Washington Post: U.S. pressures Japan on military package

As reported by the Washington Post on 10/21, some elements in Japan are exerting pressure on the US to move or close the base on Okinawa, possibly moving it to a less-populated area of the island or to the mainland. The new Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has spoken about redefining Japan's relationship with the US.

The US has pushed back quite hard, and the Post reports today that Japan seems to be caving.

For better or worse, Japan and the US need each other as a counterweight to China's increasing military power. I'm not going to comment extensively otherwise on this issue.

However, there is a bigger issue. Earlier, Amnesty International released a research report showing that multiple competing legal jurisdictions left significant loopholes where no policy agency was clearly in charge, which placed Native American women on reservations at risk of sexual assault by external parties (i.e. non-Reservation members).

There is a similar problem in Okinawa. In this case, there is a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that generally shields American servicepeople from prosecution by Japanese or Okinawan authorities. There are numerous, well-documented instances of American servicemen being shielded from local prosecution by SOFAs.

This is unacceptable. A country crosses the line into empire when it disregards local laws and local needs. US servicepeople should be subject to local laws in most circumstances. In cases where they are based in a relatively democratic, allied country, there should be absolutely no question about this. There are worries that American servicepeople might be unjustly treated by local criminal justice systems - but it is not asking too much that well-disciplined, well-trained soldiers obey the law. It is not asking too much that they either not commit rape, or that they answer for their crimes if they do. Shielding American servicepeople from proper prosecution guarantees that they will commit more crimes.

Enlisting the Aid of Hairstylists as Sentinels for Domestic Abuse

A friend sent me this NY Times article about women leveraging social connections to generate an intervention against domestic violence. Not all women work in professional businesses with lots of financial and legal resources, so they don't have those social connections to take advantage of. However, they probably go to hair salons. This article features an program at a Latina-owned hair salon. An excerpt:


Martha Castillo knew her client had a problem because their weekly hair-straightening sessions were always interrupted by phone calls from a boyfriend angrily accusing her of being with another man. Magda Florentino noticed cigarette burns on a woman’s temples when she pulled back her hair for washing — and did not buy the explanation that they had happened accidentally while she was bartending.

And Candida Vasquez received a hysterical call from a customer soon after she had spent three hours knitting extensions into the woman’s hair. Her boyfriend hated the look, and in a fit of rage he had cut off not only the extensions, but also the rest of her hair.

Ms. Vasquez said she was not surprised by the call. Troubled clients tell her their personal stories all the time. “They are so tormented, they just come in and share,” she said.

The privileged, often therapeutic relationship between hairdressers and clients has long been the subject of magazine articles and movies. A growing movement in New York and across the nation tries to harness that bond to identify and prevent domestic violence, a pervasive problem that victims are often too ashamed to reveal to law enforcement or other public officials.

Ms. Vasquez, Ms. Castillo and Ms. Florentino are all stylists in Manhattan who have been trained (or are being trained) as part of a one-year-old program by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services in beauty salons in the Washington Heights area, where many cases of domestic abuse and neglect include violence that is not necessarily aimed at children.

The initiative joins similar efforts that have been sprouting across the nation; perhaps the best known, called Cut It Out and based in Chicago, has trained 40,000 salon workers in all 50 states to recognize signs of domestic abuse. In the past few months, the Cut It Out program was also adopted by the Empire Education Group, which has 87 cosmetology schools, and endorsed by the American Association of Cosmetology Schools, the trade organization representing another 800 schools.

Nearly 600,000 women and girls and 144,000 men and boys nationwide were victims of violence by an intimate partner in 2006, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. In New York last year, the police received hundreds of domestic disturbance calls every day and recorded about 55,000 crimes connected to domestic violence.

Neither the city’s program nor the much larger Cut It Out, founded in 2002, tracks how many women the programs have referred for help, so it is hard to assess their effectiveness. But law enforcement officials in New York and nationally have praised the beauty-shop approach for reaching a population that normally hides from authorities.

Kathy Ryan, chief of the Domestic Violence Unit of the New York Police Department, said that battered women were such a hard population to reach that “preventing even one death should be considered success.”

The police have tried doing outreach to victims by, among other things, setting up domestic violence-education tables at community events, only to find that no one wants to be seen near them. But the atmosphere is different in the safety of a beauty salon.

“The salon may be one of the few places women might be without their abuser around,” said Laurie Magid, a former state prosecutor who is acting United States attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. “This program really addresses a need. You don’t have a case unless you have a crime reported in the first place and that is the difficult area of domestic violence.”

Domestic violence: Your coworker's dark secret

CNN Money has an article on domestic violence in the workplace.

Cindy Bischof was not the kind of woman who would normally let a boyfriend get in the way of her career.

Driven, persistent, productive, she was everybody's favorite partner at Darwin Realty, a commercial real estate firm on the outskirts of Chicago. She was a role model to the firm's young women, a mentor to junior brokers, a 43-year-old overachiever: in at 5:30 A.M., networking at lunch, so smart about heavy industry that her peers voted her Industrial Broker of the Year.

Cindy was neither submissive nor easily intimidated - which is why what happened to her on March 7 is all the more shocking.

For nearly a year Bischof had been trying to untangle herself from a soured five-year relationship with an out-of-work salesman named Michael Giroux. After their breakup in May of last year, according to friends, family, and police reports, the handsome and charming Giroux suddenly turned strange and dangerous.

The day they broke up, Bischof changed the locks on her house. That night she went to stay with her parents. Giroux smashed the back windows of her house, broke in, and threw paint all over her furniture, rugs, and appliances.

Giroux began calling her incessantly on her cell phone. He stalked her at her house, at her parents' house, even on the golf course.

Bischof's torment became Darwin Realty's nightmare as her co-workers rallied around her. They helped clean up the damage to her house, which cost her $70,000, according to police reports. The head of Darwin's construction department installed a camouflaged infrared deer-hunting camera in the bushes of her backyard to take pictures of her deck at night.

In August, it caught Giroux there with a rope, making a noose. Darwin's president, George Cibula, arranged for Bischof to move into a rental property 30 miles away in Plainfield so that Giroux couldn't find her. Cibula hired security guards for the company Christmas party. Sometimes Cindy's partners walked her out to her car at night, just in case.

But Bischof was alone that Friday afternoon in March as she left her office and headed to her car, looking forward to joining her parents at her condo in Estero, Fla. Minutes later, Brian Liston, a Darwin partner working in a corner office, heard four gunshots behind him. He turned and there, outside his office window, lay Bischof, face down on the parking-lot pavement. Giroux, wearing a baseball cap and a fake mustache, had been lying in wait at the tire store next door. He shot and fatally wounded her before shooting himself in the head.

While police spent hours investigating the obvious, employees huddled in the hallways and conference rooms as shock turned to horror and then to unbearable grief. "It's still not over," Cibula said months later, choking up. "All you can do is endure the shock of it."

As the boss, he doesn't know what he could have done differently. He couldn't shield his staff from the trauma. No amount of security would have stopped so determined a killer, he believes. "If everybody brings their problems to work, pretty soon you're a psych hospital," he says. "Cindy knew that, and she tried. But we butted our way in anyway because she was our friend."

Domestic violence is still a taboo topic in most of corporate America, and no wonder. Logic won't address it. It carries a great stigma. It raises difficult questions in high-powered workplaces that employ - let's face it - both perpetrators and victims.

