecutions have been on foot of evidence transferred from Ireland to other jurisdictions.
In Ireland one person was last year convicted of attempting to traffic a child for sexual exploitation and sentenced to six years. Ms Walsh said the Director of Public Prosecutions is appealing against the sentence, arguing it is too lenient.
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Dublin ~ May 10, 2010
 Carroll case is no exception in Ireland
THE STATE’S leading group assisting women involved in prostitution says that while the details of the oppression and violence inflicted by TJ Carroll and his associates are shocking, they are far from uncommon.
Ruhama, a Dublin-based voluntary organisation, says many international and Irish-organised gangs are now conspiring to traffic women into Ireland for sexual exploitation at a time when prosecutions for trafficking are non-existent.
The group’s spokesperson Gerardine Rowley said the key control mechanisms used by TJ Carroll’s gang and those he worked with – debt bondage, voodoo rituals and threats of violence – are often experienced by African women trafficked to Ireland.
“Some are also undocumented and they are afraid to go to the gardaí,” Rowley says of the victims. “In many cases they come from countries where the authorities like police forces are corrupt so they don’t think of going to the police.
“But really they’re trapped in their minds from fear and intimidation. They are so oppressed they’re not able to get away themselves and ask for help.”
The TJ Carroll case underlined not only the extent of sexual exploitation in Ireland, but also how sophisticated and lucrative it has become. Rowley says Ruhama assisted the women identified as having been trafficked into Carroll’s empire, six of whom are still in Ireland and have various immigration statuses.
“We saw the human face of these crimes. We saw the impact it had on the women and children, because two of the victims we saw were minors. It’s a wake-up call not only in terms of prioritising policing but also in terms of prioritising services to support victims of these crimes.”
Ruhama initially had “great hopes” for the Criminal Law (Human Trafficking) Act. But two years after its enactment, while charges for brothel-keeping and controlling prostitution are regularly before the courts, no trafficking cases have progressed.
“Without total enforcement of the legislation we’re not going to have a deterrent and we’re still going to be an attractive place for criminals to exploit women in the sex trade and make huge amounts of money, which cases like the Carroll case are showing,” adds Rowley
Even operations much smaller than the network built up by TJ Carroll can be extremely lucrative.
Last week the High Court heard evidence from Det Garda Lucy Myles, of the Criminal Assets Bureau, that a Chinese woman being targeted by the bureau had made more than €1 million in recent years through running one “massage parlour” on Thomas Street in Dublin’s south inner city.
Det Garda Myles said Junxiu Hua, a convicted brothel keeper, held a number of bank accounts in different financial institutions here, and between November 2004 and April 2008 a total of €1,251,834.65 passed through them.
Gerardine Rowley says such cases, where key figures are in control of women and are becoming rich, are now the norm.
Women are operating from brothels in apartments and houses across the country. The majority are controlled in some way by Irish or foreign third parties, either by traditional pimp-style figures taking some of their earnings or by others charging grossly inflated fees to rent the properties being used as brothels, or for advertising space on websites known to advertise sexual services.
Rowley is calling for more proactive policing of Ireland’s prostitution trade and for regular raids on known brothels and other locations linked to all forms of sexual exploitation.
In its biennial report for 2007-2008, Ruhama revealed that 100 of the 431 women it helped during the two-year period were victims of trafficking, the majority from Nigeria. Six of those were aged under 18 years when they were brought to Ireland and forced to have sex with men.
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Dublin ~ Monday, Saturday, May 8, 2010
A pimp's family business
By CONOR LALLY, Crime Correspondent
TJ Carroll’s recent conviction gave an insight into prostitution in Ireland, but the case did not reveal the full extent of his empire – brothels in almost every Irish county and an emerging business in South Africa – or the ruthless control he exerted over women who worked for him
BY THE TIME police in Wales arrested TJ Carroll on a December morning in 2008, the largely unknown Carlow man had amassed wealth that would have been the envy of even the biggest drug dealers in Ireland.
He’d built an international property portfolio and boasted seven-figure cash savings. Not for him the high-risk gangland world of drug trafficking and debt collection down the barrel of a gun. He specialised in exploiting the poor and vulnerable, and made tens of thousands of euro weekly from his many brothels across the Republic and the North.
He was aided by his wife, Shamiela Clark, a former prostitute from South Africa who is 16 years his junior and once went by the name of Carmen. He also introduced his daughter from his first marriage, Toma, into the business.
All three were jailed in Wales in February, but because they pleaded guilty, the full cruelty of their empire was never revealed in evidence in court. The Irish Times has since spoken at length to many senior security sources in the Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain whose investigation brought down TJ Carroll. They have revealed how foreign women were effectively bonded into near slavery in brothels in 48 locations across Ireland , and forced in many cases to hand up virtually all of their earnings.
Sources have also revealed that just before TJ Carroll was caught he was about to open brothels in South Africa especially for soccer fans travelling there for next month’s World Cup.
Born on March 26th, 1961, Thomas John Carroll was originally from St Mullins, by the river Barrow in south Carlow. He later settled in Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, married and had three children.
In the mid 1990s he established a business supplying bouncers to pubs and clubs in the southeast before branching into prostitution. At first, he joined forces with an established prostitution organiser in the southeast who later fled Ireland when a rape allegation against him emerged during 2004. Carroll quickly turned gang boss.
In 2005 he organised foreign prostitutes from apartments across Waterford, Wexford and Carlow, prompting a Garda raid when a number of women complained of being beaten by Carroll’s associates in rows over money.
Carroll fled to Galway where he quickly established himself again, targeting vulnerable women who wouldn’t go to the police.
He met Shamiela Clark, who was then in her 20s and working as a prostitute. The two became lovers, had a son and married after Carroll divorced his first wife. In September 2006, Carroll and Clark were arrested in Galway when €225,000 cash was found in properties linked to them. Under questioning they admitted controlling prostitution, according to Garda sources.
TJ Carroll told gardaí of his illegal enterprise: “It saves rapes and child molestations. It gives people somewhere to go.” Released from Garda custody pending criminal charges, the pair decided to flee to Wales.
A European arrest warrant was issued for Carroll as a major investigation led by the Garda’s Organised Crime Unit was intensified. But by late 2007 both he and Clark were in business again, this time from Pembrokeshire in south Wales, where they believed they were out of reach of the Irish authorities and under the radar of the British police.
