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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The Capital, the Business and the Labour

Is this too strong?

"The globalization of the capital and businesses without much attention to ethical employment generation at one end and a large working population and poor application of the labour standards at the other end has resulted in the ‘commoditization-of-labour’. It is a transaction process in between these too ends where, at some point, labour has no human features that differentiate it from the raw materials, tools and equipments needed for producing consumable products, and the businesses buy."

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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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Power is Money and Money is Power?




Paid Work. Photo Courtesy: Commonwealth Foundation



The road to equality in rights, in ability to exercise those rights, and in being able to obtain redress when rights are violated is a story of crossovers of human rights not often recognized. Often, protection of a particular right is seen as enough. For example, many believe that if women are ‘bestowed’ with economic rights it will end the discriminations against girls and violations of women’s human rights. The rationale behind this thinking is that money gives a person power. In other words, पैसा बोलता है!

It is correct that economic empowerment of the vast majority, especially in a poverty-ridden context such as India, is a critical need that must be met. More so when we have all data to see that the income gap has worsened in the last decade. But the limitations of the economic empowerment approach as an isolated-strategy, as far as girls and women are concerned, are also out there to see. The limitations exist in the form of dowry-murders of educated and employed women, double-whammy of paid work and unpaid household work that economically empowered women have to suffer, denial of certain civil rights like ‘equal parenthood’ to married/divorcee women, demands to write ‘father’s/husband’s name’ in any and every document with a bit of legality involved and so on. The fact that women who bring dowry get killed for bringing ‘less than expected dowry’ or ‘no more dowry’ shows that women, when it comes to money, are seen as conduits to bring money or sources of unpaid work that would save and build up money of their husband/father and the rest. This is why women have such poor control over their resources and income. This means that women's ability to earn an income or bring resources home cannot be equated with or assumed to mean control of income and an ability to own, use, and dispose material assets. The question is what is preventing women from using money as power ever so often?

Unpaid Work. Photo Courtesy:
Socio Economic Research Institute

At the immediate level, household relationships affect women's ability to control their income. Prevailing codes of gender relationships may place the husband/father/another male recognized as having rights over a women in control of all or some income/resources of a woman. Women are often not involved in the savings, investment or expenditure related discussions and decision-making. When their name is added to ownership documents, it is usually to benefit from the certain taxation policies. It is also not unusual to find that majority women are still given a fixed sum every month by their husbands to run the kitchen even if the income has been earned by women. And this does not happen only in the rural or urban slum areas.

The next level that affects women’s economic empowerment from bringing empowerment in the other realms of life can be called the neighbourhood or environmental barrier. This barrier varies in its controlling power from culture to culture, region to region, class to class and sometimes, a bit also from caste to caste.  But, on the whole, this barrier aims to ensure that women’s economic empowerment does not pose a threat to patriarchal family relations.  This barrier exists in the form of socio-cultural practices like early/child marriage; denial of women’s choices with regard to who they would like to marry or whether or not they would like to stay in a marriage; procreation being treated as women’s duty and  determining the number of and spacing between children a male preserve; recognizing descent through male lineage; dime-a-dozen festivals like karwa-chauth and teej, which tell women that they are nothing without their husbands or like raksha-bandhan or rakhi that tell girls they can’t protect themselves and will always need the protection of their brothers; and so on. This barrier works by establishing women as ‘dependents’ and thereby reducing their bargaining power vis-à-vis their male family members and in doing so not recognizing women as equal members of the society.

Agriculture Extension. Photo Courtesy:
Institute for Integrated Rural Development

At the outer level, because of the denial or repression of the social and cultural rights, the discrimination against women continues to be evident in the economic fields as well. This includes job market and entrepreneurship opportunities. Denial of equality in the social and cultural realms means that women, without male relatives, have limited access to social security; continue to be treated as unwanted children so either get killed in the womb or attract little investment in their health and education, and as a result, have high rates of illiteracy in comparison to men; and live in the extreme poverty and with social exclusion.

In terms of economic impact of the above, women come out as a lower-grade human resource who cannot either meet demands of the job market or match the requisites of the entrepreneurship opportunities because they lack in relevant skills and education and do not have collaterals of offer. Where women are qualified to meet these demands, they are seen as incapable because of gender stereotypes. Sometimes, the job market cannot reject women on grounds of qualifications or a perceived lack of capacity due to the affirmative legal provisions but employers still go ahead and under-pay or deny equal opportunities to women because they are confident that the justice system will be inaccessible to women. 

