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WRI Women 1994/02

• Introduction
• Justice for Brazilian Women: An Interview with Virginia Feix
• 6th Feminist Encuentro for Latin America and the Caribbean
• Country Profiles
  • Brazil
  • Bolivia
  • Colombia
  • Argentina
• Feminism and the Environment in Brazil
• Facts at a Glance
• Living on the Streets
• Rapes in Mexico
• Letter from South Africa
• News
  • Political Asylum for Women
• Women as Victims of Structural Violence
• Migratory Nurses: The Brain Drain
• Books and Publications
• Resources
  • Women's Comics
  • Women's Radio en ingles y español
  • News from Latin America

WRI Women is edited by Shelley Anderson. Queries about the WRI Women's Working Group can be made through the WRI office at infowri-irg.org.

Introduction

WRI women are preparing presentations throughout the Triennial around the theme of "Determination and Resistance: How Women Work Against Violence". A work group on this theme may meet every day. Some of the topics that have been proposed include the connections between militarism, violence against women, and economic oppression; women and demilitarisation processes, (including women's experiences of UN peacekeeping troops); and women and economic oppression. We may also discuss how can we work together internationally (for example, prioritising common issues, or looking at possible common campaigns). The proposals are tentative; if you are interested in working on this theme, please contact the WRI Women's Working Group Coordinator, Maggie Helwig, at the London office.

Last but not least: included in this issue is a special supplement in Portuguese, "Europa um Paraiso?" ("Europe, a paradise?"). The supplement is from a brochure prepared by a network of European groups against the traffic in women. It gives the stories of three Brazilian women who, believing they were being offered legitimate jobs in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, left Brazil and travelled to Europe for "uma vida melhor" ("a better life"). Once there, they were forced to work as prostitutes.

This supplement is especially for visitors to the Triennial from Europe. We encourage you to take it with you to the Triennial and share it with interested women and girls who may have questions about life in Europe. The supplement includes advice on travel (keep all valid travel documents and important addresses with you, etc.) and immigration, and the addresses of women's groups who are prepared to help in case of problems.

There will be one more issue of the WRI Women's Newsletter this year. This will continue the focus on Latin America. We look forward to your articles and news (in Spanish or English) by September 20.

Adeus!

Shelley Anderson

Justice for Brazilian Women: An Interview with Virginia Feix

Virginia Feix works as a lawyer in the human rights commission of the state assembly in Porto Alegre. It was a natural step for her, as she had been working on human rights issues--specifically, amnesty for prisoners of the dictatorship--since 1985. While the changes since then have encouraged her, "all the apparatus for oppressing the people is still there," she says. "Now, instead of repressing dissidents, the poor and blacks are repressed in the name of national security."

Brazil's constitution, promulgated in 1988, has been one of the biggest changes. "The Constitution achieved many rights for women. Criminal law is still bad for women, but under the Constitution, women are guaranteed equal wages, and men and women have the same obligations and duties within the family. One article even declares that the state must take measures and policies to prevent and avoid violence inside the family. That is why it is important now to make women aware of their rights. This is why we work in the legal area, to see that the laws become applied."

On paper, the Brazilian Constitution looks like a feminist dream. There is 120 days of paid maternity leave; even women in prison have the right to have their children next to them long enough to breast feed. There are articles setting a minimum wage and guaranteeing social security for domestic workers, and an article which outlines free state assistance for all children until six years of age.

"None of these rights are known or applied," says Virginia. "Most women don't know what a constitution is. We have good laws, but the judiciary system is not sensitive to women. There is a lack of public defenders, so access to the law is very limited and expensive, even though access is a right and the state is obligated to create conditions for the poor to have a public defender." This is why Virginia and a few other women created Themis, a legal literacy organization for women. The group is named after the ancient Greek goddess of justice.

"Themis tries to empower women to face the courts. We educate community leaders so they can go back to their movements and educate other women about their legal rights. Our training is eight months long. The first four months we give information about different areas of law such as human rights, family law, labor law, and we explain how the judiciary is organized. The second half of the training we go to the courts and to the state assembly, so the women can talk with judges and defenders--and we take judges and defenders to the community groups."

Last year women leaders from a slum community and from the national network of mothers' clubs were trained. This year leaders in the prostitutes' movement and from another poor community are being trained. "Just to enter a court building leaves these women lost and afraid," says Virginia. It is not easy, she points out, for women who have been jailed and abused by the law to return to a court house. But the results can be powerful, especially in a society where physical violence against women is considered normal.

"Our problems are universal problems," says Virginia, when asked what are some of Brazilian women's major issues. "Domestic violence is very common. Women know, of course, that this exists, but they don't know it is a crime, because the culture tolerates it. We have to make more people aware that the problem exists. Legally, to prove you were beaten is difficult, so we have to develop mechanisms to prove and to collect evidence."