It was here, from an old vicarage in the tiny hamlet of Castlemartin, that they built what is thought to be Ireland’s largest prostitution business, which at its height turned annual profits in excess of €1 million.
“The women used were commodities to them,” said one source. They came from Nigeria, eastern Europe, Venezuela, Brazil and other parts of South America. Some were experienced in prostitution. They had answered thinly veiled newspaper adverts for “domestic staff” and came to Ireland in the full knowledge of what they were getting into. Others, usually young, poorly educated or orphaned Nigerians, were much more vulnerable. They were trafficked into Ireland by African gangs on the promise of jobs or educational opportunities. Once here, they were forced to work in Carroll’s brothels on the pretence of paying off the massive cost of their passage to Ireland; sometimes up to €60,000 was demanded by their African traffickers.
ASSAULTS AND THREATS of violence were used by TJ Carroll’s agents in Ireland to control the women. They were constantly moved around between brothels North and South to disorientate them and to provide customers with “variety”.
Sources believe Carroll “did a deal” with major Dublin-based criminals involved in prostituting to stay out of the capital if they stayed out of his regional bases.
Carroll and Clark used two websites to advertise scantily clad “exotic babes” in brothels across virtually every county in Ireland. They were officially listed as escort agencies, but the sexual services listed clearly revealed the true nature of the enterprise.
Women were advertised in, to name but a few towns and cities, Cavan, Drogheda, Athlone, Sligo, Mullingar, Carlow, Kilkenny, Enniscorthy, Newbridge, Waterford, Newry, Omagh, Lurgan, Armagh and Belfast.
When prospective customers rang to contact a woman, the Irish mobile phones were answered in Wales by Shamiela Clark – up to 300 calls a day between 10am and 1am. She would direct the men to the brothels, often over a series of three or four calls in an effort to screen for undercover detectives. The men would be charged €160 for 30 minutes and €260 for a full hour, with “extras on request”. Women were not allowed to refuse a customer.
Most of the vast sums generated in the brothels – in apartments rented from unsuspecting landlords by well-dressed agents of Carroll’s using false names – were collected by Toma Carroll. The former law student was just 22 when she first got involved. She electronically transferred cash to her father’s account in Wales and money was also brought to Wales by Toma via car ferry. In 2007 alone, the authorities traced cash transfers of €1.13 million. At one point, TJ Carroll had €854,000 in a single Credit Union account.
Investment properties, nine in all, were traced in Wales, Cyprus, Bulgaria, South Africa and Mozambique – all are now the subject of assets confiscation proceedings. The South African properties, four in Johannesburg, were to be used as brothels that would be opened for the World Cup and kept in business thereafter.
THE FAMILY BUSINESS came unstuck when the PSNI’s Organised Crime Branch in late 2007 began studying internet prostitution advertisements for evidence of human trafficking, and an ongoing Garda operation simultaneously closed in.
 A raid on one brothel in December 2007 struck gold. Paperwork for a cash transfer from one of the women to TJ Carroll was found with his name on it.
Two African women found on the premises agreed to be taken to a safe place by detectives and to be interviewed. “They genuinely believed they might be killed,” says one source.
When the PSNI contacted the Garda, it found TJ Carroll was under long-term active investigation by the force’s Organised Crime Unit, which had a wealth of information on the target. The UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) was brought in to aid the complex multi-jurisdictional investigation.
Garda and PSNI detectives continued their surveillance of TJ Carroll’s brothels, and questioned customers who were leaving the premises. Their statements confirmed that the mobile numbers on the websites were linked to the properties, and that they were being used as brothels.
Electronic surveillance also revealed that the scores of mobile numbers advertised on the websites were being answered in south Wales. Twelve women who worked for Carroll also gave statements to gardaí against him during the course of the joint Garda and PSNI investigation. Some of the women travelled around the country to identify exactly where brothels had been operating; some were open for just weeks before being closed and the women moved on.
All of the evidence was pooled and given to SOCA. It was decided that because TJ Carroll and his wife had controlled prostitution from Wales, they must be charged there, even though the brothels were in Ireland.
SOCA, with the help of the Welsh police, raided TJ Carroll and Shamiela Clark’s Welsh home on the morning of December 3rd, 2008. Clark was at home with her two young children – one fathered by Carroll and one from an earlier union. The police found 80 mobile phones – containing many incriminating texts to customers and women – two computers, receipts for rental properties and paperwork for the purchases of nine properties. Some €20,000 in cash was also found, along with rate cards and sample adverts for “leggy, flexible, kinky” women and their sexual services which were to be posted on websites.
TJ Carroll was arrested in his car a short distance from his home. “For a man with a known propensity for violence, he came quietly,” said one source.
At the same time, the Garda raided nine brothels in this country, taking a number of women to safety and arresting seven people suspected of running the logistics of the empire in the Republic. Criminal charges are imminent against at least two of Carroll’s close associates in the Republic.
TJ Carroll and Clark were jailed in February for seven and 3.5 years respectively for controlling prostitution and money laundering. Toma Carroll was jailed for two years for money laundering. Charges of trafficking against TJ Carroll and Clark were not pursued when they agreed to plead guilty to the other charges.
However, in his sentencing remarks, Judge Neil Bidder QC at Cardiff Crown Court noted: “It is more than coincidence that several of those Nigerian women tell stories of dreadful coercion and/or ended up working for you. You were willing to pay others to collect money from them, who were prepared to use threats and violence to keep them in prostitution.”
Violence and voodoo: why the women couldn't just quit
TJ Carroll used threats against family members and voodoo rituals to intimidate his sex workers
The most vulnerable and easy to control of the hundreds of women who worked in TJ Carroll’s brothels were the young Nigerians.
Their families, mostly in rural Nigeria, were approached by people known to them, with a promise of education or a job for a female member of the family in her teens or early 20s.
“The understanding would be that when they got to UK, Europe, Ireland, wherever, they’d need to work for a while to pay back the traffickers for their passage,” says one source whose investigative work helped bring down TJ Carroll.
Before leaving Nigeria, voodoo rituals were performed to “bond” the women to their traffickers.
One woman told Irish investigators that before leaving Nigeria a witch doctor had made her “swear that I will pay back the money or I am going to die”.
She was then forced to eat a heart taken from a live chicken and her hair and nails were cut as part of the ceremony. “It was very clear they had real fears as a result of the rituals,” says one source.
