The Personal is Political: Maternity Protection



Aponayan/Elimination, a solo exhibition of installations and drawings by Dhali Al Mamoon, a Bangladshi artist at the Bengal Art Lounge, Dhaka.



“The personal is Political” is not just a rallying cry of some feminists rather a living experience of most women, particularly, women workers in the formal and informal economy. An issue such as ‘pregnancy’ is, indeed, a personal issue of a woman. It concerns the contentious issues of her right over her body, her emotional readiness to be a mother and make a long-term material commitment to care for a child, and her physical ability to be pregnant, carry the foetus in her womb and give birth without endangering her life.

When we look at the overall environment and specific contexts in which these ‘personal’ prerogatives of the millions of women have to be exercised, we can see how bleak the situation continues to be for women.  The situation is infested with issues of control of women and their reproduction, and regards maternity protection as a financial liability. The situation, therefore, calls for ‘political’ actions such as conscientization or critical consciousness-raising, empowerment of women, affirmative action, legalization of maternity protection, mass-protests, mobilization of men for women’s rights and so on. The old feminist adage helps see the ‘political’ dimensions or the power relationships that interrupt a personal matter. 


Photo: The Daily Star, Read the Essay: Begum Rokeya, Sultana's Dream and woman power

Bangladesh is the home to Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain (1880 – 9 Dec 1932) who wrote Sultana’s Dream (1905), perhaps the first feminist novel in the world with a sci-fi story involving a Utopia where male-female roles reverse. She spent her life working tirelessly for social reform and wrote courageously against restrictions on women, for women’s emancipation, ending the gender based division of labour.

Bangladesh is also a signatory to the Convention 183 - Maternity Protection Convention, 2000 (No. 183) but it has not ratified the Convention so far. The Labour Act 2006 in the land of Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain continues to see pregnancy as an individual woman’s issue because it does not recognize men’s role in pregnancy, child-birth and in caring for a child, and it continues to treat pregnancy as a financial burden on the employer and an economic drain for the larger economy. It is far from recognizing the social returns and the economic dividend that the country gains from this individual function of women. Pregnant and lactating women and those with children who still require care are still vulnerable in the formal economy workplace and completely unprotected in the informal economy.

Discrimination against migrant Bangladeshi women workers does not make the situation look any less bleak. Most countries of destination for the migrant workers do not recruit pregnant women and the health checks within Bangladesh wean off pregnant women from the list of potential migrant workers. Countries like Singapore and Malaysia have a requirement of periodic health checks, which include pregnancy tests and as per their laws/rules they can send back women who are found to be pregnant. The stories of women being harassed and sacked after becoming pregnant in the countries of the Middle-East, or of women being made to sign pledges that they will not become pregnant, and being denied paid maternity leave are not uncommon.

One cannot even imagine the trauma that women, who have been trafficked, smuggled for forced labour or who have crossed the borders through irregular migration channels have to go through when they get pregnant.

Photo: Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights

To tie in with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 Nov 2012, the ILO, in collaboration with a number of other UN agencies, has published Maternity Resource Package to help organizations, government ministries, workers and employers organizations strengthen and extend maternity protection to women at work. The Maternity Resource Package can be accessed at: http://mprp.itcilo.org/pages/en/index.html.
 
As per the ILO, the aim of such protection is to preserve the health of the mother and her new baby and to provide economic security for the women and their families. This can be achieved through maternity leave, cash and medical benefits, health protection in the workplace, employment protection and non-discrimination, and breastfeeding at work.

Since the societies and economies gain from women’s role involving pregnancy, child-birth, and child-care, maternity protection is not just a personal issue, it is a political issue that requires a concerted political action. Maternity protection and gender equality in the process of child-care help achieve a number of development goals. ILO, therefore, regards it as a collective responsibility. It suggests that the governments, employers, recruiters and workers need to work together in a social dialogue so we can find solutions that meet the rights and the needs of the women workers in both the domestic economy and in the countries of destination where migrant Bangladeshi women live and work or aspire to go.

