Human Rights – Page 7

New York Domestic Workers Fight to Pass Bill of Rights

Via Equal Writes, the BBC has recently reported on the struggle of domestic workers in New York state to pass a bill of rights for those in their line of work. In this context, the term domestic workers refers to nannies, housekeepers, and caregivers, of which there are over 200,000 in NY alone. Domestic workers are overwhelmingly women — they are also very disproportionately low-income, women of color, and immigrants. And under U.S. law, they have very few legal rights and are subjected to all kinds of heinous abuse by unscrupulous employers.

For 17 years, Barbara Young from Barbados has worked as a nanny in New York, arriving at 0700 to care for the children of high-flying parents, often working through the night to care for newborn babies.

Because domestic workers are specifically excluded from the National Labor Relations Act of the 1930s, nannies operate in the shadows, their pay and conditions determined by their employers.

Ms Young has had to endure a lot over the years.

She told me how one employer paid her the bare minimum for her daily nannying work, and then expected her to sleep in a room with an infant, and feed that baby overnight, all for no extra pay.

“Because you work in the home, people don’t see you as an employee. It’s seen as women’s work, not proper work,” says Ms Young.

…

Ms Young believes the bill would make a huge difference to her.

“It would require notice of termination, paid sick leave, paid holidays, the right to a day off, and it would recognise domestic work as real work.”

The bill would also give nannies the right to organise collectively.

Because domestic workers are frequently economically vulnerable, vulnerable to deportation, and/or likely to face racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and other prejudices, it’s usually not so easy as “just quit.” Abusive employers, of course, know this and use it to their advantage. And legal action is rarely an option.

Child marriage: sex and money, Juliet and Fawziya Ammodi

This guest post is a part of the Feministe series on Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

I think a TRIGGER WARNING is appropriate here.

Why does the institution of marriage exist? Even highly romanticized commercials for De Beers speak to the primary historic nature of the marriage contract: material well-being, as well as securing that well-being for the future generation. This isn’t to say that people who wound up, and continue to wind up, married to each other have no emotional investment in the enterprise. But even the many symbolic acts that occur across cultures when people tie the knot also tend to have practical roots, no?

In light of all that, it almost weirds me out when anyone professes to be shocked by the phenomenon of child marriage. “Really,” I want to say. “Have you taken a look at the world you live in as of late?”

Arizona Set to Pass Anti-Immigrant Legislation

In Arizona, the legislature looks set to pass a truly terrifying anti-immigration bill that would, among other thing, allow police to arrest undocumented immigrants on the charge of trespassing simply for being in the state:

The Arizona Legislature gave preliminary approval Tuesday to a proposal that would allow the police to arrest illegal immigrants on trespassing charges simply for being in the state.

The provision, which opponents and proponents call a first in the nation, is part of a wide-ranging bill whose sponsors say they hope will make life tougher for illegal immigrants.

The House bill must be reconciled with a version passed by the Senate, something that may be done within the next week or two. Both include measures to outlaw the hiring of day laborers off the street; prohibit anyone from knowingly transporting an illegal immigrant, even a relative, anywhere in the state; and compel local police to check the status of people they reasonably suspect are in the country illegally.

Immigrant advocates call the bill some of the harshest legislation they have seen in a state where battles over immigration are particularly sharp edged.

Allow me to repeat that, because it’s important. The bill would, among other things, force police to check the status of people they “reasonably suspect” are undocumented.

Tell me, who exactly do you think the people police might “reasonably suspect” of being undocumented might be? Because as a white woman, I don’t think that in the event of this bill passing, I’d exactly have to fear being stopped. What this bill would essentially do is not only legalize but require racial profiling and harassment against Latin@s.

Truthdig has more on the bill. It originally passed the Senate back in February — Google searches indicate the issue was being discussed for a couple months prior to now, though it only recently hit my radar — and the most recent news seems to be that an amended version has passed committee in the House. Though the amended version changes the language about “trespassing,” some immigrants rights advocates worry that the new language is even worse. Not only does the rewording potentially criminalize legal residents who fail to carry their documentation, it also “eliminates the requirement that an individual must be in the midst of committing another crime in order to also be charged with transporting, concealing or harboring an illegal immigrant” and contains no exception for humanitarian efforts.

I’m unsure what kind of effect voter action may have at this stage in the game. The ACLU has called the bill unconstitutional, and the best bet may be a legal challenge. Nevertheless, if my searching has failed and you have action alerts or information about organizations that are combating the bill, please leave the information in the comments and I’ll update the post.

