The People's Record

TW: Sexual assault - This is Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski. He is the head of the US Air Force’s anti-sexual assault unit.

He was arrested & charged with sexual battery on Sunday after he drunkenly grabbed a woman’s breasts & buttocks in a parking lot near the Pentagon. 

Pentagon officials were preparing to release its annual report on sexual assault in the military as this incident happened. The number of sexual assaults - reported & not reported - are estimated at about 19,000 each year. 

Read more on this scumbag here. 

+ if you haven’t already, watch The Invisible War, a documentary on sexual assault in the military. It’s on Netflix.

The role we all played in the Bangladesh tragedy
April 29, 2013

The first thing Shariful noticed was debris falling from the ceiling. Then he heard a crash as the factory floors gave way and the building crumpled. He fell from the seventh to the first floor‘faster than an elevator’s speed.’Next he heard people screaming: mostly women and children.

There were three crèches in the eight-floor factory. When Shariful gained consciousness he saw dust. He felt a sewing machine crushing his left leg and then he saw death. Everywhere. Dead pale bodies powdered with fine brown dirt. Shariful didn’t know this, but a pregnant woman went into labour around this time. Of course she shouldn’t have been at work. No-one should have been at work. Factory inspectors ordered the building be evacuated the day before but the owners ignored them. Workers who complained were threatened with dismissal. So the 3000 workers filed into the Dhaka factory last Wednesday against their will. As I write, the death-toll stands at 350, but is predicted to rise to 1000.

I learnt about the collapse of the Bangladeshi garment factory a few hours after it happened. I was lying in bed chatting on skype to a friend who is living in Dhaka. It was around 9.00 at night and I was already in my pyjamas: Benetton pyjamas in fact. My floor was its usual mess, strewn with clothes that I had proudly bought for ten dollars or less from Big Bargain Discounts as well as some more respectable work clothes: Gap, Zara, H&M and Levis. ‘It’s OUTRAGEOUS’ I railed, ‘the factory owners made them go back to work when they knew the building was unsafe.’ My friend agreed. We also tsked the government for doing so little to enforce basic safety standards for workers.

But as I hung up the phone the question of fault nagged me. There I was clothed in pyjamas that had been made if not in that factory then in one like it. The labels found inside the collapsed factory included Benetton, Mango, Joe Fresh, Primark and C&A. My floor was littered with dresses and tee-shirts that had been run through the sewing machines of people working in prison conditions or even possibly now dead.

The question of responsibility and what is to be done stretches from the global to the minutiae, from international labour standards to the clothes racks of Myer. It’s a question that stems from our commercial imperialist past and will continue into our neoliberal future. And it’s a question that centres on the lives of women.

We could start by blaming the illegally built building, although it’s certainly not the first. Five months earlier 112 workers died in a fire in the Tazreen garment factory. The workers burnt to death because the gates had been locked from the outside. We could also blame the fact that there are only 18 inspectors to monitor the 100,000 factories in the Dhaka area. Or we could blame the fact that all foreign retailers except Tommy Hilfiger, Tchibo and Calvin Kelin have refused to sign the Fire and Building Safety Agreement that would establish a system of independent factory inspectors. All this is true, and terrible, but there’s also a larger context.

The only reason why clothing companies go to places like Bangladesh, Cambodia, or the US-Mexican border, is because they’re on a hunt for cheap labour and they no longer want to invest in building factories. The minimum wage in Bangladesh is $37/month and there is an entire shadow economy that pays even less. The profit margin for Bangladeshi manufacturers is low so they subcontract out their labour to factories with illegal risky practices. While the foreign retailers report stellar annual profits, some Bangladeshi manufacturers often barely break even. The only way they can make profits is through increasing work hours often to 12-14 hour days, and avoiding building safety regulations and environmental standards.

As global capital sniffs like a ravenous wolf around the world in search of cheap labour, who are the workers who end up caught in its jaws? Liesbeth Sluiter from the Clean Clothes Campaign estimates that 84% of workers in the global clothing industry are women, which is 30-40 million women worldwide.

Fauzia Ahmed says factories prefer women because they’re excluded from male-dominated union movements and so are less likely to strike. And because they’re women they’re paid less, even in instances where they do the same work as men. Most of these women are young, poor and rural. They are as Sluiter describes: ‘women whose children sleep beneath the sewing machine and begin to help out as soon as their fingers can manage to thread a needle; some who wear nothing but black clothes to work when menstruating, because toilet visits are restricted and stains on their clothes will shame them; pregnant women who stand all day; women who are sexually harassed and psychologically intimidated…’

Surely there is no other issue where first world women’s consumerism collides so dramatically with the conditions of third world women. I mean, I wonder what Sex and the City would have looked like if Carrie turned her mind to these issues. But leaving Carrie’s ethics aside, let’s think about a feminist response.

