As 2023 ends, where are the women? Increasingly, in prisons and jails and under attack

December 14, 2023 by Leave a Comment

A year ago, the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics released two reports, Jail Inmates in 2021 and Prisoners in 2021. From June 2020 to June 2021, the number of people held in jails rose 16%: “The number of males confined in local jails increased 15% from 2020 to 2021, while females increased 22%.” From June 2020 to June 2021, the number of people in prisons decreased by 1%: “The overall decline reflected a decrease in prison populations in 32 states that was offset by an increase in 17 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).” Where were the women in this modestly decreasing population? “Twenty-three states and the BOP each had more female prisoners at yearend 2021 than at yearend 2020. The number of females in the BOP prison population increased more than 7% (up almost 800) from yearend 2020 to yearend 2021 … The BOP had approximately 5% more sentenced females and 1% more sentenced males at yearend 2021 than at yearend 2020.”  Well, it’s a year later, at the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics released two reports, Jail Inmates in 2022 and Prisoners in 2022. Where are the women? Increasingly, in prisons and jails and under attack. Everywhere and nowhere, all at once.

Let’s begin with the Bureau’s prisoner summary: “In 2022, combined state and federal prisoner population increased for first time in almost a decade …. The number of females in state or federal prison increased almost 5% from yearend 2021 (83,700) to yearend 2022 (87,800).” Here’s the Bureau’s jail inmates summary: “Local jails held 4% more people in 2022 than in 2021 … From 2021 to 2022, the number of females in jail increased 9%, while the number of males increased 3%”

The overall prison population increased by 2%; the number of women increased by 5%. From 2021 to 2022, the number of females in jail increased 9%, while the number of males increased 3%. Why are women `winning’ the race to the bottom? Overwhelmingly they are convicted, or better condemned, for non-violent acts, mostly property or drug-related, mostly generated by poverty, drugs, or trauma. This is the second year in a row that women’s incarceration rate increases have exceeded those of men. What does that say? In October, in Uganda, the Commissioner General of Prison Service bemoaned the sorry state of women’s incarceration, noting, “We have a policy that all women are entitled to beds. We might not be meeting it but that is our policy.” We have a policy. We might not be meeting it but that is our policy. Unlike Uganda, the United States has a policy, which it is meeting. That policy is called witch hunt. For woman in distress, ailing, abused, in need of assistance, the place is a cage … with a bed … perhaps. We have a policy, and we are proud to say we are meeting it. What wonders will next year’s report reveal?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Images Credit: Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage / Aimee Wissman)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , ,

In Uganda, the Prisons Service decries and worries about fatal prison overcrowding … again

December 12, 2023 by Leave a Comment

In the past two months, the heads of Uganda’s prison system have discovered and decried the intense prison overcrowding in their own prisons. In October, the headline read, “Prisons worry over increased number of female inmates”. Today’s headline reads, “Prisons boss decries abuse of prisoners’ rights”. The abuse is overcrowding. Will this performative articulation of attention make any difference? If history is any guide … no. As of September 2023, Uganda’s prisons were the third most congested in the world, after the Republic of Congo and Haiti. Uganda’s prisons are at 367.4% of capacity. In 2021, Uganda’s prison density was 319%. From 2000 to 2020, year after year, Uganda’s prison population has grown. In 2000, the prisons were already at over-capacity. In 2005, two-thirds of Uganda’s 18,000 prisoners were awaiting trial. Some had been caged for years, for no reason other than not being able to post bond. Of the 18,000, prisoners, 5,000 were in Luzira, built in the 1950’s, designed for a capacity of 500. That’s ten people for every one person’s space. For years. In 2010, the prison system reported over 30,000 prisoners, of whom a little over 1,000 were women. In March 2010, Luzira Upper was at 366% of approved capacity; Luzira Women’s at 357%. In 2013, members of civil society called on the State to “exempt women offenders with babies and expectant mothers from long custodial sentences”. At that time, 161 children of women prisoners were guests of the Ugandan State. In March 2012, Luzira Women’s Prison was at 357% capacity. In October 2016, Uganda’s notoriously overcrowded prisons recorded an occupancy rate of 293%, more than half of whom were pre-trial or remand prisoners.

It’s a bit late to be `discovering’ the problem. It has been there all along, in plain sight and fully documented. What’s going on? The State agencies have a simple answer: too many remand prisoners. What’s really going on? At the very least, the problem is no problem at all. Heads of prison staff routinely discover the overcrowding, lament the overcrowding, explain the overcrowding, and then do absolutely nothing.

