Snagfilms is currently showcasing the heart -wrenching short film, Footprints. Footprints is a film that aims to raise awareness to the issue of cluster bombs dropped on countries such as Laos and Afghanistan and the many that fail to detonate. These bombs lay dormant for years, sometimes decades, until they are triggered by farmers and children causing many civilians to lose limbs, their livelihoods, and even their lives. Footprints calls attention to a serious threat for many today that has been swept under the rug and forgotten.

To watch the film click the following link: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/footprints#

Special thank you from Voice For Human Rights to Chase Chambers from Snagfilms for sharing this with us!

WRITTEN BY: Urmila Chanam

“Don’t tell your daughter she cannot go out alone at night. Don’t restrict the clothes she wears. Teach your sons better.”

A minor girl studying in class 11 was molested by 20 men over 30 minutes while she was coming out of a posh club in a crowded street of Guwahati’ s GS road publicly while everyone either watched it or joined in! The teenager had gone to celebrate a friend’s birthday party at the Club. It happened after all her friends left and she was catching an auto back home when at 9.30 pm she was targeted by the mob. Hundreds of people looked on, cars whizzed past her and no one came to her rescue as she was dragged by several men who were all laughing and enjoying at her plight, slapped her, pulled her, tore her clothes open and ruthlessly molested her. Defenceless as she was, she cried for help and she cried in humiliation and helplessness. One man slapped her several times while she fell down on the road while others laughed and took pictures of her.

These men who violated the human rights of a girl, who is technically speaking still a child at 16 years old, are men who feel a girl coming from a club at night justifies their treatment meted out to her. In India, most men feel a girl’s place is in her house and not outside. They smashed her as if she was some toy, a play doll. They enjoyed as mute spectators, laughed and grinned as the miscreants played with the innocent soul and tore open her clothes. They see a girl as some sort of a doll to fiddle with, to twist and turn, break and bend, smash and slash. This is injustice. No one came to her rescue till the time a senior journalist, by the name, Mukul Kalita who happened to pass by, stopped the men and rescued her with the help of police who by then had arrived at the scene. As per reports, he also got some blows from the mob and the police also had a tough time in controlling the mob.

The incident would have gone unnoticed but for the footage uploaded on Youtube on July 10^th. It sparked outrage across the country, highlighting the increasing crime against women.

Public pressure finally forced the police to act, and on July 11 &12^th four arrests were made, although the main accused named Amarjyoti Kalita is still roaming free. Eleven people have been identified by the police and efforts are on to trace the others involved in the crime. An NGO put up hoardings showing the pictures of some of the accused in Guwahati on July 13^th. “We have put up hoardings in prominent places and at all the bus stops in the city. The basic objective of putting the photographs of the culprits is to help police to bring them to book and to create awareness so that such things do not occur in future,” said Avijit Sarma of NGO Assam Public Works. 
Members of the National Commission of Woman have reached Guwahati to take a stalk of the situation determined to bring to book the culprits. Several civil society organisations said they would take to the streets of Guwahati on Sunday the 17^th July to protest against the incident. 

Just when the public outrage and the police seemed to be heading in the right direction of nabbing the accused, a new turn of event takes place when a RTI activist and Team Anna member, Akhil Gogoi, claims that a reporter of News Live TV Channel, which shot and aired the footage on 11^th July, was the main culprit. He also informed that Amarjyoti Kalita, the main accused, is a friend of the reporter. “They went to the bar in the reporters Hyundai car. They are being safeguarded by the owner of the TV Channel who is a Minister”. Gogoi claimed that he had a CD about the News Live reporter’s involvement which he will hand over to the police and media.

Whole India sees this video clip of a mob molesting a girl. Shot in full view of an open camera, moving right in the middle as the mob pulls her face and says-“ Show it to the camera!” The editor turns it into a sensational story, moral policing and how pubs and bars contribute to such incidents, and how his reporter got beaten and still got the footage. But from what is emerging from the statement of the girl, and the CD given to the police by activist Akhil Gogoi, the reporter was acting fresh with the girl in the bar after having a few drinks with his mobster friends. When she turned down his advances she was pulled out of the auto and lynched. There is evidence of reporter telling the mob to strip her. This news channel is owned by an Assam minister and there is little hope of nabbing the accused. Whole of the country is fooled to believe what they see but no one sees the real story, that it was deliberately done at the behest of the reporter and the editor hawking a false TRP boosting story. Nobody has even asked the police if they have recorded this reporter’s statement.

You have to be blind to not see how well the footage is shot while hardly anyone from the mob attacks him, as his editor plays out a story for everyone to buy. The editor of News Live Channel has been reported to be tweeting how every channel in India is calling him for the footage.

This gets uglier by the hour and you can see what is the status of a girl in India. When the Police Chief of Assam, Jayantha Chowdhury said that the police were not an ATM machine, dispensing instant service, he was voicing the attitude of the police towards the rising crime against women. They lack commitment towards the cause of protecting women and are unable to rise to the urgency of the situation. Union Home Minister, P Chidambaram retorted to such a lax statement when he said, “Every incident of molesting a woman is condemnable….anyone who tries to make light of the incident is condemnable.”

It’s sad to see some sections of public opinion on social media attribute this crime incident to the girl and not the miscreants. One senior lady professor says, “I think the girl is as responsible for what happened to her. Who told her to go to a club and come home at 9.30 pm!”  This misplaced value system is also the reason why these crimes are increasing every year and why the accused go scot free while the victims suffer all their lifes.

Time will tell if all the accused will be penalized by a jail term or will the power and political connections of the minister who owns NewsLive Channel in Guwahati silence the voices of the thousands of protesters who are marching on the roads of the city today. What about the hundred odd people who were mere bystanders and mute spectators that night on July 9^th outside Club Mint, and the driving cars that whizzed past her without offering help or calling the police? Will they not be penalized as well?

We need a strong law against molestation and rape, preferably a life imprisonment. These men who destroy the life of an innocent girl should be ostracised, and banned from public life. They should not be employed. We also need to change our perceptions and stop blaming the victim. A victim needs an embrace, acceptance and our support and not a question on her integrity.

While the whole country sees another crime against a woman, this time a girl, I wonder who will be next. In a country where the rape cases last year recorded stood at 24, 206 and molestation instances at 42,968, there is a sense of insecurity among us now. Today it happened in full view of hundreds of people on the main road of a crowded place in Guwahati city, earlier this year in January it happened outside Sahara Mall in Gurgaon, in October last year two young men were beaten to death by a mob in Mumbai while trying to protect their women friends. The question of the hour is, WHAT IS THE STATUS OF A WOMAN IN INDIA TODAY?

We are living in a mock security. It happened to her, it could happen to you tomorrow. Don’t be too confident. At least not yet.

Link of the footage:

If you have seen the whole world and could not visit the two great nations of India and Pakistan you have certainly missed something very special.

India and Pakistan share a common border of nearly 1800 miles between them. Despite the recent conflicts and three wars between the two nations over the issue of Kashmir, constant efforts are being made in order to maintain the peace between both nations especially by the  people of both sides.

Generally, people of Pakistan are very friendly towards their Indian brothers and sisters. Each year a large number of Sikhs and Hindu yatris pay visit to Pakistan in order to perform their religious duties, as they have many holy and sacred places in Pakistan, despite of the political tensions. There has not been any change in the relations among people, instead they are making their bond stronger than ever before.

