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Recent Resources for Feminists
 Wednesday May 28, 2008
The Rich Get Hungrier By  AMARTYA SEN
Cambridge, Mass.  Balint Zsako
WILL the food crisis that is menacing the lives of millions ease up or grow worse over time? The answer may be both. The recent rise in food prices has largely been caused by temporary problems like drought in Australia, Ukraine and elsewhere. Though the need for huge rescue operations is urgent, the present acute crisis will eventually end. But underlying it is a basic problem that will only intensify unless we recognize it and try to remedy it.
It is a tale of two peoples. In one version of the story, a country with a lot of poor people suddenly experiences fast economic expansion, but only half of the people share in the new prosperity. The favored ones spend a lot of their new income on food, and unless supply expands very quickly, prices shoot up. The rest of the poor now face higher food prices but no greater income, and begin to starve. Tragedies like this happen repeatedly in the world.
A stark example is the Bengal famine of 1943, during the last days of the British rule in India. The poor who lived in cities experienced rapidly rising incomes, especially in Calcutta, where huge expenditures for the war against Japan caused a boom that quadrupled food prices. The rural poor faced these skyrocketing prices with little increase in income.
Misdirected government policy worsened the division. The British rulers were determined to prevent urban discontent during the war, so the government bought food in the villages and sold it, heavily subsidized, in the cities, a move that increased rural food prices even further. Low earners in the villages starved. Two million to three million people died in that famine and its aftermath.
Much discussion is rightly devoted to the division between haves and have-nots in the global economy, but the world’s poor are themselves divided between those who are experiencing high growth and those who are not. The rapid economic expansion in countries like China, India and Vietnam tends to sharply increase the demand for food. This is, of course, an excellent thing in itself, and if these countries could manage to reduce their unequal internal sharing of growth, even those left behind there would eat much better.
But the same growth also puts pressure on global food markets sometimes through increased imports, but also through restrictions or bans on exports to moderate the rise in food prices at home, as has happened recently in countries like India, China, Vietnam and Argentina. Those hit particularly hard have been the poor, especially in Africa.
There is also a high-tech version of the tale of two peoples. Agricultural crops like corn and soybeans can be used for making ethanol for motor fuel. So the stomachs of the hungry must also compete with fuel tanks.
Misdirected government policy plays a part here, too. In 2005, the United States Congress began to require widespread use of ethanol in motor fuels. This law combined with a subsidy for this use has created a flourishing corn market in the United States, but has also diverted agricultural resources from food to fuel. This makes it even harder for the hungry stomachs to compete.
Ethanol use does little to prevent global warming and environmental deterioration, and clear-headed policy reforms could be urgently carried out, if American politics would permit it. Ethanol use could be curtailed, rather than being subsidized and enforced.
The global food problem is not being caused by a falling trend in world production, or for that matter in food output per person (this is often asserted without much evidence). It is the result of accelerating demand. However, a demand-induced problem also calls for rapid expansion in food production, which can be done through more global cooperation.
While population growth accounts for only a modest part of the growing demand for food, it can contribute to global warming, and long-term climate change can threaten agriculture. Happily, population growth is already slowing and there is overwhelming evidence that women’s empowerment (including expansion of schooling for girls) can rapidly reduce it even further.
What is most challenging is to find effective policies to deal with the consequences of extremely asymmetric expansion of the global economy. Domestic economic reforms are badly needed in many slow-growth countries, but there is also a big need for more global cooperation and assistance. The first task is to understand the nature of the problem.
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Amartya Sen, who teaches economics and philosophy at Harvard, received the Nobel Prize in economics in 1998 and is the author, most recently, of “Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny.”
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“As women return for repeat tours, usually redeploying with their same units, many must go back to war with the same man (or men) who abused them. This leaves these women as threatened by their own comrades as by the war itself. Yet the combination of sexual assault and combat has barely been acknowledged or studied” ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Monday May 26 2008
For Women Warriors, Deep Wounds, Little Care By HELEN BENEDICT
 US Army seeks female GIs for Iraq ...
THIS Memorial Day, as an ever-increasing number of mentally and physically wounded soldiers return from Iraq, the Department of Veterans Affairs faces a pressing crisis: women traumatized not only by combat but also by sexual assault and harassment from their fellow service members. Sadly, the department is failing to fully deal with this problem.