According to the Commissioner General of the Uganda Prison Service, Can. Dr. Johnson Omuhunde Rwashote Byabashaija, in the last ten years, there has been a 125% increase in the number of incarcerated women, from 1591 in 2013 to 3585 today. The Commissioner’s response? “We have a policy that all women are entitled to beds. We might not be meeting it but that is our policy. Even when they are in prison, they are mothers of the nation. We can’t handle them the way we handle the other inmates. It is very terrible to see mothers congested, mothers need a lot of space to accommodate the children and themselves.” We might not be meeting the policy, but we definitely do have a policy, and so it’s fine.

This week Assistant Commissioner General of Prisons Samuel Akena explained, in a similar vein, “It is not fair for you to claim that I am responsible for poor food, poor housing, or poor clothing. Our responsibility is to ensure that the human rights of these people are observed. Congestion is caused by remand. The capacity I have is only for 20,000 prisoners, but we have 77,089 as of today.” We have a policy that says that our responsibility is to ensure human rights. We have a policy, which we might not be meeting, ok, we’re not meeting, but we have a policy … and so it’s fine.

It’s not fine. It’s not fine to discover, year in and year out, the violations and the violence that ensues therefrom. It’s not fine to continually discover the dangerous to fatal conditions to which so many are condemned, more often than not because they can’t post bail, and then claim the articulation of a policy bathes individuals and institutions of any guilt. A policy without implementation is no policy at all, in fact it’s worse than no policy. What will be discovered next year? This year, the occasion of the Assistant General’s remarks was the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 5 of that Declaration reads, “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” We have a policy. We might not be meeting it.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Karim Mantra / Unsplash)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , ,

In Kenya, the women said, “NON-NEGOTIABLE: my body my womb my rights”. Nine years later, they were heard. Why did it take so long?

December 5, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Nine years ago, almost to the day, five women wearing t-shirts walked into a Nairobi court. On the back, the t-shirts read: “NON-NEGOTIABLE: my body my womb my rights.” On the front, the t-shirts read, “END FORCED AND COERCED STERILIZATION OF WOMEN LIVING WITH HIV”. In September, finally, Kenya’s High Court ruled in their favor, awarding each 3,000,000 Kenyan shilling, or approximately $20,000. This is the second such case in Kenyan history. In December 2022, another Kenyan woman was also awarded 3,000,000 shilling, also for a sterilization without informed consent. So, 3,000,000 shilling, or $20,0000, is the going rate of `compensation’ for violence against women.

We wrote about the case nine years ago. We began writing about forced sterilization in 2012, concerning a case in Namibia, a case to which we returned in 2014. At that time, we argued that the decision in favor of the three women who had sued the State was “a victory for HIV-positive women, for all women, everywhere”. A decade later, we wonder if that declaratino of victory was perhaps a bit premature. Why does it take nine years for the High Court in Nairobi to decide the case, especially when one considers that the final decision absolves the State of all responsibility?

In 2014, we wrote, “The news this week from Chhattisgarh, India, is tragic. At latest count, 15 women have .died in a `sterilization camp’. Fifty others are in hospital, with at least 20 in critical condition. At first the operations were widely described as `botched.’ After only preliminary investigations, the response moved from `botched’ to `criminal’ and `corrupt’. Finally, the reporting has landed on how Indian this all is. It’s not. Forced sterilization of women is a global phenomenon, actually a global campaign, and it needs to be addressed, immediately. The women, all poor, of Chhattisgarh are part of a global public policy in which women’s bodies are, at best, disposable and, more often, detritus.” It’s now 2023, moving into 2024. Why did it take nine years for a High Court to decide?

In late September 2014, California formally banned forced and coerced sterilization of women prisoners … again. Then Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill No. 1135 into law. The bill read, in part: “This bill would prohibit sterilization for the purpose of birth control of an individual under the control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation or a county correctional facility, as specified.” Not forcing sterilization on women prisoners seemed pretty straightforward. Some would even say a no-brainer. And yet, that law took a lot of brains, and muscle and organizing and history. Think about the brains, muscle, organizing and history it took and takes for a group of women, say in Kenya, to discover they’ve been sterilized, without their knowledge much less informed consent; find the means to take the State and so-called health providers to court; and then to wait, not idly but rather mobilizing the entire time, for nine years.

That all happened before the Kenyan women went to court. Since then …

On February 26, 2015 the Virginia legislature agreed to pay $25,000 in compensation to those who had suffered forced sterilization during the Commonwealth’s decades long adventure in eugenics. What’s the rate of exchange between 2015 and 2023? Apparently $25,000 to $20,000.

