Here’s a fascinating research study of 103 men who describe their use of trafficked and non-trafficked women in prostitution, and their awareness of coercion and violence composed by Melissa Farley, Julie Bindel and Jacqueline M. Golding.  The study was released in December 2009 by Eaves, London and by Prostitution Research & Education, San Francisco.

The study was featured in the Guardian.co.uk article, “Why men use prostitutes” (January 15, 2010).

Download the PDF here

Amy is selling the book HERE, for $15. Click the link to learn more about the project. All the proceeds will go directly to the Eben-ezer Clinic in Haut-Limbe and each $15 will be matched by the CIDA.

Synopsis: The extreme Haitian heat compels a young, North American boy to “wish it would rain big, splashy drops” while his family visits Haiti. Instead of rain, what he encounters reveals to him the wonders and beauty of Haiti. Based on experiences of the author’s family, I Wish it Would Rain by Amy Wegner, is a delightful children’s picture book that shares the beauty found beyond familiar borders.

Intimidation, torture, and violence. Hundreds of activists, opposition party leaders and journalists arrested and beaten.

Welcome to election season in Omar al-Bashir’s Sudan.

Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years are scheduled for April 2010. The elections were intended to serve as a capstone to the democratic transformation of Sudan promised in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that was signed by North and South Sudan in 2005.

Instead, none of the conditions for truly free and fair elections are in place.

Bashir’s regime has failed to: ensure freedom of association, movement, assembly and speech; limit the broad powers of arbitrary arrest, detention, search and seizure; end press censorship; allow equal access for all political parties to media; implement mechanisms to prevent election related violence; and allow unrestricted access for both domestic and international observation teams.

Not only are brave Sudanese who call for greater freedom being violently suppressed, the current conditions in Darfur make credible elections there inconceivable. Random attacks on civilians continue, movement of UN peacekeepers is restricted, and millions of Darfuris who live in displacement camps worry that participation in the election will lead to denial of their right to return to their homes. Any national election that does not include Darfur cannot be viewed as legitimate.

So what is the benefit of elections for Bashir’s genocidal regime? They are a means to give it a veneer of legitimacy.

And without scrutiny by the Obama administration and the international community, the elections will deliver the sort of legitimization that Bashir desires.

This is why it is critical for the U.S. government to shine a spotlight on the fact that the political freedom necessary for free and fair elections in Sudan does not exist. We need President Obama and our elected leaders to send a message to the world that they will not recognize the results of an illegitimate electoral process, and will not permit a fugitive of the International Criminal Court to legitimize his brutal dictatorship.

Over the coming months we will need your help to make sure that our leaders do not let the upcoming elections provide legitimacy to Bashir’s government. We will be collecting signatures, organizing lobby days and local events, blogging, and raising awareness through the media and social networks.

The people of Sudan need our support. Spread the word to your friends and family and encourage them to learn more.

Sincerely,

Mark Lotwis
Save Darfur Coalition

Spare Change for Real Change Campaign Launched in Chicago

November 6th – 7th, MannaRelief hosted a booth at Mannatech’s national event in Chicago to unveil our new campaign, Spare Change for Real Change. By the end of the event, in just 2 short days, over 200 children were sponsored. These children will now receive the advanced nutrition they need to combat the devestating effects of malnutrition! Also, well over 100 people joined founder Sam Caster in a MannaRelief training session in which the campaign was explained in greater detail, and new, exciting tools were released. Since the launch in Chicago, over 250 additional children have been sponsored due to the excitement being generated in the field, totaling just over 450 children! And this is only the beginning…

Check out the entire photo collection>

About the Campaign

Spare Change for Real Change is a campaign to raise awareness and funds for children suffering from malnutrition around the world. Five million children die from malnutrition every year. Most grain-based relief foods, designed to fight hunger, are often deficient of the basic nutrients required to keep children healthy. New technologies in nutritional science can now, for the first time, provide malnourished children with ready-to-use chewables that supply natural vitamins and plant-sourced minerals in nutritionally effective amounts. This product, Mannatech’s PhytoBurst™ Nutritional Chew, is the most nutritionally sound food these children will eat all day.
The Spare Change for Real Change campaign allows anyone to make a difference for just 16¢ a day. Get involved and start helping malnourished children get the nutrients they need.

How You Can Get Started

Join the Spare Change for Real Change campaign at www.MannaRelief.org and give 16¢ a day for every child’s life you want to change! Less than $5 a month can change a child’s life forever. Our goal is to connect one million givers to one million malnourished children. Be one of the million that changes a life!

Raise Their Voice Against Injustice is pleased to announce the release of Andrew Kooman’s first novel, Ten Silver Coins: The Drylings of Acchora.

The book is available in print and as an ebook.

$1 from the sale of each book (through TenSilverCoins.com, AndrewKooman.com and Smashwords.com) will go toward helping children who have been forced to flee their homes.

Support Andrew’s work and support the work of RTV to help raise awareness about the plight of refugees.

