Buddhist bhukkhini (female monk) ceremony. Cedit: Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
NAKHON PATHOM, Thailand, Nov 1 2013 (IPS)

Thai women were among the first women in Asia granted voting rights, in 1932. However, when it comes to religion, women in Thailand continue to struggle for equality and social acceptance.

Rhythmic chanting fills the air just before dawn at the Songdhammakalyani Monastery in Nakhon Pathom, a provincial city located about 56km outside of Bangkok in central Thailand.

Unlike the 33,903 Buddhist temples that house an estimated 250,000 monks in Thailand, the Songdhammakalyani Monastery is the first temple built for women by women. The abbess, Venerable Dhammananda Bhikkhuni, is the country’s first fully ordained nun or Bhikkhuni in a Theravada monastic lineage.

The temple’s roots stretch back nearly five decades when Venerable Dhammananda’s mother, Venerable Voramai or Ta Tao Fa Tzu, became the first fully ordained Thai woman in the Mahayana lineage in Taiwan and turned their family home into a monastery.

“When my mother became interested in Buddhism she realised that in the Buddha’s time the Buddha gave ordination to women. Why were women never ordained in our country?” Venerable Dhammananda tells IPS.

“It was actually the Buddha who gave the ordination to his own stepmother and aunt and the whole story is in the Dhamma for you to read.”

Women account for an estimated 51 percent of Thailand’s population of nearly 68 million, according to a 2012 World Bank report.

Compared to neighbouring countries, women have made great strides in education and on the socio-economic front. However, women still earn 74 percent less than their male colleagues and hold a minority of high-level positions in business and politics. And when it comes to religion, women remain absent.

“A lot of the gender inequalities regarding salary and lack of female representation among the top-ranking members of our parliament are due to deeply ingrained cultural stereotypes of women,” Yad Prapar, associate professor of economics at Ramkhamhaeng University, told IPS.

“In Thai culture, they view the buffalo as a stupid animal that is hard-working. And they used to believe that woman was a buffalo while man was human. This is why women’s status in Thai Buddhism is far inferior to men because they are considered of less value.”

Under the current Thai constitution the ordination of women is permitted. But the Thai Sangha Council, a government-linked religious advisory group, maintains that only men can enter the monkhood, citing the 1928 Sangha Act that forbids Thai monks from ordaining women.

Women’s rights activists and religious scholars argue that legally recognising bhikkhunis (female monks) not only upholds the ‘Four Pillars of Buddhism’ but also provides a monastic community where women from all walks of life can practice among women.

“Women feel safer staying in a temple that is mainly run by women,” says Dr. Sutada Mekrungruengkul, a lecturer at Nation University. “If I had a daughter I would feel more comfortable sending her, during the summer months when there’s no school, to be part of a bhikkhuni sangha where she could be a youth monk for about ten days or one month without harassment.

“Also, with bhikkhunis I can discuss issues pertaining to my personal life or the Dhamma privately. Whereas with a male monk, people could accuse me of having an interest in him because he’s handsome or claim that I want something more than guidance. This is how women strengthen Buddhism.”

The Songdhammakalyani Monastery’s regular 12-week Dhamma courses and three-day retreats in Buddhist education fill a major gap left by male-dominated sangha communities with a curriculum that is geared towards a feminist approach to interpreting Buddhist texts.

“Despite being a Buddhist all my life, I didn’t understand the Dhamma of the Buddha,” 53-year-old Venerable Dhammasiri, who received ordination four years ago in Sri Lanka, tells IPS. “I didn’t practice from my heart because I was never told the meaning of the chants, or the reasons we bow or abstain from certain foods. I was merely a Buddhist by birth certificate.

“In Thailand, the monks only teach from their point of view. I feel more empowered after becoming a bhikkhuni because I’ve not only learned self-control but my eyes have been opened to the historical role women played in Buddhism, like the thirteen female arahants, the history of the bhikkhuni sangha and the respected status we held during the Buddha’s time.”

Currently there are over 30 bhikkhunis and an unknown number of samaneris or female novices living in monasteries throughout Thailand.

To support the bhikkhunis’ movement of establishing a thriving and legally recognised female sangha in Thailand, a coalition of civil society members, scholars and legislators have put forth several proposals to amend Thai laws. Their hope is that in five to ten years the government and the religious clergy will restore the rightful heritage granted to women by the Buddha.

“Women have always contributed to Buddhism because it is actually women who feed the monks. Go to any temple in Thailand, and 80 percent of the attendants are women, so they are actually the foundation to keep Buddhism going in this country,” adds Dhammananda.

“We are laying the groundwork for more women to pursue the ordained life, so that future generations don’t have to fight so hard.”

After working in Thailand legally for four years, many Myanmar migrant workers are facing an uncertain future in the coming weeks as their visas expire. Tired of the lack of security, they want the Myanmar government to improve the current labour agreement with Thailand.

The death of 27-year-old Soe Moe Kyaw’s father in 2010 drove the family’s rice planting business in Mandalay into a dire economic situation. Strapped for cash, his mother borrowed 8,000 baht (266 dollars) from her sister to pay a broker in Myanmar for Soe Moe Kyaw to travel across the border into Thailand.

Nearly 80 percent of the estimated three million migrant workers in Thailand are from Myanmar. Credit: Daniel Julie/CC BY 2.0

Several months after his arrival, he found employment canning fish for 300 baht (10 dollars) per day at tuna canning factory Unicord in Mahachai. As the eldest of three siblings, Soe Moe Kyaw had dreams of earning enough money in Thailand to improve his family’s way of life.

“In the beginning, I thought that I could earn enough money to invest in a rice trade business in Myanmar, but the first few months of my salary went towards repaying my aunt. Even though I work eight hours per day and sometimes overtime, I only make enough to pay my sister’s education costs,” Soe Moe Kyaw told IPS.

“Since I entered the country illegally, I didn’t have proper documents, so I often had to hide in a room for fear of being arrested by the Thai police. As migrants, we face a lot of uncertainties because our jobs aren’t guaranteed, and even after paying a lot of money to become legal, we’re always threatened with losing our visas.”

Nearly 80 percent of the estimated three million migrant workers in Thailand are from Myanmar.

In a bid to curb undocumented migration, the governments of Myanmar and Thailand signed a memorandum of understanding in 2003 granting migrant workers the ability to apply for two-year work visas, with the possibility of a one time two-year extension.

Under the agreement, after a maximum of four years, workers are required to return to Myanmar for a period of at least three years before being eligible for re-entry.

In the coming weeks, hundreds of thousands of migrants – who underwent the process in July 2009 – will have to choose between leaving or remaining in the country illegally.

Economically, Myanmar is in no condition to absorb a return of so many workers from Thailand.

Last year, Myanmar migrant workers remitted an estimated 566 million dollars. A dent in this will hit families hard. Myanmar has a 37 percent unemployment rate, and more than 26 percent of the country’s population of 60 million lives below the poverty line.

Thirty-two year old Ma Cho is from the city of Myeik in Myanmar’s Tanintharyi Region. In 2003, she paid a broker 3500 baht (110 dollars) to cross the border into Thailand. She peels shrimp at 10 to 15 dollars per day.

Ma Cho’s family relies heavily on the money she sends.

“After paying for my living expenses here in Thailand I’m able to send around 200,000 kyat or 7,000baht (233 dollars) every two or three months. This keeps food on the table, pays for my daughter’s education and contributes to the new house my family is building for my daughter and I once I return,” Ma Cho told IPS.

“I would like to say to the Myanmar government that more then three million workers contribute to the country’s economy. The current labour policy with Thailand needs to ensure our rights and protection from exploitation.”

“Many workers would prefer to return to Myanmar because we miss being with our families, but life is very hard there,” 33-year-old Sue Soe Nwe told IPS. “I was working as a volunteer teacher in my village of Dawei but the salary of 700 kyat (one dollar) per month wasn’t enough to buy one shoe. We have no electricity or water system in my area and if we don’t have any money then we can’t go to school.

“If I could speak to the Myanmar government I would say that there should be no class discrimination based on whether an individual has a high-level or low-level education. Only those at the top are feeling the democratic changes but for everyday people nothing has changed.”

Better jobs need to be created in Myanmar, she said. “The government should clearly define the minimum wage and provide more security for working families. Currently the minimum wage is 1500 kyat (1.50 dollar) per day and this needs to greatly increase to a more fair standard so that people can really live and survive in our own country.”

At the Romdeng restaurant. Credit: Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
PHNOM PENH, Aug 16 2013 (IPS)

Following the death of his parents when he was just four, Samlain Chey, now 22, found himself living on the streets along the river near the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. Until he met a social worker from Mith Samlanh.

Mith Samlanh, which means ‘friends’, is a local organisation that facilitates reintegration of youth into their family, the public school system, the workplace and their culture. And it has found innovative ways of doing so.

It picks up homeless people and trains them as chefs at its training restaurants Romdeng and Friends. Besides what the restaurants do for the homeless, they do something for food – both have garnered local and international recognition for contemporary and traditional Khmer cuisine.

Samlain was 15 when the restaurants found him. They gave him a home and a future. “I was given housing while I learnt traditional Khmer cooking, and about the hospitality and service industry,” he told IPS. “After a month of learning I wanted to be a head chef and open my own restaurant.”

Upon completion of his three-year training, Samlain was offered a teaching position. As a former street youth, he feels he now has the opportunity to help others who are like him.

“For young people, it’s hard living on the streets because we don’t eat enough, there’s no security, we start using drugs and no one seems to care about our future.

“I’m happy working here because I’m also able to share my story, which gives the students the confidence they need to not give up.”

In Cambodia, 44.3 percent of the population of 15 million is under 18 years of age. According to official statistics, 35 percent of the population lives below the poverty line – which in Cambodia is 45 cents per person per day.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), between 10,000-20,000 children work on the streets of Phnomh Penh.

Seventeen-year old Bopha is one of them. She lived on the streets until she was 14. Bopha says it was difficult for her parents to support a family of eight selling cakes on the roadside in Phnom Penh.

“My life was very difficult because there were times when we couldn’t make enough money for food and I was unable to attend school,” Bopha told IPS.

“Things changed when a social worker from Mith Samlanh started visiting us on the streets to offer food. They asked me if I would be interested in gaining computer skills and learning traditional cooking. At first, I felt hesitant because I was afraid that if I left, I wouldn’t be able to help my family earn a living by selling cakes.” Later, she took the offer.

Finding work is a struggle. The economy has been unable to absorb the nearly 400,000 new labour market entrants per year.

According to the Ministry of Labour, some 200,000 to 300,000 youth migrate out of the country annually in search of low-skilled jobs due to lack of proper training or education – and lack of opportunities.

“Street children have lost their right to education,” Friends restaurant communication officer Menghourng Ngo told IPS. “For children aged 3-14 we provide informal education so that they integrate easily into the public school system. Youth aged 15-24 are more interested in employment, so we offer them vocational training at our centre.

“Our training focuses on developing confidence, self-respect, proper hygiene and hospitality skills. Upon completion, we assist in finding them jobs. Our nationality is Khmer so the programme also instils a sense of pride in the Khmer culture.”

The vast numbers of the young, and their vast problems, have caught political attention.

Approximately 50 percent of eligible voters are under 25, and calls to increase youth employment did well for the Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) in the elections last month.

Many believe that the 22-seat loss for Prime Minister Hun Sen in the elections sent a message to the ruling party that resentment among youth could deepen if their quality of life fails to improve.

“It’s my dream to see my family have a comfortable way of life. I would like to own a house and open my own business one day, sharing Khmer cuisine with the international community,” says Bopha.

“Since coming to Mith Samlanh, I feel more excited about my future. It’s very important that I was able to access their vocational trainings because now I will have the skills to make my dream a reality.”

Thai laws ban transgender women from changing their names and gender on their identity cards. Credit: Sutthida Malikaew/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
BANGKOK, Jul 24 2013 (IPS)

A draft law being readied for parliament that seeks to offer lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) couples the same legal rights as heterosexual couples could make Thailand the first country in Southeast Asia to legalise gay marriage.

Last year, Nathee Theeraronjanapong (55) and his partner Atthapon Janthawee (38) decided to make their 20-year relationship legal.

Citing section 1448 of Thailand’s Civil and Commercial Code, which deems same-sex marriage unlawful, the head of registrations in Thailand’s northern city of Chiang Mai handed the couple a letter of denial.

“The LGBTIQ community really struggles with the issue of acceptance from our parents. There is a lot of pressure to conform to traditional beliefs of what a family unit is comprised of." -- Anjana Suvarnananda, co-founder of Anjaree Group.
In response, the couple filed a complaint with the Parliamentary Human Rights Commission, the Administrative Court and the National Human Rights Commission insisting that Thailand’s constitution guarantees them equal protection under the law.

The political storm following that incident, which generated considerable media buzz, prompted a member of parliament to gather a committee of parliamentarians, 15 scholars and LGBTIQ activists to draft the country’s first civil union bill, to legalise same-sex marriage.

Presenting the draft law on same-sex unions to Thailand’s parliament is Wiratana Kalayasiri, Democrat parliamentarian from the southern Thai city of Songkhla, who is also the chairman of the Legal Justice Human Rights committee.

He says most legislators in Thailand are over 47, which partially explains the staunch opposition to the law in its early stages.

“At first, there was a negative impression and people were wondering why I was doing this but as this process went on people started to understand that this is a human right of the Thai people, guaranteed under the constitution. Since then minds have changed,” Kalayasiri told IPS.

“We have held five hearings on the bill at several universities throughout Thailand and in parliament as well. A survey of 200-300 people showed that 78 percent are in favour of allowing same-sex marriage and 10.3 percent are against it.

“I was particularly surprised when we went to Songkhla [a city of roughly 75,000 people] for a public meeting and 87 percent of Muslims in attendance were in favour [of gay marriage].”

Still, leading activists in Thailand’s LGBTIQ movement like Anjana Suvarnananda, who co-founded Anjaree Group in 1987 – the first organisation to raise the issue of LGBTIQ rights here – believes that the bill could facilitate the process of moving public attitudes from opposition to acceptance.

“The LGBTIQ community really struggles with the issue of acceptance from our parents. There is a lot of pressure to conform to traditional beliefs of what a family unit is comprised of,” she told IPS.

“This is why it is important that the language of the bill transcends defining marriage as being solely between a man and a woman. If we can put forth the idea that the family structure is based on the union of two loving and consenting individuals then…society and our parents would be more willing to accept our way of life.”

Under the current Civil and Commercial Code, same-sex families are not afforded the same legal protections as heterosexual couples such as medical coverage or recognition as being the sole caretaker of their spouse.

Suvarnananda believes the law will be particularly useful during times of emergency. “If there is a severe accident or health issue, like if my partner becomes ill, then in the eyes of the law I am no one other than just a friend. This forces us [the LGBTIQ community] to struggle by ourselves…We want more security,” she added.

In 1956, provisions making sodomy a punishable offense were repealed and consensual sex between same-sex couples became lawful, making Thailand one of Asia’s most progressive countries regarding gay rights.

Anti-discrimination laws protecting members of the LGBTIQ community are non-existent in the region. Sodomy is criminalised in six member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – namely, Brunei, Burma, Malaysia and Singapore, as well as  Marawi City in the Philippines and the South Sumatra Province of Indonesia.

Thus Danai Linjongrat, executive director of the Rainbow Sky Association, has been urging caution in the drafting of the civil union bill, so that it will not inadvertently fan the flames of intolerance and heighten regional stigmatisation of the LGBTIQ community.

“We are looking for a bill that equalises all relationships,” he told IPS. “For example, the current marriage law grants heterosexual couples the right to marry once they reach the legal age of 17, but for LGBTIQ people the legal marriage age would be 20 years old.”

“When we put forth language like this in a bill it merely reinforces discrimination against a certain segment of society when it comes to marriage,” says Linjongrat.

The situation is particularly complicated for transgender individuals, who confront a range of attitudes and biases across the region. Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore, for example, all have laws targeting and criminalising transgender women for “cross-dressing”.

Even in Thailand, where gender non-conformity receives a high degree of social acceptance, there has been little progress in formally recognising the rights of transgender people.

Thailand’s first sex change surgery was performed in 1972 and there are an estimated 180,000 Thai people who identify as transgender, including a number of pop singers, television personalities and movie stars.

In addition, a transgender beauty pageant, the Miss Tiffany’s Universe, is televised annually on a national scale from the eastern city of Pattaya.

Yet Thai law does not allow trans-people to change their gender or their names on ID cards, birth certificates or passports, leading to complications in finding employment and harassment at border crossings or immigration checkpoints.

Even with a university degree, transgender people have difficulty finding a decent job. To support themselves, many turn to the entertainment or sex industry.

Experts hope “this civil union bill will slightly reduce heteronormativity in Thai society, which could improve…health issues by reducing the likelihood of unsafe sexual practices [among the LGBTIQ community],” Prempreeda Pramoj Na Ayutthaya, an HIV and AIDS national programme officer for UNESCO in Bangkok, told IPS.

Thailand has the highest adult HIV rate in Southeast Asia, with nearly 520,000 people between the ages of 15 and 49 living with HIV/AIDS; a 2010 survey in Bangkok found that 31 percent of gay men and transgendered people are HIV-positive.

“In order for the transgender community to fully support this bill, it must ensure that we are granted the right to legally change our name titles,” Na Ayutthaya stressed.

A farmer looks out at a flooded paddy field in Laos. Credit: E Souk/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
BANGKOK, Jun 20 2013 (IPS)

The future of food security in the Mekong region lies at a crossroads, as several development ventures, including the Xayaburi Hydropower Project, threaten to alter fish migration routes, disrupt the flow of sediments and nutrients downstream, and endanger millions whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River basin’s resources.

Running through China, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, this is Asia’s seventh longest transboundary river.

An estimated 60 million people live within the lush river basin, and nearly 80 percent depend on the Lower Mekong’s waters and intricate network of tributaries as a major source of food.

But if all goes according to plan, 88 dams will obstruct the river’s natural course by 2030. Seven have already been completed in the Upper Mekong basin in China, with an estimated twenty more either planned or underway in the northwest Qinghai province, the southwestern region of Yunnan and Tibet.

Construction of the 3.5-billion-dollar Xayaburi Dam on the Lower Mekong in northern Laos is the first of eleven planned dam projects on the main stem of the Mekong River, with nine allocated for Laos and two in Cambodia.