Many executives believe the issue has no place at work. What happens at home is supposed to stay at home, especially matters of the heart. In a survey of 200 CEOs sponsored by Liz Claiborne Inc. (LIZ, Fortune 500) last year, most agreed that domestic violence was a serious issue, but 71% said they didn't believe it was a problem at their own companies. Only 13% felt that corporations need to play a major role in addressing domestic abuse.

Soon, though, they may have no choice. Employee attitudes, demographics, and the efforts of some CEOs are converging to drag this issue out of the closet. With so many women in the workforce, and with e-mail, text messaging, and cell phones connecting them to the office around the clock, domestic violence comes to work whether executives like it or not. Employees are well aware of this.

However, a recent large survey by the Sam Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas shows as many as 1 in 10 female workers is currently experiencing some form of domestic violence. Additionally, this could happen to anyone - although the article focuses on women, a growing number of men also experience domestic violence.

You get a sense of that in a chilling study of a group of batterers conducted by the state of Maine four years ago to assess the implications for occupational health and safety. Many of the 152 men surveyed described a consuming need to know their wives' whereabouts. They felt compelled to check up on them constantly - by calling or leaving work to see if their wives were where they were supposed to be. The urges were so overwhelming that half said they had trouble on the job, making mistakes or causing accidents, and that the feelings intensified when their wives tried to leave them.

Forget any notions you might have about what makes a person vulnerable. She doesn't have to be weak or somehow masochistic. There is no "type." People we interviewed for this story included an employment lawyer in Kansas City, a Red Cross administrator who worked alongside North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole, a Yale MBA who handled a groundbreaking project for GM, a New York University MBA who's chief of staff to the Bronx borough president, even an FBI agent. (She disassembled her gun when she got home every night and left it in the trunk of her car, having made, she says, a conscious decision: "We were not going to have live fire in the house.")

Anybody, even the strongest, smartest, most talented women - your highest producer, your rising star, your daughter, your granddaughter - can fall victim. "I've met Ph.D.s who say, 'Yes, I was in love with the guy. I got doled out just enough money for food for the kids,'" says Allstate's Tom Wilson. "Money is the weapon of choice, often in combination with other things, because it keeps the victims locked up. It's the keys. If you don't have a car, you can't run away. If you don't have credit, you can't get an apartment."

That's what makes the workplace so central to the struggle. "Economic independence is the strongest indicator of whether or not a victim can leave a batterer," says Stacey P. Dougan, chief professional development officer at the Atlanta law firm Powell Goldstein, who advises companies on how to handle domestic-violence issues.

That means you can count on the abuser to "relentlessly try to interfere with that employment relationship." Work is the one place a stalker can be absolutely sure he'll find his victim. Sometimes it's a target. It's nearly always a flash point. It's the site of a surprising amount of activity in these struggles, as the stories of the women we interviewed demonstrate in chilling detail.

I once recall talking to a student advisor with bruises on her face consistent with being beaten. She said she fell off her bike - I know firsthand what sort of injuries you're likely to sustain falling off a bike, and her injuries were different. Of course, I couldn't ask what happened, and couldn't prove anything. She later died of cancer.

Nothing you can do will stop a truly determined assailant, as Cindy Bischoff's ex boyfriend was. However, domestic violence has to exert a substantial cost on companies. Additionally, the workplace can be a sanctuary for an abused person - and that person's success at work can be a threat to the abuser.

In the US, employers need to be aware of their country's legal complications:

Domestic abuse exposes companies to an increasingly complicated thicket of federal, state, and local laws designed to protect victims. (More than 40 states have some kind of legislation designed to give victims some workplace protections.) In New York City, for instance, it's illegal to punish a victim for the actions of her abuser. So you can be damned if you do and if you don't.

Well-intentioned bosses can violate medical-privacy laws or antidiscrimination laws if they aren't careful about how they approach an employee they suspect might be a victim. That, more than anything, is reason to confront domestic violence head-on rather than ignore it, says Stacey Dougan, who became an expert on the issue after winning a landmark case in Florida in 1998.

Liz Claiborne, an early pioneer, developed a three-word call to action: "Recognize. Respond. Refer." "Recognize" means noticing if a colleague wears turtlenecks in summer, shrugs unenthusiastically at the arrival of flowers, is secretive about home, is absent a lot. "Respond" means inquiring and sharing your concerns. "Refer" means acting as a conduit to the resources and agencies that can help.

What bosses shouldn't do is try to solve the problems themselves. Domestic violence is too complex and potentially dangerous. A victim is at greatest risk when she leaves the batterer, studies show. And she can risk losing custody of her children in divorce courts, where abuse allegations can sometimes backfire on a victim.

There are bound to be similar legal issues elsewhere, of course.

In any case, this is a difficult situation, and employers should be on the lookout for their employees - but ham-handedness might be do more harm than good.

Tiny Voices Defy Child Marriage in Yemen

From NY Times

JIBLA, Yemen — One morning last month, Arwa Abdu Muhammad Ali walked out of her husband’s house here and ran to a local hospital, where she complained that he had been beating and sexually abusing her for eight months.

That alone would be surprising in Yemen, a deeply conservative Arab society where family disputes tend to be solved privately. What made it even more unusual was that Arwa was 9 years old.

Within days, Arwa — a tiny, delicate-featured girl — had become a celebrity in Yemen, where child marriage is common but has rarely been exposed in public. She was the second child bride to come forward in less than a month; in April, a 10-year-old named Nujood Ali had gone by herself to a courthouse to demand a divorce, generating a landmark legal case.

Together, the two girls’ stories have helped spur a movement to put an end to child marriage, which is increasingly seen as a crucial part of the cycle of poverty in Yemen and other third world countries. Pulled out of school and forced to have children before their bodies are ready, many rural Yemeni women end up illiterate and with serious health problems. Their babies are often stunted, too.

The average age of marriage in Yemen’s rural areas is 12 to 13, a recent study by Sana University researchers found. The country, at the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula, has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.

“This is the first shout,” said Shada Nasser, a human rights lawyer who met Nujood, the 10-year-old, after she arrived at the courthouse to demand a divorce. Ms. Nasser decided instantly to take her case. “All other early marriage cases have been dealt with by tribal sheiks, and the girl never had any choice.”

...

Minority Report: Anita's story and the callous immigration rule that trapped her

Jerome Taylor, blogging on the Independent.


At first glance Anita Jain looks and acts just like any other bright and confident 28-year-old woman. It's only when she pulls back her sleeves to reveal the deep, angry scars running along her wrists that you realise Anita's recent past has been anything but plain sailing.

For two years her husband beat her horrendously. So bad was the abuse that she was regularly hospitalised - on one occasion a nurse even found a footprint in the small of her back.

Helping any vulnerable woman escape from such a situation is depressingly difficult. But a particularly callous British immigration law means that, for people like Anita, finding a way out is even harder.

The problem is that although Anita, an Indian national, had come to Britain perfectly legally and was married to a British citizen she was forbidden from accessing any public money during her first two years in the country.

That meant she couldn't receive some of the vital benefits that help other women in her situation escape. Without housing benefits she was unable to access most refuges, without income support she was unable to feed herself or even get a room to escape her husband.

The rule is known as the "No Recourse" rule, and campaigners say it should be immediately suspended for victims of domestic and sexual abuse.

Anita was forbidden from accessing public funds simply because she entered the UK on a spousal visa. If you come to Britain on a student visa, a temporary work visa or a spousal visa then under the No Recourse rule you are not allowed to access public funds for the first two years. It's a sort of probationary test, a way of trying to reduce people abusing the benefits system but it also traps some of the most vulnerable women in the country in a vicious cycle of violence.

