Africa

Shashi Tharoor

By External Source
Feb 15 2021 (IPS-Partners)

Celebrated Indian writer, Member of Parliament and former diplomat Shashi Tharoor in a conversation with The Daily Star Editor and Publisher Mahfuz Anam on the occasion of the newspaper’s 30th anniversary yesterday spoke eloquently on media freedom, regional politics and democracy on a virtual platform.

Mahfuz Anam: Let me start with what appears to be a duality of your current life as a writer and as a politician — the former being more of a moral, ethical and value based world to the latter being more of compromise and the need to be practical. How do you navigate between being an author and a politician?

Shashi Tharoor: It’s not easy at all. I have had to make choices between the demands of both. They are essentially the reactions of the same person seeing the world that provokes in him the wish to describe, the wish to act upon. There is the world of decisions versus the world of observations or conclusions essentially relating to the same world. When I see something and think this is something I want to write about, this is also something I want to do something about. That is when the two worlds can overlap. My politics takes precedence over everything else because a couple of million people have elected me to represent them in the national parliament. There is, however, always a part of me that never forgets that I was a writer.

The enduring value will be that and not the politics.

Mahfuz Anam: There is however this contradiction between the moral height of being a literary person versus the sometimes quite dirty level of politics. In our region, sometimes politics is known to be horse-training. How do you live in these two worlds?

Shashi Tharoor: It does not always have to be, but there are often compromises. There is always a contradiction between an individual with his own convictions who belongs to a party with its own policies. There is no guarantee that your convictions will be the same as that of your party. I have a duty towards my party and its policies, but I also have a duty as an individual, so what I tend to do is, I stay loyal to the party’s choices but I do not allow myself to say things I do not believe. If the party takes a decision that I’m in profound disagreement with, I will either explain the party’s stance without myself advocating it, or I go silent. There have been a number of instances where I have chosen silence rather than to break ranks with my party because by doing so, I will damage the people with whom I’m working. I am not prepared to compromise beyond that. I believe my intellectual and moral integrity is what I can bring to the world as politics and if I start tarnishing that by selling that short, then in the end of the day it seems to me that I may as well not be in politics because you can get any number of cookie-cutter political figures who will do and say what they are told for temporary gain.

Mahfuz Anam: What is your overall view about the state of media freedom in South Asia?

Shashi Tharoor: The truth is our press freedom across South Asia has a number of challenges. On the one hand, it is not as bad as the most pessimistic will describe it to be. Even in the military rule of Pakistan, there were relatively courageous journalists writing. In Bangladesh, The Daily Star and Prothom Alo have flourished quite effectively in spite of challenges. In India even though much of the media is accused of complicity, of having sold out, of having compromised, there are still people in the media who have nonetheless been able to stand up for what they believe in. They can be minor websites, but the truth is somewhere being told, if you know how to look for it. It is a mixed bag. While it is true that we all in South Asia have governments who would not encourage criticism, it is also true that in the media, there are enough journalists who believe in their mission and have courage.

Mahfuz Anam: Why do our governments always feel so hostile towards the free press?

Shashi Tharoor: Our countries are flawed and fragile in spite of being democracies. Each government has felt a certain level of insecurity for certain reasons which is why they want a sympathetic narrative towards what they believe to be their good efforts to how they run the country and if that narrative is not available they undermine the ones providing the narrative, and want to silence them. By definition, press freedom has to be antagonistic because the role of the press is adversarial. This is a conceptual element in much of Western journalism. Because the press abets the public in holding the government accountable, their job is to question the government, be cynical about the government’s claims. The adversarial stance is built into press freedom. Many of us feel that that is part of our conviction as independent commentators. You are obliged to be critical in a context where the government distrusts your criticism.

Then there are these populist cult leaders who believe that they are the voice of the people, so who are these unelected journalists to pull them down? They believe that you are actually betraying the people if you attack them.

Mahfuz Anam: You are a writer, columnist and now a politician. Do you feel differently about the press/media when you are wearing different hats? As a politician do you see us differently than as you see us as a writer? Did you feel differently towards the media when you were a minister in 2009?

Shashi Tharoor: First of all, the existing media culture in India was generally an accepting one. That the media would attack me, I took that as the price one paid to be in politics. I never thought of the media as something that could be cajoled, threatened, intimidated or silenced. I took media criticism seriously and accepted their rights to criticise me.

