This is a cross post from The Vagina Conspiracy. Thank you, Lb'rashon Breed.
London Riots from Lb'rashon Breed on Vimeo.
Showing posts with label missing female person alert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label missing female person alert. Show all posts
Friday, August 19, 2011
From Herstory to History: What Happened to the News of the Girl Who (according to very few news reports) Sparked the Riots in London?
This is a cross post from The Vagina Conspiracy. Thank you, Lb'rashon Breed.
London Riots from Lb'rashon Breed on Vimeo.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Women's Worlds 2011: 800 march on Parliament for murdered and missing Indigenous women
This is what racism plus misogyny means (from the article that follows):
According to Statistics Canada, Indigenous Canadian women are five times more likely to die of violence than other women.All that follows is from *here* at rabble.ca news.
Women's Worlds 2011: 800 march on Parliament for murdered and missing Aboriginal women
| July 6, 2011
Women's Worlds 2011 is a major international conference taking place in Ottawa-Gatineau from July 3 to 7, 2011. It is 'a global convergence to advance women's equality through research, exchange, leadership, and action' with speakers and performers from a diversity of backgrounds and countries. rabble.ca is proud to be the exclusive online media sponsor.
The Aboriginal Women's Leadership Circle, a volunteer advisory body comprised of Aboriginal [First Nations, Inuit, Métis] women, collaborated within WW 2011 toward the development of wide-ranging thematic and artistic content.
The Opening Ceremony on Sunday night featured a celebration of Aboriginal culture while Monday night's "Indigenous Feminisms Rock," entertainment followed by a two-hour talk-show-style conversation led by Jessica Yee of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network. The show featured special guests Lee Maracle, award-winning author and artist, Qwo-Li Driskill, a poet, author and Two-Spirit Queer activist, and Andrea Smith, co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. This event provided the lead-in to a march on Parliament Hill on Tuesday.
Eight hundred feminists from the congress marched to Parliament Hill in solidarity with their missing and murdered Canadian First Nations sisters. Among the marchers were women from the U.S., Denmark, Norway, Sweden, South America, Latin America, Thailand and southeast Asia along with Indigenous women from territories across Canada, all were demanding that the federal government and all citizens continue to confront and investigate the disappearance of First Nations women and girls.
The march was led by the Nemisak Singers playing traditional hand drums and welcomed to Algonquin territory at Parliament Hill by Algonquin Nation Elder Bertha Commanda. Ms. Commanda gave a brief history of the Harper government's egregious treatment of "Sisters in Spirit," a project of the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC) that laid the groundwork for research into the disappearances and deaths of close to 600 women and girls across Canada over the last three decades.
Sisters in Spirit compiled a database showing that 153 women went missing between 2000 and 2008 alone. Late last year, Conservative MP Shelly Glover, the parliamentary secretary for Indian Affairs, declared the project "finished" and focused a new $10-million national strategy to deal with murdered and missing women cases on police initiatives, denying further funding to Sisters in Spirit or any other indigenous women's group. A new national police support centre for missing persons and unidentified remains will not be up and running before 2013. It is not known what will happen to the data collected by Sisters in Spirit but it seems likely that it will be merged with data of all missing Canadian women, thus erasing the significance the of extremely high numbers of missing Aboriginal women and girls.
Commanda told the gathered women that First Nations women would now require non-government money to preserve and add to the database and to undertake private investigations of cases of missing women and asked us to join in urgent fundraising initiatives.
Laurie Odjick, mother of Maisy Odjick, a young Aboriginal woman who disappeared in 2008, also spoke to those gathered about her struggle for assistance in finding her daughter and vowed to fight on in Maisy's name on behalf of all missing and murdered indigenous women. Jeannette Corbiere Lavell (President of NWAC) offered a passionately critical history of the Harper government's indifference to the specific issues facing First Nation women and the government's intransigence with respect the importance of the continuing contribution of their mothers, sisters and brothers in efforts to stop the violence, to repeated applause and chants of "shame" from the crowd.
Following Corbiere Lavell's remarks, the crowd observed a moment of silence, followed by words from Elder Jo MacQuarrie of the Metis Nation of Ontario.
NWAC is calling for a national action plan to deal with the issues raised by the work of Sisters in Spirit while Battered Women's Support Services, also participating in the Congress and the march, is calling for a national inquiry or Royal Commission. However, Canada's status of women ministers, having just concluded their annual meeting in Gatineau, Quebec, declared their solidarity with Aboriginal women but failed to call for a national action plan on the issue. CBC News reported that federal Status of Women Minister Rona Ambrose stated that "this is an incredibly unsettling and difficult issue for all of us in Canada to deal with, across the country. There are hundreds of missing and murdered aboriginal women." However, she added "governments at all levels are already doing a lot."
Amnesty International Canada says that Canadian police forces and governments have done little to prevent the long understood pattern of racist violence against Indigenous women and has stated that "[all] levels of government should work closely with Indigenous women's organizations to develop a comprehensive and coordinated programme of action to stop violence against Indigenous women."
According to Statistics Canada, Indigenous Canadian women are five times more likely to die of violence than other women.
Elizabeth Pickett is an internet-based feminist freedom fighter, a mother, a grandmother, a blogger, and a poet, seething in Whitby, Ont.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Good news but also Tragic and Sad News: The Atlanta Woman Who Had Not Been Identified Has Been, By Her Mother, The deceased young woman's name is Thandiwe Hunt. She was 20 years old.
 |
| Portrait of Thandiwe Hunt, 20, (died 2011) is from here. (Thanks to Renee for posting this.) |
So I sent that link and related links from Atlanta to many bloggers and activists. Only one woman replied. That was Renee @ Womanist Musings. I want to publicly thank Renee for her concern and regard for this deceased woman and her living loved ones. This was Renee's post: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2011/02/do-you-know-this-woman.html
No one else responded to me to let me know whether or not they posted this anywhere. (Not one white activist.) But even more shocking news from the investigator, a very compassionate woman, was that no one but me responded to her emails at all! What the hell is THAT all about????? (Yeah, we know what that is all about.)
The update is that this deceased woman has been identified by her mother. With what gratitude there can be in this situation, we can be grateful she has plenty of support around her. Thank you to all who said prayers.
Here is the latest press release. [Source: here]
Deceased Black Female Identified
The Fulton County Medical Examiner has identified the deceased black female found near Park Avenue SW in Atlanta on February 2, 2011. She is Thandiwe Hunt, a 20-year-old. Investigation continues into the cause, manner, and circumstances of death.
