Feb. 19th, 2008

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Taking things into their own hands...


Banda sisters


In one of India's poorest regions, hundreds of pink-clad female vigilantes are challenging male violence and corruption. Raekha Prasad meets the Gulabi Gang

Friday February 15, 2008
The Guardian

Under a scorching summer sun, a swarm of 400 furious women engulfed the scruffy electricity office of Banda district in north India. They were all dressed identically in fluorescent pink saris. For more than a fortnight they and their families had had no electricity, plunged into darkness at dusk and stewed in sweat at dawn. But they had all been sent bills demanding payment for power they had never received.

It was at noon one day last May that the group, brandishing sticks, first surrounded and then charged into the office, punching the air and shouting slogans of solidarity. They wanted to confront the officer in charge but met instead his cowering juniors, at whom they bawled to telephone the boss. When the man refused to come to the office, the women became incensed. They snatched the office key, roughed up the terrified staff and, after herding them outside, locked the door and ran away, vowing to return the key only when they had electricity again.

Article continues
There are few places on earth where life is as short and brutal as in Bundelkhand, the desolate region straddling the southern tip of Uttar Pradesh where Banda lies. Farming is the principal livelihood; wages are as little as 60p a day for men and half that for women. Bonded and child labour are rife. Corruption is routine. Its reputation in India is that of a place where people still die of hunger.

But what has made Bundelkhand infamous is banditry. Scores born out of feudalism and caste violence are settled by bullets. It was here that Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen of India, used to lead her gang of robbers in vicious acts of retribution on rich, upper-caste villagers. Products of this cruel environment, the hundreds of pink-clad women knew that their electricity supply had been disconnected by corrupt officials to extract bribes from them to get the power switched back on. With no functioning law to fall back on, they knew also that the only way to get a power supply was to take matters into their own hands. Within an hour of their absconding with the key, the electricity was restored.

It is just one victory in a list of successes achieved by the Gulabi Gang since it formed two years ago. Gulabi means pink, and refers to the electric shade of the uniform worn by the 500-plus members, who hail from Banda's arid villages. The women have become folk heroes, winning public support for a series of Robin Hood-style operations. Their most daring exploit was to hijack trucks laden with food meant for the poor that was being taken to be sold for profit at the market by corrupt officials.

The targets of the Gulabi Gang's vigilantism are corrupt officials and violent husbands. The gang has stopped child marriages, forced police officers to register cases of domestic violence - by slapping them - and got roads built by dragging the official responsible from his desk on to the dust track in question.

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ACRJ’s Reproductive Justice Agenda (RJA) places reproductive justice
at the center of the most critical social and economic justice
issues facing our communities, such as ending violence against
women, workers rights, environmental justice, queer rights,
immigrant rights, and educational justice, which have major
implications for Asian women. For example, under conditions of
reproductive justice, we will live in homes free from sexual and
physical violence; we will live and work without fear of sexual
harassment; we will have safe work and home environments protected
from corporate exploitation and environmental toxins; we
will be free from hatred due to sexual identity; we will be valued
for all the forms of work we do; we will earn equitable and livable
wages; we will eat healthy and affordable food; and we will have
comprehensive health care for ourselves and our families.
Moreover, the government and private institutions will support
our decisions whether or not to have a child and we will receive
the necessary support for our choices. In addition we will receive
an education that honors and teaches the contributions of
women, people of color, working class communities, and queer
and transgendered communities.
As illustrated in the RJA, women’s bodies, reproduction and sexuality
are often used as the excuse and the target for unequal
treatment in the attempt to control our communities. We believe
that by challenging patriarchal social relations and addressing the
intersection of racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and
class oppression within a women-of-color context, we will be able
to build the collective social, economic, and political power of all
women and girls to make decisions that protect and contribute to
our reproductive health and overall well-being.

From the Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice:Entire Paper here

For more see:Sistersong
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WOMEN OF COLOR AND REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE:
AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN


Reproductive justice, at the most basic, is a woman’s right to control her own body and life. Contraception,
maternity, forced/coerced contraception and sterilization, emergency contraception, family planning, abortion, and reproductive health (including issues of HIV/AIDS and other STIs) are all important parts of the broad topic of reproductive rights. For many women, especially African American women, abortion is not the key issue in the fight for reproductive rights. Instead, issues of maternal mortality, violence against women, lack of affordable prenatal care,  teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and the effects of poverty on reproductive health take center stage.



Violence Against Women
Black women have been active in the movements against rape and domestic violence from the beginning; however,their specific cultural concerns have often been left out of the discourse on violence against women. We know that African American females experience intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 2.5 times that rate of women of other races (1). However, they are less likely than white women to use social services, battered women's programs, or go to the hospital because of domestic violence. This may have to do with lack of access to services in areas with high minority populations.


Maternal Mortality
In a 1999 report, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) put the average death rate for African American mothers at 19.6 per 100,000 live births, about the same as the rate in Nicaragua or Vietnam, and four times the rate of white
women in the US (2). While socioeconomic status may influence these rates by denying women access to proper medical treatment, we should also take into account the racism that exists within the healthcare system and medical
testing.

Teenage Pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy and poverty are very closely related. Class plays more of a determining role in teen pregnancy
rates than does race, and this disproportionately affects African American female teens because of the high poverty
rates among African American women. For example, one in four African American children is born to a teenage
mother (3).

Contraception
Throughout history, females within minority populations have been subjected to forced or coerced sterilization.
In recent years, several states have considered legislating forced contraception by making Depo Provera and
Norplant, a long-acting contraceptive implant that was approved for usage in 1990, mandatory for young inner-city
women on welfare, usually women of color (4).

HIV/AIDS
In 2002, the AIDS diagnosis rate among African Americans was almost 11 times the rate among whites. More
specifically, African-American women had a 23 times greater diagnoses rate than white women (5). Consequently,
AIDS is currently the leading cause of death for African American women age 24-36 (6). Unfortunately, safe sex
efforts to help curb the spread of AIDS are often rejected by (usually male) African American community leaders
because these efforts are seen as “sexually suggestive or culturally inappropriate” (6).
Reproductive justice, at the most basic, is a woman’s right to control her own body and life. Contraception,
maternity, forced/coerced contraception and sterilization, emergency contraception, family planning, abortion, and
reproductive health (including issues of HIV/AIDS and other STIs) are all important parts of the broad topic of
reproductive rights.
For many women, especially African American women, abortion is not the key issue in the fight for reproductive
rights. Instead, issues of maternal mortality, violence against women, lack of affordable prenatal care, teenage
pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, and the effects of poverty on reproductive health take center stage

Rest here

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