Archive for category: Global Poverty

Key articles and information on global poverty.

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Sex Workers in the First World

Activists for women’s rights will argue both sides of the prostitution spectrum; some say it can be liberating for women who are able to find financial independence, that the amount of abuse is thoroughly overestimated and that it is a job like any other and should have the same benefits and regulations. Others say it is a violation of women, that it is a humiliation and never a freely-made choice.

Last February in Barcelona, 15 women ranging from 22 years in age to 50 years in age attended an ‘Intro to Prostitution’ course organized by Conxa Borrell. Borrell commented that “[w]e’re at an impasse where people are unemployed, and they still have to pay their mortgages and feed their children. This is a line of work that many women feel they can do.”

Lidia Falcón, founder of the Feminist Party in Spain, condemned this course saying it had an “underlying suggestion that some women are working in the profession out of their own free will. It’s a false, repugnant discussion about liberty, as if being a sex worker is something you can choose to do because you like it. They say they’re helping women, but they’re just helping them to be exploited and humiliated.”

However, most accounts from women who have worked as sex workers do not report being humiliated. An anonymous publication in The Globe and Mail on March 4 tells of a woman’s personal experience working in the prostitution industry: “I was broke and did what I had to do to survive. On the other, I was able to keep my head up because it was not hard to rationalize away my choices: Our society is based on a system of exploitation, and you have to ask if sexual services are really so different when you get over people’s hangups about sex.” Point being, is selling your body really so different from selling any other product for cash?

In Tunisia, where prostitution is regulated by the state, sex workers demand for their brothel to be reopened after radical Islamists threw them out. “We know the state cannot help us financially, because the current economic situation is so bad,” says Souhir, a Tunisian sex worker. “That’s why we’re calling for the brothel to be reopened, so we don’t have to ask for charity.”

None of these woman claim that they are forced to be sex workers, but they do all share the similarity of having fallen on hard times financially. This begs the question: would there still be sex workers if there was no poverty, and if so, would people like Falcón still call it an exploitation and humiliation?

– Lydia Caswell

Sources: The Free Press Journal, The Globe and Mail, Al Arabiya
Photo: Rediff

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The Indian Caste System

Although the Indian caste system is no longer legitimate, its repressive characteristics still affect the lives of the Dalit population today, particularly its women.

According to Human Rights Watch, the caste system in India “is perhaps the world’s longest surviving social hierarchy” and is a “defining feature of Hinduism.”

“A person is considered a member of the caste into which he or she is born and remains within that caste until death,” the organization said in a report.

Graham Peebles, director of the Create Trust, a UK based charity that helps disadvantaged women and children, said that women suffer the most under the caste system.

In a Counterpunch article, Peebles said Dalit women suffer the most under the caste system despite its being banned by India’s constitution. They tend to become victims of sexual slavery, humiliation and torture. They are also denied access to land, water and education.

Peebles argues that they are living under a type of apartheid in which “discrimination and social exclusion is a major factor.”

That is not to say, however, that Dalit women are the only females who struggle under the Indian caste system.

Indian authorities are constantly unsuccessful in seeking justice for the rapes that occur throughout the country. India’s National Crime Records Bureau estimates that rape cases increased up to 900% over the last four decades. In 2011 alone, more than 24,000 rapes were reported.

But unlike girls who are born into a middle class family, Peebles believes that girls born into a Dalit family receive little attention due to the media’s success in making the country look like a Bollywood film to international observers.

India can definitely improve in several areas regarding the unfair treatment of women. However, with the outlawed caste system still in place, these improvements seem unlikely to occur any time soon.

– Juan Campos

Sources: CounterPunch, Human Rights Watch
Photo: Kamla Foundation

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Brazil Replaces Poverty With Culture

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For decades, Brazil has been considered an underdeveloped nation with inequality, crime and dirty slums. Yet Bolsa-Familia, the country’s largest welfare program, has in recent years transformed Brazil’s poverty predicament for the better. Launched in 2003 by former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the program has benefited almost 50 million Brazilians and become a guide for numerous similar programs worldwide.