The cumulative impact of the above is also felt on their political participation, which is no small deal. Limited or restricted political participation affects women’s ability to protect and promote their rights through public policies, laws and oversight. It prevents them from holding their elected representatives and the governance system accountable to them.

The basic problem is that discrimination against girls and women is engrained the socio-cultural, economic and political fabric of the country. The discriminations are deep-seated beliefs and practices that have been institutionalized. They are what may be termed as structural inequalities. These inequalities are pervasive in all public and private spheres, including the economy, education, labour, health, justice and decision-making and so on. These inequalities do not occur in isolation rather crossover from one sector to another and act simultaneously.

So what do we take from the fact that women have less means than men to satisfy basic needs like education, training, food, access to housing and to the specialized health services, like, safe child-birth, pre and post natal medical facilities, contraception, and women specific diseases; that they are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence; and that they have limited options when it comes to finding decent work and having a voice in shaping public in their countries? In my opinion, it shows the defeat of the isolated-strategies and calls for multi-pronged concerted strategies for promoting and protecting all of women’s human rights. 

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F I R E

Seething -

Suppressed

Fermented

Turmoil took over the streets

"The Arab Spring"                                                                     

Flickering -

Distressed

Anxious

Fear crossed his face as the crowd  impersonated him

“Gaddafi”                                                                                    

Dancing -

Rhythmically

Passionately

They moved and were laid to rest
“Children of Syria”                                                                                        

Spreading -

Wings

Horizon

Flame to flame words multiplied mocking boundaries
“Crack Down on Internet Freedoms”                                                           

 

Slowly -

Determinately

Sensitively

Joining hands they walked
“The Arab Women”                                                                          



Energetically -

Emotionally

Forcefully

They led from the front

“Young Men and Women in the Arab Region”                  

 

  

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Why Marriage?

Some years back, we faced this question in a development course. Two of the discussants divided the question into two: Why Women marry? Why men marry? One of them kept the discussion to the basic issues and the other went in-depth into negotiation, survival needs and social and cultural options. Both peeked at the household economic models and theories like the ‘Black Box’, Neoclassical, and Bargaining/ Co-operative, etc. Both came to the same conclusion that women and men marry based on a personal perception of well-being. This perception, according to one of them, is a result of a negotiation between a woman/man’s survival needs and socio-cultural constructions of what ‘personal well-being’ means.

Taking Amartya Sen’s example of a rural Indian woman, who is not likely to extract her own welfare from that of her household and conceive of her own well-being as separate from that of her family’s, the discussant argued that the household, therefore, is the locus of inequality where discrimination and exploitation of women’s labour get naturalized. In other words, a woman from my part of the world is likely to marry based on what she considers to be her well-being but which may not necessarily be her well-being. Does this mean a North American or European woman is more likely to marry based on her sense of ‘personal well-being’, which is more individual centered and that she is more likely to be able to deconstruct the larger structures of inequality and thereby better placed to negotiate her position in the family? This is another debate and we shall come to it some other day. For today, so far, we have one reason which may make women and men inclined to get married. Let's look at some other reasons also.

The brokers of the सात फेरा, मंगलसुत्र, गठबंधन, सिंदूर, the wedding ring, et al or those who market the practice of marriage as ‘the holy state’ of matrimony tend to ascribe some sacredness and centrality of this practice for the institution called family. These brokers, in general, have a big say in the decision to marry, whether to be taken by the individual or the relatives, and/or the family. In some contexts, even when people have little more than a token affiliation with a religion, they tend to stick to the religious boundaries when it comes to marriage. This is not always based on a fear of reprimand or being ostracized. Rather it is based on deep seated belief in the advantages of segregation based on religious affiliation. This belief has a profound influence in the decision about who is fit to mate or is sacred enough to be a partner in personal and family life.

The brokers insist that all the matches for ‘this world’ are made in the ‘other world’ and that it is the duty of the follower to accept the person who the god selected for them. Marriage itself is regarded as a religious obligation by them. Among people who have an inclination to accept that they have a duty to marry, procreation has special value attached to it. Children are the gifts from the god or marriage and children come as a package gift from the god. In other words, religious brokers emphasize shared beliefs in religion, marriage and procreation as a foundation for the continuation of particular faiths, beliefs and way of conducting life. No wonder divorce is a taboo subject in the books of the brokers because ‘What God hath put together, let no man [or woman] put asunder’. But divorce is another [related] issue, not to be brought into today’s discussion [though an interesting one to understand how even when religion says yes to divorce, how religio-legalities disallow it].