Posted by:
Randy Hanzlick, MD
Chief Medical Examiner, Fulton County
Posted at 715am, March 1, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Feminist Action Alert: Please Help Identify This Woman For the Sake of Her Loved Ones and So Justice can be Served: Spread this press release throughout the U.S. women's blogosphere. Thank you.
| 28 Feb 2011 important update: I've receive this message by email: The young woman has been identified! Her mother called looking for her this evening and she has been positively identified. Please keep this grieving mother and other loved ones of her beloved daughter in your prayers and thoughts. -- Julian The following email was sent to me with important information regarding the much-needed assistance of the general public in identifying a deceased woman, in part so her loved ones might know of what happened to her, and also so that those who are responsible for her being where she was found might be brought to justice. Details, including a portrait drawing of her and an image of her ring are below. Let's hope her loved ones might find some justice and closure. I have highlighted portions of the email. Below it is the press release which may also be found *here*. I am an investigator with the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office in Atlanta, Georgia. We have been desperately attempting identify and young African American female who was found deceased in trash bags in a wooded area of a dead end street in southwest Atlanta on 2/2/11. We have run her fingerprints and exhausted all other avenues in identifying her. Fliers have been distributed numerous times in the area where she was found, as well as other locations within the city of Atlanta. The news media was interested for about the first two weeks and then they stopped responding to my weekly requests to run the attached fliers, along with her demographic information, on their news broadcasts. This woman deserves to be identified and to have her family notified of what happened to her, along with bring the person(s) to justice who placed her where she was found. If you could possibly disseminate her information to whatever resources you have, it would be much appreciated. We have received a limited number of telephone calls about her and I am beginning to think that she may not be from Atlanta or Georgia. |
Deceased Black Female Adult Found Near Park Avenue, SW, Atlanta
Press Release
The initial phases of the postmortem examination have been completed in the case of an adult black female found near Park Avenue, SW, Atlanta on February 2nd. No cause of death has been determined to date. Investigation continues to determine the identity the decedent as well as the cause, manner, and circumstances of death. The autopsy was performed by forensic pathologists Michael Heninger, MD and Rhome Hughes, MD.
The deceased is a black female, about 5'8" tall, and weighs about 212 pounds. Estimated age is 20 to 40 years. The head hair is brown with black roots. The right nostril is pierced and contains a white metal stud with a clear stone. A yellow metal ring is worn in the left ring finger and contains small clear stones. There are no tattoos. One right lower tooth is lower down than the other teeth and one left upper tooth is higher up than the other teeth. The ring is shown in the photograph below.
If you have information which may lead to the decedent's identity, please call the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Center at 404-613-4400, ask for the Investigations Section, and refer to case 11-0242.
An artist's rendering is shown below. Note the stud in the right nostril and the left upper tooth which is higher up than the others.
Posted by:
Randy Hanzlick, MD
Chief Medical Examiner, Fulton County
Posted at 630am, February 4, 2011
Revised and updated February 4, 2011 940am
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Please Assist Phylicia Barnes In Her Safe Return to her Family and Friends
 |
| Missing: Phylicia Simone Barnes |
Everything that follows, and the photo above, is from radioamber.net. Please click on the title below to link back. A video about Phylicia's disappearance appears at the end of the post. So too does information on how to help. And please pray for her safety and well-being.
Did Phylicia Barnes Just Disappear – Police Baffled
Jan 20th, 2011 | By Paul P | Category: Alert Follow Up NewsEight days from today will be a month since the disappearance of now 17 year old Phylicia Barnes on Dec 28th 2010. Her 17th birthday came and went January 12th and she remained missing. Her mother has vowed to celebrate the event upon her return and remains hopeful that will be soon.
Police have had few leads in the case. Of those leads none were found to be helpful. They reportedly have called it one of the strangest and most vexing missing persons cases they’ve ever investigated.
After a public outcry about fairness because Phylicia is black, there has been some national media coverage including the NBC Nightly News featuring the case of Phylicia Barnes last night. Many feel it was to little to late because coverage came weeks after her abduction.
Auhorities remain baffled saying it’s one of the strangest missing persons cases they’ve ever investigated. They believe she may have been kidnapped and taken out of the state without leaving behind any evidence of the abduction. Despite FBI involvement the case seems to be at a stand still with no new information coming forth.
Police have had few leads in the case. Of those leads none were found to be helpful. They reportedly have called it one of the strangest and most vexing missing persons cases they’ve ever investigated.
After a public outcry about fairness because Phylicia is black, there has been some national media coverage including the NBC Nightly News featuring the case of Phylicia Barnes last night. Many feel it was to little to late because coverage came weeks after her abduction.
Auhorities remain baffled saying it’s one of the strangest missing persons cases they’ve ever investigated. They believe she may have been kidnapped and taken out of the state without leaving behind any evidence of the abduction. Despite FBI involvement the case seems to be at a stand still with no new information coming forth.
There is a $10,000.00 reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Phylicia Barnes.
Anyone with any information on Phylicia’s disappearance, no matter how small, is urged to contact the Baltimore police at
Radio Amber Alert Video
Related: Phylicia Barnes Still Missing Despite Efforts Use our search to find more stories on this case, type in search box Phylicia Barnes.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Triqui Women Demand Justice and Freedom from Paramilitary Violence in Oaxaca
To link back to the source blog, My Word Is My Weapon, please click on the title.
by Kristin Bricker
The paramilitaries who invaded San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, this past July 30 have since abandoned the autonomous municipality's town hall. They didn't go far, however, and near-daily shootings from the paramilitary sharpshooters stationed around the town keep San Juan Copala under a state of siege.
San Juan Copala declared itself autonomous following the 2006 uprising that nearly drove Oaxaca's governor out of office. The Union for the Social Well-being of the Triqui Region (UBISORT), a paramilitary organization founded by the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI, which has ruled Oaxaca for eighty years), has kept San Juan Copala under siege since January. UBISORT has blocked the road into town with boulders and logs, forcing Copala residents to use trails through the woods to bring in desperately needed supplies on their backs. UBISORT snipers are positioned in the hills surrounding the town, making it extremely dangerous for residents to leave their homes at all.
"No one can go outside in Copala," says Mariana Flores, a representative of the autonomous municipality. "If they [paramilitaries] see you on the street, they will shoot at you."
Residents believe that the paramilitaries are more likely to kill men than women. According to Flores, "If men try to go outside, they don't take more than two steps before [the paramilitaries] try to hurt or kill them."
As a result, Triqui women are playing increasingly vital roles in San Juan Copala. "In San Juan Copala, it is mainly women who risk their lives to go out and look for food," says Flores. When paramilitaries raided San Juan Copala with the help of Oaxacan state police this past July 30, it was women who attempted to repel the invasion. "Women have decided to demand their rights, and now it is women who are struggling for the community," reports Flores.
Women's increasingly protagonistic role in the conflict means that they now bear the brunt of the paramilitaries' violence. Over the past four months:
On August 11, Triqui women took their fight to the state capital and are now occupying Oaxaca City's main plaza. They expect their protest encampment to grow as more and more Triquis who have been displaced by the violence converge on the state capital. The women say they will stay in Oaxaca's main plaza until the government brings the people responsible for dozens of murders in the Triqui region to justice. "We haven't received any response from the government," reports Flores. She says that governor-elect Gabino Cué has not responded to their demands either.
The women had planned to travel to Mexico City on Monday, August 23, to meet with social organizations in an attempt to gain more support. However, the caravan was postponed following an ambush on August 21 that killed three men associated with the autonomous municipality and injured another two. Amongst the dead is Antonio Ramírez López, the leader of Santa Cruz Tilapa, a community that belongs to the autonomous municipality. Ramírez López was one of the founders of the autonomous municipality. The five men were helping organize the women's caravan, and the Bartolomé Carrasco Briseño Human Rights Center says that the men were ambushed as they travelled in a pick-up truck to pick up Triqui women who were supposed to participate in the women's caravan. Forensic investigators report that AK-47s and AR-15s were used in the ambush. Both weapons are classified as exclusively for military use, and it is illegal for civilians to own them.
The autonomous municipality claims that paramilitaries from both UBISORT and the Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) participated in the ambush, although at this point survivors have not identified their attackers.
