Day 5: Offline activism | Uncensor your phonebooth-tags-website

On Day 5, we are supposed to take back the content of our sites and links through assorted snippets, business cards in phone boooths (the latter rarely exist any more...more like phone shops where you can pay to make a mobile call--and cyber cafes that are unsecure for women).

I've done another tag cloud from a post last December on International Day Against Violence Against Sex workers this post has had many readers, mostly due to the tag words and less so on the content and message of violence against sex workers. I've had similar results when I mentioned sex workers' struggles post Sidr cyclone and the failure of relief agencies to give supplies, protection, and relief.

So I am reasserting my own tags, especially those that attract the attention of men looking for certain girls and maybe even a few ISP links and computer users from Qatar and Saudia Arabia (most common) who are searching for such girls!

For an excellent blog, articles, and analyses on such issues including sex workers' own voices and phone booths(!), see Laura Agustín's Border Thinking on Migration and Trafficking: Culture, Economy and Sex

Here's the link/picture of a London phone booth that she mentions in her comment below.

Also Regina Lynn describes how the Desiree Alliance and SWOP (regional sex worker outreach projects) in USA have used Twitter, Tumbler iphones, and Google docs to create media blitzes. The Alliance and projects have their own blogs, for example, Bound, Not Gagged. These have evolved around episodes involving sex workers such as Ashley Alexandra Dupré and Elliot Spitzer in New York and get sex workers' voices-perspectives into mainstream media, while fending off reporters' questions on how to find an escort service among other things.

Eve-teasing/Day 2.5/16 days Gender Activism VAW

Day 2 Theme: Occupy All Spaces

Around the world, women have to reclaim their spaces and rights on the streets, public spaces, schools, transportation, cyber cafes (w/o other customers viewing disturbing images in the next seat), and and google searches on the internet. Many women face restrictions on their access to education, streets, and finding a secure space in a cyber cafe and internet.


They even have a hard time using their mobiles in a safe and secure way. As I noted in my earlier post, missed calls and/or phishing phone calls can also harass women users. Mobile cameras have been used to take and distribute graphic images of women (see Hana's post).

At the same time, mobile or cell phones can be life lines for battered-abused women; many shelters in USA and elsewhere seek donations of older & unregistered mobiles so that abused women can communicate easily with the shelter or authorities if the abuser blocks her phone usage or to have a safe-secure line. More recently, mobile phones enabled Bangladeshis to communicate with their near and dear ones during Cyclone Sidr.

Another issue on for women to occupy all spaces is eve-teasing--or men's street sexual harassment or molestation of young (any) women who travel their own streets to and from work, school, or their assorted tasks. For an excellent analysis, see Shoma Chatterji's post on eve-teasing in Kolkata and elsewhere in Fighting eve-teasing: rights and remedy.

Eve-teasing occurs in urban areas as well as in rural areas in South Asia and elsewhere although its name varies from country to region. In 2004-5 the Bangladeshi women's group, Mahila Parishad distributed a poster and conducted a campaign against eve-teasing because several young women, students, and even young girls committed suicide owing to social pressures-shame-daily harassment. In 2007, Advocate Habibun Nessa of Naripokkho, reported 29 suicide deaths in the last four years. In some cases the police colluded with the eve-teasers and blamed the women for their own problems. Bangladesh has no laws against eve-teasing, much less respect for women who dare to venture alone or even in groups in the streets.

These pressures also affect women's travels to Nari Jibon, which usually occurs with one or more friends. We've found that if a friend or travel companion stops coming to Nari Jibon , then the other student drops out unless she can find another friend to come to Nari Jibon.

