BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh

Subject: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 09:28 PM

From the Pinkerton Daily Summary Intelligence report of 05 June -

BANGLADESH (Moderate Risk) – Gender-Related and Political Violence Continues In its June 6 edition, Dubai's Gulf News Online reported one human rights group in Dhaka claimed at least 145 women were raped in May and another 28 persons were killed in political violence. Ain O Shalish Kendra said 12 of the rape victims were killed afterward and five committed suicide. The group said 28 women were tortured to death over dowry issues and another five died as a result of alleged medical negligence. Two other rights groups cited slightly lower rape totals for the month (evidently based on different mixes of media sources) but one said 27 women had acid thrown on them while the other reported 24 were victims of acid throwing attacks. PERSPECTIVE: Political violence apparently is so commonplace that only one of the three groups even noted that 28 persons were so killed in May and it provided no details. Gender-related violence is another matter, especially acid attacks. In March, Parliament enacted a law establishing death as the maximum punishment for acid attackers, up from the previous maximum of life imprisonment (DIS 03/15/02). A survey by the Bangladesh Acid Survivors Foundation found that nearly 250 victims, mostly women, sustained severe burn injuries in 2001, up from about 200 the previous year (DIS 02/06/02). Most of the victims were young women who refused love offers or did not submit to illicit affairs. To a much lesser extent, men also fell victim to acid attacks, following disputes over property or petty squabbles. Police sources said only about 10 percent of the culprits were arrested and even fewer come to trial because of a faulty legal system and victims who lacked the ability or intention to pursue justice. (06/05/02)

Not a good thing -

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Jun 02 - 10:47 PM

Hi Steve. Thanks for that. I agree with you. It's not a good thing. Unfortunately these and other equally horrible kinds of abuse and mistreatment of women are happening in a lot of parts of the world. Do you have any idea why the Pinkerton people are focusing specifically on Bangladesh?

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:40 AM

And why they are choosing to focus on it now, when it has been going on for so long?

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:56 AM

I posted this a few weeksago... odd bit of sincronicity... After performing it for Bangladeshi's I have lately dedicated it to Purnima Sheel, there is more on this on the thread titled RAPE a few weeks back...
Larry

While working with the Bangaladeshi minority communities thi past several weeks, I was confronted by a photo of a young Hindu girl, gang raped - one of thousands, for whom rape was a weapon of war to drive her from her land. The caption of the photo was "Who will marry me"

This song came to me this morning, and I call it the same,


Who will marry me
Words Lorcan Otway, all rights reserved...

I'm a Bangladeshi Hindu girl, I cannot say my name
I cannot show my face to you, I'm forced to flee in shame
I cannot find the words to tell, what they did to me
When the gangs came to my village and robbed my dignity

I cannot speak the words my fear, and horror to relate
When the women of my village became, the target of your hate
With nothing but my tattered clothes, I have been forced to flee
For after my public shame, who would ever marry me

In the decade before I was born, my land was wracked with pain
Democracy and Freedom, religious rights to gain
All the people of our land, shared the terror of that night
to cast off religious hatred and, emerge into the light

I can't understand why the world, allows hate to divide my land
Is our pain so foreign to your world, that you can't understand
The tears of my nation, a waterwheel could turn
Can they not touch your heart enough, our history to learn

How my story ends I cannot say, what's ahead I cannot see
Fundamentalism's fertile fields, are starved lands of poverty
But in the ruins of my land and life, I can only cry in vain
why must I bear the shame alone, who would ever share my pain

One question more I'll ask of you, before I flee my land
One question more I'll put to you, I'm too young to understand
One question more I must demand, before I turn to go,
for the answer to this question, no young girl may ever know

My sister's bodies have become, the target's of your war
And our mother's and our grandmothers, for countless years before
How can it be our dishonor, why is it our disgrace
Why is it not the rapist, who is forced to hide his face

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 11:19 AM

I get these daily reports from a friend at Fort Bragg. Areas that have American interests are scrutinized daily and after the Rape thread a bit ago I thought this was in line with that. Makes me wonder about the prospects of a peaceful world - we are a long ways from that I think.

So I just cut and pasted this particular one, and the one from Argentina, for public interest.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: mousethief
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 12:24 PM

Gee, abuse of women in a Muslim country. How unusual.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 03:12 PM

Well, Alex, it's hardly just Muslim countries. India, a largely Hindu country, has an abysmal record with regard to the treatment of women. (Take for instance the problem of men in India setting their wives on fire in order to kill them and get a new wife and a new dowry.) And then there's the thriving white (sex) slave trade going on right now in any number of European countries that are not Muslim countries, as well as in Israel. It's happening all over. It is not a religious issue. It's a gender issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: mousethief
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 03:14 PM

I hadn't heard about any white sex slave traffic. Do you have references I could look at?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 03:22 PM

