Why I Wear Black

by Laura McAdam

Let's get this straight, I'm not a militant man hating fembot, honestly. I do however believe in people's right to do more than scrape by, to be treated with respect and to be free. I believe in choice, joy and life in all its fullness. I know that discrimination on the basis of gender is wrong, and that violence and oppression do not belong in this world.

It's hot today, and wearing black certainly isn't comfortable. I'll leave you to make your own link on that one...

I wear black so that I don't forget the stories I have heard, the people I've cried with and those fighting for justice despite the challenges. In itself, this statement won't change the world. Together maybe we'll raise a few eyebrows and engage with a certain audience. Maybe we ourselves will be be changed a little as we feel the weight of solidarity on our shoulders.

But put simply, I wear black because I must do something. I cannot be silent, I cannot shake from my mind what I know, I cannot go back to ignorant bliss.

I will be uncomfortable today, and every other Thursday and if I'm really lucky - every day I live until this world changes. Like so many people, I have no choice but to fight.

Why I will be wearing black this Thursday

by Stephanie Hubbard

I'm in the process of moving house and whilst clearing through the mountains of boxes in my room I came across the diary I kept when I visited India at 18.

I always find it bizarre to read over my scribblings and looking back over the words I wrote makes me cringe a little as I feel I am an entirely different person to the one that wrote this. I wanted to share this experience with you, (almost) word for word as the work I saw on this particular day has become a foundation for what Thursdays in Black means to me.

‘This afternoon we travelled by rickshaw to Maher, a home for abused, exploited and destitute women and children. The journey was a real experience, I will never complain about driving in England again!



The traffic is so erratic with animals and people randomly wandering all over the roads. Drivers seem to use their horns before attempting any manoeuvre. At junctions you are deafened by the cacophony of horns from all vehicles ranging from huge lorries to bicycles and even carts as they are all vying for their place in the hierarchy of the road.

Rickshaw is my favourite way of travelling. Driving through the streets is a real assault on the senses with brightly coloured markets with spices and saris on show, cows sauntering through the city traffic and the smells of incense, sewage and mysterious treats sold by street vendors. All of these colours, smells and sounds are sharpened by the rain which has been falling on and off all day. Although we were drenched to the skin by the puddles we splashed through, the humid air would dry our clothes as soon as the deluge stopped.

At every junction the street children pressed their hands inside the rickshaw begging for money. Many of them are very young and some have been horrifically disfigured to encourage tourists to give more money. Yesterday I saw a boy with no legs pulling himself along on a skateboard, the driver told me it was common for children to be deliberately maimed by adults in this way.

This made me incredibly angry and I was frustrated by how powerless I am to prevent this. By giving money to the children you are proving that the violence is effective but by withholding money the children are punished when they return empty handed. There is no clear right choice and we are forced to ignore their outstretched hands or shout ‘Bas!’ if they get too aggressive to avoid being swamped. The guilt is overwhelming at times.


When we arrived at Maher all the women and children were lined up to greet us. They sang songs and performed a welcoming ceremony, presenting us with garlands of marigolds which the children placed around our necks.
The flowers symbolise sacrifice and are used in many ceremonies here. We were also painted with a red and yellow kum kum on our foreheads by the older girls.

One of the house mothers then came forward and began to tell us the story of how the home had started.

In 1991 a destitute woman came to Sister Lucy while pregnant begging for help. The woman’s husband wanted to kill her as he desired another woman. The sister had to turn the woman away as she had nowhere to house her that night, promising that if she returned the next day she would be able to accommodate her.

That night the woman’s husband doused her in Kerosene and set her alight. Both the woman and the baby died. From that day forward the Sister vowed never to turn away women in that situation and so set up Maher (Mother house) to council and rehabilitate the women, teaching them crafts so they can be re-introduced into the community and stand on their own two feet.

The work they carried out at the Maher house was amazing and it made me feel humble and privileged in my life at home. It is too difficult to describe all of the emotions I felt today but I think people in the UK need to know about what these women are suffering and help support these projects so that people like Sister Lucy will be able to go on helping them.’