In Brazil, government funding created Women's Defense Councils, where representatives from both public and private sectors debate issues of importance to women, and make decisions that are binding upon the government. One key issue has been violence against women, and, in particular, how the law deals with this problem. The Women's Defense Councils and grassroots women's organizing has led to changes in how violence against women is dealt with. Before the 1980s, many men who murdered women were acquitted when they plead a "legitimate defense of honor". The defendant claimed he was defending his honor, because his wife or girl friend had been involved with another man. In 1988 the Superior Court, in an unprecedented move, overruled a "legitimate defense of honor" justification made by an all-male jury in the case of Joao Lopes. The Superior Court declared that, "homicide cannot be considered a normal and legitimate means of responding to adultery, for in such crimes what is defended is not honor, but self-adulation, arrogance, and the pride of a man who considers his wife to be his property."

In 1985, thanks to groups like the Black Women's Collective, SOS Mujer and the Brazilian Bar Association-Sao Paulo Section, a pilot project involving an all-women's police station began in downtown Sao Paulo. The police women handled only cases of violence against women. Soon, long lines of women who had experienced rape, beatings, kidnapping, imprisonment and death threats began to appear in front of the new police station. The resulting media publicity about the project made violence against women a national concern. There are now 41 women's police stations in Sao Paulo. Virginia is sceptical about the project, pointing out that the special stations are too few and far between for most women. Some police women, she says, have trivialized victims and urged them simply to return home. Others argue that the stations have provided much needed assistance and helped to document just how prevalent violence against women is.

Virginia remains sceptical. "Police in general are violent against women, especially prostitutes. The police torture the wives and girlfriends of criminals just to get information. Our job is to make this violence more visible."

Themis, with three coordinators and 24 volunteers, hopes to make state and individual violence more visible in March 1995, when it will hold an international seminar on "Justice: Gender, Race and Class" for judges, prosecutors and other members of the bar.

Virginia is also excited about an event closer in the future: this year's upcoming November national election. Like many Brazilians, she is confidant that Luiz Ignacio Da Silva (known as ´Lula') will win the Presidency. "He represents our history," she says. "Even his name is a common Brazilian name. He represents a party (the Partido Dos Trabalhadores--the Workers Party) that has clearly been in touch with the excluded groups in our country--the poor, blacks and women." It is with the marginalised and excluded where Virginia sees hope, and the future of Brazil.

Themis, Andradas 1137/2311, Porto Alegre/RS, Brazil. Tel. 051 221 4290; fax 051 225 9028.

6th Feminist Encuentro for Latin America and the Caribbean

"Through workshops, working groups, forums and videos," wrote one Peruvian participant, "the exchange of information and experiences took place, as well as discussions and an evaluation of the Latin American feminist movements. The topics were diverse: democracy, women's human rights, electronic mail, racism, feminist theology, lesbianism, Beijing, etc. There was also space for learning to renew our energy and relax with massages, meditation, dances and rituals."

The participant, a lesbian, noted that, "Lesbians met every afternoon, with women from each country providing information about the legal, economic and social situation of lesbians. Like the feminist movement, the lesbian movement has different levels of development in each country. Problems were mentioned: isolation in relation to other movements (especially the human rights movement); financial problems; the increase in violence, repression and murders. The next lesbian encuentro for Latin America and the Caribbean will take place in Brazil, in September 1994, several days before the regional preparatory committee for Beijing."

Organizers of the 6^th encuentro had debated cancelling the conference after receiving death threats from El Salvador's extreme right wing ARENA party. ARENA had placed advertisements on television and radio warning Salvadoran women to stay away from the encuentro. ARENA used the fear of lesbians to try to intimidate potential participants, claiming that lesbian groups would be recruiting women, promoting abortion and the breakup of the family. Police detained some 100 women at the airport the day before the encuentro, singling out and questioning women who were travelling alone. Organizers placed advertisements of their own and noted that Salvadoran women attended the event in large numbers.

Country Profiles

Brazil

Economy: Gross National Product per capita is $2,540 (to compare, GNP per capita in the US is $20,910). High inflation, with almost half the population living below the poverty line. Main exports are coffee, soymeal, sugar, orange juice, iron ore, steel products, motor vehicles, aircraft.

Population: 150.4 million (almost 75 percent live in cities). A little more than half the population is descended from European (mostly Portuguese) and Middle Eastern immigrants; out of perhaps five million indigenous people before the Conquest, approximately 250,000 remain. Almost six percent of the population is descended from African slaves; there is a large minority of Japanese-Brazilians.

Languages: Portuguese and many indigenous languages.

Life Expectancy: 66 years (to compare, life expectancy in the US is 76 years); in the poverty stricken Northeast and Amazon, 45 years.

Infant Mortality: In 1992, one Brazilian child under age five died every two minutes. Almost a quarter of all infant deaths in Latin America are in Brazil. More than half of all child deaths in Brazil take place in the Northeast, where the official under-five mortality rate (116 deaths per 1,000 births) is nearly double the national average.