Anita first tried to escape from her husband in January 2007. After a particularly vicious beating she was locked in the bathroom by her husband. She decided to escape and jumped out of the window, injuring herself in the process.

She told me (in the near perfect English she's been practising) that a man found her sobbing at a nearby bus stop and took her to his neighbours, who were Asian. The police came round, took a statement and said they would be back tomorrow. In fact it took them two weeks to come back again. The family tried to get Anita into a women's refuge centre but because she was forbidden from accessing public funds most refuges are forced to say no and she couldn't get in anywhere.

She couldn't return to India because her parents would have disowned her and eventually she felt she could no longer be a burden to the kind family that took her in and decided to go back to her husband. It wasn't long before the beatings resumed. By September she was in hospital again with a broken cheekbone and a bleeding wrist from an attempted suicide bid.

Finally she was put in contact with the Southall Black Sisters - one of the few charities that still support women with no recourse to public funds (Refuge is another charity that does so). They took her in, helped her give another statement to the police and now her husband has been arrested and is awaiting trial.

Southall Black Sisters first started campaigning against No Recourse in 1992 and yesterday they were outside Westminster alongside a coalition of women's groups calling on the government to do more to help these vulnerable women access funds as soon as they possibly can.

They want the government to follow the lead of other countries who provide these women with access to funds and shelter.

In Austria any woman, irrespective of her immigration status, is entitled to access a refuge and living costs if she applies for an injunction, issues divorce proceedings on the basis of the violence or obtains a report from a social institution confirming she is a victim of domestic violence. In Canada, meanwhile, spouses automatically become permanent residents on arrival as there is no probationary period meaning they can immediately access shelter should their marriage become violent.

In Britain at present a woman who experiences abuse can apply for permanent residency during the two year probationary period if she can prove that she is a victim of domestic violence. But campaigners say it is incredibly difficult for any woman to provide evidence of domestic violence. For a woman who may not speak English very well and has been held a prisoner in her own home by her husband, or sometimes his extended family, it is close to impossible.

It's not just Asian women who suffer what Anita has. Campaigners say they have seen similar cases among Middle Eastern, African, Caribbean and, increasingly, Eastern European women.

Regardless of the immigration debate, surely it is our moral responsibility to provide any of these women who have entered the country legally (and even those who haven't) with the protection they need? They are not benefit fraudsters or cheats, they are desperately vulnerable people in need of help, and at the moment Britain turns its back on them.

Abuse victims warily consider Pope's words

The New York Times has an article giving perspectives on Pope Benedict's visit from some sexual abuse survivors.

Please remember that this isn't only about the Catholic Church. We hear the most about them because they are by far the largest Christian denomination - there's more Roman Catholics than all Protestants combined, I think. And I've heard similar criticisms leveled at, say, the Southern Baptist Convention. Sexual abuse has taken place in every denomination. And it will, unfortunately, continue to take place. That said, churches that are slow to admit there's a problem, will have a bigger problem. To the extent that the Catholic Church has been disproportionately slow to react to sex abuse, then this is about the Catholic Church.

Edit: The Episcopal Church, whose organizational structure is relatively democratic and transparent, also had a case where a bishop concealed sexual abuse perpetrated by his brother, a priest.

Episcopal Church sets trial date for suspended bishop

It gives me great sadness to pass on this report: Bishop Charles Bennison of Pennsylvania is to face an ecclesiastical trial on June 9.

The charges were that he concealed his younger brother's continued sexual abuse of a 14 year-old girl.

John Bennison, Charles' younger brother, resigned from the priesthood when a Los Angeles TV station reported his sexual abuse. Charles apologized later that year, in public, for his inaction.

Charles Bennison is theologically liberal, so he's one of 'us'.

Sexual abuse, then, is everybody's problem. We must be on our guard against sexual abuse, and must pray for healing for the abusers.

Frankly, healing comes very hard, and sexual attraction to minors may be a relatively immutable characteristic, like sexual orientation. However, unlike homosexuality, there is no healthy expression for pedophilia.

We must pray for abusers, and for the abused. And we must be on our guard.

Tying it together part I: Indigenous peoples, health, and internal colonialism

Why does it matter to Christians that Jesus is a victim of empire along with Kamehameha and Emma? Why does it matter to Christians that Jesus is Indigenous?


On Aug 8, 2006, in Australia, the Board of Inquiry Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse was formed in response to reports in the Northern Territories of high rates of child sexual abuse among Aboriginal Australians. Former Northern Territory Director of Public Prosecutions Rex Wild QC and Pat Anderson, a Alyawarr woman with many years’ experience of working in Indigenous health, chaired the Board.

The Board released a report entitled All Children Are Sacred. Its findings, taken from the summary page, are:

Important points made by the Inquiry included:

* Child sexual abuse is serious, widespread and often unreported.
* Most Aboriginal people are willing and committed to solving problems and helping their children. They are also eager to better educate themselves.
* Aboriginal people are not the only victims and not the only perpetrators of sexual abuse.
* Much of the violence and sexual abuse occurring in Territory communities is a reflection of past, current and continuing social problems which have developed over many decades.
* The combined effects of poor health, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment, gambling, pornography, poor education and housing, and a general loss of identity and control have contributed to violence and to sexual abuse in many forms.
* Existing government programs to help Aboriginal people break the cycle of poverty and violence need to work better. There is not enough coordination and communication between government departments and agencies, and this is causing a breakdown in services and poor crisis intervention. Improvements in health and social services are desperately needed.
* Programs need to have enough funds and resources and be a long-term commitment.

It is impossible to set communities on the path to recovery from the sexual abuse of children without dealing with the basic services and social ills. It is our hope that no Aboriginal child born from this year on will ever suffer sexual abuse.
Rex Wild QC and Pat Anderson, Inquiry Co-Chairs

It recommends:

Education
Education is the key to helping children and communities foster safe, well adjusted families. School is the way to keep future generations of Aboriginal children safe. Getting children to school every day is essential because:

* children are safe when they are at school
* school is a venue for educating children about child sexual abuse and protective behaviours
* education provides opportunity, empowerment and achievement and offers a way to overcome the social and economic problems which contribute to violence
* children can confide in their teachers.

The Inquiry urged the government to improve Aboriginal education systems, including local language development, to make education more effective for Aboriginal children.

A range of education campaigns
Education campaigns are recommended to inform people about:

* child sexual abuse and what to do about it
* mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse
* the impact of alcohol, pornography and gambling on communities, families and children
* the value of education, and encouraging a culture of parental and community commitment to sending children to school.

Alcohol
Alcohol remains the gravest and fastest growing threat to the safety of Aboriginal children. There is a strong association between alcohol abuse, violence and the sexual abuse of children. Alcohol is destroying communities. The Inquiry recommended urgent action be taken to reduce alcohol consumption in Aboriginal communities.

Family and Community Services (FACS) and the Police
Both need to work more closely with each other and with communities. It is important FACS and the Police build the trust of communities so everyone can work together to combat child sexual abuse. The Inquiry has also proposed an Advice Hotline so anyone who is concerned about possible child sexual abuse can call someone for confidential information and advice.

Family support services
Family support services need to be improved, particularly in Aboriginal communities, as this will help to strengthen families and keep children safe and healthy.

Empowerment of Aboriginal communities
Communities can take more control and make decisions about the future. The Inquiry’s report suggests ways in which this can happen including the role which men and women can play, the introduction of community justice groups and better dialogue between mainstream society and Aboriginal communities.

Commissioner for Children and Young People
The Inquiry recommends that the government appoint a senior, independent person who can focus on the interests and wellbeing of children and young people, review issues and report to Parliament.

