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‘Comfort women’ documentary generates worldwide interest—and a lawsuit against its director · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

‘Shusenjo’ promotional image, courtesy of Miki Dezaki. Used with permission.
A project by a graduate student intended to explore the issue of sex slavery organized by Japanese forces in Second World War has resulted in a documentary popular in Japan and beyond — and has also ignited a lawsuit, plus ongoing harassment by the Japanese government.
“‘Shusenjo': The Main Battlefield of the Comfort Women Issue” is a 2018 documentary film by Miki Dezaki. I spoke with him during the film's exhibition at the Victoria International Film Festival (VIFF) in Canada, on February 15, 2020.
“My film is a reflection of how the ‘comfort women’ issue is being discussed now,” says Dezaki. “I wanted to find out why there are so many people who have devoted so much time and resources towards erasing this issue.”
Approximately 200,000 women from more than ten occupied countries in Asia were conscripted or forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. These women were euphemistically called “ianfu” (comfort women) by Japanese military authorities. Since the end of the Second World War, the issue has long been a source of political controversy.
“The ‘comfort women’ issue has been the source of the so-called ‘history wars‘ – mainly between  South Korea and China – since the 1990s,” says Sujin Lee, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pacific and Asian Studies at the University of Victoria, which helped sponsor the “Shusenjo” premiere in Canada, also interviewed by Global Voices at VIFF.
“‘Shusenjo’ […] meticulously documents opposing viewpoints about the history of ‘comfort women’ without making any judgments or taking one side,” says Lee.
Dezaki, a native of the state of Florida in the United States, originally traveled to Japan as part of the government-sponsored Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme, where university graduates from around the world are placed in schools to teach English.
While participating in the JET Programme, Dezaki launched a YouTube channel under the handle Medama Sensei which in part focused on social issues in Japan. After a two-part video exploration on racism in Japan became a viral hit, Dezaki's videos attracted unwanted attention from the Japanese far-right.
“Shusenjo” director Miki Dezaki answers audience questions following the screening of his documentary at the Victoria International Film Festival on February 15, 2020. Sujin Lee of the University of Victoria stands at left. Photo by Nevin Thompson, CC-BY 3.0
“Internet right-wingers were bashing and threatening me online,” Dezaki says. “They were even calling up my school.”
After leaving Japan, Dezaki spent a year as a monk in a Thai monastery and then returned to Florida to care for a sick parent. Later on, Dezaki returned to Japan, this time as a student in the Graduate Program in Global Studies at Sophia University in Tokyo.
Having honed his video production skills on YouTube, Dezaki decided to create a documentary about the “comfort women” issue as his graduate project.
“How Japanese people and Korean people perceive the issue are very different,” says Dezaki. “I thought that if I made a film that gave more context to the issue it would help the people in both countries stop hating each other.”
“Shusenjo” focuses on the competing historical narratives about the “comfort women” issue, and actually includes very limited testimony from the women themselves.
Instead, Dezaki's documentary features a surprisingly comprehensive list of interviewees for a graduate school project, including human rights activists and serious historians working in Japan and in South Korea.
“Shusenjo” then juxtaposes this factual commentary with arguments made by a who's who of prominent and notorious historical “revisionists” who typically deny the Japanese military ever forced women into sexual slavery during the Second World War.