In March 2015 in South Africa, 48 women living with HIV and AIDS responded to the indignity and abuse of forced sterilization. Represented by Her Rights Initiative, Oxfam, and the Women’s Legal Centre, 48 women who had suffered forced sterilization in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal came forward and lodged a formal complaint. These 48 `cases’ were from 1986 to 2014. Their case has been reported on, fully researched, and documented. As of now, they have received neither compensation nor a formal apology of any sort.

In March 2019, all major parties in Japan agreed to pass a measure that would “deeply apologize” and offer compensation to victim-survivors of forced sterilization. The compensation would be a one-off payment of around $28,700. Now we know the value of life in Japan … and beyond. What is the price of a `deep apology’ when made to women?

On May 26, 2022, Colombia’s newly elected President Gabriel Boric announced, “I would like to start by apologising to Francisca ….  for the serious violation of your rights and also for the denial of justice and for all the time you had to wait for this. How many people like you do we not know? It hurts to think that the state, which today I have the honour to represent, is responsible for these cases. I pledge to you, and to those who today represent you here in person, that while we govern, we will give the best of each one of us as authorities so that something like this will never happen again and certainly so that in cases where these atrocities have already been committed, they will be properly redressed.”. Boric went on to promise to provide specialist training to medical workers on HIV/AIDS to curb discrimination and to ensure that judges and lawyers are aware that affected women have a right to reparations. Who is Francisca?

In 2002, a 20-year-old, married rural woman known as Francisca discovered she was pregnant. She and her partner were elated. When, early in the pregnancy, Francisca went in for tests, she discovered that she was HIV positive. She immediately began a protocol of antiretrovirals. She had a caesarean delivery, successfully, and the child was HIV negative. That child, now 22 years old himself, is still HIV negative. When Francisca emerged from the surgery, a nurse informed her that the surgeon had sterilized her.  Francisca never asked for or wanted to be sterilized and had never consented. In 2007, Francisca sued the doctor. In 2008, the case was dismissed. In 2009, the Center for Reproductive Rights and Vivo Positivo took the case, on Francisca’s behalf, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. In August 2021, the Chilean government signed a settlement accepting responsibility and offering something like reparations: a housing subsidy and healthcare for both Francisca and her son as well as a commitment to raise awareness of HIV and reproductive rights … after thirteen years.

In Peru, from 1996 to 2001, the Peruvian government, under the leadership of Alberto Fujimori, forced at least 2000 indigenous women to undergo forced sterilization … all in the name of family planning. In 2018, Fujimori and his accomplices were informed they would be facing charges. That case basically ended in mistrial. In September 2023, the same month in which the Kenyan women heard they would be receiving `compensation’, the daughters of Celia Ramos, who died in 1997 days after being forcibly sterilized, learned the Inter-American Court of Human Rights will hear the case.

In all of these cases, the justification, if any was even given, included public health, family planning, protection of the individual women. Society must be protected. In each case, the procedure was conducted by trained medical personnel. Women have been subjected to the torture of forced sterilization for a myriad of reasons and, ultimately, for no reason at all. You want to know why it takes the court so many years to adjudicate these women’s complaints? You want to know why it takes so long for these women to find even a modicum of justice? No reason at all.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit: BBC)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , ,

Julia Quecaño Casimiro, Veronica Baleni and the struggle for farm workers’ and small-scale farmers’ dignity

November 22, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Julia Quecaño Casimiro

It turns out it’s not the meek who shall inherit the earth, but rather those who have been mistakenly deemed as meek by the seemingly powerful. This is especially true of those who work the earth, day in and day out. Consider the tales of Julia Quecaño Casimiro and Veronica Baleni. Julia Quecaño Casimiro is a seasonal or migrant farm worker in England; Veronica Baleni is a small-scale farmer in South Africa. Consider their stories and imagine the conversation their tales weave together.

Julia Quecaño Casimiro is Bolivian. She hopes to study biochemistry. To pay for her studies, she went to England to work as a cherry picker, where, the recruiters told her, she would earn about £500 a week and that she would have to repay no more than $1,000 , or £800, for the flight.  After a month, when Casimiro left the farm, she was broke and homeless. Last week, she sued her employers, Haygrove, claiming unlawful deduction of wages, unfair dismissal, discrimination and harassment. Haygrove is one of the UK’s biggest fruit producers. At first, she was given no shifts, then barely given a shift the following week. Then Haygrove told the workers they had to pay £1,500 in six weekly £250 instalments for their flights to the UK. For many, that demand was the final straw. When government inspectors visited Haygrove, they found and reported numerous violations. The State did nothing. So, last week, Julia Quecaño Casimiro filed a complaint, becoming the first person on a seasonal worker visa to take a farm to an employment tribunal.