Firstly, I think we should demand that labels be placed on clothing so that we know what we’re buying. Secondly, we try to buy locally and to buy less. Thirdly, we campaign with the many feminists from the global south who have demanded that labour standards be established by the International Labour Organisation and enforced with sanctions by the World Trade Organisation. Capitalism is a prowling, salivating beast that needs to be tamed with regulation and personal ethics.

Source

#4… & most importantly: Let’s not tame capitalism; let’s destroy it.

Police fire tear gas at Bangladeshis protesting factory collapse
April 26, 2013

Bangladeshi police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a crowd of enraged workers protesting the deaths over 300 of their coworkers in a Wednesday garment factory collapse. At least 25 people have been injured in the clashes.

The demonstrators – some armed with bamboo sticks – blockaded roads, smashed vehicles, burned tires and attacked factories at Gazipur, just outside the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.

“The situation is very volatile. Hundreds of thousands of workers have joined the protests. We fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them,” M. Asaduzzaman, an officer in the police control room, told AFP.

The rioting also spread to several districts in the capital, local media reported. The protesters have demanded the arrest and execution of those responsible for the disaster, and blamed the building’s owners for the deaths.

The collapsed eight-story building at Savar, a town on the outskirts of Dhaka, housed five factories. Rescuers have recovered nearly 300 bodies form the rubble, and found 62 people buried alive in the ruins; the death toll may rise further.

There are fears that hundreds of people remain trapped in the wreckage of the building, which officials claim was built illegally and without proper building permits.

“Some people are still alive under the rubble and we are hoping to rescue them,” Reuters cited deputy fire services director Mizanur Rahman.

The building reportedly developed cracks on Tuesday evening, but the owners ordered fleeing workers to return to their production lines, survivors said.

The incident was the worst to befall Bangladesh since a fire in November 2012 that killed over 100 workers.

Many of the country’s 4,500 factories have already been closed due to protests and fears of damage. Manufacturers have declared Saturday to be a holiday, while trade unions called for a strike on Sunday to demand better working conditions, AP reported.

Special prayers for the dead, injured and missing were offered at mosques, temples and pagodas across Bangladesh on Friday.

Source

TW: Rape, Violence: 4-year-old Indian girl raped, left with severe brain injuries in critical condition
April 24, 2013

A 4-year-old Indian girl who was raped last week is currently in critical condition, having sustained severe brain injuries after allegedly being suffocated.

The unnamed child was reportedly raped in her village in Madhya Pradesh on April 17, according to Press Trust of India.

The girl’s family found the child, who went missing on Wednesday, the next morning lying unconscious and profusely bleeding near a crematorium in her village, according to The Times of India. She had lacerations, tears and bruises on her body, and had allegedly been suffocated, which caused serious brain injuries.

Firoz Khan, a 35-year-old welder, is accused of raping the 4-year-old. His alleged accomplice is accused of using chocolate to lure the girl from her home, NDTV reports.

“The condition of the 4-year-old child, who was found unconscious in a field in Ghansur town of MP, is still critical. She is totally unconscious from the time she was brought to Nagpur,” a doctor told The Hindu. “We have done all the examinations including MRI brain and EEG which indicates gross damage to her brain. Her brain’s functioning has reduced to an abnormal level. This is hypoxic brain damage which means inability of brain to work due lack of oxygen supply.”

“She has been put on a life support system and is being treated by a team of senior doctors. Nothing else can be said about her situation now” he added.

Police are still searching for Khan, who may have left the country, according to NDTV. The other suspect has been arrested.

News of this horrific incident comes in the midst of fury over the rape and torture of a 5-year-old girl in the Indian capital . The girl was found Wednesday in a New Delhi apartment building and doctors discovered a candle and a bottle of hair oil inside her little body.

Hundreds of protesters have taken to the streets in the wake of the crime, alleging that police did not respond to the tragedy.

“The police must be held accountable for their shocking levels of apathy. They urgently need to review police processes to ensure that all cases of rape and sexual violence – not just those highlighted by the media – are fully and promptly investigated,” G. Ananthapadmanabhan, who heads the India chapter of the human rights group Amnesty International, said, according to the Associated Press. “Those who fail to do their job must be held accountable.”

Two suspects — aged 19 and 24 — have been arrested in connection with the rape, according to the report.