“Korean audiences are fatigued from hearing about the ‘comfort women’, and Japanese audiences don't actually believe the testimony of the women in the first place,” says Dezaki.
The star-studded rogues gallery of notable so-called revisionists in the documentary include author Kase Hideaki, journalist Sakurai Yoshiko, and Kent Gilbert, a media personality originally made famous in Japan for being able to competently speak Japanese on television but who is now better known as a booster for the country's far-right.
‘Shusenjo’ promotional poster, courtesy of Miki Dezaki. Used with permission.
“I would go to their symposiums or speeches, go up to them, introduce myself as a graduate student, and ask them if they would like to appear in my documentary,” Dezaki says. “They usually agreed.”
By juxtaposing the revisionists, who often appear to be repeating the same talking points, with serious historians and activists who provide nuance and context about the issue, “Shusenjo” makes for a compelling documentary.
“This approach helps the audience understand what is at stake in the ‘comfort women’ debates and carefully judge the issue on their own,” says Sujin Lee at the University of Victoria.
Once the documentary was released, however, some of the revisionists were unhappy with the conclusion of the film and claimed they didn't know it was going to be a commercialized film, says Dezaki.
“Their opinion is fully in the film,” says Dezaki. “It's just juxtaposed with other opinions.”
Dezaki says he was always careful to ensure interviewees signed a release before including their remarks in the documentary, and even sent interview segments to interviewees in advance, without receiving a response in protest. Kent Gilbert, the television personality in Japan famous for his Japanese proficiency, claimed he couldn't understand the release because it was written in Japanese.
“Well, he signed it anyway, […] and his release was actually written in English,” says Dezaki.
Eventually, five of the revisionist interviewees decided to sue Miki Dezaki and his distribution company in Japan. Dezaki says the lawsuit is essentially a “strategic lawsuit against public participation” (SLAPP), a type of lawsuit that is still permitted by Japan's legal system
“(The plaintiffs) are saying that somehow I deceived them into signing the release, or that they didn't understand the release form,” says Dezaki. “Their court arguments are very confusing and are clearly meant to waste my time. They have been asked by the court to clarify their claims three times already.”
The lawsuit has also been used to discourage distribution of Dezaki's documentary. Because of the lawsuit, a film festival in Kawasaki nearly canceled a screening of “Shusenjo” until Hirokazu Kore'eda, a prominent Japanese director, intervened.
The Japanese government has also used the lawsuit to try to shut down screenings of the film around the world.
“Japanese consulates have pressured schools to stop showing my film,” Dezaki says, adding that Japanese consulates in Lyon, in France, Hamburg, in Germany, and in Los Angeles have approached venues to warn them about Dezaki's documentary.
The ploy rarely works, Dezaki says, although in Japan such lawsuits have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
“Getting sued is an unpleasant experience,” Dezaki says. “Nobody wants that to happen to them.”
Several of the interviewees are also trying to persuade Sophia University to revoke Dezaki's graduate degree.
“They said they sent 490 information packets (complaining about the documentary) to every single professor at Sophia University,” Dezaki says.”They've actually had a press conference appealing to the Pope, who had come to Sophia University recently.”
In the absence of widespread distribution, to get his documentary in front of audiences and to generate ticket sales, Dezaki currently crisscrosses the globe, showing “Shusenjo” at film festivals. He is currently looking for a distributor in North America.
“‘Shusenjo’ is not anti-Japan,” says Dezaki. “Revisionists want to protect or restore Japan's honour but instead are doing the exact opposite.”
Watch the latest trailer for ‘Shusenjo’ here:

author: Nevin Thompson


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Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs obliged by court to publish finances of US-based foundation · Global Voices
Atlatszo.hu

Then-Ambassador Grenell visits the International Consumer Electronics Fair in Berlin in 2018. Public Domain photo by U.S. Embassy in Berlin.
This story was first published in Hungarian and English by the Hungarian investigative journalism non-profit, Atlatszo. An edited version is republished here as part of a content-sharing agreement with Global Voices.
In 2015, the Hungarian state commissioned a U.S.-based foundation to promote Hungarian culture and heritage in the United States. The Magyar Foundation for North America received hundreds of millions of Hungarian forints of public money for a year, but the Hungarian foreign ministry refused to disclose how they spent it. Atlatszo sued the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade for the data and the Budapest court obliged the ministry to disclose financial details.
The Magyar Foundation of North America (MFNA) was commissioned by the Hungarian state in 2015 and has since spent billions of forints in the United States “promoting Magyar heritage, history, and pride through educational, social and cultural programs.”
Atlatszo estimates the amount of Hungarian taxpayers’ money spent through the foundation to be of at least 700 million forints (over 2 million USD) per year.
Astlazo has also obtained tax filings from the MFNA in the United States that revealed that the organization’s leaders are former colleagues and business partners of Arthur J. Finkelstein, the late Republican political strategist who worked for Hungarian governing party Fidesz until his death in 2017.
In February 2020, an investigation by Responsible Statecraft has revealed that President Trump’s newly installed acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, knowingly provided public relations services directed at U.S. media on behalf of the Magyar Foundation of North America.
Grenell didn't register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), which is a requirement applying to individuals and entities operating inside the U.S. as an “agent” of a “foreign principal.”
Responsible Statecraft cited documents (1, 2) acquired by Atlatszo’s freedom of information request to Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, which revealed that MFNA hired Grenell’s firm, Capitol Media Partners, which, according to the 2017 financial disclosures of the MFNA received USD 103,750 for PR services.
Atlatszo won the FOI lawsuit against Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade last year and received invoice summaries for 2015, 2016, 2017 and the first half of 2018. The documents signed by CEO Jo Anne Barnhart reveal how much MFNA executives were earning, who were paid travel expenses, what companies the foundation contracted. The invoice summaries indicate smaller amounts for Richard Grenell’s Capitol Media Partners for travel expenses and consulting.
Some of the documents received by Atlatszo are blurred and almost unreadable: it is an alarmingly common practice among Hungarian state institutions obliged by the court to disclose something to distort documents to make journalists’ life more difficult. You can download the original invoice summaries as received (2015-2016 , 2017 and 2018), and converted into machine readable format (2015-2016 , 2017 and 2018).
According to a Washington Post article from February 28, even though Grenell’s public relations firm was paid to do work for a U.S. nonprofit funded almost entirely by the Hungarian government, “there is no indication that the Justice Department is looking into Grenell’s activities.”