Julia Quecaño Casimiro had worked before on farms, in Bolivia and Chile, but she had never experienced the kind of intimidation and exploitation that she saw and was subjected to at Haygrove. Julia Quecaño Casimiro’s parents are small-scale farmers in Bolivia. She grew up on farms and has worked on numerous farms. Julia Quecaño Casimiro knows a thing or two about how farms should be run. She also knows what slavery is: “As soon as I started, I saw that it was exploitation. It was modern slavery.”

Veronica Baleni is a small-scale farmer in Riverlands, near Malmesbury, about 45 minutes by car from Cape Town. Veronica Baleni is one of over 100 small-scale farmers who work on a large piece of land in Riverlands. Many have been working this land for generations, in some cases for over a century. Veronica Baleni grows vegetables and has over 200 fruit trees.

The land is owned by the government’s Housing Development Agency, HDA. In May 2022, HDA initiated eviction proceedings, at first allegedly against three farmers but ultimately against the whole population. The farmers resisted, secured legal representation and went to court. On Monday, the Judge in the Western Cape High Court ordered HDA to withdraw their application for eviction and strongly urged the agency to enter into “meaningful engagement” with the community. According to Veronica Baleni, the real impediment for the farmers, both as farmers and as citizens of the Republic of South Africa, is ownership of the land.

In both instances, the ones threatened are assumed, by their aggressors, to be powerless, uninformed, helpless and hopeless. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Workers know the score and they know abuse, exploitation and slavery when they see it. Small-scale farmers know that those who work the land have a right to fully inhabit the earth on which they walk, in which the toil. The fruit of one’s labor must include and support the dignity of those who labor, from the fruit farms of the United Kingdom to the fruit farms of South Africa and beyond.

Farmers celebrate their victory in court

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit 1: The Bureau of Investigative Journalism / Nacho Rivera)

(Photo Credit 2: Groundup / Liezl Human)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

For women in England and Wales, “safety in custody” continues to mean self-harm

September 11, 2023 by Leave a Comment

January 2015: “On Thursday, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice issued its Safety in custody quarterly update to September 2014. The report is grim.” September 2018: “In July, the Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales released their annual report, and it was predictably grim, especially for women prisoners.” February 2021: On Thursday, January 28, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice issued its Safety in Custody Statistics, England and Wales: Deaths in Prison Custody to December 2020 Assaults and Self-harm to September 2020. The report is generally grim, and especially so for women.” February 2022: “Once upon a time, the word custody meant protection, safekeeping, responsibility for protecting or taking care of. No longer. If one is to take the sorry and sordid output and history of the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice, custody today means the power to cage and code for cruelty. It’s that time of the year again when the Ministry releases its in no way long awaited “safety in custody” reports, and, yet again, one can only look at the numbers and wonder. If this is safety in custody, what would danger look like?” Well, here we are, September 2023, and the United Kingdom Ministry of Justice has release yet another `grim’ Safety in Custody Statistics, England and Wales: Deaths in Prison Custody to June 2023 Assaults and Self-harm to March 2023, and this one is actually worse than its predecessors, and, like its predecessors, will go largely unread, undiscussed, and without response, in word or deed. So … here it is, and here we are.

“There were 59,722 self-harm incidents in the 12 months to March 2023, up 11% from the previous 12 months, comprising of a 1% decrease in male establishments and a 52% increase in female establishments. Over the same period, the rate of self-harm incidents per 1,000 prisoners, which takes account of the increase in the prison population between this and the previous year, decreased 5% in male establishments but increased 51% in female establishments.”

Here are the Statistician’s comment: “In female establishments, both self-harm and assault incidents increased, by 52% and 16% respectively, with self-harm incidents reaching their highest level in the time series …. The rate in female establishments has increased considerably by 51% to a new peak (5,826 per 1,000 prisoners), whereas it has decreased 5% in male establishments (523 per 1,000 prisoners), meaning the rate is now more than eleven times higher in female establishments. This was driven by a substantial increase in the average number of incidents among those who self-harmed in female establishments, from 11.1 to 17.0, a much larger increase than previously despite this continuing an increasing trend seen for the last six years.”