TANF Not Providing Needed Assistance to Domestic Violence Victims

Last week, Legal Momentum and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence published a study on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and how it assists, or specifically frequently fails to assist, victims of domestic violence who are living in poverty in the U.S. The full study, entitled Not Enough: What TANF Offers Family Violence Victims, is available here (pdf). From the press release:

Bureaucratic black holes, indifferent or hostile staff members, inadequate benefits, and shortsighted procedures and policies are preventing many family violence victims from getting the resources they need to escape abuse. According to an unprecedented new national survey of service providers, problems like these plague the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, effectively stopping victims of abuse from accessing help when they need it most.

The report, Not Enough: What TANF Offers Family Violence Victims, was produced by Legal Momentum and the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence (NRCDV). The survey on which it is based is a unique, comprehensive effort to understand when TANF successfully assists victims of family violence, and when the program falls short, leaving victims to fend for themselves. Some 600 staff members from domestic violence programs, legal aid and anti-poverty agencies who work with victims on TANF-related issues completed the survey.

Victims feel lost, confused, and frustrated with the system and it gets to a point where going back to the abuser is easier than dealing with the current system.

Conducted in late 2009, the survey finds that when TANF works well, it makes a significant difference in the lives of victims. But many victims of family violence encounter serious difficulties that undermine their efforts to access resources and forge a path to safety for themselves and their children.

In the survey, a mere 14 percent of respondents said that the TANF family violence responses work well in their states, and 43 percent said fewer than half of family violence victims were able to access TANF benefits. One in four respondents said “no” when asked if family violence information disclosed by victims was handled in an appropriate way.

(All emphasis here and elsewhere in the post is mine.)

Blog for International Women’s Day

Banner for Blog for International Women's Day. Banner consists of an image of planet Earth, tinted purple, on a black background. Beneath the globe reads the words "Blog for International Women's Day", and "Equal Rights, Equal Opportunity". Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day. Gender Across Borders is hosting a Blog for International Women’s Day, and one of their prompt questions asks: What does “equal rights for all” mean to you?

I, for once, will keep it relatively short.

International Women’s Day is essentially a day of symbolism. Many use it as a day of activism, solidarity, or reflection, but the world cannot be changed in a day. So symbolism is still at its core. In its own way, that can certainly be a valuable and worthwhile thing.

But it is useless for even that much if it does not recognize and center all women, including and especially those who are most vulnerable and commonly forgotten. International Women’s Day is useless if it does not recognize and respect both the womanhood and humanity of women who are trans, and dedicate to fighting for their rights and basic safety. International Women’s Day is useless if it does not include and remember women who have disabilities, and work for their essential rights and towards creating greater inclusion and accessibility within our own communities. International Women’s Day is useless if it does not center poor women all over the globe, including those in developing countries, who are struggling against hunger and violence. International Women’s Day is useless if it overlooks the rights and safety of those suffering the greatest violence, including (in addition to those listed above) sex workers, trafficking victims, and slaves. International Women’s Day is utterly pointless if it does not include and explicitly welcome women of all races and ethnicities, sexual orientations, ages, immigration statuses, religions, and nationalities; remember that women have multiple aspects to their identities, and “woman” does not necessarily come first; support the work that women are already doing; and give the bulk of its attention to those who need it most.

In other words, International Women’s Day is useless if it does not include all of the women who are reading this blog right now. And International Women’s Day has failed worst of all if it only includes women who are able to read this blog right now. Because a day that is not about equal rights for all is a day that is necessarily not actually about women, but a day about only some women.

And that is something that all of us can stand to remember in our daily activism, as well.

Check out the full list of blogs participating in the Blog for IWD and/or sign up your own blog as participant.

Good Ideas Gone Bad

This letter to the New York Times Ethicist column made me see red this morning:

Our small nonprofit, the Opportunity Fund for Developing Countries, offers scholarships to African boys and girls who agree to keep up their grades, stay out of trouble and refrain from pregnancy. When a 20-year-old orphan we’ve supported for many years had a baby, we revoked her scholarship. (Significantly, we have never dropped a male’s scholarship for impregnating a female.) Now she wants to return to school. We’d like to readmit her to our program, but won’t that set a precedent? DEB DAY OLIVIER, SALT LAKE CITY

To restore this girl’s scholarship may well set a precedent, and I think it should. As you seem to realize, to apply this rule only to one sex is strikingly unfair and violates your own agreement with the students. What’s needed is a new policy, one with a better response to young people’s lives than “just say no babies.”