According to the World Bank, Bolsa-Familia is a primary reason for Brazil’s most contemporary social improvements. On the condition of sending their children to school and to regular medical exams, underprivileged Brazilian families receive an equivalent of about $35 each month withdrawn from a state-run bank by each family’s mother. Not only does this promote investment in children, it also empowers women to take financial responsibility for their households.

Bolsa-Familia is responsible for about 28% of Brazil’s poverty reduction. In the decade between 2002 and 2012, the proportion of Brazilians living with less than the $32 equivalent decreased from 8.8% to 3.6%.

Yet even with such extreme improvement in the lives of Brazilians, there is still more work to be done. When asked what they like to do for fun, a shocking 85% of Brazilians answered, “watch television.”

In an innovative effort to develop cultural expansion within the country, Brazil has developed a program known in Portuguese as Vale Cultura. The program constitutes a rechargeable coupon worth around $20 per month, available to Brazilians who make at most $300 per month.

While some may argue that both Bolsa-Familia and this new Vale Cultura program drain state funds and promote a dependency on welfare, various reports have noted otherwise. Of those on Bolsa-Familia, 12% have been able to give up the benefit, which accounts for less than 0.5% of Brazil’s gross domestic product. Such extensive success at such a low cost gives reason to believe that Vale Cultura may be an exciting opportunity with little risk.

Brazilians, according to a study conducted in Sao Paolo in 2013, on average only pick up four books per year and finish only two. The country is relatively isolated, despite its recent economic successes, and the poorest Brazilians are disproportionately underprivileged when it comes to cultural sophistication. Vale Cultura is an attempt to remedy this conundrum.

It will take time, of course, for Brazilians to develop a taste for this newly available culture. But culture minister Marta Suplicy is not disillusioned by the time it will take for this program to see success. The purpose is for people to try new things and to attain access to the cultural attractions many Brazilians previously ignored.

– Jaclyn Stutz

Photo: The Guardian
Sources: The Washington Post, The World Bank, The Guardian, BBC

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How China Overcame Poverty

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During the past three decades, more than 500 million people in China were lifted out of extreme poverty. And now, those people are buying the same goods that Americans have been purchasing for decades.

The Birth of Entrepreneurship in China

Peasants wanted ownership over the land they farmed and they did not achieve this under Mao Zedong’s rule. Deng Xiao Ping dismantled the farm communes set up by Mao and established a household responsibility system that led towards a more stable society, thus allowing for the establishment of a civil society with growth in the non-government sector. In about 40 years, the number of Chinese NGOs went from 6,100 to 354,000.

Emerging Market Consumer

The number of Chinese people earning $1,000 or more is equal to the number of people earning the same amount in Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey combined. China has been catching up to western markets and it has been catching up faster than other markets.

Youth in China Earning More and Spending More

The new generation in China has more education and therefore, more opportunities to work outside of factories. The young Chinese people have the highest incomes and they are willing to spend it. Specifically, they are spending more to be connected; they are buying smartphones. As incomes rise, consumers spend money on food, personal care products and smartphones.

ChinaIncomeAge

China is the first developing country to half the number of people living in poverty. During the past 34 years, the number of people suffering from hunger was reduced from one-third to one-tenth. China is not only lifting its own people out of poverty, it is also lending aid to Asia and Africa. These efforts have made the China Development Bank the world’s largest lender.

– Haley Sklut

Sources: Skoll World Forum, The Atlantic, CNN
Photo: Flickr

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Japanese Prime Minister Will Not Revise Apology Over WWII Sex Slaves

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced this week that he will not retract his country’s official apology for its military’s use of sex slaves during World War II. Abe’s cabinet had been reviewing a landmark 1993 cabinet statement in which Tokyo acknowledged for the first time that the Japanese military had directly or indirectly been involved in establishing brothels for its soldier in territories occupied by imperial Japan during its brutal conquest of east Asia in first half of the twentieth century. Up to 200,000 women are estimated to have been forced to work as sex slaves in Japan’s military brothels.