Women make up some 15 percent of the United States active duty forces, and 11 percent of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed by the men with whom they served.
This sort of abuse drastically increases the risk and intensity of post-traumatic stress disorder. One study found that female soldiers who were sexually assaulted were nine times more likely to show symptoms of this disorder than those who weren’t. Sexual harassment by itself is so destructive, another study revealed, it causes the same rates of post-traumatic stress in women as combat does in men. And rape can lead to other medical crises, including diabetes, asthma, chronic pelvic pain, eating disorders, miscarriages and hypertension.
The threat of post-traumatic stress has risen in recent years as women’s roles in war have changed. More of them now come under fire, suffer battle wounds and kill the enemy, just as men do.
As women return for repeat tours, usually redeploying with their same units, many must go back to war with the same man (or men) who abused them. This leaves these women as threatened by their own comrades as by the war itself. Yet the combination of sexual assault and combat has barely been acknowledged or studied.
Last month, when the RAND Corporation released the biggest non-military survey of the mental health of troops since 2001, it unwittingly reflected this lack of research. The survey found that women suffer from higher rates of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression than men do, but it neglected to look into why this might be, and asked no questions about abuse from fellow soldiers. Terri Tanielian, the project’s co-editor, told me that RAND needs more money to explore these higher rates of trauma among women.
As the more than 191,500 women who have served in the Middle East since 2001 return home, they will increasingly flood the Veterans Affairs system. To ask those who need help for post-traumatic stress disorder to turn to a typical Veterans Affairs hospital, built in the 1950s and designed to treat men, is untenable. Women who have been raped or sexually assaulted often cannot face therapy groups or medical facilities full of men.
At the moment, the Department of Veterans Affairs operates only six inpatient post-traumatic stress disorder programs specifically for women. And although all 153 department-run hospitals will treat women, only 22 have stand-alone women’s clinics that offer a full range of medical and psychological services.
This number of clinics may seem adequate for the 1.7 million female veterans currently at home, especially since they represent only 7.2 percent of all veterans at the moment, but it isn’t. Many clinics are miles from where soldiers live, and many more are open only a few hours a week and lack staff members trained to deal with sexual assault, let alone assault combined with combat trauma.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it plans to open more clinics for post-traumatic stress disorder, but how many will be only for women remains undecided.
Women are the fastest-growing group of veterans, and by 2020 they are projected to account for 20 percent of all veterans under the age of 45. Not all of these women will have suffered sexual assault, but many will have medical or psychological needs that conventional department hospitals cannot meet.
The Department of Veterans Affairs must open more comprehensive women’s health clinics, designate more facilities for women who have endured both combat and military sexual trauma and finance more support groups specifically for female combat veterans. The best way to honor all of our soldiers is to do what we can to help them mend. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia, is the author of the novel “The Opposite of Love” and the forthcoming “The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq.”
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"Karzai Government should be demanding that parliament reinstate Malalai and arresting the people threatening her life"
 New York, May 21, 2008
Press Release Afghanistan: Reinstate Malalai Joya in ParliamentSuspension of Female MP One Year Ago Is Setback for Democracy
One year after her illegal suspension, the Afghan parliament should reinstate Malalai Joya to office, Human Rights Watch said today.
On May 21, 2007, the lower house of the Afghan parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, voted to suspend Malalai Joya, a female MP elected from Farah province. Malalai was accused of insulting the parliament and suspended until the end of her term in 2009.
Malalai’s suspension occurred after she appeared in a television interview comparing the parliament to an animal stable. Malalai told Human Rights Watch that her remarks were edited out of context. She said that her statement divided parliamentarians into two groups – one of which was working to uphold democratic principles while the other was undermining them, thereby serving the Afghan population even less than animals in a stable. Malalai has since received numerous death threats by phone and “night letters” (posted threats) and now lives in hiding. She receives no security protection from parliament or the government.
“Afghanistan is requesting billions of dollars in assistance from donors next month and presenting itself as an emerging democracy,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “If Malalai Joya remains suspended for exercising her right to free expression and has to keep moving around because of threats for which the government does nothing, what does this say about the state of human rights and democracy?”
