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In the US, slavery was officially abolished 140 years ago. “In reality, modern day slavery is not only alive and well, but growing in unprecedented dimensions”, Sheila Novak SDS says. in Human Trafficing: Modern Day Slavery, a resource packet for congregations, she informs that app. 27,000,000 men and women, girls and boys are enslaved in today’s world. Human Trafficing was created by the Sisters of the Divine Savior, in order to raise awareness and to equipp congregations to act against this modern scandal.
Grounded in the Christian faith, Human Trafficing includes practical background information, gives suggestions for bible readings, prayers, and sermons, helps with event planning from letterwriting campagns to FairTrade, and shows how a congregation can reach out to different age groups.
Download your own copy of Human Trafficing: Modern Day Slavery.
by Diana Sands.
To begin, I would like to borrow an exercise popularized by a very creative teacher and writer*. Below I have copied a quote from a human rights advocate. All clues to the identity of the writer, the writer’s religion, and the writer’s country of origin have been obscured. Please read the following three paragraphs and try to guess which religion is referenced, which country the writer is from, and if you’re really daring, who wrote it.
“I have been a practicing [religious faith] all my life and a [lay leader and teacher] for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with [my religion], after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the [religion’s highest] leaders, quoting a few carefully selected [religious text] verses, … [declared] that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as [religious leaders].
This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries…
The truth is that male religious leaders have had - and still have - an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world. This is in clear violation not just of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also the teachings of [prophets] and founders of [the] great religions - all of whom have called for proper and equitable treatment of all the children of [God]. It is time we had the courage to challenge these views.”
Can you guess? I am sure that the media, which is truly a global influencer these days, must have had some sway over your guesses. Be honest with yourself. Did you guess the writer was a formerly Muslim woman from the Middle East or Central Asia who was fed-up with the politics of Islamic leadership in her community? Maybe you sensed a trick question and guessed a formerly Muslim woman from the West? Well, the writer is former United States President Jimmy Carter writing about why he is leaving Christianity. This exercise can show us lots of things about ourselves – I think primarily it shows that Islamophobia in the Western media is influencing us in very divisive ways. We have been distracted from the reality that women suffer subjugation and dehumanization at the hands of so many religious leaders across faith traditions. We have almost forgotten that opportunities for interfaith solidarity and cooperation around women’s rights are indeed possible through progressive and respectful dialogue.
by Sarah Armitage. Cross-posted from inspiremagazine.org
The Burmese military is using rape and sexual violence against ethnic women and girls as part of a deliberate strategy to attain and strengthen control. Charity worker Sarah Armitage reports
Rape. It may be a small word, but it has a meaning that carries the power to destroy individuals, families and entire communities. All around the world, rape is used against women as a show of power and control. In Burma, it is also used as a weapon of war.
A couple of weeks ago the Burma Army, the military force of the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council), began a new offensive along the border in Karen State. Almost 4,000 civilians fled for their lives across the Moei River into Thailand creating an extensive emergency crisis. In the days leading up to the attacks, the Burma Army entered villages in the area forcibly recruiting soldiers and porters.
On 12 June, Naw Pay and Naw Wah Lah chose to stay in their homes rather than try to outrun the Burma Army soldiers heading towards their village, a few hours’ walk from the border.
Naw Pay, aged 18, was eight months pregnant and Naw Wah Lah, aged 17, had a six-month old baby to care for. It was a decision with dire consequences. When found by the soldiers they were taken out of their homes and gang raped. Afterwards, both young women and the unborn child were brutally murdered. 
Tragically, this is not an isolated case. Over the past few years, a number of women’s groups based in Burma have produced reports documenting the systematic use of rape and sexual violence by the Burma Army against ethnic women and girls.
The number of known rape victims, some going back as far as 1995, is just under 1,900. However, this is only a fraction of the true number as so many women are afraid or unable to speak out about what has happened to them.
Sometimes rape is carried out with such extreme brutality that for the victim, death can be the only possible outcome.
Read the rest of this entry »
Doo Aphane at the Ecumenical Women Advocacy Dinner on March 3, 2009
Quoted from IRIN Africa:
MBABANE, 9 February 2009 (IRIN) – A groundbreaking legal action in Swaziland’s High Court is testing the new Constitution and its recognition of equal rights for women.
Although the Constitution recognizes the equality of women, in practice much legislation remains unchanged and discriminatory.
Mary-Joyce Doo Aphane, an attorney, filed the lawsuit to compel government to overturn Section 16 (3) of the Deeds of Registry Act, which forbids women to register property in their own names.
Read more here.
The following are remarks by Stephen Lewis, Co-Director of AIDS-Free World, delivered at the 8th Women Ambassadors’ Luncheon A UN Agency for Women and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Monday, November 3, 2008, 1:00 pm (EST) United Nations, NY
When I served at the United Nations in the 1980’s, out of the, then, 159 Member States, there were three represented by women Ambassadors. One of them was the formidable feminist and quite wonderful human being, Dame Nita Barrow of Barbados. So highly did many of us think of Dame Nita, and so anxious was she to serve the world, that she was persuaded to run for the post of President of the General Assembly.
She lost. She lost to a male foreign minister, of one-tenth her competence and capacity. She lost, in part, because she was a mere Ambassador and he was a foreign minister. But mostly — and everybody knew it — she lost because she was a woman.
At the time, incredibly enough, there had not yet been appointed, since the beginning of the United Nations — a span of forty years — a single permanent Under-Secretary General who was a woman.
Things have obviously improved. But we’re still achingly far removed from gender parity in the senior positions of the United Nations system. We have failed internally, we have failed externally, and no one should derive any special solace from the incremental progress over the years.
So clear is the failure, especially in the lamentable record of the United Nations on women’s rights around the world that, as you all know, a High-Level Panel on System-Wide Coherence recommended, in the fall of 2006, the creation of a new international agency for women. It’s useful to recall the words of the Panel: “ The message is clear: While the UN remains a key actor in supporting countries to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment, there is a strong sense that the UN’s contribution has been incoherent, under-resourced and fragmented.” Read the rest of this entry »
By Michel Ngoy Mulunda, EW delegate, as presented on panel: “A Dialogue Among Cultures; Iraq for All,” 3 March 2008
Photography by Kim Llerena.
We are grateful to the Al Hakim foundation for inviting us to this session of “A Dialogue between cultures: “Iraq for All”". The special invitation to me as one of the panelists to speak on the issue of Women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, marks our strong solidarity with the wrestle for the respect of women’s rights in Iraqi society.
We all know well that violence doesn’t have a specific form in the Congo or in Iraq, but we do agree to call for an end to that form of inhumanity. We hope that great progress will be achieved soon in this area despite reluctance encountered here and there. And we hope that our communities will play a leading role in becoming “the light of the world and the salt of the earth”. Read the rest of this entry »