Construction began in 2010 and as of last month the project was 10 percent complete.

At best these development projects will alter the traditional patterns of life here; at worst, they will devastate ecosystems that have thrived for centuries.

Over 850 freshwater fish species call the Mekong home, and several times a year this rich water channel is transformed into a major migration route, with one third of the species travelling over 1,000 kilometres to feed and breed, making the Mekong River basin one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries.

Large-scale water infrastructure development projects such as hydropower dams have already damaged the floodplains in the Lower Mekong and in the Tonlé Sap Lake in Cambodia, affecting water quality and quantity, lowering aquatic productivity, causing agricultural land loss and a 42-percent decline in fish supplies.

This spells danger in a region where fish accounts for 50 to 80 percent of daily consumption and micronutrient intake, Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia programme director for the non-profit International Rivers, told IPS.

Locating alternative protein sources such as livestock and poultry is no easy task and would require 63 percent more pasture lands and more than 17 percent more water.

“Cambodia is the largest fish eating country in the world. Get rid of the fish and you’re going to have serious problems because there is not enough livestock in Cambodia and Laos to compensate for the loss,” Trandem said.

With a total population of over 16 million, the Mekong Delta is known as the ‘rice bowl’ of Vietnam. It nurtures vast paddy fields that are responsible for 50 percent of national rice production and 70 percent of exports.

This low-lying delta depends on a natural cycle of floods and tides, with which Vietnamese farmers have long synchronised their planting and harvesting calendars.

Now, experts like Geoffrey Blate, senior advisor of landscape conservation and climate change for the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Greater Mekong Programme in Thailand, say this delicate ecosystem is vulnerable to changes brought on by global warming and mega development projects.

Rising sea levels and salt water intrusion have already put Vietnamese communities in the Mekong Delta on red alert, “while sediment losses caused by upstream dams will exacerbate these problems. In addition, the increased precipitation and heavier downpours anticipated from climate change may also substantially alter flood regimes in the Delta,” Blate told IPS.

If all the dams are built, experts estimate that 220,000 to 440,000 tonnes of white fish would disappear from the local diet, causing hunger and leading to a rapid decline in rice production.

Electricity over sustainability?

Citing a shortage of energy, Thailand’s leading state-owned utility corporation, EGAT, signed an agreement to purchase 95 percent of the Xayaburi dam’s anticipated 1,285 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

Six Thai commercial banks comprise the financial muscle of the project, while construction is in the hands of Thailand’s CH. Karnchang Public Company Limited, with some support from the Laotian government.

But energy experts like Chuenchom Sangarasri Greacen, author of Thailand’s Alternative Power Development Plan, have poked holes in the claim that the dam is required to meet growing energy needs.

Thailand is a net importer of electricity, but a lot of it is utilised wastefully, she told IPS, adding that countries like Laos and Cambodia have a much more immediate need for electricity: the World Bank estimates that only 84 percent of the population in Laos and 26 percent in Cambodia have access to electricity, compared to 99.3 percent in Thailand.

But instead of developing their own generation capacities, these governments have chosen export projects that profit corporations over people.

“Thailand is creating a lot of environmental, social and food issues for local communities by extending its grid to draw power from beyond our borders,” Greacen said.

Already, 333 families from villages like Houay Souy in north-central Laos, who were moved to make way for the dam, are feeling the first hints of greater suffering to come.

Once a self-sufficient community that generated revenues via gold panning and cultivated their own riverbank gardens to produce rice, fruits and vegetables, villagers are now finding themselves without jobs, very little money and not enough food.

“The villagers’ primary source of food was fishing and agriculture. In their new location, about 17 km away from their old homes, they were given small plots of agricultural land but not enough for their daily consumption needs,” said Trandem.

“Ch. Karnchang never compensated them for lost fisheries, fruit trees or the riverbank gardens that were washed away. Their new homes were built with poor quality wood, which was quickly eaten into by termites, so what little compensation they did receive went to fixing their new homes,” she added.

These families, numbering about five members per household, are now barely surviving on 10 dollars per month and symbolise the gap between so-called poverty alleviation programmes and their impact on the ground.

“The Laos government claims that dams will generate revenue but in reality…projects like Xayaburi basically export benefits and profits away from the host country while smaller projects that are more economically sustainable are being ignored,” says Greacen.

She believes the Laotian government should explore small-scale renewable energy projects like biomass and micro-hydro plants that would attract local investment and directly serve local populations.

Blate also suggested building diversion canals for smaller dams, rather than obstructing the main stem of the Mekong River.

The future of food security in the Mekong region lies at a crossroads, as several development ventures, including the Xayaburi Hydropower Project, threaten to alter fish migration routes, disrupt the flow of sediments and nutrients downstream, and endanger millions whose livelihoods depend on the Mekong River basin’s resources.

Running through China, Myanmar (formerly Burma), Laos, Thailand and Cambodia to the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, this is Asia’s seventh longest transboundary river.

An estimated 60 million people live within the lush river basin, and nearly 80 percent depend on the Lower Mekong’s waters and intricate network of tributaries as a major source of food.

But if all goes according to plan, 88 dams will obstruct the river’s natural course by 2030. Seven have already been completed in the Upper Mekong basin in China, with an estimated twenty more either planned or underway in the northwest Qinghai province, the southwestern region of Yunnan and Tibet.

Construction of the 3.5-billion-dollar Xayaburi Dam on the Lower Mekong in northern Laos is the first of eleven planned dam projects on the main stem of the Mekong River, with nine allocated for Laos and two in Cambodia.

At best these development projects will alter the traditional patterns of life here; at worst, they will devastate ecosystems that have thrived for centuries.

Over 850 freshwater fish species call the Mekong home, and several times a year this rich water channel is transformed into a major migration route, with one third of the species travelling over 1,000 kilometres to feed and breed, making the Mekong River basin one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries.

Large-scale water infrastructure development projects such as hydropower dams have already damaged the floodplains in the Lower Mekong and in the Tonlé Sap Lake in Cambodia, affecting water quality and quantity, lowering aquatic productivity, causing agricultural land loss and a 42-percent decline in fish supplies.

This spells danger in a region where fish accounts for 50 to 80 percent of daily consumption and micronutrient intake, Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia programme director for the non-profit International Rivers, told IPS.

If all the dams are built, experts estimate that 220,000 to 440,000 tonnes of white fish would disappear from the local diet, causing hunger and leading to a rapid decline in rice production.

Migrant labour supports Thailand’s massive seafood industry. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
MAHACHAI, Thailand, Jun 11 2013 (IPS)

Next time you visit Walmart and throw that packet of frozen shrimp in your shopping cart, pause a moment.

The shrimp would most likely have travelled from Thailand, the world’s top exporter of seafood since 2004, where reports of abuse of migrant workers have recently cast an unflattering shadow over the industry.

A Jun. 6 briefing report by the Washington-based International Labour Rights Forum highlighted child and worker rights violations at Narong Seafood, one of Thailand’s leading seafood factories and one of Walmart’s top suppliers.

Narong Seafood’s principal shrimp processing facility is located in Samut Sakhon or modern Mahachai, a central Thai province that is home to over 6,000 seafood factories.

This fishing and factory town at the mouth of the Tha Chin Klong River, which empties into the Gulf of Thailand, also hosts a huge percentage of the estimated 2.5 million migrant workers who underpin much of Thailand’s burgeoning economy.

Burmese comprise 82 percent of these migrants, while the rest come mostly from Laos (8.4 percent) and Cambodia (9.5 percent).

U Aung Kyaw was among those fleeing military rule, a crumbling economy and a lack of job opportunities in Myanmar (formally Burma). He came to Thailand looking for work in 1998 and soon found himself in Mahachai, working at a seafood factory.

It was here that he first experienced labour abuse and vowed not only to educate himself about his rights but also to advocate improved conditions for his fellow workers.

One of the few workers willing to speak to the press, U Aung Kyaw heads the Burmese-led Migrant Worker Rights Network (MWRN).

He told IPS that smaller processing factories “force workers to work overtime for less pay. The legal minimum wage is 300 baht (roughly 10 dollars) per day and overtime is 56 baht (about two dollars) per hour, but they usually pay 50-100 baht (about 1.5 to three dollars) overall, and no overtime.”

“Most workers are confined to the compound in these factories. Often, they are locked up and their documents confiscated to prevent them from escaping.”

This is especially true in smaller factories, which handle the shrimp peeling for larger enterprises, where “shifts start at four a.m. and finish late at night,” according to U Aung Kyaw.

Thailand’s seafood industry employs more than 650,000 people. Its exports totalled 7.3 billion dollars in 2011, with the United States, Japan and Europe importing nearly 70 percent of the country’s seafood.

Allegations of worker abuse are nothing new to the sector. One indictment came as recently as May 29 this year, when a report by the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) entitled ‘Sold to the Sea’ documented the case of 15 Burmese migrant workers who claimed that they were subjected to forced detention, bonded labour and physical abuse while being employed on Thai fishing ships.

Another report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in 2011 titled ‘Trafficking of Fishermen in Thailand’ documented cases of migrant fishermen who were forced to work for years without pay.

Meanwhile, labour rights activists who attempt to expose the dark side of this lucrative industry risk severe reprisals from a strong business community anxious to maintain positive international trade relations, and present an untarnished view of the sector to the outside world.

Especially in small factories, where individual owners can easily police the workforce, attempts to organise workers, or expose violations, have been met with police crackdowns or attacks by gangs.

“We were beaten up and experienced a lot of physical harassment,” said U Aung Kyaw, who began collecting data and reporting abuses to the Labour Rights Promotion Network in Mahachai several years ago, before finally launching MWRN in 2009.

Getting workers to speak out is tough because many are undocumented and fear reprisals. Activists recently pilloried the National Verification Programme for charging “extortionist” prices for work permits, pushing many migrant into a kind of bonded servitude.

Twenty-seven-year-old Win Sein, hailing from the Tanintharyi Division in southeast Myanmar, was forced to pay his broker 223 dollars when he arrived here seven years ago. To pay off the massive bill, he landed a job at a tuna processing factory in Mahachai.

“I’m currently working at Thai Union Frozen Foods in Mahachai,” Win Sein told IPS. Here, a full range of discriminatory practices are on display, including Thai workers receiving two weeks of paid vacation while their Burmese counterparts get no official leave.

The fisheries sector is not the only one to have come under fire.

A 2012 report by the Finnish research NGO Finnwatch revealed how basic human rights were being grossly violated at the pineapple processing company Natural Fruit, which supplies pineapple concentrate to Refresco, the bottle manufacturer that controls an estimated 20 percent of the European private label soft drink and fruit juice market.

Finnwatch reserved a large part of its indictment for Refresco, saying it too is partly responsible for the exploitation of migrant workers. Finnwatch research coordinator Henri Purje said that companies like Refresco, which raked in 1.22 billion euros in revenues in 2010, compromised labour rights in an effort to maintain competitive prices.

He told IPS that since labour costs only comprise a tiny percentage of the price of the end product, paying decent wages and abiding by the International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s guidelines will hardly impact the company’s bottom line.

The problem, as Purje sees it, “is that the international chains that buy from Thai producers put fairly strict conditions on their suppliers, making it difficult for suppliers to pay minimum wage.”

For the moment, Refresco has reportedly stopped sourcing from Natural Fruit, and the company, owned and operated by the brother of Thailand’s Democratic Party Secretary-General Chalermchai Sri-On, has filed a 10-million-dollar lawsuit against the co-author of the Finnwatch report, British migrant specialist Andy Hall, for “criminal defamation.”

For the last decade, Hall has exposed systematic abuses of migrant workers in Thailand and has worked closely with foreign consumers and diplomatic missions to develop a strategy of corporate social responsibility that might make life easier for migrant workers.

He told IPS he has also been working closely with the Myanmar government, on whose shoulders the responsibility of protecting migrant workers falls.

Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s recent visit and meeting with migrant workers in Mahachai has brought renewed hope that things will change.

A port of entry into Myanmar (Burma) from Thailand. Credit: Preethi Nallu/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
BANGKOK, May 23 2013 (IPS)

Nangnyi Foung reaches into the dryer, pulls out another pair of pants and places it on the ironing board. “I still have several more loads to go,” she says as the clock strikes nine p.m., marking the start of her 14^th hour on the shift.

She has been on her feet in this laundromat in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai since seven in the morning and had been hoping to call it a day when two more customers walked in.

She is not in a position to turn anyone away: “I need the money. My family needs me to work,” she tells IPS, her voice tinged with desperation as she begins yet another load.

Six do-it-yourself washing machines stand like sentries at the entrance of this storefront-turned-laundromat. A flight of stairs leads to Nangnyi Foung’s living quarters, where she retires late at night only to collapse in exhaustion before waking up and beginning all over again.

Originally from the Shan State in neighbouring Myanmar (formerly Burma), Nangnyi Foung came here saddled with debt.

Fleeing persistent violence in her home country, she took out loans and paid middlemen hefty sums in order to win safe passage to Thailand, where, she had heard, employment opportunities awaited.

Ten years later Nangnyi Foung is still working to pay off her debt, awaking daily to a rigorous fourteen-hour shift of washing and ironing. Her earnings after seven days’ work without a single day off amount to little over six dollars, much of which is remitted back home.

Reaching for the steaming iron Nangnyi Foung tells IPS she saves on living expenses by sleeping in the basement of this facility. If she also had to pay for lodging she would not be able to send money home to her family of four.

Accounting for over 80 percent of Thailand’s 2.5-million-strong migrant labour force, Burmese migrants like Nangnyi Foung provide a lifeline to cash-strapped families back in Myanmar, one of Southeast Asia’s poorest countries that is struggling to recover from decades of economic stagnation.

Today, the minimum wage in Myanmar – about 180 dollars a month – buys eight to 10 times fewer daily consumption commodities like rice, salt, sugar and cooking oil than it did twenty years ago. The average Burmese lives on less than a dollar per day.

Though Myanmar is the world’s largest exporter of teak, jade, pearls, rubies and sapphires, and boasts lucrative extractive industries such as mining, timber and power generation, very little of the country’s natural wealth trickles down to the masses: approximately 32 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, while unemployment is at 5.4 percent.

According to a 2006 survey of migrant workers from Myanmar, conducted by the Asian Research Centre for Migration, more than two-thirds of the 600 respondents admitted to being unemployed before migrating to Thailand.

Remittances jump hurdles

While migrant workers fill crucial gaps in Thailand’s labour market, and their remittances account for five percent of Myanmar’s gross domestic product (GDP), neither government has attempted to make the flow of money between workers and their families any easier.

Despite the existence of commercial banks or official ‘Xpress Money’ outlets, most migrants prefer to use the informal remittance channel known as the “hundi” system.

These unauthorised transactions involve dealers in Thailand relaying messages to members of their network in Myanmar, who then deliver the necessary amount to the family.

Some migrants rely on friends and loved ones who travel between the neighbouring countries to act as conduits, thereby circumventing costly bank transfers.

“The banks can’t be trusted and they require a work permit, a letter of recommendation from our employer and a passport,” Nangnyi Foung says, documents very few migrants have access to.

Migrants with families in rural areas go through brokers, who deliver cash to the recipient’s doorstep, eliminating the hassle of them having to locate cash points.

According to a new report released Monday by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Asian countries dispatched over 60 million migrants into the world, “who sent almost 260 billion dollars to their families in 2012. This represented 63 percent of global flows to developing countries.”

Yet the continent seems ill equipped to deal with the influx of remittances, which benefit one in 10 Asian households.

“Although the clear majority of the region’s population lives in rural areas, 65 percent of payment locations are in urban areas,” the report found. In most Asian countries, only banks are authorised to deal with foreign currency transactions, making it difficult for poor rural communities to access funds coming in from abroad.

The report stressed the urgent need to provide remittance-receiving families with “more options” to secure and spend this money, especially since nine Asian countries currently receive remittances “exceeding 10 percent of GDP.”

The report has particularly vital policy implications for Southeast Asia, where 13 million migrants are currently living and working abroad. Thailand has become a “net importer” of migrant labour – attracting more than double the number of migrants to work in its expanding economy than it is sending abroad.

Women forfeit rights for employment

Constituting nearly 49 percent of the global population of 214 million migrant workers, women are responsible for the lion’s share of remittances flowing around the world.

Acutely aware of their families’ needs, like food, housing costs, education for children or younger siblings, and healthcare – women often endure extreme conditions in order to remit money back home.

The town of Mae Sot, located along the Thai-Myanmar border, hosts the largest number of women migrant workers in Thailand, who toil over fifteen hours a day in garment factories. In 2012, this sector netted estimated profits of 6.3 billion, while labourers who keep the industry running earned between 66 and 100 dollars per month.

Kyoko Kusakabe, associate professor of gender and development at the Asian Institute of Technology and co-author of ‘Thailand’s Hidden Workforce’, told IPS that most female migrants in Mae Sot “avoid labour strikes and forfeit their rights in favour of (continued employment).”

She says this is part of a culture that forces women to be “responsible” from a very young age, while their male counterparts have few obligations.

According to Kusakabe, this culture is reflected in remittance patterns: when the economy is booming, remittances from men increase, falling again when the economy enters a slump. Remittances from women, on the other hand, remain steady regardless of the overall economic climate, suggesting that women save more, or forego their own needs during times of economic austerity in order to preserve their family’s lifeline.

Her research found that even if women are not paid their salaries, or lose their jobs, they borrow money in order to send home, fearful that their children or parents will starve without financial support.

Migrants employed as construction workers in Thailand receive little training or safety equipment. Credit: Kalinga Seneviratne/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CHIANG MAI, Thailand, May 21 2013 (IPS)

On the outskirts of the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, a group of twelve migrant families lives in a makeshift camp comprised of houses constructed from scrap metal.

They share three toilets between them, and each home consists of nothing more than a single room, whose flimsy walls and roof provide little privacy, and are no match for the heavy monsoon rains that lash northern Thailand between the months of May and November.

Sounds of splashing water fill the air as both male and female migrants, returning from a long day’s work, unwind with a shower in the rudimentary, open-air structures that contain nothing more than a rap connected to a water tank.

Most of these workers are employed on a residential construction site just north of here, where they pour cement, plaster walls, build roofs or install electrical wiring from seven in the morning until six in the evening, seven days a week. They do not have much to show for these gruelling hours on the job, returning home with as little as six dollars a day.