The sociologists believe that marriage is a practice to establish a social order. Through marriage women and men are put together in a relationship of social and legal obligations to fulfill social and economic objectives. It is believed that marriage is a good way to put people’s mental and physical health, sex life, solid and liquid assets in an organized state. It is an institution that allows people to meet their sexual desires in a manner that doesn’t harm anybody [or so we like to believe]. It also helps bring together people with greater commitment and therefore provide a safer ground for procreation and responsible environment for bringing up children.

There is no doubt about the economic value of marriage [albeit disputed by some men]. Women have been free labour, partly thanks to the practice of marriage [remember, the complimentarity argument]. The many justifications for marriage advanced through centuries have one angle which has to do with ‘value’-based labour which leads to communal and family wellbeing and another angle of ‘income-based’ labour which brings income to the community and the family. The history of these arguments have subordinated the ‘value’-based labour and elevated the ‘income-based’ labour. The economic argument in an age when the ‘income-based labour has been making more sense to more and more number of women and there is considerable increase in educational and political equality, seems to be fading away. We will come back to this point a little later.

Then there is the whole economy of marriage where the marriage is seen as a contract. This particular reason for marriage does not quite stand on its own. Rather it stands as a dimension in all the above arguments and will remain, in my opinion, a factor in any other current or future reasons for marriage. A marriage contract can be visible or invisible; stated or assumed; or legal or social. For centuries, marriage has involved contracts like the dowry that a bride’s family gives to the groom’s family, the bride price that a groom’s family gives to the bride’s family [they are not to be confused as the same because the theories behind are completely different], exchange of women through marriage for settling disputes between families, giving a daughter or a sister in marriage for settling a debt or to earn goodwill and so on. These practices may sound like buying, selling, discounting and writing off or collateral and the kind that takes place in a market place. Indeed, these practices are exactly that. These contracts also create a lot of employment for people willing to serve as brokers [who are often clan members, church leaders, mullahs, priests, village or community elders, and the like].

In a secular legal context, the terms and conditions of a marriage contract may not have so much of economic angle but does have implications for how responsibilities will be attended and by whom. It is also a way to safeguard the rights of the contracting parties by registration and legitimizing by the state.

In many societies since history began and in the larger visible societies in the last century or so, there have been some departures from the above-mentioned reasons. Marriage here is seen as a relationship between individuals for mutual comfort and assistance and so the personal compatibility issues are as important as procreative and contract aspects of the practice. Now with the lessening of the some other dimensions of the marriage, the centrality of this practice to a family and communal life of an individual has also weakened. Alternatives to marriage are growing as a practice and marriage is increasingly being viewed as essentially an additionality that strengthens the emotional bonding and trust because of some level of social and contractual security that it brings with it.

The alternatives to marriage tend to require a lot of other things but often less commitments of social and contractual/legal nature. This is one of the reasons why some men are a game for the alternatives because they get comforts of a relationship without being responsible for it. Some of them, on the other hand, resent the women’s preference for the alternatives because they stand to lose out on the ‘value’-based labour or the fact that a woman is not willing to commit makes them feel insecure. But alternatives to marriage do not necessarily make the relationships any more egalitarian. Individuals, due to these two factors among several other possible reasons, find themselves participating in inequitable relationships, which leads to both emotional stress and stress in the relationship. The more inequitable the relationship, the more stress they face. So in a nutshell, if not the reasons related to community and family, marital-economics or contracts, the individual needs of emotional security and commitment bring the focus back on marriage in the alternatives to marriage because it is seen as a demonstration of those two qualities. But even without marriage, any real or perceived emotional or material inequity in the relationship has an effect on intimacy and continuation of the relationship. But breakup is not something that we will discuss today!

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Which is Bigger Evil, Corruption or Communalism?



1) Which one needs to
be addressed first?
2) Do they have
any overlaps?
3) What do you think?