It’s hard to see it from these words but India got under my skin like no other country I have visited before or since really. It was here that I first began to realise that development work was becoming a vocation for me. My experiences at Maher have been the driving force behind wanting to promote Thursdays in Black and why I will be wearing black this Thursday.



‘There is a huge task awaiting us, the task of changing the attitude of society, especially of men towards women. This is a gigantic task. Maher is therefore not just a project, it is a vision of a new society where men, women and children have opportunities for growth education and happiness.’ Fr. Francis D’sa

To find out more about the Maher project please go to their website: www.maherashram.org

The Truth About Women

Did you know that on average women use 20,000 words a day while men only use 7,000?



Here are some more gender facts for you:
Every year, more than 530,000 women die from pregnancy-related causes. That's one every minute. If this continues at the current rate another 4 milion women will die in the next 6 years.
Women do 66% of the world's work and get paid less than 10% of its income, in Africa it's 80% of the work.
In the UK, women working full-time are paid on average 17% less an hour than men.
75% of all Russian women suffer from some type of violence within the family.
And of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty around the world, 70% are women.

Kofi Annan said that 'Gender equality is critical to the development and peace of every nation.'

And that's what Christian Aid partners and beneficiaries believe too. We work with communities, campaigners and educators to change the attitudes and structures which keep women downtrodden around the world. An inspiring female Indian leader once said 'Educate your women and the nation will take care of itself... the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.' And if we are serious about making a fairer world for all, then we have to challenge the inequality in our own communities too.

We may use more words than men, but the majority of women around the world still need their voices to be heard.

The Greatest Silence

by Kevin E.G. Perry

Back in March, I was invited to speak at the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice’s Human Rights Film Festival, at Oxford Brookes University, following a screening of ‘The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo’. It is a powerful and shocking documentary made two years ago by Lisa F Jackson, who draws on her own experience as a rape victim, and I would highly recommend it although it is far from comfortable viewing. At one point a Congolese doctor describes how he thinks that each patient he sees has the most harrowing story imaginable, until he encounters the next, and the film is similar – each story, told firsthand, brings a fresh horror to what has gone before.

Video is here

It was difficult to find any glimmers of hope following such a distressing film, but I tried to highlight some of the remarkable work that Christian Aid’s partners are able to do, even in the war-torn East, to rebuild lives torn apart by sexual violence.

I told the story of Afua, who was abducted by Mai Mai militia in 2002 while out farming in the fields and was gang raped while being held at a military camp. She told Christian Aid’s partners that when the soldiers eventually left the area, she immediately sought out medical help. ” I was physically sick with worry that I had caught AIDS. I was in trouble with my husband. He didn’t want me anymore – he wanted me out of the house and away.”

Afua was helped by Madame Albertine, head of Christian Aid partner UMAMA. She arranged medical tests which proved Afua was free from disease and gave counseling, acting as a bridge between Afua and her estranged husband, who had accused Afua of seeking and enjoying sex with her attackers. As ‘The Greatest Silence’ explores, this view of rape victims is common. Afua was eventually reconciled with her husband and children, after Albertine had made it clear to him that his wife had been a victim, targeted because she was vulnerable in the fields where she worked to feed her family.

UMAMA also helped Afua with a loan of $100 for a bread oven, allowing her to earn a living without the obviously traumatic need to go back into the fields where she was attacked. She now earns $20 a week, the same amount her husband, a nurse, earns in a month, and is able to pay back $10 each month to pay off UMAMA’s loan.

Afua says now that “UMAMA is a good organization. It helped our family to survive and stay together.” While the scars of her attack remain, organisations like UMAMA are, in some way, able to rekindle hope. It brings to mind another partner organisation, Fondation Femme Plus, who are made up of women living with HIV-AIDS and its consequences. They specialise in psychological, social and medical support, as well as promoting income-generating activities for women with HIV-AIDS such as a restaurant, a tailor’s workshop and photography training. Their slogan is “Rendre l’espoir est notre vocation” - Returning hope is our job.