One of this shantytown’s residents, Nang Soi Sat, tells IPS the long working hours and paltry income are not even her biggest concerns: she is more worried about maintaining her legal status in the face of multiple challenges.

Thailand is home to an estimated 2.5 million migrant workers. The country’s economic boom – which has seen an 18.9 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) since 2011 – relies heavily on a constant influx of labour from neighbouring countries. Over 82 percent of the workers hail from Myanmar (Burma), 8.4 percent from Laos and 9.5 percent from Cambodia.

Those from Myanmar say ethnic strife and civil conflict sent them fleeing in search of better opportunities in the region. A network of garment and furniture factories housed in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) that dot the Thai-Myanmar border quickly absorb incoming migrants to work for a pittance.

Other key areas of employment for migrants include the seafood and agricultural sectors.

For migrants like Sai Sun Lu, the search for better opportunities did not end with his arrival here. Originally from Myanmar’s volatile Shan State, Lu works over nine hours a day at a site in Chiang Mai, constructing high rise buildings that will likely be converted into commercial centres, residential condos or offices, without a single day off.

He tells IPS he did not want to come to Thailand, but was forced to as a result of intense fighting in his home. His hopes for greener pastures on the other side of the border have been dashed and he now finds himself living in a kind of daily nightmare, toiling in what rights groups have called “appalling” conditions.

According to the U.S. State Department’s report on migration and refugees, Thailand ranks alongside some of the worst offenders of migrants’ rights, including Afghanistan, Chad, Iran and Niger.

Because migrant labourers are typically unskilled, with little awareness of occupational safety, they are easy prey for employers looking to cut corners by dismissing safety concerns.

In the construction sector, inadequate training in the proper use of machinery and a lack of protective equipment such as body harnesses or guardrail systems pose a grave threat to those who work on buildings as high as 27 to 69 stories.

On Sai Sun Lu’s construction site, “there have been many accidents and deaths. Some workers have slipped and fallen from the high rises but we receive very little or no compensation,” he said.

“As Burmese we have to be extra careful because if we make any mistakes then our employers can terminate our work without any explanation.”

Fear of this last consequence is, for many workers, second only to the fear of death, and a very common one among migrants from Myanmar who account for 75 percent of Thailand’s one million undocumented workers, according to the Institute for Population and Social Research at Mahidol University.

The 2008 National Verification Programme (NVP) was intended to legalise the status of incoming migrants and provide them with basic protections under Thai labour laws, such as access to social security schemes, official work accident compensation and the ability to apply for driving licences.

However, rights activists contend that the NVP’s registration fees are “extortionate”, often requiring three times the average worker’s monthly salary of between 100 and 167 dollars.

According to this year’s World Report, published annually by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Thai employers frequently seize migrant workers’ documents, thus rendering them bonded labourers, while government policies – like the Thai cabinet’s 2010 resolution to fine employees if their papers carry outdated information – impose severe restrictions on migrant workers’ ability to change jobs.

Even migrants with all their legal papers in hand often go to pains to avoid encounters with the police for fear of being harassed, physically abused, or arrested.

In desperation, many have turned to personal networks of friends and family members to gain access into the country.

In rural Myanmar, where most migrants come from, informal transporters linked to smugglers with networks along the border facilitate entry into Thailand. This system has led to the proliferation of so-called recruiters, or agents, who charge exorbitant fees in exchange for providing such services as remitting money, establishing communication channels between families, or securing employment.

Following allegations of rampant corruption among recruitment agencies, the Labour Ministry of Myanmar recently banned 12 agencies from sending migrant workers to Thailand, according to an internal memo obtained by ‘The Myanmar Times’.

Earlier this month, Myanmar’s Deputy Labour Minister Myint Thein assured labour activists and migrants that the state was doing everything possible to rein in illegal actors and ensure safe, affordable passage between the two countries. It has a vested interest in doing so: a 2010 ILO report found that the average migrant worker in Thailand sent home about 1,000 dollars every month, with total remittances from Thailand accounting for about five percent of Myanmar’s annual GDP.

Mu Kyi, a migrant worker in Thailand, fears for the future of her children. Credit: Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
BANGKOK, May 7 2013 (IPS)

In the hustle and bustle of Thailand’s capital, Bangkok, a small learning centre located in the Bang Bon district is helping children hailing mostly from the war-torn provinces of Myanmar (Burma) gain access to a basic education.

Established by the Foundation for Rural Youth (FRY), the learning centre is one of the few that offer Thai language lessons to migrant youth, and prepare children for entrance into Thai schools, by “introducing them to Thai culture”, Pao Hom, an organiser with FRY, told IPS.

Most other learning centres for migrants lack methodologies specifically targeted at early childhood development, and few are recognised by the Thai Ministry of Education.

Although teachers that come through FRY are “trained in early childhood development under the supervision of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security,” according to Hom, many of the teachers do not have formal educational qualifications.

Hom says migrants who come here to avail themselves of low-paying jobs in Thailand’s many garment, textile and furniture factories struggle to educate their children. Immigrant communities and neighbourhoods are some of the “worst environments for learning,” she said.

Dr. Panadda Thanasetkorn, a professor at Mahidol University’s National Institute for Child and Family Development, told IPS that without professional training for teachers and a better formal education system, migrant children will remain trapped in the cycle of poverty and unemployment that plagues these border zones.

Located in the heart of Southeast Asia, Thailand has long been the final destination for massive human migrations, as hungry, unemployed or war-weary residents from neighbouring countries flock to its industrial border towns and bustling urban centres.

Recent statistics from the Labour Ministry estimate that there are nearly 2.5 million migrant workers from Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Cambodia in Thailand – nearly half of whom are undocumented.

In addition, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has said there are some 84,900 registered refugees and an estimated 62,000 unregistered asylum-seekers in nine camps along the Thai-Myanmar border.

At least 10 percent of this population are estimated to be children. A 2011 report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggests that there were approximately 377,000 children from neighbouring countries residing in Thailand.

Lacking social protections and legal status, migrant children represent one of the most disadvantaged groups when it comes to early childhood development, a critical period that the World Bank defines as occurring between birth and eight years of age, during which a child’s rapid brain growth forms the basis of their future physical, emotional and cognitive development.

Although migrant children are eligible to attend state schools in Thailand, a number of barriers prevent them from fully accessing their right to education.

According to Thanasetkorn, “Most parents of migrant children do not speak Thai, are without legal documents and fear discrimination, which prevents them from approaching public social services (such as education, health care and the justice system).”

She said children who fall in the “low-income” bracket – meaning from families who earn between five and 10 dollars a day – often sacrifice going to school in order to work and support their families. The shrimp industry, fisheries, sugar cane plantations and garment factories have all come under scrutiny after a 2012 PBS documentary exposed widespread use of child migrants in these sectors.

According to Thanasetkorn, preventing child labour requires early intervention in the form of education, to equip children with the skills they need to “improve their quality of life”.

In 2005, under the Education for All (EFA) policy, the Thai government extended the right to education for all children in Thailand regardless of their legal status.

However, a recent report by VSO International Thailand/Myanmar suggests that less than 20 percent of registered migrant children attend Thai schools. This estimate is likely to be lower for early childhood development.

In comparison, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) suggests that the national gross enrolment rate for lower secondary education was over 90 percent and for upper secondary education it was about 60 percent in 2010.

VSO International Researcher Hattaya Wongsaengpaiboon says there is a major disconnect between policies that seem to exist solely on paper, and practical barriers to accessing educational facilities.

“Thai policy clearly states that anyone, regardless of legal status, can attend Thai schools but in reality very few do,” Wongsaengpaiboon said. “Many of the Thai schools we approached would request a birth certificate or a letter of recommendation from either a Thai person or a local organisation” before agreeing to enroll a student.

Given that only a third of the migrant children born in Thailand have birth certificates, the stringent admission rules lead to questions “about child protection and the right of every child to have an identity,” she stressed.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), nearly five percent of all births – or roughly 40,000 children – go unregistered in Thailand every year, most amongst vulnerable groups including migrant children and those from ethnic minorities.

Thailand has taken some steps towards confronting this issue, particularly with tools like the 2010 Civil Registration Act, which grants all children born in the country the right to birth registration regardless of status.

This also aids migrant children in accessing the educational system, health care and better employment opportunities in the future.

But here again, activists and advocates have found that while such policies look good on paper, things are not nearly so rosy on the ground.

“What we discovered in our research was that families were not always informed by the hospital staff that they had the right to provide their children with birth certificates,” said Wongsaengpaiboon.

Migrant learning centres like the one in Bangkok have been taking the first steps towards bridging this gap. According to Hom, civil society “partnerships with government-run schools break any barriers to migrant children receiving a Thai education. By taking this route, children are far more likely to enter the university system and break the cycle of poverty.”

However, unlike FRY, which receives generous funding from major donors like USAID, Save the Children and the European Union, many informal institutions that are not recognised by the Thai government and receive little to no funding are unable to provide services like the state’s free lunch programme, forcing many migrant children to attend school without proper nutrition.

Rendered the nowhere people in their own homeland, thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar are fleeing inhuman living conditions, lack of humanitarian aid and rising sectarian tensions in their country. And the very state that is supposed to protect them now stands accused of ‘ethnic cleansing’.

The Muslim Rohingyas and Rakhine Buddhists have had a history of conflict dating back to World War II. The latest round, however, was ignited in June 2012 when 10 Rohingya Muslims were killed by ethnic Arakanese, following the rape of a 28-year-old Arakanese woman. It sparked off a cycle of violence in which an estimated 200 non-Rohingya Muslims, Rohingya and ethnic Arakanese have been killed and more than 125,000 displaced.

The horror peaked in October last year when security forces assisted ethnic Arakanese in razing villages in nine of the 21 townships in Arakan, in western Myanmar or Burma. The Rohingyas were disarmed of the sticks they were carrying to defend themselves. At least 70 of them were reportedly killed, including 28 children, nearly half of them under the age of five.

“Since the state-sponsored pogrom against the Rohingya started in June 2012,” says student, activist and Rohingya blogger team member Mohammed Sheikh Anwar, “their living conditions have deteriorated. Access to humanitarian assistance such as food and medicines has been blocked, their properties are looted and vandalised on a daily basis.

“In addition, the internally displaced Rohingya and Kamans have no shelter, clean water or clothing. Many are suffering from pneumonia, diarrhoea and other infectious diseases. Women and under-aged girls are subjected to rape at the hands of security officials, the men have to face inhuman torture in secret jails.”

This plight of the Rohingyas was the subject of a 153-page report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch last week. Titled ‘All You Can Do is Pray’, it accuses the Myanmar authorities of ‘ethnic cleansing’ by failing to prevent the violence, conducting mass detentions and blocking humanitarian aid.

So desperate is their situation that it has sparked off an exodus where more than 13,000 of them – according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) – have fled Myanmar by sea in overcrowded dinghy boats.

They are headed mostly to Thailand, but if they have been hoping for refuge here, the country is not extending it. Instead, in a bid to protect its own shores, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called on Myanmar President Thein Sein to assist in the repatriation of the more than 1,000 detained Rohingya in Thailand.

Confirming Thailand’s unwillingness to take in the Rohingyas, Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of HRW told IPS, “Thailand absolutely refuses to let the Rohingya have access to the UNHCR to file a claim for refugee status. In fact, Thailand has a special policy created by the National Security Council, which sees the Rohingya as a national security threat to Thailand.”

“UNHCR and other human rights organisations need to come forward and rescue these individuals fleeing persecution,” says Anwar. “If the Thai authorities send them back to Myanmar, they could be killed or imprisoned.”

There are an estimated 800,000 stateless Rohingya in western Burma’s Arakan state, which borders Bangladesh. “History tells us that in the early 1950s a few Bengali Muslim intellectuals of the northwestern part of Arakan began to use the term ‘Rohingya’ to identify themselves,” says historian Aye Chan of Kanda University of International Studies in Japan and author of ‘The Development of a Muslim Enclave in Arakan (Rakhine) State of Burma’.

“They were, in fact, direct descendants of immigrants from the Chittagong district of East Bengal, who had migrated into Arakan after the province was ceded to British India under the terms of the Treaty of Yandabo. Most of these migrants settled down in the Mayu Frontier Area, near what is now Burma’s border with modern Bangladesh. Actually, they were called ‘Chittagonians’ in British colonial records.”

Arakan saw a great deal of bloodshed during World War II and after 1948, at the beginning of Burma’s independence, Chan goes on to say. “One of the underlying causes was the zamindari system, under which the British administrators granted Bengali landowners thousands of acres of arable land on 90-year leases. The Arakanese peasants who had fled Burmese rule and returned after British annexation found themselves deprived of their inherited land.”

Things only got worse after the British left. “Some people in the Mayu Frontier, who are now in their 70s and 80s, still remember the atrocities they suffered in 1942-1943 during the short period of anarchy between the British evacuation and Japanese occupation of the area,” says Chan. There was an outburst of ethnic and religious tensions that had been simmering for a century.”

Most Burmese still consider the Rohingya illegal Bengali immigrants. A 1974 Emergency Immigration Act, initiated by former dictator General Ne Win, stripped Rohingya of their Burmese nationality. Further, under Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law, Rohingya are not considered part of the country’s 135 ethnic groups unless they can prove their ancestors lived in Myanmar before independence from Britain in 1948. Although some Rohingya carry temporary registration cards, many lack documentation.

“Rohingyas, as is well known, have been persecuted by different regimes in Myanmar due to their ethnic origin and religion,” says Anwar. “As their situation stands today, it will not be an exaggeration to say that they are one of the most discriminated, oppressed and persecuted people in the world.”

A community radio station in Thailand is helping migrant workers access crucial information about their rights. Credit: Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau/IPS

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CHIANG MAI, Thailand, May 2 2013 (IPS)

At the age of 23, Gao travelled to Thailand to escape intense fighting in his native Shan State in the east of Myanmar (Burma) and possible recruitment into the Shah army.

“When I arrived in Bangkok, I started working in a garment factory. We didn’t have proper food. I was surviving on a handful of rice and a half packet of ramen noodles,” Gao told IPS.

The young boy soon fell very ill but could not afford to see a doctor. It was not until his co-workers pooled all their resources together and put him on a bus to the northern city of Chiang Mai that he managed to get a free consultation through a Shan temple.

Gao was one of the lucky ones. Isolated by language and ethnic barriers, most migrants in Thailand lead secluded lives, unable to access resources or information that would help them secure their basic rights – such as healthcare, minimum wage, or proper food – in a foreign land.

To fill the gap, a local organisation known as the Migrant Assistance Programme (MAP) has created community radio stations in Chiang Mai and Mae Sot, a town on the Thai-Burma border, which have opened the doors of communication for a silenced community.

“Most of the migrant workers in Thailand, especially from Myanmar, come from various ethnicities – including the Kayin, Kayah, Shan, Mon, Rawang, Bama and Tavoyan – and speak different languages, so (our work) is really about breaking the isolation that many face when they come to Thailand to work,” MAP Director Jackie Pollock told IPS.

The broadcasts go out in four different languages – Shan, Burmese, Thai and Northern Thai. Listeners phone in requests for their favourite songs, find out about MAP’s work or how to take advantage of current migration laws and policies.

Most of the listeners are migrant workers from Myranmar who often take up what are locally referred to as ‘3D’ jobs (dirty, dangerous and demanding), and end up working on construction sites, as domestic workers, in the agricultural and fishing industry and in garment and textile factories around the country.

Mae Sot, where one radio station is based, houses an entire industrial zone along the Thai-Burma border, where garment, textile and furniture factories swallow up scores of migrants the minute they cross the border in search of work.

Women comprise the bulk of the workers in this town and are subjected to extremely poor working conditions for far less than the minimum wage, which is currently ten dollars a day.

The radio station has penetrated this community, offering programmes on occupational health and safety, women’s rights and cultural issues.

“Last year, we did three trainings with migrants who were interested in being broadcasters, DJs or journalists,” Burmese migrant worker and MAP community broadcaster Lan Moon told IPS.

Originally from the south of Shan State in Myanmar, Lan Moon came to Thailand 25 years ago at the age of six with his aunt and grandmother to escape fighting between the Shan army and the Burmese government.

He believes that radio forms a kind of “lifeline” between workers who would otherwise live and labour alone and whole communities that can offer support and information or simply commiserate about long hours or reminisce about home.

According to Pollock, cultivating a community of listeners did not happen overnight. MAP spent many years conducting weekly visits to areas where migrants live and work to distribute information about health and childcare, and used word of mouth to keep migrants up to date with national policies that might affect their jobs.

Now, in addition to the radio stations, the organisation has created 19 spaces along the border specifically for women to come together. “They organise themselves, sometimes invite speakers or hold discussion groups,” Pollock added.

Currently there are an estimated 2.5 million migrant workers in Thailand. The vast majority originates from Myanmar due to confiscation of land, human rights abuses or a lack of jobs and economic opportunities back home.

Although Article 2.2 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Thailand is a signatory, ensures the equality of rights between nationals and non-nationals, the majority of migrants here are subjected to poor working and living conditions, lower wages and long working hours.

Registered migrants are also eligible for state health insurance schemes and are technically allowed to avail themselves of state medical services for a low fee. However, for most foreign workers, language barriers and the constant threat of discrimination or deportation hinders access to even these most basic rights.

For people like Gao, MAP has not only been a source of relief in times of distress – providing meals, shelter and necessary documents — it has also provided him an alternate occupation.

Following a crackdown on migrants in Chiang Mai, Gao says he “started volunteering with MAP’s crisis support group”.

“We help migrants get to the hospital or gain access to health care. It’s really important that migrants are informed about how to access proper health care because if one’s health isn’t good then life isn’t good.”

(END)

As pressure mounts on the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to keep up an uncertain truce, human rights advocates are demanding reforms to a sponsorship system that has left many migrant domestic workers in Syria with no place to run.

According to the United Nations (UN), more than 9,000 people have been killed in the last 13 months since uprisings began against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Caught in the crossfire are more than 17,000 Filipino migrant domestic workers. Filipino labour rights organisation Migrante International estimates that only 2,000 Filipino migrant domestic workers have been repatriated since fighting broke out last year.

Earlier this month, a Syrian decree banning Filipino migrant domestic workers from entering the country went into effect. Meanwhile, thousands of Filipino migrant domestic workers are desperately looking for a way to get out.