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/


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Kosovo politicians falsely claim Jamaica recognition. Why didn’t media verify? · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

Collage made of image of flags of Kosovo and Jamaica and Wikipedia photo of Kosovo's Ambassador to the United States Vlora Çitaku, who was blamed for the mishap.
This story by Milica Radovanović originally appeared on Meta.mk News Agency, a project of Metamorphosis Foundation. An updated version is published below as part of a content-sharing agreement.
“Jamaica has recognized the independence of Kosovo” – the story echoed widely in the small Balkan nation and the wider region on February 20. After high-profile Kosovar officials, including President Hashim Thaçi, enthusiastically announced the news, the media promptly picked it up. To this day, only about half of the world's countries recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state.
Except that none of it was true. Nine hours after the alleged recognition was reported, Jamaica's Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson-Smith denied it.
To date, Jamaica has not recognized Kosovo as an independent state. https://t.co/HLNtJaOWLh
— Hon. Kamina J Smith (@kaminajsmith) February 21, 2020
Kosovo's presidential office pointed fingers at the country's ambassador to the United States, Vlora Çitaku, who allegedly notified officials at home about a Jamaican resolution on February 19. Foreign Minister Glauk Konjufca endorsed this account via his social networks, adding that Çitaku had sent this information by email.
On March 4, Konjufca requested the president of Kosovo to call back seven ambassadors, including Çitaku, for reasons allegedly unrelated to the scandal.
Çitaku tweeted about her dismissal from the U.S. mission, but hasn't yet publicly commented on the Jamaica issue.
Today the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of #Kosovo asked the President of Kosovo to recall me from my mission as Ambassador to the #UnitedStates
— Vlora Çitaku (@vloracitaku) March 4, 2020
The number of countries that recognize the independence of Kosovo is a contentious issue. Pristina claims it is 116 countries, while Belgrade says the figure is lower. In recent years, Belgrade has actively lobbied to dissuade countries from recognizing Kosovo as a sovereign state. Some countries that had done it in the past have recently retreated, such as Ghana and Sierra Leone.
While analysts such as Shpetim Gashi blamed the Jamaica gaffe on Kosovo's “immature foreign policy,” others are asking whether the media was also responsible.
Speaking with Metamorphosis, Maja Zivanovic, a journalist with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN), argues that journalists should have verified Thaçi’s allegations before reporting them — such as by asking the government for an official document or checking with Jamaica's authorities.
She adds that while there's a lot of discussion about fake news in the Balkans, they rarely address the problem that, at times, the sources of misinformation are the authorities themselves. She says:
Svaka objava nekog političara na društvenim mrežama, baš zbog te kulture da se olako daju izjave i tvrdnje, bi trebalo da se objavljuje sa ogradom i jasno navede ko stoji iza te tvrdnje. I potrebno je kad god je to moguće uraditi činjeničnu proveru informacije, posebno kada je reč o informacijama koje su i pre toga bile predmet osporavanja, neslaganja, ali i informacijama koje su od velikog značaja za javnost, kao što je ova.
Any announcement of a politician on social networks, precisely because of that culture to make statements and claims without any restraints, should be published with certain reservations, [for example] by clearly stating who stands behind the claim in question. It should also, whenever possible, to fact-check the information, especially when it comes to claims that were previously subject of dispute or disagreements, but also to information of great public importance, such as this one.
In addition, she says, it is essential for journalists to be able to recognize fake profiles on social media, as some of which are created with the specific purpose of spreading misinformation.
She recalled the recent case of the alleged death of convicted war criminal Ratko Mladić, who is currently serving a life sentence for war crimes committed by Bosnian-Serb forces under his command during the Bosnian War. An Italian journalist deliberately shared the fabricated news on Twitter through a profile impersonating a Bosnian politician, and Balkan media massively reported it as if it were true.
Just spoke to the press officer at the MICT (transition body for Yugoslav Tribunal). Can confirm Bosnian-Serb war criminal Ratko Mladić is definitely NOT dead (a background if you’re not familiar with his name https://t.co/b88RK36YFb) #Mladic
— anna holligan ? (@annaholligan) February 11, 2020
It took fact-checkers around 30 minutes to debunk the fake claim about Mladić's death. Ms Zivanovic continues:
Osnovna stvar je proći kroz sve prethodne objave naloga koji se smatra izvorom na društvenim mrežama. Utvrditi da li je kredibilan na osnovu prethodnih objava. Obično tu odmah možete da ‘nanjušite’ potencijalnu zamku. Novinari BIRN-a vrlo često pokušaju da kontaktiraju vlasnika naloga preko privatnih poruka, a u isto vreme potrebno je kontaktirati sve na koje se informacija odnosi i pokušati da se dobije potvrda od drugih strana
Basically, what needs to be done is to review the source's previous posts to determine whether they're credible. Usually at this point you're able to sniff a potential trap. BIRN’s journalists often try to contact the owner of the profile through private messages and at the same time to contact all the persons to whom the information applies as well as to try to get confirmation from other parties.
Most Kosovo officials haven't deleted their erroneous statements about Jamaica's recognition — except for former Foreign Minister Behgjet Pacolli, who deleted it and then tweeted: “In any case, thank you.”
Thank you Jamaica in any case, thank you Minister @kaminajsmith , thank you USA,@RepEliotEngel
Kosovo and Kosovars will remain forever trusted friends of the government and people of Jamaica pic.twitter.com/GEJdc2hFUi
— Behgjet Pacolli (@pacollibehgjet) February 21, 2020