What is different in the last few years is that the new people in power do not share that set of assumptions. They have an attitude suggesting you are with us, or against us. They have not hesitated to use many of the resources at the command of a majority government. In the case of the BJP, if they felt that an editor who wrote an unfriendly piece should lose his job, or the proprietor will get a tax raid, they can carry it out. I know I am not officially supposed to say that happened, but that is the kind of thing that can happen, and that some would say has happened.

You have in India a populist leader who has direct rapport with the populace and contempt for the media because he simply doesn’t need it. He enjoys unmediated access to popular masses, because the creation of social media meant that you can bypass traditional media. His party is extremely skilled at manipulating social media, and then he can treat the traditional media as irrelevant. He is the first prime minister who has never held a press conference in India, and taken unscripted questions. Every question is vetted in advance. To him it is simply theatre — it is not an exercise in being accountable to an independent mind. That does not interest him at all.

Mahfuz Anam: How do you view this development of social media and the traditional media being bypassed?

Shashi Tharoor: I view it with concern but also inevitability. The reach of social media is something you have to appreciate. Eighty percent of the Indian electorate is connected to the internet via their mobile phones. I have witnessed the astonishing growth of social media and its ability to transform. We are seeing for example that Mr Modi has made it compulsory for every minister in his cabinet to have a Twitter account, but not made it compulsory for them to hold press conferences. That is the difference. The mainstream press is now secondary in the government’s approach. What is concerning about this is that social media is devoid of filters. Anyone is basically as authentic a voice as the most professional journalist. There is no editorial control and fact-checking. There are now independent fact-checking websites but they have a fraction of the audience that the original fake story has. This means that those who want their narrative to be believed can reinforce it without any accountability to the actual truth. You can also get pliant traditional media to translate your social media messages.

Mahfuz Anam: We now have the Digital Security Act to control the digital space which very severely controls what somebody is posting. What is the legal framework in India?

Shashi Tharoor: As chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, I can say that what we have is a rule going back to the 19th century which desperately needs updating. The Indian Telegraph Act 1885 governs much of telecommunications in the country. The time is ripe for a serious rethinking. The anxiety that many people have is that will the rethinking take place if it is under a government that is not terribly committed to press freedom.

There are a lot of Indians who are comfortable with modern technology. The government will struggle to control technology. There has already been backlash against Twitter’s refusal to shut down certain accounts that issued tweets that the government deemed unacceptable, and the government asked them to shut them down, and Twitter following its own codes, did not shut them down, saying that having reviewed them, the company felt that it wasn’t keeping with its own laws. Whereupon the government said who are you to decide what India’s laws permit. We are telling you shut those accounts, and if you don’t, you will be punished. They might be a private company but they are working in a public space — they have social and political obligations. These are challenging questions that are being debated around the world, but there is no clear answer.

The original balance of power between the Legislative, the Judicial and the Executive branches of the state, or the concept of check and balance has enormously shifted towards the Executive. In the hands of charismatic, popular and effective leaders this shift has further intensified. This has greatly reduced the accountability of the governments.

Mahfuz Anam: What’s your view? Is there a role of the media here?

Shashi Tharoor: We are caught up in a dangerous climate in our politics. Ideas of nationalism have come which say that challenging the elected majority, elected government is somehow anti-national. When you are saying that I am just doing my job as a journalist, and the government wants to put me in jail for it, the government can say “I have the right to do what I want because the people have voted for me. Who are you?” They are citing democracy to undermine democratic practices.

In India, many of our media houses are owned by people with other business interests. It is very easy for the media to subserve the business interests, and those business interest’s vulnerabilities to be used against the media. It is very easy to pick up the phone and call the owner if the editor goes out of line.

Mahfuz Anam: Where is democracy going?

Shashi Tharoor: In a bad direction. Surveillance increased last year since more and more things had to be done online. Even something as basic as trying to protect the health of the population by getting people to download an app that sees who they were in contact with, can be used for surveillance. All of this technology has abetted those who want to undermine democracy. When this technology first came into development, we all saw this as empowering. Technology was supposed to give voices to the voiceless. It seemed to be a democratising element. Today this seems to be an undemocratic development.

Mahfuz Anam: As a parliamentarian, are you able to play your constitutionally prescribed role?

Shashi Tharoor: Yes and no. I do have the right to speak. Obviously, when the government has a decisive majority it is not obliged to listen. But at least the parliament gives us space to express our views, which can then have a second life on social media, and so far that has not been stopped. But the difficulty with our democratic institutions in India today, is that it is a sobering matter to realise how easily it can be abridged. We have a fervent nationalism that extols every Indian achievement, real or imagined, such that the mildest protest is labelled anti-national or even seditious. I have five different sedition cases against me because of a Tweet, and I have to go to five different states to plead innocence. Almost every independent institution has been hollowed out and made into an instrument to be used for the government’s dominance. Political freedom has ceased to be a virtue. Conformity is what the government prefers. Dissenting voices are somehow seen as less fitting in this nationalism.