Speaking on Friday to the budget committee in the upper house of the Diet, Japan’s parliament, Abe said he had, ” no thought of my cabinet revising,” the 1993 apology, known as the Kono statement, after then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono. “We must be humble regarding history… it should not be politicized or made into a diplomatic issue,” Abe said.

The decision by Abe, a rightwing nationalist who recently angered his country’s east Asian neighbors by visiting a controversial war shrine commemorating Japan’s war dead, is being seen as an effort by the hawkish prime minister to placate South Korea, which has criticized Tokyo for its perceived failure to atone for wartime atrocities. Japan annexed the Korean peninsula in 1910 and ruled it as a Japanese colony until the end of World War II in 1945.

Abe’s attempt to mollify Seoul, a strategic partner in countering China’s economic and military rise, comes ahead of a possible meeting between the Japanese prime minister and South Korean President Park Geun-hye next week on the sidelines of a nuclear disarmament summit in The Hague.

On Wednesday, Japanese Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs Akitaka Saiki traveled to South Korea in a bid to lock down a meeting between the two leaders at next week’s summit. After meeting with his South Korean counterpart, Akitaka left without obtaining a commitment from South Korea for a meeting between its president and Abe, as Seoul continued to insist that Tokyo do more to make amends for it militaristic past.

The Prime Minister’s decision not to revise the 1993 apology comes about two weeks after Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga announced that Abe’s government was forming a team to review the Kono statement, in which Tokyo acknowledged for the first time that, “The then Japanese military was, directly or indirectly, involved in the establishment and management of the comfort stations and the transfer of comfort women.” Comfort stations is a Japanese euphemism for the brothels operated by the Japanese imperial military in territories conquered by Tokyo during its conquest of east Asia in the first half the twentieth century.

Abe’s refusal to revisit Tokyo’s groundbreaking admission represents a u-turn for the sometimes hard line prime minister, who at times has pushed a revisionist version of history that white washes over Japan’s wartime atrocities. When he was running to be the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in 2012, Abe said “there was no evidence” that the comfort women had been forced to work in the brothels.

Late last year, Abe angered China and South Korea, both of which were occupied by Japan during the first half of the twentieth century, when he visited Yasukuni, a Shinto shrine that commemorates Japan’s war dead, including 14 Class A war criminals.

– Eric Erdahl

Sources: BBC, BBC, Nikkei Asian Review
Photo: Enformable

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How Talia Leman and RandomKid Inspire Change

After Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, then 10-year-old Talia Leman decided that she needed to do something to help. This desire to aid those in need led to the birth of RandomKid, a nonprofit organization that has made a difference in the lives of millions.

Leman was living in a small town in Iowa and was shocked by the media coverage of the hurricane’s disastrous effects. She began reaching out to the country’s youths in hopes of getting them to fundraise for the survivors of the hurricane. She started a movement encouraging other children to decide to collect donations towards a relief fund on Halloween, rather than collecting candy. Leman called the project Trick or Treat for the Levee Catastrophe (TLC) and created a website.

The project gained media attention, with Leman and her younger brother Zander being invited to appear on The Today Show, resulting in children across the country participating in fundraising efforts. After that, Leman explains that, “kids were reporting their totals in this TLC website and we’d call and verify the amount and the effort. Along the way, kids didn’t all trick-or-treat; kids also wanted to sell their 4H sheep or they wanted to wash cars and do others things as well.”

All of these efforts resulted in a huge number of young people raising money and ultimately reported $10 million worth of relief funds for Hurricane Katrina.

 

The Birth of RandomKid

 

When Leman saw how successful her efforts to inspire other children and young people were, she decided to co-found RandomKid, a nonprofit organization whose goal is mobilize efforts among these groups to bring about change.

Since then, RandomKid has been able to rally together about 12 million young people from 20 different countries to help people around the world. These efforts have resulted in the building of schools in Cambodia and play centers in Iowa as well as providing for water pumps in Africa and medical care, all working towards the overall goal of creating a more peaceful world.