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


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Facebook seller wearing ‘sexy clothes’ charged with pornography in Cambodia · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

The Cambodian police filed pornography charges against a 39-year-old Facebook user for selling products while wearing sexy clothes that allegedly undermine Khmer values and culture.
Vann Rachana escorted by the police after her arrest. Global Voices blurred the photo of the suspect. Source: Facebook page of Phnom Penh Municipal Police.
On 17 February 2020, Prime Minister Hun Sen attended the annual meeting of the Cambodian National Council for Women where he spoke about the need to probe and stop women from selling products on Facebook while wearing clothes that are contrary to social morality or ‘Khmer women’s values and Khmer culture’.
Two days later, the police posted on social media that they summoned Vann Rachana (known as Thai Srey Neang on Facebook) for questioning and education about her Facebook page featuring products such as women’s underwear and beauty accessories. She appeared in a video appealing for public forgiveness and vowed to stop wearing ‘revealing clothing’ on her Facebook page.
I am sorry. I hope the leader and public forgive me.
Please, other online sellers, take note of my case. It has caused the public to hate me and affected the honour and morality of women.
On 21 February, the police said Rachana violated her pledge by posting another ‘sexy’ photo on her Facebook page. She was arrested and charged with pornography for violating Cambodia’s law against human trafficking and sexual exploitation. If found guilty, she could be in jail for 15 months.
In a joint statement, several women’s groups in Cambodia criticized the prime minister’s remarks and the actions of the police. They reminded authorities that there is no legal document defining “women’s value and Khmer social values/culture” in the country. They added that “punishing women for their choice of clothing is part of the root cause of violence, rather than its cure, and must be rejected.” They added:
There is much evidence-based research showing that violence against women stems from discriminatory gender stereotypes and a victim-blaming culture – both of which are deeply rooted in Cambodian society – as well as weak law enforcement resulting in a culture of impunity, and is not based on women’s dress, physical appearance or actions.
Eng Chandy, advocacy and networking program manager for Gender and Development in Cambodia, deplored the double standards of law enforcers:
What about men selling products online? And many popular singers also wear sexy clothing when they perform. Didn’t they create feelings of sexual arousal? Did anyone file complaints against them? Did anyone say that they damaged Cambodian culture?
This law was written by men and interpreted by men and adopted by men, and men are enforcing the law.
Amnesty International issued a statement rejecting the pornography charges against Rachana:
These charges rest on the abusive misapplication of a law which was supposedly intended to combat human trafficking, but instead is being used to oppress women.
Bunn Rachana, executive director of women’s advancement organization Klahaan urged the government to take the lead in adopting reforms that will truly empower women instead of enabling violence:
It’s almost like [officials] are empowering perpetrators to take actions that violate women and girls.
It’s possible to fix [a male-dominated society] if the leadership of the country promotes human rights standards…and takes all necessary steps to correct unfair social norms.