This article originally appeared on Congolese Dawn

Unveiled

by Laura McAdam

I walked into an urban slum in India surrounded by the stench of sewage and rubbish through the tiny brick and mud homes, and into a large community hall.

In front of me sat a hundred or so Indian women singing and smiling at me. I knew that four years ago one of the partner organisations funded and supported by Christian Aid was invited by this community to help them from the brink of extreme poverty. As with so many other groups, these people had been excluded from wider society, ignored by the authorities and were plagued by domestic violence. When our partners first visited the women didn't come out of their homes and they wore sheer veils covering their heads - simply as a barrier to the outside world and everyone in it.

I was astonished to sit in front of this group of smiling, unveiled women as they told me what they'd acheived. Our partner had helped both men and women to raise the status of girls and women to have equal standing. For the first time these women believed that they had a big part to play in bringing their community out of poverty, and that they were equal and worthwhile human beings. The men saw too that they needed the women to become economically active.

The women told me how with a loan from us which they've now paid back, they have formed money lending group to help small businesses start and about the training courses they've undertaken to learn new skills including literacy. They told me how the women took off their veils and stood alongside their men to face the world. They told me how their unity was their strength and how they fearlessly take on the authorities to provide their basic rights like clean water and primary education. They told me how they rally and picket the police when they know corruption has taken place, and how they work with families to eradicate domestic violence in their community.

In front of me where the faces changing India from the roots, and they're doing it themselves. All they needed was to be told it was time take off their veils.

My Bracelet

by Laura McAdam

Visiting overseas projects with Christian Aid can sometimes be a bit embarrassing as they tend to give you presents even though they themselves have so little.

I was leaving a women's rights project in Northern India when they presented me with a number of gifts simply for giving them some of my time to hear their stories. One of them was a plastic red bracelet and as I sat in the back of a car on the to the station with a few of the project's ladies I explained to them that my wrist was unfortunately too big to wear such petite jewellery. They suddenly grabbed my hand while simultaneously producing some sort of cream and the next thing I knew my hand was contorted in a way it probably was never meant to be and I had a bracelet on my wrist which I was fairly sure would never come off again.

After my hand recovered and I had spent a few days with the bracelet annoying me, particularly as I tried to sleep with it on, I returned to the UK. For many many months after I returned from India I wore the same red plastic bracelet on my right wrist. Most of the time I didn't notice it but occasionally it niggled at me. I kept it on for two reasons (other than at the time it appeared to be indestructible). Firstly it reminded me of the strong women I met in India who are working to change the position of women in their country and bring themselves out of some of the most extreme cases of poverty in the world. And secondly, it was annoying. Unfortunately I still needed something tanglible to remind me that for the majority of the world life is more than simply uncomfortable, that if I get too comfortable then I become ineffective and I lost touch with not only my calling as a Christian but my responsibility as a human.

The bracelet eventually broke, but I still have it. It sits in my room, I see it every day and it still niggles at me. And I'll keep it in view as long as I still need reminding.

In her own words: Gita’s Story

by Laura McAdam

Taken from an Interview in Kanpur, India in 2008


‘My father was a very cruel person, he was always beating my mother. After some time my mother died from my father’s torture. Then he married again, and he always beat his second wife as well. He was really very cruel.

He put my [step mother] in a box and locked it, sometimes he put fire so that she burned all up her body. He tied a chain and locked it round her ankle, sometimes he beat her so many times [she would] wet herself.

I was small and didn’t do anything, sometimes he tortured me also. There are still marks on my leg.

My step mother fell down and cracked her hip, nobody took her in so I admitted my mother to hospital. My Father was told, [came to the hospital] and threw my mother onto the garbage and said ‘Don’t bother with her’.

I went to my father and fought – ‘You should take care of my mother because she is injured and needs help from you!’ He refused.