Forty-year-old Violeta Cortez from San Pablo was one of two domestic workers killed after being hit by stray bullets while trying to flee Homs to seek shelter at the Philippine embassy in Damascus.

“When the initial violence broke out in Syria, the Philippine government dismissed the urgency of implementing an evacuation and repatriation strategy,” John Leonard Monterona, Middle East coordinator for Migrante International told IPS.

“As a result, several Filipino migrant domestic workers have served as collateral damage due to the Philippine government’s wait-and-see policy.”

Given the kafala system which links residency permits to the employer, repatriating workers out of Syria would entail negotiating with employers to buy out their contracts and paying fines to immigration officials.

“Filipino domestic workers in Syria, and this is the same for other migrant workers, are having a hard time getting out because their employers are not allowing them to leave. It’s a big problem because they can’t exit Syria without the final issuance from their respective employers,” Monterona said.

“Another problem is that we are getting claims that when some Filipino domestic workers go to the Philippine embassy to seek assistance they are being placed in the jails. Migrante is trying to get information from the embassy as to why they are failing to protect these women.”

“In terms of reforming the sponsorship system, governments in the region need to ensure that migrant domestic workers are able to resign from their jobs,” human rights lawyer and author of ‘Reforming the Sponsorship System for Migrant Domestic Workers: Towards An Alternative Governance Scheme in Lebanon’, Kathleen Hamill, told IPS.

“These workers must have the ability to change employers or leave the country without sponsor consent. Guaranteeing labour mobility and freedom of movement is essential for migrant workers, and this requires breaking the shackles of employer-tied visas. This also requires improving the recruitment process by regulating recruitment agencies, many of which are unlicensed,” said Hamill.

“Governments must also guarantee the right to live outside of the workplace or household, and they must guarantee statutory holidays for migrant domestic workers – in addition to a weekly day of rest and annual leave.”

Saudi Arabia’s Labour Ministry recently proposed a draft legislation canceling the traditional sponsorship system by shifting responsibility from the employer to new recruitment agencies.

The recommendations – which include abolishing the confiscation of passports, putting recruitment agencies in charge of repatriation, protecting workers’ rights, the establishment of a commission to monitor newly established recruitment agencies, and insurance – is based a five-year study that is set to be reviewed by the Council of Ministers.

“Recruitment agencies are also part of the problem when it comes to exploiting migrant workers,” Linda al-Kalash, director of Tamkeen, an organisation providing legal assistance for domestic workers in Jordan told IPS.

“Tamkeen dealt with a case where the recruitment agency in the worker’s home country lied about her age. It was later revealed that she was 13 years old. How did she pass the medical examinations, obtain the working visa and how did the agency in Jordan allow for her to be placed in a home? At fist sight, it’s clear that this was a child.”

“Migrante International is lobbying Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) ministers to ensure the rights of all expatriate workers working in Arab countries by scrapping the current sponsorship system. We believe this is the root cause of the bondage labour which is akin to slavery,” adds Monterona.

“If we abolish this system, then migrants working in countries where there are natural disasters or even war can easily leave without asking for permission or being reported as an absconder by their employer.”

When an Egyptian court fined former president Hosni Mubarak and two aides a total of 90 million dollars for cutting mobile and Internet services during protests that led to his ouster, it indicated the value placed on communication services in this Arab country.

The 18-day uprising that toppled Mubarak in February 2011 was largely organised by groups creatively using social networking websites like Facebook and Internet radio. The fines were handed down three months later.

“In Egypt, if you want to start an ordinary radio station, the government demands a lot of licenses and money,” Youssef Mohamed, campaign and activities coordinator at the Egyptian Democratic Academy (EDA), told IPS. “Mubarak’s National Democratic Party controlled everything, but the Internet offered more freedom.”

EDA, a youth NGO aimed at fostering a culture of political participation, had, by 2009, established its online community-run radio station, Elma7rosa, to disseminate views gathered through community reporting, on subjects like freedom of speech, democracy, tolerance and human rights.

“In terms of Internet radio before the revolution there was Elma7rosa, and also Radio Horytna and Radio Bokra,” said Mohamed. “The relative freedom on the Internet allowed online radio stations to emerge as the voice of a new generation fighting for its place in society.”

Radio Horytna, established in 2007 by a group of young journalists as Egypt’s first Internet radio, was first on the scene during the 18-day revolt, providing uncensored news and taking controversial topics head on.

“We were open 24 hours during the revolution. We set up a tent in Tahrir Square so that those documenting the events could give us material to publish online,” Mostafa Fathi, editor-in-chief of Radio Horytna, told IPS.

“They tried to control our material, but we resisted,” recalls Fathi. “They would threaten us if we published material that wasn’t to their liking and they arrested one of our reporters, Mohammed Al Arabi, while he was covering a protest.”

Fathi said Radio Horytna managed to stay afloat “because we have a lot of partnerships with Egyptian and International non-government organisations (NGOs).”

Since the spring of 2011, the EDA has been expanding its role, conducting audio training to raise awareness on being active citizens and evaluate platforms of election candidates.

Prominent figures at EDA include Esraa Abdel Fattah, 29, who rose to prominence in 2008 as a co-founder of a Facebook group to support industrial workers. EDA’s editor-in-chief, Bassem Samir, is a prominent blogger who faced detention on several occasions.

“EDA’s ‘Political Academy’ is a programme about democracy where we teach the youth how to vote, their rights as citizens, how to be a politician, form a political party or join parliament,” Mohamed told IPS. “Another project that we initiated, ‘Free Egyptian’, offers training to women on how to participate in political life.”

Radio is seen as an important means of fostering community participation. Radio Horytna runs an array of workshops on tolerance between Christians and Muslims.

“We recently started a project called ‘Reporter’ where we gathered ten young people from all over Egypt and taught them how to use the new media tools and how to work as a digital journalist,” adds Fathi.

“Independent media is very important because it gives young people the opportunity to publish, create and broadcast their own programmes. We offer an alternative to traditional outlets like Al Masry Al Youm where it’s very difficult to get published,” Fathi said.

Banat wa Bass (Girls Only), which became the region’s first online radio station catering to the issues of Arab women when it was established in April 2008, now has a fan base of nearly five million listeners across the Arab world.

“On a daily basis, women in Egypt face a lot of harassment, violence and gender inequality,” editor-in-chief of Banat wa Bass, Amani Eltunsi, explained in an interview with IPS.

“Arab media and movies always portray women as being weak and it’s important to counter this by showing the positive side of Arab women, which also empowers us,” Eltunsi said.

“On one occasion, national security wanted to know what we were doing. I told them that I was running an Internet radio station. They didn’t understand so I showed them the website and they told me that I can’t talk about politics, sex or religion,” adds Eltunsi.

“Unlike bloggers whose material is archived online, Internet radio stations have more freedom because the officials can’t access us easily or know who our listeners are,” Eltunsi said.

Last March, Reporters sans Frontières moved Egypt from its ‘Internet enemies’ list to countries ‘under surveillance’ due to the success of the country’s uprisings.

“Before and after the revolution there was a lot of monitoring. The military council investigated us and many lives were lost. We are using our voices for Egypt. This means that we’ll do more and pay more if it means freedom,” adds Mohamed.

Citizen journalists and community media played a leading role in producing and disseminating news during the Arab uprisings as the expansion of digital technology provided innovative ways of expressing freedom.

Well before the wave of pro-democracy uprisings swept the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Arab activists were harnessing the power of new media to circumvent the stifling of dissent by authoritarian regimes. Within MENA, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates continue to have laws regulating Internet activities.

*This story was produced with the support of UNESCO

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, Mar 26 2012 (IPS)

Recent shifts in the Middle East and North Africa have presented several economic challenges such as high unemployment, an exodus of migrants from Libya and a reduction of tourism revenues. Given that economic discontent played a vital role in the Arab uprisings, economic growth has become vital to sustain the fruit of revolution.

“In societies characterised by young populations, and by a need to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs every year in order to absorb new workforce entrants, efforts to reshape economic policies and restructure the various economic sectors are of extreme importance,” Ziad Majed, assistant professor of Middle East studies at the American University of Paris tells IPS.

“For this reason, the development of new frameworks for regional and international economic cooperation with public and private sector organisations should be a priority, not only for the direct benefits that such cooperation would provide, but also in the interest of long-run stability and prosperity in the societies concerned.”

According to the Arab Tourism Organisation (ATO), popular uprisings that began a year ago – leading to the toppling of regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya – cost the Arab world nearly 96 billion dollars, with 18 percent of those losses in the tourism sector.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), tourism is considered a major source of foreign exchange after remittances from overseas migrant workers. The travel and tourism industry plays a crucial role in generating employment as well as aiding in reducing reliance on other economic sources.

In Egypt, tourism employs almost two million workers, generates 11 percent of the GDP, and is the principle source of foreign currency – accounting for 20 percent of the total.

In Tunisia, tourism provides employment for approximately 400,000 Tunisians and generates nearly 8 percent of the GDP. It represents the main source of foreign currency in the country.

Last year, Syria generated more than 8 billion dollars due to a 40 percent increase in the number of tourists before the uprisings.

The region has struggled to get back on its feet with ongoing instability in countries like Bahrain where recent statistics indicate that 12 months of political unrest has cost businesses nearly 800 million dollars. Rising unemployment and loss of remittances from overseas migrant workers have also contributed to economic stagnation.

According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), unemployment in the Arab world was 10.3 percent in 2011 compared to a global rate of 6.2 percent.

Egypt’s population of about 85 million, which constitutes a third of the Arab world, is growing by two percent a year. Two-thirds of the population is under the age of 30, and that age group accounts for 90 percent of the jobless.

Last year, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index revealed that institutions in the MENA region have failed to create supportive economic and social environments that could encourage youth entrepreneurship.

“Reforms like fair wages, and a proper educational and healthcare system is what we need right now,” 25- year-old Egyptian business graduate Hassan Massri tells IPS.

“Investing in young entrepreneurs could offer alternatives for recent graduates who are entering a non- existent job market. Young Egyptians, who were the drivers of political change, have so much potential in terms of contributing to the economic development of this country. Our talents shouldn’t be wasted.”

Remittances have been the most important source of private investment in rural and urban Egypt, from lower as well as from higher skilled occupations, for the past 30 years.

In 2008, the World Bank ranked Egypt as one of the top 10 remittance recipient developing countries.

“The IOM World Migration Report 2011 assumes that the sudden return of large numbers of migrant workers to developing countries in the course of the political transitions that took place in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya’s civil conflict may have a serious impact on the economic stability of these states,” IOM Cairo programme manager Piera Solinas tells IPS.

“Many of them are already struggling with high unemployment, and now they have to absorb large numbers of returnees into their labour market. These countries are also likely to be hit financially, as migrant workers returning home will no longer be able to send remittances.”

This is strongly the case in Egypt, Solinas says. “To date, nearly 200,000 Egyptian migrants have returned back to Egypt. Most are semi-skilled adult males, and were likely to have been single and/or primary breadwinners who were supporting dependents through remittances, which have now been disrupted.”

Prof. Majed says the need for remedial action is urgent. “Incentives, joint projects, vocational training and specialised initiatives could be designed, and investments developing the national economies and enlarging their social bases could be made. This would diminish immigration pressures, social tensions and poverty, and would allow for the emergence of more dynamic economic sectors.”

Excerpt:

Attempts by regimes in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to suppress the flow of information during the region’s pro-democracy uprisings has led a higher number of journalists killed, attacked or arrested.

“At the onset of the Arab Spring, the control of information was a key priority for the authorities,” Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) Middle East and North Africa researcher, Soazig Dollet told IPS.

“Governments tried to ensure a complete media blackout regarding the security force’s repression of these protests by cutting mobile and Internet access while also attacking local and international journalists.”

Tunisia’s uprising in January 2011, which led to the ouster of former President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, gave birth to a wave of protests that quickly spread across the Arab world. On Jan. 25 Egypt followed suit by calling for the end of president Hosni Mubarak’s 30-year rule.

Given Egypt and Tunisia’s success, other countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) such as Bahrain, Morocco, Libya, Yemen and Syria launched their own revolutions.

Although journalists played a crucial role reporting on the demonstrations and their repression, they also faced increasing risks as authorities attempted to crack down on the spread of information.

According to a Reporters sans Frontières report, at least 20 journalists were killed and 553 attacked or threatened – making MENA region one of the most dangerous for media professionals.

“Regimes in all countries that witnessed popular uprisings initially tried to black out information,” executive director of the Samir Kassir Foundation, Ayman Mhanna told IPS.

“They started with blocking access to social networks like Facebook and Twitter, but then realised they should open up these sites to be able to monitor who’s writing what. Then they restricted access to foreign and independent journalists, unless they were totally under their control.

“The situation got a bit better except in Syria and Bahrain. In Syria, foreign journalists are only sneaking in, unless they accept to work under the control of the authorities, which does not guarantee their security; Gilles Jacquier’s death is an example.

“In Bahrain the situation is very difficult. The Gulf Cooperation Countries have a vested interest in blocking the revolution in Bahrain…All opposition media outlets are now censored in Bahrain and the pro-regime media completely distorts the information.”

Human rights advocates have long characterised the Middle East and North Africa as being one of the most heavily censored regions in the world due to the establishment of repressive measures such as regulations and laws, harassments and detention, surveillance and monitoring, and even physical restrictions.

Laws and regulations like the press and publication law, emergency laws, penal codes, Internet-specific laws and telecommunications decrees have been used to permit the jailing of journalists for undermining the reputation of the state as a means of suppressing reports of corruption or scrutiny of government officials.

In Bahrain, authorities use the 2002 Press Law to impose censorship rules. Syria’s penal code allows for the criminalisation of spreading news abroad. In addition, both Syria and Egypt maintain emergency laws that grant authorities the power to search and detain journalists, media professionals and political activists without due process.

“During the Mubarak era, many forms of censorship were taking place. Calling editors-in-chief, stopping particular editions from being printed, confiscating some daily issues, harassing journalists and taking their belongings,” Ramy Raoof, online media officer for the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights told IPS.

“These things are still taking place today but by different officials. Instead of people from the Ministry of Interior it happens by people from the military system. For example, on 22 February 2011, a letter from the Army was sent to Egyptian newspapers telling them in brief: Not to Publish Any Content About the Military.”

“Press codes, in most Arab countries, pretend to respect press freedom but in fact leave wide avenues for regimes to violate them. Some articles, such as ‘demoralising the nation’ have been recently widely used in Syria. Accusing activists of treason and cooperation with foreign enemies is another accusation that is frequently used,” adds Mhanna.

One year later, however, as several countries work towards building a democratic future while others continue to demonstrate, the freedom for journalists to do their jobs remains a difficult task.

“Now there are less red lines and journalists can express their opinions more freely because they broke the ‘fear barrier’,” Mhanna said. “However, expressing an opinion has also become more dangerous, whether in countries where the revolutions didn’t manage to overthrow the regime, or in countries where religious extremists are on the rise.

“So in a way, censorship changed in nature. Now it’s the aftermath of what a journalist writes or says that can be dangerous.”

With a yearning for human rights playing a vital role in the Arab revolts; putting an end to discriminatory LGBT laws may determine how the future democratic process unfolds.

“As a gay Arab, I feel represented in these protests in every way and I’m confident that one day there will be a gay rights movement sweeping the Arab streets,” 22-year-old Egyptian biology student, Khaled tells IPS. “But to get there we have to achieve other levels of freedom such as transparent governments and building institutions where no human rights crime will go unpunished.

“Religion and certain traditions still play a major role amongst the protesters and once new governments are formed I believe that the issue of gay rights will continue to be unacceptable and we’ll need a hundred more revolutions to at least be able to discuss the issue openly.”

After many years of oppression under authoritarian regimes, Islamists have emerged as a major force that could shape the region’s future.

Following the ouster of long-time Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the al-Nour party are leading in the third round of Egypt’s parliamentary elections.

The moderate Ennahda party, which dominated October’s historic elections in Tunisia, is now poised to form an interim government and write the new constitution.

In Morocco, the Justice and Development Party (PJD) became the first Islamist party to run the Arab world’s oldest monarchy after garnering the most seats in last November’s elections.

However, the fact that the pro-democracy movements were led by Arab youth has lessened a fear that progress towards human rights and democracy will be halted with the rise of Islamists.

“Repression of Arab LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual) individuals under previous regimes no doubt existed. Having a non-Islamist government is no guarantee against the persecution of individuals for sexual and gender non-conformity,” Middle East and North Africa researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) Rasha Moumneh tells IPS.

“However, the fear over what is being called an Islamist ‘takeover’ completely ignores what is actually happening on the ground. The Tunisians had free and fair elections for the first time in decades. In Egypt, the primary concern is the abhorrent behaviour of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, and not the Islamists.”

In most countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), homosexuality is a criminal offence.

Sodomy laws such as Tunisia’s penal code article 230 criminalise same-sex acts for both men and women with a punishment of up to three years imprisonment.

Although Egyptian law does not criminalise homosexuality, authorities use a 1961 law on the Combat of Prostitution, which carries a custodial sentence of between three months to three years in prison and is tried in criminal rather than state security courts.

In the Queen Boat arrests in Egypt in 2001, 52 men were arrested at a club and charged with debauchery and blasphemy. The torture they suffered in detention under the Mubarak regime was well documented by human rights groups.

In the past, governments have used homosexuality as an excuse to maintain a conservative society.

“Sexuality has always been a politically tense battlefield. On the one hand, one of the more common accusations leveled at local groups working towards the rights of LGBT persons to discredit them is that they are Western cultural imports, or harbingers of Western imperialism,” says Moumneh.

“On the other hand, social anxiety brought about by homosexuality is not all that different from conservative fears that arise from the promotion of women’s rights and freedoms.”

In Algeria, law prohibits homosexuality and cross-dressing. Individuals prosecuted under Article 333 and 338 of Algerian law face imprisonment of between two months and three years and fines ranging from 500 to 10,000 Algerian dinars.

For many trans people societal discrimination is magnified by the lack of inclusion within the LGBT community.

“Within the community you have this hierarchy of gay men, the feminine men, the lesbians, the bisexuals and then the trans. Of course there’s also the class issue that plays a role in further dividing the community,” 39-year-old Randa Lamri, founding member of Abu Nahas, an underground LGBT rights association in Algeria tells IPS.