Organizers in the women's protest encampment in Oaxaca City say that they will remain in the capital's main plaza until their demands are met. They are currently in the process of reenforcing the protest encampment with more supporters. The reenforcement is a security precaution because Rufino Juarez, the leader of UBISORT, was seen on Saturday and Sunday near the women's protest encampment. Juarez has personally participated in assaults against Triqui women, including the May 15 kidnapping of twelve women and children.
Triqui Women on the Frontline in San Juan Copala Conflict
A New Ambush Aimed at the Women-Led Caravan Leaves Three Dead; Caravan Postponedby Kristin Bricker
 |
| Photo: José Carlo González, La Jornada |
The paramilitaries who invaded San Juan Copala, Oaxaca, this past July 30 have since abandoned the autonomous municipality's town hall. They didn't go far, however, and near-daily shootings from the paramilitary sharpshooters stationed around the town keep San Juan Copala under a state of siege.
San Juan Copala declared itself autonomous following the 2006 uprising that nearly drove Oaxaca's governor out of office. The Union for the Social Well-being of the Triqui Region (UBISORT), a paramilitary organization founded by the Institutional Revolution Party (PRI, which has ruled Oaxaca for eighty years), has kept San Juan Copala under siege since January. UBISORT has blocked the road into town with boulders and logs, forcing Copala residents to use trails through the woods to bring in desperately needed supplies on their backs. UBISORT snipers are positioned in the hills surrounding the town, making it extremely dangerous for residents to leave their homes at all.
"No one can go outside in Copala," says Mariana Flores, a representative of the autonomous municipality. "If they [paramilitaries] see you on the street, they will shoot at you."
Residents believe that the paramilitaries are more likely to kill men than women. According to Flores, "If men try to go outside, they don't take more than two steps before [the paramilitaries] try to hurt or kill them."
As a result, Triqui women are playing increasingly vital roles in San Juan Copala. "In San Juan Copala, it is mainly women who risk their lives to go out and look for food," says Flores. When paramilitaries raided San Juan Copala with the help of Oaxacan state police this past July 30, it was women who attempted to repel the invasion. "Women have decided to demand their rights, and now it is women who are struggling for the community," reports Flores.
Women's increasingly protagonistic role in the conflict means that they now bear the brunt of the paramilitaries' violence. Over the past four months:
- UBISORT murdered Bety Cariño, a non-Triqui Oaxacan community organizer, along with Finnish observer Jyri Jaakkola, during an aid caravan to San Juan Copala on April 27. It is believed that Cariño was targeted.
- On May 15, UBISORT leaders beat and attempted to kidnap two Copala women. Later that day, UBISORT members kidnapped 12 women and children who had snuck out of San Juan Copala to purchase food.
- On May 20, unidentified assassins murdered Cleriberta Castro Aguilar and her husband Timoteo Alejandro Ramírez, one of the founders of the autonomous municipality.
- On June 24, sharpshooters shot and wounded 8-year-old Miriam Martínez in San Juan Copala.
- On June 26, sharpshooters shot and wounded Marcelina de Jesús López and Celestina Cruz Ramírez as they left a meeting in San Juan Copala.
- On July 26, Maria Rosa Francisco disappeared near her home in San Juan Copala when sharpshooters opened fire. She had left her house to look for firewood and is feared dead.
- On July 30, when women attempted to repel the paramilitary/police raid on San Juan Copala, two girls aged 17 and 14 were shot. The 14-year-old was paralyzed when a bullet fired by the UBISORT lodged in her spine.
On August 11, Triqui women took their fight to the state capital and are now occupying Oaxaca City's main plaza. They expect their protest encampment to grow as more and more Triquis who have been displaced by the violence converge on the state capital. The women say they will stay in Oaxaca's main plaza until the government brings the people responsible for dozens of murders in the Triqui region to justice. "We haven't received any response from the government," reports Flores. She says that governor-elect Gabino Cué has not responded to their demands either.
The women had planned to travel to Mexico City on Monday, August 23, to meet with social organizations in an attempt to gain more support. However, the caravan was postponed following an ambush on August 21 that killed three men associated with the autonomous municipality and injured another two. Amongst the dead is Antonio Ramírez López, the leader of Santa Cruz Tilapa, a community that belongs to the autonomous municipality. Ramírez López was one of the founders of the autonomous municipality. The five men were helping organize the women's caravan, and the Bartolomé Carrasco Briseño Human Rights Center says that the men were ambushed as they travelled in a pick-up truck to pick up Triqui women who were supposed to participate in the women's caravan. Forensic investigators report that AK-47s and AR-15s were used in the ambush. Both weapons are classified as exclusively for military use, and it is illegal for civilians to own them.
The autonomous municipality claims that paramilitaries from both UBISORT and the Movement for Triqui Unification and Struggle (MULT) participated in the ambush, although at this point survivors have not identified their attackers.
Organizers in the women's protest encampment in Oaxaca City say that they will remain in the capital's main plaza until their demands are met. They are currently in the process of reenforcing the protest encampment with more supporters. The reenforcement is a security precaution because Rufino Juarez, the leader of UBISORT, was seen on Saturday and Sunday near the women's protest encampment. Juarez has personally participated in assaults against Triqui women, including the May 15 kidnapping of twelve women and children.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Honduran Peasant Leader Maria Teresa Flores Assassinated
| This is a truly horrendous loss and cause of grief, outrage, and protest. -- Julian Honduran Peasant Leader Assassinated |
| Written by Red Morazánica de Información, Translated by Sofia Jarrin |
| Friday, 13 August 2010 19:24 |
 The peasant leader Maria Teresa Flores, who was missing since August 7, was found dead with signs of having been tortured and then executed with shots from a firearm. Flores, mother of 14 children, was part of the Coordinating Council of Peasant Organizations of Honduras (COCOCH) and she used to head the Peasant Organization of Honduras (OCH). The body of the leader was found, in a state of decomposition with shots and signs of having been tortured, on Wednesday at 10:00 am about 35 kilometers from the city of Siguatepeque, according to reports from relatives. Flores had disappeared on Saturday, August 7 at noon, after having left Tegucigalpa bound for home at 6:00 in the morning. She had contacted a member of a peasant group and said she was in Siguatepeque waiting for a bus to get home. Her family has since then not heard anything about her until today when they found her body in decomposition, said the story of journalist Mabel Marquez. According to the journalist, the agrarian leader, was coordinator of several peasant groups in the area where she resided, in the department of Comayagua and was originally from the town of Meambar. The year before Maria Teresa Flores had lost 15 relatives in a car accident while returning from the funeral of a relative. A political assassination The leader of the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP), Carlos H. Reyes, called the death of Flores, a “political assassination”, framed in the repression the country lives under after the coup. Reyes questioned whether “those who make decisions (about the assassination of social leaders) are at the highest level, advised by key elements of the U.S. embassy.” In recent months there have been a series of murders and executions of people, to the extent that the country was ranked as the most violent in the world by a British publication “The Economist.” The Committee of Relatives of the Detained and Disappeared in Honduras, COFADEH, reported a few days ago that there is a state policy of systematic violation of human rights in Honduras. To read the original in Spanish: Asesinan a dirigente campesina María Teresa Flores see below: Asesinan a dirigente campesina María Teresa FloresCarlos H. Reyes: es “un asesinato político” Tegucigalpa 12 de agosto de 2010. La dirigente campesina María Teresa Flores, desaparecida desde el pasado 07 de agosto, fue encontrada muerta, con señales de haber sido torturada y posteriormente ejecutada con disparos de arma de fuego. Flores, madre de 14 hijos, formaba parte del Consejo Coordinador de Organizaciones Campesinas de Honduras (COCOCH), anteriormente también fue directiva de Organización Campesina de Honduras (OCH). El cadáver de la dirigente, fue encontrado en estado de putrefacción y con disparos y señales de haber sido torturada el día miércoles a las 10:00 de la mañana a unos 35 kilómetros de la ciudad de Siguatepeque, según versiones de familiares. Flores había desparecido desde al Sábado 07 de Agosto al medio día, pues había salido de Tegucigalpa con destino a su casa a las 6:00 de la mañana, pero se comunicó con un compañero de un grupo campesino y le dijo que se encontraba en Siguatepeque esperando un auto-bus para su casa, desde entonces la familia no volvió a saber nada mas de ella hasta hoy que encontraron su cuerpo ya putrefacto, según el relato de la Periodista Mabel Márquez. De acuerdo con la Periodista, la dirigente agraria, era coordinadora de varios grupos campesinos en el sector donde residía, en el departamento de Comayagua y era originaria del municipio de Meambar. El año anterior esta compañera perdió 15 de sus familiares en un accidente automovilístico mientras regresaban del entierro de un pariente suyo. Un asesinato político. El dirigente del Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular FNRP, Carlos H. Reyes, calificó la muerte de Flores, como “un asesinato político”, enmarcado en la represión que vive el país después del golpe de Estado. Reyes cuestionó que “quienes tomas las decisiones (sobre el asesinato de dirigentes sociales), es al más alto nivel, asesorados por elementos claves de la embajada de los Estados Unidos”. En los últimos meses se registra una serie de asesinatos y ejecuciones de personas, al grado que el país es catalogado como el más violento de mundo por una publicación Inglesa “The Econimist”. El Comité de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos en Honduras, COFADEH, denunció hace pocos días, que existe una política de Estado de violación sistemática a los derechos humanos en Honduras. |
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Andre Picard Sort of Gets It that Gynocide and Genocide Are Atrocities, but not that they are what normal men and whites are invested in
Photographs of missing or murdered women from British Columbia are displayed during a Sisters in Spirit vigil to honour the lives of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Vancouver on Oct. 4, 2009.