Mahfuz Anam: The re-emergence of religion in our politics is something that is true for the whole South Asia, Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Hinduism in India and Islam in Pakistan. Bangladesh is also seeing a similar rise. As a “thought leader” what do you think is our way forward? Why in 2021 does religion get revived?

Shashi Tharoor: Pakistan was founded on the assumption that people of a certain religion must have a separate country to live in. India rejected that. In the Indian context, it didn’t matter what your religion was, you had the same rights. Now I find that this is being questioned. A question was asked in the parliament when the constitution was being hammered out, stating should India not be a Hindu country. This was debated and rejected by our founding fathers and mothers. It was considered impolite to spread communal messages in society. That has changed. In addition to that, you have a genuine problem because we have constructed a nation with 16 percent Muslim minority and remained largely free of any existential issues because that minority has felt safe.

If you start demonising that minority, accuse them of acting as agents of a hostile neighbour — if you take 15 percent of your population and say you are a traitor unless you prove otherwise…our survival and success depends on our ability to maintain cohesion. It is the secret to our development. There is something very fundamentally wrong with the communal approach in our society. This communal virus has to be inoculated against. For the first time, politically we have a discourse coming from the people in the establishment that is virulently hostile to certain minorities.

There is a perception assiduously cultivated by rhetoricians from the ruling party that a lot of Indian governance was about appeasement of minorities that must be shed for a more belligerent, assertive Hinduism. People who are the vehicles of that belief are very intolerant of dissent. Critics are routinely urged by ministers to go to Pakistan — the mere choice of the destination itself is supposed to point to their traitorism. The use of polarising along communal lines in order to win a seat is today’s successful tactic by the ruling party. In order to consolidate the vote of the majority, they are othering the minority. The narrative of polarisation is in fertile ground because some people can absorb the fears of certain majorities. This is undermining the biggest strength of democracy which is to bring people of different identities together. The most tranquil places in the world are where there are no minorities but that is not the solution. Part of the arch of democracy is learning to live with people unlike yourself.

Mahfuz Anam: As a neighbor, we look with trepidation at the tension between China and India. We would want both the giants to grow with peace and prosperity and then share that prosperity with the rest of the region, but it seems they are going towards an arms race, if not conflicts. Diverting resources from poverty alleviation does worry us as neighbours. Any comments?

Shashi Tharoor: Yes, we in India thought it was good for us and for the region to have good amicable relations, to keep differences on the border on the back burner while developing trade and economic cooperation and other kinds of cooperation, including on the international platform. Our trade went up from $200 million in 1991 to $100 billion a year ago. We were absolutely prepared to ignore our differences. Yes, we could not agree on our border, but we said it didn’t matter. We will concentrate on the prosperity of our people and both should benefit. It is for us a mystery that China has abandoned that approach and is belligerently flexing its muscles on its own borders within its own country and in Asia. There are horrific stories of mistreatment of Uighur Muslims, assertion over Hong Kong with new security law, intimidation in Taiwan etc, and worst of all, in my point of view, the belligerents on our border . They have taken a large chunk of Bhutan already, they are trying to capture territory on the line of control in India, which is actually a disputed border but neither side believed it should be settled by military force. They have used military force and killed 20 of our soldiers. That is unacceptable. No self-respecting country will accept that. Frankly, the opposition is united with the government on this issue. We cannot accept what China has done unprovoked. We have absolutely no reason to believe that there was any provocation. It clearly seems to be a strategic move by the Chinese to dominate the junction of two rivers for purely military strategic advancements. The Indian soldiers were on the way and they killed them. We should ask China why you are doing this.

Mahfuz Anam: There is a specific question on the Rohingyas in Bangladesh. India has a very good relationship with Myanmar, but we think our relationship is closer and more important. We found India hedging its bet way too much, trying to be on both sides of the fence, which has disappointed us.