I'll try to hunt some up for you. The problem is really bad right now because of the terrible economic conditions in the former Soviet Bloc countries. Young women are being lured into slavery by newspaper advertisements offering jobs as waitresses and things like that in other countries. When the women show up, their passports are taken from them, and they are kept as sex slaves, and many of them are brutalized and some even killed.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 04:35 PM

Here's one article. It's a bit flashy for my tastes but, oh well. It looks like it's become a problem in the US, as well as the other areas I mentioned.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/725802.asp#BODY

By Preston Mendenhall
MSNBC

VELESTA, Macedonia — Olga winced as she drew back the bandage on her right breast, revealing an infected puncture wound that hadn't healed since a man bit her in a fit of sexual rage. But the wound, for which the 19-year-old Moldovan lacked even basic medicine, is only a small part of Olga's daily agony. For more than a year she has been held as a sex slave in this town in western Macedonia, where human trafficking flourishes and young girls are forced to endure the sexual whims of thousands of men.

SITTING IN a brothel bedroom in Velesta, a town synonymous with forced prostitution that police and experts consider one of the most dangerous places in Europe, Olga said that her "owner" would kill her for telling a reporter about her state of captivity. But the cruel conditions under which she is held, and her deteriorating mental and physical health, compelled her to speak out. Her head hung in shame, Olga's dark brown eyes welled with tears. She brushed back her long black hair, revealing a fair complexion flushed with anger at her fate. "There is only one word for this," she said. "Slavery."

Forced to have sex with as many as 10 men every day, Olga and other women clandestinely interviewed by MSNBC.com as part of a four-month investigation into the sex trade in Europe, insisted that their real identities not be revealed. Their fears are not unfounded. Those brave enough to seek help have been savagely beaten — and sometimes killed — for trying to escape.

FLOURISHING SEX TRADE

Olga is one small cog in a huge transnational industry, and Macedonia is merely a way station on a path to bondage that begins in impoverished Eastern Europe and the chaotic states that emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union, and stretches to Western Europe, the Middle East and beyond.

In Europe alone, officials estimate that more than 200,000 women and girls — one-quarter of all women trafficked globally — are smuggled out of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics each year, the bulk of whom end up working as enslaved prostitutes. Almost half are transported to Western Europe. Roughly a quarter end up in the United States. Human rights activists say the numbers do not tell the full story, because most women remain silent rather than turn to frequently corrupt authorities for help.

The trade in women: Country by country

Albania
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria
Romania
Yugoslavia

The rapid rise of this sex slave trade can be traced to the fall of the Soviet Union, where borders once heavily guarded by the Red Army suddenly became porous and Soviet republics and Eastern European satellites once in the Kremlin's grasp saw their industries and subsidies collapse overnight. Millions of young women like Olga came of age amid this economic misery. Their childhood fantasies of a better life in the West soon became a human trafficker's golden opportunity.

MOLDOVA'S MISERY

Nowhere is this trafficking worse than it is in Moldova, Olga's home, where experts estimate that since the fall of the Soviet Union between 200,000 and 400,000 women have been sold into prostitution — perhaps up to 10 percent of the female population The numbers are staggering, but for Liuba Revenko of the International Organization for Migration in Moldova the bondage of the country's young women has become routine. "Moldovans are a hybrid population of Russians, Romanians, Jews, Ukrainians and Bulgarians," Revenko said. "That creates a special race of women that are beautiful and in demand. They have no future. They are a good target for the traffickers."

In Velesta, a town so small that the 120 Moldovan girls working as prostitutes there make up a sizeable part of the population, the sex slaves are rarely seen during the day. Kept under lock and key in the back rooms of a dozen "kafane," or café-bars that double as brothels, they are summoned by their owners when a customer arrives. Then the girls, most in their late teens or early 20s, are paraded in skimpy lingerie before clients who "pick us according to their tastes," said Irina, a Moldovan who answered a want-ad to be a waitress in Italy, but ended up trapped in a Balkans brothel instead of working in a restaurant in southern Sicily.

One night in Velesta

Rural Moldovan women, lacking education and desperate to escape, are easy targets, activists say. Sometimes the bondage is built around a debt that is impossible to pay off. Other times, it is simply brutal captivity. They end up servicing clients with the false hope of working off a "debt" to their owners, who continue to entice them with real jobs in Europe.

UNWITTING VICTIMS

The women's tales of bondage are hauntingly similar. Olga, the Moldovan with the breast wound, was virtually kidnapped when she played hooky from school in rural Moldova. Initially, she was drawn to the prospect of a new life in Italy — far away from her alcoholic mother and abusive brother. But the next thing she knew, a Serb smuggler called "Dragan" was pulling her out of a car trunk in the Romanian town of Timisoara, on the border with Yugoslavia. Dragan and his Romanian pals loaded 10 girls on a boat to cross the Danube.

