Sterilization: coercion is not consent!

Cynthia Chandler is the co-founder of Justice Now.  She gives FFWP permission to publish her comments on why sterilization coercion is not consent!  She asks our readers to sign on to the petition to stand up to forced sterilization.  We also published a previous blog about forced sterilization in India, offering women I Phones in exchange for sterilization.  This also is not free choice, it's coercion, it's more, it's violence against women.
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by Cynthia Chandler

 My response to prison officials who say women in prison signed release forms before being sterilized: Of course. That is the whole point. In a coercive environment, people in power can make people who are dominated do or say anything, including signing a release form authorizing sterilization.

Think about it. Arrest a woman when she is pregnant. Cage her in a jail designed to be so unpleasant that it induces plea bargains quickly. Feed her nothing but a couple of bologna sandwiches daily. Shackle her with her hands behind her back in a paddy-wagon, where she can do nothing to protect her belly as she is jostled about, and then take her to court to face the humiliation and life destruction that is criminal prosecution.

Send her to prison where she will be stripped and body cavity searched, her changing breasts and belly exposed, inspected, and patted down publicly, daily, repeatedly. Give her very limited food, the quality of which is so poor, people try to not eat it anyway. Subject her to daily taunts of bitch, nigger, whore by guards. Subject her to doctors with a demonstrated lack of attention and skill that results in documented abnormally high levels of miscarriage and still birth. Some doctors will refuse to even touch her.

Have her stand in the hot central valley sun in 100+ degree heat for hours to try to get prenatal vitamins. Add continued taunts reminding her that she is an unfit mother--that she deserves to, and will, have her baby taken from her at birth. She will sleep on a thin egg crate mattress over a concrete slab--back pain, sciatica, irrelevant.

Have her be alone without family, birth attendant, anyone to give her basic information about how and why her body is changing, what it means, how to cope with birth. There is no birth plan. There is no information about what a birth plan is. Know that there is a high likelihood that she has survived child sexual abuse and violence and that having her body taken hold by her baby inside her, no matter how much she loves her child, likely triggers fear over loss of control and post traumatic stress disorder. Good luck getting prompt medical attention if she should start bleeding or get an infection. And if she should refuse even one suggestion made by an inattentive physician, she will know that getting attention later will be even less likely.

Those same doctors will be reminding her of how irresponsible she was to get pregnant, how she will be doing the right thing to agree to be sterilized, that to do so is to be a good mother/Californian/person. When she goes into labor, in a crowded cell designed for 4 people and now housing 8, she will have to try to keep quiet so as to not increase tension among everyone else caged in the cell. When she is near birth, and only then, will she be put into a cage, within a van, like a dog, and brought to a hospital by the same pool of guards who refer to her and women in prison generally with racist, sexist slurs. Until recently, she would have been shackled, too, unable to use her hands to keep pressure off her vagina or to find any comfort during contractions, or generally, to keep from falling in any direction. Her world may very well be a sea of pain, fear, and shame. She will arrive at her final destination--a rural hospital with less than 100 beds and a distressing reputation for poor care.

The whole prison has been renovated, except the wing for prisoners that remains as it has for over 20 years. The medical staff refer to it colloquially as the dungeon. She will know no one. And she will know that when her baby comes, her baby will be taken away, most likely forever. And then a doctor, with his own agenda of saving the state money and possibly ridding the world of people like her, says he can help her. He can make sure she never has to experience any of this pain ever again. It's a simple procedure. Just sign this form. This pain will be in the past and you can go on with your life. And a correctional officer looks on. And again, until recently, she would be shackled to a gurney. And she signs.

By 1970, even without the added pain of daily life in prison, over one-third of all Puerto Rican women of child bearing age were coerced during the pain of labor into "consenting" to sterilization during labor and delivery through government-led eugenic programs. Californian doctors similarly coerced tens of thousands of Latinas to "agree" to be sterilized during labor and delivery in Los Angeles in the same period. Early civil rights activists understood how these sterilization programs were racist, sexist and wholly coercive--the consent the government was so proud of obtaining, was not consent--it was the product of intimidation, fear and coercion. And that is why there are now federal safeguards radically limiting when and how free-world people can consent to sterilization surrounding pregnancy. And why there is a total prohibition on any sterilizations for the purpose of birth control on people in prison--because it was understood that any attempt at obtaining consent in that kind of coercive environment is unreliable at best.

So of course California coerced women into signing consent forms before committing the crime of sterilizing them. Congratulations. Shows what bullies they are. They know how to intimidate women well.

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Women's rights: Tunisian feminist Amina Tyler and the struggle for equality

We share this from the Huffington Post UK. An interview with Amina Tyler, the Tunisian woman who put a nude picture of herself on the internet.  The rising movements against poverty and oppression throughout the world have to a large extent been led by and certainly composed of many women. The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, that is now in government initially played no role in the movement for reform that ousted Mubarak, Washington's friendly dictator.  Women as we know played a major role.

One can only imagine the courage it takes for a woman in this climate to fight for equality.  There are many Muslim women who oppose such actions as well, it is a controversial issue. The criticism that many Muslim women make that western women aren't so free either as they are portrayed in the media as sex objects is not without some validity but I'll let our sisters help me clarify my thoughts on that one.  You can read a number of comments on either side of the debate here as well.  And there is more on this particular case here

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Amina Tyler: Topless Tunisian Protester Tells Femen She Was Beaten, Kidnapped & Drugged By Her Family (VIDEO)

Huffington Post UK  |  By Sara C Nelson Posted: 15/04/2013 12:45 BST  |  Updated: 18/04/2013 08:24 BST

Tunisian activist Amina Tyler has revealed she was beaten, kidnapped and drugged by her family after posting pictures of herself baring her breasts online.

The 19-year-old was also forced to endure a humiliating “virginity test” in the aftermath of her protest, which inspired women’s movement Femen to organise a “topless jihad” in support of her.
Speaking to Femen leader Inna Shevchenko from an undisclosed location via Skype, she told her harrowing story, but was adamant she will continue her struggle for women's rights in the Muslim country.


One of the pictures of Amina posted on the Femen Tunisia siteAmina, who was threatened with stoning after posting the images with the words “Fuck your morals” written across her chest to the Femen-Tunisia page, told how she was beaten by her uncle and cousin and taken to a remote village where she was given powerful sedatives.
She spoke of being examined by her aunts in the family kitchen to see if she was still a virgin – describing it as a “horrible” experience, “against my freedom”.
She added: “Every day they were teaching me morals. They forced me to read the Koran. I am an atheist.
“They put their hands on my head and started to read the Koran over my head, that was horrible.