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Disability and Violence against Women

Photo: Art for Prabhat, Disability India Network

Within the gamut of violence against women, one of the things that I find extremely intriguing, at least, in the context of India, is reluctance among organizations and activists to take up issues of sexual violence against children, especially girls by their family members and sexual violence against disabled women. Here, I want to bring attention to a general apathy, and denial around sexual lives of disabled women and sexual violence against them. References to sexual rights of this population group and their violations are rarely heard. Discussion and programmes designed to address violence against women rarely keep this group in view. These groups’ numerical under-representation in the organizations working on violence against women could be one of the reasons.

I find that the reluctance also has to do with this group being a minority – accessing information about the abuses this group goes through and reaching them with protection and care services would require some extra efforts which do not seem ‘cost effective’ to many.

The disability movement in India has focused on political ideas of universal physical access and survival. The issue of violence against them is not a priority. As a result, public and private violence against disabled women, especially intellectually challenged women, has not surfaced as an issue.

Families, most of them, somehow cannot see their intellectually challenged family members as anything other than a curse and a liability on the family. It is not surprising then that despite protests by some women’s activists, institutional violence against disabled women is sometimes carried out with the support of their family members. Examples of such collaborations include prevention of (potential) pregnancy by violent methods like vaginal hysterectomy or uterine hysterectomy.

These actions are given the name of protection measures. But protection from what – living with implications of having a sexual life or from implications of sexual violence like rape? If such measures are a protection from implications of having a sexual life, shouldn’t one treat these measures as violations of reproductive rights? And if these measures are being treated as protection from implications of sexual violence like rape, shouldn’t these measures be considered as institutional and family ‘approval’ of men’s ‘right’ to rape women?

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Protection of the Girl Child

 

Photo: Guardian

Battered baby in coma: http://ow.ly/8JASu

Two female foetuses found in CP dustbins: http://ow.ly/8JAV3

Manipur girl raped in Delhi: 48 hours on, no breakthrough
Read more at: http://ow.ly/8JCQt 

Girl jumps off roof to escape rape: http://ow.ly/8JB3u

A class X student was allegedly raped: http://ow.ly/8JBmO

The above links are just a few examples to indicate the status and extent of sexual abuse of women and girls in the city of Delhi alone. Abuse at home remains a taboo topic, rarely brought out.

Most child abuse is committed by the person a child trusts

Sexual abuse of children in any form of household setting by a family member or someone in a holding power over a child in India is among the most urgent forms of child abuse which our society must address. As per women's organizations and activists nearly ninety-five percent of the abused are girls and more than ninety-five percent abusers are males. Surveys carried out in schools and informal chats reveal that around 40% girls experience incest abuse or sexual abuse in one or the other form in India. Still it is not an issue in most child protection discussions, policies and measures. Till now majority of the Indians avoid it or deny it and ignore it. We have been an ostrich society.

 

Feminists in India have been are in the forefront among those who are ready to spell, explain, and act against incest abuse. There are lawyers and child rights activists as well who have been raising the issue. But even if we put together all such people, they are still not a critical mass and their views strong enough to be able to impact consciousness of the policymakers, police, lawyers, judges, teachers, schools, mental, physical and sexual health professionals, and all those who could take up the issue. In general incest abuse continues to be treated as a rarity rather than a norm.

Backlash against the victim or survivor of incest abuse or those who try to support the victim or survivor is commonplace. Family honour, social sniggering and abuse of other family members of the abused child and a lack of support mechanism and resources are major barriers that prevent the defence of the abused child - within the household and or from resorting to legal defence. More than often there is a counter attack on an abused child by the other family members, if the child dares to report or complain or raise the issue in any other form.

The Indian laws on sexual offences do not recognize incest abuse. For that matter, even the broader issue of child sexual abuse is not addressed by the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860, specifically Section 376 of the IPC. As of now recognition of sexual abuse is limited only to rape (read vaginal-penis intercourse) and sodomy. Any other form of rape and abuse is expressed as 'outraging the modesty' and is a bailable offence in the law (Section 354 of the IPC). The limitations of such a law reduce it to mere tokenism. Anomaly among several laws affecting children make it further easier for abuse of children in homes to go on.

There have been several talks of amendment of the IPC over the last two decades but till the profile of the issue is visible among those involved in advocacy and processing of the amendment, it is bound to be ignored.