Then Seema and Ranno (pictured below) told me about Sakhi Kendra (A Christian Aid partner organisation) and we contacted them six months ago (August 2007). They came and organised a public meeting at my father’s place. There were approximately 200 people there and they motivated and organised a signature campaign for justice, for shelter for my mother and for her rights.



About 150 women petitioned the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) and gave him the signature campaign. Then the SSP ordered the police into organising an enquiry – the women said no to this [as it wasn’t enough] – so SSP ordered the police in charge to go with the women to the house of my father.

The women threatened that if the police didn’t help quickly then they would have sit down and hunger strike. This made the police help and they evicted my father.

The group of women went to the hospital and took my step mother and put her into my father’s house. My father was chucked out, he came wanted to take food and money but the group of women told him to go away. My step mother told him to go away because now it’s her house.’

All the women now provide support to Gita’s step mother. At present she can walk with a Zimmer frame but is in a lot of pain. Gita added ‘She said she couldn’t come here [to meet us] so told us to tell her story.’

Gita’s friend Seema said ‘We have acheived so much, perhaps we couldn’t have helped without Sakhi Kendra.’

Gita stated: ‘We want to help other women also, and we feel we have power. We can do anything.’

Sakhi Kendra is a partner organisation funded and supported by Christian Aid working for women’s rights, against violence and abuse against women, and helping individual women in trouble.

Life before Death - Madame Boudia's Story

by Laura McAdam

Madame Boudia’s family had been rice farmers for generations in Senegal, West Africa. She was widowed and left to care for her 6 daughters she faced the unpredictable seasons as the climate changed, making farming and harvesting ever more difficult. She soon struggled to sell the rice she did successfully grow at the local market as there were foreign imports bring sold right next to her for a lower price. As the situation got harder, Madame Boudia and her daughters had to do the unthinkable - and leave the land. They travelled to Dakar, Senegal’s capital, and begged on the streets to survive.
After 6 months, Madame Boudia was approached by ADPES, a Christian Aid partner organisation specialising in teaching tie dye. It is back breaking work with chemicals, but the family are committed to tirelessly building a new life.


‘I work with my daughters to make the tie dye cloth. We buy white cloth, the dyes and chemicals & make it here (on the roof of her house). I can make about 12m a week but the time taken for each one depends on the pattern. Some take a month, others a morning. I sell three pieces – 12m – for about £15 to £20. If it’s a good week I sell all of this.’

From the very brink Madame Boudia has been able to reclaim her livelihood, her independence and her dignity. It cost just £5.25 for her to buy the first palette of die and cloth, a loan which she paid back very quickly and now she doesn’t owe anyone anything. Christian Aid work to empower people to escape poverty and build themselves a better future.

But there’s more…

‘We are suffering from foreign cloth coming into our market. The Chinese bring in lower grade cloth with the same print & sell it for £4 for the same amount. But the Chinese cloth is poor quality so it tears easily and the colours wash out easily.’

Once again Madame Boudia and her daughters are under fire. They don’t ask for a life of luxury, simply to do more than just survive. But there will always be someone ready to take advantage, and so surely we must do more than tackle the symptoms of poverty and injustice?

Afghan Women: Continuity or Change?

by Christopher Bowles

The U.S. and N.A.T.O. led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 was hailed for attacking, not only the Taliban’s terrorist capabilities, but also their cultural and religious presence. The group’s Islamic fundamentalist doctrine had not only placed them at loggerheads with the West, but had also led them to play a powerful role in gender politics. Laws defended by many as protecting women’s rights and dignity more often resulted in their freedoms being limited. The rights to education, to own property and to move around freely as an individual were all banned.
The triumph of the Western forces in ousting the Taliban from power was celebrated by women’s rights activists within the country and globally. The attempt to introduce liberal democratic practices seemed to offer the prospect of greater freedom and equality under the law. In 2003 the national conference of Women for Afghan Women presented ‘The Afghan Women’s Bill of Rights’, outlining reforms such as the increase of the marital age to 18 and the freedom to vote. The mere fact that the conference was able to present this draft Bill of Rights to the President Hamid Karzai seemed to demonstrate that the situation of women was improving.