Topless jihad protests in Brazil on 4 April“They took me to the Imam every day, who said ‘Your daughter is doing this against her will.’”
Of her “incarceration” she said: “They gave me medicine in strong doses. I had to sleep and be calm every day”.
An escape attempt saw Amina get as far as a main road where she tried to flag down a car, but she caught by relatives who screamed at her “Why are you doing this to your family?”
And she addressed an earlier TV interview she gave French TV channel Itele, in which she said she did not want to be associated with Femen’s actions and accused the group of “insulting Muslims”.


Femen leader Inna Shevchenko She told Inna: “They pushed me to say that. I was not allowed to see the internet or contact people.”
Despite her ordeal and continuing threats to her safety, Amina has vowed to continue her fight for women's rights.
She said: "I will continue the struggle that started in Tunisia. I will do a topless protest and then I will leave."

In an earlier interview with Frederica Tourn, she said she feared being beaten or raped if she was found by the Tunisian police.
But she insisted she was not afraid: “No, nothing they could do would be worse than what already happens here to women, the way women are forced to live every day.
"Ever since we are small they tell us to be calm, to behave well, to dress a certain way, everything to find a husband. We must also study to be able to marry, because young guys today want a woman who works.”

Inna told the Huffington Post UK: "Amina has became a symbol of liberation of women in the Arab world. We will not stop, now together with Amina, who is in danger, but still free."

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Right wing demagogue's violent sexist assault on Hilary Clinton

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

I am no fan of Hilary Clinton.  She is a ruthless representative of the 1% and an enemy of all workers.  As US Secretary of State she traveled the world seeking money making opportunities for bankers and US corporations and openly championed the dictator Mubarak as a family friend. Along with her class colleagues, she made it possible for his murderous regime to survive as long as it did by ensuring billions of dollars in US taxpayer funds went his way. The police and the torture chambers needed money and arms and Hilary came through.  Only when it became clear the heroic Egyptian people would tolerate Mubarak no more did Hilary and the US government drop him.

There are many reasons to oppose her as a standard bearer for her class.  But this blog condemns in the most forceful way the recent comments by the conservative radio host Pete Santilli who said that Hilary Clinton needed to be "Shot in the Vagina" He refers to her as the "Biggest vagina on the face of the planet".

All workers must condemn this sexist and racist pig.  He attacks all women and all workers with his remark.  He does it under the guise of having a great love for the troops and blames her as Secretary of State for the deaths of American in Benghazi.  She is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and millions of foreign workers as all of her class are in their role as the ruling class of the economic system under which we live.   But that is different.

He has made similar remarks about Obama saying he should be "tried, convicted and shot" for crimes against the people of the United States. But people like Santilli, Limbaugh and others don't support the troops, they support the corporations, bankers and all the coupon clippers whose interests and wars young working men and women are fighting. The sons and daughters of wealthy millionaires like Limbaugh don't fight their wars, they use our kids, that's why low wages and unemployment is good for them, it makes the military option look good to our youth.  We have an economic draft in the US.

Imagine the treatment a Muslim would receive if he or she made such statements about a US government official. Of course, their defenders would argue that he calls for a trial and conviction.

Santilli would be calling for the execution and shooting of workers during labor disputes as well be sure of that. One thing the remark does reveal in my opinion is that these pigs can say things about women that they wouldn't dare say about other groups. It's disgusting what he said about Clinton when you consider the daily rapes, assault and murders that women face in our society and the way they are portayed in the media.  Rape is epidemic in society and especially in the military.  Even bourgeois women deserve equal rights as women.

To think that there are innocent people rotting in Guantanamo.  It's where Santilli should be.

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Ireland and women's health: Dublin Meeting for Abortion Rights

From Irish TD Clare Daly

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Irish TD Clare Daly takes up abortion rights in the Irish parliament.

Followers of this blog are aware of the events that took place in Ireland around the death of Savita Happanavar, the Indian woman, a Dentist, who pleaded for authorities to terminate her pregnancy as she was having a miscarriage. Clare Daly, an Independent TD (Member of the Irish parliament)has been one of the most outspoken critics of Ireland's abortion laws and has campaigned for legalizing abortion when a mother's life is in danger. Ms Daly, along with three other TD's introduced such a bill in to parliament that was voted down.  She is here discussing the issue during a session in the parliament referred to as "leaders questions."

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Thatcher/Women and Feminism; a socialist feminist view

Pakistani women celebrate International Women's Day 2010

by Felicity Dowling *
Some women will indeed consider a woman, any woman, gaining the position of Prime Minister is a victory for all women.  The experience of Thatcher in office was though, profoundly negative for all but the richest of women. I suggest that the experience of Merkel is little different, Merkel presides over the most savage attack on the living standards of women in Europe for 70 years.

One sliver of benefit to a young woman of Thatcher’s premiership might have been that they realised that a woman (and therefore, by inference, herself) as capable of achieving the highest office. The young woman’s personal aspirations and confidence may well have been enhanced by this. The fact that Thatcher was overtly strong and powerful also may have helped might help break gender stereo types.

There is a model of feminism which has regard to a ‘race’ or competition between men and women where men have historic, material and cultural advantages. Whilst this model has some validity, it has been developed and distorted by the hegemonic ideas of neo-liberal economics and by the media.Debates about how women can progress individually or as a group can continue, can sometimes be discussed with vigour and academic effort but without regard to the suffering and damage being done to women in their own countries and in different parts of the world.

Some women  are exploring real issues, though not, to my mind, the crucial ones.  This model is of limited effect in a struggle for a better world for all women; it overlooks the role of community, class and of social and economic history.

Some though not all women who follow this line of debate and consequent action are pro-capitalist and part of the neo liberal project.

Thatcher proclaimed there was no community and was an enemy of those who sought to defend it. As well as proclaiming there is no community, she attempted publically to deny class antagonisms but she fought the class war ruthlessly.

Socialist feminists in contrast recognise and proclaim community and class interest. We want to protect, develop and improve our communities (and by extension the planet) and the interest of our class. This struggle must consciously oppose violence against women and stand against patriarchy.Thatcher had real significance. She was a pioneer of neo liberal capitalism. Across the globe (except possibly China) the period since the 1970s has been one were gains of the post war period were either robbed out right or eroded away. Even the boom of the early 21st century saw re-structuring in many parts of the globe and globalisation which saw worsening of conditions of employment and life in the US and Europe.