Bolivia

Contact: Centro Integral de la Mujer, Casilla 1302, Tarija, Bolivia. Tel. 0591 66 45818/43032/32036

Bolivia has the lowest life expectancy (54 years) in Latin America, and the highest infant mortality rate (105 deaths per 1,000 live births). It is considered Latin America's least developed country. Almost 65 percent of the people belong to the indigenous nations Aymara or Quechua. The gains made by miners and other workers after the 1952 popular revolution have been undermined by two successive right-wing governments. Women played a crucial role in the fall of Bolivia's last military dictatorship--it was the hunger strike of four women miners, during Christmas 1982, that inspired massive acts of civil disobedience around the country. The Women's Platform, founded on March 8, 1989, has initiated many programs to improve women's status--one of the most recent, organized around the slogan "Since I want Others to Respect Me, I Respect Others", raised public awareness about violence against women and the need for law reform.

Many peasants now depend on the cultivation of the coca leaf, and the US war on drugs has made their communities battle grounds. The population is seven million and GNP per capita is $570.

Colombia

Ofelia Gomez works with a feminist group in Bogota, Colombia. "In Colombia women suffer violence at home, in the streets and in the media. This is an issue that touches us all. Since the 1980s the Colombian women's movement has tried to make violence against women visible.In the last few years this has become a topic of public discussion, but in a distorted way. The government has recognized the violence, but only because it effects the family and children, not because it effects women. Since 1991 there has been a movement to form a new Constitution. The national women's movement made several proposals, such as the free choice of maternity. (We are a Catholic country so we do not talk about abortion). We also proposed an article protecting female heads of households and against discrimination against women. Only the first proposal did not pass. We made a proposal against domestic violence which was brought up by women in Parliament. This didn't succeed either. We were told it was the only proposal to get laughs when it was discussed."

Argentina

In 1865, Paraguay fought a war against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay (The War of the Triple Alliance) which reduced Paraguay's population by half (from 450,000 to 220,000 in 1870). More war was to follow, this time against Paraguay's own people. General Alfredo Stroessner seized power in 1955 and ruled until 1989, during which time one-quarter of the population emigrated to Brazil and Argentina. Most of the population is mestizo, of both European and Indian background; while Spanish is the official language, most people speak Guarani, an indigenous language. In 1987, fundamentalist US missionaries from the New Tribes Mission were responsible for the deaths of five Ayoreo Indians. Violent evictions of Indian communities from their lands are common, as are conflicts between landless peasants and owners of large plantations. There are over four million people in Paraguay. The GNP is $1,030 per capita.

Feminism and the Environment in Brazil

Brazil has paid a high price for the development policies that transformed it, within four decades, from one of Latin America's poorest coffee-growing countries into one of the world's ten largest economies. Brazil today is plagued by massive debt, galloping inflation, stagnant economic growth and widening disparity between the rich and the poor. For example, the richest 20 percent of the population earn over 65 percent of the national income while the poorest 20 percent earn less than 3 percent. Furthermore, 2 percent of the country's farmers own over half the arable land and almost half the population lives below the poverty line.

The situation is worst in the impoverished and overpopulated Northeast (Nordesti), where deforestation, soil erosion, air pollution and overuse of fertilizers have deteriorated the environmental conditions and the quality of life of its inhabitants. The rapid growth of Brazilian cities and industries, especially in the Northeast, has spawned huge, overcrowded slums: shanty towns (favelas) plagued by inadequate water and sanitation, appalling urban pollution, disease, and the risk of landslides and other calamities triggered by environmental degradation.

Infant mortality is twice as high in Brazil as in China, despite a Gross National Product (GNP) seven times as high. Brazil's poor suffer most from its environmental woes, especially its poor women.

Women's participation in the labor force has grown rapidly, from 15 percent in 1950 to 39 percent by the beginning of 1900, according to the Brazilian Institute for Statistics and Geography. But women still earn 52 percent of what men do, are still barred from many jobs, still perform uncounted hours of domestic work, and take on additional income-earning tasks when they must. Women make up a large portion of Brazil's many "informal workers" who do not have access to professional cards or social security benefits.

Environmental and feminist issues have, for the most part, been dealt with by government and civil society as separate issues. Women in Brazil, however, have been concerned about environmental degradation and its effect on the quality of life for decades. This concern was not translated into political action of any importance until both the environmentalists and the feminists organized and gained political leverage.

Some significant leaders include Paula Frassineti Lins Duarte. Born to a poor black family, she is now the head of a very important environmental association in the Northeast. First a school teacher, she became a biologist, returning to her home in Permambuco. In 1978 she made contacts with other biologists who were very involved with environmental questions and founded APAN (Paraiba's Association of the Friends of Nature) along with another biologist. Paula teacher poor children that they have a right to quality of life; she also educates peasants on the risks of agrotoxics and their right to work in a health environment. APAN's advocacy work has succeeded in stopping a tourist development project which would have destroyed 370 hectares of legally protected sites. APAN has also achieved an article in the state Constitution which forbids high buildings at the seashore.