By definition, nobody welcomes an unwanted pregnancy. As Cynthia Lloyd, an authority on population and education issues and a lead author of the book “Growing Up Global: The Changing Transitions to Adulthood in Developing Countries,” put it in an e-mail exchange, “Obviously in Africa, many young women who get pregnant have not necessarily made that choice willingly or with any control.” I admire your wish to help these students avoid obstacles to education, like too-early parenthood, but I admire even more your reluctance to let an imperfect policy inflexibly applied thwart a young woman’s desire for an education and a better life.

What form should that new policy take? Here I defer to educators and experts in family planning. Lloyd suggests one that you might consult: Codou Diaw, executive director of the Forum for African Women Educationalists, an N.G.O. operating throughout the continent from its headquarters in Nairobi.

When you restore this girl’s scholarship, as I hope you will, you can announce your intention to change course. It is commendable to gauge how effectively your policies serve your ends, and to amend or abandon those that are ineffectual.

UPDATE: Olivier told me by e-mail that they did not continue this girl’s scholarship but that she may reapply next year.

Just, wow — because not setting a precedent is more important than helping a 20-year-old girl who has few resources and just had a baby? Disgusting.

Wherein your blogger destroys France.

Jill in a mosque, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

I’ve written before about attempts to outlaw the burqa in France. Summary: I think it’s silly, an affront to basic freedoms, and ultimately more damaging to the women it claims to protect. Now France is at it again, trying to ban the wearing in public of any item of clothing that covers your face. The law is clearly targeted at French Muslims and Muslim immigrants.

I understand that many people perceive the burqa, or any full-body covering, as a symbol of female submission. Heck, I perceive the stereotypical conservative Christian floor-length denim or flowery dress the same way, so I get it. I don’t have much love lost for any religious tradition that insists the female body is inherently sinful and must be covered.

But my personal opinions on fashion and the female form, and which religious (or irreligious) path I choose to follow? Not great foundations for legally limiting the rights of others. Especially when the outcome of this legislation won’t be the stripping off of burqas everywhere, but rather a larger number of women staying inside. That’s not exactly a great gain for women’s rights.

Blog for Choice 2010

Hey hey, it’s Blog for Choice Day! Each year, they pose a question to spark the dialogue. Last year it was about our hopes for the Obama administration. This year’s question, in honor of Dr. Tiller, is: What does Trust Women mean to you?

As I was trying to come up with my response to this, I watched this video from GRITtv about reproductive rights as human rights. Do check it out if you have some time – it’s about 20 minutes long. It features Carole Joffe, author of Dispatches from the Abortion Wars, Silvia Henriquez, E.D. of NLIRH, and Lynn Paltrow, E.D. of National Advocates for Pregnant Women. (I’m hoping I’ll have some time this weekend to add a transcript. If somebody else has one, please let me know.)

The dialogue here touches on a lot, here are some bullet points until I get a transcript:

some (but not enough) improvement under Obama in terms of rights
Latinas and immigrants need access they don’t/won’t have
a reminder that pregnant women keeping their civil rights is still a radical notion
stressing that local access is a particular problem
the fanaticism in assaulting women’s rights and access
abortion rights might not be the priority for most, but human rights should be
anti-choicers focus on attacking the basic human rights of pregnant women but don’t try to reduce unplanned pregnancies
contraception was the middle ground before, but now it’s lumped with abortion
focusing on abortion is effective for Conservatives because it provides a distraction and prevents adequate health care reform
abortion providers are constantly under attack and clinics are targeted more under Obama, but there are physicians committed to providing abortions
we need to step it up with our activism and call them out on the misinformation they spread

Like I said, there’s a lot discussed, but there are two points in particular I want to focus on. The first is the notion that reproductive rights are human rights. To me, that’s the crux of what Trust Women means. Abortion is simply a medical procedure that allows a woman to do with her body what she wants and needs. Having a fertilized egg inside of her doesn’t suddenly make her incapable of making decisions, yet she is suddenly deemed unworthy of retaining her rights. The second point is closely linked to the first, in my opinion, and that’s education and information. If women are given access to accurate information about contraception, abortion, adoption, childbirth, etc., then why should anybody else be allowed to interfere with her decision and her rights?

If we set up a system built on mistrust and misinformation, then there is no hope for having a system that trusts women and puts women’s rights at the forefront. Yet that is the system we currently have. There are so many people who just aren’t informed, who don’t have access to contraception, and who don’t understand the basics of abortion. The video stresses activism, and I don’t disagree, but I think the activism has to be geared towards education and emphasizing that reproductive rights are human rights.