The primitive accumulation of capital is intensified by the crisis in capitalist economy. The process of primitive accumulation includes part of robbing the commons. The commons are, at its simplest, the assets and customs of the inhabitants of this planet which are owned/held in common by everyone and no-one. The robbing of the commons particularly affects women as individuals and in their role as carers in families and the wider community. Women traditionally hold community history and knowledge but are also vulnerable in many ways.

Crucially the crisis of capitalism has meant that this process is sharpened and hastened and in this women suffer terrible violence. Women in their role as the reproducers of labour, in their role of nurturing the community, the role guardians of historic knowledge are especially at risk. Others have written about this much more than I can here; but typified by the use of the witch hunt in Africa, in Papua New Guinea as Wendy circulated in; http://www.theglobalmail.org/feature/its-2013-and-theyre-burning-witches/558/and as Federici has so ably recorded: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Caliban-Witch-Women-Primitive-Accumulation/dp/157027059

Austerity in Europe is critically damaging the lives of women; we are in the very early stages of struggle to defend ourselves. We call on all women who value the lives and struggles of other women to stand with us in the fight.We have no antagonism to those women whose focus is on the roles and successes of the individual woman in a capitalist world. We believe though, that any future for all women and our communities depends on us organising for the end of capitalism.

Since the early 19th and early 20th century in the UK women’s rights have been seen and fought for through a class prism. Emmaline Pankhurst wanted votes for women but not for servants; her daughter Sylvia in contrast chose the side of working women; standing against xenophobia of world war 1 and with the newly organised working class of the era immediately after world war one.The experience of women under Thatcher was no better than under a male prime minister; the list of conflicts between Thatcher and different groups of women is long.

We would invite all women wishing for a better future for themselves and their sisters to join us in the fight against austerity and against capitalism.
*Felicity Dowling is a socialist, feminist and former Liverpool (UK) councillor who fought against Thatcher's war on workers and Liverpool in the 1980's.

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Murder and Mayhem: Christianity in Europe

Left: Hanging witches: now known as "The Women's Holocaust" "The Burning Times" The Great Witch Hunt"

From Roger Silverman

While teaching Macbeth some time ago, I did some research into the witch-hunting epoch, and came across a staggering figure of 9 million women put to death in Europe between around 1400 and 1700. Even if it is exaggerated, in terms of the total population of the time, this still amounts to virtual genocide, comparable perhaps with the twentieth-century Holocaust.

 It made me reflect what a struggle the Church had to conduct before it could finally establish its monopoly of ideological power in society, and to wipe out pre-Christian ideologies. Witchcraft surely represented the survival of pagan religions, which preserved primitive rituals and ancient folklore. These were survivals from pre-class society. 



In the background to the mass extermination of witches was the long tradition of the Crusades, where the population of Christendom were mobilised against Islam; the Spanish Inquisition; repeated pogroms against Jews (e.g. the massacre of Jews in York in the 12th century) and the expulsion of the Jews from England for about 300 years.

Paganism on the one hand, and alien religions such as Judaism and Islam on the other, had to be utterly obliterated so that there could be no challenge – however remote or implicit – to the monolith of the Church. The Church became a direct personal instrument wielded by the totalitarian monarch, which in England broke away from allegiance to the Pope. It served as the ideological prop which shored up the power of the absolute monarchies that marked the beginning of the end of the feudal system.

It is significant that the famous witches' incantation in Macbeth includes the following evil ingredients for their cauldron: "liver of blaspheming Jew, nose of Turk and Tartar's lips" – Turks and Tartars being the most conspicuous Muslims of the period.



Along with the less enlightened products of witchcraft – curses, spells, black magic, etc., for which it substituted its own variants – the Church stamped out the fruits of thousands of years of ancient folk wisdom. In those countries where the Christian Church had less success in imposing its domination and wiping out its forebears, entire systems of philosophy, hygiene, health, etc, survive today: in India, Yoga and ayurvedic medicine; in China, acupuncture; in the Far East, various martial arts. There are countless similar examples in the Islamic countries, Africa, among the aboriginal populations of the Americas and Australia, etc. I believe that relics of that pre-Christian culture still survive in Ireland, too. It was through the women that these traditions had been kept alive.



What vast cultural riches must have been destroyed by the Church throughout Europe as a result of the original witch hunts. 

Incidentally, for those who are interested, Shakespeare wrote Macbeth to ingratiate himself with the new King James I (who was also James VI of Scotland). James was deeply superstitious and had himself written a book denouncing witchcraft. Since James was reputed to be a descendant of Banquo, Shakespeare put predictions that Banquo’s progeny would be kings, and rewrote history, turning Banquo from an accomplice of Macbeth in the murder of King Duncan (another warlord who had himself come to power by murdering his predecessor) into a saintly figure.

The play was written in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605, which precipitated a “war on terror” against Guy Fawkes, the Osama bin Laden of his day. The Catholic Jesuits who were being hunted down had prepared handbooks for the guidance of prisoners facing torture explaining how to “equivocate” (conceal the truth without actually lying outright) – hence the countless references to and examples of equivocation throughout the text.

Roger Silverman is a retired teacher living in London UK 

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Ireland: the Catholic Church's assault on women's rights

by Richard Mellor

I am in Dublin Ireland for one more day and wish I could have stayed a little longer.  I was unable to attend the pro-choice meeting on Merrion Street on Saturday which corresponded with a huge pro-life rally nearby.

But reading the papers this morning, what I find so infuriating are the speeches about the sanctity of human life and particularly a child’s life, from the mouths of men, often rich men and so-called men of the cloth. The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin said on Saturday that that “Children are a sign of the Kingdom of God”(apparently Jesus told him this)  and that to protect children is to be pro-life, “..our attitude to children tells us a lot about our understanding of the Kingdom of God.” Martin said.

It’s incredible that a representative of an organization that has protected mass serial rapists and pedophiles within its ranks can make such statements in a public forum.  These people have no shame whatsoever.  The Catholic church not only covered for these serial rapists, officials actually sent them out of harms way and in to new pastures where they were able to continue their horrendous activities.  The Catholic church from the head man in the Vatican on down, chose to protect serial rapists and abandon the little ones.  It is an institution rotten to the core.

Politicians, men, and representatives of a misogynistic religious organization that has accompanied and still accompanies the imperialistic ambitions of nation states and global capitalism, lecture women and the rest of us about the sanctity of life.  They are very concerned about life before it emerges from the womb but care little about the lives and health of children beyond that.  Most of the dominant forces behind the pro-life movement in Dublin, or the US, remain silent about the deaths of Iraqi, Afghani or Pakistani children.  Where were the protests against US driven sanctions against Iraq that led to 500,000 deaths prior to invasion, mostly women and children?  Madeline Albright referred to these deaths as “worth it”.