John Howard's government, however, does not give a shit about Indigenous peoples' rights. Here's a list of what these idiots actually did, as reported by Oxfam:

1. Introducing widespread alcohol restrictions on Northern Territory Aboriginal land.

2. Introducing welfare reforms to stem the flow of cash going toward substance
abuse and to ensure funds meant to be for children’s welfare are used for that
purpose

3. Enforcing school attendance by linking income support and family assistance
payments to school attendance for all people living on Aboriginal land and
providing meals for children at school at parents’ cost

4. Introducing compulsory health checks for all Aboriginal children to identify
and treat health problems and any effects of abuse

5. Acquiring townships prescribed by the Australian Government through
five year leases including payment of just terms compensation

6. As part of the immediate emergency response, increasing policing levels in
prescribed communities, including requesting secondments from other
jurisdictions to supplement NT resources, funded by the Australian
Government.

7. Requiring intensified on ground clean up and repair of communities to make
them safer and healthier by marshalling local workforces through work-for-
the-dole

8. Improving housing and reforming community living arrangements in
prescribed communities including the introduction of market based rents and
normal tenancy arrangements

9. Banning the possession of X-rated pornography and introducing audits of all
publicly funded computers to identify illegal material

10. Scrapping the permit system for common areas, road corridors and
airstrips for prescribed communities on Aboriginal land, and;

11. Improving governance by appointing managers of all government business in
prescribed communities

12. Abolition of the CDEP scheme [a further key step in the Emergency Response
being implemented in the Northern Territory announced 23 July 2007]]

Howard's response ignores several of the recommendations of Little Children are Sacred. It introduces several measures that were not asked for, and some may be harmful to Aboriginal communities. It was not planned in consultation with Aboriginal leaders.

Originally, the Australian government was quite involved in the planning of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Australia was moving toward greater recognition for Aborigines. And yet, Howard's government has backtracked on Aboriginal rights, and refused to sign the Declaration. Do you think they might have something to hide?

In the next part, I'll tell you more about point 5.

Fellow blogger Rev. Elizabeth Kaeton says: Pay attention. You'll want to remember this face.

This is Sybille N. Nyeck. You'll want to remember her name.

Some of you have met her or at least read some of her writings in The Witness. She is, without a doubt, one of the most original, creative theologians I have ever read.

A native of Cameroon, she taught herself English (French and Bantu are her mother tongues). Her mother is a teacher, so much of her early education was home-based. She attended Bible School for a time where she was able to polish her academic skills but, as a woman in her country, earned no diploma, degree or certificate.

I first met Sybille in July of 2001 when, at age 23, she was visiting the Sisters of St. Helena in Vails Gate, NY. In conversation with her, it became clear that she was in no small amount of difficulty in her country.

Her mother had remarried after her father's death and she had a younger step-sister who had Down's Syndrome. She had recently discovered that her step-father was sexually abusing her sister. Outraged, she filed charges against the man.

Her outrage was met in kind. In her country, she explained, men sexually abuse younger women with impunity, never really fearing consequences for their heinous actions. To make matters worse, it is almost unheard of for a woman to file legal charges against a man - much less a daughter against a parent.

However, the evidence was overwhelming and her charges stuck. Her step-father was hauled off to jail to await his trial. When rumor had it that he would be released on bail, Sybille began to fear for her life. She had fled the country for a time, which included visiting the Convent of St. Helena, to allow the outrage in certain parts of her community to quiet down before the trial.

Two years later, in an effort to further discredit her, her sexuality became the source of public knowledge. Threats - most of them very, very serious - were made against her life. Sybille began to send emails to those of us who had met her, pleading for help.

An elaborate plan began to come together. She got herself invited to Brussels to deliver a paper, and so was granted a travel visa. We then combined that with a short "vacation" to Paris, where a young Parisian woman named Katia, a curator at the Louvre and a member of an African LGBT activist group, agreed to sponsor her.

From Paris, I was privileged to be part of a small group of friends including Louie Crew, Ethan Flad and Barbara Crafton to help her to the United States. I well remember the night our Ms. Conroy picked her up at Kennedy Airport and she stayed with us for a few days to decompress and get herself acclimated. The good Sisters at St. Helena then gave her sanctuary for a month before the Flad family took her in. She finally settled in with the Franciscan Brothers in Brooklyn, who gave her a room and helped her to get herself established in this country.

Against almost all odds (given her continent of origin and her sexuality) she was awarded political asylum almost a year to the day of her arrival in this country. Those of us who supported her in this process were told by the folks at INS that her research and writing, published at The Witness, not only made the compelling case for her asylum, but laid the ground work which would insure the asylum of other African LGBT people.

Indeed, my testimony about this case during the 2006 Immigration hearings at General Convention Committee on Urban and Social Justice was compelling enough for The Episcopal Church to pass a resolution condemning the oppression and death threats of LGBT people in Africa.

Her path has been nothing short of meteoric. She graduated at the top of her class at LaGuardia Community College in Queens two years ago and was accepted at several prestigious private colleges to complete her BA, and ultimately chose Swarthmore. I am delighted to say that there are three alumna/ae of Swarthmore in my congregation, one of whom wrote her a sterling recommendation.

Sybille has more than proven herself an amazing scholar. She graduated from Swarthmore in May with honors with a double major in Comparative Literature and Political Science. She also successfully wrote a grant and completed a documentary of interviews of Cameroonian LGBT people which was debuted at Swarthmore in April. She hopes to submit it to film festivals so that the truth about African LGBT people can be more widely known.

I saw the film on Tuesday night. It is very, very impressive and deeply moving. To my surprise and delight, she has included as part of the sound track a song she wrote shortly after meeting me. Sybille herself sings it in French and plays all of the instruments on the recording, which she also produced. It is called, simply, "Elizabeth." I didn't understand half the words. No matter. It still made me weep.

Sybille applied to a number of schools for graduate studies. I know of at least three that accepted her, and she has decided to enter the PhD program at UCLA in political science. She has been awarded the most prestigious merit-based fellowship given by Swarthmore president's office and the graduate division and a very generous scholarship from UCLA.

She leaves Thursday for a month's vacation in Paris where she will stay with her dear friend, Katia. It's the first time she has had a vacation in five years. She then leaves Paris for LA where she will move into graduate student housing and begin her doctoral course work.

On Tuesday evening, Sybille came to visit us in the Rectory in Chatham for what may be the last visit for a while. But, there is no doubt that our paths will cross again. And, God willing, again and again and again.

I also have no doubt that you will also be hearing from this amazing woman in the not-so-distant future.

May God continue to richly bless you, Sybille, that you may continue to be a blessing to those who come to know you and be inspired by your work and thoughts.

[Emphasis in document is mine. INS stands for Immigration and Nationalization Service; it has been renamed the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), and continues to provide slow, sloppy service. The Witness is a liberal Episcopal web magazine that has sadly ceased publication, but the archives are available online.

As we celebrate Sybille's accomplishments and her successful flight from persecution, remember that obtaining asylum on any grounds can be a very iffy feat, and not just in this country. Not everyone has the ability to actually get out of their country and/or get noticed by sympathetic foreigners. As for legally getting asylum, Rev Kaeton has previously showed that if you get the wrong judge, you may be screwed.]

Woman raped before "honor killing": court

LONDON (Reuters) - A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an "honor killing" carried out at her London home because she had fallen in love with the wrong man.

Banaz Mahmod, 20, was subjected to the 2-1/2 hour ordeal before she was garroted with a bootlace. Her body was stuffed into a suitcase and taken about 100 miles to Birmingham where it was buried in the back garden of a house.