As CEO and a founder of RandomKid, Leman has been an inspiration to young people around the world. She was appointed as UNICEF’s National Youth Ambassador and has been awarded nationally and internationally for her work. Leman has won the National Jefferson Award for global change, with the co-recipients of this award being Marlo Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Back in 2008, she also received a World of Children Founder’s Youth Award.

RandomKid’s tagline is “The Power of ANYone,” which Leman credits to the organization belief in the “power of the in-, individual because it’s those small efforts along the way that lead to the biggest outcome.”

Today, RandomKid partners with other nonprofit organizations and services, with Leman running the organization with help from volunteers and her family and friends. Her mother Dana now serves as the Executive Vice President and has said in regard to RandomKid that, “There is nothing more fulfilling than helping a child to help another.”

Only 18 years old now, Leman has a long future of humanitarian efforts and projects ahead of her. When asked what she loves the most about RandomKid, Leman has said, “The moment when the random youth who come to us realize that we are here to work FOR them.”

Through projects like Leman’s, we can see that together, young people can fight a lot of the world’s issues, including poor conditions and global poverty.

– Julie Guacci

Sources: RandomKidE, The Story Exchange, Huffington Post, World of Children, Forbes
Photo: The Women’s Eye

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Female Genital Mutilation and Immigration Reform

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Immigration in the United States has been an issue throughout this millennium. Reform for the immigration system has been discussed in various forms, yet presently there still seems to be no progress on the issue. This deadlock affects immigrants of all forms, but particularly for many potential immigrants in the West African region.

A recent PBS Newshour report detailed the plight of a family living in Baltimore struggling to deal with the intricacies of the immigration system. This family left their home in Mali after worries that their daughter would be subjected to the female genital mutilation (FGM) that is a common practice in that part of the world. The mother, who still suffers pain from her mutilation, says that at any time someone “can just come and take your daughter, and just do it.”

FGM is a practice that has deep roots in the West African region. The practice has been mentioned as far back as the Ancient Greek historians, like Herodotus. Community members consider it shameful for women to not undergo the process, leading to the sort of animosity that lead the Newshour profiled family to leave for the U.S.

Health issues and the difficulties in adjusting to a new country lead the family to miss the initial application for asylum that is required after one year of residency. Since they missed that initial application, the members of the family have no path to citizenship under the current system and are left to appeal annually for residency. There is still a definite risk that their requests could be denied by the courts, leading to their final deportation.

This difficulty in applying for asylum will remain until the immigration issue is finally settled in Congress. The Fofana family profiled by PBS Newshour is not alone in its struggles. Reports from the BBC describe Gambian women seeking asylum for the same reasons in the United Kingdom with hundreds being rejected for using the peril of mutilation as a basis.

The World Health Organization states that over 125 million females are living today after undergoing genital mutilation. Like the matriarch of the Fofana family, many times the procedure is involuntary and will cause the females lasting pain down the road. One can only imagine if this was a practice that was prevalent in the Western world and the outcry that would come about because of it.

Studies on the practice of genital mutilation show the benefits of educational programs in the areas that still carry it out. The Tostan program in Senegal shows how the end of the practice will provide health benefits for women and will bring about better overall respect for women in the community. However, programs like that one are few and have to be much more prevalent to have a serious impact in Western Africa.

For nations in the Western world, spreading education about the female body could bring benefits in Africa and the West. A successful program could lessen the immigration demands on the West and give women a better chance at being leaders in the communities of Africa. For the women that live in fear and pain due to this practice, funding by the nations of the Western world might go a long way towards improving the world as a whole.

– Eric Gustafsson

Sources: Stanford University, BBC, World Health Organization, PBS
Photo: MintPress News

Detained Immigrants Refuse Food Until Congress Acknowledges Rights

Thousands of immigrants in the state of Washington are demanding the attention of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by staging a large hunger strike at the Federal Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma. Along with better food and safer work conditions, their campaign is directly aimed at immigration reform and U.S. President Barack Obama.