Environmentalism in Brazilian civil society

In the late 1960s, the defense of the rain forests against external exploitation became part of the agenda of the opposition to the military regime. In 1966 a campaign was launched by diverse groups of citizens who opposed the "internationalization" of Brazilian territory. Shortly after the National Campaign for the Defense and Development of Amazonia (CNDDA) was founded, other environmental groups were founded, among them the first women's environmental organizations, the Democratic Association of Gaucha Women (ADFG) in Rio Grande do Sul and the Gaucha Association to Protect Natural Environment (AGAPAN) which was founded by a woman.

The political amnesty granted in 1979 brought back many Brazilians who had been in exile in Europe, where they had been in contact with the Green Parties, who had in their platforms not only environmental, but also feminist issues. Since the early 1980s, environmental issues became a political issue and found a close ally in the feminist sector.

In 1986 the Brazilian Green Party was founded and developed its agenda in close connection with the Workers Party. This represented a new, modern labor consciousness and included a number of other questions, including women's rights, in their platforms. Also that year, a national coalition of environmental groups formed, the National Encounter of Autonomous Environmental Entities (ENEAAS). Since 1990, the environmental movement has shared with other Brazilian social movements (women, blacks, Indians, trade unionists, youth, rural workers, people caught by dams, etc.) the criticism to the model of development that Brazil adopted for four decades.

Feminism in Brazil

Until 1979 no political party incorporated women's demands into its programs and women were forced to operate outside institutional channels. They focused on discrimination against women in the labor market, the absence of day care centers for women workers, the sexual stereotypes which lead to gender discrimination in education, the crucial questions of violence against women and reproductive health care. A feminist press was initiated and labor unions and professional associations incorporated these issues in their discussions.

By the early 1980s, women's issues had become part of the public debate.More progressive political parties began to incorporate women's demands. There was yet no real link between feminists and environmentalists.

Redemocratization led to the establishment of Councils for Women's Rights, at the Federal, State and Municipal levels, to help implement demands from feminist groups for policies to fight violence against women, job discrimination, and in favor of day care. In 1985 the National Council for Women's Rights was established. The Councils, along with women's nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), participated in the formation of the new constitution during 1987-1988, and were successful in incorporating many provisions on social benefits, labor rights and reproductive health. Most of these, however, have yet to be made into specific laws.

In the late 1980s the National Council was disbanded because of opposition and budget cuts. Women's NGOs remain active.

Women and the Environment

Quality of life--access to proper sanitation and housing, the right to live in a health environment--is the link between women and the environment. While many women, especially poor women, have been the main agents in the struggle for a better quality of life, many of them do not perceive themselves as actors in the environmental field.

The frame of reference into initiatives on women and the environmental is very broad. It should leave room for the inclusion of specific questions related to female physiology, such as the relation between acid rain and abortion, of pollution and low weight of premature babies, of the work in certain pharmaceutical industries and its effects on menstrual cycles and fertility, of agrotoxics and birth defects. Issues of desertification, compulsive migration and its specific effects on women show that environmental degradation has both physical and social effects on women.

Population; Linking Women, Environment and Development

The dramatic decrease of birth rates in Brazil (the annual birth rate is down to 1.8 percent from 2.5 percent a decade ago) and the significant weight that sterilization has played in this decrease (some press reports say that half of all married women between 15 and 45 have been sterilized), have made the question of choice and the quality of care a crucial one. At the same time the fact that this decrease in population growth has not meant an increase in the quality of life indicates clearly that more complex analyses are needed, linking the prevailing development model to environmental degradation.

Supported by a strong international movement, Brazilian women have refused to surrender their right to make decisions about their own bodies to the rationale of population planners. Despite the differences among Brazilian women, they agree that high birth rates are not a cause of poverty but a consequence of it and that it is time to talk about the explosion of poverty, not population.

Government agencies have not yet incorporated gender as a variable to be taken into consideration in their programs. The Brazilian Institute of Environment (IBAMA) has two projects, however, which does: one looks at the working conditions of the ´marisqueiras', the women who dig molluscs. Carried out by the Nucleus of Women Studies of the University of Bahia (NEIM), it looks at both the protection of the mangroves and the creation of decent working conditions.

The other is related to the ´quebradeiras de Babacu' in Maranhao state. It focuses on women who earn their living by breaking coconuts, whose pits are used in food oil and soap industry. Farmers have been enclosing the babacus (areas where the coconuts grow). The women breakers have been persecuted and even killed, and the babacus ecosystems destroyed.

A new paradigm, referred to as ´eco-feminism'--has emerged that women's association with nature is a wealth, not a handicap. The proximity of women and nature is part of a process of reevaluation of the South and of a criticism of the ´civilizing' process of the North which has generated destruction if nature and of human beings and created societies of overconsumption, responsible for the pollution of their own environment and of developing countries.

Eco-feminism then emerges as an ethical claim against an immoral pattern of development.

Excerpted with permission from INSTRAW News, the magazine of the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW--No. 19, 1993). INSTRAW is an autonomous UN body which conducts research, training and information activities to integrate women in development.

Facts at a Glance

Some 20 percent of Brazil's 35 million families are now headed by women. Most are poor and live with inadequate sanitation: over 90 percent of children under a year old in the Northeast live in homes with inadequate sewage systems.