The resplendent countenance of visitors especially while entering into Pakistan from Wagah border are worth noticing. Pakistan is a very friendly country and it is particularly hospitable host towards individuals from India, because India and Pakistan both enjoy a somewhat similar culture. Local residents of Lahore Sheikhupura , Taxila, Hassanabadal and some other cities where Indians pay frequent visits are eagerly waiting to host them in their respective cities and homes this  good gesture imparts a positive message.

As the media grows rapidly in Pakistan, one of the most amazing initiative taken by Indo-Pak was “AMAN KE AASHA” (Hope For Peace).  Together with the corroboration of local news papers on both sides and a private Geo television channel from Pakistan, this initiative proved to be successful making the cultural exchange program take off, while also paving the path for artists of Pakistan to go to India and offer their talents. Many Indian natives and media widely appreciated our artists by spreading red carpets for them.

In the past, artists from Pakistan did have this privilege to go to India, however all of them were well  established and recognized internationally; but now singers like Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Atif Aslam, Ali Zaffer and many more are warmly welcomed by Indian media and people.

Bollywood and Indian t.v channels have always found a special place among Pakistanis. Many Pakistanis are a fan of numerous Bollywood actors/actresses, singers and dramas, including: Amitab Buchan, Sharhrukh khan, Kumar Sanu, Muhammad Rafi , Kishore Kumar  Lata Mangeshkar and the list goes on. These people have won the hearts of Pakistanis by their impeccable talent. There is no city, village and street of Pakistan where the performances of these legends have not reached and been appreciated.

Pakistan, being an agricultural country, heavily relies on its exports. India is Pakistan’s most significant importing partner. Even under the existing curtailed and restrictive trading conditions, it is clear that India plays an important role in Pakistan’s trade. However, if trade between both countries were to be normalized  and barriers and restrictions done away with, India and Pakistan might begin to enjoy better trade terms.

Pakistan has been progressing in its education sector by leaps and bound, with many engineering institutes being opened up all over the country. Students are encouraged to study the books of Indian authors, especially regarding information technology ,computer sciences and engineering subjects.

With all the other sectors making it possible for friendly relations between both countries non government organizations (NGOS) are playing their roles as well. INSAR BURNEY TRUST, headed by the ex-minister of Pakistan, Mr.Insar Burney, has been one of the organizations leaving no stone un-turned  to better relationships between the two great nations. Burney  freed Kashmir Singh, an ex-Indian police man jailed in Pakistani prison for more then 20 years. Moreover, he paid a huge amount to Somali pirate to free six Indian sailors held with them for almost 10 months .This gesture was widely appreciated around the world with the message being imparted that humanity is important to Pakistanis.

All these efforts send a strong message to politicians of both Indo-Pak that people from both sides want to work with each other, want to live in peace and friendship. It is time for politicians to stop themselves being dictated by external powers who do not want peace in the region because they benefit from the instability.

“Dear Indians, we love you a lot because once we were one and most importantly our descendents were from you. God has written the partition of land but not the partition of heart  because God loves all human beings irrespective of creed, cast and colour. Let us love each other and make this region a symbol of peace and love.”

 “Live long Indo-Pak”

We don’t need no education

Lots of hazards in the classroom!!

-Pink Floyd

Years ago this song was banned in the US where the youth were revolting against the stringent and authoritative dictates of teachers and the stifling atmosphere in classrooms. The rejection of teachers and this kind of teaching had the threat of crippling the education system in the US back then. Years down the line whenIndiais growing at such a rapid pace, classrooms have become the mirror of these changes. The new teaching methodology, in some instances, seem to totally discard the stress these children carry on their shoulders from their homes to school everyday.

When the newspapers were bombarded with the news of a 15-year old boy stabbing his Hindi teacher to death in a classroom in Chennai’s St. Mary’sAnglo-Indian Higher Secondary Schooljust a month ago, the world talked about the goodness of Uma Maheshwari, the 41- year old woman who taught Science and Hindi for classes 9 and 10. The teacher fraternity pointed their accusing fingers at the student community and were heard saying-“Why should she be punished for trying to do the best for her students?” The boy had stabbed her first in the neck, then thrice more in the chest and abdomen. The boy had carried the knife for three days but had found his teacher alone only on that fateful day. The question on everyone’s mind was spoken aloud by one student from the same school, “I don’t understand why the boy would have such hatred for her?” To the people who knew Uma Maheshwari in her neighbourhood or who taught alongside with her in the same school, Uma was  a gentle person who kept to herself and did not speak much to others unless necessary. In fact, a Times of India article carried her neighbour’s version of how reserved she had been, and how she didn’t invite any attention to herself and that she was seldom seen outside her house. At school she had a reputation of being a dedicated teacher who took interest in keeping parents informed of their children’s progress. The teachers went on ahead with their one-sided opinion-“It seems like we cannot try to direct students on the right path anymore.”

A simple murder story or so it appears at first glance with the boy at fault. Perhaps it’s the times we live in where children are more exposed to violence, through TV and video games. When reporters reached the boy’s neighbourhood, a contrast to this was found on ground. Many of the arrested student’s school mates and neighbours could not believe that he could commit such a crime. Neighbours tell that the boy was rarely seen outside his house and had very little interaction with the outside world. “He goes to school by car and returns in the same car or sometimes in an auto rickshaw,” a neighbour laments. Workers at a small mill opposite his house said they have seen the boy a few times on the terrace of his building and that he minds his own business and steps out only with his mother. The owner of a departmental store in the locality said that the boy bought some chocolates from his shop a day before the murder- “There was no sign of aggression in him. He doesn’t fight with anyone. In fact, he doesn’t even talk to other children in the neighbourhood.”

If opinions were to be taken into account to judge a person’s ability to kill another person, the people’s opinion of the boy certainly doesn’t indicate he was a murderer. So what went wrong here? The boy told the police that he killed her because she had been strict with him. And that he was under pressure after the teacher repeatedly sent adverse remarks to his parents. The juvenile offender was worried that he would not be promoted to class 10. He was upset that his teacher kept complaining to his father about his under performance in Hindi. His father had met the teacher three days before the murder.

If the number of crime and instances of violent behaviour among school children is on rise, it’s time we take stalk of the situation and attribute it to the change in our society, not these children. Many a times it has been found that the seemingly aggressive child had been witness to domestic violence or subject to severe punishment at home. Psychiatrists report an increase in the number of children coming to them with ‘agitated depression’. Parents are so busy in our times that they fail to notice changes in their children’s behaviour. Children are no longer entitled to play time after school where they are whisked off to their lonely homes to sit in front of the TV under the paid eye of a chaperon. There is no one at home to share about their concerns and issues let alone help them solve it. With no play, no interaction with the outside world, alone to fend for themselves, exposed to the violence on TV  and media, and a young mind incapable of communicating and reaching out for help, a wavering judgement of what is right and wrong in the absence of parental guidance, a child succumbs and turns into an ‘aggressor’ effortlessly. “In most cases of violent behaviour of children in school it has been found that the problem is generated at home and children end up venting their frustration in schools,” said Dr Seema Hingorrany, a Mumbai based psychiatrist.

Perhaps this boy had very little time with his parents at home. Perhaps there was a kind of conflict at home and any reprimand from school aggravated this situation. Perhaps his parents beat him and had high academic expectations from him. Perhaps he was depressed and lived a lonely life. He could have even been suicidal. Insecure, unsure, confused, depressed, unattented, lonely. Now think about this boy going to school from this house and meets a harsh teacher who ridicules him for lagging behind in Hindi which is tough to master for any South-Indian. Think of the tension, the humiliation and the pressure he might have been subject to. Perhaps at one point he might have not even wanted to go to school thinking about what he would face everyday. Think about the loss of peace when the matter was escalated to his parents. What might have happened when he got home everyday. Whatever happened to this boy following that was big enough and major enough in his life to finally make him go and buy a knife costing Rs 20 to end his agony.

