By Melinda Tankard Reist, Contributing Writer for AnaiRhoads.org

With a big scarlet letter on the back as a sign of their shame

In the US, teen fashion chain ‘Forever 21′ has launched what has been labelled a “controversial” maternity line called Love 21 Maternity. The range can be found in Forever 21 stores in five states. Apparently, three of these states have the highest teen pregnancy rates in the U.S. Some are claiming that Forever 21 is deliberately endorsing or encouraging teen pregnancy. They’ve made quite a thing about it. See this and this and this.

It’s obvious really, isn’t it. The impressionable young woman sees a baggy dress or elasticised pants and says to herself: “I think I’ll get pregnant so I can get some of those!”. And let’s not even mention those cool maternity bras with the little hooks allowing release of the flaps for easy breast feeding.

I love this quote: “The maternity line has some cute, fresh and very young clothes, which only proves that they were targeting young soon-to-be moms”.

Only proves it? Oh that’s right, I almost forgot. Mums who are not in their teens are expected to look dowdy, unfresh and old.

I wonder what the critics prefer? That a pregnant teen not have something half decent to wear? Like she doesn’t already have enough problems to contend with. Is it better we send her off to the sackcloth and ashes shop where she can find something really ugly and punishing to wear, a point I make here:

I’m not making light of teen pregnancy. Yes it is a serious issue. It’s also has complex causes. Reducing this to a debate about whether a few items of clothing in a few stores in a few states in America encourage it, is trivialising the importance of the issue.

Not every young woman wants an abortion.  They are overrepresented in research findings on negative mental health outcomes after abortion. Some shared their distress in my book Giving Sorrow Words: women’s stories of grief after abortion. But if a young woman has decided to go ahead with her pregnancy, surely she should be given every support. Including some clothes to wear that won’t make her feel worse.

By Jordan Flaherty, Contributing Writer for AnaiRhoads.org

Three months ago, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law the notorious SB 1070, a bill that put her state at the forefront of a movement to intensify the criminalization of undocumented immigrants. 

Since then activists have responded through legal challenges, political lobbying, grassroots organizing and mass mobilizations. More than a hundred thousand people from across Arizona marched on the state capitol on May 29. Today, hundreds more have pledged to risk arrest through nonviolent direct action. These are the public manifestations of a widespread struggle happening in this state. The organizations leading this fight offer a template of inspiring and strategic action for people around the US who want to join in resistance to these policies.

A Rogue State

Yesterday, Federal District Court Judge Susan Bolton issued a preliminary injunction against sections of Arizona law SB 1070, which is scheduled to go into effect today. The judge put a hold on some of the most outrageous parts of the bill, such as language that mandates racial profiling by officers. However, Judge Bolton left much of the rest of the law intact, including sections that specifically target day laborers.

For Arizona activists, the legal ruling represents – at best – a small respite. “It’s not a victory, it’s a relief,” says Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). “We’re putting a band aid on a wound.”

Alvarado and the organizers with NDLON are part of a broad network of national organizations and volunteers who have joined with local organizers to fight not just against this unjust law, but also against a general climate of anti-immigrant hatred. “Arizona is a rogue state,” says Alvarado. “We’re going to use every single means that we have at our disposal to fight back.”

Puente Arizona, a Phoenix-based organization that describes itself as a human rights movement working to “resurrect our humanity,” has formed Barrio Defense Committees in neighborhoods across the city. Emulating the structure of groups founded by popular movements in El Salvador, the community-based structure work to both serve basic needs, and also build consciousness and help bring people together. The committees host regular “know your rights” trainings and ESL classes, and are organizing Copwatch projects. “We ask the community to unite and organize themselves,” says Puente activist Diana Perez Ramirez. “And we are just there to support that.” More than one thousand people have joined these neighborhood organizations so far, with more joining every day.

Puente has made use of volunteers from across the US, utilizing national support to help with local organizing, and initiating direct action with the support of out of town allies like The Ruckus Society, Catalyst Project, and various chapters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). They have issued calls to action including a Human Rights Summer (modeled after the civil rights movements’ Freedom Summer) and “30 Days for Human Rights,” a month of actions culminating in mass civil disobedience today, the day SB 1070 will become law.