Where is the Catholic Church, or any of them as Bangladeshi women working for nothing in the factories that supply the Wal-Marts and other retailers of this world battle cops and thugs on the streets as they fight for better working conditions and higher wages? Some family life they have.

There have been previous comments on this blog concerning women’s rights and in particular a woman’s right to control the reproductive process.  I have women friends who have had abortions and women friends who will not for one reason or another, including their religious views. But either way, choosing to have an abortion is surely not a simple thing; in many cases, economics is the driving force.

It is a complex issue and not every woman that chooses not to have an abortion is a right wing religious fanatic.  But it is also not a decision taken lightly either as some try to portray it. It is a woman’s body and it has to be her decision.

Socialists must demand that abortion must be legal and provided as part of a national health system and that birth control be an affordable and available service. It is working class women that suffer the most when such rights are denied women, the rich will always have this right one way or another.

But while we support the right of abortion on demand we must fight for the right of a woman to have a child and offer it a secure and healthy environment, a woman cannot rely on a man for the health and future of her child.  That means financial independence, a wage that provides a safe and secure existence, free education, health care, on-site child-care in the workplaces and institutions of education.  Society spends billions of dollars destroying the lives of children it can spend just as much providing an environment that nurtures life and allows it to flourish.

The demos in Ireland come in the wake of the death of Savita Halappanavar, the Indian woman who died because an Irish hospital refused to terminate her pregnancy reminding her that “This is a Catholic country”. Wendy Forest, another writer on this blog wrote of Savita:

“She was murdered. Her body, her mind, her emotions were in these hours before her death were dominated, manipulated, appropriated, controlled and ultimately put to death by a patriarchal state and an institution promoted by the same state. She is one of millions of women historically who have been murdered simply because they are female. Her death is a tragedy-but not an accident. The powerful weapon, shame, used throughout history against women will not be felt by the Catholic church or by the state of Ireland. Yes pressure from below will hopefully make them change the laws that oppress and violate women’s rights to control over their bodies and reproductive capacities. And yes that is what we want as way forward for women. But it goes much deeper and will not end until women understand the power of shame and are determined collectively to refuse to succumb to its paralyzing power.”

The pro-lifers are against legalizing abortion even when a woman’s life is in danger, this is being driven by men and the Catholic Church.  At the pro-choice rally, Clare Daly, a member of the Irish parliament called for “The immediate introduction of legislation for the right to a safe, legal abortion when a woman’s life is at risk, including from suicide.”

By any standard this is not a radical demand.  Sarah Malone of the Abortion Rights Campaign pointed out that 150,000 Irish women have sought the medical care they need in England since the 1980’s.  Banning abortion completely does not stop women from finding the needed medical care elsewhere.

You can read more about this issue and Savita Halappanavar by selecting the “Women” Label on the right.

"Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children."

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
May 1965 speech to the Negro American Labor Council. Quoted in Thomas F. Jackson, From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Struggle for Economic Justice. (2009) p. 230

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Rape and the truth about false accusations.

The Enliven Project is a truth-telling campaign to bring sexual violence out of the closet and convert the most powerful bystanders to new allies.
Sexual violence is the biggest issue we aren’t talking about in America.  Incorporating lessons from the gay rights and AIDS movements and campaigns like Opportunity Nation, The Enliven Project will tell the truth about sexual violence in classrooms, break-rooms, and board-rooms, enlisting the most powerful bystanders to join the movement, promoting the most promising interventions, and increasing justice and acceptance for survivors everywhere.

The facts about sexual violence are startling.

An American man’s chance of prostate cancer is exactly the same as his chance of being sexually assaulted: 1 out of 6. Among American women, 1 of 8 will be diagnosed with breast cancer; 1 of 4 will be sexually assaulted. Yet in 2011, the Susan G. Komen Foundation spent $492 million on awareness and prevention, five times more than the four largest anti-sexual violence organizations combined.*
Victims of sexual violence are significantly more likely to suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder and abuse drugs and alcohol.  Many of them will attempt suicide.  And there is also evidence to suggest that sexual abuse in childhood can lead to lifelong health issues like cardiovascular disease and obesity.   Without a new approach, the U.S. will keep paying the steep price for sexual violence: $127 billion/year.

For every act of sexual violence that takes place, there is a perpetrator and a victim.  But there are also individual and organizational bystanders.  The parent who misses the warning signs that the family friend isn’t appropriate with children.  The teacher who ignores behavior that suggests something is wrong.  The principal who fails to offer training on child sexual abuse prevention and intervention.  The campus whose bureaucracy makes it all but impossible to report a sexual assault.  The employer that stays silent on a critical issue directly impacting the life and livelihood of 16-25% of its workforce.

Bystanders can pave the pathway to recovery from sexual violence, or they can reinforce shame, silence, and stigma.  From: The Enliven Project.

Note: I can't say that I agree with the orientation of this group as far as changing this situation is concerned but raising the issue is in itself important and I thought the graph was important.
RM

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Stand With the Women

Left: An Egyptian woman fighting for her rights and in a dictatorship that is no more. Egyptian women played a major role in removing Mubarak. Women throughout the world are in the forefront of such struggles.

From Felicity Dowling:

"Women Against the Cuts Merseyside"

 

No revolutionary can consider the tasks of the 21^st century without standing with the women; this is the only revolutionary standpoint.

 “Give me a place to stand and with a lever I will move the whole world.”  

In India women and men rose in their hundreds of thousands to protest the terrible rape case, in Pakistan and Bangladesh Textile workers reacted angrily to the deaths of their workmates in avoidable fires, in China working women play a huge role in the workforce and in Labour disputes, in Ireland  more than ten thousand marched in commemoration of Savita Halappanavar who died  miscarrying a foetus which should have been aborted to save Savita’s life. In Russia, the campaign around unlikely but deeply political heroines, Pussy Riot continues to reverberate.

In Africa the women working in the farms are striking. The women of the minefields of South Africa marched just days after the slaughter of the men, and kept the flame alive. The women of the townships forge new ways of struggle as the service users.

Ninety eight per cent of Roman Catholic women in the UK ignore the church and use birth control.

The old order changes.

Yet in the background deep structural changes in women’s lives are being engineered by the ruling class. The current assault that we (in the UK) are most aware of is the onslaught on women in Europe including the UK, through the destruction of the welfare state, from the attacks of “austerity”.

Seventy per cent of the UK cuts affect women primarily. A friend tells me that the Citizens Advice reckon that older women are those most likely to be referred to food banks, to have no other resources at all.