After a few days in a basement near Belgrade, Olga was led across the Serbian frontier with Macedonia — under the eyes of obliging border guards — and brought to Velesta. "There were clients on the very first night," she said. With no passport and little idea where she was, Olga was raped, beaten into submission and humiliated until she no longer had the will to challenge her horrible fate.

"Meti made me clean the toilet with my tongue. It was horrible and dirty. I think they did it because I was the newest girl," Olga said of her ethnic Albanian owner. "He made me lick another girl's … you know, down there. And then he laughed." Young and beautiful, Olga has stayed in Velesta longer than most trafficked women, many of whom are moved on into Albania and Greece after the local population "breaks them in or gets tired of them," Olga said. Once they reach the Albanian coast, they are easily trafficked to Italy, where the European Union's lax border controls allow them to be smuggled deep inside the continent.

BILLIONS IN PROFITS

Ten years of wars in the Balkans have turned the region into a trafficking highway paved with lawlessness and corruption that has prompted former enemies — Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and ethnic Albanians — to set aside ethnic rivalries in the name of vast profits. "You're talking about big international organizations," said Rudolf Perina, a former U.S. ambassador to Moldova who was involved in Washington-funded anti-trafficking efforts. Ethnic Albanian rebels in Kosovo, Macedonia and south Serbia — long the masters of drug running in the Balkans — are deeply involved in the human smuggling business, using the flesh trade to fund their separatist movements.

Luisa, a 32-year-old single Moldovan mother whose neighbor persuaded her to accept a job in Italy and "marry a rich Roman," found herself repeatedly raped by her "owner," Bojku Dilaver, an ethnic Albanian trafficking kingpin from Velesta. European law enforcement officials say Dilaver, one of the sex trade's "Most Wanted," has used cash and, reportedly, contacts with ethnic Albanian rebels to avoid arrest for years. "He bought me for $700," Luisa said.

She was freed in a police raid on Velesta, after MSNBC.com confronted Macedonia's interior minister, Ljube Boskovski, with tales of sex slavery only a few hours' drive from his office in the capital of Skopje. But Olga and other women who took great risk to speak about their predicament were nowhere to be found. The Macedonian SWAT team that raided bars called Coca Cola, Safari and Bela Dona was only partly successful. Tipped off to the raids, brothel owners had spirited girls out secret exits in the backrooms of the bars and hidden them in the woods behind the buildings. The sheets on the beds were still warm. With the exception of a few minor pimps, the kingpins like Dilaver escaped.

LACK OF LAWS

The raid on Velesta was the first by Macedonian police, long wary of upsetting the uneasy peace between the country's Macedonian Slavs and ethnic Albanian minority. Even Boskovski admitted his own policemen were on the smugglers' payroll, making it virtually impossible to surprise the traffickers and rescue their sex slaves. Boskovski also complained about a lack of laws to keep traffickers behind bars. "The punishments are not really severe," he said. In an interview with MSNBC.com, Vitalie Curarari, the head of Moldova's anti-trafficking police, lashed out at the media for "sensationalizing" sex slavery and placed much of the blame for trafficking on the women themselves. "Fifty percent of our women just go abroad to find another man and then come back to divorce their husbands," Curarari said.

IN THE HEART OF EUROPE

Farther along the trafficking pipeline, hundreds of women and girls are smuggled into Europe every day and forced onto the streets of cities like Hamburg, Paris, London and Amsterdam Amsterdam, a city synonymous with hedonism, is perhaps best known for its legalized sex industry, in which prostitutes pay taxes and undergo regular health exams. The city's Red Light District is a virtual Disneyland of sex — with only European Union passport holders allowed to ply the trade. But only a few miles' drive from the city center, traditional Dutch tolerance is helping fuel the trafficking problem.

In Theemsweg, a fenced-in, football field-sized parking lot built by the government for unregulated sex workers, girls sit in bus shelters — also courtesy of the government — waiting for clients. There are no EU citizens here — and the prostitutes' countries of origin are strikingly familiar: Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic. On weekends, men looking for cheap sex wait in cars that back up for a mile. Sexual encounters, which take place right in the cars, cost $20.

SMUGGLED INTO EUROPE

Asked how she got to Theemsweg, 20-year-old Anna from Russia's Far East said, "You don't want to know." Dutch police officials, speaking privately, estimate that as many as 70 percent of the prostitutes in the Netherlands are working illegally, using false documents provided by smugglers to skirt Dutch and European laws. With the women facing poor odds, activists are working overtime to try to thwart traffickers and rescue some of the thousands of sex slaves in Europe.

The International Organization for Migration, backed by U.S. funding, has managed to return only 400 of the perhaps hundreds of thousands of Moldovan women victimized by the sex trade. Activists are beating a path to rural areas to educate young girls about the dangers of the trade. Twenty-one-year-old Natasha, a single mother, considers herself one of the lucky ones. She escaped Velesta, where her clients included NATO soldiers from Germany, France, Britain and the United States who were stationed in Macedonia for peacekeeping duties.