The women or girls – two Nigerians found working in a brothel in the Republic were aged just 15 and 17 years – were told on arrival in the UK or Europe from Africa that they owed their traffickers vast sums for their passage, sometimes up to €60,000. They were sent on the last stage of the journey to Ireland, usually by plane, and given a phone number to call on arrival.
This number was always answered by Shamiela Clark. She directed them by taxi to one of her and TJ Carroll’s many brothels. Prostitution was then presented to the women as their only way of paying their debts to their African traffickers.
The women had no idea where they were and, with no money, had nowhere else to go.
A number of men – Irish-based associates of Carroll – controlled the brothels, ensuring that no customers were turned away. If the women did not comply with customers’ requests during their 15-hour shifts in the brothels – from 10am to 1am – they were threatened and beaten.
If this did not force total compliance from the women, Carroll’s associates would make contact in Africa with agents of the original trafficking gang. The gangs would travel to the women’s families and assault them because of the “difficulties” their young female relatives were creating in Ireland.
One Irish security source says: “In some cases the women here were put on the phone to their relatives back home to be told, ‘we’ve been assaulted and it’s going to get worse for us’. The attitude was ‘you must work to pay this debt’.”
The women’s lack of education, poor English, illegal status in Ireland and limited life experience – plus the threats of violence here and voodoo curses from Africa – meant they were unable to extricate themselves from their situations.
The constant moving of the women between brothels around Ireland also disoriented them and made it difficult to develop deep friendships with other women, which could have empowered them in time.
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Dublin ~ Monday, May 10, 2010
Life inside an Irish brothel
PROSTITUTION IN IRELAND: PART TWO In the second of a two-part series, Crime Correspondent CONOR LALLY looks at the dangerous, brutal and tragic lives of women who worked in the many brothels run by TJ Carroll
IN FEBRUARY 2010, TJ Carroll was convicted of running one of the largest vice rings in the history of the State. From a small house in south Wales, Carroll, with help from his wife and daughter, managed a network of 48 brothels throughout Ireland.
However, because they pleaded guilty to various charges, the full details of how Carroll and his associates built and ran the business were not revealed in evidence in court. A number of sources and those close to the investigation have spoken to The Irish Times about the full extent of Carroll’s prostitution business.
When one of the brothels run by TJ Carroll was raided in December 2007, the detectives involved were taken aback at what they found. Usually, police are stonewalled by women and prostitution organisers in such operations; in this case, officers found two Nigerian women who immediately took up an offer to be taken to a place of safety.
They gave detailed statements about how they were trafficked from Africa by gangs there and sexually exploited in Ireland by the 49-year-old Carlow man’s operation. “It was the sense of fear that existed of being beaten, even killed, that told us what was going on was very, very serious,” says one senior detective.
The evidence the two women supplied, and testimony from 10 others throughout the Republic and North that the Garda’s Organised Crime Unit, the PSNI’s Organised Crime Bureau and the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency encountered, was vital in building the case against TJ Carroll.
Along with his second wife, Shamiela Clark (now 32), he was arrested in December 2008 in Wales, and is now in prison in the UK for controlling prostitution and money laundering.
This is thought to have been Ireland’s biggest ever vice empire. One of the women’s statements outlined how a witch doctor was used to control her before she even left Africa with her traffickers, to whom she knew she would be financially indebted for her passage.
“They took me to a witch doctor and I have to swear an oath that I will pay the money or I am going to die . . . After swearing the oath they cut the heart of a live chicken. They gave me the chest to eat. They made me take off my clothes in a burial ground. Then I had to swear I would not run away and not go to the police.
“The witch doctor then cut my chest, my waist, my legs, my two thumbs and my head. I was very scared because . . . I believed them.”
Another girl was aged just 15 when she was brought to Ireland from Africa. She spoke of her continued fear of the voodoo-based “oath” she had pledged to her traffickers.
“I thought I was coming for school,” she said of her passage from Africa to Ireland. “I did not know anyone in Ireland to ask for help. I was very scared. Since I left the agency, I still live in fear. I don’t sleep at night. I’m afraid if I close my eyes I won’t wake up. I’m afraid that I have broken the oath. My family have been threatened because I am slow at paying the [traffickers’] money.”
The account of a third woman suggests a life of misery in Africa, one she hoped to escape by being trafficked to Europe.
“I was eight years old when my father started to abuse me. By the time I was 20, I had three abortions. I overheard my father on the phone one day say it was about time he sacrifice me to the cult. A friend told me she knew of a woman who comes from Europe who could help me.”
The organisation was run by TJ Carroll, a former security firm owner, and his second wife Shamiela Clark, a former prostitute from South Africa. At its height in 2007, the business generated profits of more than €1 million.
Some of the women working for Carroll were experienced prostitutes who had worked in other countries and came to Ireland, mostly from South America and eastern Europe, for what they believed would be significant earnings.
Other younger and more vulnerable women were trafficked from Africa to Ireland via other major European cities.
At this stage, the women were told they would have to work in prostitution as a means of paying off their debts to their African traffickers; €60,000 was demanded by the traffickers in some cases. Most of the women spoke little English, had no money, no idea where they were, and had no place to go to. They were placed in brothels where they lived and saw clients. Foreign women were chosen because they had no support networks in Ireland. Their services were advertised by TJ Carroll and Clark on escort websites.
When customers in Ireland rang one of up to 80 mobile numbers on the websites, they would be connected to a call centre and directed by phone to the nearest brothel. The call centre was run from an old vicarage in the tiny hamlet of Castlemartin in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where Carroll and Clark lived after leaving the Republic in late 2006 to avoid increasing Garda attention.
According to security sources in the Republic and the UK, the women faced a brutal regime in Ireland. They worked 15-hour shifts from 10am to 1am, during which time they were not allowed to turn away any clients.
The men paid €160 for a half hour, €260 for an hour, and “extras” could be negotiated. Brothels were mostly located in apartments rented for short periods under false names by Carroll’s people, using bogus stories and fake references.
Some of the youngest and most vulnerable Nigerians were forced to give all of their earnings to Carroll’s associates in Ireland. “They survived on tips from punters or on whatever ‘extras’ they could perform without Carroll’s people knowing,” says one security source.
Making money from “extras” was made difficult by Shamiela Clark’s micro management. Women would be informed by text when a customer was on the way. They would be told to text Clark when they arrived and immediately when they left. If the women ever left the brothels to go to nearby shops they were often accompanied by a minder, or engaged in near constant telephone contact with Clark from Wales.
“They were never held against their will in the sense of being locked in rooms, but they had no freedom at all,” is how one source described it.
