Researcher Cheywa Spindel lives in New York. But she has seen far-away atrocities against women firsthand. “In India, I went to the shelters where they keep the women who don’t have any place to go,” she says. “To see the ones who have been burned [in dowry disputes] . . . I still have it in front of my eyes. . . . It was like seeing phantoms.”
Spindel has traveled the world talking with women who are targets of violence and others who are working to stop such violence. Though many American women may view such abuse as foreign and intractable, Spindel and other activists say it can happen anywhere–and every woman has the power to help change it.
“U.S. women [need] to recognize that human-rights violations are universal,” says Pamela Shifman of the rights group Equality Now. “The experiences of women in Pakistan, South Africa, Belgium are similar to experiences in the U.S. in violence against women.
“For example, honor crimes [in which males injure, even kill, female relatives who are accused of tainting the men’s honor] are a form of domestic violence, which is epidemic in this country, and many women here are murdered by their domestic partners. A woman in Illinois needs to speak out about violence that is happening to a woman in Tanzania as well as violence that’s happening to a woman in Evanston.”
But making the world a better place for women is certainly a daunting task. According to the World Bank, among women ages 15 to 44 worldwide, gender-based violence accounts for more death and ill health than cancer, traffic injuries and malaria combined.
As Nafis Sadik, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, said in the group’s annual report: “Discrimination and violence against women and girls remain firmly rooted in cultures around the world.”
You only need to open a newspaper or turn on the TV to learn of women in Pakistan being killed because they are suspected of adultery, girls as young as 10 working in brothels in Bangkok and Bombay, adolescent girls in Africa being genitally mutilated to discourage sexual temptation, women in India aborting female fetuses because they are considered a financial burden.
And at the center of the storm is Afghanistan, where the Taliban religious sect is taking atrocities against women to a whole new level, denying them the right to work, study or get medical care and forcing them to cover themselves from head to toe, beating them if they show a sliver of skin.
Look at the world long enough and it can seem like one sick horror show for many women.
“To get overwhelmed is really easy,” says Sheila Dauer, director of the Women’s Human Rights Program of AIUSA, Amnesty International’s U.S. branch. “But when you know there are hundreds, thousands, millions out there all doing the same things for change, it can help.”
Ways to help
But, if you do want to help, where to start? First, Shifman says, educate yourself about what’s happening in the world. Go to a variety of sources–newspapers and news magazines, Web sites, public debates, documentaries.
Once you’ve brushed up on an issue that tugs at you, whether at home or across the globe, you’ve got something to work with.
“There’s a lot people in the U.S. can do in terms of exerting pressure, by writing letters, alerting the media and shedding light on the human rights violations happening to women and girls,” Shifman says.
Those who stay apprised of women’s plight worldwide should keep this in mind, says Michelle Dewlen, president of the Chicago chapter of the National Organization for Women:
“Awareness is one thing–we were aware of the Holocaust and we waited too long. Movement on the issue is another.”
Dewlen suggests concerned people call groups such as NOW, Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union, depending on the issue that concerns them. But mainly, she says, people should call their elected representatives.
“Hold them accountable, at the congressional level as well as at the local level,” she says. “Ask them what they’re doing about the issue. Having worked with elected officials in the past, I can tell you they do listen to every phone call.”
Another way to help is by writing a letter or signing a petition. (Check groups’ Web sites or call their local chapters for the latest petitions and letter-writing campaigns.) That might seem paltry, but rights groups insist that, whatever the cause, it works.
“We have testimony from so many people that when the letters start coming, the jailers stop torturing them,” says Dauer of Amnesty International. “Some people are released early and say, `One of my jailers told me that hundreds of letters were coming out on my behalf.'”
The Feminist Majority Foundation says it has flooded the U.S. State Department with petitions as part of its campaign to stop the gender apartheid in Afghanistan. (The group wants the U.S., in part, to increase humanitarian aid to the country.)
“We have been told by State Department officials that they themselves are impressed by [the petitions],” says foundation president Eleanor Smeal. She says former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright “was getting a count daily. They were impressed that Americans care that much. We’re told that Americans don’t care about international issues, and it’s important that they see it’s not true.”
Rights groups often provide action alerts that tell what battle most urgently needs to be fought and how supporters can help. For instance, the Feminist Majority Foundation has set up action teams, ranging from one person to a classroom of kids, to raise public awareness and money for the women and girls in Afghanistan.