Life might have gone ahead by leaps and bounds, advancement in technology, economies and our life styles might have kept pace but our children are still unable to cope with the demands of this metamorphosis. Let us help them in this process. Let us see each disciplinary issue with a child at school as a case study and understand the underlying reasons for it. Let classrooms be a place where children would want to come everyday not for studies alone but for a kind of understanding and support they seem to no longer get from their homes.

A teacher lost her life. But the boy lost something too that day in school- his childhood, which was supposed to have been guided, educated and nurtured. It’s not easy to carry the label of a murderer, at least from a tender age of fifteen.

~Penned down by~

Urmila Chanam

E-mail- urmila.chanam@gmail.com

By: Urmila Chanam

I have lived, studied and worked in several towns and cities in my country and trust me, I have been to almost every corner of India. It’s interesting to see the variation in the way people look, dress, eat, live, marry, differ, hold their perspective regarding life in general and towards other communities other than themselves. In India, with every 100 km you will find another community or perhaps you don’t have to even go that far. India is like a vast sea of ethnic communities. So it is but right to believe that discrimination also thrives along with this variety in people. Discrimination which is as old as India and runs as deep as history.

Bangalore is one city in India which I believed was most cosmopolitan than most cities, Delhi being the worst. After having worked in Delhi I was convinced it wasn’t a place where a girl from the north-east could live in dignity. The degree of discrimination by the North-Indians towards north-eastern girls was humiliating, demeaning and alarming. Eve teasing, instances of molestation, public humiliation and rape is a frequent occurrence. I am a Mongoloid by race and hail from the state of Manipur in the North-Eastern region of India. The seven states of the north-east include Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. The people from this part are all from a different race from the main land Indians who are either Caucasoid or Dravidians/ Negroid. This racial distinctness has fuelled a discrimination against us when we migrate to other parts of the country for pursuing studies, work or marriage.

It’s not an exaggeration to see a group of boys in Connaught Place in Delhi tease two girls drinking coffee in a coffee shop and within no time it turns nasty. These girls hail from the north-east where we speak different language and may not be well versed with ‘hindi’ – the language spoken most in North-India. No one comes to their rescue because all the bystanders and onlookers do not relate to the girls who look different form themselves and appear as ‘foreigners’. It’s astounding to note that in the entire country a very discriminatory and demeaning term has been coined for us in India who hail from the north-east- ‘ a chinky’. What happens next is for us to imagine and think about. Had these two girls been from Punjab or Jammu they have been helped by several people around them and the miscreants would have been publicly beaten up or at least the girls would have been rescued.

In this light I felt Bangalore was better. My illusion lasted few months only. The truth came looking for me to look me in the eye one night in the streets of Indiranagar, one of the posh places in the city well-known for high-class shopping, a house for most brands and best restaurants and pubs. My office happened to be here and like most nights when I wrap up work by 7 pm and take a bus to my house, this particular night I was still working till 9:30 pm. My colleague wanted me to assist her in one event we were hosting that day at office. At 10 pm she told me to go before her as she lived nearby and I lived like 15 km away. I took my cardigan, my handbag and walked in the street all alone. Even in my stress and exhaustion I realized I was really ‘alone’ and the only noise in the street was the click-clack of my 5-inches heels. The busy streets at 7:30pm and the traffic jams, the people, the buses, the autos, the flower girls on the road, the chat wala, the scores of shops and showrooms, just about everything was almost frozen at that time of the night. In my naivety I felt momentary happiness at the emptiness and thought how calm it was. I stood at the bus stop for 30 minutes but I guess the buses from BMTC stop their service much earlier. So I dialled for Easy Cabs. The problem with them is that the call is kept on waiting for as long as 15-20 minutes and sometimes even more while all the time the IVR tells you to not hang up and that your call is important!! It so happened that Easy Cabs Customer Service never took my call that night or perhaps they would have eventually had that auto not come and stop right in front of me. “Memsahab, kahan jana hai apko?(Madam, where do you want me to drop you).”

I didn’t notice the auto drivers vermilion (‘sindoor’) smeared forehead and his face which looked haughty and ill-tempered. In my earnestness to get home as soon as possible I just hopped onto the auto and told him, “Banaswadi.” A chill runs down my spine now when I recollect that ride with a stranger, a prospective criminal in the lurch with no clue of what I was in store next. I was busy looking at the texts I had got through out the day from friends and family while at work and which I had failed to reply due to my busy-ness. I began replying to some of them when I noticed the auto driver begin to sing loudly and look at the rear view mirror and throw glances at me.

There is an instinct every woman is born with, you may call it ‘sixth sense’ or an unexplained alert that goes off in our minds when we sense danger of whatever kind. I possess that instinct too and that night it didn’t desert me. It told me I was in danger. What it didn’t tell me was what kind of danger I was in!!! I looked at the certificate of license pasted in front of me which bore the name of the driver, the vehicle number and other details as address. I composed a text in my mobile phone giving all these details to my parents, my elder brother with whom I lived in Bangalore, my best friend and another relative. I wanted to make sure if something happened to me tonight, I would want this man behind bars. All throughout he was smiling and singing and giving me those lewd glances. He took a lane which was really deserted and when I revolted he shouted at me to keep quiet. I was so scared that I didn’t know what to do. At one point, he stopped the auto and took on two more guys to travel with me so that he could earn more from the same ride. Had the co-passengers been women I would have felt relief at not being alone anymore with this man, but they were men and men from the road, of the same class and category as this auto driver. I was sitting in one extreme while the other two add-ons occupied the remaining part of the seat. It was then we began arguing and landed up in a heated discussion. I told the driver that he should not have taken this street at all in the first place and second, he cannot add men to share the ride. Due to our heated argument the two men got off in Aiyappa Temple area which was still not very deserted and I could see several people still around. He was clearly angry for having lost out on money that he could have earned if he had kept the two men till the point they wanted to be dropped to. He started swearing and making angry faces. The only thing on my mind was I was just 4 kilometres away from home. And I would shut the door once I was home to this nightmare.

We rode silently. We reached Banaswadi. We reached my neighborhood. There was a ‘pandal’ being constructed right across the road so the auto couldn’t go further. I was still a 1000 metres from the gate of the gated community I lived in. 1000 metres from the security guards which manned my flats, the best in Bangalore from a security firm called the “Peregrines”. I got off and asked him how much I owed him. I found him standing next to me about one-fourth of a feet away from me and that is an indecent space if you are an Indian girl. I knew it would be around 100 rupees as I took an auto every second night from work to home but I guess, the question was to test the situation I was in. He looked aggressive, indecent, animated, violent, in a rage when he demanded I pay him 500 rupees. I asked him what was the logic in his expecting five times of what I pay every time. He started shouting and in between all the screaming I could make out what he was trying to tell me is he would have made 500 rupees if I had allowed him to bring along the two men who dismounted the auto on my insisting. I told him that it is not correct for him to make me share the ride with unknown men and my expectation was within the parameters of law. The argument was getting out of control so I gave him 200 rupees and told him I was giving him double of what he was entitled thinking that would make peace.