Source

More football players charged with rape, another community blaming the victim
March 20, 2013

Two football player high school students in Connecticut are charged with the second-degree sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl. The allegations come amid other complaints of hazing at the school, but Torrington High School officials insist that these are individual instances and not a part of a larger cultural problem. (Rape & violence are not a cultural problem? Really?)

But whether or not the alleged rapists Edgar Gonzalez and Joan Toribio, both 18, are maverick sexual assailants isn’t really the cultural question. Rather, the fact that students in the neighborhood and the school have taken to Twitter blame the young girl and not the alleged rapists highlights a broader rape culture that assumes men are only haphazardly involved in sexual assault, but it is usually the victim’s fault:

“If you look at crime statistics these things happen everywhere and we’re not any different than any other community,” said [Athletic Director Mike McKenna].

But on social media in recent weeks, dozens of athletes and Torrington High School students, male and female, have taunted the 13-year-old victim, calling her a “whore,” criticizing her for “snitching” and “ruining the lives” of the 18-year-old football players, and bullying students who defend her.

The Connecticut Register-Citizen highlights some of the offensive tweets about the girl:

“I wanna know why there’s no punishment for young hoes,” asked “@asmedick.” That comment was reposted three times.

Twelve days after the alleged incident, “@AyooWilliam” tweeted, “You destroyed two people’s life.” Another responded, “I hope you got what you wanted.”

“Sticking up for a girl who wanted the D and then snitched? have a seat pleaseeee,” wrote “@ShelbyyKalinski.”

As the case in Steubenville proved, social media has brought a whole new slew of evidence to sexual assault allegations, particularly among young people. Unfortunately, the lesson some news outlets take from this is that Steubenville was “a cautionary tale for teenagers living in today’s digital world.” In reality, social media helps to underline a very real problem: A victim-blaming rape culture that is inclined to take the side of the assailant instead of the victim.

Source

fazstreetart:

D.C.

via

“And to them I say, leave us alone […] Do not grasp us by the wrist, we aren’t your property. Do not whistle at us, we are not dogs. You are not entitled to a smile, or a conversation, or our time, because women do not owe you anything simply because they are women, and you are a man.” - street artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

(Source: stoptellingwomentosmile)

Ohio teens guilty of rape, face year-plus in jail
March 17, 2013

A judge announced on Sunday that the defendants in the Steubenville rape trial were found guilty.

Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond had been accused of sexually assaulting a female acquaintance while she was severely intoxicated. Video and photo footage from the night of the incident spread across the internet soon after, drawing national attention to the case.

Mays and Richmond, both football players at Steubenville High School, received delinquent verdicts on all three charges. Delinquent is the guilty equivalent for juveniles. They were both convicted of digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, and Mays was also found guilty of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material. The boys will serve their sentence at a juvenile detention facility until they turn 21.

The defendants and their family members openly wept at the verdict.

The victim, who has not been identified, testified in court on Saturday that she did not remember the attack, but that she remembered waking up naked in a house she did not recognize. Other members of the small Ohio community also testified against the defendants.Two members of the high school football team that is the pride of Steubenville were found guilty Sunday of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl in a case that bitterly divided the Rust Belt city and led to accusations of a cover-up to protect the community’s athletes.

Steubenville High School students Trent Mays and Ma’Lik Richmond face a possible sentence of detention in juvenile jail until they turn 21, capping a case that came to light via a barrage of morning-after text messages, social media posts and online photos and video.

Both broke down in tears after the verdict was read.

Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were charged with digitally penetrating the West Virginia girl, first in the back seat of a moving car after an alcohol-fueled party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house. Mays was also found guilty on a charge of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.

The case roiled the community amid allegations that more students should have been charged and led to questions about the influence of the local football team, a source of a pride in a community of 18,000 that suffered massive job losses with the collapse of the steel industry. Their arms linked, protesters stood outside the courthouse Sunday morning awaiting the verdict, some wearing masks.

The trial opened last week as a contest between prosecutors determined to show the girl was so drunk she couldn’t have been a willing participant that night, and defense attorneys soliciting testimony from witnesses that would indicate that the girl, though drunk, knew what she was doing.

The teenage girl testified Saturday that she could not recall what happened the night of the attack but remembered waking up naked in a strange house after drinking at a party. The girl said she recalled drinking, leaving the party holding hands with Mays and throwing up later. When she woke up, she said she discovered her phone, earrings, shoes, and underwear were missing, she testified.

“It was really scary,” she said. “I honestly did not know what to think because I could not remember anything.”

The girl said she believed she was assaulted when she later read text messages among friends and saw a photo of herself taken that night, along with a video that made fun of her and the alleged attack. She said she suspected she had been drugged because she couldn’t explain being as intoxicated as defense witnesses have said she was.