Shashi Tharoor: It has disappointed me too in the opposition and I’ve said so in parliament. There is unfortunately, to be very blunt, certain bigotry at play here articulating the policy on the Rohingya. The ruling party unfortunately communalised the issue of the Rohingya as you know they are Muslims and the Burmese government is largely Buddhist. The Burmese government, especially in the days when the problem erupted, I knew revered civilians like Aung San Suu Kyi were seen as pro-Indians, so India did not want to antagonise Burma. Myanmar also has natural gas and fuel, and India has trade relations with Myanmar. Moreover, Burma has the capacity to be a nuisance to India as they once were when they were fomenting insurrection, by giving refuge to the insurgent groups, giving them arms and channeling Chinese money. So, they did not want that to happen again. So, there was a hard-headed decision thinking why would we show sympathy to the Muslim refugees and jeopardise our relationship? That’s an excessively cynical kind of decision. Still India in normal ways offered refuge to the Rohingya but they have been harassed quite a bit and I am sorry to say that the government has returned some Rohingyas which I find quite unacceptable.

Mahfuz Anam: How does the media speak to the power if power defines what is the truth, controls the flow of information, and it is in a position to term what is fake news?

Shashi Tharoor: We see this in India where criticism in the media is deemed as being out of touch of the people in reality. The press is hopelessly dismissed as biased, and sold out. I am afraid that contempt is used very often by the government to undermine and dismiss the press. In that atmosphere, how do you speak to the power? I think you have to have the courage if you want to run the risks. Some of the most courageous journalism in India is done by digital websites that practically own no property, have no printing press and have only a few employees and use a lot of freelancers, and are often financed by foundations or non-profits or by subscriptions. They are the ones who are the most courageous, because you have very few vulnerabilities, whereas mainstream media invested millions of rupees and also have business interests. So, standing up, speaking truth to power, depends entirely to the extent of your vulnerabilities to reprisals. Many of the small independent operations are harassed, have cases and sedition charges filed [against them]. Very often, the courageous lawyers represent them without charges. All of these issues will show in many ways that courage of our democracy to stand up for rights, but by no means, one can be complacent about it. This is a battle that is worth waging, but is a battle that can be lost. I wish you the courage and strength in waging the battle in your own country as we are doing in ours.

This story was originally published by The Daily Star, Bangladesh

The post Majority Rule Giving Way to Majoritarianism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Shashi Tharoor observes while in conversation with Mahfuz Anam on The Daily Star’s 30th anniversary

The post Majority Rule Giving Way to Majoritarianism appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Sixteen-year-old Fethiye fled war in Iran – and the likelihood of child marriage – to Turkey. Credit: UNFPA Turkey

By External Source
BELGRADE, Serbia / LAGHMAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan / ESKİŞEHİR, Turkey , Feb 15 2021 (IPS)

How much is a girl worth? If you are Maja, the answer is a chicken, a six-pack of beer and 100 euros.

That is how much her family, living in a Roma settlement in Serbia, received in exchange for her hand “in marriage.” She was 11 years old at the time. “They benefited maybe a month from it, and I was left with a problem for my whole life,” Maja, now 18, said.

“My three sisters didn’t do much better. One gave birth when she turned 13. They were not sold, but they ran away from our mother at an early age. I was the only one who was sold.”

According to a 2019 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, nearly 56 per cent of women aged 20-24 in Roma settlements in Serbia were married before the age of 18, while almost 16 percent were married before 15.

And in a 2017 study on migrant women in Serbia conducted by UNFPA and partner NGO Atina, 52 percent of participants could not choose when and to whom they would marry. The average age of girls entering marriage was 17.5 years old; the youngest was seven.

One participant explained how partners are chosen: “How can you, as a girl, know who would be a good partner? This is on your family to decide.”

For child brides everywhere, the consequences are devastatingly predictable: their educations grind to a halt, stifling their ability to earn an income and continuing the cycle of poverty.

They can suffer complications – even death – due to pregnancies and births their young bodies are not ready to handle; they are more vulnerable to gender-based violence; and they may develop mental health disorders that may lead to suicidal tendencies.

To be clear: None of this is a result of a decision she made, not over her body, her present or her future.

Horror, then hope

At 15, Zulaikha*, in Afghanistan, was enjoying school and wanted to become a doctor. But her poverty-stricken family arranged her marriage to an older man nearly twice her age. Despite her protests and the fact that the intended bridegroom was unemployed, she was forced to marry against her will.

Almost immediately, Zulaikha was no longer permitted to attend classes. Zulaikha’s husband began taking out his anger and frustration on her. He beat her almost daily, and in fall 2019, she went to the provincial hospital in Laghman Province for a fractured eye socket and damaged back.

In the emergency ward, she was identified as a victim of gender-based violence. At the hospital’s family protection centre, and through the family response unit, both established by UNFPA, Zulaikha received psychosocial and legal support, as well as skills-training.

