Archive for the ‘Campaigns’ Category

by Melinda Tankard Reist, Contributing Writer for AnaiRhoads.org

Two recent and deeply disturbing ABC Four Corners documentaries have me thinking about how much women suffer. About how common, even normalised, their suffering is, and how little is done to address it.

Late last month, Four Corners broadcast the documentary ‘Heart of Darkness’ about the systematic rape of women in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their rape is commonly accompanied by genital mutilation. So many women – and even little girls – require surgery to repair what was done to them. And even then, many are raped again. Justice stands at a distance: most of the violated women can never access it.

Heart of Darkness is described on the ABC’s website :

The Democractic Republic of Congo is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman. It’s a place where rape has become a weapon of war. Now a BBC film crew follows Judith Wanga as she meets the survivors of the conflict. She talks to women, children, and child soldiers who’ve been forced to kill so that they themselves will not be killed. To her horror, she discovers that the violence is fuelled, in part, by the need to mine the minerals that go into the manufacture of mobile phones and laptops.

Twenty-three-year-old Judith Wanga grew up in London and is proud to be British. But Judith was born thousands of miles away in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Twenty years ago, with the country in turmoil and fearing for their daughter’s safety, her parents sent her to live with relatives in Britain.

Now Judith is going back to Congo for the first time. She wants to understand the childhood she missed and find the missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of her life.

Judith quickly discovers two things: despite the fact the civil war in Congo has officially ended, in the east of the country a bitter conflict between Congolese troops and rebels continues. She also discovers that women across Congo have a very different status to women in Western countries.

After the reunion with her parents, Judith visits eastern Congo, an area that has been devastated by conflict. There she learns that rape is an epidemic. Judith meets a radio journalist who conducts a one person campaign to expose the extent of the violence directed at women. She hears the stories of those who have been attacked and meets the children who are born as a result of the rapes.

As well as meeting the victims of this conflict, Judith also talks to some of the perpetrators. She meets a young woman who was forced to join the military to survive. The woman reveals how she was forced to kill and how she fled the armed forces only to find herself without money to support her child. Now she supports herself by working as a prostitute.

Amidst all the horror, Judith also glimpses a few signs of hope. She visits a centre that has been built to provide a sanctuary for women who have been assaulted, called ‘City of Joy’. In another part of Congo she meets the young men and women who carry out dramatic performances exposing the brutality they have seen and experienced.

On discovering the harsh realities of her homeland, Judith begins to understand why her parents sent her away as a child. Her experience also makes her determined to return home to Britain and encourage awareness of the plight of her country, and the women forced to endure unimaginable suffering.

You can see Heart of Darkness here:

If you survive that experience, and to get a bigger picture of the fate of women in this part of the world, have a look at ‘South Africa’s Lost Innocence’. It is a vision from hell. The ABC describes it as:

The story of three young girls living in modern day South Africa. Each of them has been raped, each lives in fear. Meanwhile, the authorities do little to protect them or punish their attackers.

South Africa has the highest incidence of rape in the world, and almost half the victims are children. On average, a child is raped every three minutes and yet there is apparently no concerted effort to stop this epidemic.

True Vision Productions takes us to the city of Port Elizabeth in South Africa to document how this war against women and children is being fought, talking with the victims as they try to go about their daily lives and revealing how little is being done to help them.

Reducing rape to a bureaucratic acronym

My friend and publisher, Susan Hawthorne of Spinifex Press, recorded her feelings while watching Heart of Darkness, on the Spinifex blog.  She urges us not to reduce the term ‘Rape’ to a more mild bureaucratic term.

A Civil War against Women

Watching the ABC’s Four Corners programme, Heart of Darkness last night I was struck by the fact that this massive level of rape going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo is really a civil war against women. The DRC has been continuously exploited as a nation for its mineral wealth by Western countries and the minerals that make our mobile phones vibrate are just the latest theft of wealth (background reading on the Congo).

The DRC is not alone in its high levels of rape against women. In Nigeria women fear to use the communal toilets because they fear sexual assault. And what about our own countries where despite laws on the books against rape, it is a crime that occurs daily?

The UN is ineffective. They have reduced the word rape to a bureaucratic acronym that makes you feel nothing: GBSV. I’ve had many a friend scratch their head wondering what this might be short for. Amnesty has put out many press releases about violence against women all around the world. Still nothing happens.

In the meantime, pornography is sold on street corners and in milk bars and petrol stations. Girls and women are increasingly sexualised. So-called progressive males keep up their call for an end to censorship so they can get their rocks off. They call for legalisation of prostitution so women can be legally sold a hundred years after the end of slavery.

And that acronym: gender based sexual violence. Let’s call it for what it is. A perfectly good and understandable four-letter word: RAPE. It is violence against women. It is a war against women. On every level of civil society: between nations, within nations, within communities and families – it is a civil war against women.

Heal Africa

If you want to make a difference in the lives of some of Congo’s physically and mentally traumatised women, here’s a group that could use your donations. I know some of the women involved. They are heroes.