“They treated her like a toy,” said special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter.

Evidence introduced at the trial included graphic text messages sent by numerous students after the night of the party, including by the accuser, containing provocative descriptions of sex acts and obscene language. Lawyers noted during the trial how texts have seemed to replace talking on the phone for contemporary teens. A computer forensic expert called by the state documented tens of thousands of texts found on 17 phones seized during the investigation.

The girl herself recalled being in a car later with Mays and Richmond and asking them what happened.

“They kept telling me I was a hassle and they took care of me,” she testified. “I thought I could trust him (Mays) until I saw the pictures and video.”

Source

They should serve more time. Also, the victim blaming in this case is shameful. That’s rape culture.

The real history of International Women’s Day
March 8, 2013

Do you have $100+ to spare? Then you could attend an International Women’s Day luncheon hosted by the Chamber of Commerce or various business organisations. But, although IWD has become mainstream in recent years, it was historically a socialist event and that is how we commemorate it

Clara Zetkin, a leading member of German Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the early 1900s, argued that the working class would never win its battles without women and raised the issue of special party work among women. Under her leadership a working women’s movement grew rapidly in Germany, and the female membership of the SPD rose from 10,500 in 1907 to 150,000 in 1913.

Zetkin proposed the establishment of an international women’s day at the International Socialist Women’s Conference in Copenhagen in August 1910, inspired by American socialists who had held women’s demonstrations and meetings the year before. The slogan for IWD was to be: “The vote for women will unite our strength in the struggle for socialism.”

In 1911, more than a million women and men took up the idea of IWD enthusiastically, with rallies and marches in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark and other major industrial cities of Europe. According to the Russian revolutionary socialist Alexandra Kollontai, “Germany and Austria were one seething, trembling sea of women… Meetings were organised everywhere – in the small towns and even in the villages, halls were packed full.”

In subsequent years and throughout World War One, IWD continued to provide a focus for activists. In 1913 and 1914 women across Europe held peace rallies on or around 8 March. In 1915, socialist women held a march in Bern, Switzerland, in opposition to their own countries’ war effort, which was treason in wartime. They took a manifesto home to be distributed secretly in their countries. In 1917, female socialists in Turin hung posters addressed to women throughout the working class neighbourhoods protesting rising food prices. And in 1918 in Austria, 3,000 women, despite the ban on demonstrations, marched in small groups past the parliament and the Palace of Justice demanding peace.

In Russia Alexandra Kollontai played a leading role. She brought the idea of IWD to Russia and helped organise events in the pre-war years. In Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in 1913, Bolshevik women workers organised a “scientific morning devoted to the woman question” (this sort of subterfuge was necessary under tsarism). Kollontai wrote:

“This was an illegal meeting but the hall was absolutely packed. Members of the party spoke. But this animated ‘close’ meeting had hardly finished when the police, alarmed at such proceedings, intervened and arrested many of the speakers.”

In 1914 police again intervened and arrested many people. Some women were nonetheless able to celebrate IWD with flash meetings around the city, and similar small actions were possible in 1915 and 1916.

Peace and bread

By 1917, deteriorating living conditions had resulted in strong feelings. Frustration with food shortages and interminable queues had already produced food riots, and the large number of women workers in large factories had already carried out many strikes.

What happened in Petrograd combined food riots, economic strikes and a political strike. And it was all sparked by women determined to celebrate International Women’s Day.

The local Bolsheviks judged the time unripe for militant action. So when a group of women from the Vyborg district asked for advice on how to celebrate IWD they were told to “refrain from isolated actions and follow only instructions of party committee”.

The women decided to strike anyway. In spite of all directives, women in Petrograd chose to protest and strike for “Bread and Peace” on 23 February (8 March on the Gregorian calendar). Demonstrations organised to demand bread were supported by the industrial workforce. Women textile workers in several factories went on strike and sent delegates to metal workers for support. The women workers marched to nearby factories bringing out over 50,000 workers on strike.

By 25 February, the strike had spread to 240,000 workers. Mass demonstrations surged through the town. The following day large parts of Petrograd were in control of the insurrection and when soldiers went over on 27 February, the tsar abdicated.

General Khabalov of the Petrograd Military District summarised the problem facing the authorities: “When they said, ‘Give us bread!’ we could give them bread and that was the end of it. But when they said, ‘Down with the autocracy!’ we could no longer appease them with bread.”

Full article

Happy International Women’s Day! 

Pictured: Si Se Puede by Robert Valadez, Chief Theresa Spence, Dr. Angela Davis, Vandala Shiva, Amy Goodman, Malala Yousafzai, Leila Khaled, Pussy Riot & Zapatista women.