author: Mong Palatino


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International Women’s Day: How far have we come? · Global Voices
Kristina Hadzi-Vasileva

Graphic by Joody Rungon via Pexels. Free to use.
This post was originally published on the blog of UK Embassy in North Macedonia. An edited version is republished by Global Voices as part of an agreement with the author.
The first week of March is always so intense for me. Not that there are no such other weeks during the year (family birthdays, new year's, vacation preparations). Yet during the first week of March, everyone and anyone suddenly remembers us—women. Flowers are sold on improvised stalls of cardboard boxes on every corner, presents are bought and given, dinners organized and celebrated with music and dancing. TV shows are hosted with the sole topic of discussing women’s rights, gender equality, domestic violence, political participation of women, women’s economic advancement. The reason, as you might guess is March 8. Recognized as International Women’s Day, this observance celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
The day has been an official United Nations day for women’s rights and world peace since 1975. It's a national holiday in many parts of the world, as it used to be in socialist Macedonia until the 90s.
The path to women’s equality, as history has revealed, is long and challenging. Different phases of the women’s movement provided an important focus in forging and moving the gender agenda further along.
In 1909, the Socialist Party of America celebrated 15,000 women who protested long work hours, low pay, and the lack of voting rights in New York City. However, it was Russia who unknowingly set the March 8 trend. Although International Women’s Day became an official holiday in Russia in 1913, women still faced challenges. While men went off to war, women dealt with food shortages and a government who wouldn’t listen to them. On March 8, 1917, tens of thousands of Russian women took to the streets demanding change. The unified cry for help paved the way for Soviet women to be granted voting rights soon after and indicates the significance of the date of the commemorations today. This is the period (late 1800’s and early 1900’s) when women activists fought for the right to vote and equal pay for equal work.
These two issues – women’s voices and participation in government and the gender pay gap – still remain priorities over a century later.
In western societies, the women’s movement is differentiated into four waves.
The second wave of feminism began in the 1960s and continued into the 90s, with sexuality and reproductive rights being dominant issues. In the 1980’s the focus was on an array of programs that assisted women in being more confident, visible, well-networked and assertive – but many of these reinforced a notion that women needed to “act like men” and “fit” into existing patriarchal structures and organizations if they were to succeed (while still being a superwoman in the home).
British poster promoting Women's Day in March 1974. Public Domain via Wikimedia.
The third wave of feminism (mid-90’s) proposed the notion of “transversal politics”, challenging notions of universal womanhood and articulating ways in which groups of women confront complex intersections of gender, sexuality, race, class, and age-related concerns. The focus was on organizational development: women in the boardroom, diversity in recruitment and gender-related research.
Fourth-wave feminists think in terms of intersectionality, placing feminism in the context of a larger consciousness of oppression, alongside racism, ageism, classism, ableism, and sexual orientation. The fourth wave of feminism is emerging because (mostly) young women and men realize that the third wave is either overly optimistic or blinkered. Feminism is now moving from the academy back into the realm of public discourse. Topics that were important to the previous phases of the women’s movement are attracting attention from mainstream media and politics. Issues such as sexual abuse, rape, violence against women, unequal pay, slut-shaming, the pressure on women to conform to a single and unrealistic body type and the realization that gains for women in politics and business are very slim, are its center.
So what is to celebrate then? How far have we really come?
Even though Macedonian women gained the right to vote in 1946, the progress of the women’s movement in North Macedonia reminds me of the national folk dance – three steps forward, two steps back. The women’s movement has been credited in the past, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s, for successfully uniting diverse groups of women – representatives of different political parties, civil society organizations, women from different ethnic and religious backgrounds, individual activists. The movement managed to secure 40% women’s representation on election lists for local and parliamentary elections, the adoption of a number of laws pertaining to combating domestic violence, (sexual) harassment at work and discrimination, as well as promoting equal opportunities of women and men and supporting abortion rights and rights of women in the workplace.
Yet, the rise of regressive forces in the past decade (2006-2017) has led to the reinforcement of patriarchal models and perspectives of women. The result has been a fragmented women's movement and struggling women’s organizations. The number of active organizations and initiatives at the local level has rapidly declined, especially in the small towns and rural areas. They face huge challenges in recruiting young girls and women, who do not find civic activism attractive. Women’s issues are still at the margins of the mainstream public debate. Advocacy, inclusive mindsets and tangible action are needed from all involved.
In North Macedonia, International Women’s Day is celebrated as Women’s Day, Women Teacher’s Day, and Mother's Day, which distorts the original meaning of the observance, turning it into a commercial activity. Gifts are bought for mothers, teachers, wives, lovers and friends. Female colleagues and friends organize evenings out in restaurants and bars and dance the night away, making use of this short-lived socially acceptable public freedom. The better-off organize all-female trips to spa centers and shopping destinations. After letting off some steam, women return to their normal, everyday lives.
So, what is everyday life like for women in North Macedonia?
Women are still less employed than men, with an employment rate of 39% versus 61% for men. This directly impacts their wellbeing and the welfare of families, while society loses the contribution of a large portion of the population for its development. In addition, a majority of women tend to be employed in low-paid, labour-intensive spheres such as textile production, resulting in a wage gap between men and women of 12%.
Women are still mostly responsible for taking care of children, the sick and the elderly in the family, which often results in their having to interrupt their work to care for children (89.3 % women versus 10.7% men) and/or take up part-time work. Childcare services are available, though 26 municipalities currently do not have public daycare. In addition, women spend three times more time on domestic activities compared with men, proving that the traditional division of work between the genders is still very much alive.
Access to healthcare is guaranteed by the constitution, yet 43 municipalities of the current 81 lack gynecological services. And every third woman in the country has experienced some form of gender-based violence. In the past five years, 70 women have been killed, of which 51 are victims of femicide.
Movements like #ISpeakUpNow, the local version of #MeToo, showcased the enormous range of the sexual harassment women experience, but resist reporting officially. (The hashtags in local languages are #СегаКажувам in Macedonian and #TaniTregoj in Albanian.)
It’s now 25 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and pledge to improve the status of women and their wellbeing in public and private life. While there has been much progress towards women’s rights over the decades, many gaps remain. The UN has incorporated gender equality as a separate Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in order to establish minimum standards and push for change in the critical areas that are holding women back. The latest report on the SDGs shows that while some forms of discrimination against women and girls are declining, gender inequality continues to hold women back and deprive them of basic rights and opportunities.
I think of March 8 as a milestone. It is there to remind us to look back at where we were and what we have achieved — or not. Every March 8 we need to remind ourselves how far we have come, and to set the agenda for the year for achieving things that are still missing, and to say loudly: Let’s all be #EachforEqual.