These societal changes will have repercussions on women’s lives as they pick up the burden of social care; once their traditional role. As 3 out of 4 old people’s homes in Spain are closed the women of the families will be picking up the pieces. In Greece unemployed single mothers get €80 per month to feed their children, yet their cost of living is close to that in the UK.

These changes to women’s living standards and conditions are accompanied by deep, thorough and pervasive propaganda; media conditioning to split the class and to set neighbour against neighbour. The traditional solidarity of working class areas is slow to re-form (though regenerate it must if we are not to descend into some kind of Dickensian slum life).

The deep propaganda from the media is stressing again and again the differences between boys and girls. Never in the 40+ years I have been buying toys for children has the gender divide been so blatant. Lego have even produced a “girls” Lego brand. In Student Unions there is sexism we thought had been eradicated in the 1970s. “Equalities” officers are given little resources and less respect, but “rape” themed parties are tolerated. Anti-women talk is rife on the net and in printed media. Women writers report onslaughts of sexist abuse when they publish online. The extent of pornography is reported as a problem for some youngsters trying to form real relationships.

Further disturbing, power abusing, relationships such as the Saville case in Britain, the grooming cases where vulnerable young girls in care were abused, and the abuse in the eighties in children’s homes highlight the pervasive and corrosive effect of the sexist and patriarchal structures of our society.

Figures for the number of women who experience sexual or domestic violence (http://onebillionrising.org) should shock every person alive, yet it is not regarded as serious by the media, the ruling politicians the judiciary or the police.

Deeper still in the morass of capitalism is the destructive attitude to children. While women bear the brunt of cuts, those who suffer most and will suffer throughout their lives from the cuts are, and will be, the children of the poor as the effects of early childhood poverty reverberate throughout their lives. The police in Glasgow are reported to be sending shoplifters to food banks rather than prosecute them (http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/police-refer-starving-shoplifters-to-charity-food-banks-103770n.19092582. those in London sending kids to food banks

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/starving-children-stealing-food-to-survive-1492402

This in 21st century Britain.

Yet the assault in Europe is not the first. Women have suffered similarly in Africa and Asia when the IMF, the world bank or the EU have imposed “restructuring” on the economy. Zimbawe had the best primary education in Africa, the best health service and qualified Social workers. Many of these professionals are now employed aboard and the country is bereft as the services are cut.

 Women die in child birth in terrible numbers and virtually every death is preventable with modern medicine.( A British woman had a bad time giving birth and the incredulous husband said “It can’t be that bad, women in Africa don’t have this care, what happens there?”, “They die”, he was told). Chile ,Sri Lanka, country after country, have experienced re-structuring. Re-structuring, I would argue, is fundamentally an attack on women and families, taking into the hands of private companies all that the state had built to protect the people in the aftermath of liberation struggles and world war two, and forcing the responsibility for ‘unprofitable’ care back onto women.

A pornography of poverty exists where we are told that a child dies of poverty every 3 minutes, and we are shown pictures to prove it. The subtext is that you, human, poor human of the working classes and peasantry, cannot protect your young, you are powerless in this the most basic duty of an adult animal. When asked to defend the use of drones, which we know kill children, the US spokesperson says “Yes, well, it kills less children than carpet bombing” Again the killing of children acts to discipline and debilitate the power of adults.

Some argue that the attack on women can be dated from the 1970s when birth rates in Europe began to fall as contraception gave women choice and they chose not to have children if society would not help with the social tasks. In Italy the birth rate plummeted. Women no longer provided the next generation as fodder for the factories and rates of profit began to fall.

“Women hold up half the sky” as Mao famously said. Today women are both the butt of the attacks from capitalism and the blood and bone of the new working class in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Our enemies attack women ruthlessly in many ways, yet unless those women rally to the cause of revolution there can be no change. Women and men are either part of the solution or part of the problem. This must be an even bigger feature of revolutionary theory than it was in the time of Eleanor Marx and  of Rosa Luxemburg, of the bread and roses strike or the strikes of the match women, of the Ford workers struggle for equal pay or of Grunwicks.

The SWP are not the only left group to be blind to the role women are playing, and must play, in any successful struggle to defend conditions and to change the world. Britain’s largest left group, the SWP, has fallen into a morass of its own making, at least in part, because they did not consider the issue of women’s rights and struggles to be at the core of socialist thought and agitation. There is no happiness to be had from this. The SWP have the largest youth membership and won some of the best of the students who came into struggle after the imposition of fees for higher education in the UK. We can only wish well those who want to struggle to reform the party and keep its cohort of young militants together, and offer to work with those who find such a task impossible.

There is a place to move the world. You find it when you stand with the women.

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Crisis in the British SWP: An opportunity to build a stronger left.

A statement from:

John Throne
Richard Mellor

The crisis that has broken out in the British Socialist Workers’ Party, the largest left group in Britain, is not something that is limited to the SWP or to the British left. The conditions out of which this crisis arises are widespread throughout the left and have to be addressed. We have no wish to approach the developments in the SWP in a sectarian way but in a way that strengthens the left in general.  We have consistently argued for a serious appraisal of the false methods and the undemocratic internal life that is root of this crisis and pervasive throughout the left and we have an opportunity to learn from it.

The Committee for a Workers International (CWI) from which we were expelled (one of us after 25 years as a full timer) effectively bans factions.  Hundreds of people have been driven out of the CWI and other left organizations after years of dedicated activity.  This is often euphemistically referred to as someone “taking themselves outside the organization.”  The endless splits and expulsions that occur ritually with organizations on the left and the vilifying of comrades who have given their entire lives to them has led to a situation where there are more people who call themselves socialists or revolutionaries outside these organizations than in them.

When we were expelled from the CWI (we declared a minority faction) we were not allowed to appeal our expulsions and our written material was only partially circulated.  The process was accompanied by vicious lies and slanders as discussions with another group the leadership wanted to recruit were going on behind our backs. This other group was then used to help expel the minority faction and fire full timers.

The CWI had an equivalent of the SWP's disputes committee that was called the Control Commission. It was not stacked with CC members or former CC members like the SWP disputes committee, it was all non-CC members. But when we were being expelled we called for the Control Commission to sit and hear the issues and make a recommendation. The Central Committee would not let it meet, and so in this way we were denied our right to have this body hear our case. There is more than one way to skin a cat.

We are approaching the issue of the SWP, not to attack the SWP or gloat about its misfortune or the division that has opened up within it (which is so often the case in these situations as left groups jockey for members), but to show that the internal regime in the left groups in general has been wrong.