Women in Brazil earn, on the average, 52 percent of what men do.

Latin America has one of the highest rates in the Third World of women engaged in economic activities outside of the home. According to authors Brydon and Chant (Women in the Third World), "in most countries in the continent 26 to 45 percent of women aged 15 years or more have paid employment, and on an average women constitute between 16 to 35 percent of the total labor force in Latin American nations." As work outside the home does not mean a lessening of household duties, many Latin American women have a double workload.

80 percent of women surveyed in Santiago, Chile, said they were beaten by male relatives or partners at home.

In the Caribbean women aged 15 years or over display an average rate of participation in economic activities of between 45 to 65 percent, which is among the highest for the developing world as a whole.

In Nicaragua, 44 percent of men said they beat their wives or girlfriends regularly.

In a country-wide survey on violence in Colombia, one out of five women were beaten by their partners, one out of ten raped, and one out of three had been mentally abused.

According to statistics covering the years 1985 to 1990, Latin American women bear an average of 3.6 children during their reproductive years. Bolivia has the highest birthrate in Latin America, as well as the highest child mortality rate in the hemisphere: 171 children per 1,000 will die before they are five years old.

61 percent of Mexican housewives are physically abused by their husbands or partners, according to a study conducted by the Federal District's Department of Justice. A statistical survey conducted in Netzahualcoyotl, a city next to Mexico City, found that one in three women had been victims of family violence; 20 percent reported blows to the stomach during pregnancy.

During the colonial period in Latin America, Spanish and Portuguese legal codes identified women as "imbecilitus sexus" or "an imbecile by nature."

(From Freedom From Violence: Women's Strategies From Around the World, UNIFEM, 1992; "Women and the 500 Years", CLAI)

Living on the Streets

"I got by in the city, picking up men, though I had to put up with them hitting me. What really makes me angry is the way that these machos beat you up all the time. It makes you want to kill them, that's why I don't live with a guy. I just sell my body to them from time to time." Katia

The Anti-Slavery Society of Britain estimates that there are over 30 million street children in Brazil alone. "Meninos da rua" (street children) in Rio de Janeiro are regularly beaten up by police, and sometimes tortured and killed, in periodic "clean up the streets" campaigns. While all the children face problems like hunger and exploitation, girls are especially vulnerable to sexual abuse. It is a bitter irony that many girls run away from home in the first place in order to escape sexual abuse from male relatives. A study of child prostitution in Cochabamba, Bolivia, found that 79 percent of the girls surveyed said they became prostitutes because of economic need when they ran away from home to escape incest and rape by male relatives.

Children are organizing for their survival: again in Rio de Janeiro, several dozen children have found shelter in the Republica dos Meninos (Children's Republic), an abandoned building taken over by Paulo Faustino. Faustino bought a similar abandoned house and set up a carpentry workshop to help the older children support the house by restoring furniture.

The National Street Children's Movement began in Brazil in 1975 to defend the rights of young people living on the streets. It is now organized in 22 of Brazil's 27 states with over 3,000 volunteers. One young girl, Andrea, talked about the work she does in the movement:

"We in the street, since we don't have anyone to help us denounce these things, get together and talk. We choose a place, one of the houses of the Street Children's Movement. We go there for the Thursday meeting of the children. We talk with the educators and tell them what's been happening. We have a little newspaper, and they ask us to give them details which come out in the pages of the paper. We ourselves have demonstrations, give interviews on the radio and have debates to see if things might get a little better. But the more we debate, the more denunciations or demonstrations we make, the worse it gets. The more dangerous it becomes." (from Gilberto Dimenstein's Brazil: War on Children, Monthly Review Press, NY, US, 1991.

Women's groups like Sempre Viva provide medical, legal, emotional and educational support for girls on the streets. Based in Rio de Janeiro's south zone, the group distributes information about contraception and the girls' legal rights under Brazil's Statute of the Child and Adolescent. The girls, says one educator, have a "kind of ignorance about themselves as citizens."

Sempre Viva has helped with group housing for five teen mothers, and leads small group discussions where the girls, between the ages of ten and 18, are encouraged to share their experiences. The group's professional educators meet with the girls on the streets in their neighborhoods, providing counseling, leadership training and help with looking for work. The educators, like the girls themselves, are threatened with violence, and one team member was murdered last year. Sempre Viva wants more contact with international human rights groups, in order to speak out against the abuses experienced by street girls.

Colectivo Feminista Sexualidade Saude (CFSS) and Coordenadoria Especial da Mulher/Sao Paulo (CEM)

Dr. Simone Grilo Diniz has worked with CFSS in Sao Paulo since 1985. "health institutions are strong, powerful agenst of control over women's lives." She spoke at 1991 Center for Women's Global Leadership institute on "Women, Violence and Human Rights", on the whole range of the medical system's violence against women: forced strilization, gynecological rape, compulsory motherhood, and the 'medicalization' of pregnancy and birth. In Sao Paulo, 98.5 percent of the women give birth in hospitals, but poor women frequently have to go from hospital to hospital during labor in search of a free bed. One maternal mortality survey in Sao Paulo documented a case of one pregnant women in labor going to 11 hospitals before she was admitted. Once admitted to hoispital, a woman has a 50 percent chance of undergoing a caesarian section and 15 to 40 percent chance of contracting a hospital infection. Often she is allowed no contact with the baby or with anyone she knows for hours.