Her husband was ultimately convicted for abuse and sentenced to six months in prison. “No girl should be stopped from what she dreams,” she said. “This is the right of every girl: To decide her future.”

Regaining self-confidence

If Fethiye, 16, and her family had not fled to Turkey from Iraq in 2017, she would be a wife and school dropout by now. “In our culture, girls get married at an early age,” she said.

“This is very common, especially if the girl is out of school.” She grew up in a world in which girls were denied equal access to education, and were often forced by families and communities to stay at home.

When the family arrived in Turkey, “the first months were so difficult. I didn’t speak or write the language,” she recalled. “My family felt insecure and didn’t even let us go outside. They didn’t even plan to send us back to school.”

Then they were connected to a UNFPA-run women and girls safe space, which held an orientation for refugees and migrants. “A ray of hope arose, but after was beyond that I imagined,” she said. The centre convinced her parents that Fethiye should continue her studies without being a wife to anyone.

“My parents trusted the centre and acknowledged that their services were beneficial, if not life-changing. I not only learned how to speak Turkish but started courses to finish secondary school remotely. I have attended theatre and archery courses and made many friends. I have gained my self-confidence back.”

Today, Zulaikha is 17 and runs a tailoring business, training other women so they, too, can become financially independent. Fethiye dreams of attending university and working in a field that allows her to help others.

And for Maja, who escaped her traumatic past at 14 with the help of Atina, the future looks brighter than it ever has. “The most important thing in life is to have peace and freedom. All the rest will come,” she said. “After everything that happened to me, I know I can manage only if I am free.”

*Name changed to protect identity

Source: UN Population Fund (UNFPA)

 

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The post The Perils of Child Marriage & the Promise of Freedom appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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Marcia Julio Vilanculos, pictured here in this dated photo with her baby, was one of the participants of a digital literacy training course at Ideario innovation hub, Maputo, Mozambique a few years ago. Only 6.8 percent of all Mozambican women, with or without owning a cellphone, use the internet. Questions remain about the possibility of a successful transition to a digital economy in a world where there’s a glaring digital divide -- one that has become even more pronounced under the pandemic. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues/IPS

By Samira Sadeque
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 12 2021 (IPS)

It is crucial to ensure that any transition to a digital economy has mechanisms in place that are non-digital to avoid “double exclusion”, according to Shahrashoub Razavi, director of the social protection department at the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Razavi spoke with IPS following an ILO panel addressing the issue of social protection and the transition to a green and digital economy — a side-event of the ongoing United Nations 59th session of the Commission for Social Development (CSocD).

Razavi moderated Wednesday’s “Social protection floors for a just transition to the green and digital economy” panel, which hosted social protection advisers and labour directors from different countries.

An important topic during the panel was how social protection systems could have helped societies cope better with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Social protection floors can reduce vulnerabilities and it can protect those impacted by a digital and green transformation,” Adrian Hauri, the deputy permanent representative of Switzerland to the UN, said during the opening remarks.

Aileen O’Donovan, the social protection policy lead at Irish Aid, pointed out that there has been a massive rise of social protection responses under the pandemic. More specifically, 209 countries implemented or announced 1,596 social protection measures by end of November 2020. 

“It’s critical now more than ever to invest in social protection systems,” she added.

O’Donovan further highlighted the importance of taking into account the most vulnerable communities when discussing social protection systems — especially those affected by climate change.

“Our commitment is really around reaching those furthest behind and we know that those who are most vulnerable are also vulnerable to the impact of climate change,” she said. “So it’s really critical to ensure that social protections are effectively designed to take into [account] mitigating climate impact and supporting adaptations.” 

O’Donovan concluded by saying it was important to make use of the current momentum.

“The momentum is really behind social protection systems, so it’s really about — how do we take this further and sustain this momentum to build much more resilient communities?” she asked.

But questions remain about the possibility of a successful transition to a digital economy in a world where there’s a glaring digital divide — one that has become even more pronounced under the pandemic.

“The digital gaps are concerning and if social protection transfers rely entirely on digital mechanisms then they are likely to exclude those without adequate access to such technologies,” Razavi told IPS when addressing these concerns. “It is important therefore that non-digital mechanisms are also available for those who would otherwise face a double exclusion (ie those without adequate digital literacy and access to the internet, mobile phones, etc).”

Ambassador Valérie Berset Bircher, a member of the labour directorate at the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, told IPS that the pandemic affected workers differently, based on social protection systems in place in different countries.