One team tried an especially creative tact: Some high schoolers took a burqa, the head-to-toe shroud that Afghan females are forced to wear, to a fundraising display in the land of capri pants and crop tops–their local mall.
Not surprisingly, rights groups say money helps a lot, and they always have ways people can contribute.
For instance, for $25, you can join Amnesty International, receive the group’s quarterly newsletter and vote annually for the group’s board of directors. Equality Now sends a pamphlet on eradicating female genital mutilation to those who join and contribute $50. And the Feminist Majority Foundation has set up an Adopt-A-School Project that gives money to underground schools for girls in Afghanistan. It says that $60 will supply notebooks, pencils and pencil sharpeners for 300 students.
“Dollars are so important,” Smeal says. “And you can buy a lot there; their economy has gone to nothing.”
Roxanna Carrillo is the human-rights adviser at UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the only UN-sponsored fund that deals with violence against women.
“Every cent counts,” she says. “You cannot imagine how much a women’s group can do, say, in Congo to deal with issues like trauma counseling for victims of the war, or for women in Bosnia-Herzegovina.”
Collective pressure
Despite the groups’ pleas, their sense of optimism is palpable. Amnesty’s Dauer says her group is thrilled by the recent worldwide focus on the plight of women. “A roused international public can apply a lot of pressure,” she says.
Shifman says a recent Equality Now campaign brought change to Gambia in Africa.
“They had passed a law saying the state-owned radio station could only broadcast pro-female genital mutilation information, not anti,” she says. “We were contacted by women’s organizations in the Gambia to help reverse that directive. With public pressure, we were able to get that changed.”
Such change happens all the time, Shifman says.
“Human rights violations thrive when no one’s looking,” she says, “when governments feel like they can act without anyone noticing.”
But even when people notice, as is the case with Afghanistan, change isn’t easy. The fundamentalist Muslim militia controlling most of Afghanistan largely ignores worldwide condemnation. Activists feel limited in what they can accomplish, even with donations.
“Money won’t solve the problem,” says Aslam Abdullah, vice chairman of the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles. “Who knows if it even ends up where it’s intended?”
Though he applauds the “sincerity and commitment” of rights groups in the U.S., Abdullah says Muslim women around the world should be at the lead of any campaign in Afghanistan.
“Muslim women could go and confront these people. Taliban would have problems letting them in, but that would be bad publicity for the Muslim world if they don’t. If they can’t get in, that would lead to more exposure and confrontation.”
The right thing to do
Rights groups acknowledge that the situation in Afghanistan is especially difficult, but say they’re still helping. For example, The Feminist Majority Foundation says it can’t reveal how it gets money to Afghan women and girls, but says the dollars do get there. And the Taliban itself has reluctantly made things easier: After much cajoling, it recently agreed to let the World Food Program employ local woman to survey households and find out who is going hungry and what aid is needed.
No matter how difficult the fight for change, activists insist, it’s simply the right thing to do.
“It’s so outrageous, you’ve got to do something,” Smeal says. “If all good people say nothing, they’ll continue. The human cry has to go out. There are UN officials and American officials risking their lives. They need to know, by God, that people do care.”
Researcher Spindel co-wrote a book on women and violence that offers several success stories. “With An End in Sight: Strategies from the UNIFEM Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence Against Women” shows the creative ways women in such places as Bosnia-Herzegovina, India, Kenya, and the West Bank and Gaza are bringing about change.
For example, in Kenya, women are creating alternative rites of passage for girls to replace the practice of female genital mutilation. And in Honduras, activists are combining soccer tournaments with anti-violence training sessions to help change men’s attitudes toward women.
Spindel says seeing women improve other women’s lives, as well as their own, “makes me proud to be a woman.”
Places to start
If you’re interested in learning more about how to help women of the world, here are some useful resources:
– Equality Now: equalitynow.org / 212-586-0906
– The Feminist Majority Foundation: www.feminist.org / 703-522-2214
– UNIFEM: United Nations Development Fund for Women: www.unifem.undp.org / 212-906-6400
– Women’s Human Rights Program, Amnesty International USA: www.amnestyusa.org/women / 212-633-4251
– The book “With an End in Sight: Strategies from the UNIFEM Trust Fund to Eliminate Violence Against Women,” by Melissa Connor, Elisa Levy and Cheywa Spindel, can be ordered at www.womenink.org. It’s $12.95 plus shipping and handling.