It was an Albanian client who took pity on Natasha and bought her from her owner for 5,000 Deutsche Marks, about $2,500. "Yes, I'm back in Moldova, but it's difficult," she said in a village three hours north of the Moldovan capital, Chisinau. "We do not have money to buy bread. We do not have money to pay for the electricity." For Olga, tending to her sore breast in captivity, anything sounds better than Velesta. "What kind of animal can do this to me?" she demanded, tears streaming down her face. "All of Macedonia is filled with girls like me, and we're all crying."

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 05:04 PM

And here's the results of a Google search I did using the keywords: "Eastern Europe" "sex slave"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Eastern+Europe%22+%22sex+slave%22&btnG=Google+Search

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Deda
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 05:49 PM

I've read some of these stories and it is, indeed, a terrible situation for these girls and young women. However, you mentioned this happening in Israel and I haven't read about that, nor did I see Israel mentioned in the google sites, at a glance. From my experience I think this particular crime would not find much of a foothold in Israel. I know that some cases of wife-abuse among religious Jews have just begun to be uncovered after a long tradition of denying that such things ever took place -- but I can't imagine a thriving prostitution industry among Israelis. I could be wrong. If you have any reference I'd be interested to see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:08 PM

I saw it in an article a couple of weeks ago, but I don't know where it is now. According to that article, there most definitely is a thriving prostitution industry in Israel. In that article, they did mention at least some effort on the part of the government to address the problem. I'll see if I can track that article down for you.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:14 PM

This thread got moved very swiftly from acid attacks on women in Bangla Desh to the prostitution industry in Israel. Too much hidden agendas and selective indignation for my taste.It could just be a question of right and wrong, rather than your take on global politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: mousethief
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:26 PM

That, and Israel isn't in Europe. But I'll look at your sites.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:37 PM

I made a general remark a couple of posts back. I'll make it more specific. Repulsive attacks onwomen have somehow become equated by CarolC with the "white slave "trade in Israel. I think we'ld like to know a bit more than the fact that you might have seen something about it in a paper a couple of weeks ago. I'm not grinding any axes here myself, I hope. I am not an Israel apologist and I spent the day with a Muslim friend, as is often the case.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:43 PM

greg, I don't know why you would think that when I list Israel along with a number of European countries as well as the US, that would mean I'm specifically singling out Israel for mention. Sounds more like a bias you've got than any bias on my part. Do you think Israelis are any less human than the rest of the people in the world?

Why didn't you attack me for mentioning the US? Why didn't you attack me for mentioning Europe? Why just Israel?

Are you sure you guys want me to provide links to articles that mention Israel? Is sounds to me that when it comes to the subject of Israel, there's an awful lot of people who just aren't ready to face the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:49 PM

tell us this truth then, and we'll see if we can face it. You dragged Israel into this, nobody else mentioned it as far as I noticed.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 06:57 PM

I was working on this when I saw greg's post. And I would just like to point out that I did say in my first response to Alex, that it's "NOT JUST MUSLIM COUNTRIES" where abuse of women is a problem. And then I listed several countries that have these kinds of problems INCLUDING INDIA, AND ANY NUMBER OF COUNTRIES IN EUROPE that are not Muslim countries. Get a grip you guys! Ok?

I believe this is the one I saw previously...

http://www.ukar.org/specter01.shtml

RAMLE, Israel — Irina always assumed that her beauty would somehow rescue her from the poverty and hopelessness of village life. A few months ago, after answering a vague ad in a small Ukrainian newspaper, she slipped off a tour boat when it put in at Haifa, hoping to make a bundle dancing naked on the tops of tables.

She was 21, self-assured and glad to be out of Ukraine. Israel offered a new world, and for a week or two everything seemed possible. Then, one morning, she was driven to a brothel, where her boss burned her passport before her eyes.

"I own you," she recalled his saying. "You are my property, and you will work until you earn your way out. Don't try to leave. You have no papers and you don't speak Hebrew. You will be arrested and deported. Then we will get you and bring you back."

And here are some more articles that mention Israel...

http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/03/08/women.trafficking

An estimated 10,000 women from the former Soviet Union have been forced into prostitution in Israel.

http://abcnews.go.com/onair/CloserLook/wnt000508_CL_sexslave_feature.html

Increasingly, the victims are from Eastern Europe and Russia. Olga, which is not her real name, was lured from Moscow with the promise of a bartending job. She ended up a sex slave in Israel.

http://www.northvegr.org/fow/001.htmlhttp://www.northvegr.org/fow/001.html">http://www.northvegr.org/fow/001.html

* Lyubov, 17, arrived in Israel from a Russian coal mining city only to be sold into prostitution. Now she sits in a prison cell awaiting expulsion as an illegal worker. Six months ago, a man in Lyubov's hometown told the young woman he could get her a plane ticket, a visa and a job abroad. She entered Israel with a tour group and was met by a hotel owner who befriended her and gave her a job as a cleaner in exchange for a room. The hotel owner introduced her to friends, showed her around and taught her some Hebrew until one day he told her to get out of his car and into another. Then he drove away. "At first I didn't know I had been sold. Then my owner told me he had bought me for $9,000," Lyubov said in an interview in a prison office. Her new "owner," as she calls him, told her she would work as a call girl.