However, this success did not go unrecognised. Conservative forces throughout the country have maintained a consistent opposition to any progression of female liberty. The intensity of this protest has increased in the years since the invasion to the extent that some now claim that they fared better under the Taliban. Whilst oppression was institutionalised under the Taliban, this has now been accompanied by random brutality. Traditional punishments of shootings and stonings for women believed to have acted impiously have been added to by attacks involving poison and acid. These punishments can be delivered for actions so simple as attending school or failing to fully veil. Although female education and more liberal dress codes are now permitted under the law, reactionary opposition within the country have prevented many from benefitting from the reforms. Only 5% of Afghan women attend secondary school and female illiteracy is still as high as 87%.

The most recent culmination of conservative opposition to the new prospects of women’s rights came in late March when the President signed the contentious ‘Shia Family Law’. Although only applicable to the Shi’te population which make up around 15% of the population it is seen as representing a shift in tolerance and equality. The law includes stipulations that women cannot refuse to have sex with their husbands and can only seek work, education or a doctor with their husband’s approval. A protest by 300 women against the new law met with violent resistance from both men and women who spat and threw stones until the protestors had to be rescued by police. Although the UN and Human Rights groups have openly condemned the motion by the Afghan government, many have responded that it is an ‘internal affair.’

The awareness of many within Afghanistan, both male and female, about women’s rights generally appears very low. In an interview at Kabul University most were unaware of the existence of the Shia Family Law. Many consider women’s rights to be bound within religion rather than as a cultural condition which can be changed. Attempts to reform restrictions on freedoms and liberties are naturally seen as a challenge to Islam, and one originating from the largely Christian nations of the West. Governments are often criticised for putting pressure on countries to alter decisions which they have made through a democratic process. Instead it may be the role of Charities and other organisations to educate and build change from a grassroots level.

In her own words: Reema's Story

by Laura McAdam

Taken from an interview in Kanpur

'My name is Reema, I wanted to study but when I went to school some of the boys teased me. I answered back to them but they threatened to kill me saying ‘how dare you try and stop us’. One boy proposed to me but I told him I didn’t like him. Somebody told my mother about what had happened and my mother became very angry and suspicious thinking that I was not good. Then my parents organised a marriage for me and forced me to marry a different boy.
After I got married I was not happy. I had been studying and I had wanted to do something in life. My husband and my in-laws said ‘we’ve bought you so we can do anything to you.'

One night my husband made me lie down and then he tied me up and sexually tortured me all night. When I claimed he tortured me all night he said ‘we have bought you so all the rights of your body are mine.’ I said ‘no, this is not right’, and so he tried to hang me.

Then I gave my husband a glass of milk and he put his hand over my mouth saying I had attempted to murder him. I attacked him back and my husband called my parents and told them ‘your daughter is not good and does not obey me.’ My parents took my husband and my in-laws side. I attempted suicide as I thought that nobody in the world who would understand that my pain existed. Then someone found me and my husband carried me to the police. I told the superintendent everything and he didn’t know what to do with me because I didn’t want to go back to my husband and I didn’t want to go to my parents house either. So he called Sakhi Kendra (A Christian Aid partner organisation) telling them ‘There is a girl here who is suffering so much – can you help her?’ I was sent to the [Sakhi Kendra safe house] on 27th June [2007] at 6am.

At present I am very happy here because all of the members are like my family, only better. The best part is that they understand me and appreciate me. When I came here I was frightened but very quickly I liked it better than my own house.

I am [in 2008] 18 and studying for my graduation, and I am trying to become economically self dependent as soon as possible."

Sakhi Kendra is one of Christian Aid's partner organisations in India. Sakhi Kendra campaigns for women’s rights, against violence and abuse against women, and helps individual women in trouble.

Christian Aid works in some of the world's poorest communities in 49 countries through partner organisations. We act where the need is greatest, regardless of religion, helping people build the life they deserve.