Diniz says such treatment is institutionalal violence. She is developing a new epidemiology of violent death that takes into account any avoidable death of a healthy individual and in particular the death of women from avoidable complications of pregnancy, childrebirth and battery. Lack of access to safe and legal abortion would be counted as 'violent death.' "denying a woman's riht to decide whether or not not to have a child is denying her status as a human being. Humanizing ourselves is gaining the right to decide about our own bodies." The reason why reproductive rights are not considered "human rights," she said, "is because men don't reproduce." CFSS, Pav. Pe. Manoel de Nobrega, sala 13-terreo, Cep-0498, Parque Ibirapuera, Sao Paulo-S.P., Brazil

CEFEMINA

In Costa Rica one organization that works with young mothers reported that 95 percent of pregnant clients under 16 are victims of incest.

In another study of 1,388 women seeking services (not related to violence) at Costa Rica's national child welfare agency, one in two reported being physically abused.

Venezuelan Association for an Alternative Sexual Education (AVESA)

Centro de la Mujer Peruana Flora Tristan (Women's Legal Rights Program)

Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action (CAFRA), Women and Law Project

A Sampling of Latin American/Caribbean Women's Groups Working Against Violence Against Women

Belize Women Against Violence Movement, P.O. Box 1190, Belize City, Belize. Tel. (02) 74845; fax (02) 77236.

Center for Information and Development of Women in Bolivia, Casilla 14036, La Paz, Bolivia. Tel. 37 4961

A Violencia Domestica, Instituto de Acao Cultural, Rua Visconde de Piraja 550, sala 1404, Ipanema 22410, Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

Isis Internacional, Casilla 2067, Correo Central, Santiago, Chile. Tel. 225 3629 or 490 271.

Casa de la Mujer, Apartado 36151, Bogota, Colombia. Tel. 248 2469.

National Coordinating Committee of Salvadoran Wpmen (CONAMUS), Apartado postal 3262, Centro de Gobierno, San Salvador, El Salvador. Fax (503) 262 080.

Comite Latinoamericano para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer, Honduras (CLADEM-H), P.O. Box 3124, Tegucigalpa, d.c. Honduras. Tel. 22 0674; fax 31 7073.

Say No to Violence! Sistren Theatre Collective, 20 Kensington Crescent, Kingston 5, Jamaica.

Red Contra la Violencia Hacia las Mujeres, Xola 1454, Colonia Narvante, Deleg. Benito Juarez, C.P. 03020 Mexico, D.F., Mexico.

St. Lucia Crisis Center, P.O. 1257, Castries, St. Lucia, West Indies. Tel. (809) 31521.

Rapes in Mexico

indigenous women from Santa Rosita Sibaquil (in the municipality of Altamirano). The rapes took place at a military roadblock outside of Altamirano, where the soldiers were on duty.

The young women had sold their farm produce in the town of

Altamirano and were returning with their mother when they

were detained and taken to a room near the military roadblock to be interrogated by a sergeant. There, after being accused of being Zapatistas and threatened with death, they were raped by all of the soldiers.

The community has requested the neutral presence of the International Red Cross to counter the climate of oppressive militarization in the area around Altamirano. This presence could prevent new aggression such as the above, and also guarantee the passage of medical and humanitarian aid to the civil population in the zone.

We as the international community to fax and write the president of Mexico, to the denouncement the rapes, to insure the survivors' physical and psychological safety, and to ask for the installation by the International Red Cross of a neutral zone in the cooperative farming community of Eijdo, Morelia, in the municipality of Altamirano.

The faxes and telegrams should be sent to the following addresses:

1. Lic. Carlos Salinas de Gortari
2. Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos
3. Palacio Nacional
4. Mexico, D.F.
5. Fax: 2-71-17-74

1. Presidency of the International Red Cross
2. Attn Sr. Francis Amar
3. General Delegate for Latin America and the Caribbean
4. 19 Avenue de la Paix
5. Geneva, Switzerland
6. Fax: (022) 733-2057

Please send copies to CONPAZ. On June 30^th, CONPAZ and the Grupo de Mujeres de San Cristobal (Women s Group of San Cristobal) denounced the rapes to the Ministerio Publico Federal (equivalent of the attorney general).

They accused the Mexican Federal Army of gang rape, intimidation and making death threats against the women. CONPAZ and the Women's Group presented the denunciation on behalf of the three young women, using a tape-recorded account of the case made by the women.