The booklet features migrants from Vietnam, Nepal, Indonesia, and Bangladesh.  It also highlights many of the people groups among the Myanmarese refugees who have fled to the country.

The following is a short trailer for the forthcoming publication:

UN’s Caste Declaration riles India

DELHI – The United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) recent decision to declare discrimination based on the caste system a “human-rights abuse” – thereby acknowledging centuries of bias against the world’s estimated 200 million Dalits (untouchables) – has evoked a sharp reaction from India.

The UN decision came about despite robust opposition from the Indian government and its aggressive lobbying to get the council to delete the word “caste” from its draft. Instead, the UNHRC is now set to ratify draft principles that recognize persecution of Dalits worldwide.

No other country has opposed the move as vehemently as India. This is because the UNHRC declaration has a special relevance to India and its 65 million Dalits – the largest for any single country.

This sizeable demographic is considered “unclean” in India by the upper castes who regard their presence, and sometimes even their shadow, as polluting. It is in this regard that the UN draft pledges to work for the “effective elimination of discrimination based on work and descent”.

What most weakened India’s case in the UNHRC was Nepal’s acquiescence to the move. Wresting the opportunity, the council has now called on India to follow Nepal’s example even as New Delhi feels this amounts to “international interference” in a sensitive internal matter.

There’s no denying that the issue of Dalits – who occupy the lowest rung of India’s well-entrenched caste pyramid – is a virtual tinderbox in the country. Despite India’s increasing literacy levels, mounting economic wealth and growing geopolitical heft, the benefits of national prosperity haven’t quite percolated down to low-caste Indians, who are ostracized by mainstream society.

Despite over six decades of independence from British rule, Dalits are still discriminated against in all aspect of life in India despite laws specifically outlawing such acts. They are the victims of economic embargos, denied basic human rights such as access to clean drinking water, use of public facilities, education and access to places of worship.

Even constitutional laws, modeled on those framed by the Confederate states in America during the reconstruction period after the Civil War to protect freed black American slaves, have never been enforced by the Indian judiciary and legislature, which are dominated by high castes.

This is indeed ironic as one of this century’s most recognizable global icons – Mahatma Gandhi – was an Indian who crusaded tirelessly against discrimination based on caste or gender. He ensured that the founding fathers of the Indian constitution made special provisions to grant India’s Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Castes special privileges like reservations (up to 33%) in jobs and educational institutes.

So why is there such a hue and cry in India over the UNHRC move?

According to experts, the brouhaha has as much to do with politics as with economics and human rights. First, it is not in favor of vested political interests to eliminate the caste system in India as Dalits form a lucrative vote bank. In fact, in a country of a billion-plus population, it would be foolhardy to fritter away this attractive political constituency that dominates large swaths of India.

The prime example is India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh (population: 190 million) which has 403 electoral constituencies. Though there are no official figures available, it is estimated that the country’s largest number of Dalits – probably half – reside here. The results are clear; currently the state is ruled by the powerful Dalit-dominated Bahujan Samaj Party, helmed by its redoubtable chief minister Mayawati, who was ranked by Forbes magazine in 2008 at 59 on its world’s most powerful women list.

In 1995, at age 39, Mayawati was the youngest politician elected to the post of chief minister and was also the first Dalit to head a state government. She may well trail-blaze again as India’s first Dalit prime minister as she goes about building an alliance with India’s Brahmins, augmenting the Dalits’ pan-India footprint. (In June, Meira Kumar was elected the first Dalit woman ever as parliament speaker.)

Still, there’s no denying that Mayawati is more an aberration rather than the rule in India. So will the UNHRC move help get Indian Dalits’ global attention followed by aid from bodies like the European Union? Dr Udit Raj of the Dalit-based Indian Justice Party has welcomed the UN move and feels it will focus the international spotlight on the issue provided the “Indian government has the courage to accept there’s discrimination”.

It is unlikely that a single UN resolution will radically change the landscape of social realities in India. Perhaps even the UNHRC is aware of this fact. Can its declaration be a tool to harass India then? Is it a clever ploy to keep the ambitious country on a leash in view of its abysmal human-rights record? The idea could be to push India to be answerable for discrimination based on work, descent and gender.

Some good has already come out of the UNHRC exercise, albeit indirectly. Rahul Gandhi, the architect of the ruling Congress Party’s general election victory in May, has launched a recent drive to uplift Dalits. He is visiting Dalit homes across Uttar Pradesh and has ordered his party members to recalibrate their welfare programs in favor of Dalits. However, many see the Gandhi scion’s move as a larger political game plan to erode Mayawati’s base in Uttar Pradesh.

In other words, the UNHRC declaration is a sword that will cut both ways for India. While it will definitely focus international attention on the issue – and hopefully lead to increased government spending to improve opportunities for Dalits in the country – it has simultaneously underscored the country’s feudalistic and discriminatory ethos. It is this that India is most sensitive about as it tries to wrest center stage in the new global regime.

Neeta Lal is a widely published writer/commentator who contributes to many reputed national and international print and Internet publications.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved

Posted on: October 21, 2009