That’s my take on it, what’s yours? What does Trust Women mean to you?

(Cross-posted at Jump off the Bridge)

TOMORROW: Hope for Haiti – Please Join Me

Re-posting this. Hope many of you can make it tomorrow! Please come say hi if you do.

If you’re in New York, I hope you’ll join me on Friday at a benefit that some friends and I have put together for Hope for Haiti. We are asking for a minimum $10 donation at the door (of course anything else you can give is more than welcome). 100% of the proceeds will go to Hope for Haiti, an organization whose mission is to improve the quality of life for Haitian people, particularly children, through education, nutrition, and healthcare. They are on the ground now and are offering much needed aid to survivors. Perhaps most importantly, they are based in Haiti and will be there for the long run — they were there before the earthquake, and they will be there long after. You can read more at http://www.hopeforhaiti.com.

The details of the fundraiser are below:

What: Hope for Haiti Fundraiser
When: Friday January 22, 2009, 6:30 – 10pm
Where: Gallery Bar: 120 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002

A representative from Hope For Haiti will speak about the organization, Haiti, and the devastating earthquake — and will share some words inspiration and hope. There will be a DJ and a cash bar. And the lovely folks at Gallery Bar are not only donating their space, but are also giving a portion of the bar proceeds to Hope for Haiti. An informational flier is below.

Hope to see many of you there. And please feel free to re-post widely, and to pass this on to your various contacts, friends and networks. If you are unable to make the event but would still like to give, you can donate here.

Workers With Disabilities Frequently Paid Less Than Minimum Wage

Straight out of my “things I’m embarrassed to have been sitting on since before the New Year” file comes this article about the fact that in the U.S., many people with disabilities are working jobs that pay below the already paltry minimum wage. And when I say “below,” I mean way below. What makes this most shocking to me isn’t the fact that people with disabilities are being exploited by unscrupulous employers — that much, I was aware of — but that it’s entirely legal under federal law.

The minimum wage might have been bumped up to $7.25 an hour in 2009, but that number means little to the over 300 workers with mental disabilities working at state-run homes for the people with disabilities in Iowa. That’s because they were making, on average, $0.60 per hour for their work. One employee was even making an average of a mere $0.11 per hour, a sweatshop-level wage in any country. Yet paying employees with mental disabilities piddling wages is legal in Iowa and the rest of the country. Should it be acceptable for companies and government to pay workers pennies an hour because of a mental disability?

The law under which Woodward and Glenwood, the two homes that are being looked at for providing very low wages, were able to pay so little is a controversial law meant to provide job opportunities for people with mental disabilities. The idea is that employers will have an incentive to hire people who might not be able to perform tasks at the same level as non-disabled employees because they can pay them less. However, this law has always been controversial among disability rights and labor rights advocates, and has been increasingly questioned since a Texas-based Turkey company was found to be exploiting and trafficking disabled workers.

It shoudn’t surprise us at all that those who think it’s totally cool for people to be working for $.11 an hour support their position by arguing that if employers aren’t allowed to pay sweat shop wages, jobs will be lost. Because that is the exact same argument that those who oppose any increase in the minimum wage use every single time topic comes up.

And if those of us who are progressive don’t accept that argument against a livable wage for able-bodied workers, we sure as hell shouldn’t be accepting it for those with disabilities, either. It’s certainly true that the unemployment rate among people with disabilities is significantly higher than among able-bodied people. But it’s also true that many other employment inequities exist. For example, blacks have a much higher unemployment rate than whites — in fact (while there is of course significant overlap between the two groups), black Americans in the workforce have an unemployment rate the same as Americans with disabilities in the workforce — and I think we know that the reason for that is discrimination of various kinds, not the minimum wage. And discrimination is never solved through further methods of discrimination, only compounded.

Which isn’t to say that ending the legal use of sweat shop level wages for people with disabilities would solve the problems of ableism, exploitation of workers, poverty, or unemployment/difficulty in finding work. It wouldn’t. Just like with the conversation about the minimum wage in general, it’s only a small start to a wider solution that involves creating a more equitable society overall, including for those workers (like undocumented workers) who aren’t recognized by the government in the first place. But when people are working for pennies per hour, with the full permission and approval of our government, it strikes me as a step that, while insufficient, is sorely needed.

h/t FWD/Forward