“What really makes me angry is the discrimination that I face within the LGBT community where I’m told that trans people give the gay community a bad reputation because we don’t respect our bodies. In a vulnerable community, exclusion can jeopardise our struggle.”

The ability of artists to lyrically articulate the growing rage amongst disgruntled youth in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has seen the emergence of politicised rap as a hidden weapon during the region’s Arab Spring.

Music has always played a pivotal role in many of the world’s social movements, so it was of no surprise that the youth-driven uprisings that ousted three long-standing leaders in the Arab world included a strong musical component.

Among the most powerful forms of music to emerge during these protests has been Arabic rap.

“There are of course other forms of music that have the ability to transform messages but rap is an outspoken way of addressing what’s wrong in your society and having the voice of the streets be heard,” Martin Fernando Jakobsen, creator of the youth-based initiative for Palestinian youth, Turntables in the Camps tells IPS.

“In the case of the uprisings that took place in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), it was political dissident rappers that had an impact because of their ability to echo the people’s suffering.”

The synchronicity of popular uprisings in the Arab world is not a new phenomenon. In 1919, Tunisian protestors demanded a new constitution while Egyptians took to the streets with daily strikes that eventually led to the toppling of their government, and provincial leaders in Libya worked relentlessly to safeguard their newly liberated republic.

So just like Twitter or Facebook, rap – which is becoming one of the fastest growing genres in the MENA region – didn’t cause the 2011 upheavals, but it has emerged as a political force among urban Arab youth.

On Nov. 7 last year 22-year-old Hamada Ben Amor, also known as El General, released ‘Rais Lebled’, an open letter in music, to former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali asking him to end corruption and poverty. The ‘letter’ marked the anniversary of Ben Ali’s succession to power.

The tune was considered the battle hymn for Tunisia’s ‘Jasmine Revolt’, which youth activists in Bahrain and Cairo later adopted.

Following the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouaziz, the young Tunisian street vendor whose public outcry enraged youth and sparked the revolution, El General released ‘Tounes Bladna’ or ‘Tunisia, Our Country’ on Dec. 22.

Soon after, in the early hours of Jan. 6, dozens of security forces burst into his home in the southern port- city of Sfax and hauled the rapper off to the Ministry of Interior building in the capital Tunis where he was detained and subjected to intense interrogation for three days.

“I believe that music can change something and the best example is what happened in Tunisia,” says Edd Abbas, lead singer of the Lebanese rap group Fareeq al-Atrash, in an interview with IPS. “El General was that trigger for the people to take to the streets to demand an end to Ben Ali’s rule. It was the voice of the people that got him out of jail.

“Rap is becoming special because we’re using the people’s language to challenge our leaders and their policies,” adds Abbas. “On a larger scale, it crosses borders because if I speak about something that’s happening in Lebanon, other Arabs will relate due to our issues being very similar.”

Arab youth aged 15 to 30 accounts for nearly a fifth of the Arab population.

A survey of youth in nine Arab states released by the public relations firm Asda’a Burson-Marsteller in 2010 revealed that the greatest priority for young Arabs is to live in a democratic country.

Tired of the traditional forms of going about politics, Arab youth have silently turned to a vibrant underground cultural scene coupled with social media tools to mobilise a politically conscious generation to the streets. For some, rappers who are always pushing the boundaries of freedom of expression, offer a different kind of political party. Palestinian activists like Da Arab MC’s (DAM) and female rapper Shadia Mansour have used this form of artistic expression to raise awareness around the plight of Palestinians and their quest for freedom.

“Even before the uprisings started, rap was talking about resistance, the need for change and the liberation of Palestine. It’s an effective tool to deliver our frustration while balancing entertainment with a message. Point blank, this is how we do politics,” Ramallah-based rapper and producer Boikutt tells IPS.

“However, just as rap has been repackaged in the U.S. and Europe, there’s this potential in the Arab world to try and dilute our message from what’s meant to be hard-core and real with a softer commercial style. For them, this form of communication is a threat due to its power of reaching the people directly.”

“Change will not happen overnight, it takes time,” Egyptian rapper MC Deeb tells IPS. “Unfortunately the majority of Egyptians who are surviving on low daily wages won’t understand this concept because as the economy continues to plunge it will cause people to start questioning what gains were made and why even after former president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster we’re still protesting,” adds MC Deeb.

Arab women rally for nationality rights in Beirut. Credit: Simba Russeau/IPS.

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau and - -
CAIRO, Nov 27 2011 (IPS)

As several countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) elect bodies to write new constitutions, women are looking to expand their rights through legislation.

Arab women rally for nationality rights in Beirut. Credit: Simba Russeau/IPS.

Under former president Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia was hailed as one of the most advanced countries in the Arab world in terms of women’s rights, due to abolition of the Personal Status Code in 1956.

Following Ben Ali’s ouster, many fear an Islamist takeover after the moderate Ennahda party’s win in last month’s first free elections.

More than any other region, the imbalance of economic status and rights between men and women remains the greatest in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Coupled with a lack of strategic planning to integrate women into political life, this has led to a low level of representation in parliament.

According to the International Parliamentary Union, 6.5 percent of parliamentarians in the Arab world in 2005 were women, compared to 4 percent in 2000.

Egypt, whose population of about 85 million constitutes a third of the Arab world and which hosts the MENA region’s largest parliament, had only 4 percent female representation in 2005.

In an effort to facilitate women’s entry into politics, Egyptian women’s rights advocates encouraged a group of rural women to have a say in what a new domestic violence law should entail.

“As a means of empowerment we asked the women to consider themselves a committee and pretend they’re in the parliament and write down the key issues in the law that need addressing,” Dr. Magda Adly, director of the El-Nadim Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence in Cairo told IPS.

“Not only were these women who are traditionally marginalised able to be active in the political process, they also were able to articulate their needs better than more educated authors of similar legislation in the past.

“Women were present in past parliaments but were merely décor because they lacked interest in ratifying laws to improve the situation of women. I’m more concerned about having articles in the new constitution that are for the betterment of Egyptian women because those laws will be with us for some time.”

Laws pertaining to marriage, divorce and domestic violence have long favoured the social position of men.

In Yemen, the Personal Status Law, which covers marriage, divorce, child custody and inheritance, gives women fewer rights than men, excludes women from decision making, and deprives them of access to assets.

“At the moment, Yemeni women really suffer from marginalisation, discrimination and gender gaps in the educational system,” Samia al-Haddad, programme and human rights officer for the Yemeni Organisation for Development and Rehabilitation told IPS.

“The education gap between men and women is 65 percent, which means that for every six boys only one girl is enrolled in school, and she’ll most likely drop out before finishing her basic education. This is due to a belief that men are more useful.”

The 1994 Yemeni Constitution guarantees equal rights for all citizens, but Yemen has one of the worst records of child marriage in the world. Official figures show that while an April 2010 law sets the minimum age for marriage at 17, nearly 99 percent of Yemeni women have been married before the age of 18, with 14 percent married before the age of 15.

“Embedded cultural traditions have made it hard for Yemeni women’s voices to contribute in their pregnancy, access to healthcare services, and investigations of sexual assault and violence,” adds al- Haddad.

“This is why we’re demanding a 30 percent representation in the transitional government as well as a seat at the negotiating table when it comes to drafting a new constitution once president Ali Abdullah Saleh steps down. After the revolution, women are no longer willing to accept their lowly status in society.”

In the West Bank, Palestinian women are the majority amongst university students but in 2009 women accounted for about 15 percent of the labour force.

According to the Euromed Gender Equality Programme (EGEP), Palestinian women are under-represented in the government with only five of the 23 ministers, and only 17 of the 131 legislative council seats belonging to women.

“This is based on the division of labour between men and women in the region and the belief that women should be more active in the private sphere because they’re more emotional and deal with the home,” Amal Khraisha, general director of the Palestinian Working Women Society for Development and a candidate for the Palestinian Legislative Council elections within the Palestine Independent List told IPS.

“It’s important that we restructure the current labour discourse and press for new governments to implement better social protection for women and improved economic rights at the household level. It’s an uphill battle but we must change the culture of the previous regimes.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, Oct 24 2011 (IPS)

The long-time dictator who ruled Libya for nearly four decades with an iron fist may be gone, but racial hatred surfaces increasingly now by the day.

A free and liberated Libya has been declared following an eight-month uprising, which resulted in the death of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Libyans now set their sights on building a viable democracy, drafting a new constitution and organising the country’s first free parliamentary and presidential elections.

However, since the toppling of Gaddafi’s 42-year regime, the country’s interim leaders of the National Transitional Council (NTC) have struggled to find a common voice.

This reality was echoed by acting prime minister Mahmoud Jibril, during an announcement Oct. 22 that he was stepping down, where he acknowledged that with their common enemy disposed of, unity remained a key challenge for Libyans going forward.

“Removing weapons from the streets, establishing law and order and uniting the disparate factions of the NTC are the main priorities following Gaddafi’s death,” he said in a statement to the press at the World Economic Forum’s annual regional meeting in Jordan.

With more than 140 tribes and clans, Libya is considered one of the most tribally fragmented nations in the Arab world. Despite modernisation, tribalism remains a prominent force in a country now awash with weaponry.

In the aftermath of Gaddafi’s reign, nearly 40 different independent militias that reportedly emerged during the rebellion remain at large.

Raising questions as to whether the NTC has the ability to rein in all the various groups, many of which have competing interests and look to settling scores from the past.

For Libyans from the far south this daunting picture has already become a reality. Tawergha – which lies some 40 miles south of Misurata along the western coast of the Gulf of Sirte – was home to an estimated population of over 20,000 people. Now it’s become a ghost town.

According to some Libyans, the name Tawergha was given to the town’s black population because they had dark-skinned features like the original Tuareg.

The Tuaregs, who inhabit the border area of Libya, Chad, Niger and Algeria, were historically nomads that controlled trans-Saharan trade routes and had a reputation for being robbers.

During the seventies, Gaddafi assembled the Tuaregs and other African recruits into his elite battalion known as the Al-Asmar. Al-Asmar means ‘The Black’ in Arabic.

Under Gaddafi’s supervision, these militias were often sent on military expeditions into neighbouring countries. At the onset of the country’s revolt in February of this year, many Tuaregs were unleashed on protestors.

As a result, racial hatred fuelled by unconfirmed rumours that African mercenaries had been hired by Gaddafi to squash discontent created another common enemy – dark-skinned Africans.

In the eyes of Misuratans, Tawerghans were the perpetrators of some of the worst human rights abuses during Gaddafi’s siege on Misurata in March and April.

On Aug. 15, in what human rights groups are calling reprisal attacks, rebel forces going by the name of ‘The Brigade for Purging Slaves, Black Skin’ have reportedly detained and displaced hundreds, while other Tawerghans have disappeared without a trace.

“If we go back to Tawergha, we will then be at the mercy of the Misurata rebels,” a woman, who has been living in a makeshift camp with her husband and five children, told UK-based Amnesty International.

“When the rebels entered our town in mid-August and shelled it, we fled just carrying the clothes on our backs. I don’t know what happened to our homes and belongings. Now I am here in this camp, my son is ill and I am too afraid to go to the hospital in town. I don’t know what will happen to us now.”

Also caught up in the crossfire of vengeance are economic migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers from sub-Saharan Africa. Many of them have sought refuge in neighbouring Tunisia or Egypt.

For some, Libya was a transit country, but for others it had become a place of rebuilding.

“Fearing for their life, my parents who are from Al-Fasher city in Darfur fled to Tripoli in 1998. I had never lived outside Libya before the conflict started. My father worked as a cook and my mother was domestic worker. Before fleeing I was in my third year of university pursuing a degree in the medical field,” 20-year old Eiman told IPS.

“Unfortunately the uprising in Libya took a bloody turn because people no longer respected the law and started raping women, taking hostages and killing people. For two months my family remained trapped in our house.

“They were accusing and killing all black males caught on the street of being mercenaries, which meant that our mother had to try and gather food but there were many days that we starved.”

In an article last month, the Wall Street Journal quoted Jibril as saying, “regarding Tawergha, my own viewpoint is that nobody has the right to interfere in this matter except the people of Misurata. This matter can’t be tackled through theories and textbook examples of national reconciliation like those in South Africa, Ireland and Eastern Europe.”

Calls by human rights groups urging the NTC to protect black Libyans in the newly liberated Libya seems to have fallen on deaf ears, and this could set a precedent for what is to come.

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
TUNIS, Oct 12 2011 (IPS)

After 23 years of enforced silence, media professionals and artists in Tunisia are enjoying a period in which their freedom of expression is being respected for the first time.

Hundreds of cyber-activists from across the Arab world gathered in the birthplace of the Arab Spring last week at the third meeting of Arab bloggers to discuss the role of social media and cyber-activism during popular revolts that toppled dictators in North Africa.

Meeting in Tunis, the conference also reflected on new challenges facing countries in a transitional democracy. Tunisia is due to hold constituent assembly elections on Oct. 23.

During the nearly two-decade reign of former president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia maintained the title of being one of the worst environments in the world for media professionals.

In 2010, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) ranked Tunisia among the ten worst places to be a blogger. Popular social-networking and video-sharing sites like Facebook and YouTube were intermittently blocked, and online journalists and bloggers were routinely monitored, harassed and jailed.

“As soon as the unrest started I became very politically active on Facebook and because of it members of the intelligence service came to my home one day while I was at a demonstration to question me. They told my mother that my name was on a list with the Ministry of Interior and that I should be careful,” said 24-year-old filmmaking student Khaled Khafi in an interview with IPS.

“The incident terrified me but I still continued attending demonstrations, which was very dangerous because maybe the snipers they had positioned on top of the buildings have your picture and if spot you they may kill you.”

According to a new study by the Project on Information Technology and Political Islam (PITPI) titled ‘Opening Closed Regimes: What Was the Role of Social Media During the Arab Spring’, social media played a central role in shaping political debates, building extensive social networks and organising political action.

In Tunisia, conversations about revolution and democracy on blogs, Facebook and the popular micro- blogging site Twitter often immediately preceded mass protests.

Following Ben Ali’s resignation, Tunisians were sending nearly 2,200 tweets per day, and the success of their ‘Jasmine Revolt’ aided in creating a discussion throughout the Middle East and North Africa over the ability to force long-time leaders to relinquish power.

“Censorship of information was one of the strongest pillars of the Ben Ali system,” 24-year-old university student and journalist Asma Ghribi told IPS. “One of the key reasons why the Tunisian revolution succeeded was that we were able to stifle that control, which eventually led to the system’s collapse.”

The study found that efforts by the Ben Ali government to shut down the Internet incited more public activism as those who were actively following or sharing information via social media eventually made their way to the streets.

“Social media wasn’t the main impetus that caused the uprising. It was a succession of many events, but social media tools helped in raising awareness amongst Tunisian citizens,” adds Ghribi. It also provided a platform for debating issues that couldn’t be discussed publicly.”

“Now it’s more about freedom than money to make films because they used to implement all kinds of laws to prevent anything that bothered the system from being released,” adds Khafi.

“Since the revolution, the Ministry of Interior has granted operations licences to 103 newspapers and magazines including 41 weeklies, 34 monthlies and 10 dailies. I just hope that the level of censorship, which forced us to remain silent has really been destroyed so that in the future we’ll be free enough to make the kind of films we want.”

Detentions, firings from jobs, physical assaults and arbitrary police surveillance forced more than 100 Tunisian journalists into exile before the former regime’s collapse. Freedom of the press is guaranteed in the constitution, but the former government used several laws and provisions to restrict these rights in practice.

Last month, Tunisia’s High Authority for the Achievement of the Revolutionary Objectives (HARRO) approved the final draft of the country’s new Press Code.

Once approved by the transitional government, the new code will ensure journalists right to information, confidentiality of sources, freedom of dissemination and an ability to express their opinions without fear of reprisal.

“Before, independent journalists and media outlets were not allowed to exist but now we are able to film, write and speak about whatever we want without anyone interfering in our work,” Tunisian host of Radio Express FM and blogger Zied Mhirsi told IPS.

“Tunisia lived in isolation for so long, and we didn’t invest in connecting with the global stage but the revolution brought us a lot of exposure, which means that as media professionals it’s up to us to rise to the occasion by providing uncensored information about what’s happening in our country.”

“In this new climate the only red lines we have are our ethics, which means that journalists must remain biased, objective and stick to the facts without outside influence,” says Ghribi. “Media professionals have a great responsibility because we control the kind of information that’s being filtered to Tunisians.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
TUNIS, Sep 16 2011 (IPS)

The influx of Tunisian migrants into Europe following the country’s ‘Jasmine Revolt’ has sparked a debate over the application of the passport-free Schengen Agreement.

Under a new draft European Union Commission proposal, which is due to be presented on Sep. 16, European Union (EU) member states seeking to revise the Schengen Agreement’s border free travel beyond five days must first get approval from Brussels.

If approved, the new law would give the European Commission and the European parliament a more central role in deciding how the Schengen regime operates.

The new proposal is in response to France’s decision to push back some 1,700 Tunisian migrants into Italy and tighten its borders in April. On Jul. 5 Denmark followed suit by establishing border and customs checks along its border with Sweden and Germany.

“At the onset, France closed its border and only allowed those migrants that could survive financially. Their argument was that Italy was issuing illegal temporary residence permits to Tunisians and other third country nationals,” Daniel F. Rivera, EU expert at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid told IPS.

“It’s quite paradoxical because French President Nicholas Sarkozy was one of the first to hail the Tunisians and Libyans for their revolution but has done very little to deal with the influx of refugees and economic migrants,” adds Rivera.

“Instead France has adopted a very protectionist stance by advocating the reform of the Schengen Agreement along with Italy which would allow member states to close their borders indefinitely without permission when ‘exceptional measures’ arise.”

Scarce jobs and slow social reforms have resulted in the exodus of more than 30,000 Tunisian economic migrants onto the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, a burden other EU member states have declined to share.

“I don’t understand why many Tunisians decided to leave the country illegally after the revolution. Many were misled by the assumption that if they travel to a developed country they’ll get rich, create a dream life and then return home,” 22-year-old Eymen Gamha told IPS.

“This might have worked in the 60’s or 70’s but now France and Italy are doing everything possible to stop illegal migrants and for the majority of those Tunisians that reach Europe, the dream is becoming a nightmare.”