I turned to go and walked some distance and saw two shops near my house still open. The shopkeeper was standing in the front of his shop and from his frightful eyes that looked onto me, I could sense danger right behind me. I turned to look and to my horror I saw the auto driver run in complete possession of extreme rage I had yet to encounter in my entire life, to go pick up the biggest rock boulder from the side of the road and run towards me to crush my head with it. He came running at me while I looked around me in despair to see if I could get help. It was then I saw the hand of racial discrimination. Every one present in that spot looked away, turned away from me and it was then I knew if I died, I would die alone and with no one to bear witness to what became of me.

My aggressor stood next to me, everyone else fled. His face was wrought with a hatred I couldn’t understand, the vermilion spoke loud and clear of his religious belief and his political affinity to a group I call ‘fanatics’(and any individual from secular India would as well), he was speaking abusively in the local Kannada dialect to me, perhaps he had a picture of me tinted with discrimination. I don’t know what happened next when he was about to hit me with the large rock. He just happened to look at my eyes then and his expression changed. I still don’t know why I said softly, “Bhaiya”(Brother). Perhaps it was my upbringing that made me use that word. Born to an army officer I grew up addressing everyone as ‘bhaiya’.Something changed swiftly after that moment. My aggressor snatched the money from my hands, dropped the rock, ran all the way to his auto and started it in an urgency quiet maddening to witness. Later on I found that he had taken 200 rupees.

I stood there for as long as I can imagine, shaking like a leaf. I had survived death at the hands of a perpetrator who was inflicted with racial or gender discrimination and for whom I appeared as someone who deserved his aggression and torment. Five months have passed by since that horrifying day in my life and I thank god for having given me the bridge of communication at the right, crucial moment (when I called him ‘bhaiya’ in hindi). And I learnt the only way to mitigate discrimination in this world of ours and save the thousands of people who die at its hands, is to build these ‘bridges’ and keep building them till we begin to see each other as a person who lives in the same world as us.

Somewhere someplace it’s still just a little before the crack of dawn. And no one else is present for this ‘ceremonial’ ritual other than the ‘dai-ma’ and her assistant. The oil is boiling hot when the knife is dipped in it. A normally born male baby is playing around on the soft bed. The genitals of the baby are slashed in one cruel wave and after dressing the wound, a nail with a string attached is tied to the waist and drilled into the stump, which would with medication and time, begin to look somewhat like a female crotch. A ‘hijra’ is born today.

In a crude surgery (called castration) done in the most unscientific, threatening to the health of the patient and done in the most unhygienic conditions, this operation called ‘nirban’ meaning ‘mukti’, is not permitted by the Indian legal statutes. Therefore, it is done in absolute secrecy by dais or the country nurses whose training is based solely on experience. The whole act is given the colour of a religious ritual like the ‘deeksha’ for a better life in the next birth. The act suggests a ‘transition’ of the person from one ‘life’ to another. The breasts develop because the seat of the male hormone- the testicles- has been removed. When the female hormones take over the growth of secondary sexual characters like facial hair is restricted. So also the regular change in voice.

This is India’s reality of the ‘hijra’, the third gender. To modern westerners they are called the ‘eunuch’, the ‘male-to-female transgender’ and ‘effeminate homosexuals’. There is no official count of this special community. While one source claims that there are 2,000,000 of them another source mentions the number at 7,50,5000. Wikipedia explains the eunuch as a person who may have been castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences; or may be a man who is not castrated but who is impotent, celibate or otherwise not inclined to marry and reproduce. These men are women trapped in a man’s body.

After nine months of following them and sixteen days of intensive research I felt I was ready for the field now. My informants I knew would be there in the traffic junction under the Hebbal Flyover, you cannot miss this important landmark if you are entering my city Bangalore from the airport. With a heartbeat which sounded ‘techno’ in genre, I was wondering if I had got my note pad, if my voice recorder was there in my pocket and if I had charged the batteries of my SLR!! I waited patiently trying to merge in the background of hundred bystanders there for half an hour. And then they came.

A group of seven of them dressed in chiffon sarees with indiscreet matching blouses, hair coiled in a high bun, bindi, cheap lipstick on their mouth and ‘alta’ on the soles of their feet . They crossed the wide main road with a grace hard to fathom and quicker than I was prepared for, to tell you honestly. Here they were right in front of me, and my wits seemed to have left me. I forgot the things I had practiced I would remember to tell them before I began our little conversation. So I sighed a little, and told myself, I’d do what my heart tells me to do today. I let go of all the preparations I had thought in my mind before and walked in small deliberate steps towards them.

I would fight discrimination of these special people and the best place to begin, was perhaps, to begin with myself!!

I saw people wind down their car window glasses to shell out coins and cash to them. In fact, I had first seen them here a couple of months back when I had rolled down my windows to doll out a 10-rupee note to one of them. Our eyes had met briefly but I had caught something there which I now define as hopelessness. Since then I had found myself do this every time I came across them. I knew they aren’t ‘beggars’ as we would like to believe. Aren’t beggars people who choose to not work, fiend a handicap-real or unreal, and take money and sympathy from us. In this light, these eunuchs can’t be called beggars at all!!! These are people that the society has not accepted as one among them, people who never get employed because the employers are uncomfortable with their gender, they are people who the world has chosen to not ‘look at’ and now they are left far behind , so behind that they aren’t even there in the ‘rat race’.

I spoke to each one of them. And they didn’t seem to need any goading from my side to begin to talk about their woes and what is it that they really want at the end of the day. Each one of them told me in different words that they just want to be loved and they feel angry that their families pushed them away. Suman, 16, told me, “They should have stood by me rather than following what society tells them.” Shiba, 26, says, “My family got rid of me very early in life but when people in my village came to know I am a transsexual, my sister was unable to find a husband because of this stigma and she recently committed suicide.” In my interaction with them, they spoke about their loneliness and the sense of injustice that they feel facing severe discrimination and harassment everyday from the society and the police.

Hijras have traditionally survived by demanding money from families in return for blessing a newborn child or a newly married couple. They also dance and sing and tell bawdy jokes at weddings and festivals. Many families gave them money because they fear being cursed. But with changing times it has become more and more difficult for hijras to earn their livelihood through this source of income. In big cities where they tend to live, to escape stigma in their hometowns, the advent of high rise flats and gated neighborhoods has reduced their opportunity to collect money. All this has really hurt the community and they are now opting for begging and prostitution. Activists say prejudice towards hijras makes it difficult for them to get mainstream jobs and many feel that sex work is the only alternative. The hijras are not very educated owing to the traumatic life they led within their families, disrupting their education. More and more of them are turning to becoming sex workers.

This community is clearly worried about where they are heading. Sahana, 21, says, “Earlier we were recognized and got some prestige but over the last decade more from our community have got involved in sex work and our reputation has got worse. This has affected our traditional way of earning from weddings and child birth ceremonies,”

The most grave threat posing this sizeable community is the threat of HIV where infection rates are found to be as high as 86%, as compared to 0.036% in the average population of India. Former Health Minister, Anbumani Ramadoss advocated legalizing homosexuality in India and campaigned for changing Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, which makes homosexuality an unnatural act and illegal. He said that the National AIDS Control Program (NACP III) had a component for transgender under the category abbreviated as MSM or ‘ Men having Sex with Men’ but if section 377 was not changed, then it would interfere with health ministry’s effort to tackle HIV/AIDS epidemic among the transgender as even the doctors treating them could be punished under the law. Kavi, an advisor to UNAIDS mentions that “…the transgender can’t access government services and government can’t access them, so there is a huge barrier in treating them.” Jeffrey O’Malley, Director of the United Nations Development Programme on HIV/AIDS, said “Countries protecting homosexuals from discrimination had better records of protecting them from getting infected by the diseases. But unfortunately in India, the rates of new infections among men who have sex with men continue to go up. Until we acknowledge these behaviors and work with people involved with these behaviors, we are not going to halt and reverse the HIV epidemic.”