Malalai is an outspoken human rights activist who has publicly criticized warlords and drug barons in Afghanistan. At 29, she is the youngest member of the Wolesa Jirga. In 2003, she gained international attention for speaking out publicly against warlords elected to the constitutional assembly and involved in drafting the Afghan constitution. Two years later, she was the top vote-getter from Farah province in Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections.
Since 2003, Malalai has received many death threats. She moves from house to house on a daily basis to avoid attacks. In 2007, she was verbally threatened and physically attacked during sessions of parliament. Since her suspension, she has continued to criticize warlords in the Afghan parliament despite the concerns for her safety. In April 2008, the Ministry of Interior refused to issue Malalai a passport and added her name to a list of persons banned from leaving Afghanistan. Though Malalai filed a complaint over her suspension, the courts have not taken action on her case.
Malalai recently told Human Rights Watch:
“After I was expelled from parliament, my life became even more dangerous and I received numerous death threats. Even a member of parliament said in front of all on the day when they voted against me, that he will eliminate me if I will not be silent.” “Instead of refusing her a passport and branding her a criminal, the Afghan government should be demanding that parliament reinstate Malalai and arresting the people threatening her life,” said Adams. “This is a real test for President Hamid Karzai to show donors that women – even outspoken women – have a role to play in Afghan politics and in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.”
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 London ~~ Saturday May 17 2008
 How picture phones have fuelled frenzy of honour killing in Iraq
By Patrick Cockburn in Sulaymaniyah
A dark pool of dried blood and a fallen red scarf mark the place where Ronak, who had fled to a woman's shelter in the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah when she was accused of adultery by her husband, was shot three times by a man hiding on the roof of a nearby building.
Ronak was wounded by bullets in the neck, side and leg and only survived after a four-hour operation. She was the latest victim of a huge increase across Iraq in the number of "honour" killings of women for alleged immorality by their own families.
Many are burnt to death by having petrol or paraffin poured over them and set ablaze. Others are shot or strangled. The United Nations estimates that at least 255 women died in honour-related killings in Kurdistan, home to one fifth of Iraqis, in the first six months of 2007 alone.
The murder of women who are deemed to have disobeyed traditional codes of morality is even more common in the rest of Iraq where government authority has broken down since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
A surprising reason explaining the massive increase in the number of honour killings is the availability of cheap mobile phones able to take pictures. Men photograph themselves making love to their girlfriends and pass the pictures to their friends. This often turns out to be a lethal act of bravado in a society where premarital or extra-marital sex justifies killing.
The first known case of sex recorded on a mobile leading to murder was in 2004. Film of a boy making love with a 17-year-old girl circulated in the Kurdish capital, Arbil. Two days later she was killed by her family and a week later he was murdered by his.
Since then there has been a sharp increase in the number of women suffering violence – it is almost always the women rather than the men who suffer retribution – as a result of some aspect of their love life being pictured on mobile phones.
In 2007, at least 350 women, double the figure for the previous year, suffered violence as a result of mobile phone "evidence", according to Amanj Khalil of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, citing figures compiled by women's organisations and the police directorate in Sulaymaniyah.
The true figure is probably much higher. Bodies are buried in the mountains. Violence is concealed. Whole extended families and clans feel a genuine sense of shame because of some supposed act of immorality.
Often retribution is carefully planned. In the case of Ronak, whose real name has to be concealed, her would-be killer carefully chose his firing point in an empty office building beside the shelter and may have waited for her for a long time. Ronak, who has three children, came from the ramshackle town of Chamchamal on the road between Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk. Accused of adultery by her husband and fearing an honour killing, she fled her house and took refuge first with the police who passed her on in March this year to the Asuda shelter in Sulaymaniyah, one of six shelters in Kurdistan for women who are victims of violence or threatened with honour killing.
She must have thought herself safe. Along with four other women, she was living on the first floor which can only be reached by a narrow staircase closed off by a locked inner door. The police gave a measure of protection. But members of her husband's family may have pursued her from Chamchamal. "When we went to court [with Ronak, who was seeking a divorce] we thought we were being followed," says Khanum Raheem Lateef, the manager of Asuda.
The windows in the shelter are mostly masked by curtains, but the one in the kitchen area leading to the bathroom had been taken down. At 11pm last Sunday Ronak went to the bathroom and as she came back into the kitchen a gunman lying on a roof 20ft away shot her three times.