Security sources on both sides of the Border say Carroll’s associates would beat women for anything short of full compliance with “brothel rules”.
According to one source: “It was a regime of oppression designed to keep women under total control so Carroll could make as much money off them as possible.”
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 July 17 2009
Please Scroll down to read of the Natalia Estemirova Scholarship launched by Reach all Women in WAR on the first anniversary of Natalias death, and link for donations  Russian Federation: Natalia Estemirova - A Testament to Courage
In 2003 Natalia Estemirova spoke to the 2003 Dublin Platform for human rights Defenders. In her testimony she described the incredible courage of those who struggled to document and challenge the human rights abuses being perpetrated in Chechnya. Natalia Estemirova is the latest victim of a climate of impunity in which harassment and intimidation, kidnappings and killings go unpunished. Natalia Estemirova paid for her courage with her life - her words speak for themselves.
Testimony by Natalia Estemirova to the 2003 Dublin Platform"I would like to tell you about a woman of whose life and death, I believe, the people must know.
Her name was Zura Bitieva. She lived in a small Chechen village. During ‘95-‘96, when the Russian army occupied Chechnya, she was actively involved in anti-war protests. She was not afraid of the fatal consequences. In 1999, the Russian army again invaded Chechnya, and in February 2000 she and her son Idris, were taken into the Chernokozov prison by a Russian soldier. Conditions of this prison were appalling in their brutality. Torture, killing, assault and human degradation were all part of this institution.
Zura was a small, aged and very sick woman. But her soul and the strength of her spirit, withstood the threats and beating of her captors. She defended other inmates in prison, with this strength. Zura went on hunger strike. She was released in a very ill condition. Her friends helped her go to Turkey.
But once her health was slightly better, she went back to Chechnya, and began collecting evidence of crimes committed by the Russian soldiers and militia against the peaceful citizens of Chechnya. This evidence she submitted to UN and organizations for human rights.
In the middle of a spring night 2003, her house was broken into by camouflaged and masked men. These men were part of the Russian forces. They killed her, her son Idris, her husband and her brother. Her one year-old grandson was gagged and left in a puddle of blood. Only her other son, escaped death by hiding in time.
Half a year passed, and the crime has still not been investigated.
Exactly two years before this event, Islamic fundamentalists in conjunction with the Russian forces, mortally wounded human rights defender Viktor Popkov. Still, the killers have not been brought to justice, even though this is quite possible.
In spring this year, men in camouflage and masks kidnapped a defender Imran Ezhiev. The press raised a storm, and after a few days Imran was dropped and left on a dirt road. To this day, he does not know where he had been, as he was gagged and cuffed. But he does know that his kidnappers were part of the Russian forces. He was saved by the press outcry.
I suggest that whenever a human rights defender is suffering, we should hold massive press gatherings to free the defender and lead proper investigations into their arrests."
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 July 15 2009
 Natalia Estemirova: Russian Rights Activist Kidnapped, Found Dead
MIKE ECKEL and MANSUR MIROVALEV
MOSCOW A well-known Russian rights activist was found slain execution-style on Wednesday, hours after being kidnapped in Chechnya – the latest in a series of brazen murders targeting critics of the Kremlin's violent policies in the war-torn North Caucasus.
The daylight slaying of Natalya Estemirova follows the killings in recent years of reporters, lawyers and activists, and appeared to indicate that Russia remains a place where political murders are committed with impunity.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reacted quickly to the murder – in contrast to other recent killings – expressing his condolences, and ordering the country's top investigative official "to take all necessary measures." His press spokeswoman Natalya Timakova said Estemirova's murder appeared to be related to her work.
The slaying came the same day as the release of a report she helped research that concluded there was enough evidence to demand that Russian officials, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, be called to account for crimes committed on their watch.
"She documented the most horrendous violations, mass executions," said Tatyana Lokshina, a Moscow researcher with the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch.
"She has done things no one else dared to do," she said.
Estemirova, a 50-year-old single mother, was reported kidnapped Wednesday morning by the prominent rights organization she worked for, Memorial. Chairman Oleg Orlov said that four men forced her into a car in the Chechen capital, Grozny, where she lived. He said witnesses heard her yell that she was being abducted.
About nine hours later, her body was found on a roadside in Ingushetia, which borders Chechnya to the west. There were two close-range bullet wounds in her head, according to Ingush Interior Ministry spokeswoman Madina Khadziyeva.
Estemirova had collected evidence of rights abuses in Chechnya since the start of the second war there in 1999. She was a key researcher for a recent Human Rights Watch report that accused Chechen authorities of burning more than two dozen houses in the past year to punish relatives of alleged rebels.
Orlov accused Chechnya's Kremlin-backed president, Ramzan Kadyrov, of being behind the murder.
"Ramzan already threatened Natalya, insulted her, considered her his personal enemy," he said. "Ramzan Kadyrov has made it impossible for rights activists to work in Chechnya."
Estemirova also worked with the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another critic of Kremlin policies in the North Caucasus who was gunned down in her Moscow apartment building in 2006. And she aided Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer involved in Chechen rights abuse cases who was shot and killed on a Moscow street in January, along with an opposition newspaper reporter.
Wednesday's killing came a few hours after Russian rights groups presented a report saying that Putin and other top officials should be considered suspects in crimes against humanity that could be tried before an international tribunal.
The 600-page document appeared to be the first comprehensive attempt to collect and analyze accounts of atrocities by all sides in the two wars between separatists and government forces.
There was no evidence that her killing was connected to release of the report. But Markelov was killed as he left a similar news conference at the same office in Moscow, where he had spoken about his efforts to send a Russian colonel who had strangled a Chechen girl back to jail.
In Washington, National Security Council Spokesman Mike Hammer urged Russia to bring those responsible to justice.
"This brutal slaying is especially shocking coming one week after President Obama met with civil society activists in Moscow, including those from Natalya's organization," Hammer said. "Such a heinous crime sends a chilling signal to Russian civil society and the international community."
Andrei Mironov, a rights activist and former gulag prisoner, asserted that Estemirova's killing, and others in recent months, were clearly sanctioned by government officials.
"First off, they kill reporters, to cut off the front line of information. Then they kill activists. ... They are by definition enemies and they must be eliminated," he said. "This is the Russian state. This is a Russian political system that generates terror, systematic terror."