These HIV positive transgender are then like human time bombs waiting to explode into a bio-disaster if something concrete is not done to help them to be socially, economically and politically ‘included’ into the mainstream.

Pushed away from their own families; lonely; vulnerable; with an ambiguous gender; inability to form and maintain relationships; facing harsh discrimination and harassment from the society and the police; socially, economically and politically outcast; left to beg; forced to take up prostitution; inflicted with HIV/AIDS and other Sexually Transmitted Diseases- is there anything more left for them to look on?

What’s the saddest part are the assumptions associated with them regarding their identity, integrity, character and intent. You will be stunned when I tell you that eunuchs were actually slave men who were chosen by the kings and rulers to be guardians of women or harem servants and were castrated, usually in order to make them reliable servants. The hijras in the Indian culture have a recorded history of 4000 years. Eunuchs were frequently employed in Imperial palaces by the Mughal rulers as servants for female royalty, and often attained high status positions in the society. Highly valued for their strength, ability to provide protection for ladies’ palaces and trust worthiness, allowed eunuchs to live amongst women with fewer worries. Eunuchs therefore served as messengers, watchmen, attendants and guards for palaces. They even doubled as part of the King’s Court of advisers. Poor families would convert one of their sons into a eunuch to attain this high status. This practice however was banned throughout the Empire in 1668 by Aurangzeb but continued covertly.

Once employed by the sultans, the hijras live today on the fringes of society. The story goes that after a eunuch dies, the others of the group give the dead body 27 beatings with their slippers so that the person is never again born as a eunuch. If you care for these trapped human souls, feel free to lower your car windows each time a hand extends to you for support. It may just be a 10-rupee note for you but you may be saving someone from turning to sex work, HIV or AIDS or from committing suicide.

Since February 6th, Chinese authorities have detained hundreds of Tibetan pilgrims who returned from Bihar, India, where they attended religious teachings by Dalai Lama from December 31, 2011 to January 10, 2012.

Usually Tibetans caught crossing Chinese border with no valid legal documents are detained up to 6 months and then sentenced to prison for up to two years; but according to Human Rights Watch, the detention of travelers with legal travel documents is extremely rare. The recent detainees did have valid Chinese passports and relevant visas, and since there is no regulation prohibiting Tibetans to attend the Dalai Lama’s teachings the Chinese authorities’ actions appear to violate Chinese as well as international laws.

The detainees were sent to ad-hoc detention centers in the cities where they are registered, regardless of their actual place of residence. According to DossierTibet, they have to pay for their rooms and meals while in detention. No notification was sent to detainee’s families.

Those detained will have to undergo “re-education.” Human Rights Watch reports that since the mid 1990-s, “political re-education has been imposed chiefly on monks, nuns, and officials in Tibet, rather than on lay people. It usually lasts three months and consists of lectures on patriotism and the Communist Party’s policies concerning religion and law, and verbal attacks on the Dalai Lama and ‘separatism.’ At the end of previous re-education sessions, usually carried out at participants’ workplaces, each person has had to give a written statement that included a denunciation of the Dalai Lama.”

Tibetan pilgrims are not the only target of Chinese authorities, who also practice the detention of Tibetan cultural elite. According to Radio Free Asia, a popular Tibetan writer Drubpa Kyab was taken away by the police on February 15th. This detention may be linked to recent Tibetans’ self-immolations and protests against the Chinese rule in the Serthar country of the Sichuan province, where the writer was arrested.

Just a few weeks prior to the detention of Drubpa Kyab, a popular advocate of Tibet’s traditional culture and language was believed to have been taken away by Chinese authorities. Dawa Dorje, a government researcher, was believed detained after expressing concern over the closure of Tibetan monasteries. He was known to organize a conference promoting Tibetan culture in the Sichuan province, where the anti-Chinese protests took place.

Links:

• Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/02/16/china-end-crackdown-tibetans-who-visited-india
• Radio Free Asia http://www.rfa.org/english/news/tibet/writer-02182012161437.html
• DossierTibet http://www.dossiertibet.it/news/tibet-hundreds-tibetan-pilgrims-detained-lhasa

Bilquis Bibi, an aged woman, was fighting for her life in a local hospital in Pakistan.  She was insisting to her son to let her go home because she didn’t want to die in the hospital. She was among those thousands of unfortunate people who were taking free medicines for cardiac diseases from government run hospitals who suffered the deadly reactions. Doctors believe that the medicine must have been contaminated which caused the reaction. When all the world was celebrating the new year praying for the happiness and success for each other, for many families in Pakistan it was the sad beginning of the new year.  Pakistan, a country already engulfed by so many problems, trying to regain its reputation of being peaceful and democratic nation has been badly hit by this health crisis.

A senior health official has said the number of people in eastern Pakistan suspected to have died in the last month from taking bad heart medicine has risen to 108. An investigation found that a total of 419 heart patients had become sick from taking the drugs, and that 45 of them remained in critical condition. Many of the patients are in the city of Lahore, Pakistan. Patients developed red spots on their skin within days of taking the medicine that is suspected of killing them.

This health crisis has huge implications for not only the people who suffered the reaction of contaminated medicines but also for the booming pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan which also exports medicines to dozens of foreign  countries and contributes towards the struggling economy of Pakistan .

So far, three people who own different pharmaceutical companies have been arrested in Pakistan and their factories have been closed down, while other companies are facing legal action. It’s bad news for Pakistan growing pharmaceutical industry, but one would be surprised to know the procedure for buying medicine for government hospitals in Pakistan. Tender is open to different companies and in buying the medicine the medicine with a lower bid is bought for the hospital’s medical store without even testing its quality.

Such crises have shown how people sitting in government has  become so selfish  and cruel. For them there is no value to human life, they are putting human lives at the stake of jeopardy for their own benefits.

“ONE WHO KILLED A SINGLE  LIFE IS AS, HE KILLED THE WHOLE  HUMANITY

                  AND ONE WHO SAVED A SINGLE LIFE IS AS HE SAVED THE WHOLE HUMANITY.”

Objective of Power2Women: Interact with women on women safety and to impart knowledge to women on strategies for safety and psychological empowerment against crime, violence & sexual abuse.

Position available: Program coordinators at Power2Women

Job description :

1. Organize funding for interns program expenses
2. Organize & co-conduct the corp workshop with the main speaker Mr. Frank
3. Organize & co-conduct the school & college workshop in Dharwar &
Bangalore
4. Approach women organizations in Dharwar, Bangalore and help organize Power2Women workshops
5. Work with Slut Walk Bangalore to help organize workshops
6. Target media & channels with press releases, press kits &
interviews about power2women
7. Co-create documentary series in YouTube about the speaker & your
life, challenges we both face and the outcome after the workshops i.e;
interview of the participants etc.
8. Help in copy writing for the website, promotional material etc.

Volunteers must either be from India or willing to travel to the area of Bangalore for the duration of the program.

For more info contact: Frank@power2women.in

Website: http://Power2women.in

The sister of Feroz Ahmad Malik mourns his death as the funeral procession makes its way through the city of Srinagar. Feroz was killed when authorities indiscriminately opened fire on the city. His death led to massive protests in Srinagar.

The summer of 2010 produced Pakistan’s worst flooding in 80 years. More than 1,500 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been stranded by the flooding.

Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire on 17 December 2010, in protest to the confiscation of his wares and constant harassment by authorities. Bouazizi’s death became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution inciting demonstrations and riots throughout the region in protest to social and political issues. The public demonstrations eventually led president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali  to step down on 14 January 2011, after 23 years in power.

Officials in protective gear check for signs of radiation on children who are from the evacuation area near the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant in Koriyama, Japan, following the earthquake and tsunami in March.

Bibi Aisha an Afhan woman was disfigured after fleeing her husband’s home. Aisha’s father promised her to a Taliban fighter when she was 12 years old and she was married at 14. After being abused by her husband’s family, she fled to her parents home. In the middle of the night a group of men showed up at her parents house and forced them to give her up. The men took her into the mountains and cut off her nose and her ears, leaving her to die. Aisha was rescued by and taken to a shelter run by the aid organization Afghan Women For Women.

Police spray Ugandan opposition party leaders with colored water during demonstrations in the capital Kampala. President Museveni, in power for 25 years, accused the opposition of trying to spread chaos to avenge their defeat in February’s disputed presidential elections. The tactic of spraying paint at protesters is fairly common in Uganda, spraying protesters a distinctive color makes it difficult for people to escape the authorities.

A student demonstrator is punched by a police officer while participating in a protest in Chile. The student demonstrations in Chile began as a protest over the costs, profits, and fairness of higher education. They continued to attract other segments of Chilean society venting frustration over wages, health care, and other issues.

Pamphlets are hurled by workers and teachers of public education toward congressmen during a protest against a new law on public education during a session of the Chilean congress in Valparaiso on April 20, 2011.

The worst drought in 60 years hit the Horn of Africa region in 2011. Thousands of Somalians fled their homes in search of water, food and aid. Mihag Gedi Farah, a seven-month-old child, is held by his mother in a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee in the town of Dadaab, Kenya.

Women flee the bombing at Oslo. Anders Behring Breivik was the orchestrator behind the pair of attacks in Oslo that killed at least 92 people. Brevik left behind a detailed manifesto outlining his preparations and calling for a Christian war to defend Europe against the threat of Muslim domination.

Occupy Wall Street began September 17, 2011 in Zuccotti Park, located in New York City’s financial district. The movement has since sparked Occupy movements in numerous cities across the United States and the world. The protests are against social and economic inequality, high unemployment, greed and corruption. The slogan of the movement “We Are the 99%” refers to the growing disparity in income and wealth between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population in the U.S.

After a peaceful demonstration at UC Davis, a video spread of an officer in riot gear blasting pepper spray into the faces of seated protesters. In the video, the officer a member of the university police force, sprays the seated students in a sweeping motion while walking back and forth.The incident incited a massive public outcry.

The national security team receives an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room of the White House on May 1. Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011 by a United States special forces military unit.

On 17 February 2011, major political protests began in Libya against Gaddafi’s government. By March of 2011 the country had descended into civil war. A rebel fighter celebrates as rebel forces fire a rocket toward the positions of troops loyal to Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi.  On 20 October 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was killed by rebel forces in his home town of Sirte.

Sources: Buzzfeed.com, Global Post

TIBET.— On Monday, 18 year-old monks, Lobsang Kalsang and Lobsang Konchok, from the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province’s Aba prefectuture set themselves on fire in protest to China’s tight control on Buddhist practices.

The Free Tibet campaign said in a statement that the monks called for religious freedom shouting, “We need freedom of religion! Long live the Dalai Lama!” before they set themselves on fire.

Both monks suffered slight burns but are said to be in stable condition.

Lobsang Kelsang is the brother of 21-year-old Kirti monk, Rigzin Phuntsog, who died this March after setting himself on fire. Phuntsog’s self-immolation was also in protest to China’s harsh control of Tibetan Buddhism.

The monk’s death ignited a harsh crackdown with security forces detaining nearly 300 Tibetan monks.

“This shows not only the level of suffering and desperation of Tibetans but also the extreme actions they are willing to take to draw the world’s attention to the situation in Tibet,” said Free Tibet.

Aba has been the scene of a number of protests against the Chinese government over the past several years. Most protests are led by monks loyal to Tibet’s exiled Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama.

Recent protests have arisen concerning the selection of the successor of the Dalia Lama.

Beijing reportedly wants to pick its own successor who supports China’s policies. China has repeatedly accused the  Dalai Lama of being a separatist leader who supports violence.

The Dalai Lama rejects this accusation, insisting that he is only seeking autonomy for Tibet, particularly in its selection of leaders.

According to Free Tibet, over the past six months at least four monks have chosen self-immolation in Tibet to protest China’s strict control of their religion.

Source: Reuters

SOMALIA.— A Malaysian camera man has been killed in a shooting attack in Mogadishu, Somalia. Noramfaizul Mohd Nor, a cameraman with Malaysia’s national Bernama TV, was killed while traveling with the aid agency Putera 1Malaysia Club on a humanitarian mission.

The aid agency arrived in Mogadishu on Monday, September 29th bringing 250 tons of food and medicine for Somalian families.

According to Bernama TV journalist, Khairulanuar Yahaya, the group was in a truck headed into the city commercial center to send visuals that were recorded earlier that day. Afterwards, Nor was headed to the outskirts of Mogadishu to cover a Malaysian- sponsored project to help Somali drought victims on behalf of Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama.

Shots were fired at the government truck that was accompanying their vehicle, Noramfaizul who was sitting by the door was hit by a stray bullet which pierced his lungs. Another cameraman, Aji Siregar Mazlan, also suffered injuries.

Noramfaizul passed away while receiving medical treatment.

The shooting took place near a busy junction known as Kilometer Four, reportedly the shots were fired by African Union peacekeepers.

Tan Su Li, an Astro Awani journalist, said she was seated in front of Noramfaizul when she heard the shots. “I turned back and saw Noramfaizul in pain. We quickly got out of the place,” she said.

In an interview with Bernama, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said of Noramfaizul, “He was willing to take the risk to provide extensive coverage of our missions to help others in many parts of the world.”

Reporters Without Borders, has ranked Somalia as one of the deadliest countries for media personnel, with 23 media workers killed since 2007.

“Nor joins the long list of journalists killed in the course of their work in Somalia. Despite the recent retreat by the Islamist insurgent group Al-Shabaab, the violence and fighting in Mogadishu have not stopped and covering Somalia continues to be extremely dangerous,” the group explained.

Source: Malaysian Star

WRITTEN BY: Ashly Bloxon

MYANMAR.— Hein Min Aung was only 14 when he was recruited. At the time he lived with his parents and five younger siblings and worked at the market in Prome, north of Yangon.

One night in March of 1999, Aung went into town with two friends to make photocopies, on their way back home three military personnel dressed in civilian clothes arrested them.

“They arrested us and charged us with violating curfew,” Aung explained, “They gave us a medical test, took our fingerprints and made us sign forms asserting that we were 18, despite the fact that none of us were above 14.”

The boys were taken to a military recruitment center in Da-Nyin-Gone. There he joined about 100 other child soldier recruits. Yung explained he and the other children were forced into training, which included cleaning weapons, shooting on the range, planting and destroying landmines and learning the names of anti-government rebel forces. Mistakes were answered with beatings and escape attempts led to beatings by the rest of the battalion, Aung said.

“We weren’t allowed to talk to each other about our backgrounds and family members. If we wanted to share these details, we had to do so in secret,” he said. “If caught discussing our former lives, we were sent to army jail for two to three months and beaten with wooden sticks.”