The internal life of left groups today have nothing in common with that of the Bolshevik Party in its most healthy period, that allowed factions and lively internal debate and disagreement. None of them are truly “democratic centralist” like the Bolsheviks in this period. Minorities or loyal oppositions are eventually driven out, vilified and written out of the party or group’s history.  This is a remnant of Stalinism, not Marxist practice.

This development in the SWP is not just a crisis for the SWP and the revolutionary left, it is an opportunity for the revolutionary left. It is an opportunity to discuss the incorrect internal lives of the left groups and how these must be changed.

Like thousands of other socialists and revolutionaries, we do not belong to any left organization. We are not prepared to join an organization that is not committed to addressing the undemocratic and unhealthy internal life of the left.  However, we are affiliated with the Workers International Network (WIN), a group of socialists primarily but not exclusively from the CWI tradition. WIN is committed to addressing this issue and is approaching the crisis in the British SWP with this in mind – not as sectarians hoping to benefit from the misfortune of rivals.  It is an opportunity the left cannot afford to let slip by.

WIN is a democratic forum trying to bring together workers and socialists from all left groups and from none, to discuss these issues. It has published three documents that can be found on this blog, (above) and a brief overview of what WIN is.  Here is an extract from WIN’s statement regarding the left:

How does WIN differ from existing left groups?

The left groups all have their origins in a period when there were mass socialist or communist parties numbering millions. Generations of workers lived, fought and died defending their political heritage. All that was holding them back from victory were the material interests of the bureaucratic cliques – reformist and Stalinist – at their head. The mission of the left opposition groups was to expose the crimes and betrayals of the leadership of those parties and prove themselves a worthier alternative vanguard.

The task facing socialists now is different. Historical, economic and demographic factors have changed the political landscape. Today it is a question of rebuilding the movement itself, rather than simply providing an alternative programme and leadership for it.

To varying degrees the old left groups succeeded in educating their cadres and sharpening their skills as theoreticians, writers, speakers and organisers, achieving in some cases admirable results. The loyalty of these activists to those organisations to which they have given their lives is an understandable and praiseworthy quality. However, it carries with it the risk of cliquism and conservatism; of a sectarianism which consists of an unwillingness to put the needs of the wider movement above the petty advantages of their own organisation. In such a situation, they risk losing a sense of proportion.

They would indignantly deny it, but in practice many of the old left groups still sincerely believe that the future depends on their winning leadership of the workers’ movement, and this leads them in practice to give priority to the need to build their own organisations before the objective needs of the class. They might agree formally that the tasks have changed; however, their style, structure and persona have not changed accordingly. They often present themselves still as a vanguard, as having all the answers; their internal regime is still insulated from the movement.

Within the left groups there are many admirable and dedicated workers. At the same time to varying extents they have drawn distorted conclusions from the special circumstances of the Bolshevik party in the Tsarist underground and of the Russian revolution during the civil war and its aftermath, which have helped foster a culture of lifelong mandates, an implicit tendency towards leadership cults, resulting splits, the discouragement of dissent, even the outright suppression of factions, and other blemishes. On a miniscule scale, the kind of petty abuses that have scarred the left groups would never have been tolerated if they had had an active mass working-class membership.

Within the old left groups, attitudes and understanding of the role of women in the class struggle was limited. WIN sees the struggles of women across the globe as a fundamental aspect of class struggle.

As the class struggle reawakens from its relative state of hibernation, it is to be hoped that the healthiest elements from within the existing left groups will abandon their obsolete pet shibboleths and join together with the fresh ranks of the new mass movement. (end quote)

************

We also stress that the role women have played in the global struggle against capital from the factories of Bangladesh, China and Vietnam, to the recent uprisings in the Arab world and the vast tracts of Brazil, Ecuador and Latin America is evidence of the rise of women internationally and the important role they will inevitably play in the future as leaders of the movement. Millions of industrial workers in the factories of the world today are women. The internal life of left organizations must reflect this in the struggle against sexism in our ranks.

To contact WIN in the UK, e mail Roger Silverman at: rsilver100@aol.com

WIN website: http://worldwidesocialist.net/blog/
WIN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorkersIntlNetwork
Socialist Discussion Forum: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/socialistdiscussion
Contact Roger Silverman about the discussion group.

Roger Silverman will be speaking on WIN at a meeting in Dublin Ireland on Jan. 18^th. Some details here: http://www.mentioningthewar.blogspot.ie/2013/01/why-we-need-new-left-with-roger.html

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Women hold up half the sky and a whole lot more.

I don't normally try to write like this but there's an exception to every rule.

A short story in memory of a mother and all the women who raise us.

by Richard Mellor

Jane looked at her mother lying there motionless. She knew death would come to her soon but it would be a relief she thought. She looked calm, her soft grey hair laid against the pillow. Her eyes were closed and her skin, as always, tanned and wrinkled. She had to laugh as her mother’s description of her nose came to mind, “I’ve got a Roman nose” she would tell her children, “Roamin’ all over my face.”

Rose had had a hard time of it since her stroke three years ago. She couldn’t walk without assistance and being with Jane’s dad was even more stress as impatient as he was. She was a pretty fit 85 year-old prior to the stroke. She was a champion dart thrower and played on a ladies team. She also liked to dance, proud of her great legs, and walked everywhere; down to the town for some groceries or just for a coffee with her daughter. But the stroke put a stop to all that along with the trip she had planned to visit her son in America. Jane’s dad was jealous of his wife’s relationship with her children; it might undermine his role. “You think the sun shines out of his arse”, her husband would say to her about her relationship with her son, Dick.

Dick left the house the first chance he could, but his sister was younger; and anyway, it’s different for a girl. She was determined not to suffer the same fate as her mother, “I don’t know how you did it, mum” she said quietly, looking in to her mother’s eyes as if she might respond with a shrug and a rolling of the eyeballs like she sometimes did. “No, I wasn’t going to end up like that” she continued, this time half talking to herself, “I was determined not to make your mistakes; at a man’s beck and call and having to deal with his drinking and the moods and aggressive behavior that often accompanied it.” She was convinced that it was this stress that led to the stroke. She was not going to fall into the same trap. She didn’t blame her mother; after all, things were very different when she got married right after the Second World War. But she kept her distance even though she lived nearby.

Her dad used to say she was just bossy. She had raised three boys of her own so she certainly knew how to take charge, when to be soft and when to be firm. She would rather meet her mother downtown than up at her parents house. Her father was always critical of her like he was of his wife and her brother, and he tried to undermine her all the time in front of her husband. He was the boss, the one with the brains---the one in charge. Outside of the house he was a charmer, especially with the ladies, but in the home he was king and his rule was not to be challenged, that’s why he always undermined the children and his wife in the company of others.