Both wars in Chechnya were marked by reports of indiscriminate military attacks on civilians – including air and rocket barrages that leveled much of the Chechen capital – summary executions of suspected rebel sympathizers and abductions of civilians by both sides.
At least 484 people were executed without a trial during the wars and another 465 killed in massacres or at checkpoints, said Wednesday's report by Memorial and other rights groups.
It comes at a time when international criticism of Russia over Chechnya has receded. Fighting there has dwindled from major offensives to small, sporadic skirmishes.
The authors of the report acknowledged that in calling for an international investigation they face an uphill battle.
Rights lawyer Karinna Moskalenko told reporters that critics have asked her: "Why do you want to lay bare these wounds?"
"We don't know when and under what circumstances, political or otherwise, an independent investigation of these crimes may be created," said Stanislav Dmitriyevsky, chairman of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society.
The report claims to find sufficient grounds to hold Russian officials to account for crimes committed under their leadership.
"Numerous detailed testimonies of these atrocities have allowed us to name some of those who should be the first to be taken to court. ... One of them, Vladimir Putin, is the head of the government de jure and the head of state de facto," the report said.
Putin was prime minister when the second Chechen war was launched in 1999. Russia's brutal strategy during his presidency was seen as one of the main factors behind his extraordinary popularity.
Many of the allegations of abuse in Chechnya have been directed against Kadyrov and his security forces.
Kadyrov has overseen massive efforts to rebuild the region and persuaded hundreds of former militants to join his feared security units. But as he has consolidated his power, many critics and political rivals have been killed – two of them in broad daylight on the streets of Moscow.
His office declined to comment on the Estemirova killing.
Although Chechnya has been comparatively quiet in recent months, violence in neighboring North Caucasus regions has spiraled. The president of Ingushetia was severely wounded in a suicide bombing last month and the top police official in Dagestan was killed by a sniper.
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Associated Press Writer Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed to this report.
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 London ~ Friday, 17 July 2009
Leading article: Killing exposes the true face of modern RussiaThe Kremlin's outrage over Natalia Estemirova's murder rings hollow
Uncovering the truth is a lethal business in Russia and its republics. Another independent human rights activist, Natalia Estemirova, was assassinated this week. She was abducted from near her home in Grozny, the Chechen capital, on Wednesday. Her body was found in the neighbouring state of Ingushetia later that day; she had been shot in the head. Ms Estemirova's death adds to the growing tally of courageous activists and independent journalists who have been assassinated in Russia in recent years.
 Ms Estemirova knew the risks of revealing evidence of human rights abuses in modern Russia as much as anybody. She had experienced threats on more than one occasion. But that does not make her killing any less appalling – or any less damning of the political culture that prevails in her homeland.
There was stern condemnation of the killing from the Russian authorities this week. President Dmitry Medvedev declared his "outrage" at the crime, and the Chechen President, Ramzan Kadyrov, vowed that he would lead the investigation into Ms Estemirova's death. But there were similar promises following the murder of the investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in her Moscow apartment building in 2006, and still no one has been convicted of that murder. Two Chechen men were acquitted of involvement in the crime in February after a farce of a trial. With each unsolved killing, the question grows more insistent: does there exist any genuine desire on the part of either the Russian or Chechen authorities to see the perpetrators of these crimes brought to justice?
Many powerful people in Grozny and Moscow had reason to want Ms Estemirova silenced. She had uncovered numerous human rights abuses by the Chechen authorities – cases of torture, disappearances and extra-judicial killing. She had recently completed an investigation for Human Rights Watch into the Chechen authorities' practice of burning the homes of those suspected of having links to rebel groups. She speaks of these crimes in her final article, which we publish today.
Ms Estemirova was also adept at persuading victims and witnesses to testify in court cases – a considerable skill in a region cowed by the fear of official retribution. No one seriously doubts that she was targeted because of her work in exposing government abuses.
The Kremlin likes to portray Chechnya as a success story of modern Russia – a region being rapidly rebuilt after two decades of terrible conflict. The former Russian president and now Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, declared in front of the Chechen parliament following the 2005 election that "peace has come to the republic". But this "peace" has been achieved by putting the region under the control of a brutal gangster regime. Human rights are routinely abused by the security forces, there is impunity for lawbreakers, and brave individuals such as Ms Estemirova – who tell the world what is really going on – end up dead.
The Kremlin might put on a show of concern about such high-profile killings, but it has shown no inclination to force its Chechen subordinates to change their ways. The Russian government's tight control of the national media show its essential antithesis to the kind of open, democratic society Ms Estemirova was fighting for. Her murder exposes the true face of Chechnya, and modern Russia, and it is not a pretty sight.
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 London ~ July 17, 2009
Chechen leader blamed for killing of human rights activist Natalia EstemirovaBy Roger Boyes
Ms Estemirova had enemies in both Grozny and Moscow
The killing of the Russian human rights activist Natalia Estemirova drew universal condemnation yesterday, with her colleagues already blaming the controversial Chechen President for the crime.
The case is a key test of Russia’s commitment to human rights and a challenge to its relationship with the US after the two countries pressed the diplomatic reset button recently.
President Obama met members of Memorial, the organisation for which Ms Estemirova worked, when he visited Moscow last week.
The murder is also a sharp reminder that Russia’s grip on the security of the North Caucasus is still loose: there have been 50 kidnappings in Chechnya alone this year, along with killings and suicide bombings across the region stretching from Ingushetia to Dagestan.
Ms Estemirova, 50, a widow with one daughter, was found dead on Wednesday afternoon with gunshot wounds to the head and chest, hours after she was seen being bundled into a car outside her home in the Chechen capital, Grozny, shouting: “I am being taken.”
She was killed on the same day as the release of a report that she helped to compile, which concluded that there was enough evidence to demand that Russian officials, including Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, should be called to account for crimes committed in the restive province.
“I know, I’m sure of it, who is guilty of the murder of Natalia,” Oleg Orlov, the director of Memorial, said. “His name is Ramzan Kadyrov” the Chechen leader. He said that Mr Kadyrov saw Ms Estemirova as a personal enemy and that his staff had warned her to stop her investigations.
In Grozny, 100 mourners gathered to remember her outside Memorial’s office. About 50 men and women later walked in a slow procession along Prospekt Putin, a central Grozny street, as her body was taken in a minivan to a cemetery in western Chechnya. One woman at the head of the procession carried a sign that read: “Who Next?”