Her badly decomposed body was found in April 2006, three months after the killing.

Last month a jury found her father Mahmod Mahmod, 52, and his brother Ari Mahmod, 51, guilty of murder after a three-month trial. Their associate Mohamad Hama, 30, had earlier admitted killing her.

On Thursday at a pre-sentence hearing for Hama, the Old Bailey heard details about Banaz's last moments.

Prosecutors said the three convicted men, along with two other suspects who are still at large, had carried out the killing fearing that the authorities were closing in on them.

They believed Banaz had brought shame on the family by leaving her husband, an Iraqi Kurd she had been forced to marry at 17, and falling in love with Rahmat Suleimani, an Iranian Kurd.

Her former unnamed partner had raped her as well as repeatedly beating her, the court heard.

Hama, who prosecutors said had been a ringleader in the murder, was caught by listening devices talking to a friend in prison about the murder.

In the recordings, transcripts of which were relayed to the court, Hama and his friend are hearing laughing as he described how she was killed with Banaz's uncle "supervising".

"I was kicking and stamping on her neck to get the soul out. I saw her stark naked, only wearing pants or underwear," Hama is recorded as saying.

His lawyers say there is no evidence to support the prosecution's claims.

The decision to kill her came after a meeting on January 23 -- the day before she was murdered -- when the family decided to take action before the police could foil their attempts, said prosecutor Victor Temple.

Hama is due to be sentenced on Friday with Mahmod Mahmod and his brother, Ari.


[One of the dark sides of how masculinity is constructed is that we tend to think of women as 'ours'. In this case, when your sister shames the family by leaving the man she was forced to marry, this calls for revenge. Revenge, it seems, included raping and murdering her. If the death penalty is justifiable at all, it seems justifiable to use it in this case. The UK does not have the death penalty.]

By Krittivas Mukherjee for Reuters

MUMBAI (Reuters) - An exclusive magazine for prostitutes is offering a snapshot of life in some of India's biggest brothels, reporting the murky world of pimps and violent customers and showcasing the dreams and talents of sex workers.

"Red Light Despatch", a monthly publication, is full of emotional outpourings of women sold to brothels as children, personal accounts of torture and harassment, poems and essays by prostitutes, book and film reviews and advocacy articles.

Health workers and prostitutes sit together once a week in a tiny newsroom located inside a brothel in India's financial capital to discuss stories, headlines and the design of issues.

The reporters, often themselves prostitutes or their relatives, file their contribution after scouring the brothels of Mumbai, Kolkata and New Delhi and some smaller cities.

"We choose the best stories for publishing," said Rupa Metgudd, a news coordinator and daughter of a former prostitute, sifting through reports for the latest edition. "The magazine is not a mere publication. For us it is journalism of purpose."

Although prostitution is illegal in India, it is a thriving underground industry and voluntary groups estimate that there are about 2 million women sex workers.

Launched six months ago, the magazine is a platform for the collective memories, nostalgia and dreams of the sex worker community and an attempt to wean their children away from the profession, said editor Anurag Chaturvedi.

DREAMS AND DESIRES

In one recent edition, Sita, a prostitute from Kolkata who gave only one name, told of her violent childhood marriage that forced her to flee her home and land in a brothel.
"My dignity was torn to pieces. I used to cry a lot. But I soon learnt some things will never change no matter how much you cry," she wrote.

Elsewhere, women wrote about betrayed love, bad marriages, their dreams of living a life of dignity, of owning a "house with lots of sky", and about the "frightening" world of prostitution.

With a little help from a voluntary group, the magazine prints about 1,000 copies in Hindi and English and is distributed free among prostitutes and residents of red light districts.

The ragtag magazine, without any photographs, looks more like a booklet but it apparently serves the purpose.

"It's a platform, a vent for many prostitutes who deposit their anger, hurt and thoughts on these pages," said Anita Khude, a health volunteer associated with the magazine. "The magazine is for them and it is about them."

If there were any doubts about the quality of the magazine staffed by people with no journalistic experience, two former journalists help edit it.

There also are plans to turn it into a more appealing tabloid in Hindi, English and Bengali.

"We have little money, but we still pay our writers small amounts so that they realize they can earn a respectable living as well," said editor Chaturvedi.

For its reporters, getting stories from brothels is not a problem because "we are accepted as one of them".

"When we go to people's homes they are comfortable and they talk," said Khude. "In the next issue we will write about how a 'normal' man -- a poor roadside snacks seller -- fought prejudices and married a prostitute he fell in love with."

Japan PM to explain sex slave stance to US

From Reuters. Keep in mind, there is evidence that US troops have a pattern of committing sexual assaults in areas such as Guam where they are based, and are often not held to account because of jurisdictional agreements that heavily favor US troops. While we should all deplore Japan's denial of its soldiers' past actions, but the US is in denial as well.


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's prime minister said on Tuesday he would "continue explaining" his views to U.S. lawmakers after the House of Representatives called on Tokyo to apologize for forcing thousands of women into wartime brothels.

The House approved a non-binding resolution on Monday which was intended as a symbolic statement on the Japanese government's role in forcing up to 200,000 women into sexual servitude to its soldiers before and during World War II.

When asked about the vote, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters: "I need to continue explaining to the U.S. Congress my views and what the government has been doing (on this issue)".

Abe, a conservative, caused an uproar in March when he said there was no proof that the government or the military had forced the women -- mostly Asian and many Korean -- into the brothels.

But he has since apologized to the "comfort women", as they are euphemistically known in Japan, and has avoided comment on the U.S. resolution.

The vote marked a rare rebuke by U.S. politicians of Washington's closest ally in Asia, but Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki also gave a low-key response.

"The Prime Minister went to America in April and explained his thinking on this problem again," Shiozaki told reporters.

"It is unfortunate that the U.S. House of Representatives nonetheless passed this resolution. Our government has dealt sincerely with the problem of the comfort women."

In 1993, Japan acknowledged official involvement in setting up and managing the brothels and established a fund, which collected private donations and offered payments of about $20,000 to 285 women.

But U.S. officials have criticized recent attempts by conservative Japanese politicians to deny that Tokyo forced the women into brothels, including a Washington Post advertisement stating that the women had worked as licensed prostitutes.

Voice your opposition to violence against Native American and Alaska Native women

Amnesty International's study, Maze of Injustice, finds that Indigenous women in the US face sexual violence at a far higher rate - as many as one in three - than the general population.

However, tribal law enforcement agencies are chronically underfunded by federal and state governments.

Due to complicated jurisdictional arrangements between tribal, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, it's often unclear who has jurisdiction, and response time is compromised.

As many as 86% of reported cases of rape against indigenous women are committed by non-Native men. This is a continuation of the historical violence against indigenous women, perpetrated by settlers and soldiers as a means of subjugation. Tribal courts cannot try cases against non-Natives (and can only impose punishments up to one year in any case), but the majority of the cases they refer to Federal prosecutors are reportedly never brought to trial.

A summary of the report is available here. A slide show, which is probably a better summary, is here. The full report is here.

The United States has historically perpetrated violence against Native women, and has failed to stop it. Amnesty International is asking that people urge their Congresspeople to fully fund the Violence Against Women Act, including Title IX, the Tribal Title.

Mike Nifong disbarred, to leave office next month

Many of you have heard of the alleged rape case at Duke University, involving some lacrosse players and a stripper. Nifong is the prosecutor who filed the charges on highly suspect evidence - the stripper changed her testimony several times. Nifong had witheld DNA evidence from the defence, made inflammatory statements in public about the players and their teammates, and lied to the court.