DARRYL DYCK/THE CANADIAN PRESS [this image is from here]
I just came across this and wanted to cross post it. The original is from *here*. And what follows has my interruptions and commentary, in bold and in brackets.
Published on Thursday, Sep. 03, 2009 12:00AM EDT Last updated on Thursday, Sep. 17, 2009 3:58AM EDT
Last week, the Manitoba government announced the creation of a joint RCMP and Winnipeg Police task force to investigate dozens of cases of missing and murdered women in the province.
The news, while welcome, raises the question: Why limit the investigation to Manitoba?
It is true that there are at least 75 missing women in the province, virtually all of them aboriginal. Police have been seemingly incapable of solving the cases and halting the race-based violence. [That would be also be GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE, Andre, unless we find out all the killers are women! And likely also class-based. Killing poor women never gets the mass media attention as the killing of middle class and wealthy white people does.]
But, nationwide, the data are even more gut-wrenching: The Native Women's Association of Canada has catalogued 520 cases of missing or murdered aboriginal women, half of them since the year 2000.
The women, most under the age of 30, are overwhelmingly victims of sexual violence. They are being preyed upon systematically by sexual sadists, killers and probably more than one serial killer. [Or by normal men. You could at least use the word: MEN.]
How can this not be considered a national priority for police, justice and public-health officials? [For human rights activists, for people who care about ending white/het/male supremacist genocide and gynodicde!]
Sadly, when a native woman is murdered or vanishes under suspicious circumstances, it does not mobilize police action nor generate near as much media attention as similar cases involving non-native women. [And this is a tangled mess of racism and specifically anti-Indigenism, misogyny, and classism.]
They were drunk. They were sex workers. [The callousness and cruelty inheres more in the fact that they were poor and desperate, they were pimped and trafficked and some may have been sold into sexual slavery. They were seen as existing only for men's sexual pleasure--primarily white het men's, and were seen as expendable, because there's supposedly always more where they came from, up to a point.] They came from unstable family backgrounds. They were runaways. They were party girls. An endless litany of excuses for inaction is trotted out with shocking regularity. [They weren't wealthy white het men.]
Let's be blunt. The main reason an in-depth investigation is required is that the situation reeks of racism, stereotyping and discrimination. There seems to be a deadly double standard at play. [Why is it about "gendered violence" that isn't screaming out at you, Andre? Are these women NOT women? Are the perpetrators, the rapists, the murderers NOT men? For a group stalked and murdered precisely because they were not men, you really go out of your way to make this seem like it's only about racism. If that were true, the stats would be just as high for missed and murdered men of color, right?]
It is true that many of the 500-plus aboriginal women who have been murdered or disappeared had difficult life circumstances. [As one tends to have when surviving genocide and racialised and gendered poverty and misogyny. As Mary Brave Bird said, if you're white and male, you're lucky.]
But it is precisely these circumstances - alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual abuse, the sequelae of residential schools, poverty, survival sex, etc. - that placed them at much higher risk. ["Survival sex"?? That's a new one. Why not call it being pimped? Why not call it being a prostitute? Women who are very poor are very vulnerable not just to the occasional "good samaritan procurer" who will trade sex for cash. Women and girls tend to be preyed upon by pimps, Andre. So "survival sex" really makes the systems of racist/classist/misogynist/heterosexist exploitation and lethal violence sound like they aren't systems of harm at all.]
The life expectancy of an aboriginal [person] is a decade less than a non-aboriginal [person] in Canada. The rate of infant mortality is three times higher. The suicide rate is six times higher. Aboriginal people have a rate of diabetes and heart disease three times the national average, and dramatically higher rates of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS and H1N1 influenza. [It's not called genocide for nothing. You think maybe white folks want Indigenous North Americans to SURVIVE or something?]
The key determinants of health - individually and collectively - are social and economic factors such as housing, income, education, environment and empowerment. First nations, Métis and Inuit communities fare particularly dismally in these essential areas. [One key factor is building a whole civilisation based on white male entitlement to take over the world. It's called racist patriarchy, and it shows up in every facet of life, in every system, in every corner of one's experience. So I'd call that a key factor that is political.]
Unemployment levels and poverty rates in aboriginal communities are three times higher than in mainstream society. Only 4 per cent of natives have a university education, one quarter the rate in mainstream society. More than one third of aboriginal people in Canada have, in government jargon, a "core housing need," meaning their homes do not meet the most basic standards of acceptability. Overcrowding, lack of running water and inadequate sewage services are the norm in many native communities. [Which, I'd argue, meets the standards of acceptability quite well, for genocidalists. If it were genuinely unacceptable, it wouldn't exist. It exists precisely because it IS acceptable to whites, the wealthy, and men who are not members of the First Nations.]
Not to mention that an aboriginal is five times more likely to be murdered than a non-aboriginal Canadian.
The murder of poor (literally and figuratively [?!--as in "pitiful"?!]) aboriginal women is the most extreme manifestation of the price first nations, Inuit and Métis peoples are paying for the abysmal social conditions in which they are trapped. [I'd say it is the most acceptable manifestation of white het male supremacist civilisation. I'd say it's mandatory, in fact. Proof of that is how few predators/normal white men are caught and prosecuted. You can bet if the victims were wealthy white men there wouldn't be 520 disappearances before it got some major press--half of those in one year!]