The comments continue, more or less in the same vein, but you get the picture. The trend of self-harm among incarcerated women has been bad and getting worse for the past six years, but this year, the increase was much larger. Again, no one other than the usual suspects will pay any attention to this report. How do we know? Because the report was released end of July, and it’s already mid-September, and the response has been a resounding silence. Actually, more like a blurry noise, always there but not worth noticing or discussing.

The violence against women perpetrated by the State is increasing. The report notes that the assaults by women are less violent than those of men. What does that tell you? That the women are sending a message by carving into their own flesh, again and again and again, and all they get, in response, is another government report from a ministry that dares to use the name “Justice”. In circumstances like this, language only exists to demonstrate its own vacuity, our own capacity to empty words of any real significance: grim, custody, justice, harm, responsibility, care, prison, women. We study, we write, we organize … and the violence does more than continue, it escalates: “The number of incidents and rate of self-harm in the female estate are now at the highest level in the time series.” Who cares?

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Infographic: UK Ministry of Justice)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , ,

Hope in a time of choler: Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalizes abortion at the federal level

September 7, 2023 by Leave a Comment


In the same week that Mexico’s two major political parties nominated women to run for President, nearly assuring that Mexico’s next President will be a woman, Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that abortion as a federal crime violates Mexico’s Constitution: “The legal system that penalises abortion in the Federal Criminal Code is unconstitutional since it violates the human rights of women and people with the ability to carry a fetus”. This decision builds on a 2021 decision that decriminalized abortion in the state of Coahuila, a state that ironically or tragically or both shares a border with the United States, specifically with Texas. As the Washington Post succinctly put it, “Mexican court expands access to abortion, even as U.S. restricts it.”

The Supreme Court case came as a result of a suit last year, filed by el Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida, GIRE, the Information Group for Reproductive Choice, challenging a 1931 Federal regulation. Since the 2021 decision, 12 Mexican states decriminalized abortion. This week’s ruling means that all Federal hospitals and clinics, irrespective of local laws and restrictions, must provide abortions. Women and people with the ability to carry a fetus can seek abortions without fearing prosecution. Health providers can respond to women and people with the ability to carry a fetus without fearing prosecution. The decriminalization of abortion means the end of a police state of ever impending terror and incarceration.

As both GIRE and the Supreme Court Justices freely admit, while this was a judicial decision, it emerged from years of organizing, from the Green Wave that has swept across Mexico and across the Americas, surging in Argentina, Colombia, and beyond. As Arturo Zaldivar, the former president of the Supreme Court, wrote: “The Green Wave continues to advance. All rights for all women and pregnant people!” A Green Wave continues to surge across Latin America, inspiring, invigorating, and instructing.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo Credit: GIRE)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Johannesburg: “Just because they are already living on the margins of society does not make them invisible social outcasts or nuisances”

September 2, 2023 by Leave a Comment

On August 29, the Pretoria High Court declared that “the recent series of evictions undertaken by the City of Johannesburg (COJ) and the MMC for Human Settlements in Gauteng, on Farm Allandale, have been declared unlawful and unconstitutional.” Lawyers for Human Rights, the attorneys representing Farm Allendale residents, described this as “a pivotal court decision …. This ruling is not just a win for the residents of Farm Allandale but a clarion call to all entities, reminding them of the human touch essential in the dispensation of justice. This victory serves as a testament to the resilience of communities and the critical role that organizations like LHR play in ensuring that justice is meted out fairly.” A community of 836 people, identified as Rabie Ridge Community, have lived for years on land known as Farm Allendale. The City of Johannesburg has evicted them, destroying their homes as well as their belongings, numerous times. The residents sued the City … and won. Acting Judge Elmien Du Plessis said, “These people have human rights as contained in the Bill of Rights and protected in the Constitution. Just because they are already living on the margins of society does not make them invisible social outcasts or nuisances, however much their presence may frustrate the respondents – the City and the MMC.” The Judge declared the actions of the City unlawful and ruled the City had to either rebuild the shacks within 72 hours or pay each family R1500 to buy materials to rebuild their own homes. This was a landmark victory, a beacon in the very dark and too long night. Had I written in response on Wednesday, this would be a celebration. But then the fires broke out the next day, in the central business district of Johannesburg, the fires this time, the fires next time, and the whole world suddenly invoked the “tragedy waiting to happen”. And so today, the question is not “What is there to celebrate”, although that is a good question, but rather “What is there to say? What is the point of saying anything, when everything has already been said, and so many times before?”

