Human Trafficking

"Women and children are particularly vulnerable to this modern form of slavery. Of the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors*. Over 100,000 women are fictims of trafficking in the EU." [source]

* According to the 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report by the US Department of State office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

More Media Resources: Films

I've just added these to my locate and watch list...

V-Day's Own DVD: Until the Violence Stops - V-Day's Emmy award-winning documentary Until The Violence Stops with additional scenes and content added including segments on Juarez, Mexico and Afghanistan. (I've ordered this and will watch it once I arrive in the states for my holiday.)

The Vagina Monologues - the HBO special

Women Make Movies's suggestions - films made by women that address issues of violence against women, including Senorita Extraviada, the documentary about missing and murdered women in Juarez.

Eat Drink, Man Woman

Honoring Our Voices - six Native women talk about the choices they have made to overcome the hardships of family violence and end the cycle of abuse and silence

Letter to My Mother - is a short film made on digital video about the transformative effect that the women's march had on young feminists. I use the story of myself and three of my friends (women shortly out of college and hungry to understand the real world and their place in it) as a template for looking at how the energy and inclusion of direct action made young women, finally, feel like a part of the feminist movement not a by product.

Maya is a powerful film by filmmaker Digvijay Singh that depicts community silence around violence against young girls and the power of a young boys questioning. It could be a way to open up stimulating discussion on the involvement of men in the movement to end violence against women.

Ophelia's Opera, Abiola Abrams is a feminist filmmaker based in Harlem, New York. Her objective is to use film as a medium to teach and empower while entertaining. Her short film Ophelias Opera, of which there are 2 versions (15 minutes & 28 minutes), is an experimental film about a woman who uses voodoo to take revenge escape and an abusive relationship. Knives in My Throat, a 54 minute documentary tells the story of a self-abusive manic depressive young woman who seeks to escape through hip hop poetry. Abiola Abrams aims to give a voice to the voiceless and discuss the un-discussable using film as a vehicle.

Rape Is... - a documentary about a human rights outrage that leaves millions of women, children and men in a state of terror and pain

Real Women Have Curves - the story of a first generation Mexican-American girl balancing her mainstream ambitions and her cultural heritage

Soldier's Girl (2003) - starring Troy Garrity, son of Jane Fonda, is the true story of a young soldier beaten to death for falling in love with a transgendered nightclub performer. Our monologue "They Beat the girl out of my Boy" was written by Eve after meeting and talking to the woman whose story this movie is based on. It won a Peabody Award and was nominated for 10 other awards including 3 Golden Globes, 2 Emmys and a GLAAD.

The Day I Became a Woman This film has won many international prizes at Toronto, Venice, and Chicago film festivals and was heralded as one of the most brilliant works of art by director Ms. Marziyeh Meshkini. It is a series of three vignettes and portrays Iranian women at three distinct phases in their lives. The stories are very poignant and powerful representations of the cultural biases against women in Iran.

Warrior Marks - poetic and political film by Pratibha Parmar, executive produced by Alice Walker about female genital mutilation (I have the book by Walker and Parmar about their experience of making the film called Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women.)

list source: V-Spot for V-Day campaign organisers

A Soundtrack for V-Day

taken from the vspot...how many times have you listened to these songs and just not thought about it; and how many times have you listened to these songs and that's all you could hear.

Alix Olson - "Armpit Hair"; "Cunt Country" (spoken word); "Built Like That"

Alanis Morisette - "Still" from Dogma Soundtrack [lyrics]

Amanda Marshall - "Everybody's Got A Story"

Amy Ray - "Lucystoners" - about an early 1900's feminist named Lucy Stone

Amy Sky - "Phenomenal Women" (lyrics by Maya Angelou)

Angie Stone - "Sunshine"

Ani DiFranco - Ani sings about a wide variety of women's issues, including rape and abortion (specifically recommended include "Blood in the Boardroom", "Not A Pretty Girl", "Fixing Her Hair", "The Story", "Make Them Apologize", "I'm No Heroine", "Roll With It", "The Slant", "Lost Woman Song", "Gratitude", "Out Of Range", "Letter To A John", "Angry Anymore", "32 Flavors" ... ) [lyrics]

Annie Lennox - "Why"

Aretha Franklin - "Respect"

Bikini Kill - "Liar"; "Star Bellied Boy"; "Suck My Left One"; "White Boy" (other songs deal with rape too)

Bitch and Animal - "Pussy Manifesto" from What's that Smell (unlisted). [lyrics]

Cassandra Wilson - "Sankofa"; "Redbone"

Christina Aguilera - "Can't Hold Us Down"; "Beautiful"