The murders are also a gruesome symbol of society's indifference to that plight. [Indifference, callousness, cruelty, denial, destruction, death, and delusion are core values of any capitalist racist patriarchy.]
Much was made of the fact that virtually all of mass murderer Robert Pickton's victims were sex workers. But rarely did we hear that almost all his victims were young aboriginal women. There is evidence that a serial killer may also be at work in Manitoba, and a single [white het] man may also be responsible for the carnage along British Columbia's infamous Highway of Tears. (The Yellowhead Highway, which stretches 750 kilometres from Prince George to Prince Rupert has been the site of nine murders and disappearances since 1990, all but one of the victims young aboriginal women.) But the reality is that the Highway of Tears stretches from sea-to-sea-to-sea in this country: Aboriginal women have been murdered or disappeared by the score in every single province and territory in Canada. [As well as in 'the lower 48', and as well across the globe.]
This is not a Manitoba-only problem. [To say the least.]
Beverley Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, has repeatedly called for a national investigation into this on-going horror.
As she noted, the deaths and disappearances of 520 aboriginal women is the equivalent of 18,000 missing and murdered non-aboriginal women.
Would we stand idly by while a massacre of our daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers unfolded on this scale? [And by "our" you mean... white? That's taking assumptions about literacy a bit far, don't you think? And you know damn well that if all the missing and dead were Black, non-Indigenous women, there'd be no major press about that either. So let's call it like it is: if you're not white and you are not wealthy and you are killed, media doesn't care what happens to you. Put in place an economic system that is entirely white male supremacist, and you'll end up with very poor women of color.]
We would not and we should not. [But "we" whites, will and we whites do. It's not like the gynocidal genocide started a couple of years ago, right? I mean we whites have had a few centuries to get a grasp on how this particular atrocity works, yes?]
Incomprehensibly [or not], Ms. Jacobs's call for a national investigation has gone unheeded by the federal government. Instead, politicians have contented themselves with funding research into the problem. [Dude, that's all that's supposed to happen. I'm glad you're outraged and upset, but please don't pretend this is new or at all unusual. It is, literally and figuratively, "status quo" behavior and practice.]
A report published earlier this year, entitled Voices of Our Sisters in Spirit, makes for chilling reading, recounting the stories of many murdered and missing aboriginal women. The data therein are as humbling as they are sickening: More than half the murders of aboriginal women remain unsolved. [Don't worry: whites won't read it. It's too chilling and sickening.]
It's time to go beyond mere cataloguing of the carnage, and to understand the root causes. [WHITE HET MALE SUPREMACY, and WESTERN CAPITALIST CIVILISATION.]
In Canada, a death or a disappearance should not be taken less seriously because of the colour of a person's skin. [Yeah, well. Welcome to the world of reality. Again, sir, you're not like 18. You've had plenty of time to notice THERE'S A GYNOCIDAL GENOCIDE GOING ON.]
And [non-Indigenous] Canadians should not tolerate that the horror of these crimes - 520 daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers stolen away from their families, friends and communities - be redoubled by indifference. ["Our" indifference doesn't go away because crimes happen against the poor, against women, and against people of color. Not unless "our" means a federal government comprised of ethical people of color, women, and poor people.]
Our willful blindness to the plight of aboriginal women is the greatest injustice. [I agree it's an atrocity. But it's one you and every other white Canadian benefit from, so don't leave that out. Because whether you say so or not, you are invested, literally and figuratively, in genocide and in gynocide within and beyond Canada.]
The news, while welcome, raises the question: Why limit the investigation to Manitoba?
It is true that there are at least 75 missing women in the province, virtually all of them aboriginal. Police have been seemingly incapable of solving the cases and halting the race-based violence. [That would be also be GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE, Andre, unless we find out all the killers are women! And likely also class-based. Killing poor women never gets the mass media attention as the killing of middle class and wealthy white people does.]
But, nationwide, the data are even more gut-wrenching: The Native Women's Association of Canada has catalogued 520 cases of missing or murdered aboriginal women, half of them since the year 2000.
The women, most under the age of 30, are overwhelmingly victims of sexual violence. They are being preyed upon systematically by sexual sadists, killers and probably more than one serial killer. [Or by normal men. You could at least use the word: MEN.]
How can this not be considered a national priority for police, justice and public-health officials? [For human rights activists, for people who care about ending white/het/male supremacist genocide and gynodicde!]
Sadly, when a native woman is murdered or vanishes under suspicious circumstances, it does not mobilize police action nor generate near as much media attention as similar cases involving non-native women. [And this is a tangled mess of racism and specifically anti-Indigenism, misogyny, and classism.]
They were drunk. They were sex workers. [The callousness and cruelty inheres more in the fact that they were poor and desperate, they were pimped and trafficked and some may have been sold into sexual slavery. They were seen as existing only for men's sexual pleasure--primarily white het men's, and were seen as expendable, because there's supposedly always more where they came from, up to a point.] They came from unstable family backgrounds. They were runaways. They were party girls. An endless litany of excuses for inaction is trotted out with shocking regularity. [They weren't wealthy white het men.]
Let's be blunt. The main reason an in-depth investigation is required is that the situation reeks of racism, stereotyping and discrimination. There seems to be a deadly double standard at play. [Why is it about "gendered violence" that isn't screaming out at you, Andre? Are these women NOT women? Are the perpetrators, the rapists, the murderers NOT men? For a group stalked and murdered precisely because they were not men, you really go out of your way to make this seem like it's only about racism. If that were true, the stats would be just as high for missed and murdered men of color, right?]
It is true that many of the 500-plus aboriginal women who have been murdered or disappeared had difficult life circumstances. [As one tends to have when surviving genocide and racialised and gendered poverty and misogyny. As Mary Brave Bird said, if you're white and male, you're lucky.]
But it is precisely these circumstances - alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual abuse, the sequelae of residential schools, poverty, survival sex, etc. - that placed them at much higher risk. ["Survival sex"?? That's a new one. Why not call it being pimped? Why not call it being a prostitute? Women who are very poor are very vulnerable not just to the occasional "good samaritan procurer" who will trade sex for cash. Women and girls tend to be preyed upon by pimps, Andre. So "survival sex" really makes the systems of racist/classist/misogynist/heterosexist exploitation and lethal violence sound like they aren't systems of harm at all.]
The life expectancy of an aboriginal [person] is a decade less than a non-aboriginal [person] in Canada. The rate of infant mortality is three times higher. The suicide rate is six times higher. Aboriginal people have a rate of diabetes and heart disease three times the national average, and dramatically higher rates of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, HIV-AIDS and H1N1 influenza. [It's not called genocide for nothing. You think maybe white folks want Indigenous North Americans to SURVIVE or something?]
The key determinants of health - individually and collectively - are social and economic factors such as housing, income, education, environment and empowerment. First nations, Métis and Inuit communities fare particularly dismally in these essential areas. [One key factor is building a whole civilisation based on white male entitlement to take over the world. It's called racist patriarchy, and it shows up in every facet of life, in every system, in every corner of one's experience. So I'd call that a key factor that is political.]