Corruption affects common people on a daily basis. It affects the poor in the worse possible ways and closes the opportunities that legally may be there but practically are not available unless a bribe is paid, a favour done or there is some nepotistic connection exists. It disallows inclusive growth.  It affect's an ordinary citizen's abilities to maintain basic living standards, access public services like health and education and social benefits among several other things. It leads to misuse of the available public resources, and therefore, economic growth does not reach all sections of a society.

Communalism destroy the fabric of a society and destroys social cohesion and harmony and take destoys peace and stability which are pre-conditions for development. Communalism increases poverty by preventing movement of labour, capital and other public resources by restricting these within a particular community. It takes social trust away and creates a sense of instability for those who are not part of that community. It affects people's ability to generate more resouces using the current resources because it creates and environment in which property and other liquid resources can be acquired, owned or transacted for benefit only by a certain community based on their claim of a traditional precedence.

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A Matter of Opportunity and Access … ?



Would corruption ever become a thing of museums?
Quite unlikely ...



I believed and though somewhat cynical now, still tend to believe that corruption and women have some distance between them. Women’s rights advocates have often argued that women are trained to be carers and givers and therefore more likely to bring these characteristics to the governance and political systems. Experiences from Panchayati Raj (the local governance system) in India also proved that women have a higher sense of responsibility and care about the community well-being more than their male counterparts. Several case-studies also exist to show that women are less self-oriented and more likely to put community interests before their personal interests. 



My experiences involving women in decision-making positions, however, tell me not to hold binary opinion about women and men vis-à-vis corruption. While it is true that I have found more women than men willing to stick to ethical conduct, which is especially critical for transparent and fair decision-making, women and ethical behaviour are not synonymous. The assumption is that a governance system with gender equality and leadership of women will lead to a reduction in corruption, in my opinion, is farfetched. Whether rural or urban, or lower, middle or upper class, given the opportunity and similar sort of support network, women – not all as not all men – demonstrate similar tendencies and practice of corruption. Corruption among men is more visible, perhaps because they are in majority in most of the institutions, and because they have greater access to decision-making opportunities as well as decision-making networks. Men are also more active in the social networks and at the informal decision-making venues, which are largely male dominant. Some of the women, who I know as having opportunities and access to networks that tolerate or promote corruption, are no different.



Individual confidence, too, I feel, is a factor that influences gender differential in corruption. Women and men are brought up differently. Even when they are taught the same or similar public morality, the social or family’s tolerance of digression is gendered. That is, societies and families are more tolerant of corrupt men than corrupt women. This guides the girl-child/women’s level of confidence with regard to being a wrong-doer. I believe that with equalization of responses towards corrupt women or men, there’s likely to be equalization of dishonest or opportunistic behaviour.



Yet another factor is that women, by virtue of being the sex that gives birth, have unique needs and responsibilities. This reality makes them prioritize certain collective needs, like health services, education, water and sanitation, safety and security, community recreation, etc. When women get into positions where they can make a decision on the public spending or can influence the decision-making, they tend to prioritize services or actions which have a positive impact on social services and poverty alleviation. This minimizes spending on schemes/projects created, by and large, with an eye to embezzle public funds.



Most women do not have an easy career compared to their male counter-parts. In a male dominant organization, often they have to work much harder to be at the same level as men and often at a lower remuneration. Women, therefore, are more likely to be careful about their conduct no matter what their attitudes are.



In view of the above, it can be said that affirmative action policies to promote gender equality and to increase women’s representation and decision-making in politics, governance, economy and so on, in the short run, are likely to reduce corruption. It would be unwise to argue for affirmative action designed to increase the role and participation of women, and for gender equality on grounds of public morality and individual integrity. More women than men are mindful of their public behaviour practice today but to rely on innate goodness of women will be equal to setting ourselves to fail. The arguments and struggle for increased representation and enhanced participation of women should be made from a rights and equality perspective. It will be wise to strengthen transparency in public/institutional decision-making, and accountability and oversight mechanisms with a belief that increased equality in opportunities, confidence, gender role changes, and access to vested interest networks, women are as likely to be corrupt as men.

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Fears That Consume Our Lives

We are humans after all and it is all right to be afraid but afraid of things that we need to be afraid of. Why is it that most of us try to lead or chart our lives in a manner that seems value-laden but inside so many of us are hollow; we cheat at any given opportunity, would lie to cover-up a wrong-do, or malign somebody else, abuse or exploit, misuse other’s resources, and power and access, when we have them. The fear that consumes our lives is not that we may not be leading a useful and value-based life. The fear that dominates is that what we really are will come out in the open. This leads to the other corrupt attempts at buying goodwill, silence and respect.