Established on Jun. 14, 1985, and taking effect in 1995, the Schengen Agreement abolished internal border checks amongst the 25 signatory states, and created a single external border with common rules on visas and law enforcement.

According to article 2.2 of the agreement, member states are allotted a short period of time to unilaterally reinstate border checks in case of threats to national security before then asking the European Commission the executive arm of the EU, to prolong it.

Although most EU member states agree on allowing some 400 million Europeans to travel passport-free within the EU, divisions continue over developing common migrant, refugee and asylum policies at a time when domestic politics for many countries in the EU is being shaped by anti-immigrant agendas.

“With elections in Denmark now and in France next year, some EU leaders are exploiting the situation to boost poll ratings under the guise of protecting national security, EU values and reducing economic burdens,” says Rivera.

“However, closing borders and ignoring the root causes of mass migration won’t solve the problem and if other countries follow suit then the Schengen Agreement, which was seen as one of the EU’s major achievements, will be in real danger of disappearing.”

Sfax, a city located some 270 kilometres southeast of Tunisian capital Tunis, that was once the economic capital of Tunisia and the country’s first major fishing port, is now becoming a major source of illegal migration into Europe.

“Fishermen in Sfax are being forced to guard their boats out of fear that they will be stolen and used to smuggle Tunisians across the Mediterranean,” 20-year-old Sami told IPS.

“Despite hearing about those that have been detained, returned or even drowned, I still consider paying the 3,000 dollars to try and reach France where I have relatives and where the economy is healthier. Just like with the Tunisian uprising, we will risk everything to better our livelihoods.”

Many Tunisians complain that those who ran off in search of greener pastures immediately after street protests brought down long-time dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, have abandoned their revolution while the country struggles to rebuild.

“I kind of understand their decision to go abroad but the reality is that one-third of the migrants that fled to Europe have returned and those that made it through are stuck in holding centres,” 19-year-old Ahmed Nijin told IPS.

“Personally I don’t believe that they should be granted the right to vote because they fled the country at time when we should be feeling a sense of pride in our country, and so they shouldn’t have the right to decide the fate of Tunisia.”

“As Tunisians it’s important that we solve our problems together,” adds Gamha. “Running away whenever the country is faced with hardships means that we’ll never be able to capitalise on what we accomplished, which is an opportunity to build a stable democratic and economic system like that of Europe.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
TUNIS, Aug 22 2011 (IPS)

Seven months after Tunisia’s historic uprising which saw the ouster of long-time dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and gave birth to the region’s Arab Spring, many Tunisians are losing confidence in the progress of their revolution.

A poster in Tunis declares that the revolution must continue. Credit: Simba Russeau/IPS.

Rising unemployment has struck a nerve with young people in Tunisia as many had hoped their successful ‘Jasmine Revolt’, which forced former president Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 14, would quickly result in rapid job growth.

“I think the revolution that we need right now is one of the mind because the only way we will be able to progress forward is if people make changes within themselves,” 21-year-old Myriam Ben Ghazi tells IPS.

“Even after the revolution people are still thinking with the same mentality of the past and believing that nothing has really changed. But we have gained our freedom, we’re facing the corruption and in time we’ll grow economically.”

In the aftermath of Tunisia’s uprising the tourism sector – which employs about 500,000 and generates almost 3 billion dollars annually – plummeted more than 50 percent.

Tunisia’s central bank has reported a 2 billion dollar loss this year in tourism revenues and trade, mainly due to neighbouring Libya’s civil war. Of the nearly seven million tourists that visit Tunisia yearly, about two million are Libyans.

But some Tunisians are not buying the rhetoric that the market and a crippled tourism industry are the reasons why the interim government of Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi has failed to make good on promised reforms. “Many people talk about how tourism is down in Tunisia and how it has caused severe damage to our economy, but this is just politics,” 30-year-old medical doctor Abdullah Naybet said in an interview with IPS.

“The real issue is the corruption of the former régime and their failure to create employment and economic growth in the country. ”

“Ben Ali’s government made Tunisia look like a touristic country that couldn’t survive without tourism and they worked so hard to make us a one-source country while neglecting agriculture and commerce,” 23-year-old youth Rabii Kalboussi tells IPS.

“I believe Tunisia has great potential if the transitional government were to focus their attention on establishing development projects in sectors like agriculture because the country has many resources to draw upon that could at least provide for the internal needs without reliance on imported goods.”

According to a new poll by the Applied Social Sciences Forum, optimism amongst Tunisians fell from 32 percent in April to 24 percent in August.

The Central Tunisian town Sidi Bouzid, which is considered the birthplace of the uprising, recorded the highest levels of distrust in the progress of Tunisia’s revolution at 62.1 percent.

Lack of political reform, social development and a belief that remnants of Ben Ali’s Democratic Constitutional Rally (RCD) party are staging a counter-revolution has led to a series of strikes and protests in capital Tunis and surrounding towns in recent months.

To many Tunisians, the televised trials of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and his sons, Alaa and Gamal, while Ben Ali and his wife Leila Trabelsi are sentenced in absentia highlights the continued corruption.

Doubts over the independence of Tunisia’s judiciary were heightened following the escape of presidential aide Saida Agrebi and the release of former justice minister Bechir Tekkari and former transport minister Abderrahim Zouari. “Ben Ali’s trial is a piece of theatre. It’s basically a drug that they give the public in an attempt to calm the situation. Personally I wouldn’t even qualify what happened in Tunisia as a revolution. It was just a series of street protests that eventually forced Ben Ali and his family out of the country,” adds Kalboussi.

“It will take some time before people will be able to really trust the justice system because the same system that we’re fighting is the same system that is judging him.”

Just ahead of the country’s first free elections, mistrust has also translated into a lack of interest in exercising civic rights, with only four million of an estimated 7.5 million, or 13 percent of Tunisia’s eligible voters, registering to vote.

The Oct. 23 elections are aimed at creating a constituent assembly to reform the constitution, which was amended nine years ago after the Tunisian constitutional referendum of 2002.

“Most young Tunisians lack interest in the political sphere and fear that the current political players still maintain ties to the former régime, which prevents many from registering to vote,” adds Ben Ghazi.

“But we should focus our attention on the elections because voting is one way that young people can express their discontent to political leaders, and progress towards democracy.”

“The reality is that this generation will continue fighting to preserve the revolution,” adds Naybet. “But it will be the next generation that will actually reap the benefits.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
BEN GUERDANE, Aug 13 2011 (IPS)

Tunisia’s border with Libya has been a major lifeline, keeping residents in Ben Guerdane economically afloat – so when the vital trade route is blocked by the municipality or by protestors, tempers flare.

Located some 580 kilometres southeast of the capital Tunis, the Ras Ajdir border crossing – linking the small coastal town of Ben Guerdane to the Libyan capital Tripoli – was closed in early March due to fears that conflict rather than goods would be exported across Tunisia’s border.

“When the war started it hit us hard because many companies shut down so family members who worked in Libya lost their jobs and returned home,” Montassar, a local merchant who trades across the border, told IPS.

“Libya imported a lot of merchandise from Turkey and China. Tunisian merchants were able to make profit by reselling those goods they purchased in Tripoli on the Tunisian market at very cheap prices,” Montassar said. “Closing the border meant another source of income had dried up but luckily things have definitely improved since then.”

Before Libya’s civil war erupted, more than 10,000 Libyans and Tunisians accessed the Ras Ajdir border crossing daily – generating an annual profit of nearly 2.5 billion dollars through reciprocal trade. The border is a major transport hub for fuel, food and goods.

“Driving taxis all day long for very little money is all there is at the moment in terms of work,” Fathi, a mini taxi driver, told IPS. “At least trade with Libya has returned to normal because at the beginning of the war many of us suffered financially.”

“I need three dinar from each of you,” Fathi told his three passengers. “But before we head off I need to wait for one more person so that I can at least make some profit.”

Already in the car were two Tunisian street vendors. Many street vendors have flocked to the Shousha refugee camp to set up a mini souk on the side of the road in front of the sprawling tent city to sell tea, sandwiches, non-food items and cigarettes to the camp inhabitants. The third passenger was a Catholic priest from France.

In late May, just as business seemed to be picking up, inhabitants of the nearby Shousha refugee camp blocked the flow of traffic on the main highway in protest over their slow resettlement process.

The move sparked outrage among local Tunisian residents who retaliated by attacking the camp with gunfire, knives and iron clubs. Reportedly, at least six refugees were killed, dozens wounded, and nearly half of the camp was destroyed.

“Several cars pulled up to the camp filled with hundreds of Tunisians who started attacking women, men and children, robbing their belongings, shooting and burning the tents,” 20-year-old refugee Mowahab Abdullah Noor told IPS. “Many of my relatives were injured and one was killed.”

“At one point 20 Tunisian men started attacking one Eritrean man with knives and rocks until they killed him. During this time I was collecting all the children to get them out of the sun and to safety, and at some point I tried to go to get milk for them because they started crying from hunger, but a Tunisian man attacked me with a knife,” Noor said.

“The people no longer trust the military because we witnessed some men removing their military uniforms and putting on civilian clothes and attacking people.”

“Can you blame us?” Fathi asks. “Many businesses, taxi drivers and hotels lost money that day. It wasn’t right for them to block the road because our livelihoods are tied to that border… I don’t understand why they would do this. They have a place to sleep and food to eat. What more do they want?”

Despite a recent spike in cross-border trade, due to a rising Libyan demand for fuel and basic food commodities, local residents have called for several demonstrations in the past month over the lack of development, alternative employment opportunities, and fears that future border closings could threaten their economic stability.

Three weeks ago, shop owners staged a general strike by shutting their doors for one day and submitted a petition with their demands to the municipality’s headquarters. One of the demands was for the local governor to resign.

“Everyday our hotel is filled with Libyans who stay in town for one or two nights so there has been some level of economic growth,” Abdel Nasser, the receptionist at Hotel Edhiafa here, told IPS. “However, I ask the new government in Tunis to build factories and create a variety of jobs for young people in Ben Guerdane because we want to achieve the goals of our revolution.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
RAS AJDIR, Tunisia , Aug 6 2011 (IPS)

NATO’s five-month bombing campaign in Libya, run under the guise of protecting civilians, is also killing victims fleeing the conflict, directly and indirectly.

Since the start of Libya’s Arab Spring and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) air campaign against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime, more than 1,800 men, women and children have reportedly drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in heavily overcrowded, unseaworthy boats.

The Italian coastguard recovered 25 bodies of sub-Saharan African refugees Monday, who choked to death in the engine room of a boat crammed with nearly 300 people. The boat was trying to reach Italy’s southern holiday resort island of Lampedusa.

A major shift in Libya’s foreign immigration policies, prompted by Gaddafi’s Pan African stance in the 1990s, opened the country’s borders to a flood of sub-Saharan economic migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from Sudan, Chad, Somalia and Niger. Many came to Libya in search of work or to flee political violence or were passing through in hopes of reaching Malta or Lampedusa, which were seen as major gateways into Europe.

Before for the war, Eritreans willing to pay for the chance for a better life turned for instance to 30- year-old Eritrean Yonas.

“I was seeing so many people dying while trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea in really bad boats and I wanted to decrease this so when I was approached by a Libyan guy called Abu Nasser in 2007 who owned several big boats I started convincing people that this was a safer way to travel,” Yonas told IPS.

“I was only smuggling Eritreans, and with the deal I made with Abu Nasser to allow three or four non- paying customers to travel for every ten that paid we were able to assist more than 1,000 people within one year,” Yonas said. During that period no one was dying trying to make the journey, he claims.

Earlier this year, the Italian coastguard and NATO came under fire for failing to assist a small vessel carrying 47 Ethiopians, seven Nigerians, six Ghanaians, and five Sudanese migrants and political refugees after their cries for help were ignored. Dozens died.

In a recent Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) report titled ‘Trapped in Transit: The Neglected Victims of the War in Libya’, aid workers contend that instead of providing safety and protection, European Union (EU) member states are denying refugees and asylum seekers access by closing borders in the name of fighting ‘illegal immigration’.

“We question the double standards on the part of the international community because lets remember NATO decided to intervene in Libya to protect civilians,” MSF field coordinator for the Shousha camp in Tunisia, Sasha Matthews, told IPS. “At the European level the response is not to close borders. They should actually open the borders and consider these people as victims of a conflict and accept them.”

Libya, which is not a party to the United Nations Refugee Convention and has no asylum system in place, became a key EU partner in the fight to stem migration flows across the Mediterranean after sanctions were lifted in 2004.

In 2008, Gaddafi and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi signed an accord known as the ‘Friendship Treaty’, which allowed for the repatriation of migrants into Libya.

“These are illegal operations and in a few months there should be a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which is currently reviewing a 2009 case against the Italian government for pushing back refugees into Libya,” Gabriele Del Grande, coordinator of the blog ‘Fortress Europe’ told IPS.

“These policies are against international maritime laws, Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that grants the right of asylum, and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which forbids sending third country nationals back to places where they face inhumane or degrading treatment,” Del Grande said.

Although Italian authorities claimed that the agreement led to a 94 percent reduction in undocumented immigrants, human rights advocates say that interdicted migrants were denied proper assessments of their protection needs or asylum claims. Once these migrants were sent back to Libya they were subjected to indefinite detention.

“In June of this year the Italian government re-signed the same agreement with the Benghazi-based Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) – so we are very concerned because we don’t know if these people who are leaving the Shousha camp and going back to Libya to try and get a boat to Europe make it to Italy, or if they are being detained in Libya,” said Matthews. “We know that in these detention centres the conditions were extremely difficult with a lot of violence and abuse.”

“We were caught by Gaddafi’s soldiers and taken to Jawazat,” said 30-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker Omar, in an interview with IPS. “Once we arrived at the prison they started to punch and kick us. After several hours of being investigated they took us to another detention facility.

“For two months my hands were left tied behind my back while they physically tortured us. Basically they did everything except kill us… During the three months we were given small quantities of food and were not allowed to use the bathrooms.”

Just last month a Spanish NATO vessel rescued over 100 African refugees who had escaped Libya. Among the group were 17 women – four of them pregnant – and eight children. They were denied entry and shelter by Italy and Malta.

Italian officials said that they had no room in their already overcrowded centres, while Malta claimed that the problem was NATO’s to deal with.

“Finally after one week at sea they were granted entry to the Shousha camp in Tunisia,” said Del Grande. “But this sets a dangerous precedent because next time maybe NATO will not assist, knowing that they could lose a week in the process.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
RAS AJDIR, Tunisia, Jul 27 2011 (IPS)

As African Union and NATO leaders push for a political solution to the Libyan crisis, many of the thousands of refugees and migrants stranded on the Libyan- Tunisian border say their plight continues to fall on deaf ears.

Hawiyeh Awal. Credit: Simba Russeau/IPS.

“I’m so scared that I’m going to die in this hot desert,” she says. “I have diabetes and I’ve lost more than eight kilos since coming here because of the hot weather.”

Before arriving in Tunisia by bus several months ago, Hawiyeh worked for 18 years as a domestic worker for Libyan families. Instability in her war-torn country forced Hawiyeh to embark upon a treacherous journey through the desert with her daughter. Violence, which claimed the lives of many members of her family, caused severe injuries to both her hands.

“Both of my hands were hit during a gun battle, and they were unable to save my small finger on my left hand. My right hand suffered many fractures. A surgical operation that I had in Libya turned out to be a mess because they forgot to remove cotton from inside, and after 20 days it became infected.”

“My daughter and I can’t bear the situation in this camp any more because all we do is sit and wait. We’re just hoping to be resettled in a safe place where I can find medical treatment because here we must first get approval from the Tunisian military in order to access any kind of healthcare.”

Located along the main Libyan coastal highway leading to Tripoli just east of the southern Tunisian town Ras Ajdir, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) run Shousha camp is home to an estimated 3,500 refugees and migrants.

Daily life here has become difficult due to exposure to extreme temperatures, frequent sandstorms, insufficient access to hygiene facilities, and overcrowding.

“This is the biggest hell. There are no schools, no electricity, no work, and with Ramadan approaching we don’t even have access to proper wash facilities to clean ourselves,” Jamal from Darfur told IPS.

“Everyday all we eat is rice and macaroni. No one is helping us. I would prefer to go back to Libya because whether I’m here or there I’m going to die.”

According to the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), more than 600,000 of the nearly one million civilians that have fled Libya’s conflict are migrants.

From Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Nigeria and some 20 other countries, many of these individuals who are seeking refuge from the Libyan war were already escaping war and poverty in their home countries.

Twenty-seven-year-old Dombia, originally from Cote d’Ivoire, fled his country to nearby Burkina Faso after political upheaval claimed all but two of his family members. Unable to find sufficient work, he decided to pay a middleman 2,000 dollars to enter Libya illegally.

For several years Dombia juggled various odd jobs to make ends meet until he was able to obtain stable work as a manager for a construction company. Just as he was starting to rebuild his life the war started.

“I can’t go back home because of the political situation and I have no family there,” Dombia tells IPS.

“When the war broke out I tried to escape but the pro-Gaddafi soldiers took my passport, money, phone and then detained me because I wasn’t legal in the country. After one month they dumped us at the Tunisian border.”

Penniless, hungry and with no NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) member states or African leaders prepared to intervene, hundreds of migrants and refugees risk the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe despite a one in ten chance of perishing due to hunger, drowning or inability to navigate themselves.

“How long must we continue suffering like this? I have been here for two months now and I have to wait until the end of November for an interview with the UNHCR for possible resettlement,” Eritrean asylum seeker Nasih told IPS.

“I tried along with dozens of other people to reach Italy in April but our boat capsized and I never made it. We lost many people. Luckily I survived but ended up in this camp. I am ready to go back to Libya and try again.”

So as to reach Libya before nightfall, dozens leave the Shousha camp every morning. Aid workers warn that those numbers will start to increase rapidly unless the international community adopts urgent measures to improve their standard of living or assist in their resettlement.

“What about the African Union? If you see how they are dealing with the situation of drought in East Africa now, then how can we expect them to take interest in our suffering here? They have done nothing and will continue to do nothing, which is why we have to take matters into our own hands,” Ethiopian migrant Yonas tells IPS.