* Eastern European women are sold like slaves in Israel among Russian Mafia operators for £6,000 (US$10,000) to £9,000 (US$15,000). -Detective Toni Haddad of Haifa vice squad, Kevin Connolly "How Russia's Mafia is taking over Israel's underworld." BBC, 3 April 1998

http://www.princeton.edu/~progrev/97-98/feb98ab.html

Often the only hope for these women is that their brothels will be raided and they will be deported back to their impoverished lands, frequently penniless for their suffering. As in many nations prostitution is of little concern to officials, and in some countries, such as Israel, where there are not even specific laws against the sale of human beings, usually the punishment for the captors is ridiculously light, if they are punished at all.

LOOKS LIKE IT'S HAPPENING PRETTY MUCH EVERYWHERE (Even in Canada)

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/08/31/slavery.world.reut/

Human Rights Watch is set to release a report in September on the trafficking of Thai women into the sex industry in Japan. The activist organization previously has detailed the shipment of thousands of Nepali women into India, women from Myanmar (Burma) into Thailand, and women from Eastern Europe into Bosnia. A Human Rights Watch staffer also previously investigated the trafficking of Russian women into Israel. Lederer said Russia is a prolific "sender" country. "So far we've tracked young women being trafficked from Russia to 43 countries at the last count -- pretty much every Western European country, Canada, the U.S., Mexico, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand." She also said women from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are trafficked in large numbers into the Middle East, particularly wealthier nations such as Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and even Saudi Arabia. And she said there is significant trafficking from southern and central Africa to Nigeria, which seems to be a transit point to northern Africa, Spain, and as far north as Sweden and Norway.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 07:03 PM

I did not want to get into another long drawn out bullshit argument about Israel. I wanted to show that mistreatment of women is a problem everywhere. If anyone has any information that proves otherwise, please share it with us here.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 09:58 PM

Carol? Why would you put "Even Canada". Are Canadians not subject to the same issues as any of the rest of the countries mentioned?

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 10:10 PM

Becaus Canada is my sacred cow.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 10:13 PM

Hmmm... Part of my post disappeared.

What I said is that Canada is my sacred cow. And I will add, in all honesty, that Canada is the country that I most hate to see being involved in that sort of thing. I'm no different than anyone else. I like to have my blind spots, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Celtic Soul
Date: 06 Jun 02 - 10:18 PM

Don't we all, though? At least your willing to admit the possibility about your sacred cow.

No worries here in any case...I was just curious, and that pretty much answers that for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Deda
Date: 07 Jun 02 - 02:27 PM

Well I'm surprised and very sorry about both Israel and Canada. I don't think of either of them as being particularly fertile soil for this kind of criminal abuse of women.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Jun 02 - 03:15 PM

It would be nice if that were the case, Deda, but I'm afraid that the world climate with regard to human rights is not a very good one these days, even in countries that we like to think of as being more enlightened than others.

And by the way, greg... I didn't drag Israel into this. Israel dragged itself into this.

As a woman, I find it incredibly offensive when people use the issue of women's rights as a way of targeting only one group of people (such as Muslims, in the case of Alex's first post to this thread) for condemnation. If abuse of women is a bad thing, it's bad wherever it happens. Not just when it's being conducted by certain groups of people.

If people want to avoid looking like hypocrites on this issue, they need to be consistant in their condemnation of the abuse of women wherever it occurs, and by whomever it is being done. And they need to make sure they don't attack people who report it's existance in places they have a particular attachment to.

As I said before, this is a gender issue. Not a religious issue. Since the beginning of time, the brutalization and exploitation of women has been a problem among all races, religions, ethnic groups, and nationalities. If you don't want to be a part of the problem, you need to make an effort to be a part of the solution. And the first step toward being a part of the solution is to stop denying the fact that it's happening, even when it's being done by members of whatever racial, religious, or ethnic group (or nationality) you happen to belong to.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Deda
Date: 07 Jun 02 - 06:39 PM

I guess the question (once we've agreed that it's always terrible, no matter where it happens) is this: is there anything that we couch potatoes, or computer potatoes, can do to help or support the women, or to stop or hinder or suppress their kidnapping and enslavement? This is one of those issues that I think we tend to turn away from because we feel helpless, it's so far outside our sphere of influence. Sending ten bucks to the Red Cross isn't going to do anything about this. Wringing our hands doesn't feel productive either.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Jun 02 - 08:02 PM

That's a really good question, Deda. I'm guessing that people getting informed about the problem is probably a start. And it might help if people put pressure on the governments of the countries where the sex slaves end up, to pass better laws to fight it, and also to put more effort into enforcing laws.