Or two young women students who went out on the streets for a photo assignment and to ride a bus to and from Nari Jibon had to deal with young men who pushed ahead of them and eve-teased. Many times women get on the bus and find that men have taken the 'women's seats and they feel insecure in the packed bus. Photographer Syeeda Farhana captured sequence of Moina and Sathi as they tried to board a bus c. 2005:

The good news is that these women persevered and continued to come to Nari Jibon for English and computer training, pursued their higher education and taken some teaching jobs. Nonetheless many women service holders contend with daily eve-teasing as they commute to and from their jobs and same-same for students as they walk and/or travel to their schools. Eventually, women and/or guardians decide that these pressures are too much and they drop out of school, get married for security, and in some cases commit suicide. Dhaka has tried adding a few women only buses and other countries have tried adding women-only subway cars, but these measures & added buses will not be enough until men start treating women and girls with more respect as they move through and live in various spaces.

Time for women to freely and safely occupy all spaces!

Post Sidr, Dhaka's cyclone baby, men who seek Bangladeshi girls, women, mobile numbers during storms

This morning I was thrilled to see on Bangladesh from Our View, Sujan's new post "After Cyclone Sidr" and his accounts & pictures of a nearby slum (basti), residents repairing their plastic shelters after the Cyclone hit their area in Dhaka, and another cyclone baby! Bhalo korechen (well-done) to Computer officer Taslima who somehow uploaded this story and files on a very slow connection.

Given how many people are living in such shelters in Dhaka and other areas affected by the Cyclone, falling trees, flying tin roofs & poorly secured billboards, these were probably common scenes. At the same time, many have commented on how quickly the fallen trees and limbs were cleared by local residents and scavengers in Dhaka neighborhoods (see Shawn's ongoing posts).

Others on the coast had more mixed experiences with trees-branches that saved them, trees that graphically failed as secure shelter in 2007 & 1991 (see Rumi), and now for survivors--downed trees-branches that serve a source of income and fuel.

From a phone call and emails, I heard that Nari Jibon staff and students are fine. As the computer connections improve, more posts will appear soon re their own experiences, including Rafiq's post on his experiences and tense mobile calls to and from his sisters who were on the coast during the storm and his observations on information & preparations (and lack thereof) for Cyclone Sidr.

Finally in a reminder that all people have been affected by this Cyclone and might not always be helped by relief agencies, see Jonathan Munshi's post storm photos from the Mongla sex worker village (brothel) as they struggle to repair their dwellings. In a later post on 21 Nov 07, aid worker, Naima Chowdhury, reported that although the women had advance notice of the Cyclone, local people refused them shelter and aid because of their work. Action Aid has given them chira (puffed rice and dal), but need more aid to continue. The women and their children are facing hard times because they have fewer customers from low activity at the port, she notes, "These women are incredibly poor and also face exclusion from the rest of the community."

Ironically, before, during Cyclone Sidr, and even after, many people were still searching via Google for Bangladeshi girls, women, mobile numbers, sex, night life, etc (as reflected by the site meter readings & referral search terms that I monitor for the Nari Jibon blog and coming from some rather devout places). These links are common to all of us who blog on women's issues, but the international flavour and focus on Bangladeshi females has caught my attention.

Interesting how certain demands do not change even during disasters such as cyclones and floods--as I observed in 2004 floods--where sex workers were expected to show up for work at hotels as were garment workers who traveled to their factories by boat! To these persons searching during storms for female company, get a life, and use your funds to make a donation to one of the relief agencies! To the relief agencies--help everyone--especially those who are out of work b/c the disaster! This is particularly important for women and children excluded from the community, without male partners, and/or ultra poor-geographically isolated. Finally in the same series of posts, on 22 November, Naima Chowdhury writes how traffickers (including local police) are preying on young female orphans who have lost their parents.

I hope that relief will reach all affected persons despite their class, work, social standing, and/or location and that aid officals will pay particular attention to women without partners and orphaned children.

Drishtipat has an updated list of places to donate. As per my post last night re the Elephant-bus photo, DhakaShohor reminds us that the elephants cannot do the recovery work alone.

Please make a donation, no matter how small.