In the mornings, the children were forced to transport heavy pails of water for cooking, find wood to make fires and cook breakfast for the entire battalion, Aung explained. The afternoon consisted of just one hour of rest before the evening chores, which included cooking and the night watch. To make matters worse Aung explained, everyone had diarrhea due to the food, which consisted of a daily ration of boiled potatoes, fish paste and lentil soup.

“All in all, we worked about 20 hours a day, sleeping for three to four hours if we were lucky. If the officers or generals were displeased with our work, we would be beaten,” he said.

Child soldiers also served as minesweepers, porters for army supplies and front-line soldiers. As a foot soldier Aung explained, he was forced to kidnap male civilians to serve as porters, other times he had to “clear” villages of civilians.

“My battalion would enter a village, shoot everyone alive and burn all homes, he said. Some of the kinder generals and officers would enter a village and fire warning shots into the air, granting the inhabitants time to flee. Others took great pleasure in destroying villages, torturing villagers before killing them, raping the young women and girls and stealing possessions,” Aung described.

In his first battle, his duty was to carry wounded soldiers from the field to the base army camp, while dodging enemy fire and crossing a field of land mines. During his attempt to rescue a wounded friend, a fellow child soldier, an explosion erupted from a nearby land mine launching his comrade several into the air, the boy was critically injured.

“I was suddenly aware that if I did not escape soon, I would not survive past my 15th birthday,” Aung said.

Two years later Aung saw an opportunity for escape. “I ran for three hours straight, without looking back,” he said.

In 2001, Aung ran into two former child soldiers in Mae Sot. They took him to a UNHCR camp, which helped him apply for refugee status. With the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross office, Aung was soon reconnected with his family for the first time in over six years.

After being granted refugee status in 2005, Aung moved to New Zealand where he has lived since.

Human Rights Watch said in a recent report on Myanmar, that despite the government’s cooperation with the International Labor Organization on demobilizing child soldiers, the state military “actively recruit and use” them.

SRI LANKA.— Sri Lanka has the second most overcrowded prison system in South Asia after Bangladesh, with Welikada, Sri Lanka’s largest incarceration facility, housing nearly 4,500 inmates in a facility intended for 2,000.

Cristina Albertin, a representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), said, “Institutional capacity is 11,000 prisoners, the current total prison population is over 30,933.”

“We are treated as far less than human,” said one of the female prisoners,”About 150 of us sleep in a cell designed for 75 people,” she added. “An open drain infested with rats runs the perimeter of the room. Recently, one of the inmates was bitten and had to be rushed to the hospital for an anti-rabies shot.”

“Everyone receives the same abuse,” the female prisoner said, “whether we have murdered someone or simply failed to pay back a loan.”

“More than 50 per cent of these are remand prisoners and 50 per cent are incarcerated due to non-payment of fines,” Albertin said. Petty criminals are jailed alongside sexual offenders and murderers.

“There are 650 of us in the female ward though it was built for 150 people,” a female prisoner said, “There are no attempts at rehabilitation. Women here just waste away.”

In Welikada, the women prisoners often find maggots in their food. There is no beds, mats or pillows for the women to sleep on and no fans within the facility despite the extremely hot conditions.

Nearly 75 female inmates are forced to share two bathrooms, most are in absolute disrepair.

Tahini De Andrado, a senior member of Interact District 3220 of Rotary International, explained,”What’s worse is that women are locked into their cells at 5:30 every evening, and not let out to use the bathroom until five o’clock the following morning.”

“Women sleep with buckets beside them, which they use as toilets during the night. This is not a complicated issue – I think it’s a simple matter of looking at sanitation as a basic human right.”

Rotary’s District 3220 has created a  project to build ten new bathrooms for the women, however collecting funding for the project has been a challenge.

“From my experience, if you approach complete strangers on the subject of prisoners’ rights and appeal to their human instincts you will find they don’t have any,” De Andrado said. “Perhaps some of these women have done wrong – but they don’t deserve to be treated like cattle once they’re inside.”

De Andrado explained, “The national policies and rules in prisons need to be in closer conformity with the UN rules for the treatment of prisoners in terms of hygiene, food, access to services like health and information and complaint mechanisms.”

The government is set to review the existing prison ordinance and introduce new legislation this year, even still many are skeptical of the likelihood of actual implementation of said legislation.

In the meantime, prisoners at the Welikada facility continue to face abysmal living conditions. Just outside, the walls of the prison read, “Prisoners are human beings.”

WRITTEN BY: Ashly Bloxon

BANGLADESH.— There are about 200 leather tanneries in the Hazaribagh district of Dhaka in Bangladesh. The tannery industries of Hazaribagh are situated in the densely populated residential areas of the district.

Tanning and making leather involves the application of numerous chemicals, most of which are potentially harmful to the workers, environment and the public.

Typically tanners need to treat their effluents before they discharge it into the environment, however, this practice is not followed in Hazaribagh. Tanneries in this district release around 21, 600 square meters of liquid waste into the rivers, gutters and canals that run alongside in the roads of Hazaribagh and through Dhaka.

Thousands of people depend on the river daily for bathing, washing clothes, irrigation of food and transportation of goods. The river has suffered extreme biodiversity loss and has now turned black.

The homes of Hazaribagh are built very close to the streams that are regularly being contaminated by the hazardous discharges of these tanneries.

The chemicals end up forming coloured ponds and lakes of toxic waste in residential areas and are causing devastating harm to the nearly 20,000 people who work and live in the tanning district. A large majority of the people living in Hazaribagh are suffering from chronic respiratory problems and skin diseases.

Most of the workers in these tanneries work in primitive conditions. The workers do not wear any protective clothing as they walk around the tanneries handling corrosive chemicals. Most of them do not wear boots or gloves and handle the machinery with bare hands. No one wears a mask, and there are no safety fountains for eye-washing.

Workers process raw hides with toxic chemicals such as chromium, sulfur and manganese. They often handle the leather skins soaked with acids and dyes with their bare hands in poorly ventilated tanneries where the only light coming in is through cracks and openings in the walls.

“I had to go to the doctor several times,” says Sanaur Rahman, a leather chemical engineer who has since quit his job at a leather tannery, “There was no ventilation in my plant, we were breathing polluted air.”

In March of 2010, three workers were reported to have died of chemical inhalation.

Despite the pollution the leather industry continues to operate without any regulation.

The government has failed to enforce environmental protection laws. The Environmental Conservation Rule of 1997, mandates that every industrial unit should have its own effluent treatment plant, the government has yet to implement it.

The enforcement of these laws would surely have a considerable effect on the condition of the Buriganga river as well as improving the health and safety of the population. Many hope public pressure and media scrutiny will help change this.

In 2003, a relocation project was launched to move the tannery district to a remote location near Savar, north of Dhaka, where all tanneries would share a Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP).

In January 2010, an effort was made to start cleaning the Buriganga’s riverbed. The Buriganga Cleansing Project aims to remove 1,000 tonnes of sludge from the Buriganga riverbed each month, however the tanning industry continues to feed 25,000 tonnes of untreated wastes and 40,000 tonnes of toxic chemicals into the river everyday.

MALAYSIA.— More than 20,000 demonstrators arrived at Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, demanding electoral reforms.

Confrontations between pro-reform demonstrators and police soon turned violent, precisely what government officials claimed they sought to avoid by banning the demonstrations.

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s government declared the demonstration illegal and the police sealed off parts of the capital in advance, warning individuals who participated in demonstrations that they would face “stern action”.