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Ah la la ho Over Abortion

The ongoing debate on abortion in Kenya ... I wonder when will the 'Holy See' and their side-kicks and cronies will accept that only a few in the world give two hoots to children thrown in the garbage dumps, streets, abused and starved in homes and schools. Instead of caring for the alive but miserable in this world, they are driving the whole world to go ah la la ho over the unborn. This reminds me of a Buddhist श्लोक (verse):

In the great self existing mandal (a concentric structure) of dharmadhatu (spiritual metal)

where all phenomena reside free from cause and conditions.

Everywhere I look for the self called me (in the light of the abortion debate, I read ‘me’ as women),

it is nowhere to be found.

This life force (I take it as the foetus) is but a brief flicker

like a June bug in the night.

Happy is the yogin (the female knowledge-self who practices contemplation) who clasps the jewel of radiant

Bodhicitta (the aware/enlightened self) unbounded and self-perfected

Now, this interpretation of the श्लोक (verse) is far and away from the implied meaning, but this is what most often the interpretations do - they allow to interpret from the vantage point of the person interpreting (and that's how either distortions/retrogressive or progressive understandings emerge over a period)! In the second last sentence of this note, I have given a link to an interesting paper, which is not about morality or legality of abortion, but on a much narrow issue that when pregnant woman needs a treatment that would harm the foetus in her womb, should she be denied the treatment, or the foetus be put under threat that may affect it if born or find ways to abort the foetus safely. The paper goes on to say that the foetuses have legitimate interests, rather than rights, and a sick pregnant woman has the rights over her body and a right to health. So when there are competing interests, the rights of the woman to decide on her medical treatment, to give consent and her health should prevail. When you have opened the link, click on One-Click Download button on the top to download the paper: "Ethical and legal issues in reproductive health: Ethical and legal approaches to ‘the fetal patient’". It is worth a read!

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Going Through Death to Give Birth

Yet a large number of societies and parents continue the practice of early marriage for several reasons including blind faith in culture or religion, hopes of financial and social gains, relieving their own responsibilities towards the child based on her gender and so on. In my view, the continuation of the practice is rooted in social acceptance of slavery of women. Internalization of servility and acceptance of the correctness of the practice is more likely to be successful if women are tamed early, as early as possible. Girl children and young adult women are easy to terrorize and therefore easier to be kept under control and by the time they could be expected to have developed some courage to protest, they are likely to be pregnant and socially isolated as a result of lacks of education and interaction with their peer groups. They are forced to accept their condition as their destiny. Many states and their governments, despite being signatories to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, continue to turn a blind eye to the practice.

This is a brief introduction of a longer article first published by the Yemen Times: http://www.yementimes.com/defaultdet.aspx?SUB_ID=22147 and re-published at http://bellbajao.org/2010/05/04/going-through-death-to-give-birth/. Please follow either of the links for the full article.

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Being a Single Mother

Single parenthood in India is not really as much of an ‘aberration’ as it is made to seem like. If the invisibility of single parenthood is taken away, the existence may come across as a norm. Having grown up in a household under the parenthood of a married woman who for years struggled to run the household by balancing the needs of day-to-day existence of her children and herself while managing the distance control of an ever absent husband who only surfaced occasionally to abuse and leave a seedling behind, I am cripplingly conscious of the invisibility of single parenting by married women. Single parenthood is an insecure social subject of discussion even as one lives the life of a single parent in India. And, therefore, the tag of marriage remains a means to gain or maintain some semblance of respectability and some security from unwanted sexual and economic assaults and denial of basic constitutional rights.


Marriage is used to control access to many day-to-day facilities, social networks and relationships and legal rights and provisions. For a society so used to dealing with largely those who have the tag of marriage or are recognized as a dependent of a married couple, it doesn’t know what to do when it comes face to face with one without such a tag. So it does what an Ostrich would do; it blocks all the access points even to what may be basic or fundamental rights for the single parents and treats the single mothers as delinquent juveniles who must be judged and counselled by everybody else. As a single mother, I have experienced more than my share of unwanted ‘social support’ in the form of people jumping to conclusions about my abilities as a parent, my relationship with my child and of course have been condemned so often for leaving a child in a boarding school and ignoring the child even when I happen to be perhaps the only parent in that school who legally can’t take the child outside the country, has been running pillar to post to get the situation redressed and perhaps the only one who is flying across seas four times a year to manage the child’s needs and holidays.