Jane and her brother had talked about it. Why did mum tolerate it? Why didn’t she just leave? But they both learned that it was impossible. Her mother was from a different era. She had known no other man and also had a strong sense of loyalty---maybe she did love him in her own way, but she and her brother doubted it sometimes. She started to chuckle to herself as a completely different thought came in to her mind. Rose thought the young women today were too loose. “Remember what you told me about that nice Grenadier Guard, mum?” Jane said, squeezing her hand. Her mother had told her about being walked home from a dance at the Hammersmith Palais one night by a Grenadier Guard when she was 27: “Walked me ‘ome and shook my ‘and at the door, he did; men were gentlemen in those days.”

Her thoughts returned to the family life. Her mother did everything in the home. She cooked, clothed her children, she worked outside the home at times for extra income. She painted walls, laid carpets, repaired electrical fixtures and created and tended to a beautiful garden. But after almost 60 years of marriage she had been beaten down. Her defense when her husband went in to one of his aggressive tirades was to tell him he was right. “You’re right, Bill” she used to say angering him further.

Not long before she had the stroke, Jane’s mother told her how she felt about things. Normally she said very little or even defended her husband, as that was the right thing to do. She came from that generation that never shared with the outside world what went on in the family. After all, wasn’t the family supposed to be the font of love and pure values? And surely it was her fault he is like he is. If she had only been smarter, better looking. If only she’d kept her mouth shut in the beginning maybe things would have been different. Now she kept her mouth shut and that bothered him. “

"If he comes in and I can see he has had too much booze, I try not to speak.”, she told Jane one morning after he had returned home from the pub late the night before. “But that is wrong, it makes him madder, “you haven’t fucking spoken to me since I’ve been in.” he says. "I think if I don’t speak it’s peace but if I speak I have to be careful what I say ‘cause he’s spoiling for an argument so that’s how it is. Nobody would believe me so I don’t tell anyone.” She thought her mother had such strength to survive that all these years.

“I left school when I was fourteen. Left on the Friday and went to work in the factory on Monday in my school uniform.” she used to say. Her mum told her how she had her first period at work and how it scared her to death. She never expected to bleed down there. Jane’s grandmother was a pretty strict Catholic, the daughter of Irish immigrants, and she never discussed such things.

Jane’s brother had told her how he blamed their mother for years because when he was small she never stopped the beatings. To a young boy she was the other adult in the home and should have done something. But they both knew now that she couldn’t. Her mother seemed so fragile and small now. But when she and Dick were young, she seemed much larger. She was 5 feet ten inches tall compared to their father’s five seven. And she had big hands that had seen many years hard work. She had survived the blitz sleeping in the underground below London’s streets before being sent to a munitions factory attaching machine guns to spitfire wings. She had worked in factories and as a domestic. The eight years as an army wife had been among the best, living in Burma where her brother was born and Nigeria where she was born, they even had home help there.

But after the war Jane’s father managed a pub, not the best thing for an alcoholic, and it was a life of misery for her mum. When her dad went blind it was her mother, in her seventies and eighties that took care of him. She never really retired, Jane thought.

For years they excused her father’s behavior because he had spent almost four years as a prisoner of war in Japan, almost the entire length of World war 11.  He lost his mother at an early age and his father was, as he often said, “A rotten bastard.” “But you deserved better, mum, there’s no excuse for the way he treated you, no excuse.” she whispered, leaning over to kiss her mother’s forehead.

As she watched her mother, unaware that she was silently slipping away, she thought of how common it is that those who have done so much fail to be recognized, even by those that benefited from their actions. Jane had had three exhausting years dealing with the authorities after her mother had the stroke and both parents were put in the home. It was a relief for her that it was over, but she was happy that she had the opportunity to care for her as her mother had cared for her.

Jane and her brother had made up for lost time, had told their mother how important she was in their lives. She completely understood when her brother told her about the toilet incident and how it made him feel. At the insistence of her father, Rose was kept in the house right after the stroke rather than being put in a home where she could have received better care. But being legally blind, her father would have to go with her and he resisted that. While Dick was over on one of his visits, his mother needed to get up and go to the bathroom. She was sleeping in a bed downstairs so she could go to the outside toilet if she needed to go. It was not a good set up but what her father wanted.

Dick helped her up but she didn’t make it in time and spoiled herself. She was so embarrassed. On top of all this she had to listen her husbands tutting and muttering under his breath at yet another failure, “You don’t try hard enough, Rose, you have to fight harder.”, he said, lifting himself out of his armchair to assist her.

“Leave her alone and sit down.” Dick said angrily. His father could see he meant it and retreated. Dick walked his mother out to the toilet and pulled down her clothes in order to clean her up. He could see she was so embarrassed and he wanted to cheer her up as best he could.

“Damn mum, you’ve got no hair left down here. Where’d it all go?”

“I’m bloody bald” she replied, “I’m losing it all.”

As he began wiping her, Dick remembered an old rule his mother told him when he used to babysit for pocket money as a teenager or watch his younger sister.

“I’m doing it right aren’t I mum”? “With girls wipe away from the kickle away from the kickle”

The Kickle was the name Rose gave to the genitals. Dick and Jane always wondered where it came from and Dick later assumed it was from the Yiddish pastry of the same name as Rose worked for a while for a Jewish firm in the rag trade before the war though why she would choose that name was beyond him. Rose chuckled out loud.

“It’s terrible, you having to wipe my arse; it’s so embarrassing” “You know mum” Dick replied, “I am so lucky to have the opportunity to do this for you. How many years did you clean me up? How many times did you clean me up, mum? “It’s an honor to wipe your bum, an honor and a privilege” he assured her, seeing how embarrassed she was.


The last three years had been difficult for Jane, especially as her brother lived six thousand miles away; but she too felt a certain honor that she took care of her mother during that time, a certain privilege in it and understood why her brother felt the way he did.

“Thanks for taking care of us, mum”, she said, kissing her hand. “Thanks for getting us off to school, for dealing with prejudiced teachers and schoolyard bullies. Thanks for showing us how important it was to be strong but compassionate and forgiving.”

Jane felt her mother would finally have some peace now. Despite feeling the way she did about her dad, she didn’t hate him. Her brother had always accused her of being too easy on her dad and a bit too hard on her mum. “Maybe I was a bit hard on you mum, perhaps it’s because I’m a woman too,” she said.