Cowboy Junkies - "Hunted" from Pale Sun, Crescent Moon - about living in fear as a woman [lyrics]

Cyndi Lauper - "She-Bop"; "Sally's Pigeons"

Dar Williams - "When I Was a Boy" (about blurred gender roles/identity as a child); "As Cool As I Am"; "I Won't Be Your Yoko Ono"

Destiny's Child - "Independent Women, Part 1"

Dixie Chicks - "Earl Had to Die" - about domestic violence

Ember Swift - "Freak"; "Swooshi Swooshi" - about shaving

Eve - "Love is Blind" - a friend recounting the abuse of a friend after the friend is killed by her "partner"

Fiona Apple - "Sullen Girl" - about rape

Gloria Gaynor - "I Will Survive"

Heather Headley - "Sista Girl"

India Arie - "Video"; "Brown Skin"

Jamie Anderson - "I Wanna Be a Straight Guy" - saterical look at hetero/male privilege

Jill Sobule - "I Kissed a Girl"; "Karen by Night"

Joan Baez - "Imagine" (cover of John Lennon's)

Katy Moffat - "Ain't I a Woman" - based on Sojourner Truth's speech

Kinnie Starr - "Praise"

Lauryn Hill - "Just Like Water"; "Zion" - about the joy of the birth of her child; "That Thing"

Madonna - "What It Feels Like (For A Girl)"

Melissa Ferrick - "Freedom"; "Drive"

Meshell N'Degeocello - "Beautiful"

Miriam Makeba - "Masakhane" - fantastic South African women singer

Nina Simone - "Four Women" - about four black womyn, each one a little further along in history and different

Pamela Means - "Uncle"

Queen Latifah - "UNITY"

Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women - "1-800-799-7233" (encouraging womyn who have been the victims of abuse to reach out to the abuse hotline number, cleverly used in the title and refrain of the song); "Bitch with a Bad Attitude" (Encouraging womyn to accept and love thier inner bitch and how it makes people stand correct); "Wild Women Never Get the Blues"; "There's Lightning in These Thunder Thighs". [Saffire is a fabulous three-woman jazz and blues band, playing insightful blues about woman-centered issues including: abuse, rape, domestic violence, empowered sexuality, race, and class.]

Sarah Jones - "Your Revolution"

Sinead o'Connor - "The Healing Room"; "Thank You"

Sleater Kinney - "A Real Man"

Suzanne Vega - "My Name Is Luka" - about a husband beating his wife and people around not doing a thing

Sweet Honey and the Rock - their entire catalog is woman-centered and they have multiple songs about resisting violence; "No Mirror's in my Nana's House"; "Run" - specifically about domestic violence; "Oughta Be A Woman"; "Soundbite From Beijing"

TLC - "Unpretty"

Tori Amos - "Icicle"; "Me and a Gun"

Tracy Chapman - "Behind the Wall" from Tracy Chapman - a song about domestic violence [lyrics]; "At This Point in My Life"

The Wyrd Sisters - "Warrior" on Inside the Dreaming

25 November - International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

More information as well as books to read on the topic here: UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Also, a campaign organised between UNIFEM and the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign, Not a Minute More

Sixteen Days of Activism: Sixteen Days of Hope
*Gender-based violence is one of the most pervasive of human rights abuses. It covers a range of injustices – from gender abuse to systematic rape and from pre-birth sex selection to female genital mutilation – that affect as many as one in three women. *Ending gender violence will take action on many fronts every day of the year. But *16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence *is a start. This worldwide campaign begins on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and ends 10 December with International Human Rights Day. It provides NGOs, international organizations, governments, individuals and the media an opportunity to mobilize for women's rights and against impunity for perpetrators. This year's theme *For the Health of Women, For the Health of the World: No More Violence*, focuses on the link between HIV and violence against women and girls.

16 Ways UNFPA Addresses Gender-based Violence

1. Providing alternatives to ‘survival sex'
In the capital of Haiti, which is plagued by political and social unrest, 11- and 12- year-old girls trade sexual favours for spending money. A drop-in centre offers them other options.

2. Speaking up for millions of missing girls
Discrimination against daughters, leading to pre-birth sex selection or even infanticide, has left parts of China and South Asia with severe sex ratio imbalances.

3. Speaking out against unacceptable practices
Half of the murders of women in some Arab countries are so-called ‘honour killings', often committed by family members with impunity.

4. Treating and supporting survivors of extreme sexual violence
In the Great Lakes countries of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, an epidemic of brutal rape wreaks havoc on the lives of survivors and continues to demoralize communities and destabilize the region.