Fear in itself it not a bad thing. It can be an important factor in determining how we can be useful and how much we can accomplish within one lifetime. In this process, mistakes can be made but if the mistakes were not linked to negative characteristics or behaviour, the true acceptance of the mistakes will not be such a big issue. However, if the mistakes were linked to hollowness of our character, it would lead to a fear of making mistakes and getting exposed. Otherwise, the mistakes will be the points in life from which we could learn and move on.

It is also futile to indulge too much in gratifying the self because of the fear that tomorrow could be the end of the lifetime. This leads to a mad rush to please the senses by indulging in meaningless adventures, thoughtless attempts to conquer the nature, and do all the ‘Dos’ without knowing that really makes a life worthwhile or pleasurable. If the fears were to be that the life is unpredictable we lack the knowledge and resources to make it worthwhile for ourselves and the others, whether it is short or long, it may lead us to a lifestyle that makes us capable of intellectual and emotional growth in the present and encourages us to lead a sustainable lifestyle that would keep that growth on track in the future.

We often tend to brand ourselves as this or that type of person and the fears of losing that brand identity are so high that we end up putting all sorts of blindfolds and pressures on ourselves to appear true to that brand type. In the process we restrict ourselves from different information, experiences, knowledge that enrich life and bring growth in it. If the fear were that we may no longer be dynamic, it would push us to receive and share experiences and knowledge and help us explore lives that are harmonious and integrated with the others.

Often we undermine or ridicule others’ thinking, their way of living even when it is most harmless, and emotions because we lack a sense of security in ourselves. We may appear confident and to the others we may appear arrogant but that arrogance is often nothing more than intellectual insecurity deep down. The fear of our intellectual inadequacy getting exposed keeps us in the company of those who would indulge us and even when we are being the most obnoxious will make us feel like a messiah. Such people, perhaps, see through our insecurity, and therefore, are able to exploit it. By not accepting that we may not be the most intellectual or better than the others, we allow ego-centric growth which eventually takes away our capacity to learn and to develop relationships of selfless bonding and care because we start seeking ego gratification from every person who is in our lives or who we encounter in our lives. A fear of getting trapped in an intellectual or physical coterie, on the other hand, could help us develop genuine friendships and egalitarian relationship.

We also fear change though we are under a constant change. We feel that that we can cope with the changed circumstances or meet self-needs or of the others without making a change in the way we think or live. We cling to what we are used to, no matter how harmful to the self or the others, superficial or useless that may be, and fail to evolve. Change then becomes a burden. Instead, if we were fearful of not being honest about our changed circumstances, we would try to do something about that by making a valid and effective change in the life.

A useful life is not far from a fulfilling life. A life cannot be useful unless it is useful to the others and the others do not imply the ones who indulge our egos. A life cannot be useful unless it is open to experiences, and capable of evolving through constant learning. And a life cannot be fulfilling without being sought out by genuine emotions of the others which will come to us only if the first two factors are present. Hardly anybody reaches out with emotions to somebody who acts in a certain useful way to maintain a particular self-image.

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Going Through Death to Give Birth

Seventeen years old and visiting a doctor for the first time in her life, Amira, married a few months back, finds out that she is pregnant. She remembers that about two years back, the health worker had advised her to take vitamins because she used to feel fatigued. Today, the doctor tells her that she is anaemic. Her blood test suggests that her haemoglobin level is as low as 6g/dl. The doctor tells Amira’s mother-in-law that she will have to be careful about Amira’s food and care, otherwise, Amira and her foetus may not be able to pull through. Amira’s mother-in-law is insisting that the doctor should give her daughter-in-law some tablets. But the doctor replies that it may not be a good idea because Amira is already suffering from diarrhoea and the medicines used in cases of anaemia have a tendency to cause constipation or diarrhoea may aggravate her condition. Amira is angry. She can’t understand why she has to go through this when other girls her age are going to the school, and do not have to worry about anything. The doctor tells her that she is in this situation because she is married and pregnant while her friends may not be. He explains that at 17 she is still growing; her own body requirement of red blood [haemoglobin] is high. Pregnancy at this age means far more increased demand for red blood [haemoglobin] to meet the needs of the foetus. Since her body is producing more blood to meet the needs of the foetus without having enough iron in her food, it is causing wateriness in the blood. “it is like adding water to blood to meet the quantity requirement but it reduces redness in blood and causes all the trouble that she is facing”, the doctor explained.