Unemployment levels and poverty rates in aboriginal communities are three times higher than in mainstream society. Only 4 per cent of natives have a university education, one quarter the rate in mainstream society. More than one third of aboriginal people in Canada have, in government jargon, a "core housing need," meaning their homes do not meet the most basic standards of acceptability. Overcrowding, lack of running water and inadequate sewage services are the norm in many native communities. [Which, I'd argue, meets the standards of acceptability quite well, for genocidalists. If it were genuinely unacceptable, it wouldn't exist. It exists precisely because it IS acceptable to whites, the wealthy, and men who are not members of the First Nations.]
Not to mention that an aboriginal is five times more likely to be murdered than a non-aboriginal Canadian.
The murder of poor (literally and figuratively [?!--as in "pitiful"?!]) aboriginal women is the most extreme manifestation of the price first nations, Inuit and Métis peoples are paying for the abysmal social conditions in which they are trapped. [I'd say it is the most acceptable manifestation of white het male supremacist civilisation. I'd say it's mandatory, in fact. Proof of that is how few predators/normal white men are caught and prosecuted. You can bet if the victims were wealthy white men there wouldn't be 520 disappearances before it got some major press--half of those in one year!]
The murders are also a gruesome symbol of society's indifference to that plight. [Indifference, callousness, cruelty, denial, destruction, death, and delusion are core values of any capitalist racist patriarchy.]
Much was made of the fact that virtually all of mass murderer Robert Pickton's victims were sex workers. But rarely did we hear that almost all his victims were young aboriginal women. There is evidence that a serial killer may also be at work in Manitoba, and a single [white het] man may also be responsible for the carnage along British Columbia's infamous Highway of Tears. (The Yellowhead Highway, which stretches 750 kilometres from Prince George to Prince Rupert has been the site of nine murders and disappearances since 1990, all but one of the victims young aboriginal women.) But the reality is that the Highway of Tears stretches from sea-to-sea-to-sea in this country: Aboriginal women have been murdered or disappeared by the score in every single province and territory in Canada. [As well as in 'the lower 48', and as well across the globe.]
This is not a Manitoba-only problem. [To say the least.]
Beverley Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, has repeatedly called for a national investigation into this on-going horror.
As she noted, the deaths and disappearances of 520 aboriginal women is the equivalent of 18,000 missing and murdered non-aboriginal women.
Would we stand idly by while a massacre of our daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers unfolded on this scale? [And by "our" you mean... white? That's taking assumptions about literacy a bit far, don't you think? And you know damn well that if all the missing and dead were Black, non-Indigenous women, there'd be no major press about that either. So let's call it like it is: if you're not white and you are not wealthy and you are killed, media doesn't care what happens to you. Put in place an economic system that is entirely white male supremacist, and you'll end up with very poor women of color.]
We would not and we should not. [But "we" whites, will and we whites do. It's not like the gynocidal genocide started a couple of years ago, right? I mean we whites have had a few centuries to get a grasp on how this particular atrocity works, yes?]
Incomprehensibly [or not], Ms. Jacobs's call for a national investigation has gone unheeded by the federal government. Instead, politicians have contented themselves with funding research into the problem. [Dude, that's all that's supposed to happen. I'm glad you're outraged and upset, but please don't pretend this is new or at all unusual. It is, literally and figuratively, "status quo" behavior and practice.]
A report published earlier this year, entitled Voices of Our Sisters in Spirit, makes for chilling reading, recounting the stories of many murdered and missing aboriginal women. The data therein are as humbling as they are sickening: More than half the murders of aboriginal women remain unsolved. [Don't worry: whites won't read it. It's too chilling and sickening.]
It's time to go beyond mere cataloguing of the carnage, and to understand the root causes. [WHITE HET MALE SUPREMACY, and WESTERN CAPITALIST CIVILISATION.]
In Canada, a death or a disappearance should not be taken less seriously because of the colour of a person's skin. [Yeah, well. Welcome to the world of reality. Again, sir, you're not like 18. You've had plenty of time to notice THERE'S A GYNOCIDAL GENOCIDE GOING ON.]
And [non-Indigenous] Canadians should not tolerate that the horror of these crimes - 520 daughters, sisters, mothers and grandmothers stolen away from their families, friends and communities - be redoubled by indifference. ["Our" indifference doesn't go away because crimes happen against the poor, against women, and against people of color. Not unless "our" means a federal government comprised of ethical people of color, women, and poor people.]
Our willful blindness to the plight of aboriginal women is the greatest injustice. [I agree it's an atrocity. But it's one you and every other white Canadian benefit from, so don't leave that out. Because whether you say so or not, you are invested, literally and figuratively, in genocide and in gynocide within and beyond Canada.]
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
MISSING AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN DESERVE MASS MEDIA ATTENTION
This is one woman, one case, one report. Did you see her disappearance reported?
Immediately below is a cross post from La Reyna's Journal blog, *here*. With gratitude.
In Rocky Mount North Carolina 8 bodies of 10 missing African American women have been found. All 8 are believed to have been killed by Antwan Maurice Pittman who is currently in the Edgecomb County Jail. The governor of North Carolina has sent in the National Gaurd to find the bodies of the last two remaining women, Joyce Renee Durham & Yolanda Lancaster. Watch video on this story below:
http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/missingblackwomen.html
Also from that link:
Sign the petition to get black women more news coverage Petition for more coverage
Hi this is George Cook of Let's Talk Honestly. If you visit my site often you know how I feel about the lack of coverage missing black women receive in the media. On this page I will try to do my part to remedy that sad situation. I will post a story about a different African American woman who is missing every week. This page will be updated every Wednesday.I can be contacted at george@letstalkhonestly.com or by phone at 908 963 3824. You can get updates on this page by email by clicking HERE.
10/20/09 LISA SPENCE IS MISSING
Mirmar ( Florida ) Police need help finding a missing Miramar woman who was last seen leaving her neighborhood on Oct. 7th.
The family of Lisa Spence, 35, a native of Trinidad and Tobago, reported her missing after she failed to report for work at Bella Beauty Supply. Her friends are concerned.
Police have searched her neighborhood and turned up nothing. They suspect foul play.
Anyone with information about her disappearance is asked to call Broward Crimestoppers at 954-493-TIPS.
Immediately below is a cross post from La Reyna's Journal blog, *here*. With gratitude.
In Rocky Mount North Carolina 8 bodies of 10 missing African American women have been found. All 8 are believed to have been killed by Antwan Maurice Pittman who is currently in the Edgecomb County Jail. The governor of North Carolina has sent in the National Gaurd to find the bodies of the last two remaining women, Joyce Renee Durham & Yolanda Lancaster. Watch video on this story below:
http://www.letstalkhonestly.com/missingblackwomen.html
Also from that link:
MISSING BLACK WOMEN
Sign the petition to get black women more news coverage Petition for more coverage
Hi this is George Cook of Let's Talk Honestly. If you visit my site often you know how I feel about the lack of coverage missing black women receive in the media. On this page I will try to do my part to remedy that sad situation. I will post a story about a different African American woman who is missing every week. This page will be updated every Wednesday.I can be contacted at george@letstalkhonestly.com or by phone at 908 963 3824. You can get updates on this page by email by clicking HERE.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Rally for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (cross post)
All that follows is from *here*, by Corvin Russell is an activist, writer, and translator based in Toronto. His current focus is Indigenous solidarity and environmental justice work.
Friends,
Many of you know that for the last 18 years, February 14 has been set aside as a day to remember and honour the thousands of Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing in Canada. Over 3000 Aboriginal women are known to have gone missing or been murdered since 1980.