Additionally, the National Commission of Human Rights, and specifically their agent, Carlos Reyes N., were denounced. According to documentation, members of this governmental commission arrived at the women's community on June 21 in order to investigate the rapes. They used the names of another organization and another person in order to gain the survivors' trust and obliged them to sign documents with thumb prints. Possibly these documents will be used to cover up the illegal actions of the Army, as has happened previously.

From: Coalition of Non-governmental Organizations for Peace (CONPAZ)

Chiapa de Corzo 19 El Cerrillo

San Cristobal de las Casas

C.P. 29220 Chiapas, Mexico

Letter from South Africa

"It has been the most extraordinary and incredible time for us all. I will try and capture some of what it meant for me. The weeks and the months leading up to the election were fraught with violence, fear and uncertainty. How many ordinary citizens would still be killed before we would elect a new government? The fears about indiscriminate killings, drive-by shootings and general anarchy on the days of the election were widespread. And then the first day of the election--people streamed in their millions to the voting stations. Many had been lining up since before sunrise--some had even made plans to sleep close to the voting stations so that they could be first in line. In the densely populated urban areas as well as the rural areas it was the same--long lines dragging far into the distance and people waited patiently to cast their vote--the first time for the majority of South Africans. I did some work for the local ANC branch assisting with monitoring the voting stations in my area and feeding that information to a central data centre. All was peaceful. So, Karl [Adele's husband] and I decided to go and join the crowds at one of the many voting stations in my area. We watched people come and go, relaxed, smiling friendly--there was a spirit of comradeship and togetherness. We waited. We watched the sun set and felt the chill autumn air in our bones and still we were about an hour away from the entrance. People sang, laughed, chatted to strangers as they waited, savouring this great moment. We had waited for five hours and then it was over in a matter of minutes. But the pleasure of having shared that moment with all the ordinary people of our suburb and our land remains.

"The festivities and parties began long before the final results were out but we knew that the people who had dreamed and hoped and fought against the evils of apartheid for a more just and democratic country--that those would be the winners in this election. Nelson Mandela's victory speech on the Monday after the election brought tears to my eyes--and again as he took the oath to serve the nation on the 10^th May, I cried tears of joy and sadness. The sadness is because many people lost their lives in the fight for justice and I lost my youth and personal freedom during the dark days of the 1980s. There is also the loss of that close community of activists and friends--some have discarded their ideals, other become cynical, corporate employees.

"The surge of creative energy and hope that has been generated by these dramatic events in the life of our country make me optimistic about the future and the possibilities for something new. However, I am not blind to the reality that the burdens of apartheid will remain with us for many more generations and added to that, the many new government officials who will not serve the needs of the people. But, the spirit of reconciliation which largely Mandela has contributed to, dominates at this moment....

"In ending, I am reminded that the joy and hope I feel because of the events of the past few weeks, is shared with all of you who played your part through the international community in bring an end to the injustice of apartheid....Isn't all this a wonderful event for South Africa--but the honeymoon will soon be over and the struggle will continue."

News

Political Asylum for Women

Women as Victims of Structural Violence

"I want to avert the end through work. Through work by healthy men. Thanks to that the ghetto exists...The Germans wouldn't keep a ghetto for women and children for very long: they won't give them food for one extra day."

Jacob Gens, leader of the Jewish ghetto of Vilna

Forty women gathered for a study weekend around the theme of "Women as Victims of Structural Violence: the Holocaust and ex-Yugoslavia" in early June, near Amsterdam. Each woman comes with her story--there is a pastor, wondering if she should accept a position as a military chaplain; a Filipina student, angry at the violence of poverty; a German educator from Ravensbruck, the Nazi concentration camp for women; a Dutch nurse, now in her 70s, who still remembers the German occupation of her country; an Amsterdam social worker who shocks the group by saying, "I work with survivors of the Shoah (the Holocaust). They tell me their grandchildren are coming up to them, asking them how they survived. The grandchildren are telling them, ´We must know, because it begins to happen again.'"

The women came with stories, and they left with more stories. And even more questions.

Then

Ringelheim said we will never know how many people died. But she cites figures from operations by special mobile Nazi death squads, lists of deportations from ghettos: 44 percent killed of those killed during six months of one unit's work were women, 28 percent children; 62 percent of those deported from the Lodz ghetto in 1942 were women, mostly younger women.

More women died than men, Ringelheim believes. She offered few explanations as to why this might be so: in the early days, when escape was still possible, more men than women fled. Children made women's escape harder; many also believed that Jewish men were the target, not Jewish women and children.

What of survival? What helped women survive could also destroy them: many survivors, male and female, commented on the intense emotional relationships women made in the camps, and in resistance groups. The relationships helped the women live, but could also prove emotionally devastating if a friend or comrade died.

Now

Resistance

Those are the ones we know about. There are others. "Dr. Janusz Korczak is a hero," said Ringelheim, of the respected pedagogue from the Warsaw ghetto. "He had a chance to escape the ghetto, but decided to go with the orphans under his care to Treblinka. But you never hear of Stefania Wilezynska, who had managed the orphanage since 1911, who actually cared for the children, and who also chose to go with them to Treblinka. You learn nothing of her or the other six women who went with the children. Something that is seen as ordinary behavior for women becomes heroic when a man does it."