The position of women in Iraqi society has deteriorated dramatically since the start of the occupation. Despite the horrific number of honour killings, their status may be improving only in Kurdistan, where the government is secular, in contrast to Baghdad where the religious parties hold power. The Kurdish police and courts are also more sympathetic than elsewhere in Iraq to women whose lives have been threatened. There are no shelters for women in Baghdad or Basra.
Vulnerability to violence is not the only area in which the equal status of women in Iraq has been eroded. A woman can only get a new passport if she is accompanied by a male relative. One woman, whose father was too ill to attend the passport office, had to take her 14-year-old brother with her to vouch for her before officials would give her a new passport.
Many women escape from miserable marriages, often arranged by their families, not by flight but by suicide. In 2007, some 600 women and girls in Kurdistan killed themselves, mostly by burning themselves, or by drowning or shooting themselves, according to the Health Ministry of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
"Women may feel there is genuinely no hope for them to escape subjection," says Sherizaan Minwalla, a lawyer with the Heartland Alliance in Sulaymaniyah, who represents many victims of domestic violence. "Suicide may seem a rational choice and even a form of protest."
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 Magazine | May 26, 2008
HARYANA: HONOUR KILLINGSChronicle Of Deaths Foretold Honour avengers run amok in Haryana as state/society prop them with their silence
Chander Suta Dogra  No sympathy here: The slain Ballah couple
Why No One Speaks Against Honour Killings
- Social panchayats and the village community approve of this custom, especially common among Jats, encouraging more such killings
- No political leader in Haryana has either condemned these crimes, or tried to punish the perpetrators. Haryana CM Hooda is on record as declaring: "We cannot interfere in the social customs of our people".
- Taking the cue from politicians, state functionaries too make only token arrests
- Even those who oppose it don't say anything for fear of losing their lives
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T he mood in Ballah village, some 20 kilometres from Karnal, is defiant.
Groups of grizzled village elders gathered at the village chaupal outside the sarpanch's house or huddled around hookahs under trees, are strategising on how best to extricate their fellow villagers out of the clutches of the police. Ballah woke up last Friday morning to the gruesome sight of the battered bodies of Sunita and Jasbir, thrown outside Sunita's home. The young lovers had been killed by Sunita's father and brothers for daring to defy social norms. But if you thought Ballah would condemn the killing, you couldn't be more wrong.
Instead, Ballah has become only the latest village to enter Haryana's hall of shame, not only applauding with approval the brutal punishment of "the wayward couple" but also hailing their killers as heroes. "We have dispensed justice according to our social norms," says Ballah sarpanch Ranbir Singh Mann with disquieting pride. "The entire village is one in this matter and feels that the killings are justified. If the police and law look upon it as a crime, that is their business." In fact, so secure were the couple's killers in the belief that their community of Jats would bail them out that they triumphantly went to the local police station and handed themselves over.
Sunita and Jasbir were childhood sweethearts who were separated when Sunita's parents forced her to marry someone else against her wishes. A year after her marriage, Sunita left her husband and came to live with Jasbir. The social panchayat recognised her desertion of her husband as a divorce, but was silent on her relations with Jasbir. However, early last week, when her father Om Prakash learnt that she was pregnant with Jasbir's child, he decided it was time to take action. With three jeeploads of men in tow, he drove to Machhroli village near Panipat where the couple had taken shelter, pulled them out, bundled them into the jeep, and strangled them in Ballah's fields.
Honour restored, the Mann Jats of Ballah are now ready to flex their not inconsiderable muscle before an already supine administration, which prefers to react with indifference towards such cases. Indifference, because from the chief minister downwards, no political leader has ever condemned or even lifted a finger to bring perpetrators of such crimes to book in Haryananever mind if it is touted as one of India's most progressive states. "Look at any of the recent cases," says an anguished Richa Tanwar, who heads the department of women's studies at Kurukshetra University. "What has been the state intervention in protecting such couples? Have you ever heard the chief minister say that honour killings should stop? Politicians and policemen come from the same society and do not take any action because most believe in honour killings."
Nothing vindicates her statement more than the case of Manoj and Babli of Karoran village of Kaithal district last June. Having married against the diktat of their community and fearing for their lives, the couple sought police protection from the court. They did get police protection, after testifying before a Kaithal court that they had married in accordance with the law.
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