This form of social engagement with single parents is not without basis though. Being a society of marriages and joint families even as they erode, it is nearly impossible even for the enlightened most to see that the basic support means are not available to single parents, that access to social and legal provisions are closed shut in our faces, that we struggle to eke out a living and cope with the perpetual fine balance between our desire to be a contributing member of the globe or the country and an imposed expectation to be a super sacrificing mother. The means of practical support for single parents like me, who are out and about on their own, are non-existent. So when even an iota of support need is expressed by the single parent like me, it is treated as a sign of our incompetence or it is that extra which entitles others to judge us.

There is an amazingly near blindness to the realities of the realities of the lives of single mothers. Women have been seen as ‘un-earning’ members of a household who derive economic means from family assets and properties, which they may not even own or control, to meet the child care responsibilities. This perception is so settled that there is no realization that a woman may need to make money to be able to keep herself and her child alive and to meet her child’s and her own basic needs. And where this is pointed out and the single mother demonstrates her ability to be more than a mother, she is immediately branded guilty of being ambitious and violating the stereotype of ever so sacrificing mother. Couldn’t she just eke out a measly living in the neighbourhood, why must she go after challenging work opportunities and even if her work contributes to the betterment of the society, can’t she leave that for somebody else to do that and focus on her child alone … the list of questions raised is long, unending, tiring. If the single parent was to be a man, he would be pitied, glorified and would be advised and pressurized to get married to bring a socially accepted carer for his child. As a single mother who wants a life as a person, she is a bad example or someone who has just too much going on. Either way, she is off limits and, therefore, must be stigmatised, condemned and reprimaded.

For the child it is not easy either. It is never a normal life – the norm in their lives covers pity even when things for them should be done as a matter of their right and because they are legally required to be done, unreasonable indulgence where they should not be indulged and being reprimanded for their independent views, and being told all the time that their family is abnormal and that their parent is not capable. Matters of their personal life, which they may not want to share with the rest of the world or may not be legally required are subjected to vicarious scrutiny by individuals and institutions and get recorded in files that, legally speaking, should not exist in the first place. Their opportunities to go out and make their own mistakes like any other child are sealed by the fears of either the mother or their own of being judged unreasonably, of sex vultures who sit waiting to pounce on a single mother and her child as soon as they get an opportunity, and the rebuffs by a few over protective well-wishers among others.

I am ranting and generalizing because I’m trying to not single out anyone just in case someone decides to use the social or bureaucratic authority to deny the basic right of my child or make my life more difficult. I certainly don’t want to deny that sometimes this is done by people’s genuine belief that they are doing the right thing. But would they dare act and react in the same manner or in the same proportion to a child whose parent has a marriage tag implying that there is a socially approved father somewhere or to a parent who is in a relationship of marriage? No, not to my knowledge. People make assumptions, they pass judgments, make harsh and interfering comments, they shut the single mother off into cell where she has to be forever grateful for small and big acts which allowed her and her child to have a human life that they are entitled to. But it has not been all bad all the way for me. Some of my friendships have strengthened because I am a single mother, some broken because I saw the opportunism and superficiality in them, some people I came to know of and who I respect – people, who I probably would not have come across if it were not for single parenthood. For sure, single parenthood has made me far more empathetic and probably more aware of the challenges that we as women face and prejudices that even the supposedly progressive persons could practice.

I can only imagine the challenges that parents, who chose to be parents outside the wedlock, face. If I compare what I face with stigma, violence and social problems coming from stereotypes and prejudices that they have to face, I suppose I can feel better. But the question that bothers me is that why despite the apparent changes, social and legal systems and such a large majority of individuals continue to believe that a family with both parents is normal. I would understand if they were to regard it as predominant. I read somewhere recently that 49 percent of children in India are from single parent homes, yet single parents are being treated as aberration and nothing is being done to facilitate the transformation of the social and legal systems to meet the needs of this change. The Ostrich like lack of recognition of this change will only result in a large number of children growing up in environments which does not care for child rights and a society and country that does not care for half its population.

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