Amira’s village falls within the service catchment area of a health centre. The centre is not far from her home. “It is useful for children”, says Amira about the centre. Her family did not want her going to the centre when Amira complained of dizziness a couple of times. This centre has no facilities for women’s health other than an examination room. Amira did not complain about it, “I don’t like to go to the health centre, anyway”. But her family took her to the centre when she developed persistent irregular bowel movements. The health worker prescribed her medicines meant for diarrhoea. Amira’s mother-in-law patiently listened to her grumblings and cajoled her to take the medicines as prescribed by the health worker. Two days later Amira fainted. Her husband collected his savings and decided to take her to a private hospital in a neighbouring town. Her mother-in-law gathered a few things that may be needed in case they have to hospitalize Amira. She loves Amira. She frequently asked her son to be gentle with Amira and showered extra affection on her thinking she is a delicate girl who is having difficulty adjusting to the married life.

Safiah, Amira’s mother-in-law is around 40 years old. She is dressed in a black abaya and a black pair of gloves which reflect her family’s modest condition. The opening in her naqab for the eyes has lost its shape and is partly covering her left eye. When the doctor was explaining Amira’s condition, she could feel a lump in her throat. She couldn’t help breaking into loud sobs when Amira’s angry voice asked why she has to go through this. Safiah is not convinced with the doctor’s explanation. So while the doctor was explaining she interjected many times to tell the doctor as well as Amira that it is women’s fate to go through death to give birth. Like many traditional Yemeni women, Safiah believes motherhood is a holy duty that every woman must perform even if it means risking her life. But she is desperate to protect Amira. Once they came out of the doctor’s room, she dragged her son to one side and asked him to pray so that Amira’s first child birth goes smoothly. In a slight indirect way, she asked him to give Amira some rest.

“We did what we could do. We are doing what we can do. Allah will save Amira like he saved me”, Safia says in a voice, which shows that she is trying to reconcile to the reality of the situation. Amira’s husband, a 25 year old brick-maker is Safiah’s first live born. She was lucky that her parental family was relatively well-off. She remembers that her father often told her mother to feed her well. But the first pregnancy nearly killed her. She still remembers the long painful labour at the end of which she fainted. When she regained consciousness, her mother told her between cries that her child is with Allah. She remembers taunts and stigma that she had to bear till she gave birth to a son, Amira’s husband. In all, she went through 14 pregnancies of which nine survived. Only her youngest son, now eight years old, was born in a hospital. She had to be rushed to the hospital when her water broke but she was unable to push the baby out. These multiple pregnancies have taken a toll on her. She is glad that her husband finally heeded to the doctor’s advice to use protection to save her life. She remembers that her stepmother was not so lucky. Barely two-three years older than Safiah, she suffered and finally succumbed to death while giving birth to her first child at home. She was barely 17 or18 years old. As always safiah mutters a prayer for her stepmother and her thoughts move to one of her three married daughters.

Safiah’s three daughters were married by the time they reached 17 years of age. Two of them became mothers within first year of their marriages. Safiah’s second daughter, Arwa who was married at 16 years of age, could not adjust to the life after marriage. She wanted to finish basic schooling and join the secondary school. Her parents-in-law and husband prohibited her from studying and reprimanded her every time she failed to do any of the household chores. Fatigued and pregnant with her first child, Arwa ran away to her parents’ house. She was forced by her father to go back to her husband. A few days later, she had a miscarriage. Her health deteriorated rapidly. There is no government hospital close to her marital village and the cost of treatment in a private hospital was something her husband refused to bear. In a matter of months Arwa was divorced. She has been at her parents’ house since then.

I narrated this intergenerational story to highlight how near absence of knowledge of women’s health among health centre staff, unavailability of women health workers and doctors, early marriage, lack of knowledge and sensitivity among decision-makers in the family, and many other such reasons take a toll on women’s lives. Yemen is one of the countries with the highest rates of maternal deaths during childbirth and infant mortality. In areas where some preventive women’s health programmes are available, shortage of women paramedics and doctors and cultural resistance to examination by men, early marriage leading to early pregnancy, scarce resources and many other such reasons practically push women to death. Yemeni women will continue to die unless the government, development organizations and society become sensitive towards women and begin to believe that terrible realities of women’s lives can be changed and must be changed.