The fact that an officer of the court lied is only one of the sad things about this case. This also hurts rape victims in general, because here, an alleged rape victim materially changed her testimony in a highly public case; any rape victim who is suspected of inconsistencies in her testimony, or who conceals some facts because she's embarrassed to reveal them, is going to be under suspicion. Additionally, this doesn't do anything good for race relations: the woman in the case was Black, and the players were White. There are still African-Americans who distrust the health care system because of the Tuskeegee study. The Hmong-Americans whose leader was arrested that I profiled earlier believe it was a set-up.

What, exactly, is going on in Darfur?

This article is a little old, but as far as I know, little has changed. It shows the atrocities conducted by the Janjaweed, and the complicity of the Sudanese government. This is why shareholder action at companies that provide funds to Sudan are so important.




By Brian Steidle
Sunday, March 20, 2005; Page B02


Our helicopter touched down in a cloud of camel-brown sand, dust and plastic debris. As the cloud gradually settled into new layers on the bone-dry desert landscape, we could make out the faces of terrified villagers. "Welcome to Sudan," I murmured to myself, grabbing my pen and waterproof notebook.

A former Marine, I had arrived in Sudan's Darfur region in September 2004 as one of three U.S. military observers for the African Union, armed only with a pen, pad and camera. The mandate for the A.U. force allowed merely for the reporting of violations of a cease-fire that had been declared last April and the protection of observers. The observers sometimes joked morbidly that our mission was to search endlessly for the cease-fire we constantly failed to find. I soon realized that this was no joke.

The conflict had begun nearly 1 1/2 years earlier and had escalated into a full-scale government-sponsored military operation that, with the support of Arab militias known as the Janjaweed, was aimed at annihilating the African tribes in the region. And while the cease-fire was supposed to have put a stop to that, on an almost daily basis we would be called to investigate reports of attacks on civilians. We would find men, women and children tortured and killed, and villages burned to the ground.

The first photograph I took in Darfur was of a tiny child, Mihad Hamid. She was only a year old when I found her. Her mother had attempted to escape an onslaught from helicopter gunships and Janjaweed marauders that had descended upon her village of Alliet in October 2004. Carrying her daughter in a cloth wrapped around her waist, as is common in Sudan, Mihad's terrified mother had run from her attackers. But a bullet had rung out through the dry air, slicing through Mihad's flesh and puncturing her lungs. When I discovered the child, she was nestled in her mother's lap, wheezing in a valiant effort to breathe. With watery eyes, her mother lifted Mihad for me to examine.

Most Sudanese villagers assume that a khawadja -- a foreigner -- must be a doctor. And my frantic efforts to signal to her to lay her struggling daughter back down only convinced her that I had medical advice to dispense. It broke my heart to be able to offer her only a prayer and a glance of compassion, as I captured this casualty with my camera and notepad. I pledged, with the linguistic help of our team's Chadian mediator, that we would alert the aid organizations poised to respond.

"This is what they do," the mediator -- a neutral party to the conflict -- screamed at me. "This is what happens here! Now you know! Now you see!" I was unaware at that time that when the aid workers arrived the next day, amid continued fighting, they would never be able to locate Mihad.

Mihad now represents to me the countless victims of this vicious war, a war that we documented but given our restricted mandate were unable to stop. Every day we surveyed evidence of killings: men castrated and left to bleed to death, huts set on fire with people locked inside, children with their faces smashed in, men with their ears cut off and eyes plucked out, and the corpses of people who had been executed with gunshots to the head. We spoke with thousands of witnesses -- women who had been gang-raped and families that had lost fathers, people who plainly and soberly gave us their accounts of the slaughter.

Often we were the witnesses. Just two days after I had taken Mihad's photo, we returned to Alliet. While talking to a government commander on the outskirts of the town, we heard a buzz that sounded like a high-voltage power line. Upon entering the village, we saw that the noise was coming from flies swarming over dead animals and people. We counted about 20 dead, many burned, and then flew back to our camp to write our report. But the smell of charred flesh was hard to wash away.

The conflict in Darfur is not a battle between uniformed combatants, and it knows no rules of war. Women and children bear the greatest burden. The Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps are filled with families that have lost their fathers. Every day, women are sent outside the IDP camps to seek firewood and water, despite the constant risk of rape at the hands of the Janjaweed. Should men be available to venture out of the camps, they risk castration and murder. So families decide that rape is the lesser evil. It is a crime that families even have to make such a choice. Often women are sexually assaulted within the supposed safety of the IDP camps. Nowhere is really safe. If and when the refugees are finally able to return home and rebuild, many women may have to support themselves alone; rape victims are frequently ostracized, and others face unwanted pregnancies and an even greater burden of care.

The Janjaweed militias do not act alone. I have seen clear evidence that the atrocities committed in Darfur are the direct result of the Sudanese government's military collaboration with the militias. Attacks are well coordinated by Sudanese government officials and Arab militias, who attack villages together. Before these attacks occur, the cell phone systems are shut down by the government so that villagers cannot warn each other. Whenever we lost our phone service, we would scramble to identify the impending threat. We knew that somewhere, another reign of terror was about to begin.

Helicopter gunships belonging to the government routinely support the Arab militias on the ground. The gunships fire anti-personnel rockets that contain flechettes, or small nails, each with stabilizing fins on the back so the point hits the target first. Each gunship contains four rocket pods, each rocket pod contains about 20 rockets and each rocket contains about 500 of these flashettes. Flashette wounds look like shotgun wounds. I saw one small child's back that looked as if it had been shredded by a cheese grater. We got him to a hospital, but we did not expect him to live.

On many of the occasions we tried to investigate these attacks, we would find that fuel for our helicopters was mysteriously unavailable. We would receive unconvincing explanations from the Sudanese government's fuel company -- from "we are out of fuel" to "our fuel pumps are broken." At the same time, government helicopters continued to strafe villages unimpeded.

Those villagers who were able to escape flocked to existing IDP camps, where they would scrounge for sticks and plastic bags to construct shelter from the sun and wind. In even these desperate situations, however, the Sudanese government would not give up its murderous mission. First it would announce the need to relocate an IDP camp and assess the population of displaced people, often grossly underestimating the numbers. Then after international aid organizations had built a new, smaller camp, the government would forcibly relocate the population, leaving hundreds to thousands without shelter. It would bulldoze or drive over the old camps with trucks, often in the middle of the night in order to escape notice. It would then gather up and burn the remaining debris.

The worst thing I saw came last December, when Labado, a village of 20,000 people, was burned to the ground. We rushed there after a rebel group contacted us, and we arrived while the attack was still in progress. At the edge of the village, I found a Sudanese general who explained why he was doing nothing to stop the looting and burning. He said his job was to protect civilians and keep the road open to commercial traffic and denied that his men were participating in the attack. Then a group of uniformed men drove by in a Toyota Land Cruiser. The general said they were just going to get water, but they stopped about 75 yards away, jumped out, looted a hut and burned it. The attacks continued for a week. We have no idea how many people died there but tribal leaders later said close to 100 were missing.

Since I left Darfur last month, I have tried, in press conferences, newspaper interviews and congressional testimony, to publicize conditions there in the hope that the international community will intervene more vigorously instead of watching the atrocities run their course. That way we won't look back years from now and ask why we didn't stop another genocide.

I believe this conflict can be resolved through international pressure and international support of the African Union. Weapons sanctions and a no-fly zone throughout Darfur are critical. I have seen that the mere presence of A.U. forces can discourage attacks and, with more support, they could stop the conflict.