Nevertheless, tens of thousands of demonstrators tried to reach independence stadium, the site of Malaysia’s declaration of independence from Britain over 50 years ago, from various parts of the capital, chanting “Long live the people” and carrying yellow balloons and flowers as they marched.

Police arrested over 1,000 people in Operation Erase Bersih, referring to the Bersih coalition the group that organised the rally, several senior opposition officials were arrested.

Ambiga Sreenavasan, head of the Bersih coalition, stated that the suppression of the protests had “stirred a sense of outrage against the exhibition of raw power by our government… what is the necessity for a show of might against right? No matter what, right will always prevail.”

Police fired numerous rounds of tear gas and chemical-laced water in repeated attempts to disperse the crowds. Witnesses claim police armed with batons charged at some protesters and dragged them into trucks.

Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition leader, stated, “We were attacked from both corners but what was horrifying is that the police shot directly at the protesters, some of them clearly aimed at me personally, so my security assistants had to cover me and one was badly injured because the canister was shot direct, he is badly injured,” Anwar told the Associated Press news agency. “This is a simple portrayal of the extent of desperation of brutal action approved by the Prime Minister Najib.”

More than 200 activists have been arrested nationwide in the past two weeks for trying to promote the rally.

The demonstration organizers called for reforms following accusations that the Malaysian election commission is biased towards the ruling coalition, which has been in power since independence from Britain in 1957. The commission has denied the accusations.

WRITTEN BY: Ashly Bloxon

INDIA. — Home to about 10,000 women and children, Chaturbhuj-sthan is a brothel in Bihar, near the border of Northern India. Historians believe it was first established during the Moghul era.

Prostitution has become a family tradition in Chaturbhuj-sthan, passed down from generation to generation.

After reading Jugnu, a 32-page monthly magazine written and published by the sex workers of the Chaturbhuj-sthan brothel, filmmaker Gautam Singh contacted the magazine.

The magazine had been created by a group of sex laborers, led by a girl named Naseema.

Born into Chaturbhuj-sthan, Naseema was abandoned by her mother and raised by a woman she calls her ‘grandmother’. Her ‘grandmother’ decided use the money she earned as a prostitute to raise Naseema and send her to school,  Naseema soon became the first girl in the brothel’s 300 year history to receive an education.

When Naseema returned to Chaturbhuj-sthan it was not to sell her body. With the help of local banks, Naseema established several small industries inside the brothel creating alternative forms of employment for the sex workers.

Naseema also sought to persuade the sex workers to send their children to school, now nearly every child in Chaturbhuj-sthan is receiving an education.

Over 50 former prostitutes now work with Naseema in her local endeavors as well as the maintenance of the magazine, which is sold across India. Naseema and the other women work to prevent others being trafficked, mainly from neighboring Nepal and Bangladesh, in the last year alone they have been able to send at least 20 new girls safely back home.

The former prostitutes have many enemies, and the work is extremely dangerous. Rani Begum,the chief of the brothel, has suffered a blow  financially as a result of Naseema’s activities. Her thugs have publicly harassed and beaten Naseema and the other women who work with her on numerous occasions. The former sex workers have also had to fight pimps, as well as some police officers and clerics.

This film chronicles the story of the former sex workers and the Chaturbhuj-sthan brothel.

DRAFTED BY: Ashly Bloxon

INDIA.— More than 500 bonded laborers, including women and children, were rescued from a private brick kiln by government officials in India. Most of the laborers were poor migrant workers who had been brought in from another state.

The laborers were forced to work day after day in a tiny brick kiln in a small province of Southern India. During their confinement the laborers were subject to beatings by rod and belt as well as many other forms of abuse, the laborers explained that people rarely attempted to escape.

“We worked all the time. We would only stop to eat,” says 20-year-old Dambru Jani, who was rescued in the raid. “If we tried to rest, they’d abuse us and force us to work again.”

Saju Mathew, the national director for the International Justice Mission (the human rights group that assisted the government with the raid) explained that even though India banned bonded labor in 1976, the practice of paying back a loan or advance with work is still quite prevalent.

Government officials claim the hardest part is identifying bonded labor which often looks like a regular business.”The key thing you look for is, are they free?” says Mathew. “What you realize in bonded labor is that the owner decides when they eat, when they sleep, whether they are free to leave or not. All the terms of their life are now dictated by the owner.”

Government official S. Kandaswamy, who was involved in the raid of the facility, explained, “More than 14 hours a day they are working… sometimes, they are being beaten, and some harassment was noted by the laborers. No medical facilities. … Bonded labor is against humanity, so it has to be curbed.”

Upon release, the laborers were transported to a local school where they were immediately given food, medical treatment and counseling.

The laborers were issued a certificate of freedom and given 1, 000 rupees each, approximately $25, the first installment of rehabilitation funds the government will provide. The government also provided special trains as a means for each individual to go home.

The owner of the brick kiln was captured, held and released, the authorities have yet to press charges.

Ai Wei Wei spent nearly 80 days of detention in an unknown location with no formal charges brought against him, he has now been released on bail, having confessed to tax evasion and destroying documents.

Ai Wei Wei is not allowed to comment on his detention or leave home without permission. For the next year, he will be carefully watched, unable to leave Beijing. Ai Wei Wei stated to reporters, “I can’t give any interviews because of the situation that I am in, please understand that.”

Police in Beijing said the artist was released on Wednesday for his “good attitude” and in “confessing” to tax evasions. More likely the release was a response by Chinese authorities to the international criticism that followed Ai’s arrest.

The wording used by Chinese authorities suggests that the government might switch the case against Ai to a civil proceeding, this would allow them to back away gracefully from the situation.

Ai is among dozens of others who have been arrested over the last six months in a crackdown on activists. Four of Ai’s associates remain missing, and are believed to be in secret detention.

Ai, a renowned artist, in recent years had become one of the most outspoken critics of the Chinese Communist Party.

Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with Human Rights Watch, applauded Ai Wei Wei’s release stating, “The public announcement of his release signals that the Chinese government has had to respond to international pressure and that the cost/benefit ratio of continuing to detain him was no longer tenable… sadly, other Chinese citizens less well-known than Ai Weiwei who have been forcibly disappeared since mid-February remain incommunicado, whereabouts unknown and at high risk of torture.”

WRITTEN BY: Ashly Bloxon

MYANMAR.–  On 24 May, seven hunger strikers including two Buddist monks were placed in solitary confinement in small cells designed for military dogs.

The hunger strikes were started by three female political prisoners on 17 May at Insein prison in Yangon, in protest against the government’s prisoner amnesty program that failed to include most political detainees. Other hunger strikers joined who had been protesting inhuman prison conditions.

On 26 May, the prisoners were returned to their usual cells. Officials started talks with the protesters around 27 May but when the talks broke down, the political prisoners who decided to continue the hunger strike were again placed in the dog cells.

The dog cells are about 10 feet in length and seven feet wide. The cells are windowless and sound proof and there is no proper sanitation, no bed and no mats on the floor.

Prisoners who are held in the cells are typically beaten and forced to crawl like dogs, and are often denied food or medical attention, even if severely injured.

One political prisoner who had been held in a dog cell reported that the space was covered in white lice and smelt like a sewer. Other prisoners have reported that they were regularly denied food and water while in the cell.

Tate Naing, secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) stated, “Military dog cells are places of extreme punishment. The lives of these political prisoners are in great jeopardy. This is a very serious human rights violation.”

This practice of solitary confinement is reportedly often being used by authorities as a form of punishment against hunger striking activists and political prisoners.