5. Training police to deal with domestic violence
In many countries, UNFPA supports training of police officers to assist abused women by taking their cases seriously, informing them of their rights and sometimes even providing victim protection.

6. Highlighting the high costs to women and society
Chapter 7 of the 2005 State of World Population report documents the high social, emotional and economic costs of gender-based violence.

7. Calling attention to a new form of slavery
UNFPA works closely with governments to address the ever-widening threat posed by human trafficking and supports women and girls in their recovery and return.

8. Partnering to stop sexual violence in armed conflict and disaster settings
At a landmark conference chaired by UNFPA, a broad coalition of partners agreed to strengthen collaboration at all levels to end sexual violence in situations of conflict, post-conflict, displacement, and natural disaster settings.

9. Implementing UN Security Council resolution 1325
UNFPA plays a vital role in protecting women against gender-based violence, during and after times of conflict, as called for the UN Security Council.

10. Assisting survivors of domestic violence
Most violence against women occurs in the home. But women often stay with abusive partners because they have no other place to go. UNFPA-supported shelters offer an alternative.

11. Providing a safe haven for girls escaping coerced marriage
In many countries, forced child marriage robs girls of their human rights and subjects them to violence. UNFPA-supported shelters provide a haven for young girls trying to escape a cruel fate.

12. Addressing the needs of women in refugee camps
Refugee camps are intended to be safe havens – but displaced women often face many forms of gender-based violence. UNFPA has partnered on an interagency field manual that includes guidelines for addressing sexual and gender-based violence in refugee camps.

13. Taking concerted action to address domestic violence
An Indonesian NGO is tackling violence against women by raising awareness of the issue, providing shelter, seeking peaceful reconciliation, and when that doesn't work, taking perpetrators to court.

14. Promoting legislative reform and the enforcement of existing laws
UNFPA works with parliamentarians and monitors legislation in both Europe and the developing world having to do with domestic violence, gender equality and sexual exploitation and offences against minors.

15. Involving men
Ending gender-based violence will require the full engagement and participation of men. UNFPA seeks to involve them in many ways.

16. Supporting local activities in countries around the world
Many of UNFPA offices throughout the world have planned activities to mobilize support for the 16 Days of Activism.
[source]

Fiction, To Be a Woman

One of the main objectives of V-Day is to raise awareness. Every time I look at the V-Day/V-Spot site, I feel like this feeling to get the word out there -- to educate and to irradicate -- has been boiling beneath the surface of who I am since I became a woman, or realised what womanhood was to me. I looked over the list of fictional books "about the topic" and had either read them, had them on a list to read, or am familiar with the author mentioned. So here they are, in my first installment in getting the word out there. The list has been compiled by vday.org, and is listed in the vspot for campaign organisers, like myself. But you can read them too...

The Awakening (Kate Chopin) - the story of a young woman who finds it impossible to accept that, "for women it is a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals" and fights back in the only way she knows, and her solution is extreme

Bastard out of Carolina (Dorothy Allison) - a semi-autobiographical and controversial book about growing up as "poor, white trash" and experiencing abuse and rape from childhood

Clit Notes: A Sapphic Sampler (Holly Hughes) - 5 outrageous performance pieces

*The Color Purple (Alice Walker) - a disturbing yet realistic account into the life of Celie, a young black woman with a tragic, abusive past who learns how to survive, how to let go of the past, and most of all how to love

Dawn (Octavia E. Butler)

Laguna Women Poems (Leslie Marmon Silko)

The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold) - from heaven, a young girl who was brutally raped and murdered watches her community respond to her death

*Paradise (Toni Morrison)

*Possessing the Secret of Joy (Alice Walker) - a young girl submits to the ritual female circumcision and spends the rest of her life trying to understand its meaning and live with its consequences

Push (Sapphire) - a story about an abused girl who learns to cope after growing up poor, angry, illiterate, fat, unloved and generally unnoticed

The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) - an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter

*Temple of My Familiar (Alice Walker) - Transcending the conventions of time and place, Walker's novel moves from contemporary America, England, and Africa to unfamiliar primal worlds, where women, men, and animals socialize in surprising ways

Woman Hollering Creek and House on Mango Street (Sandra Cisneros) - a collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

The Woman Warrior: Memoires of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (Maxine Hong Kingston) - a pungent, bitter, but beautifully written memoir of growing up Chinese American where a young girls distills the dire lessons of her mother's mesmerizing "talk-story" tales of a China where girls are worthless, tradition is exalted and only a strong, wily woman can scratch her way upward

*books i've read