But I think it's also useful for people to keep in mind that the problem of the sex slave trade is just one of the many horrors that women (and children) are subjected to all over the world, and for people to speak up against all forms of abuse of women and children, and also all forms of human rights abuse, wherever they are happening.

It seems to me that problems of this sort tend to get addressed much more quickly when a lot of people speak up about them. The recent developments with regard to the sexual abuse of children by priests being a good example of this.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 02:17 AM

And Larry, I hate to have to say this, but if I were you, I'd either get rid of that song or add some more lyrics to it. It really makes you look like a hypocrite when you condemn the rapists, but you say nothing about the Hindus who are violating those girls a second time by shameing them for being rape victims. It really is a disgusting piece of work the way you've got it written right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 02:31 AM

Funny you should say that, Carol. It has gotten a bit of aclaime, for the reason that it leaves the quesiton open. If you read the thread called "Rape" you will find the story of Punima Sheel, who held a press conference to break the stigma in her community and hold the light on the oppressors. Hindu women who have heard my song have asked me to dedicate the song to her. I am sorry if you don't understand why the question is left open, I have been told it has made Hindu men think about this. I would also point out that this is a community which in several decades has come a long way. Before the socialist revolution in Bangladesh, the victems of rape would be killed by their own families. Change is not complete, but it has come lightyears. I hope you understand the intent of the song.
Some mudcat women complained about the legnth! by the way!!!
All the best,
Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 02:32 AM

Purnima, not Punima, I believe, sorry... Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: greg stephens
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 03:13 AM

Your song has been attacked as "disgusting" Larry..thought I would just say that I think it's a fine piece of work. Keep up the good work.If you write on matters of public concern, you're always expose yourelf to abuse, as you will know too well I'm sure. Don't let it get to you! Intrguingly, I was attacked earlier in this thread, and that message seems to have been censored out...unless I've overlooked it; I was just reading through and I cant find it.I suppose it was removed for the best pssible reasons: Mudcat not supporting obscene personal abuse. Personally I would have preferred it to have been left in, so that readers can judge for themselves the level of debate.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 01:18 PM

greg, it was I who alerted the powers that be in Mudcat that the personal attack I made on you was there so that it could be deleted according to the Mudcat's rules about personal attacks. I had anticipated that there would still be my name where the post had been, with a note from the person who deleted it saying that it had been deleted because it was a personal attack. I also had anticipated that my apology would have been left as well. The person who deleted both posts in their entirety is a wise person with a hell of a lot of integrity, and I don't in any way question his reasons for doing it the way he did.

I'm a bit surprised that you haven't apologised to me for acusing me of having hidden agendas and selective indignation, but perhaps I shouldn't be. Obviously, the issue of women's rights is of no concern to you, since you're the one with the hidden agendas. You didn't attack me for singling out Israel for my indignation. You attacked me for having mentioned it at all. I guess you think it's ok for me to point out the problem when it happens in countries other than Israel, but when it happens in Israel, I and everyone else must keep silent about it and help you to cover it up. Talk about selective indignation.

And greg, if you're thinking about starting some kind of smear campaign against me with that last post of yours, and your other posts to this thread, I would advise against it. I've been in the Mudcat long enough to have gotten to know many people as friends, both in the Mudcat as well as in person. They know who I am. You do not.

Larry, I'm going to respond to your post in a separate post.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 01:23 PM

I also think you should know, greg, that in my almost two years of participation in the Mudcat forum, that personal attack I made on you was the first and only time I have ever made an attack of that nature on anyone.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 02:00 PM

Hi CarolC:
Can you give me a name of the thread you are responding in??? I can't find it! Cheers and all the best, Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 02:28 PM

Hi Larry.

I apologise for the harshness of my tone in my post about your song. I'm really glad that your song is making such a positive difference in the lives of some Hindu women. I hope it continues to make a positive difference in the world.

This thread contains a hell of a lot of hurt in it, but I also think it contains the seeds of some healing. Your song, when heard in the context of being a member of the Hindu community, carries one message, as you've said; that of speaking up for Hindu women without directly taking on the oppressive elements of Hindu culture.

Unfortunately, for someone who reads or hears it outside of that context, it can give a very different impression. In the context of this thread, it can look like it condemns Muslim fundamentalism, and the harm it does to women, but condones Hindu fundamentalism and the harm it does to women. I suspect that there will be other contexts besides this thread where the song will be perceived in that way.

And the reason I found the song traumatic when perceived in that way is because of what I see happening to the issue of women's rights. I see people who are using the issue of women's rights as a way to promote other agendas that have nothing to do with women's rights. It's actually quite painful to see people using the issue of women's rights in that way.