Originally published at: Yemen Times.

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From ‘Let your Father Come …' and ‘Let Your Son Come …’ to ‘Let My Brother Come … ’ and ‘Let My Son Come …’

Many have heard mothers say this to their erring children, ‘let your father come … ‘ and many of us have heard of family violence where daughters-in-law tell their ailing-and-not-liked and sometimes troublesome mothers-in-law, ‘let you son come …’. Is it that these women are not able to speak in a straight language or they lack the confidence to say what they are any way doing, parenting and being a party to discrimination against or abuse of the elderly? Why do they need to speak through their spouse? We have also heard of sisters-in-law threaten their brother’s spouse with a statement beginning ‘let my brother come …‘ and mothers-in-law tell their daughters-in-law, ‘let my son come … ’. Why these women cannot sort out their issues on their own instead of waiting for the brother or the son to come and teach a lesson to his spouse? Does it have anything to do with economic value attached to the person or to their ability to own their actions? Why all of them have such a high level of dependence on the male family members? Why do they compete with one another to establish a greater claim to the male family members?

Let me jump off to one of the possible reasons. An understanding of multiple forms of violence against women and girls – in intimate relationships and from strangers in their daily lives – show how they have been institutionalized and affects every aspect of a woman life from infancy to death. These aspects include citizenship, reproduction, health, sexuality, employment, entrepreneurship, culture, poverty, social care, property, crime, status in family … the list is unending. All these, in my opinion, contribute to the situation that I described above, which makes women’s existence dependent on the wishes of the male family members and makes women compete with one-another in order to exist.

Another reason for such a situation is economic. Yesterday, I was in a seminar on the issue of women and land with women many of whom know the relationship among women land and violence first hand. Experiences of these women established (not suggest) that violence against women and girls and poverty among women is an ‘engaged relationship’. The former being a tool to keep women in state of poverty and poverty is one of the key reasons for women’s servility. While high probability of violence in the domestic and public sphere, in general, affects women’s ability to be present in the public sphere, use opportunities and develop their human capital, ritualized and institutionalized forms of violence create a sort of ‘genetic-cum-collective’ lack of confidence among women that keeps them silent about the beatings, rape and emotional abuse, makes them internalize male supremacy, compete with one-another for a greater dependency stake, and prevents them from questioning the status quo in which men’s labour is recognized but women and girls’ labour is not. The overall impact of violence keeps women poor in all senses and economic poverty increases the risk of exposure to violence enormously.

Murder of women by their spouses alone or in complicity with the family, in particular, murder of widows by the marital family members more than often have roots in land and property. Sometime, the reasons for murder are such that a direct relationship between poverty or economic deprivation and violence cannot be established as a prima facie fact. It is true that poverty or economic deprivations are not the only reasons for women’s vulnerability to violence but poverty or economic deprivation are key factors. These are important factors that must be examined when trying to understand and address scale of violence against women.

Let me discuss here some of the  ritualized and institutionalized forms of violence that are used to keep women economically impoverished and dependent on men of the household or community:

Halitza[1]: In Jewish tradition, according to the Torah, if a man dies without leaving children, his brother must marry his widow in a ceremony called yibbum or levirate marriage. A widow in Sephardic Jewish communities cannot remarry till her husband’s brother relinquishes all claims to own her. In Halitza ceremony, that is a public event, the woman kneels before her brother-in-law and removes a special handmade shoe from his foot. She is then required to spit on the ground next to him and recite several verses from Torah. The ceremony is humiliating for both and mocks the brother for not taking on the sister-in-law. Though yibbum is on decline and most widows go through the Halitza ceremony now, it is practically an institutionalized practice to keep the family wealth within the family.