“For countries like Switzerland (high-income countries), which have a longstanding social protection system in place, we were able to extend the system to cover more categories of workers and to extend the duration of the protection,” she said. “But of course in other parts of the world, countries were not able to invest sufficiently in stimulus packages and therefore were not able to protect jobs and wages.”

At the panel talk, she highlighted the need for a “human-centred approach to the future of the world” — one that would prioritise investing in job skills and social protection, and making sure all workers are protected and can benefit from changes in the labour market.

Bircher, who is also the head of the Swiss delegation to the current session of the CSocD, elaborated what the “human-centred approach” entails.

“It means investing in the institutions of the labour market and adopting policies that promote an enabling environment for sustainable enterprises, economic growth and decent work for all,” she said. “Our main objective is to ensure the highest possible participation in the workforce and a good quality of employment, including in the digital age.”

She highlighted the importance of designing a social safety net that would be accessible to everyone, and added that flexible labour market regulation, well-functioning social partnership, and active labour market policies would be crucial for structural change.

But some challenges remain to be addressed.

“Going forward, a big question is how effectively they can turn these temporary measures into proper programmes anchored in policies and laws and backed by adequate financing,” Razavi told IPS. “This is a big challenge in the context of major economic disruptions and falling taxes and other government revenues.”

Despite these questions, Razavi says the social protection responses are “a silver lining” to the crisis. 

“If there was a silver lining to the crisis, it was the way in which it mobilised governments to put together social protection responses, sometimes from scratch with no existing systems and programmes,” she said.

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The post Transition to Digital Economy Must Ensure Access to Those in the Digital Gap appeared first on Inter Press Service.

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By External Source
Feb 12 2021 (IPS-Partners)

“Working in Science, like any other career, is fit for women too… Just go for it, nobody can stop you”, Valérie Allain, Senior Fisheries Scientist at the Pacific Community (SPC).

The post Valérie Allain – Women in Science (2021) appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Kisa Project Manager, Hadija Hassan, records the Tanzania-based GLAMI’s first radio program, about Personal Leadership, at the studio. Courtesy: AfricAid/GLAMI

By Jessica Love
DENVER, Colorado, Feb 12 2021 (IPS)

Last fall, a 45-year-old father of four named Moses turned on the radio at his home in Arusha, Tanzania. Searching for his favorite station, he heard the introduction to a program about girls that he would later describe as ‘ear-catching.’ He wanted to know what would come next.

He had stumbled upon “Safari ya Binti” (A Girl’s Journey), a pilot radio program created by GLAMI (Girls Livelihood and Mentorship Initiative), a Tanzanian NGO that runs extracurricular mentoring programs for secondary school girls.

In a culture that too often reinforces the narrative that girls are weak, less important than boys, and that being confident and determined is rude, GLAMI is working to upend this narrative. Matching girls with university-educated Tanzanian female mentors, GLAMI shows their scholars they have the power to write their own futures – and then they teach the skills needed to do just that.

As a result, girls enrolled in these mentoring programs are more likely to graduate secondary school, attend university, and create positive change in their communities.

Safari ya Binti provided a way for mentors and scholars to connect when in-person sessions had been scaled back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Airing weekly on Saturdays for four months, GLAMI mentors presented lessons that aligned with themes in their core curriculum, such as personal leadership, resilience, study skills, and community leadership.

The father of one son and three daughters, the radio programming was of deep interest to Moses. “The fact that a lot of girls drop out of school because of pregnancy, which is disappointing to us as parents, got me thinking that girls are weak and dependent, and that there is nothing they can do better than taking care of a family.”

Listening to Safari ya Binti, Moses heard inspiring female presenters and he heard girls asking smart questions. This was a program his entire family should hear, he decided, and so they all began to gather weekly to listen together.

Courtesy: AfricAid/GLAMI

“I came to realize that girls are capable of doing what boys can do, there is no limit to what they can do. I noticed this by listening to the girl’s testimonies on the sessions,” he said.

He wasn’t the only one to experience this shift in attitude. GLAMI found that a number of other focus group respondents also experienced significant changes in the way they viewed their daughters, and in the way girls viewed themselves.

“I had doubts that women can be leaders but right now I am beginning to believe that girls are born leaders. I even begin to see that my wife is capable of making huge decisions for the family’s well-being,” shared Balongo, the father of a GLAMI scholar, who listened to the radio show.

Nengarivo, who is enrolled in GLAMI’s mentoring program, shared: “There were times after the school opened when I thought that the world was coming to an end. Coronavirus was a threat, and I had a lot of dreams that I wanted to achieve, but an outbreak of Corona made me lose a lot of hopes given the fact that [GLAMI] mentors were visiting us only twice a month, unlike the usual timetable.