Zenica Medica

The Future

Resources:

Mass Rape: The War Against Women in Bosnia-Herzegovina, edited by Alexandra Stiglmayer (University of Nebraska Press, 1994, $14.95 paperback), includes interviews with survivors, testimonies and essays which explore the many facets of mass rape and war. Published in 1993 in Europe as Massen Vergewaltigung: Krieg gegen Die Frauen (Kore, VerlagGmbH, Drei Königstr. 6, D-7800 Freiburg, Germany).

Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust, edited by Carol Rittner and John K. Roth, Paragon House, New York, US, 1993.

Autobiographies and diaries of women survivors: Prisoners of Fear by Ella Lingens-Reiner; An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum; None of Us Will Return by Charlotte Delbo; I Am Alive by Kitty Hart; Playing for Time by Fania Fénelon.

Migratory Nurses: The Brain Drain

Just as in the old days, today Europe is once again taking material produced in the Americas for use at home. The materials, this time, are human and the demand stems from a worldwide shortage of trained nurses.

The phenomenon of Uruguayan professionals emigrating is not new and has become, after all these years, to bleed the country in two ways. On one hand, it is emigration in a country of three million, while on the other hand, it is the loss of young qualified people who were brought up by the community (a state-run university education of up to seven years.)

The drama erupts from a country that trains them but cannot keep them. The university has become, in a way, a factory turning out the unemployed. And university-level nursing is a career that is predominantly female.

The University School of Nursing has gained national and international prestige for producing graduates. For more than twenty years, Uruguayan nurses have been part of the migratory path, primarily to Swiss hospitals, although in insignificant numbers.

Today the phenomenon has become alarming. For the past month, Spanish and North American representatives from public and private health institutions have been recruiting nursing personnel in Montevideo.

A Uruguayan nurse makes about $350 per month. The contract to work in Spain includes $1500 per month, six hours of work per day, one month leave, three free days during certain vacation periods, and, along with Sundays, two optional days off per month. The 72 contractees will pass a test and wait for a final degree examination; a formality that ends in December, the month they will travel to take up their new positions at a hospital 40 kilometers from Madrid.

As for recruitment in the USA, working conditions are better but the formalities are more involved. A position at a private hospital in New Jersey brings a contract for $2800 per month plus room and board at the hospital. The exam in this case first requires a test on language and then, once working and after a period of probation, proof of competency.

The number of contractees becomes especially significant since the nursing school graduates only 60 students per year. These contracts already represent more than a generation of graduates.

While the university trains nurses for export, hospitals and sanatoria in Uruguay run the risk of being left with inexperienced and improvised help.

A proposal for legislation was presented to the Parliament by the Uruguayan Nurses Association to search for a solution to this critical situation.

Books and Publications

Hear My Testimony by María Teresa Tula (1994, 224 pages, $14). A deeply personal account of the life of a human rights activist in El Salvador. Tula describes her childhood, marriage, political activism in CO-MADRES (Committee of Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners, Assassinated and Disappeared of El Salvador) and the resulting imprisonment and torture. Her testimony is followed by several chapters on recent Salvadoran history, women's grassroots organizing and more stories of testimony. Translated by Lynn Stephen, available from South End Press, 116 Saint Botolph St., Boston, MA 02115, USA.

The January 1994 issue of The New Internationalist is on "Mexico: Through the Tortilla Curtain". There are articles on the struggle of the Huichol indigenous people, the economic exploitation of Mexican workers in the US, NAFTA, GATT and an interview with a radical bishop, plus a short sketch of Mexican history. Contact the New Internationalist, 120-126 Lavender Avenue, Mitcham, Surrey CR4 3HP, UK. Tel. +44 81 685 0372.

Lesbians Talk: Making Black Waves (64 pages, 1993, Scarlet Press, UK, £4.50) by Valerie Mason-John and Ann Khambatta is the first book by Black lesbians to document the lives and history of Black lesbians in Britain. "For me, one of the main aims of the book is for black lesbians to realize that there is a black lesbian herstory behind us. That Black lesbianism is something which has and does happen in our countries of origin, it's not a product of colonisation." The book highlights some of the 500-year-old story of black lesbians in Britain itself, and around the world: the women-only societies of ancient India called Strirajya, and the legal marriages between women among the Kuriar people of southwest Kenya and northwest Tanzania. There are fascinating interviews with Black lesbians (whose heritage includes Africa, the Caribbean, South and South East Asia and the Middle East) about their lives, political debates and issues today. Making Black Waves can be ordered from the feminist bookshop Silver Moon, 64-68 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H OBB, UK. Tel. +44 (0)71 836 7906.

Lesbertária is the name of a new Portuguese-language lesbian newsletter in Brazil. For a sample copy send an international money order in the amount of US $3 to: Caixa Postal, 01495-970 Sao Paulo, SP Brazil.

Resources

Women's Comics

Women's Radio en ingles y español

News from Latin America

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