In Native communities across Canada, people know women who have disappeared - daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends. No one knows what has happened to them. Many other women are known to have been murdered. The deaths and disappearances of these women eat at the hearts of all who love them.
The disappearances and murders of so many women don't happen without a cause. For generations, Canada has pursued policies that have dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of their lands and resources, and attacked their food supplies, their social structures, their languages, and their ways of life. Residential schools and other policies of assimilation and genocide have scarred families and communities. Canada's policies have created poverty, violence, and despair, and women have disproportionately borne the brunt of these. Many of the most vulnerable have had to make hard choices, only to be preyed on by Canadian racism and indifference.
Women keep getting murdered, and keep disappearing. Yet Canada, the provinces, police forces, coroners, and media remain indifferent. Why? Because the women are Indian.
Today is about defending the lives of Aboriginal women and demanding justice for all the Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing. It is also about honouring, mourning, and remembering all the women who have gone. To those sisters, we say: your life is precious. We were not with you and we did not help you in the time of your greatest need. But we are here today to say we remember you. And we will never forget you.
Toronto Rally for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
When: Sunday, February 14, 2009 @ 12 pm
Where: Rally at Police HQ, 40 College St at Bay
We'll march to the Coroner's Office, 26 Grenville St; followed by a Gathering with food at U of T's Centre for Women and Trans People (CWTP), 563 Spadina Ave (CWTP is wheelchair accessible)
We will also provide TTC tokens for those attending by public transit
*** To volunteer before or during the rally/march, please meet at U of T's CWTP at 11am on Feb 14.
*** To get involved with No More Silence (event organizers), come to the New Volunteers Meeting on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2-4pm at the CWTP.
*** To endorse or support the rally in any way, contact: *nomoresilence@riseup.net*
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=451625680316&ref=mf
For details of today's Vancouver rally see: http://rabble.ca/whatsup/february-14th-annual-womens-memorial-march-dtes...
No more silence: why showing up today is important. Rally for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
| February 14, 2010
Friends,
Many of you know that for the last 18 years, February 14 has been set aside as a day to remember and honour the thousands of Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing in Canada. Over 3000 Aboriginal women are known to have gone missing or been murdered since 1980.
In Native communities across Canada, people know women who have disappeared - daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends. No one knows what has happened to them. Many other women are known to have been murdered. The deaths and disappearances of these women eat at the hearts of all who love them.
The disappearances and murders of so many women don't happen without a cause. For generations, Canada has pursued policies that have dispossessed Indigenous Peoples of their lands and resources, and attacked their food supplies, their social structures, their languages, and their ways of life. Residential schools and other policies of assimilation and genocide have scarred families and communities. Canada's policies have created poverty, violence, and despair, and women have disproportionately borne the brunt of these. Many of the most vulnerable have had to make hard choices, only to be preyed on by Canadian racism and indifference.
Women keep getting murdered, and keep disappearing. Yet Canada, the provinces, police forces, coroners, and media remain indifferent. Why? Because the women are Indian.
Today is about defending the lives of Aboriginal women and demanding justice for all the Aboriginal women who have been murdered or gone missing. It is also about honouring, mourning, and remembering all the women who have gone. To those sisters, we say: your life is precious. We were not with you and we did not help you in the time of your greatest need. But we are here today to say we remember you. And we will never forget you.
Toronto Rally for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
When: Sunday, February 14, 2009 @ 12 pm
Where: Rally at Police HQ, 40 College St at Bay
We'll march to the Coroner's Office, 26 Grenville St; followed by a Gathering with food at U of T's Centre for Women and Trans People (CWTP), 563 Spadina Ave (CWTP is wheelchair accessible)
We will also provide TTC tokens for those attending by public transit
*** To volunteer before or during the rally/march, please meet at U of T's CWTP at 11am on Feb 14.
*** To get involved with No More Silence (event organizers), come to the New Volunteers Meeting on Sunday, Feb. 28, 2-4pm at the CWTP.
*** To endorse or support the rally in any way, contact: *nomoresilence@riseup.net*
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=451625680316&ref=mf
For details of today's Vancouver rally see: http://rabble.ca/whatsup/february-14th-annual-womens-memorial-march-dtes...
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Document The Silence: a website giving voice to Feminist Women of Color confronting Racist Sexual Violence
All that follows is from *here*.
“The History of Document the Silence’s Website”
In Uncategorized on July 26, 2009 at 8:25 pmIn October 2007 people all over the United States gathered physically and in spirit to speak out against violence against women of color. The violence that lead us to action was:
Then on the first anniversary of the Be Bold Be Red Campaign, October 30, 2008, we once again invited people to make bold stances against the violence enacted on women and girls of color in our society visible.
In D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit women of color gathered to renew their commitment to creating a world free from racialized and gendered violence through the use of Cyberquilting which uses video conferencing technologies to connect all of these gatherings in real time. To learn more about Cyberquilting, which is a woman of color led project to stitch movements together using new web technologies and old traditions of love and nurturing, visit www.cyberquilt.wordpress.com.
Organizing on October 2007
- The brutal and inhumane rape, torture, and kidnapping of Megan Williams in Logan, West Virginia who was held by six assailants for a month.
- Rape survivors in the Dunbar Housing Projects in West Palm Beach, Florida one of whom was forced to perform sexual acts on her own child.
- A 13 year old native American girl was beaten by two white women and has since been harassed by several men yelling “white power” outside of her home
- Seven black lesbian girls attempted to stop an attacker and were latter charged with aggravated assault and are facing up to 11 year prison sentences
Then on the first anniversary of the Be Bold Be Red Campaign, October 30, 2008, we once again invited people to make bold stances against the violence enacted on women and girls of color in our society visible.
In D.C., Chicago, Durham, Atlanta and Detroit women of color gathered to renew their commitment to creating a world free from racialized and gendered violence through the use of Cyberquilting which uses video conferencing technologies to connect all of these gatherings in real time. To learn more about Cyberquilting, which is a woman of color led project to stitch movements together using new web technologies and old traditions of love and nurturing, visit www.cyberquilt.wordpress.com.
And now we are launching a new cyber campaign entitled, “Where is Aniysah?”
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Juárez/U.S. Sexist Slavery and Misogynist Murder: Maria's exclusive report from Channel 4
A horror. What else can this be called? A gynocidal (normalised) horror: one among hundreds across the globe. This is a report weaving together poverty caused by anti-Indigenous genocidal Western patriarchal civilisation that devalues all female human beings, government corruption, racist U.S. policies on drug and armament trafficking, men's gangs that are a result of all of the above, heterosexist men's entitlements to have access to women and girls, including to sexually abuse them and murder them without any accountability or consequence to the procuring purchasers or misogynist murderers. This is a story that plays our across the globe, of Western white men's civilisation and its weapons of mass destruction fueling the destruction of female human beings who are treated worse than things.
This is not a report about "missing children" exactly. That title invisibilises this as a gynocidal atrocity, for it is girls and women who are being sold into sexual slavery/prostitution to men. Girls and women, vastly and disproportionately are "the disappeared", the raped, and the murdered.
One girl who escaped this horror alive speaks out.She is called "Maria".
Note: media always makes certain kinds of appeals to its audience which invariably utilise culturally specific terms. An Anglo-centric term is used in the written version of the report below the video to follow, so that Maria is saying "mummy" instead of "mommy". This is obviously done to appeal to a UK audience, for whom "mummy" has particular emotional resonance. But let's be clear: no Mexican or Chicana/o child calls their mother "mummy" unless they have been raised by white Brits. So I have replaced the term in the written report, in brackets. All that follows is from *here*. I have added or changed some words in the text, all in brackets.