Ms Estemirova’s daughter, Lana, 15, said she was stunned by the murder. “I can’t imagine that Mum won’t be around any more and that I won’t be making a morning coffee for her,” she said.
“It is an outrage,” President Medvedev of Russia said yesterday during a visit to Munich. He told Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, that the Kremlin would do everything to bring the killers to justice.
Mr Medvedev will be keen to avoid a repeat of the case of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, another expert on human rights abuses in Chechnya, who was shot dead in Moscow in 2006. Her unsolved murder blackened the reputation of Mr Putin, the President at the time, who seemed indifferent to her death.
“Such a heinous crime sends a chilling signal to Russia’s civil society and the international community,” Mike Hammer, the US National Security Council spokesman, said.
Mr Medvedev has placed the investigation in the hands of the state prosecutor, Alexander Bastrykin, who will report directly to the Kremlin.
The Russians will have to act quickly to seize the initiative from Grozny. To the horror of Ms Estemirova’s colleagues, Mr Kadyrov has vowed to hunt down her killers.
“There will be an official inquiry,” he said, “and we will also settle this in the Chechen way. They must be punished as the cruellest of criminals.”
Mr Kadyrov was regarded as an enemy of Ms Estemirova. She had been gathering evidence for Memorial about an alleged campaign of arson attacks by Kadyrov-backed militiamen against his opponents. Her career was dedicated not only to publicising the lot of Mr Kadyrov’s victims but also establishing the chain of command, holding the political leadership accountable.
Analysts say there is a risk that a special unit serving Mr Kadyrov who has said “I don’t kill women” might find some suspects and connect them with his internal rivals from the Vostok brigade, former separatists who switched sides and declared allegiance to the Russians. The veterans are regarded by Mr Kadyrov as a possible challenge to his power. Two brothers, Ruslan and Sulim Yamadayev, who led the Vostok brigade, have been assassinated in recent months Ruslan was shot in Moscow rush-hour traffic last September, and Sulim in his Dubai apartment in March.
The hunt for Ms Estemirova’s killers could mutate into a further purge of the Vostok brigade, a new round of infighting that obscures the circumstances of her death.
Other killings of human rights activists have often descended into score-settling instead of investigation. “Not a single person is brought to justice [in such cases],” Allison Gill, the director of Human Rights Watch in Russia, said.
An Islamic insurgency, inter-clan violence and endemic corruption have all created a lawlessness that the Kremlin has struggled to control. The presence of Muslim militants thought to have been behind the killing of the Interior Minister of Dagestan in June has allowed local counter-insurgency units, and Russian special forces, to expand operations.
It was the savagery of their tactics that Ms Estemirova was trying to chronicle making her enemies not only in Grozny, but also in Moscow. The nickname for the road on which she was killed is Kidnap Highway.
Death in the line of duty
Paul Klebnikov, 41, editor, Forbes Russia, and author; US citizen. Died after being shot four times on July 9, 2004. Had investigated corruption and organised crime. Two suspects acquitted in 2006; FBI became involved last month
Anna Politkovskaya, 48, journalist, Novaya Gazeta, and author. Had exposed human rights abuses in the North Caucasus. Gunned down in her apartment building on October 7, 2006. Three suspects to be retried after an acquittal was overturned in June
Magomed Yevloyev, 37, journalist, founder of Ingushetiya.ru, lawyer and businessman. Prominent Kremlin critic openly opposed to Ingushetia’s government. Shot in the head in a police car on August 31, 2008
Stanislav Markelov, 34, human rights lawyer and journalist. Was appealing against early release of Yuri Budanov, a Russian military officer convicted of killing a young Chechen woman. Shot leaving Moscow press conference on January 15, 2009
Anastasia Baburova, 25, journalist, Novaya Gazeta. Had investigated neo-Nazi groups and taken part in environmental protests. Shot along with Markelov on January 15, 2009
Seventeen journalists have been killed in Russia in relation to their work since 2000, and in only one case have the killers been convicted
Sources: Reuters, Campaign to Protect Journalists
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Natalia Estemirova Scholarship - We want Justice. And you?
Today, on the first anniversary of Natalia Estemirova’s murder, RAW in WAR mourns and remembers Natasha and the truth about the war in Chechnya, for which she paid with her life.
We are launching a campaign to demand justice for Natasha and to honour her truth-telling. We will continue to re-print our open letter from 15 July 2009, the day Natasha was abducted and killed, until justice is done. Please show your support and sign our petition , asking the Russian Government to bring to justice those who killed Natasha Estemirova and Anna Politkovskaya, and the world’s leaders to pledge to do everything in their power to protect the journalists and human rights defenders who work in areas of war and conflict.
Help us to carry on Natasha’s work and to amplify the voice of other women from areas of war and conflict by supporting the Natalia Estemirova Scholarship in Human Rights Journalism.
The scholarship is set up in cooperation with City University in London. The recipient will undertake a one year Master course in Journalism and will also receive the opportunity of an internship placement at the Guardian newspaper.
Help us make this happen! Show your support, donate £1 HERE and ask your friends to do so too.
We need to raise £30,000 to allow the first recipient of the Natalia Estemirova Scholarship to start her programme and her career in human rights journalism.
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 London ~ Monday 13 April 2009, page 16
Taliban shoot dead Afghan politician who championed women's rights• Two gunmen behind killing in Kandahar
• Legislator's colleagues had warned her of attack
 A leading female Afghan politician was shot dead yesterday after leaving a provincial council meeting in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, which her colleagues had begged her not to attend.
Sitara Achakzai was attacked by two gunmen as she arrived at her home in a rickshaw - a vehicle colleagues said she deliberately chose to use to avoid attracting attention.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the murder. The two gunmen were apparently waiting for Achakzai, a 52-year-old women's rights activist who had lived for many years in Germany when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan.
Officials said she returned in 2004 to her home in Kandahar, which is also the birthplace and spiritual home of the Taliban.
One of Achakzai's friends, speaking anonymously, said colleagues had begged her not to attend the meeting, which takes place twice a week.
"She knew the danger she was in. Just a couple of days ago she was joking about the fact that she had a 300,000 rupee price on her head," she said. "Like other women she would always travel in a rickshaw rather than a big armoured Humvee because it's less conspicuous, but it also made her easier prey."
Achakzai's life was in danger because she was not only a women's rights activist but also as a local politician. Taliban militants target anyone associated with the government of Afghanistan and last month launched an audacious assault with four suicide bombers on the provincial council building in Kandahar city, killing 17 people.