The strikers want Obama to sign an executive order that would halt all deportations, as well as provide alternatives to detention while immigrants in question await trial. Tacoma’s facility is owned by GEO Group, the largest provider of detention and correctional services in the country, who lobbied against these reforms in Congress last year. At the core of the argument is the economic fate of 11 million workers currently immobilized by investigations into their legality.

ICE reports that the strikes are comprised of 550 detainees. However, there are conflicting statistics from the Latino Advocacy Organization, which claims there are actually 1,200 immigrants involved. This means the majority of the detention facility’s 1,300 total inmates are involved. Additionally, these numbers do not even take into account the hundreds of advocates who have been joining outside every afternoon to display their support.

The Tacoma campaign is not an isolated event, either. Similar protests and strikes have been emerging in various immigrant detention centers across Arizona, Illinois, California and Virginia. It is also linked to a popular advocacy project, called “Not One More Deportation,” started by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network as a way to host events against unlawful deportation across the country. April 5 is expected to be a similar day of action, with sit-ins and strikes in front of the White House.

Immigration reform has become an increasingly contentious dilemma under the Obama Administration, whose efforts have been repeatedly stalled by GOP Congressional members. Lenient new measures are frequently criticized by the Republican Party as unnecessary “amnesty” at the expense of America’s well-being.

In response, Obama notes that the children of undocumented immigrants “study in our schools, play in our neighborhoods, befriend our kids, pledge allegiance to our flag. It makes no sense to expel talented young people who are, for all intents and purposes, Americans.”

In 2012, Obama declared an end to the deportation of young undocumented immigrants who entered the country as children. The order protects anyone under 30 years of age who came to the United States before they were 16, citing the improbability of their posing a security or criminal threat and the benefits they have provided for the military and work force. The same year, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act was approved, providing similar protections for the children of undocumented immigrants.

Protection over the human rights of immigrant families is increasingly necessary, as recent years prove. In 2011, 396,906 individuals were deported, the largest number in ICE history. This is even more shocking, considering a 2009 study proved that four million immigrants are inaccurately defined “illegal,” having been born here despite their parents’ having entered the country without proper documentation. This means that the majority of “illegal” immigrants are thus wrongfully and systematically denied access to the rights that other American citizens enjoy.

The participants of the hunger strike in Tacoma complain of experiences with this first hand. They allege that GEO Group only compensates them $1 per day for the janitorial and kitchen services they fulfill. Effectually, they are then earning almost no money while they await their trial, causing a severe financial burden for themselves and their families. The status of immigrant detainees is practically that of slave labor.

“Its just ironic that the government is detaining people for working without a social security number; meanwhile, they allow this company to exploit their labor,” states Latino Advocacy founder Maru Moro Villalpando.

The strikes began March 7 and are projected to continue until they receive congressional acknowledgement. Friday was chosen as the start purposefully to honor those who have already been deported, as that is the day of the week prison guards round up all those who will be sent back the following Monday morning.

– Stefanie Doucette

Sources: Al Jazeera, CNN, Huffington Post, Washington Times, Washington Post, Think Progress
Photo: Al Jazeera

Progress in Lagos

In the city of Lagos, Nigeria, progress promises economic growth and reform. Yet, as the ambitious governor Babatunde Fashola regenerates the city, progress also threatens to destabilize the 70% of residents in poverty.

Future plans range from building more than 1,000 additional housing units to constructing a light-rail network across the city. In the financial district, a Porsche dealership recently opened.

Yet, the growing homeless population contrasts with this economic expansion. In its quest for a Lagos “that glitters,” the government forced an estimated 10,000 from the Badia East slum. While men, women and children search through the rubble for any salvageable remnants, most residents feel shocked at the loss, but others direct anger at the governor.

“This is the home I am staying in before Fashola demolished it,” asserts 28-year-old John Momoh.

Badia East continues a 15-year trend, according to activists. In the summer of 2012, the government dispatched machete-carrying men to remove about 30,000 residents of the Makoko neighborhood. Residents report receiving a 20-minute warning before the government backhoes arrived.

The regeneration of slums promises economic growth, but limited protection for those in poverty. As the New York Times notes, “the government had destroyed their present…without making any provision for their future.”