Just after midnight, as the law took effect, the first protest of the day began. Nearly 80 people blocked the intersection at the entrance to the town of Guadelupe, a small – one square mile – Native American and Latino community just outside of Phoenix. Residents and elected leadership in the town have a history of public criticism of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been one of the main public faces of SB 1070, and most of the protesters (and all of the organizers) were from the community. Holding signs declaring their opposition to the new law and leading chants against police brutality, activists declared that Arpaio’s officers are not welcome in their town – a point they made concrete by physically blocking the main road leading in. The stand off against police lasted more than an hour, before protest leaders in consultation with the town’s mayor decided to open the intersection. Several more actions are planned for throughout today, and Arpaio has threatened mass arrests.

Working Proactively

The Repeal Coalition, a Flagstaff- and Phoenix-based grassroots organization, was formed in 2007. The group came together because they saw a vacuum in the immigrants’ rights movement in Arizona. “Some of the left here were not being very audacious,” explains Luis Fernandez of the Repeal Coalition. “The positions in the public debate ranged from ‘kick them all out,’ to ‘get their labor and then kick them out.’” The Repeal Coalition has staked out a position of calling for the elimination of all anti-immigration laws, declaring, “We fight for the right for people to live, love, and work wherever they please.” With this call, says Fernandez, “Now we can have a real debate.”

When the coalition was founded, organizers brought in labor activists to advise them on how to build an organization along similar models to those that have built strong unions, utilizing house calls, neighborhood mapping, and group meetings. Although they are an all-volunteer group with little to no funding, they have developed a structure that has initiated large protests and provided direct service, and they are now strategizing more ways to take direct action and non-compliance in the post SB 1070 era.

Fernandez says that this struggle is ultimately about overcoming fear and moving from reaction to proactive action. “We’ve been in a crisis in Arizona for a long time,” he explains. “Even if SB 1070 weren’t implemented, it wouldn’t matter. The political crisis would continue.” To address this crisis, Fernandez believes organizations must build unity across race and class. “Traditionally in America, when the working class starts suffering, instead of connecting together and looking upwards at the cause of the problem, they look sideways or downwards for who to blame.” Most importantly, he believes activists must take action to seize the initiative.

In this vision, he has been inspired by young organizers working on the DREAM ACT, a federal law that creates a path to citizenship for undocumented youth. “They came to Arizona and said, ‘we’re undocumented and we’re going to commit acts of civil disobedience.’” At first, Repeal Coalition members tried to talk them out of this action, but the youth explained, “We are going to lose our fear because it is the fear of being arrested or the fear of being deported that fuels the inability of political action.” The bravery and vision of these youth has inspired Fernandez to continue to search for new and bold ways to take action, rather than just continually respond to right wing attacks. “We need to set the agenda,” explains Fernandez. “We have to say, ‘No, you’re going to react to us.’”

Despite a range of tactics and philosophies, one thing organizers here have in common is a dedication to exporting the lessons of their struggle. While Arizona’s law is the first and most draconian, similar laws are pending across the country. And during this current national economic crisis, more and more politicians have found that they can score political points by demonizing immigrants. “The last two months we’ve had a lot of people calling us asking what they can do to help Arizona,” says Fernandez. “We say, organize in your own town. You don’t have to come to Arizona because Arizona is coming to you.”

Jordan Flaherty is a journalist, an editor of Left Turn Magazine, and a staffer with the Louisiana Justice Institute. He was the first writer to bring the story of the Jena Six to a national audience, and his award-winning reporting from the Gulf Coast has been featured in a range of outlets including the New York Times, Mother Jones, and Argentina’s Clarin newspaper. He has produced news segments for Al-Jazeera, TeleSur, and Democracy Now! and appeared as a guest on CNN Morning, Anderson Cooper 360, and Keep Hope Alive with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. Haymarket Books has just released his new book, FLOODLINES: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six. He can be reached at neworleans@leftturn.org.

More information about Floodlines can be found at floodlines.org.  Floodlines will also be featured on the Community and Resistance Tour this fall. For more information on the tour, see communityandresistance.wordpress.com.