Widow/Bride Inheritance[2]: This is a form of yibbum among the Luo of western Kenya and many other tribes like Luhya (Kisa sub-tribe). The widespread practice of widow inheritance establishes the male ownership of women’s reproduction, her labour and property and wealth that may be created through the woman’s unpaid labour. Through widow inheritance the dead and alive husbands and their family continue to demand reproductive and productive capabilities of women against the bridewealth paid at the time of marriage with the deceased brother. Luo widows are known as ‘wives of the grave’. Because they do not cease to be the wife of the deceased rather through inheritance widows remain obligated to their husbands and their family and in exchange they are promised social and economic support for themselves and their children. Refusal by the widows often includes disinheritance and being thrown out of matrimonial home. This practice in one or the other names continues to exist in Nigeria, Uganda, India and many other countries.

Lattha Odhna or Chaadar Daalna[3]: Many Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi speaking audience of Hindi cinema would be able to recall a film titiled, 'Ek Chadar Maili Si' which came to the cinema halls in 1986. Directed by Sukhwant Dada, the film  is an adaptation of Rajinder Singh Bedi's Sahitya Akademi Award winner Urdu novella, 'Ik Chadar Adhorani'. The story is about a woman , Rano, who is forced to marry her brother-in-law, 10 years younger to her, whom she regarded as a son, through the ceremony of chadar daalna. such levirate marriage or niyoga between a widow and an unmarried younger brother in law continues to be alive in certain parts of India (Punjab and Haryana). Re-marriage of widows was never a norm in India and the possibility of going back to the parents' home has not been an option for the Indian women. They are taught to leave their marital home only on their death-bed. The practice ensures that any land or property owned by the deceased husband stays in the family.

Adoption of a male child from the husband’s family[4]: More in the past than now in India and many other parts of South Asia and Asia , if the widow did not have any male child from her deceased husband, she is made to adopt a nephew of her husband.

Widow Cleansing[5]: This practice also dates back centuries and is, till date, widely practiced in Zambia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Angola, Ivory Coast, Congo and Nigeria. A widow is expected to have a sex with a male relative of the deceased husband in order to maintain access to family property and land. In practice, this custom any man from widow’s marital village or the deceased husband’s family, usually a brother or close male relative of the deceased husband, to force her to have sex with him. This is also linked to a belief that that if the widow does allow ‘cleansing’ her husband’s spirit will not be free. This practice established the woman as being haunted by spirits, as unholy and mentally ill and in some communities this is further extended to say that a widow who has not been cleansed can cause the whole community to be haunted. Now there are professional 'cleanser men' to rape widows because in many places, a widow must go through cleansing ritual before she can be inherited.

The above practices are not directly linked to the state of affairs described in the first paragraph in all contexts but they exemplify the modus operandi of patriarchy that instils a deep sense of dependence among women. A deeper examination of some of the apparently non-economic motives shows the inter-breeding of economic and non-economic issues. For example, such a large number of women are being killed, tortured and mutilated for bringing shame and dishonour to the family. But consider why women and girls are burdened with the safekeeping of family honour. Women's vulnerability to violence derives not only from the poverty but also from the potential they hold to be empowered individuals. One of the ways that potential can be crushed is by employing tools that socially disempower and disfranchise them. Making women and girls’ symbols of family honour puts on them the burden of keeping the honour, as it has been defined by patriarchy, intact. The definition of family honour invariably has its roots in historic political and economic exclusion, sexism and other discriminatory practices that keep women outside of social, political and economic empowerment opportunities. The definition of family honour leads to socio-cultural conditioning of women and girls that prepares them for marriage as accepted by the patriarchal system of a particular place, child-rearing, house-keeping and other unpaid care and economic roles. This conditioning creates a façade that women have an important role in the family in maintaining the family honour themselves as well as by scrutinising other women’s conduct, and it keeps the sense of empowerment far from women.

References:

1. http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Life_Events/Divorce/Liturgy_Ritual_and_Custom/Halitzah.shtml  

2. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/12/44847635.pdf  

3. http://www.servinghistory.com/topics/levirate_marriage::sub::Areas_Practiced  

4. http://www.jstor.org/pss/3632696. Paid log-in required.

5. http://www.fhi.org/en/hivaids/pub/archive/articles/aidscaptions/volume2no3/cap2313.htm

The article is also available at: http://bellbajao.org/2010/09/30/from-%E2%80%98let-your-father-come-%E2%80%A6-and-%E2%80%98let-your-son-come-%E2%80%A6%E2%80%99-to-%E2%80%98let-my-brother-come-%E2%80%A6-%E2%80%99-and-%E2%80%98let-my-son-come-%E2%80%A6%E2%80%99/ 

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