By Melinda Tankard Reist, Contributing Writer for AnaiRhoads.org

Unilever has been named and shamed here before for its sexist advertising through the Lynx/Axe brand as highlighted here and here, for its hypocrisy in promoting so-called “real beauty” through its Dove brand while presenting women in degrading and objectifying ways, for its Slimfast products promoting rapid weight loss (because real beauty only comes in size skinny) and for promoting skin whitening products to dark-skinned women (Unilever – to the rescue of dark not skinny women everywhere!).

Now Unilever has taken its white supremacist ways a step further, with a new Facebook application which enables Indian men to lighten their profiles, while at the same time promoting its Vaseline brand of skin lightening products. The company spruiks the product using a Bollywood star whose face is split in half, showing the (unsightly) dark side and the (magically transformed) light side.

Unilever appears to have no shame. One of its earlier skin bleaching products was called “White Beauty”. Playing on certain racial insecurities by telling dark skinned people that they can never really be beautiful – that’s what Unilever is doing. For some great Unilever dark skin despising action, check out this You Tube clip.

Of course, it’s not just Unilever. Garnier, Nivea and L’Oreal (‘because you’re worth white skin’. OK, I made that up) do the same.

These products promote ethnocentric stereotypes about the superiority of white people.

Sociology professor T. K. Oommen at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi told Agence France Presse:

Lighter skin is associated with the ruling social class, with wealth, with general betterment. Skin lightening creams for women have been a cosmetics staple in India for decades, so when a men’s cream debuted a few years ago, its success was almost ensured.

Even Indian children are internalising these dark-skin shaming messages, with 12-14 year olds constituting 13 percent of India’s skin whitening market.

The products are also dangerous, causing kidney damage and thin skin. They have also been connected to cancer (see: The hidden costs of skin whitening products).

Indian dermatologist Dr Aamer Khan has seen a rise in women suffering from serious skin conditions as a result of skin bleaching.

“I see patients with hypo-pigmentation (loss of pigment) resulting in white patches and hyper-pigmentation leading to darker areas – both are caused by skin bleaching agents. People buy these creams that offer false hopes, but the fact is, there is no safe way to whiten your skin. There needs to be more stringent moderating of these products, as it is a very serious problem.”

Read more:

‘India’s myth of fair-skinned beauty’ published in The Guardian this week.

Spot on commentary here which illustrates the hypocrisy involved by placing the Dove onslaught ad about airbrushing beside that for Unilever’s ‘Fair & Lovely’ whitening cream.

This is a perfect quote illustrating the hypocrisy, also from The Guardian:

…in an era of increasing transparency, parent companies like Unilever can’t hide behind a barrage of sub-brands anymore. They can’t promote skin-lightening in India and self-esteem in England and expect to retain any credibility when it comes to their corporate brand.

There’s a campaign calling on Facebook to remove racist applications. Why not add your name to it today.

by Melinda Tankard Reist, Contributing Writer for AnaiRhoads.org

Tell Nick: “Naughty” Games are Not for Young Children

Nickelodeon, the children’s media empire, is promoting sexualized and violent video games to children as young as preschoolers. Its popular gaming website, AddictingGames.com, features games such as Candy the Naughty Cheerleader, Bloody Day (”Back alley butchering has never been so much fun. . . . How many kills can you rack?”) and the Perry the Sneak series, where gamers take the role of a peeping Tom trying to catch revealing glimpses of scantily clad and naked women. Nickelodeon promotes, and links directly to, Addictinggames.com on its Nick.com website for children and even on NickJr.com, its website for preschoolers.

TAKE ACTION! Tell Nick: Stop Promoting “Naughty” Games to Young Children.

After some of the games – and Nick’s links to them on its websites for children – were featured in this YouTube video and this report on Good Morning America, Nickelodeon pulled a few (e.g. Vanessa Naughty Pics and Whack Your Ex). But Nickelodeon was clearly more concerned about protecting its reputation than protecting children. They continue to link to AddictingGames.com on Nick.com and NickJr.com.

AddictingGames.com, which boasts about its large collection of “naughty games” and “shooting games,” continues to features many games with sexual and violent content, including the following. All descriptions are taken directly from AddictingGames.com: Stick Figure Penalty Chamber 2: “Small, black, stick figure death can happen in so many different ways! Do you choose shotgun to the face, or acid in the lungs?”

• Naughty Classroom – “Hot for teacher?…Here’s your chance to fulfill your ultimate childhood fantasy. Naughty Classroom will leave you begging for more homework.”

• Dark Cut 2 – “More macho surgery! No anesthetic. No antiseptics. Just rusty knives, corn whiskey, and lots of blood!”

• Foxy Sniper – “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. Fear me, because I am a crack shot! Assassination isn’t just a job; it’s a way of life.”

Please take a moment to demand that Nickelodeon stop promoting sexualized and violent videogames to young children. And be sure to let other parents know what Nick is up to. Please spread word to friends and family and promote this campaign on Twitter and Facebook .

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is a national coalition of health care professionals, educators, advocacy groups and concerned parents who counter the harmful effects of marketing to children through action, advocacy, education, research, and collaboration. CCFC is a project of Third Sector New England in Boston. www.commercialfreechildhood.org/.