In December, the Sudanese general at Labado had told us that his mission was to continue clearing the route all the way to Khartoum, hundreds of miles away. The next town in line was Muhajeryia, roughly twice the size of Labado. The African Union placed 35 soldiers into Muhajeryia, not to protect the village, but to protect the civilian contractors who were establishing a base camp. Yet this small force alone was able to deter the government of Sudan, with a force of a few thousand soldiers and Janjaweed militiamen, from attacking. Shortly after that, the A.U. was able to deploy 70 more soldiers from the protection force and 10 military observers to the scorched village of Labado. Within one week, approximately 3,000 people returned to rebuild. In addition, the A.U. negotiated the withdrawal of Sudanese government troops from the area.

To secure and protect all villages in Darfur, the African Union needs several things: an expanded mandate that would allow it to protect civilians and ensure secure routes for humanitarian aid, advanced logistics and communication support, and an increase in the size of the protection force by tens of thousands.

The attention paid to Darfur in Congress and at the United Nations hasn't been enough. For the first time, we might be able to stop genocide in the making. We must not fail the men, women and children of Darfur.

During my time in Darfur, as I listened to the victims, I was astounded at their composure. Their unwavering faith provides some rationale to what seems to me an inexplicable horror. By handing over their lives to God, somehow each day is a gift, despite the massacres. "We're going to die," they acknowledge with fear, "but we hope to survive . . . Inshallah [God willing]." Unfortunately, they just don't have a choice.

We do.

Author's e-mail:

steidlebs@globalgrassrootsnetwork.org

Brian Steidle, who served four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, recently spent six months working for a State Department contractor as a cease-fire monitor with the African Union force in Sudan's Darfur region. His sister, Gretchen Steidle Wallace, assisted in the writing of this piece.

Yasukuni - altering history

From Wikipedia: Yasukuni Shrine (靖国神社 Yasukuni Jinja?) is a Shinto shrine located in Tokyo, Japan, dedicated to the spirits of soldiers and others who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan. In October 2004, its Book of Souls listed the names of 2,466,532 men and women, including 27,863 Taiwanese and 21,181 Koreans, whose lives were dedicated to the service of Imperial Japan, particularly to those killed in wartime.


Yasukuni generates lots of controversy among mainland Chinese, especially when Japanese heads of state visit to pay respects. The shrine has a number of convicted war criminals interred there. Should the Chinese just keep their peace, and let Japanese leaders pay respects to soldiers who died in a war in which no one had clean hands? One could make the case that Japanese imperial ambitions were fuelled by the colonial activities of Western nations in Asia and the Pacific. Now, that doesn't excuse the Rape of Nanking, but it does give a context.

The Yasukuni shrine, though, also contains a museum. They have an English webpage, linked below.

Link

It seems to have different entries monthly, so I'm going to quote some of this month's entry. I've broken it up into paragraphs for clarity; the original article didn't. I believe the author is Kenji Ueda, President of Kokugakuin University.

A CORRECT VIEW OF HISTORY
The text books used in history instruction at intermediate schools from the 1997 school year will contain material on the subject of comfort women. The textbooks depict as a historical fact the story of Asian women who were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Army.

Imparting this story to students who are still young and immature has become a great problem since last year. This matter is drawn upon the judgment professed by the Military Tribunal for the Far East that Japan fought a war of aggression. Can we say that this view is correct? We must pass judgment on this matter in the same manner of a tribunal that passes judgment after gathering credible proof.

We cannot help but feel that the possibility of ulterior motives have not been discounted. Isn't it a fact that the West with its military power invaded and ruled over much of Asia and Africa and that this was the start of East-West relations? There is no uncertainty in history. Japan's dream of building a Great East Asia was necessitated by history and it was sought after by the countries of Asia.

We cannot overlook the intent of those who wish to tarnish the good name of the noble souls of Yasukuni. When I was a student at the preparatory school for the military academy, our chief of corps often lamented the fact that the good soldiers died early while speaking about his experience on the China front. The professor of the university I enrolled in after the war, who was later to become the president of the university, would refer to those who died in the war saying, "The good fellows did not return." The Noble Souls of Yasukuni--Eternally The noble souls who are worshiped at Yasukuni offered up their lives with deep love for their families, their race and their nation. With heartfelt thoughts for the increasing prosperity of generations and generations to come of their families, relatives and their fellow countrymen, these noble souls endured hardships and offered even their lives for the sake of their nation and race. They returned to this land and are enshrined in Yasukuni Jinja.

Norinaga Motoori taught that after death all human beings will surely travel to _Yomi_, the dark land of defilement. (This is a mistaken theory.) Yet, even Motoori requested that upon his death he would be laid to rest in the eternal cemetery on Yama-muro-yama. In this way, the people of Japan do not venture to some unknown world after death but are here in this world--in this land of Japan--built by their ancestors and in which their descendants and fellow countrymen continue to live. In life and in death, they desired to be together with their fellow countrymen and their descendants to share in both their happiness and grief. The traditional faith of the Japanese people is the continual presence of the departed through religious celebration. Whether the departed souls actually die or not is dependent upon our celebration. It is the same with the Kami--their presence depends on our celebration for them. This is the reason why in Japan celebrations are held constantly for the Kami and for ancestral souls. This faith is deeply related to our way of life. We cannot disregard this faith for it defines the meaning of our life itself.

When His Majesty the Emperor as well as the Prime Minister pay an official visit to other countries they will always visit the national cemeteries of those countries, where those who have given their lives for that country are laid to rest, or a memorial or shrine and pay their respects by offering a wreath. This is truly a national ceremony held in the country of their visit. A similar ceremony is not held in our country for visiting heads of state. It is regrettable that our country does not fulfill its duties as a nation. To bring an end to war is the earnest wish of mankind. Regardless of whether we can realize this or not, the act of despising the souls of those who offered their lives for the national community by those who were left behind is no more than extreme ingratitude of a people without a country. I dread to even consider the thoughts of the noble souls of Yasukuni about the conduct of their countrymen today."

Well, the Japanese should certainly celebrate for their dead. That's part of what makes them Japanese. But if Japanese leaders continue to make visits to Yasukuni, they will be saying to the world that lying, minimizing the crimes their predecessors committed, and not caring about others are also part of being Japanese.

First, actual comfort women have testified as to the abuse they suffered. The majority of non-Japanese scholars believe that Japan was culpable in enslaving women. Indeed, Yoshiaki Yoshimi, a Japanese historian, discovered documents incriminating the Japanese Defence Agency. The then-Prime minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, presented formal apologies for the suffering of the victims during a trip to South Korea.

Second, it is true that Western nations used force to rule Asia and Africa. But two wrongs do not make a right.
"They made us do it" is not a morally sustainable argument.

The persistence of such duplicitous historical statements at Yasukuni means that every time a Japanese government official steps into the shrine, they are saying that what Japan did was justifiable. Perhaps Japan should force Western nations to live up to their own imperial pasts by removing all historical material at the shrine. It would also probably make a lot of Chinese much more sympathetic to the Japanese soldiers who died in a war that should never have been fought.

Unjust Imprisonment Monthly: Nazanin Fatehi

Nazanin is an 18 year-old, Kurdish Iranian girl who is under sentence of death for murder in Iran. There are two problems. One, she was under 18 when she committed the alleged offense. Two, she claims that the man she stabbed was trying, with two accomplices, to rape her and her niece, Somayeh.