“We are trapped here. I refuse to have this be the life for me and my family.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, Jul 17 2011 (IPS)

The conflict in Libya between pro- and anti-Gaddafi forces will continue to take its toll on communities long after the war has ended as long as hidden bombs remain scattered across public areas.

Fifteen-year-old Misurata resident Mohammed lost most of his left hand and sustained shrapnel injuries to his abdomen in April after an unexploded ordnance found near his house detonated in his hands while he was playing.

“It was a rifle grenade that he brought home, and his brothers actually played with it for a couple of days, but on the third day when he picked it up, it exploded,” photographer and communications manager with Mines Advisory Group (MAG), Sean Sutton told IPS.

“He was very lucky to survive but it was a deeply traumatic experience for him and his family,” adds Sutton. “Children are of course the most vulnerable in this scenario, because they don’t know what’s safe and also they tend to play with these ordnances, which puts them at risk.”

Cluster munitions or cluster bombs are air dropped or ground-launched explosive weapons that can eject up to 2,000 sub-munitions, or bomblets.

Unexploded ordnances (UXO) of cluster bomblets or sub-munitions are usually left behind after a strike and are designed to detonate at a later time, making their indiscriminate effects – of killing or maiming civilians – felt long after the attack has occurred.

“Cluster bombs cause two major risks: First, their widespread dispersal means they cannot distinguish between military targets and civilians, so the immediate humanitarian impact can be extreme, especially when the weapon is used in or near populated areas,” Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) Director Laura Cheeseman told IPS. “Secondly, many sub-munitions fail to detonate on impact and become de facto anti-personnel mines killing and maiming people long after the conflict has ended. These ‘duds’ are more lethal than anti-personnel mines – incidents involving sub-munitions ‘duds’ are much more likely to cause death than injury.”

Adopted in May 2008 in Dublin, Ireland, the Convention on Cluster Munitions prohibits ratifying nations from using cluster munitions. The convention, which became international law in August 2010, has been ratified by 55 states out of 108 signatories.

“During last month’s intercessional meetings of the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions there were repeated calls made by both the CMC and by states parties condemning Gaddafi’s use of these indiscriminate weapons, and for Libya to join the convention as soon as the conflict is over,” said Cheeseman.

Since late March, NATO has conducted nearly 6,000 bombing missions – including 382 strikes on ammunition storage facilities.

NATO operations aimed at enforcing a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for the protection of Libyan civilians has added new risks to the already thousands of unexploded ordnances strewn across residential areas.

“There’s a danger with the NATO strikes because in the attack the ammunition will be kicked out, which means the items are scattered in the surrounding areas posing a threat to civilians until they’re cleared up,” Mark Hiznay, arms researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW) told IPS.

In Benghazi, Tobruk and Zintan, civilians have been gaining access to munitions that were stored in military facilities. They are wandering into contaminated environments, and this causes another problem because “these ordnances could be unstable, explode with one touch or when handled”, Hiznay said.

“Landmines are also increasingly becoming a big issue, with the latest reports of minefields being laid on the outskirts of Zintan not far from Misurata in an area that’s agricultural land, so that’s a worrying development,” adds Sutton.

Last week, Libyan researchers with the HRW discovered at least three minefields laid by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi – containing anti-personnel and anti-vehicle landmines on the outskirts of the Libyan village of al-Qawalish in the western Nafusa Mountains.

According to HRW, all three minefields were located in heavily populated civilian areas and many of the nearly 240 anti-personnel mines were Brazilian made, while the approximately 46 anti-vehicle mines were manufactured in China.

“The Brazilian made anti-personnel mines we discovered are very small, made almost entirely of plastic and can be difficult to detect with metal detectors in a large desert area – but these mines are no longer available because Brazil is a party to the Mine Ban Treaty and hasn’t manufactured or sold them since 1989,” stressed Hiznay. “However, the fact that we’re seeing so many Chinese mines is of concern because China has failed to sign any of the conventions. Hopefully measures like the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) would began to address this unregulated trade to regimes that have poor human rights records.”

Libya is one of 37 nations that have not joined the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty – which bans the use, production and transfer of all anti-personnel mines, requires destruction of stockpiles within four years, clearance of mined areas within 10 years and assistance to landmine victims.

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, Jul 11 2011 (IPS)

In dire need of money to assist her family back home, 27-year-old Makeda from Ethiopia was forced to return to the Middle East as a domestic worker.

As the world marks the Global Population Day Jul. 11, the plight of many like her is increasingly in focus.

Instead of taking the legal route, Makeda opted to seek out assistance from another Ethiopian woman who had been employed in the Middle East for more than ten years, and was known for helping women find sponsors.

Some five years later Makeda ran into difficulties when she took on work with an expat family that wanted to sponsor her. But her passport was with the female trafficker who had brought her in.

“The initial sponsorship that the trafficker brought me under had expired, and the local man who allowed us to use his name for a fee wasn’t paid, so he placed a claim with the authorities that I had run away,” Makeda told IPS.

“The woman demanded more money for me to relinquish my passport, so we sought legal counseling. A migration lawyer contacted the woman, and threatened to inform her employer. But in the end it was discovered that the woman’s employer was a well-known lawyer in the country who was helping her traffic women into the region,” Makeda said.

“It took me years to pay off the fees she charged to bring me in. Although I paid the extra money and obtained my passport, the process took so long that the expat family left and I ended up illegal.”

“For many, the simplicity of the transaction when dealing with illegal recruiters is more attractive,” Pardis Mahdavi, author of ‘Gridlock: Labour, Migration and Human Trafficking’ told IPS. “If governments could put into place a system that allows the legal channels for migration to be easier, it could limit the number of workers migrating under informal middlemen.”

Slavery, which is a system where people are treated as property and forced to work, is very much a part of today’s global economy. It rivals and in some regions eclipses the international drug trade.

There are nearly 27 million slaves worldwide, generating 1.3 billion dollars in annual profits, according to conservative estimates. Some estimates show a world slave population as high as 200 million, with the majority held under debt bondage.

Considered a new form of slavery, human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world. The United Nations (UN) estimates that nearly three million people are trafficked annually.

“Global human trafficking is fueled by the insatiable demand for unmediated access to other human beings – to their labour, their personhood, to all that makes each of us unique, and all of us generic,” Eileen Scully, author of ‘Pre-Cold War Traffic in Sex Labor’ told IPS.

“The demand in EU countries for ‘exotic women’, for example, is not merely a demand for non-local women, or for women from cultures that supposedly do not stigmatise prostitution. This demand is, rather, for ‘trafficked women’ and ‘trafficked children’, meaning individuals who have been manoeuvered into untenable, inescapable situations, where having once said yes to the general proposition, they are unable to say no to the particulars when later presented.”

The new International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Convention on Domestic Workers adopted in June aims to ensure that women – who constitute nearly 50 percent of the global migrant population – are treated as human beings.

“When male migrant workers come to work in construction or other service and industry sectors in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, they are protected under the labour law. Even if they don’t have full rights their work is recognised as work under the law, which is not the case for domestic workers (in the Arab region),” Simel Esim, gender specialist at the ILO’s Regional Office for the Arab States told IPS.

“Jordan and Lebanon are the only countries where ministries of labour are in charge of a significant number of the institutional responsibilities regarding migrant domestic workers,” adds Esim.

“In the case of the GCC countries the oversight of domestic workers is under the jurisdiction of the ministries of interior instead of the ministries of labour, which leaves domestic workers outside the purview of the labour law. The emphasis on domestic workers is, therefore about their recognition as workers, with equal rights to workers in other sectors.”

Lacking legal protection, domestic workers are among the most exploited and abused workers in the world. Rights advocates have long argued that exclusion from labour laws and recruitment-related abuses has left domestic workers in the Middle East vulnerable to exploitation, sexual abuse, forced labour, debt bondage, trafficking and conditions akin to slavery.

The new convention requires governments to regulate private employment agencies that impose heavy debt burdens or misinform migrant domestic workers about their jobs, prohibit the practice of deducting domestic workers’ salaries to pay recruitment fees, investigate complaints, and labour inspection in private homes.

“Policies relating to trafficking need to fall more in line with the reality of forced migration globally because most migrant workers are not the stereotypical sex worker chained to a bed,” adds Mahdavi.

“In fact they are men and women that are tied to metaphorical chains like debt and poverty that forces these workers to migrate and remain in poor working conditions.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, Jul 1 2011 (IPS)

As Moroccans head to the polls to vote in a referendum on reforms offered by King Mohammed VI in the wake of the Arab Spring, the debate continues as to whether the proposed changes are merely cosmetic or will pave the way for a viable democracy.

Millions of Moroccans head to the polls Jul. 1 to vote on a new proposed constitution, which was last amended in 1999 when the Arab world’s longest-standing dynasty seized power.

In an attempt to stifle the growing wave of democratic uprisings sweeping the Arab world from taking root in Morocco, the king appointed a commission to draft a new constitution in March, after facing the country’s largest pro-democracy protests in decades.

Among the proposed changes unveiled earlier this month is that the role of parliament would be strengthened with the task of providing oversight in matters relating to nationality, drafting and proposing laws as well as the ability to appoint interior ministry representatives.

A president, chosen from the largest party elected to parliament, would head the government and be granted authority to dissolve the lower house of parliament – which was a right formerly allotted to the king.

In addition, gender equality, increased personal freedom, an independent judiciary and investigations of corrupt officials have also been included in the draft constitution.

“I’m very impressed with the reform package because Morocco is very different than the republican regimes – either those where the leadership has been forced to resign like in Tunisia and Egypt, or those that have resisted ferociously like Libya, Yemen and Syria,” Veteran Middle East journalist and professor emeritus at the American University in Cairo, Abdallah Schleifer, told IPS.

“The new reforms will turn Morocco into a constitutional monarchy because it will have an elected parliament with broad powers, and a monarchy limited by a new constitution much like that of the European democracies,” Schleifer said. “Regionally, Morocco is taking the lead because these reforms are coming from the centre of power, whereas in countries like Egypt an uprising forced the army to make a decision and inspired a soft coup d’état.”

Although several of the country’s largest political parties – including the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP), the conservative Istiqlal Party and the Islamist Justice and Development Party – have urged their supporters to overwhelmingly support the reform, opposition groups like the youth-based February 20 movement, that have led street protests, are opting to boycott the vote due to the referendum being undemocratic.

“Despite the fact that the commission included highly respected personalities, professors, law experts, sociologists and invited all the political parties, trade unions, components of civil society and human right groups to offer suggestions, the February 20 movement along with three leftist groups, the banned Islamic Justice and Charity Party and the Unified Socialist Party, decided to boycott the referendum on grounds that the suggested draft is not made up by an elected commission, but rather by people nominated by the king,” Moroccan journalist, Abdellah Aoussar told IPS.

“The movement continues to organise marches and is engaging in door-to-door campaigns to convince people to join their boycott, since they believe that a low participation in the referendum will question the credibility of the new constitution,” Aoussar said.

Under the new constitution, the king retains the right to grant amnesties, to appoint judges and approve Cabinet members, as well as authority over the security apparatus and the ability to overrule or dissolve parliament, which analysts say allows the king to continue calling the shots behind the scenes.

“Language semantics in this new constitution gives the illusion that the executive will gain more power. For example, by replacing the title of ‘Prime Minister’ with the ‘President of the Government’ sounds as if he is calling the shots but at the end of the day he doesn’t,” Arezki Daoud, publisher and editor of the ‘North African Journal’, said in an interview with IPS.

“The proposed changes are basically cosmetic because Article 19, which enshrines the guns of the king and grants him the title of Commander of the Faithful – meaning that he will become a Pope with power, allows him to retain his powers via a proxy because all new laws and appointments must have royal approval,” Daoud said.

Despite continued contention by opponents that say the reforms fail to meet the demands of establishing a parliamentary monarchy, releasing all political prisoners and granting dignity, social justice and freedom to the nearly 30 million citizens of Morocco, the new constitution is expected to pass with widespread public support.

“Morocco has a long history of free elections that has allowed opposition parties to come to power – which adds legitimacy to the monarchy,” says Schleifer. “I think the king’s response is a wise and judicious one and will be respected by the majority of the country resulting in the approval of the new reforms.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, Jun 13 2011 (IPS)

The escalation of violence around the north-south border in the run-up to Sudan’s big divide has sparked fears of a new civil war, but experts contend that the issue is more about land and water rather than oil.

“Population claim to the land is more important to the main tribal groups than oil,” professor of political science at the American University in Cairo, Ibrahim El Nur, told IPS.

“Abyei is like Kashmir in terms of population composition – which is made up of residents with historical ties to both the south and north – competing interest over key water sources like the Kiir or the Bahr el Arab, claims to pastureland, and ambiguous borders.”

Situated within a large rift basin known as the Muglad Basin, Abyei is the 10, 460 square kilometre disputed region straddling the North-South border.

A 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) put an end to Africa’s longest-running civil war, granted Abyei special status and also called for a Joint Integrated Unit (JIU) comprised of soldiers from the north and south.

Nine months before the CPA, the Abyei Protocol was signed allowing residents to vote in a referendum on Jan. 9 but a voting rights dispute between the Misseriya tribe and the Ng’ok Dinka as to who was eligible to decide the future of Abyei postponed the referendum indefinitely.

The Greater Nile Oil Pipeline running through the Abyei area carrying more than one quarter of Sudan’s oil exports from the Heglig and Unity oil fields to the Red Sea’s Port Sudan was also seen as a major sticking point between the two sides until The Hague 2009 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling, which granted the north rights to maintain the oil.

“When oil was discovered in the Muglad basin, which straddles southern Kordofan and western Upper Nile, the government in Khartoum also opposed the holding of an Abyei referendum and imprisoned anyone who campaigned for it,” said Douglas Johnson, author of The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars, in an interview with IPS.

“The Misseriya feared that if the Ng’ok voted to join the south restrictions by southern police – which already exist in Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile – would apply to the Ng’ok grazing areas as well. At the same time the expansion of mechanised farming areas throughout southern Kordofan took pastoral land out of use, and the growth of both Misseriya and Ng’ok cattle herds placed these remaining grazing lands under increased pressure.”

The Nile River, flowing some 6,700 kilometres through ten countries in northeastern Africa making it the longest river in the world, is a vital source of water for Egypt and Sudan.

Distribution of the Nile Basin Initiative, which is a cooperative agreement for developing the river among the ten countries, relies on colonial contracts signed in the 1930s. However, a 1959 re- negotiated agreement between Sudan and Egypt allocating 23 billion cubic metres of the Nile’s annual flow to Sudan and 55.5 billion cubic metres to Egypt could be disrupted with the secession of the south.

“For Egypt, the flow of the Nile waters is a matter of life and death. If any country were to affect the Nile’s flow upstream then it would be a case of war for Egypt. This is why the Mubarak regime preferred to have turmoil in Sudan than to have a strong government that could make proper use of the Nile, adds El Nur.

“Another source of tension is the development of land grabbing phenomenon where investors from Arabia and China invest in Sudan’s agriculture, which makes the negotiations difficult because it’s not Sudan developing its agricultural sector, it’s others coming to hire land and water to produce agricultural crops to send back to their countries,” Dr. Hammou Laamrani, Water management expert with the International Development Research Centre in Cairo told IPS.

“During Sudan’s transition phase everything is likely to be a source of conflict on the border – not only water but oil, land, movement of populations and cattle.”

In Sudan, which is the largest country in Africa, the climate ranges from arid in the north and northwest to wet-and-dry tropical weather in the southwest. In western regions where the climate is semi-arid, safe drinking water is in short supply.

Rainfall, which is a key resource in Sudan, diminishes from south to north with the annual average varying from 120cm in the south to less than 10cm in the north.

Given Sudan’s rainfall patterns, the Misseriya – who are seasonal nomads from the north – rely on access to the waterways and grazing areas of the sedentary Ng’ok – who have historical ties to the south – to maintain their herding and farming lifestyle during the dry season.

“The Misseriya and the Dinka have developed different breeds of cattle: the Misseriya needing cattle who can survive on the hotter, sandier soils north of the qoz belt that separates them from the Ng’ok, and the Ng’ok needing cattle better suited to the wetter, swampier conditions of the Kiir waterways,” adds Johnson.

“The end of the first civil war and the creation of the Southern Region coincided with a severe downturn in rainfall levels in central Sudan, so the southern waterways and grazing lands became even more important to the Misseriya than before 1969.”

“If you look at the situation of Darfur those conditions are not excluded because the conflict has also come to an issue of land and water,” adds Laamrani.

“Agriculture is the main generator of employment and income in these areas so it would make sense that a greater share of water and land, which is a driver of economic development, would be cautioned by the north.”

The Sudan crisis has prompted the African Union (AU) to hold a two-day mini summit in Addis Ababa to discuss key issues ahead of the south’s independence, which include the withdrawal of troops, deployment of an African-led security patrol and a settlement on Abyei’s regional status.

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, May 27 2011 (IPS)

Libya’s enormous aquatic reserves could potentially become a new weapon of choice if government forces opt to starve coastal cities that heavily rely on free flowing freshwater.

With only five percent of the country getting at least 100 millimetres of rainfall per year, Libya is one of the driest countries in the world.

Historically, coastal aquifers or desalination plants located in Tripoli were of poor quality due to contamination with salt water, resulting in undrinkable water in many cities including Benghazi.

Oil exploration in the southern Libyan desert in the mid-1950s revealed vast quantities of fresh, clean groundwater – this could meet growing national demand and development goals.

Scientists estimate that nearly 40,000 years ago when the North African climate was temperate, rainwater in Libya seeped underground forming reservoirs of freshwater.

In 1983, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi initiated a huge civil water works project known as the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) – a massive irrigation project that drew upon the underground basin reserves of the Kufra, Sirte, Morzuk, Hamada and the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer – to deliver more than five million cubic metres of water per day to cities along Libya’s coastal belt.

“The Colonel’s GMMR project was discounted when first unveiled as an uneconomic flight of fancy and a wasteful exploitation of un-renewable freshwater reserves,” Middle East-based journalist Iason Athanasiadis told IPS. “But subsequently it was hailed as a masterful work of engineering, tapping into underground aquifers so vast that they could keep the 2007 rate of dispersal going for the next 1,000 years.”

Lying beneath the four African countries Chad, Egypt, Libya and Sudan, the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) is the world’s largest fossil water aquifer system, covering some two million square kilometres and estimated to contain 150,000 cubic kilometres of groundwater.