In June 2017, we wrote, “Last Thursday, the Constitutional Court of South Africa ruled that judges cannot authorize an eviction order that will leave people homeless. Over the past 25 years, South Africa’s highest courts have ruled consistently that the rights of residents, including occupiers, matter. Even with those protections in place, this decision is viewed as groundbreaking and welcome. The case involves 184 people – 47 women, 114 men, 23 children – who have occupied an apartment building in the Berea neighborhood of Johannesburg’s inner city. Hlengiwe Mhlambo is one of the 184. She is forty years old, a mother of two, and an informal trader. For the past 14 years, Hlengiwe Mhlambo has lived in her apartment, eking out a meager living, raising her children, hoping to find, or better create, the once promised green pasture.” This was a “momentous decision for millions of poor people across South Africa who live with insecure tenure and inadequate housing”. Remember? That was “only” six years ago.

In October 2022, just last year, the Johannesburg High Court rejected the `natural’ inevitability of eviction. As we wrote then, “In the case of Rycloff-Beleggings (Pty) Ltd v Ntombekhaya Bonkolo and Others, the Johannesburg High Court ruled that a group of working people’s access to work and right to dignity had to be considered when adjudicating an eviction notice. The case involves waste reclaimers who have been living on an `undeveloped’ stretch of farmland that lies between a residential complex and a business park in the Midrand section of Johannesburg. In 2018, the owners of the land, Rycloff-Beleggings, decided they wanted to `develop’ the land, and so issued eviction notices. The city offered a site with no possibility of developing waste reclamation economies, and so, in May 2019, the residents sued, demanding to either stay put or be placed somewhere where they could continue to work. On October 4, Judge Greg Wright agreed and gave the city until March 2023 to find appropriate site for the community. Anything else `would leave them at risk of not being able to maintain their dignity and care for their children.  It would be unfair and therefore unconstitutional to uphold the other parties’ rights while the reclaimers go hungry. Furthermore, the rights of children are paramount in cases involving children such as the present one.’ If people are on the land, it is not `undeveloped’. If people live in a neighborhood, it too is not undeveloped.” Remember? It was less than a year ago … and yet here we are.

The people living on Farm Allendale first moved in in 2017, but most moved in last year and this, having lost their jobs during the Covid pandemic. Many families had previously rented but could no longer pay the bills. Others had squatted elsewhere but could no longer afford to stay in those areas. And so they moved, adults and many children, to Farm Allendale. The City declared that too many people were moving in and so they started evicting everyone, although the City claimed they only destroyed `abandoned’ shacks. The residents had photos and videos showing that not to be the case. While the incidents that sparked the court case occurred mid July of this year, the City has performed mass evictions every three weeks for the past three years. For three years, the City of Johannesburg engaged in illegal evictions, and you want to know how the fires this week started and spread, how so many people could end up living in a five-story building? Everybody knew already.

If people are on land, the land is not `undeveloped’. If people live in a neighborhood, it is not `undeveloped’. And if people live in a building, whether it is called derelict or hijacked or blighted or whatever, it is not vacant nor is it `undeveloped’. It’s home. Living on the margins of society does not make people invisible social outcasts or nuisances, however much their presence may frustrate others or `development’ programs. At the same time, writing insightfully always already after the event, after the tragedy waiting to happen, is not insight. It’s alibi. No next time. Now. Mutual respect is already encoded in law as well as ethical behavior. Now make it so.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Philiswa Lila – Entsizwa II / Art Times)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , ,

Eviction must mean more than the sum total of legal processes

August 25, 2023 by Leave a Comment

“The mainstream has never run clean, perhaps never can. Part of mainstream education involves learning to ignore this absolutely, with a sanctioned ignorance.”
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, A Critique of Postcolonial Reason

 Across the United States and around the world, evictions are rising and residential rentals and home sales prices are skyrocketing. Predictably, this is accompanied by rising rates of eviction. While parts of the United Kingdom are experiencing rates of eviction they haven’t faced in almost twenty years, the United States is facing mortgage rates it also  hasn’t faced in over twenty years. But what exactly is an eviction, other than an existential crisis, a crisis that in the United States targets Black and Brown women? In the official discourse on housing, eviction has meant “the action or an instance of expelling a person by legal process from land, property, etc., occupied by him or her.” The key here, and the element of sanctioned ignorance, is “by legal process”. If eviction is only an action based on a legal process, what then do we call all those actions in which people are forced to move, but without any legal process involved?

Consider these stories from the last couple days.

In Sausalito, California, the owners of an apartment complex occupied mostly by elderly residents recently issued eviction notices to all the residents. The all-too-familiar story is a new owner came in a year or so ago, began letting maintenance go, never answered calls for repairs and then, again this week, decided the buildings needs “remodeling”. And so … people on fixed incomes in a hot rental market are out on the streets.