But when Safari ya Binti came I was really motivated to start afresh and have my hopes again. …I consider myself a change maker and I believe that I am a leader, I am not afraid of taking any action to save my community.”

This year, United Nations’ World Radio Day celebrates evolution, innovation, and connection at a time when radio has presented perhaps one of the most important lifelines in recent memory. But for so many organizations, radio presented opportunity.

Radio inspired creative approaches like Safari ya Binti. Radio enabled organizations to stay connected to the communities they serve from a safe distance. And radio allowed the chance to reach wider audiences with messages that inspired, informed, and changed attitudes.

The only downside of radio? Lillian, the mother of one girl enrolled in GLAMI programming put it best:
“I just wish that everything that was discussed could be repeated so as the new listeners could learn everything.”

The link to a promotional video created for the program: https://youtu.be/z8yAyh3qlY0

 

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The post In Tanzania, a Radio Programme for Girls Yields Unexpected Results appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

The United Nations will commemorate World Radio Day on Feb. 13

 
Jessica Love is the Executive Director of AfricAid, which supports robust, locally-led mentorship initiatives that cultivate confidence, improve academic and health outcomes, and promote socially-responsible leadership skills. Learn more at AfricAid.org.

The post In Tanzania, a Radio Programme for Girls Yields Unexpected Results appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Member of Parliament Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn. Credit: Kate Chappell

By Kate Chappell
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Feb 12 2021 (IPS)

It was a joyful, tearful celebration in the early morning hours of Dec. 30, 2020 for countless Argentinians when they heard the news: the senate had legalized terminations up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Prior to this, activists have said that more than 3,000 women died of botched, illegal abortions since 1983. And across the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region, this renewed sense of optimism was compounded after President Joe Biden rescinded what is known as the “global gag rule,” which essentially denied funding to international non-profit organizations that provided abortion counseling or referrals.

Now, women and campaigners across LAC are hopeful that these developments will spur lawmakers to consider decriminalizing abortion in their countries, sparing women their lives, economic well-being, dignity and access to a range of options to make the best choice for their reproductive and overall health.

The LAC region has some of the most restrictive legislation in the world.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a health policy and research organization based in New York, between 2010 and 2014, 6.5 million induced abortions were performed every year. In this region, 97% of women live in countries with restrictive abortion legislation, yet 46% of an estimated 14 million unintended pregnancies end in abortion. About 60% of those were considered to be “unsafe.”

When asked if there is a sense of hope that Argentina’s legislation will spur change in the rest of the region, Tonni Brodber, Representative UN Women, Multi Country Office Caribbean, says there are encouraging signs. “I hope so. Right now we are in the middle of a pandemic, people are struggling with recovery and trying to manage day-to-day life in a pandemic, but there is a lot of support for what has happened within the spaces of women’s organizations.” She added that it “is a difficult conversation, so it will be debated for a long time,” adding that human rights should be centred and stakeholders should focus on the lessons learned from Ireland and other countries, as well as on empathy and shared goals. She noted that Jamaica like all CARICOM countries is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, Article 16 of which speaks to the right to reproductive freedom.

(CEDAW (article 16) guarantees women equal rights in deciding “freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children and to have access to the information, education and means to enable them to exercise these rights.” CEDAW (article 10) also specifies that women’s right to education includes “access to specific educational information to help to ensure the health and well-being of families, including information and advice on family planning.”)

In Jamaica, where abortion is criminalized by a possible life sentence with or without hard labour (except to save a woman’s life or preserve her mental and physical well-being) Brodber says it is a hopeful sign that both male and female leaders are prioritizing the issue. “It can be motivational for a lot of persons who may feel that these issues are not prioritized.” Several MPs, including one male, have voiced support for repealing the legislation.

Jamaicans have been debating this issue for decades without resolution, and like Argentina and Ireland, faces strong opposition to any less restrictive legislation from the Church. This is similarly the case across the region.

Barbados, Belize, St. Vincent and the Grenadines allow abortion to save a woman’s life as well as mental health and socio-economic well-being. Cuba, Guyana, Uruguay and Peurto Rico all allow abortion without restrictions. It is still not permitted for any reason in six countries, while nine others only allow it for the purpose of saving a woman’s life, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

Juliet Cuthbert-Flynn is state minister in the ministry of Health and Wellness for the majority Jamaica Labour Party. In 2018, she tabled a motion to repeal the legislation that criminalizes termination. It has been debated at the committee level, but the motion died on the order paper with the dissolution of parliament last September for an election. Cuthbert-Flynn says she is working at the policy level to advance the issue again. In the meantime, women are still suffering, she says. “These are the women showing up with complications from a botched abortion,” she says. “I think us as parliamentarians need to understand our role and debate laws even if it is going to cause controversy.”