There have been many other attacks on women in the province, including the assassination in 2006 of Safia Amajan, the head of the province's women's affairs department.
Malalai Kakar, a top policewoman in the city, was killed last September, and schoolgirls have had acid thrown in their faces as punishment for attending school.
Achakzai had put herself at the forefront of the women's rights struggle in Kandahar, and last year organised a "prayer for peace" demonstration in one of the city's biggest mosques on International Women's Day.
About 1,500 women attended the event, although this year the women were banned from entering the building and instead held a meeting at the city's human rights commission.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council and brother of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, said he had seen Achakzai earlier in the day before she was murdered, and had granted her leave from her duties so she could visit a sick relative in Canada.
"I had just said goodbye and joked that it was a good time to leave because our offices have been totally destroyed and need to be rebuilt."
Karzai added that Achakzai had for the past two years held the post of secretary in the provincial council, which, until her death, had four female members of the 15-strong body. She was married to an academic who taught at Kandahar University.
Wenny Kusama, country director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women, said the murder of Achakzai was an attack "on all freedom".
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 Toronto ~~ Sunday, 12 April 2009
 Targeted killing of women's rights activist shocks Afghans
By JESSICA LEEDER
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN In the hour before her killers pulled up beside the rickshaw and shot her at close range, Sitara Achakzai turned to a female politician riding beside her with a strange look.
“I'm not afraid of death,” said Ms. Achakzai, a well-known women's rights advocate and one of three elected women sitting on Kandahar's provincial council. “I can go and get killed and it's no big deal.”
Ms. Achakzai's friend, a provincial councillor who narrowly escaped death in a bombing at council headquarters less than two weeks ago, was so stunned by the comment, made just before the rickshaw pulled up to her stop, she got out without asking what prompted the revelation. Not long after, news came yesterday that she would never have another chance.
Ms. Achakzai, a dual Afghan and German citizen who returned to help rebuild her country in 2004, was shot at close range by gunmen on motorbikes before her rickshaw could finish the slow crawl back to her home.
The late Sitara Achakzi, one of four female members of the Kandahar Provinical Council, attends a council meeting in Kandahar City on March 11, 2009. (Paula Lerner/Aurora Photos)
Within minutes of the killing, news of Ms. Achakzai's death had spread like wildfire across Kandahar. The killing has both horrified and terrified many educated women in the city, who looked up to the councillor as a role model.
“She is someone who was very well educated and understood what she was doing,” said a prominent businesswoman in Kandahar who has known Ms. Achakzai since her childhood.
“As I woman, I was proud to see someone who was so proud of herself. In any meetings, even when there were men around, she just put her head up so high with such pride it made me proud to be around her,” the businesswoman said.
Although outspoken about women's rights in the past, Ms. Achakzai's friend asked last night that her name not be published for fear publicity would increase threats to her own life. Gulping for air at times and choking back tears, the woman was audibly struggling with disbelief over Ms. Achakzai's death, which has already renewed fears among the burgeoning class of progressive women in this ultra-conservative city. “I want the world to understand how every person in this crazy place is feeling because this is a wake-up call to all of us that we could be next,” the woman said, sobbing. “The sad thing is nobody cares, it seems.”
In recent months, security in Kandahar has markedly deteriorated – even international forces working to secure the province have admitted the city is experiencing a low point. In addition to regular kidnappings of locals and foreign contractors, the downward spiral in the city has had a particular impact on women. In recent months, many prominent women, including famous policewoman Malalai Kakar, have been brutally murdered in public by assassins on behalf of the Taliban. Shortly after Ms. Achakzai's killing, Qari Yousef Ahmedi, a spokesman for the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Ms. Achakzai's husband, a German chemistry professor who has been teaching at Kandahar University, confirmed his wife's death to friends and fellow councillors.
In a sad twist of fate, the couple, growing weary of dangers in Kandahar, had just purchased tickets for a May 1 trip to Toronto, where Ms. Achakzai's ailing mother lives.
“They both said they were tired of this place because it's so violent and so messed up. They were just taking a trip to get away, but they were going to see after the elections if things were going to get better,” Ms. Achakzai's friend said. “Now she's gone forever.”
In her short absence, hope for a renaissance in Kandahar has severely dimmed. “Obviously, we've had a brain drain. … Now when we're slowly trying to think for the future of the country …this is how our country repays people,” Ms. Achakzai's friend said. “I have no faith in my government. I have no faith in the Taliban. I have no faith in the international community.”
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April 14, 2009
 Sitara Achakzai, Martyr for Muslim Women
By Kamran Pasha
This weekend, the Taliban murdered Sitara Achakzai, Afghanistan's leading activist for women's rights. She was gunned down in broad daylight by assassins in front of her house. Ms. Achakzai was an instrumental figure in promoting women's rights in the war torn country that has become the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Muslim world today. Earlier this year, she led a nationwide sit-in of 11,000 Afghan women in seven provinces who gathered to pray for peace on International Women's Day.
As a Muslim man, as a believer and as a voice in Hollywood and the media, I am here to say to her killers: you are evil, twisted men, and you will not escape the consequences of your crime against our Muslim sister, who stood for peace and justice. Even if you flee into the protective arms of your Taliban sponsors, Allah is the Lord of justice, and you will never escape Him, in this world or the next.
And you will not succeed in destroying Ms. Achakzai's legacy. In fact, you have only given it greater power. For you have made Sitara Achakzai a martyr. She died for the same reason as the first martyr of Islam, a woman named Sumayya bint Khayyat, who was killed for speaking truth to power.
In my novel, Mother of the Believers, I detail how Sumayya's killer, the Meccan leader Abu Jahl, thought that the murder of an innocent woman would terrify the poor and weak followers of Prophet Muhammad into rejecting monotheism and returning to the idolatry of the Arabs. Instead, Sumayya's death ignited the fire of resistance that would one day topple the proud Meccan overlords who ruled Arabia with an iron fist.
Like Sumayya, Sitara's death will only cause those of us who believe in an Islam of compassion, justice and human brotherhood to fight harder against those who would return us to the Days of Ignorance, as Arabia before Islam is called. The tragedy we now face is that the enemies of Islam, those who wish to defame and destroy our great faith, no longer speak out against it. Instead, they wrap themselves in its robes and proclaim themselves its leaders. Somewhere in the depths of Hell I know that Abu Jahl is laughing.