In Bakersfield, California, rents are going up as much as 40%, often in violation of the law. When Bakersfield Tenants Union Founder Wendell “J.R.” Wesley Jr. was issued a $100 rent increase, he knew that was illegal, and so went to the Leadership Counsel, a local advocacy group, got some help, and stopped the rent increase as well as the threat of eviction.

In Tucson, Oklahoma, a recent survey of unhoused people showed that the population of homeless elders is rising precipitously, and that the two leading causes of homelessness are eviction and skyrocketing rents.

These are just three stories from the last couple days, taken from a much longer list. They are stories of eviction, and familiar ones at that, but they hide as much as they show. What about all the elders living in apartments where the writing is on the wall, sometimes in the form of unattended mildew and mold? What about the elders who are harassed, directly or through `passive’ nonresponse and inaction, into `informal eviction’ or, even more ineptly, `self eviction’? Likewise, J.R. Wesley is an organizer who knows more than a thing or two about local and state housing laws. What about all those people who received a $100 increase in their rent, didn’t know it was illegal, didn’t know there are organizations and resources to help them, and moved before they lost everything and incurred today’s version of a Scarlet Letter, ie an eviction filing? Finally, it’s not only evictions leading to homelessness. It’s also rents rising so fast and so much they become unaffordable. People who have lived for years in an area that was affordable, if barely, are now forced to move through no action or fault of their own. What about them?

In Wisconsin, the Supreme Court will hear an argument to reduce the time eviction records are kept from 20 years to one year. In Wisconsin, the 20 years on file is for eviction filings, not evictions, and so the landlord has an extraordinarily menacing tool: “The vast majority of renters in eviction court are not evicted. According to the petition, there were 17,727 eviction filings in Wisconsin in just 2021. Just under ten percent of those eviction filings actually resulted in an eviction”. What about all those people who understand that an eviction filing is as damning as an actual eviction and decide to move?

That more attention is being given to eviction is good, but we need more and better attention. At this stage, there is still no national eviction data base. Last month, Virginia began collecting data on the number and locations of evictions that occur in any given year. That’s a good step. Across the country, many groups follow the model of Princeton’s Eviction Lab and collect data on eviction filings, also an important step in the right direction. But, again, those who are formally filed against, and even more those who go through the tragedy and existential crisis of eviction, are a minority of those who have been forcibly displaced. And we know, from history as well as from contemporary experience, that forcible displacement, while it may be experienced in deeply individual ways, is never a solitary event. Forced displacement is always already mass displacement. We cannot, in our research, advocacy, and organizing, create yet another mainstream moment, in which millions of people and communities are relegating to the status of ghosts, present and yet somehow not sufficiently enough to matter.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Photo: Iziko Slave Lodge)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , ,

In South Africa, `return to normal’ drowns domestic workers in debt, danger, despair

August 1, 2023 by Leave a Comment

Have you heard, the pandemic is over, and the world is `returning to normal’. In South Africa, part of this return has involved loadshedding, scheduled (or not) rolling blackouts. Why does a country as rich as South Africa suffer from loadshedding? Don’t ask. This Sunday, SweepSouth, a South African online platform through which people can hire domestic workers and domestic workers can secure reasonably protected work arrangements, released the 2023 Report on Domestic Workers Pay and Work Conditions, its sixth since 2018. The news this year is grim. As Luke Kannemeyer, SweepSouth Managing Director, noted in the Executive Summary, “Our results continue to emphasise the disproportionate burden that domestic workers carry in their households. The majority are women (94%), sole breadwinners (84%), single caregivers (64%), and support an average of four dependents …. Workers continue to sacrifice basic needs as costs outstrip earnings. Food is the largest expenditure item with the greatest increase since last year (+12%). Poor South Africans were hit hardest as food inflation hit a 14-year high in March 2023. Primarily driven by the electricity crisis, vegetables, wheat and corn-based products, and plant-based oils (such as vegetable oil) increased the most. These items make up a disproportionate portion of food in low-income households. With few workers having any savings (2023: 9%, 2022: 10%), many take on debt.” While much of the report is unsurprising, much of it is new, and none of it encouraging. As Kannemeyer concludes the Executive Summary, “This summary is just the tip of the iceberg. We want this report to motivate you to be part of driving change in the domestic work industry.”