Please wait for the video to load.
Mexico missing children - exclusive report
Updated on 11 January 2010
In a chilling interview with Channel 4 News the teenager tells of a cross-border trade in babies and young children, where [Juárez] Mexican and [Southwestern] US gangs worked together to supply a demand [to and for predominantly white heterosexual men] in the United States.
Her interview with the programme has prompted US authorities to launch a criminal investigation and in late December agents flew the teenager to the United States for a full interview after Channel 4 News alerted authorities.
Maria was 16-years-old when she was lured into the gang by a young man on the streets of the deadly Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez.
Since the 1990s thousands of women have disappeared from the town, and hundreds of bodies bearing signs of rape and sexual mutilation were dumped on waste ground in the city.
Thousands more have never returned.
Despite international coverage of the story including a film starring Jennifer Lopez, the disappearances continue.
In 2009, 55 teenage girls vanished in the town, which has been gripped by violence as two drug cartels fight a lethal turf war for cocaine smuggling routes to America.
Whilst investigating the fate of the missing girls Channel 4 News correspondent Nick Martin and producer Guillermo Galdos discovered Maria and carried out the interview whilst she was in hiding.
Few girls return after going missing and Maria's interview sheds light on the fate of so many in her position.
She said she had been given presents and promised a job in an office by the gang member but was instead drugged and raped and sold to men. She explained what the gang did to one girl who tried to escape.
"They took a gallon of gasoline and started pouring it over her," said Maria.
"One of the men told me 'if you don't do as I say I will do the same to you'. I wanted to look away - but they didn't let me.
"Even though the girl was on fire they kept hitting her. They were laughing as if they were enjoying what they were doing.
"They burnt her alive."
Maria, which is not her real name, said the gang held young women in a house on the Mexican border until they were sold to the US as sex slaves. But she said they also dealt in children and told of on one occasion when the gang was contacted by a woman in New York.
"She called and was very angry. She said she needed a seven-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy - and she needed them in three days."
Maria told Special Agents that the gang would prowl the streets of poor areas and look for children.
"They stole the children," she said. "One of the gang members took a six-year-old kid. I had to look after him for three hours. He told me he wanted to see his [mommy].
"Then I started crying, I said: "I don't think you're ever going to see your [mommy] again." All he kept saying was I want to see my [mommy]."
US officials have a keen interest in this case. As a result of the interview US officials have begun investigating along with the Mexican authorities.
Maria, who managed to escape after a gang member left her alone in a house, says children were often around. But not for long.
"I saw the Americans taking kids," she said. "A four-year-old and another boy, he barely walked, he was only about two years old. They took them to New York."
The US State Department estimates that more than 20,000 young women and children are trafficked across the border from Mexico each year. But conviction rates remain low.
Mexico's Attorney General Arturo Chavez has been accused of not doing enough to bring human traffickers to justice but insisted it was an issue the country was "definitely focussing on."
Maria has been told that she could have to give evidence against the gang of they are caught. It is something she says she is determined to do.
"Women are sold, they are abducted, bought and even killed by these men. If these men are ever found, jail won't be enough to make them pay for the way they've made us feel."
This is not a report about "missing children" exactly. That title invisibilises this as a gynocidal atrocity, for it is girls and women who are being sold into sexual slavery/prostitution to men. Girls and women, vastly and disproportionately are "the disappeared", the raped, and the murdered.
One girl who escaped this horror alive speaks out.She is called "Maria".
Note: media always makes certain kinds of appeals to its audience which invariably utilise culturally specific terms. An Anglo-centric term is used in the written version of the report below the video to follow, so that Maria is saying "mummy" instead of "mommy". This is obviously done to appeal to a UK audience, for whom "mummy" has particular emotional resonance. But let's be clear: no Mexican or Chicana/o child calls their mother "mummy" unless they have been raised by white Brits. So I have replaced the term in the written report, in brackets. All that follows is from *here*. I have added or changed some words in the text, all in brackets.
Please wait for the video to load.
Mexico missing children - exclusive report
Updated on 11 January 2010
A Mexican girl who was held captive by human traffickers and later managed to escape tells Channel 4 News how she witnessed babies and children being "sold to order" to American citizens.The Department of Homeland Security in Washington DC says the girl, known only as Maria, had "significant information" and possessed a "remarkable memory" of her experiences inside the gang.
In a chilling interview with Channel 4 News the teenager tells of a cross-border trade in babies and young children, where [Juárez] Mexican and [Southwestern] US gangs worked together to supply a demand [to and for predominantly white heterosexual men] in the United States.
Her interview with the programme has prompted US authorities to launch a criminal investigation and in late December agents flew the teenager to the United States for a full interview after Channel 4 News alerted authorities.
Maria was 16-years-old when she was lured into the gang by a young man on the streets of the deadly Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez.
Since the 1990s thousands of women have disappeared from the town, and hundreds of bodies bearing signs of rape and sexual mutilation were dumped on waste ground in the city.
Thousands more have never returned.
Despite international coverage of the story including a film starring Jennifer Lopez, the disappearances continue.
In 2009, 55 teenage girls vanished in the town, which has been gripped by violence as two drug cartels fight a lethal turf war for cocaine smuggling routes to America.
Whilst investigating the fate of the missing girls Channel 4 News correspondent Nick Martin and producer Guillermo Galdos discovered Maria and carried out the interview whilst she was in hiding.
Few girls return after going missing and Maria's interview sheds light on the fate of so many in her position.
She said she had been given presents and promised a job in an office by the gang member but was instead drugged and raped and sold to men. She explained what the gang did to one girl who tried to escape.
"They took a gallon of gasoline and started pouring it over her," said Maria.
"One of the men told me 'if you don't do as I say I will do the same to you'. I wanted to look away - but they didn't let me.
"Even though the girl was on fire they kept hitting her. They were laughing as if they were enjoying what they were doing.
"They burnt her alive."
Maria, which is not her real name, said the gang held young women in a house on the Mexican border until they were sold to the US as sex slaves. But she said they also dealt in children and told of on one occasion when the gang was contacted by a woman in New York.
"She called and was very angry. She said she needed a seven-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy - and she needed them in three days."
Maria told Special Agents that the gang would prowl the streets of poor areas and look for children.
"They stole the children," she said. "One of the gang members took a six-year-old kid. I had to look after him for three hours. He told me he wanted to see his [mommy].
"Then I started crying, I said: "I don't think you're ever going to see your [mommy] again." All he kept saying was I want to see my [mommy]."
US officials have a keen interest in this case. As a result of the interview US officials have begun investigating along with the Mexican authorities.
Maria, who managed to escape after a gang member left her alone in a house, says children were often around. But not for long.
"I saw the Americans taking kids," she said. "A four-year-old and another boy, he barely walked, he was only about two years old. They took them to New York."
The US State Department estimates that more than 20,000 young women and children are trafficked across the border from Mexico each year. But conviction rates remain low.
Mexico's Attorney General Arturo Chavez has been accused of not doing enough to bring human traffickers to justice but insisted it was an issue the country was "definitely focussing on."
Maria has been told that she could have to give evidence against the gang of they are caught. It is something she says she is determined to do.
"Women are sold, they are abducted, bought and even killed by these men. If these men are ever found, jail won't be enough to make them pay for the way they've made us feel."
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