If you haven't already, I would ask you to read all of the articles and links that I have posted, and then read this thread again. As you read the links, try to put yourself in the shoes of a woman who is reading them, or think about it as if your female loved ones were among the women who find themselves in the situations described in the articles. And then, think about how you might feel if you saw people condemning only certain contexts in which women are being abused (or at least appearing to do so).

I know that you care a lot about people, and I would like to ask you to view my post about your song in light of the traumatic effect that reading the articles in the links I posted had on me. And consider, also, the possibility that other women who encounter your song might experience it in the same way I did if they are feeling traumatized for reasons other than the ones the Hindu women you spoke of would have.

I would love to see a song from you about women who are victims of the sex slave trade. Maybe you can make a big difference for these women if you help to bring the problem to the attention of a lot of people.

Take care,

Carol

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 02:30 PM

Heh! We cross posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 02:36 PM

Larry, maybe you should write something at the end of your song about how the girl is further victimised by being made to feel shame for the violence done TO her. Maybe something like:
"How can it be our dishonor, why is it our disgrace
Why is it not the rapist, who is forced to hide his face"

I think this would make it clear your song about "Who Will Marry Me" is about the fact that no one from her own Hindu community will marry her because they blame her for what happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 03:40 PM

Hi Jeri:
I don't think sacrasem is needed here, but thanks for the point. Carol, that is the point. We have a community which has gone through genocide, so one does not want to drop a safe on their heads to make a point. But, I do, I believe make a point, which Jeri understands. Not everyone gets everything you write the first time they read it.
As to the song you mention. Vertually all the songs I write, I write from some level of personal involement. I avoid writing songs from things I learn from the newspapers, as I would be just editing what news writers and editors have already written.
Yvette's song, about Native Canadian hunter gatherers and forced assimilation, is about Yvette Michelle, a dear freind I worked with for years, even my historical ballads about Quaker events are from the storries I was told as a child by Anna Curtis, the great great grandaughter of Judith Folger, (Judith Foldger's Ballad about the Peace Feather and the Easton Meeting) who was also the granddaughter of a conductor on the Underground Railroad and the sourse for the Ballad of Richard Murray. Anna's storries were as much a part of my childhood as they were a part of hers.
In my work, I may in fact be informed about the issue you bring up, and it may result in a song.
I will read the links and thanks for the thought.
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 04:16 PM

Jeri, it took me several readings of your post to actually get what you were doing there. I guess maybe that's because I wouldn't have expected something like that from you. I actually thought you were being sincere there until I put your verse next to Larry's and saw that they were the same. Ah, well. Joke's on me, I guess.

Larry, all I can say is that your song was very confusing for me. Perhaps I'm especially dense, as Jeri seems to think. I guess I'll just have to learn to live with that. Maybe I'm the only person who will experience your song in that way. But I did read some of the posts to the "Rape" thread, and I noticed that there was at least one other person seemed to not get it the way you intended either. I can understand how you might feel it would be counterproductive to make any modifications to the song, but I would ask you to not blame the people who don't understand it for not understanding it.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 04:35 PM

Hi CarolC:
I am often the last person to get anything!!! But, as I have said on many occations when giving a workshop or being interviewed about my approach to ballad writting... I write Human Rights songs, or Historical Ballads, not Political music. As such, I almost always throw away the last verse. Actually, I think I may have said this also on the "Rape" thread. But, so far, I threw away the last verce of this song, not even writing it down, threw away the last verse of Yvettes Song, Amadou Diallo, and a couple of others. Personaly, I think it is why my music is more often praised than critisized, because it puts the picture before the listener, and the listener makes the final conclution. It is a risk, but, I think that is what makes art - art, the allowence for the individual to take a part in the process of understanding. -
Thanks for the interest... Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 04:46 PM

Thanks Larry. Can't argue with art.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 04:48 PM

Larry, CarolC - I meant it more as a smart-ass ironic comment than a nasty sarcastic one. I should never get involved in threads when the anger level seems to already be through the roof because a good deal of emotion seems to automatically be read into messages. I'm in a rather silly mood today (evidenced by everything else I've posted). I wasn't mad when I posted the above. I'm not planning on getting mad anytime in the near future.

I understood the song because I tend to think in terms of the abstract, and I look for the meaning behind the words. I look for the use of examples to make a point instead of directly stating that point. Others prefer to hear exactly what you mean - don't imply you think the situation is horrible, just say it. They think more literally.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 05:00 PM

It's not anger for me, Jeri, as much as it is hurt at this point. Thanks for the clarification. I really appreciate it.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 06:53 PM

Hi Larry. Me again. Sorry to prolong your involvement in this, but I need help understanding a couple of things. I'm having difficulty reconciling this thing you said...

Vertually all the songs I write, I write from some level of personal involement

...with this quote that you indicated your support of in another thread...