By Wambi Michael, IPS

Govt hospital in Sierra Leone: civil society will watch to see if new pledges on child and maternal care will be implemented. Credit: Nancy Palus/IRIN

During the three-day summit of African Union heads of state, roughly 37,000 children and 2,000 women died across Africa, mostly from preventable causes, says a civil society coalition for child and maternal health. The coalition welcomed African leaders’ pledge to make more resources available.

The 15th summit of the African Union ended with a commitment to pay greater attention to maternal, newborn and child health. Leaders also repeated calls for the arrest warrant against Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to be stayed and committed more troops to the AU mission in Somalia.

African leaders said Africa will not be able to meet the Millennium Development Goal on infant and maternal health if more resources are not made available. They again committed to allocating their own resources by fulfilling promises made in the 2001 Abuja Declaration to spend 15 percent of national budgets on health, and by exploring public private partnerships.

The AU appealed to donors who will meet in an October 2010 meeting of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to extend the fund’s support to child and maternal health.

The additional money is to be spent on strengthening public health systems with a focus on primary health care, family planning, improving infrastructure and training of more community health workers. It was also agreed to end out-of-pocket payments including user fees for pregnant women and children under five years.

AU on peace and securitySomalia was discussed, of course. The African Union resolved to send an additional 2,000 peace-keeping troops to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), which is a vital support to that country’s Transitional Federal Government against the Islamist al-Shabaab rebels who control parts of the capital and much of the southern part of the country. AMISOM’s mandate however remains defensive, and was not extended to permit the force to attack al-Shabaab or other rebel groups. The summit also adopted an amendment to an earlier resolution asking African Union Members states not to cooperate with International Criminal Court on the arrests and surrender of Sudanese President Omar El Bashir, who is accused by the ICC of multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity. The new resolution asks the U.N. Security Council to stay the arrest warrant for a year in the interests of Sudan’s peace process and wider regional security. Ben Kioko, legal advisor at the African Union told IPS that the A-U position is not to defend Bashir, but said the continental body is opposed to what he called selective administration of justice by ICC. “Fifty-three members states of Africa appealed to U.N. to defer the proceeding against Bashir for one year in conformity with article 16 of the Rome statute,” he said. “We don’t think that one can choose justice and ignore peace. It (was) not done in South Africa for the apartheid regime leaders. Look what is happening in Sri Lanka, now in Georgia… are those leaders being tried by ICC? They are not.”

Bience Gawanas, the African Union Commissioner for Social Development, told journalists at the close of the summit that the leaders have taken a bold step in solidarity with women and children of Africa.

“It was historic… because we have been asking about political will and leadership and there is no doubt that the African Union heads of states and governments have shown the political will to promote maternal and child health on the continent.”

Civil society groups at the summit were initially concerned that the conflict in Somalia – which extended its deadly reach to the Ugandan capital with twin bombings just a week before the start of the AU meetings – would overshadow the formal theme of the summit.

But Chikezie Anyanwu, Africa advocacy coordinator for the charity Save the Children, told IPS that she was happy with outcome.

“They have highlighted that there is a health sector crisis with regards to personnel. They have committed themselves to ensure that health workers are a priority for them in the next five years,” she said. “We are happy with the commitments so far, (but) we want more action.”

Civil society points out that in nine years after the Abuja commitment, the World Health Organisation finds only three African governments met the target of 15 percent spending on health in 2010: Rwanda, Tanzania and Liberia. Over the past decade, Botswana, Niger, Zambia, Burkina Faso and Malawi have also met the target at various times.

Pointing to the example of Malawi, Anyanwu said poverty was not an excuse for lack of progress. ”The irony of the lack-of-resources excuse is that Malawi, a very poor country, has dramatically cut child deaths in recent years, exactly because they did make that goal a priority.”

As African leaders depart Kampala, the head of Oxfam’s AU Liaison Office in Addis Ababa cautioned that pledges are one thing, action another.

“While this declaration is a positive step, most of it has been promised before but has never been delivered. Only ten percent of AU decisions are effectively implemented. There is a need to immediately put in place comprehensive tracking and monitoring mechanisms to ensure the decisions are fully implemented at national level. African people are tired of rhetoric – now they need to see real change in their daily lives.”