After her mother died, Jane realized that her mother’s silence and way of dealing with her husband’s abuse, was in no way a weakness. She came to understand it was a strength that enabled her to survive in a hostile environment; to raise two children as best she could no matter what the odds. She understood that her mother was also up against much more powerful forces, social forces that placed men and women in certain roles and that gave one certain powers over the other. After all, why is there a Superman but only a Supergirl?  It's pretty obvious inner strength and courage has nothing to do with how much weight you can lift; her mother and millions like her were proof of it.

But she understood that her father was not entirely to blame either and that although we are individuals we are not independent of the society in which we live and are to a great extent created by it. In that sense, we are all victims.

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Mass Protests Against Sexual Violence Spread Beyond India

 by Jack Gerson

Protests against sexual violence against women are spreading throughout the Indian subcontinent and may well be developing into an ongoing and sustained mass movement. Below, we reprint a story from the Guardian newspaper (UK) reporting that there are now mass demonstrations in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as many parts of India. The media in these countries have finally been forced to take up the issue of rape and overall horrific brutalization of women that they've been so silent on -- indeed, accepted and even encouraged -- for so long.

As the Guardian story makes clear, many protesters are holding the region's governments accountable for the atrocities. But as Arundhati Roy said in a Channel 4 (UK) interview that we republished here four days ago, the problem here is one of class as well as gender: the state security forces,  police and especially the Indian army, have long used rape as a weapon against poor, working class, and dissident women. We hope and anticipate that the mass protests will be taking up this theme more and more in this new year.

Here's a link to the Arundhati Roy video:
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com/2013/01/arundhati-roy-on-rape-in-india.html

And here's a link to the Guardian story, followed by a full reprint of that story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/04/rape-protests-spread-beyond-india/print

Rape protests spread beyond India

Demonstrators in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh join protest movement against sexual violence

Protests against sexual violence are spreading across south Asia as anger following the gang rape and death of a 23-year-old medical student in Delhi courses through the region.  Inspired by the rallies and marches staged across India for nearly three weeks, demonstrations have also been held in Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh – all countries where activists say women suffer high levels of sexual and domestic violence.

In Nepal, the case of a 21-year-old woman who says she was raped and threatened with death by a police officer and robbed by immigration officials, prompted hundreds of demonstrators to converge on the prime minister's residence in Kathmandu. They called for legal reforms and an overhaul of attitudes to women.

"We had seen the power of the mass campaign in Delhi's rape case. It is a pure people's movement," said Anita Thapa, one of the demonstrators.

Bandana Rana, a veteran Nepalese activist, described the ongoing protests in Delhi as "eye-opening". "A few years back, women even talking about sexual violence or even domestic violence was a very rare," she said.

Sultana Kamal, of the Bangladeshi human rights group Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK), said the protests in Delhi had given fresh impetus to protests against sexual violence. One incident that has provoked anger in Bangladesh was the alleged gang rape of a teenager by four men over four days in early December in Tangail, 40 miles north-west of Dhaka. The men were said to have made videos of the attack before leaving their victim near a rail track where she was eventually found by her brother.

On Friday a teenager who was said to have been repeatedly raped in a hotel died in hospital in Dhaka of injuries sustained when she subsequently tried to take her own life.

But despite the widespread anger, the social stigma attached to rape victims remains a major problem throughout the region. Although Bangladesh police arrested suspects in both the cases and investigations are under way, activists fear that corruption as well as deep-seated misogyny among investigating officers and the judiciary make convictions unlikely.

According to ASK's statistics, at least 1,008 women were raped in 2012 in Bangladesh, of whom 98 were later killed.

Khushi Kabir, one of the organisers of a "human chain" in Dhaka to protest against violence to women, said its aim was "to show that people are not going to just let this [movement] die down".
Kabir said although previous demonstrations on similar issues were largely dominated by women, men were now protesting too. The protests had also drawn people from a broad range of society. "We had lawyers, schoolchildren, teachers, theatre activists and personalities, industrialists," she said.

One week after the Delhi rape victim died in a Singapore hospital, the widespread grief and outrage have moderated, but a fierce debate still rages over the country's sexual violence and attitudes to women. One politician from the opposition BJP party was forced to apologise after stating the women who did not stay "within moral limits … paid the price". A senior official in a hardline Hindu nationalist volunteer organisation provoked controversy when he claimed that westernisation was responsible for rapes in cities.

The Delhi rape case is being heard in a special fast-track court inaugurated last week to deal with such offences in the capital. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Saturday. Protests however continue, albeit at a lower intensity than in previous weeks.

The Indian media continue to give prominence to news items that would barely have received attention a month ago. On Friday it was reported that a 19-year-old woman had died in a hospital in the north-western city of Jaipur after she set herself on fire allegedly following aggressive harassment from a neighbour. She said the man had threatened to kill her brother and father if she did not marry him.

In another incident reported on Friday a woman was said to have jumped from a moving train to escape an assault. Sexual harassment on public transport is endemic in India where men target single young women. Such abuse is described euphemistically as "eve-teasing" with perpetrators dubbed "railway Romeos". One persistent problem, women say, is men filming their faces or bodies on mobile phones in buses or trains.

Indian activists have repeatedly argued that media descriptions of such activities as "eve-teasing" contribute to the widespread acceptance of sexual harassment in public places. A recent survey by the Hindustan Times newspaper found that nearly 80% of women aged between 18 and 25 in Delhi had been harassed last year and more than 90% of men of the same age had "friends who had made passes at women in public places". Nearly two-thirds of the latter thought the problem was exaggerated. It was also reported on Friday that though Delhi police had received 64 calls alleging a rape and 501 calls about harassment since 16 December, only four formal inquiries had been launched.

Senior officials across the south Asian region have defended their government's records on tackling sexual violence against women. In Delhi, Sushilkumar Shinde, the Indian home secretary, said on Friday that crimes against women and marginalised sections of society were increasing, and it was the government's responsibility to stop them. "This needs to be curbed by an iron hand," he told a conference of state officials from across India convened to discuss how to protect women. He called for changes in the law and the way police investigate cases so justice could be swiftly delivered. Many rape cases are bogged down in India's overburdened and sluggish court system for years. "We need a reappraisal of the entire system," he said.

Dr Shirin Sharmin Chowdhury, the Bangladeshi minister for women and children's affairs, said her government was "taking this issue very seriously".  "Just yesterday [Thursday] a sex offender … was given a very high punishment under the law," she said, "but sometimes the delay and the whole process of the trial takes a bit of time to ensure justice."

Protests are expected on Saturday in Bangladesh following the news of a new incident: the rape and killing of a student in the south-east of the country. The 14-year-old is reported to have left home to bring in her family's cows in Rangamati district one evening earlier this week. Her uncle later found her body in a forest. An autopsy report later confirmed that she had been raped and then strangled.

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