Badia East collapsed a year ago. Today, though, Lagos progresses with plans to benefit every resident.

With more than 21 million residents, this Nigerian city generates an estimated 10,000 metric tons of waste per day. The National Population Commission projects a 3% to 6% annual growth rate. As population rises, the government invests in a more efficient management of waste to provide housing and electricity to its residents.

A severe shortage in electricity led to a reliance on diesel generators, which pollute the air and threaten the health of low-income residents. Those in poverty often live in the more polluted districts and cannot afford healthcare to combat potential health complications.

There is progress, however. A pilot program converts the waste into methane gas, providing the much-needed electricity. At the Olusosun waste site, pipes plunge vertically into the ground to collect the gas.

One day, these pipes will fire boilers to generate electricity, reports Abimbola Jijoho-Ogun of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority. Though not a new innovation, this policy reflects an understanding of the environment. With more than 45% of its waste organic, the city can use this high moisture to provide for its residents.

As chief executive of the waste management program, Ola Oresanya highlights the benefits of this program. It converts “waste to energy, which is in demand, and over time might also be viable as job creation.”

The recycling program offers this solution to unemployment in Lagos. Referred to as “resource providers” by the city, 500 men and women search through the waste and collect items to sell.

“We go through the scraps and look for shoes, iron, plastic, which we sort and sell it to companies,” Samuel Jatel reports.

Jatel, 29, provides for his wife and 3-year-old child as a resource provider. In four years, he can earn about 5,000 naira (roughly $30) per day.

Yet, thousands remain homeless.

Though the city employed residents in its waste management reform, it has not released plans for building new housing units. Those forcibly removed from their neighborhoods cannot afford to return. The Social and Economic Rights Action Center reports Badia residents earn less than $100 a month, adding “there’s not a chance they can afford it.”

Employing these residents in the construction of the new houses. Labor and payment program offers security to those who lost their homes at the hand of progress.

– Ellery Spahr

Sources: Associated Press, New York Times
Photo: Nadim Chidiac

Religious Communities of Tripoli Come Together to Restore Burned Library

Tripoli, Lebanon, a city that prides itself as an intellectual hub of the world, suffered devastating losses in early January when unknown arsonists set fire to a valued library, destroying two thirds of its contents. Saeh Library, translated as “Travelers Library,” contained over 80,000 rare religious and philosophical texts, which some speculate may have been the motivation behind the attacks.

Tripoli has a starkly divided demographic of Christian, Sunni, and Shi’ite inhabitants among several other religions prominent in the area. Father Ibrahim Sarouja, the Greek Orthodox priest who is the library’s founder, is well known and loved in the community for preaching religious tolerance and harmony between neighbors.

An unknown security source reported to authorities that the fire was started in direct response to an anti-Islamic pamphlet found in one of the library’s book, which allegedly took a derogatory stance towards the prophet Muhammad. This would make the fire another tragic instance of sectarian violence that already plagues Lebanon.

The book burning has received significant outreach from Tripoli’s Muslim community, however. Salafist cleric Sheik Salem Rafei stated, “Islam denounces any unjust act against anyone,” and was highly critical of the attack. Many other Muslim leaders in the city, who have also spoken against the attack, share his opinion and are willing to do whatever political measure is necessary to make amends.

Lebanon’s Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, also condemned the arson, exclaiming, “We denounce the burning of the library and reject any harm being done to Tripoli and its people, as it has been, and will remain, the city of the world and of intellectuals.”

Sarouja has found the communal response to the fire overwhelmingly up-lifting. Hundreds have come out to assist with clean up efforts and donate books to refurbish the library. Since January, $25,000 has been raised through online crowd-funding. The expected amount required to repair and replace what has been lost is $35,000.

To quote the priest, “(It was) a great source of joy for me that the burning of this library brought together Muslims and Christians, and especially clergy and Muslim sheiks.”

– Stefanie Doucette

Sources: Los Angeles Times, NPR, Huffington Post
Photo: CNN