First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Do you speak out for people like the sex slaves and other categories of people who are being victimized, and with whom you don't have some level of personal involvement, in other ways than by writing songs? Or do you feel that it's not appropriate for you to speak out for any groups of people with whom you don't have any level of personal involvement?

And I'm also having difficulty understanding this...

I write Human Rights songs, or Historical Ballads, not Political music

I don't understand how a song can be a human rights song but not a political song. I'm having difficulty seeing how human rights can be separated from politics.

I hope you will read these questions in the manner in which I'm sending them, with the desire to shine a light on some things that aren't very clear to me.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 09:33 PM

Hi Carol:
I do in deed understand the spirit in asking... It is kind of like what I call the "lone whiteman savior" syndrome... a what's his name from Dances With Wolves (one of the most racist films ever made!) In most of his films, a white man, because of his superior intelect saves the "others" from disaster because HE has all the answers. In Dances With Wolves, he teaches the Lacota (the greatest horse warriors of all time -the first army to defete the US army in Red CLowds War) how to fight. Think of it!
Well, I don't have the answers, but I have a degree of education and help translate the concerns in the political arena, helping teaching marginalized folks to loby Congress, to access courts, that is what I generally do as a Political Scientist.
In that capasity, I often find myself becoming emotionaly and factualy close to a story, and in my father's tradition, I sing about it to translate the story into another form for folks not close to the event to understand.
Peggy Seegar, for example, goes to a place and does an interview towards a song. I would do this, if I where not working in Pol. Science and sometimes in law. But, I avoid giving answers, especialy FOR a people I am not one of (well, other than Humans... of course) Often you have writers assumeing more than they should and members of the "other" group feel it is presumptuous or worse. Well, it would take a long time to explane more fully, but, the diff between political songs and human rights songs is the so therefore last verse, now I have told you the problem do this verse.
But, I feel I have to see something up close enough to get into my soul, and know the people to get first hand comment back, before I sing of something for others. For example, this song, I sung to Hindus from Bangladesh before bringing it out in public.
I hope that answers the question...
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 08 Jun 02 - 10:54 PM

*G* Yes. Even with the advanced state of brain fog I seem to be suffering from these days, I completely understood what you were saying ;-)

Thanks for explaining it so carefully.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jun 02 - 01:00 AM

Since you were so forthcoming in your answer to my questions, I feel I should give you some background information about why I asked them.

I guess it comes from the way I understand responsibility. I now see that your approach to responsibility is a very good and appropriate one for you. And I applaud you for the work you do and the way you live as a person of conscience. I'm sure you are making a lot of difference in the world with the work you do, and with your songs.

My sense of responsibility comes out of a couple of things from my past. Part of it comes from having been the child of a civil rights worker back in the 60s, and being taught that when people are in need of someone to speak out for them, we make ourselves complicit with our silence. And that we should never allow that to happen.

The other part, you already know something about from some PMs we exchanged maybe about a year ago. It was during that experience I told you about when my son and I were in some pretty dire straights and we desperately needed someone to speak out for us. For a long time, no one would because they were afraid that they might lose some friends if they did. The result of no one being willing or able to speak out for us had a profoundly devastating effect on our lives, and on my son's mental health (at that time... he's ok now).

Finally, a couple of good people who saw what was being done to us realized that they had no choice but to speak out even if it meant they would lose friends. And they did lose friends as a result of speaking out. But things started to turn around for my son and me after they did so, and in the end, things worked out ok. I can't begin tell you how profoundly grateful I am to those people for making that sacrifice for my son and me.

And now, whenever I see that people don't have anyone to speak out for them, and who desperately need someone to do that, I know that I have no other choice but to speak out. I feel their pain because I've been where they are, and I know how it feels from my own experience. And I know what feels like to desperately need help and to not be able to understand why no one will give it. And I know what an incredible blessing and relief it is when someone finally does speak out.

So I guess that understanding of responsibility, based on those experiences, has given me a somewhat narrow and gut level understanding about responsibility. I don't think I'm very likely to change that understanding as it applies to me, but I'm glad I have a better understanding about how you experience responsibility. Sometimes I feel kind of isolated when I find myself in a situation where my sense of responsibility makes it necessary for me to speak out, and I see that I'm mostly on my own with that, and sometimes even being attacked for it. Now I know that I may not really be alone, and that some people may be helping in ways I can't see.

I do feel kind of bad about the way I approached saying what I did about your song. I was speaking from a place of pain because of what I had read in the links I had posted, and also from some of the responses I was getting to what I was posting. And now that I'm not in so much pain any more, I can see that it was a pretty ugly way for me to speak to you. And for that I am sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: InOBU
Date: 09 Jun 02 - 07:51 AM

Carol, my dear friend:
No need to appologise. I have to run along to meeting now, holding you in the light, Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Women's rights in Bangladesh
From: CarolC
Date: 09 Jun 02 - 03:40 PM

Thanks Larry.