Fossil water is groundwater that has been trapped in underground fossil aquifers for thousands or even millions of years. Unlike most aquifers the NSAS is a non-renewable resource, and over extraction or water mining could cause rising sea levels.

“The GMMR provides 70 percent of the population with water for drinking and irrigation, pumping it from Libya’s vast underground aquifers like the NSAS in the south to populated coastal areas 4,000 kilometres to the north,” Ivan Ivekovic, professor of political science at the American University of Cairo told IPS.

“The entire project was drawn out over five phases. Phase one took water from eastern pipelines in As- Sarir and Tazerbo to Benghazi and Sirte; phase two supplied water in Tripoli and western pipelines in Jeffara from the Fezzan region; and phase three intended to create an integrated system and increase the total daily capacity to almost four million cubic metres and provide up to 138,000 cubic metres per day to Tobruk.”

With an estimated cost of nearly 30 billion dollars, the GMMR’s network of nearly 5,000 kilometres of pipeline from more than 1,300 wells drilled up to 500 metres deep into the Sahara was also intended to increase the amount of arable land for agricultural production.

“Libya could start an agro-business similar to California’s San Joaquin Valley. Like Libya, California is essentially desert but because of irrigation and water works projects that desert valley became the largest producer of food and cotton in the world, making it the ninth largest economy in the world,” Patrick Henningsen, 21st Century Wire editor and founder, told IPS.

“At the moment the only agro-markets in the Mediterranean zone competing to supply citrus and various other popular supermarket products to Europe are Israel and Egypt. In 10 or 20 years, Libya could surpass both of those countries because they now have the water to green the desert.”

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) water has created a growing regional crisis and could be an impetus for further unrest. Demand is increasing as populations skyrocket – reserves are rapidly depleting and food inflation has taken its toll on cash-strapped countries dependent on imported food staples.

“There are several elements to the Libyan mess. One of them is certainly water. I would highlight the issue by quoting similar situations in South and Central Asia,” News Central Asia Editor Tariq Saeedi told IPS.

“Kashmir is understood to be the cause of rift between India and Pakistan but actually it’s the water of three rivers – Ravi, Sutlej and Beas – that originate from upper Kashmir that is the source of dispute.

“The Amudarya River that starts from Afghanistan and criss-crosses between Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan before terminating at Aral Sea is another example. The ability of this river to trigger a conflict in Central Asia will rise proportionately with the ability of Afghanistan to use more water from Amudarya for its own use.

“In a nutshell, whoever controls NSAS, controls the economies, foreign policies and destinies of several countries in the region, not just north-eastern Africa,” explains Saeedi.

Last month, Libyan officials warned that NATO airstrikes on the GMMR’s pipelines could cause a humanitarian and environmental disaster. But pro-government forces could also disrupt the GMMR’s flow if they wish, leaving opposition-held regions in the east with only the Ajdabiya reservoir – this holds just a month’s supply of water.

“Pure freshwater from the south must continue being pumped because without it Benghazi would die,” says Ivekovic. “The water pipelines run parallel to the oil and gas pipelines and it’s interesting that with most of the fighting happening around the areas of Ajdabiya, Sirte and Benghazi that none of these pipes have yet been damaged.

“In a desertifying region already wracked by water conflict, Libya’s enormous aquatic reserves will be a large prize for whoever gets the upper hand in this struggle,” says Athanasiadis.

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, May 18 2011 (IPS)

Women have been taking leading roles in the Arab uprisings of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Libya, Morocco and Bahrain – shattering many decades old Western myths that Arab women are powerless and enslaved.

At Tahrir Square. Credit: Mohammed Omer/IPS.

According to Outaleb, women – whether as mothers, housewives, veiled or not, from Islamist parties or with no political upbringing – have always played a pivotal role in the Arab world.

“The Western media is shaped according to certain agendas, to certain priorities they have in mind, and policies regarding Arab women. They have ignored the reality that Arab women have always been at the heart of revolutions in the region – whether leading, strategising, raising awareness or mobilising as bloggers, or on Facebook,” Outaleb said.

Egyptian women represented nearly 20 percent of the millions of activists who flocked to Tahrir Square and protests in Alexandria.

“I don’t like the fact that during our 18-day revolt the international media coverage focused only on women being sexually harassed. Women were among the martyrs, confronting security forces and sleeping in Tahrir Square,” Doaa Abdelaal, a council member of Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML) told IPS.

“At the grassroots level and in labour movements women have worked a long time in creating this moment,” Abdelaal said.

Since 2004, Egypt’s labour force has had nearly 3,000 strikes to challenge privatisation and policies entrenched in international lending agreements established by actors like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Women have played leading roles in all these actions – demanding better economic conditions and opposing the regime.

In a country where 95 percent of the 27 incidents of rape that occur daily go unreported, where 33 percent of women face domestic violence, and where there is inequality in the workforce and increasing sexual violence, women’s civil society groups – for the past 20 years – have relentlessly dedicated their time and energy towards breaking many societal taboos.

Hibaaq Osman from Somalia, is the chief executive officer and founder of Karama, an initiative fuelled by a coalition of constituencies working to build a movement to end violence against women. She says that the Western media was shocked to see women out on the streets, raising their voices, protesting for democracy and walking side by side with men for a unified cause – political reform and equal rights.

“You have to understand the psychology of the Western media. They want to see a weak, meek and covered woman,” Osman told IPS.

According to Osman, Europe, which she says is moving towards the far right, should recognise the fact that second generation immigrants are only disconnected economically, socially and politically because they are born and raised in countries that have failed to embrace them.

“In France, it took them a day or two to come up with a law against the niqab, but how long would it take to come up with a law to support, train, give jobs and uplift economically the immigrants that live in their country?” Osman asked.

“I think it’s about time that the West take a good look at themselves because it’s easy to point the finger at the Muslim world and how women are treated when the Catholic Church is still having major problems with contraceptives and they can’t decide if a woman should have the right to her own body,” Osman says.

“We don’t care what the Western media thinks about us because we know that it’s biased,” Outaleb says. “I mean how can they overlook the role of women. They have never been absent – they’re part of the society.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, May 13 2011 (IPS)

As the battle for Libya rages on – with the country’s economic heartland, Misurata, being the scene of some of the uprising’s fiercest fighting – experts are warning that a ‘Balkanisation’ of Libya is possible if the U.S. and NATO opt to exploit loopholes in U.N. Resolution 1973 by arming the opposition.

In the region, “Muammar Gaddafi was advocating for the African Union (AU) to be independent instead of being subservient to the EU and the U.S. by pushing for the African Development Bank (ADB) and replacing the Franc with an African currency,” Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, research associate at the Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG) specialising on the Middle East and Central Asia, told IPS. “Realistically, the Libyan intervention is an attack on the African continent by cutting its head off. They don’t just want to ‘Balkanise’ – fragment and divide – Libya, they want to ‘Balkanise’ the entire continent.”

“Now the west has rediscovered that Gaddafi is a dictator and a tyrant, they are prepared to take action against his regime, under U.N. Resolution 1973, which is primarily concerned with the protection of civilians. The irony is that NATO is now using EU weaponry to bomb some of the same weaponry it had sold to him earlier,” Kaye Stearman, media coordinator with the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) told IPS.

In response, former British ambassador to Libya, Richard Dalton told IPS that “NATO has no strategic interests in Libya or elsewhere beyond what is stated in the North Atlantic Treaty as amplified by publicly announced decisions of the NATO Council. Its concern in Libya is the implementation of UNSC 1973”.

“The EU wants to see stability, prosperity and good government in all its neighbours,” Dalton emphasised.

According to U.N. Resolution 1973, which authorised action to protect Libyan civilians, all member states must ensure strict implementation of the arms embargo established by paragraphs 9 and 10 of the previous Resolution 1970.

Geographically, Libya is a gateway from North to Central Africa and is positioned between Eastern and Western Africa. Human rights advocates warn that by arming opposition groups tribal conflict could spill outside of Libya’s borders. This would also be in direct violation of the U.N. mandate, they say.

“Some EU countries are also considering whether to supply arms to the anti-Gaddafi rebels, which could increase future instability. This can have unforeseen long-term consequences, which can bring great harm to societies and militate against peace building,” says Stearman.

One example of how this has played out in the past, Stearman explains, is the U.S. arming of “mujahedeen ‘freedom’ forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and 1990s, which actively prolonged conflicts, led to the growth of armed extremists, including local and foreign Taliban forces, the proliferation of a warlord-based society and the thwarting of the growth of civil society. In addition, the same weaponry supplied by the U.S. was later used against U.S. and allied forces.”

During the Potsdam Conference in 1945 – at the end of the Second World War – the Soviet Union, Britain and the U.S. came to an impasse over the fate of seized Italian colonies in Libya. The U.S. wanted a U.N. trusteeship but the Soviet Union suggested various provincial trusteeships, with Tripolitania under its command, Fezzan under France, and Cyrenaica under Britain.

That history is repeating itself now with the U.S. and the EU not only looking to divide Libya under two administrations in Tripoli and Benghazi, but also to eliminate a key competitor that had visions of uniting Africa, Nazemroaya said.

Libya and China were rapidly becoming key energy partners as Beijing positioned itself to be the third- largest buyer of Libyan oil – with more than 50 investment projects in the works.

Analysts like ‘Asian Times’ reporter and author of ‘Obama does Globalistan’, Pepe Escobar point out that China has taken a serious hit with the recent unrest in North Africa. Its new contracts in Libya totalling 18 billion dollars have declined by nearly 53 percent – this was the aim of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)’s strategic policy to minimise China’s economic interest in Africa.

AFRICOM, headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany, is responsible for U.S. military activities in 53 African nations.

The U.S. badly wanted a base in Africa and the Libyan intervention has “now provided the opening”, Escobar told IPS. “AFRICOM’s participation is the Pentagon’s strategy to counter Chinese investments in Africa.”

Escobar says that at the 2010 Lisbon Summit of leaders of NATO governments the agenda was “total domination of the Mediterranean and the establishment of a NATO ‘lake’… Gaddafi’s business dealings with China irked Brussels, Paris, London, and of course Washington”.

In recent days, Libya’s opposition claim to have gained an upper hand by seizing control of the besieged city of Misurata, whose strategic seaport has been a key lifeline for humanitarian aid missions evacuating migrants and refugees fleeing the violence.

However, Nazemroaya points out that Misurata – which could be likened to a Shanghai on the African continent – is an important industrial and trade base for Libya and Africa that would be a major economic prize should the opposition maintain control.

“Misurata is a very important industrial city and economic heartland. Qasr Ahmed, which is located 250 kilometres east of Tripoli, is a commercial port, and the main headquarters for the Libyan Iron and Steel Company (Lisco) that exports over 60 percent of its products with nearly 50 percent going to markets in Italy and Spain,” Nazemroaya said. “Furthermore, the Libyan National Oil Company – which is one of the top 20 energy companies worldwide – is also based there. Privatisation is happening under the guise of a foreign peacekeeping mission, which is why the EU wants to send soldiers.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, May 5 2011 (IPS)

Global spending on arms in 2010 were an estimated 1.6 trillion dollars, with governments in the Middle East dishing out more than 111 billion for weapons – raising questions as to whether Western arms suppliers circumvented international treaties by exporting to repressive regimes.

Last year, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt accounted for over 75 percent of U.S. arms sales – with Saudi Arabia ordering more than 60 billion dollars in weaponry, making it the leading buyer.

“There is no doubt that the intersection of arms sales and human rights is a sticky one, and late last year the [Government Accountability Office] GAO reported that the U.S. Defence and State Departments haven’t always documented their reasons for such sales consistently,” Laicie Olson, senior policy analyst with the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington told IPS.

According to reports, the U.S. is the leading supplier of conventional arms to the Middle East, surpassing Russia – which is the world’s second largest arms supplier – by nearly 20 percent.

Large defence contractors such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin are some of the major profiteers – these companies and their employees depend on arms sales for a significant portion of their revenue.

However, in a region that is said to be one of the most militarised in the world, human rights advocates claim that the U.S. continues to circumvent legislation like the Leahy Amendment, which prohibits U.S. arms sales to governments that fail to curb grave human rights violations.

Countries like Saudi Arabia whose human rights record in regards to migrant domestic worker abuse, women’s rights and upholding a juvenile death penalty have come under particular scrutiny.

“There does seem to be a level of reform there that needs to be undertaken. However, there are also cases in which U.S. arms sales have provided an inroad for upholding human rights,” Olson said.

“In Egypt, the U.S. was able to exert a fair amount influence due to its long-time support of the military. There were a few small breaks in this trend but, ultimately, Egypt did not go the way of so many other countries in the Middle East who seem to have decided the only way to quell a revolution is to [literally] kill it.”

Critics argue that the Egyptian military was right in line with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen in their use of U.S.-made tear gas, tanks and other types of equipment to brutally crack down on anti-regime rebellions.

“In the Middle East you’re seeing tear gas, water cannons, shotguns, firearms and armoured vehicles being used to disperse protests and for law enforcement or internal security operations that in some cases have involved lethal force,” Helen Hughes, a researcher with the UK-based Amnesty International told IPS.

Arms export licences from European Union (EU) member states such as France, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Malta, Bulgaria, Spain, Belgium and Poland to Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia doubled from 985 million euros in 2008 to 2 billion euros in 2009.

In February of this year, the UK government revoked 52 licences for Bahrain and Libya due to their brutal crackdown on dissent. They also implemented an arms embargo on Libya in response to U.N. Resolution 1973. A fourth quarter listing in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Strategic Export Control Reports revealed that in 2010 combat aircraft and small arms totalling 3.76 million pounds were licensed by the UK to Libya.

“With the EU, which actually already has an export control regime that is called the EU Common Position on Export Controls you have a criteria on human rights that relates to internal repression and serious human rights violations as well as also international humanitarian law,” explained Hughes.

“But it seems that from the transfers that we’ve been monitoring over the last five years – in relation to say for example Libya, Bahrain or elsewhere in the region – that the governments haven’t been rigorously complying with that criteria.”

The hope is that “with the international Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) there would be a much clearer and stricter obligation on states to prohibit arms transfers where a potential risk exists and also a methodology to assist in regulating this international law,” Hughes added.

According to Olson, the ATT – which was created to curb the irresponsible trade and transfer of arms – raises some important questions about the limitations of arms sales, what they currently are, and maybe what they should be.

But there are problems. “Under the ATT the U.S. and UK would be able to arm Muammar Gaddafi, but not Libya’s rebels, since Gaddafi is still the head of an internationally recognised government and the rebels, well… are not,” Olson said.

Some analysts are arguing that the NATO intervention in Libya is a platform for arms dealers to showcase their weaponry to potential buyers.

“For example, even to get membership into NATO some countries have to in effect upgrade their military to a certain level,” Anup Shah, creator of the website Global Issues told IPS. “So for some Eastern European countries who are joining NATO from a pure economic perspective it’s like a boom to the military industrial complex as they’ll have a new source of nations to sell arms to.”

Excerpt:

By Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau
CAIRO, Apr 24 2011 (IPS)

Amidst the political upheavals across the Arab world, a new U.N. study highlights the need for neurological health services to monitor brain disorders among displaced people.

Iman was a professor of engineering at the University of Baghdad. In August 2005, she was left blind after being attacked along with her husband.

“We used to have four cars and a large house. Now we don’t earn anything and our savings have nearly run out. I am broken inside living this life of begging,” Iman said in an interview with IPS.

“I am struggling to provide healthcare for me and my diabetic daughter. We have been driven from our homes, victimised, and even outside our country we lack security. The war is on the Iraqi people.”

With an estimated 40 million displaced refugees worldwide and an expected increase in those numbers due to ongoing unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, health officials are keen on monitoring the neurological disease that affects a high proportion of refugees exposed to various levels of mental shock.

Half a million refugees are now estimated to have fled Libya.

A recent study, which is a part of a United Nations pilot project, says that refugees are in need of targeted neurological health services, health education for neurological disorders and long-term and sustainable chronic disease management.

Neurological diagnoses were reported in 1,295 refugees out of 2,539 refugee visits in Jordan in 2010. These accounted for 17 percent of all refugees who were receiving health assistance and 4 percent of the 7,642 Iraqi refugees registered.

The study found that 4.97 percent of refugees with neurological system disorders reported being victims of torture. Seventy-eight percent were diagnosed as chronic disorders, with nearly 70 percent of individuals originating from Baghdad.

“They poured gasoline on my son and set him on fire right in front of our home as a warning to the entire family,” Mustafa, a Sunni father of five from Baghdad, said to IPS. “Then they killed my nephew.”

A neurological disorder occurs when structural, biochemical or electrical abnormalities in the brain, spinal chord or in the nervous system results in common symptoms such as epilepsy, back pain, headaches, root and nerve plexus dysfunctions and strokes.

Psychological stress incurred during times of emergencies such as natural disasters, war and being uprooted from their natural environment are major triggers that can cause disruption to the normal flow of the nervous system.

“Limited data has been collected on neurological diagnosis in terms of chronic disorders and how people live day to day as refugees,” Dr. Farrah Mateen of the Department of Neurology and International Health at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, a member of the American Academy of Neurology and lead researcher for the study told IPS.

“Over time health services have been more geared towards infectious diseases and this data shows that in fact there are more chronic ailments that need to be looked at.”

Arafa Hassan is from central Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, which lies in the state of South Kordofan. As a child she dreamed of sharing her cultural heritage internationally but those aspirations vanished when she was forced to leave her homeland.

“We used to have our own language but then Arabic was forced on us. I witnessed members of my family being raped and killed,” Arafa told IPS.

“Our family was driven out after the government seized our lands. Although it’s difficult living the life of a refugee, which could mean being detained or without basic needs, we had to escape persecution.”

There are an estimated 27 million internally displaced people worldwide, with Sudan representing the largest population at five million. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are more than two million Iraqi refugees, making Iraq one of the leading countries of origin for refugees.

As a mobile population, concrete data on their numbers are hard to track.

However, researchers warn that as conflict continues to plague the MENA region, a global trend towards high chronic disease in displaced refugees could reach pandemic proportions in the coming years.

“Understanding the neurological disorders in vulnerable displaced persons is crucial to developing sustainable policy measures to recognise and ultimately address what may be a large and lifelong burden of neurological disorders in refugee populations,” says Dr. Mateen.

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