Natalie Campbell Rodriques, a Senator for the majority Jamaica Labour Party, concurs.

“Personally, my own views are that this is something we should bring to the table to the debate, especially for women, our bodies being policed is not something that sits well with me,” she says.

Unsafe abortions are the third leading cause of maternal mortality in Jamaica, and according to estimates, anywhere from 6,000 to 22,000 women a year terminate a pregnancy. While it appears nobody has received any jail time, at least one doctor has been arrested for performing a termination on a 12-year-old girl.

While the UNFPA does not promote abortion, it seeks to decriminalize it, prioritize family planning efforts, and to handle the consequences of unsafe abortions, efforts that are all centred on a common understanding of human rights that has been enshrined in several treaties and agreements.

“I think we have to be honest this is not a straight cut and dry issue,” says the UNFPA’s Brodber. “It is a difficult conversation, so it will be debated for a long time. We are still not prioritizing yet the same common understanding of human rights and women’s rights in particular,” she says, adding that Jamaica is a party to the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women, which highlights the right to reproductive freedom.

The implications of the restrictive legislations have many consequences, from the stigmatization of the women who terminate their pregnancies, to the financial and emotional costs, to the potential health risks. The legislation also disproportionately affects poor and rural women, who do not have the same access as their wealthy counterparts in urban areas.

Over the past several years, a Jamaican activist has been collecting stories from women who have had an abortion. One of these women describes having two abortions, one in 2015 and one in 2107.

“I went the bandoloo way and as expected I almost died… The pain I felt that night I could have push my head through a grill and not feel it. That was the worst night of my life,” the woman writes.

These are the stories that bring the issue to life, beyond the numbers, and a report released on Feb. 4 makes clear the reality.

Leanne Levers, director of advocacy at the Caribbean Policy and Research Institute, which just released the European Union-funded report called “The Cost of Unequal Access to Safe Abortion in Jamaica,” says that the legislation has dire consequences: “People are having abortions regardless of the legality, and they are being done in a way that is unsafe and have serious health and social complications for women, children and wider society, which comes at an economic cost.”

CAPRI’s report made three major recommendations, including a secret conscience vote to decriminalize abortion and make it legal upon request; the access to abortion by minors without parental consent and publicly funded abortions.

The report, which aims to clear away the rhetoric and provide people with evidence-based research upon which to make decisions, also found there is a cost of US$1.4 million in lost economic output to care for women who have had unsafe abortions. One of Cuthbert-Flynn’s constituents died of a botched abortion, and she has pledged to continue to try to enact change.

“I am a parliamentarian, so first my role as a parliamentarian is to make laws and enact laws. That is my first job, and so if I am not willing to do that, and look at laws enacted in 1864, then I am not sure why I am there.”

For her part, Cuthbert Flynn feels hopeful that Argentina’s legislation can help to spark change, but she says people need to make their voices heard, especially in light of a very vocal lobby against decriminalization from groups representing Jamaica’s churches. She says she has had some threats on social media, but none to her person.

“I think civil society needs to come up and speak out, with the church speaking out. We are hearing more and more voices out there, but they need to do like Argentina. People really came out and rallied for this, and tried to make it happen. I was shocked with them and Ireland to see a society that was Catholic (change legislation). It took the people to really come out and galvanize.”

Women’s rights activist Nadeen Spence says that threats from the church to march in protest of abortion and vote out supportive politicians are irrelevant.

“I’m not even concerned with the church, I’m concerned with what I see as the laziness of our politicians.”

Elsewhere in the region, Dominican Republic shares the distinction with Jamaica of the most restrictive legislation in the world.

Abortion is completely illegal, and women who induce abortions can be jailed for up to two years, while medical providers face up to 20 years. Selene Soto, senior attorney at Women’s Link Worldwide, an NGO that focuses on human rights, says Argentina’s recent legislation “We think that in general, that has had an impact, because these issues are important, and they are still on agenda because of what happened in Argentina,” she says. Activists in the Dominican Republic are lobbying for, at the minimum, an inclusion of three exceptions in which the ban on abortion could be lifted: rape, the life of the mother is in danger and the fetus is not viable. “We think that a total ban or restriction is against human rights standards that have been very well established by several international mechanisms,” says Soto.

 

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