Bosnia

Forgetting Children Born of War: Setting the Human Rights Agenda in Bosnia and Beyond

admin — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:02:00 +0000

In Forgetting Children Born of War, R. Charli Carpenter explores a perplexing question: Why has the human rights community ignored a critically vulnerable population, the children born to women who were raped during war? These children are subject to infanticide, neglect, abuse, and abandonment—both within their own families and within the societies into which they are born. Since the human rights community has a mandate to protect the most vulnerable citizens of society—which usually includes children, mothers, and pregnant women—why are they violating their own principles?

Through an exhaustive study of media, NGO reports, and interviews, Carpenter comes to understand that children born of war have been forgotten and neglected because human rights advocates focus instead on the problem of ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as the women who have been subjected to sexual violence. Focusing on the children born of rape is understood as a conflict of interest. War rape is talked about and viewed “through lenses of nationalism, feminism, and humanitarianism rather than through a children’s rights frame.” Rape is a crime and the woman who experiences war rape is a victim; forced pregnancy and rape are weapons of ethnic cleansing. This is how the issue is dealt with in the context of the human rights agenda. Thus, the child conceived through rape is understood as a product of violence, as a “tool of genocide,” rather than as a human being in need of special protection.

Human rights advocates who initially considered the issue eventually decided to allow the local community to deal with these children, rather than offer the benefits, resources, and organizational manpower of the global human rights network. Local communities have responded in a variety of ways but none of the efforts made on behalf of these children are sufficient.

Carpenter’s book sheds light not just on the problem of children who have been conceived through rape during a time of war—tens of thousands of children across the globe—but also the equally complex problem of how human rights issues get constructed and adopted within the community, ultimately leading to how needs are addressed or ignored. Her book is a critical call for the need to re-examine our understanding of human rights and how those needs are addressed through the human rights network.

Written by: Jessica Powers, August 1st 2010

Promised Virgins: A Novel of Jihad

admin — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:28:00 +0000

Jeffrey Fleishman

Arcade Publishing

Promised Virgins echoes of stories already told; they howl and yowl in your ear as Jeffrey Fleishman whispers and intimates, ever beseeching that you withstand his narrative a moment longer. Fleishman relies on the threads of past to weave his story, devices used before by film writers and the novelists who inspired them. Perhaps that is why the spirits bellow in your ear as you read; it is all too familiar, too ready to be seen as images flitting across a screen, even more so than it is to be read.

Begun like a tale of Arabian Nights, and threaded as such throughout, this story begins on the eve of a war. It is on the eve of U.S. involvement in Bosnia, when a woman and a man meet in darkness. It is a time when fates are still unraveling, and a mysterious bearded man bearing dates on a mule can upset the inertia and create jihad.

Told by Jay and from his point of view, this is the story not of him but of relationships–of his own and of those near him. Mostly, however, like so many other books, this is a story about a girl, Alija, and about the man who loves her, Jay.

Alija is an Albanian, a girl Jay found in a refugee camp who assumed the role of his translator. As Jay and Brian traipse across the country searching for the Dateman, Alija comes along searching for her missing brother. And as the conflict begins to assume stronger shades of religious strife, Jay queries, “What is it about spirituality and the unspoiled woman?” in response to himself as he imagines Vijay, a local reporter friend, would, that “temptation and virtue move through chaos,” as does Alija.

Alija, the central character, is not a promised virgin. She is spoiled, yet the narrative elevates her to the position of the only pristine character and a ready contrast is provided to the only other female character in the novel, Megan. Jay, sleeps with both; however, he only sleeps with Megan in the metaphoric sense. Megan is giving, a doctor who follows conflict and encounters its hardships in the worst ways while she is never a participant or a victim. First encountering her in this incarnation, Jay’s first remembers how she would cry during sex. While the others give of themselves willingly, Alija is taken. Alija, however, rarely cries.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, August 6th 2009

Hollow Bodies: Institutional Responses to Sex Trafficking in Armenia, Bosnia and India

admin — Thu, 07 May 2009 10:30:00 +0000

By Susan Dewey

Kumarian Press

In Hollow Bodies, Susan Dewey travels to Armenia, Bosnia, and India to look at the institutional responses to sex trafficking in the three different cultural and governmental contexts. Armenia is plagued by poverty, unemployment and a poor quality of life that encourages migration. Bosnia is recovering from a violent war in which many women were victims of rape and forced into prostitution. However, unlike Armenia, its close proximity to Western Europe brings large amounts of donor aid and pressure to integrate with the West. Further east lies India, which receives little Western aid for trafficking issues. Therefore, its purpose in the book is to serve as an example of what can be done at a local level.

Dewey demonstrates her passion for the issue by telling her audience how her great-grandmother and grandmother survived the Depression by becoming prostitutes. This personal connection is felt throughout the text. Dewey’s greatest strength as a writer is her ability to bring the three different countries to life. In doing so, she notices the details of the landscape, the social structure of the setting and even utilizes private conversations to provide a useful context for the environment the women are operating within.

Her research mainly comes from her time as a volunteer consultant with the International Organization for Migration. Through her work with this multi-lateral association as well as through interviews with various policymakers, prostitutes and NGO leaders, she gives voice to the people involved in trying to reduce trafficking.

Dewey notes that institutions can fail to serve victims of trafficking. She is quick to criticize what bureaucrats, agencies and developmental programs do wrong, though she’s reluctant to point out what statistics she’s using to back up her claims. For instance, in the successful intervention she cites in India, she doesn’t provide impact or evaluation data, which leaves claims of effectiveness to be based solely upon subjective assessments.

Dewey admits approaching her research with a bias favoring prostitutes. Her emotional connection colors her discussions with bureaucrats and her critiques of their work loses force when she fails to address the policy aspects of trafficking or to suggest concrete changes that she thinks would improve upon current practices. Dewey’s suggestion that readers write to lawmakers to “refuse to support temporary U.S. funding initiatives that do not consider local needs and operate on a short-term basis that renders them unable to effect real or sustainable change” is insufficiently concrete. Why should US funding be permanent and how can this be achieved given the needs for benchmarks of effectiveness and our own political term limits? What type of local input should be collected and how? What is real and sustainable change? What specific goals should taxpayer dollars aim to achieve?

One of Dewey’s main criticisms is that programs fail to take into account the views of trafficking victims. Given that, the book could have benefited from more in-depth interviews of prostitutes in the three countries so that readers could gain a better understanding of what type of assistance these women would value and why.

Dewey appropriately highlights some of the failures of international institutions. She also presents a refreshingly honest portrait of the practical, ethical and personal difficulties a researcher can face. What is lacking is a more detailed picture of the women needing help and ideas of what specifically should be done to improve services to assist them.

Written by: Jessica Jacobson, May 7th 2009