As in past years, 94% of domestic workers are women, median age 37. 39% are South African, 56% are Zimbabwean. 58% work in Gauteng, 37% in the Western Cape. 96% are primarily engaged in cleaning. 28% of domestic workers lost their jobs in the past year. Of this group, 25% lost their jobs because their employers could no longer afford them. This is more or less consistent with past years. 40% lost their jobs because their employers moved. Of those employers who moved, 28% moved to another city in South Africa, and 59% moved overseas. Much of the movement from one city to another, semigration, is a consequence of remote working. In both instances, emigration and semigration, those leaving are so-called skilled workers.

Between loss of jobs, relatively stagnant earnings, skyrocketing inflation, it’s not particularly surprising that most domestic workers are in debt and sinking deeper quickly and that very few have any savings.

Loadshedding has also taken its toll. Most domestic workers report that loadshedding has had a negative impact on the number of hours they work, has added extra time on their commutes, and made their commutes more dangerous. Additionally, loadshedding has had the more general impact lack of reliable energy has on low-income communities.

The report ends with recommendations: enforce and expand legal protections; implement multi-pronged solutions for loadshedding; improve access to mental health; increase support for workers facing abuse at home and in their workplace. While these are all reasonable recommendations, they miss the core new element in this year’s report and the core element in every report. The core element in every report is that almost all the domestic workers are women. This is a women’s employment, security, and rights issue. While that may be obvious, it needs to be emphasized and acted upon. Thousands of women are being sent into a situation of structural violence because they are women. The new element is that those who lost their jobs lost their jobs because their employers either emigrated or semigrated. This is new, and the State as well as organized labor must address this situation. What sorts of arrangements must be made before an employer leaves? What sorts of obligations does the employer have? What obligation does the State have? What obligations do the trade unions have? What obligations do the women’s movements have? If nothing is done, the result will be more than thousands of unemployed women, which is bad enough. It will be thousands of women heads of household drowning in rising debt, which will condemn them, their families, their communities to a future without promise or hope. That is unacceptable.

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Infographic Credit: SweepSouth)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , , ,

Hope in a time of choler: Ghana abolishes the death penalty

July 29, 2023 by Leave a Comment

 

It’s been thirty years or so since Ghana executed anyone. Until this week, that was the good news. This week, in a “landmark vote”, Ghana’s Parliament voted to end the death penalty in all cases but high treason. To change that last hurdle, the Parliament will have to amend the Constitution. Nevertheless, this is a major step. There are currently 178 people on death row, six of whom are women. Most were sentenced to death because the law mandated the death sentence for certain offenses. Judges had no choice. As of this week, all of that changes. According to Amnesty International’s West and Central Africa Director Samira Daoud, “Today’s parliamentary vote is a major step by Ghana towards the abolition of the death penalty. It is also a victory for all those who have tirelessly campaigned to consign this cruel punishment to history and strengthen the protection of the right to life. Although a landmark decision, the total abolition of this draconian punishment would not be complete without revising the Constitution, which still provides for high treason to be punishable by death.”

Over the last ten years, the abolition of capital punishment has swept across sub-Saharan Africa. Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, Madagascar, Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Zambia abolished the death penalty. In the past five years, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea and Zambia banned the death penalty. Twenty-nine African countries have abolished the death sentence. Since Ghana had not executed anyone for over ten years, the United Nations labelled it a de facto death penalty abolitionist, but Ghanaian politicians, and a majority of Ghanaians in every poll, thought that while that was fine, it wasn’t and isn’t enough.

Six of those on death row are women. Amnesty International Ghana and allies have argued, for years, that [a] the death penalty in and of itself had to be abolished and [b] that the death penalty had particularly catastrophic consequences for women, both for women on death row whose physical surroundings amounted to torture and for women partners of men on death row, who suffered severe deprivation. This week, Ghana’s Parliament heard their call.

Francis-Xavier Kojo Sosu, the Ghanian MP who tabled the bill, said, “On death row, prisoners woke up thinking this could be their last day on earth. They were like the living dead: psychologically, they had ceased to be humans. Abolishing the death penalty shows that we are determined as a society not to be inhumane, uncivil, closed, retrogressive and dark. It opens the way to further realization of a free, open, progressive, inclusive and secure society instead, and reflects our common belief that the sanctity of life is inviolable.” Imagine our common belief that the sanctity of life is inviolable. This week, Ghana has.

 

(By Dan Moshenberg)

(Image Credit: Amnesty International)

Filed Under: General Tagged With: , , ,
« Previous Page
Next Page »
блекспрут зеркало блекспрут зеркало блекспрут ссылкаблекспрут ссылка blacksprut blacksprut