Nazanin, her niece, and their boyfriends were spending some time in a park in May 2006. Apparently, the three assailants started to throw stones at them. Their boyfriends fled (f*&%ing idiots). The three pushed Nazinin and Somayeh to the ground. Nazinin stabbed one of them in the hand, and she and Somayeh fled. The men attacked them once again, and Nazanin stabbed one in the chest, later killing him.

In many other jurisdictions, she would have got a slap on the wrist at worst. Iran's justice system has miscarried a lot, especially in the field of women who are raped or nearly raped. She was re-tried on August 30, but no verdict was given, and it seems she will be tried again. It was discovered that some evidence was faulty; apparently in the first trial it had been entered as evidence that her father had told the court she was a run-away and to go ahead and sentence her to death. Her father spoke in court at the second trial to repudiate this 'evidence'. And by the way, had she allowed she and her niece to be raped, she could very well still be charged with adultery.

I'm not sure if any Muslims are reading this, but if so, you must speak out. Iran's laws are the products of outdated and biased readings of Islamic law. Don't accuse me of anti-Muslim prejudice, I've lambasted my own religion enough.

There's a petition below, started by an unrelated namesake, Nazinin Afshin-Jam. She's an ex Miss World Canada and a singer, and she has spoken out worldwide on behalf of her namesake.

Sign the petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/Nazanin/petition.html

And join me in prayer:
For all people of the world who suffer persecution, unjust imprisonment, illnesses of all kinds, for those who are without a homeland and who live in constant danger,
Lord protect and heal them.
(Credit to the Episcopal Network for Evangelism for the prayer)

Four Church Women of El Salvador, and a Condemnation of Sexual Violence

This is in memory of
Sisters Ita Ford and Maura Clarke of Maryknoll
Jean Donovan
Sister Dorothy Kazel, Ursuline Sisters of Cleveland
(The icon is by Anthony Lewis and it's available from Trinity Stores at the link below)
Murdered Dec 2, 1980

And all the victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence, male and female ... some of whom are my friends


Around the time of the Salvadoran civil war, these four women, and other Americans, served as missionaries in El Salvador. Dorothy, for example, taught Salvadorans how to read and write with a program known as CARITAS (caritas means charity in Latin), and empowered them to teach their fellow Salvadorans. The war started in 1977, and Dorothy found she couldn't leave. She worked with refugees, and with mothers who had lost their children. Dorothy said, "I could not leave Salvador, especially now ... I am committed to the persecuted Church here." She and her sisters found that they had to live out God's preferential option for the poor, no matter what it might cost.

On the night of December 2, Dorothy and Jean Donovan went to the airport to pick their fellow missioners up. Ita Ford and Maura Clarke were returning from a Maryknoll sisters in Nicaragua. Five members of the Salvadoran National Guard intercepted them outside of the airport. They were taken to an isolated spot, and were raped and shot at close range. Their naked bodies were found buried in a shallow grave the next morning.

Rape as a weapon of war is only one form of sexual violence. In male-female rape, most rapists are known to their victims. Sexual violence may arise in a married relationship, or in an ordinary dating relationship. It may arise in a casual sexual encounter, where ability to consent is impaired by drunkenness. These latter forms of sexual violence are more common than stranger rapes, and more common than rape in war. They are no less a violation of human dignity.

And men are raped very often in prison. Transgender inmates in male prisons are almost certain to be raped. And shame regarding perceived homosexuality may contribute to underreporting, and many human rights groups allege that prison officials tolerate it because it is used to keep the prison population in line. The rape is one violation of human dignity, and our shame and failure to confront it is another - the same goes for not confronting men raping women.

I previously mentioned on this blog that liberal Christians need a sense of sexual ethics. One facet of those ethics must be that we strongly condemn all forms of sexual violence. In fact, Christians of all stripes ought to condemn sexual violence. And yet, it seems we haven't spoken out enough. Andrew Greeley, writing in the Chicago Sun Times, asks why the Catholic Church has remained silent on the topic of violence against women, despite condemning all sorts of "sins of the flesh" and "sins against life."

Greeley also points out that too many men - including some clergy - need to boss women around to affirm their masculinity. Such men are cowards. Their attitude contributes to a culture which denigrates women, and makes it more acceptable to coerce them. If you are truly brave, you won't be threatened by a woman who is your equal.

Conservative Christians would have us restrict sex to married relationships. For some people, because of their personal and cultural beliefs, it is the right thing to do. It is a choice that liberals ought to respect. However, it will not end violence against women, and it will not end prison rape. Violence against women does not necessarily have to involve forced or coerced sexual intercourse. It can include things such as the actions of the legislature in South Dakota - they completely banned abortion in the state, without exception, and they were using women as a tool for political gain. To my mind, that is an act of violence no less than rape.

We also have to take a good, hard look at the ugly parts of our Scriptures. Some Christians accept their Scriptures as completely infallible - that every word and every passage is completely free from error. There's no easy way to say this - ths is a completely idiotic notion. Many others believe in Biblical inerrancy, which is a limited form in Biblical infallibility - the Bible is correct on issues of faith and practice. This can still be dangerous, because it can still allow rigid interpretations depending on which passages you define as issues of faith or practice. Let's look at the story of Lot, which I have previously mentioned on this blog.

Lot is the only righteous man in Sodom. Male angels come from God to visit him. All the men in Sodom gather outside his house and pound on his door. They want to have sex with the angels - to rape them. Lot refuses - the angels, as guests, are under his protection. He offers to let the city rape his two daughters, who are still virgins. The angels spirit Lot away, and God burns the city to ashes.

99.9% of us would say that God does not condemn violence against women. And yet, Lot put his daughters in grave danger, and faces no punishment. What is going on? If I were God, and I were into the use of fire, there is no way he would have escaped with less than second-degree burns. In fact, in Judges 19, the same thing happens to a Levite and his concubine, only this time, he lets the men of Bethlehem Judah gang-rape the concubine, who dies the next morning. He isn't punished either. And there are other verses in the Bible where rape is treated lightly.

The Bible is a narrative. It is a story about humankind's dynamic response to God. It is the result of a bunch of men (and I don't mean men in the universal sense) coming to know God more and more. It is imperfect, because those men were imperfect. I once heard a story where an Episcopal priest took a Bible, threw it on the ground and stamped his foot on it. He said, "This is just leather, paper, and ink. The word of God is in our hearts, and our minds, and our actions."

I'm not saying to disregard the whole Bible. I'm saying that if you blindly affirm everything in it, you allow others to fall back on it for less savory purposes. When Malcolm X confronted Elijah Muhammad over the latter's shameless infidelity, Muhammad fell back on Biblican figures like David to justify himself. X saw right through Muhammad's flimsy excuses, and eventually they broke their relationship.

If you believe, as I do, that the word of God is in our hearts and minds and actions, then join me in condeming all forms of sexual and relationship violence, and in praying for all victims of such violence, especially Ita, Maura, Jean and Dorothy, killed this day 26 years ago. And let us always oppose all aspects of culture that denigrate women or stand in the way of their equality. Let us in fact take a page from the relationships of same-sex couples, where egalitarianism is often more present.

Amen.


Link to the icon and a brief blurb at Trinity Stores
http://www.trinitystores.com/?detail=617&artist=11
http://www.trinitystores.com/main.php4?&detail=617&artist=11&more=1

Brief bio of Sr Dorothy Kazel
http://www.ursulinesisters.org/dorothy1.htm

Andrew Greeley's article in Chicago Sun Times
http://www.ncdsv.org/images/ChurchNotSpeakingUpforWomen.pdf