In my novel, I show how Islam was born as a proto-feminist movement, with Prophet Muhammad championing the rights of women in a primitive and hostile world. I portray incredible Muslim women, like the Prophet's first wife Khadija, who was a wealthy businesswoman who hired young Muhammad and then proposed marriage to him. I show Aisha, whom the Prophet married after Khadija died, and who went on to become a scholar, a statesman and a warrior who led armies. I show Sumayya, who was killed in front of her son for refusing to worship idols. I show Nusayba, the courageous housewife who defended the Prophet with a sword and a bow when he was nearly killed at the battle of Uhud. I show Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, who would feed enemy prisoners of war with her own hands to make sure that they were treated with dignity. These are the true women of Islam, the women of courage and faith without whom our religion would have been stillborn in the desert wastes. These are the women who inspired Sitara Achakzai and millions of other Muslim women to stand up against the forces of darkness and hold forth the torch of Islam. Not Islam as the fundamentalists and the Islamophobes want it to be, a religion to oppress mankind, but as it truly is - a faith that lifts up the poor and the weak and brings human beings together in the bonds of love and justice.
The Taliban and those who share their twisted, primitive vision of Islam do not know the history of their own faith. And as a result, they have become the very monsters that Islam was sent to destroy. But as long as there are courageous Muslims like Sitara Achakzai who refuse to accept the false Islam that the extremists try to ram down our throats, the true message of Prophet Muhammad will never disappear from this earth.
The last thing the Prophet said in his famous final sermon before he died was that men and women have rights over each other, and that the Muslims would be judged by how well they treated women. His words have come true, in a tragic way. Islam, the religion that began as a women's rights movement, is now seen by much of the world as a bastion of misogyny. We have been judged, and we have been found wanting.
It will be up to Muslims like Sitara Achakzai, myself, and the millions of others like us who remember what Islam was meant to be, to put us back on track.
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Kamran Pasha is a Hollywood filmmaker and the author of Mother of the Believers, a novel on the birth of Islam as told by Prophet Muhammad's wife Aisha (Atria Books; April 2009). For more information please visit HERE: http://www.kamranpasha.com
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Rohan Venkat ~ September 15, 2009.
The Life and Death of Sitara AchakzaiProviding compelling content on the internet requires the careful selection of appropriate tools from the immense number of available options – everything from plain text to flash graphics and tag clouds – and then translating all of those into a simple, efficient presentation that manages to grab the audience and keep them occupied for the duration of the piece.
Just because its easier for creators to use audio, pictures and video – which do tend to be more attractive to the eye than just text – doesn’t mean viewers will suddenly pay attention; the journalist still has to tell an engaging story if the audience is expected to remain beyond the first multimedia moment.
In April 2009, Paula Lerner, a journalist working for Public Radio International’s The World, in conjunction with the BBC and WGBH, put together a multimedia package titled “The Life and Death of Sitara Achakazai.”
The project, a simple, nearly four-minute-long slideshow accompanied by narration from Lisa Mullins, host of The World, and interspersed with audio clips, briefly chronicled the life of Sitara Achakazai, an Afghani women’s rights activist and member of a regional parliament who was assassinated by the Taliban earlier this year.
As a subject, Achakzai is undoubtedly important and serves as a valuable anchor for the audience who might not understand the complex history of war-torn Afghanistan. Through a single person’s life, Lerner is able to briefly trace some of that convoluted past, beginning with Achakzai’s childhood and taking the audience all the way forward to the Taliban occupation, followed by the American invasion and subsequent rebuilding efforts which Achakzai herself took part in.
The narrated parts of the piece follow basic radio package rules, which are then matched to Lerner’s photos, such that if the host is talking about Kandahar, or Afghani women, the photo displayed will correspond to the phrase being spoken.
As a result, even though the technique is a basic trope of broadcast journalism, viewers are able to put audio and visuals together so they have a more complete idea of what the story is. While this occasionally upsets the rhythm of the photos – viewers might not have as much time to take in a wideshot, which has more for the mind to process, and might linger for too long on a closeup – it still succeeds in that the combining of audio and visual elements manages to push the story forward.
The package then gets more interesting when the host’s narration is followed by an audio clip of Achakzai herself speaking, translated from the original Pashto. We’re treated to a first-hand account of how, as a child, Achakzai’s family was among the first to allow women to ride bicycles, and the multimedia nature of the piece means we’re also looking at old black-and-white photographs of her family with bike et al.
Achakazai goes on to describe her decision to leave Afghanistan for Germany, and later return to the country to help in its reconstruction and her experience with being politically involved in a country where women are unlikely to take part in anything that puts them in the public’s eye.
This ends up being the most compelling part of the package; We are told at the very beginning that Achakzai had been shot and killed by the Taliban, so we are keenly aware that the voice we hear is almost coming from beyond the grave. This raw, direct connection to the subject matter, coupled with rich, well-composed visuals, form the bulk of the piece and is also the reason it happens to succeed in telling its story.
The piece originally aired as a standalone radio package on PRI’s The World, using the information and interviews that Lerner had put together. In that sense, “The Life and Death of Sitara Achakzai,” also serves as a useful example of how to turn old-school journalism pieces into engaging multimedia presentations that add significant value to the product.
All the producer had to do was pick the best and most appropriate photographs that would go well with the original radio package, and then put it all together using a basic flash application that offers y0u the usual tools that slideshows provide, and suddenly you have content that goes beyond what a traditional outlet might have had to offer.
On the flip side, because the piece essentially takes a radio broadcast and updates it to fit into a new media framework, it doesn’t take advantage of all the possibilities that an internet package would allow. Achakzai’s story is a perfect jumping-off point for a quick rehash of recent Afghani history, told through the lens of a tragic, personal story. Unfortunately, the way the package is produced doesn’t allow it to serve as a launch pad to anything else, because it doesn’t link to anything else.
If the piece did pique a viewer’s interest in what the situation in the country is now, or what has happened since Achakzai’s death or even a further more in-depth pieces about the situation in the country, that sort of content would ideally be highlighted and linked to at the end of Lerner’s piece, but instead only lets you re-watch the same package again.
On the whole, Lerner and The World have found a simple, efficient way of taking a staid, traditional piece of journalism and making it into a compelling multimedia package, without major computer know-how or flashy presentation.
The piece ends with a quick note about Achakazai’s death, reminding the viewer one last time how much more of a connection a personal story can bring to a broader, regional issue, while appropriately closes the package that was, after all, called, “The Life and Death of Sitara Achakazai.”
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