author: Kristina Hadzi-Vasileva


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No place for transgender people in Georgia’s labour market · Global Voices
Tamuna Chkareuli

Transgender activist Gabriela Roskipova-Romanova in her lodgings in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. Photo (c): Tamuna Chkareuli. Used with permission.
This article is made possible through a partnership with Transitions, a Prague-based publishing and media training organisation
On February 5, a transgender woman was brutally attacked while working the night shift at a Spar supermarket in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. It is clear that the victim, who prefers to remain unnamed, was attacked due to her gender identity. According to her lawyer Tamar Zarkua, transgender people in Georgia are at risk of hate crimes simply while walking down the street, however most attacks take place at the hands of clients in the service sector and in sex work.
It is difficult to estimate the number of transgender people in Georgia today. While public opinion polling from 2019 revealed generalised negative or ambivalent attitudes towards the rights of sexual minorities (only 27% of Georgians of all ages believe it is important to protect them), there are no specific data on attitudes to transgender people.
Nevertheless transgender people, like other members of the LGBT community, speak of frequently facing stigma for their sexual orientation in Georgia's socially conservative society. For transgender people that stigma presents an additional obstacle in the uphill struggle to find safe and non-precarious employment — a pressing issue for people of all backgrounds and identities in Georgia today.
As Gabriela and Nata's stories show, landing a stable job as a transgender person in Georgia can be nearly impossible.
When Gabriela Roskipova-Romanova came out as transgender, it was not entirely her decision. At work, the 29-year-old was forced to choose between acknowledging her gender identity and keeping her job. She chose the former, to remain true to her female self-identity. Gabriela's family threw her out of the house.
Unable to find other work, she's been engaged in sex work for 12 years.
“I haven’t even tried starting work anywhere else,” Gabriela says. “I just don’t want to feel humiliated when I go to the interview.”
In 2014, Georgia adopted an anti-discrimination law which theoretically should protect LGBT people in the workplace. However, Gabriela says that it has brought no changes for transgender people. “The government doesn’t see us. And without legal recognition of our gender, nor do employers,” she sighs.
Transgender women in Georgia do not have a wide choice of employers. In the best case scenario, they end up working in hospitality or in the NGO sector. In worst, they end up in the street. Due to low wages and a lack of family support, they often have to combine several jobs in order to survive.
Gabriela made just 20 Lari ($7) last night. She already owes half of it to her landlady. “All of us have been kicked out of our homes. We have to pay rent and utility bills. We have to buy makeup. We have to pay taxi fares; we don’t dare to use public transport,” she explains. Gabriela has two other transgender neighbours; the three of them help each other out.
“You are totally unprotected [in the workplace and on the street], from both clients and the police. Sometimes clients become aggressive and won’t let you go. I’ve been locked up in houses, or taken to remote places and beaten up. I’ve been running with blood on my face, called the police and waved to passing cars for help, but no one bothered to stop.”
As Roskipova is an activist and frequently gives interviews to the media, she's become recognisable. She has recently become something of a defender for the legal rights of Georgia's transgender sex workers. “Sometimes the police come after me, or other transgender women in need say my name. I've read the legislation and know how to defend myself,” says Roskipova.
“Some [LGBT people] couldn’t even finish school so they don’t know anything. My aspiration now is to enrol in university and become a real lawyer. Since I became transgender, I've realised that I want to help people like me.”
“I’ve lost a lot but I’m relieved. I am happier being myself,” she concludes.
Nata Talikishvili, 29, tried as hard as she could not to end up in sex work, but it was all in vain.
“I lived in the village, so I took any job: from loading sacks to working in a plastic factory. I even worked in a cement block workshop. But they fired me without paying my last wages, saying that I was a ‘weak ladyboy.’ I even tried being a street sweeper, I thought there's always need for one. But I was laughed at and then dismissed.”
Nata had to go back to sex work in between jobs to sustain herself.
“I worked at a 24 hour petrol station for 220 Lari ($79) a month. I could even sleep and shower there. With time, I became brave enough to bring my own clothes and heels there, but someone saw it. They told me to leave in the middle of the night, the rest of which I spent in the street with other sex workers,” recalls Nata.
As a skilled cook, Nata started looking for other opportunities where she could use her talent. She got a position as a chief's assistant in the Ministry of Defence, where she worked for free for five months before receiving her first salary.
“For the first time in my life, I got a salary that allowed me to take a break from sex work. I wore a cap in the kitchen so that no one could see my long hair. But one day I forgot to remove my mascara and one of the men noticed it.”
The co-worker bullied Nata until she couldn’t bear it anymore. “I took the cap off and everyone saw my long dyed hair. I quit with a scandal and never looked back.”
Nata was eventually able to make a living by working part time for two NGOs, and is relieved that she does not have to risk her life in the streets anymore. She's earning a sufficient amount and importantly, is able to work without compromising her identity. However, Nata claims that even her experience with the non-governmental sector also hasn't been free of exploitation.
She says that she was happy to do some work for free, from organising events to providing contacts. But at a certain point, she explains, enough was enough.
“I’m an activist, so it’s normal practice for me. But when I see that the organisation has the resources to empower me, but won’t do it, it really gets me down.”
Keti Bakhtadze, a lawyer for the Women's Initiatives Supporting Group (one of Nata's employers), says that employment problems for transgender people can start from an early age.
“There are no specialists for trans teens and they’re unable to receive understanding of their gender expression from society. At college they're not addressed by their preferred name and must confirm to the identity on their documents,” says Bakhtadze.
According to Bakhtadze, this means that transgender people only receive access to education at the expense of their gender identity.
“Finally they move to employment, and if they finally summon the strength to come out, it will most likely end in them losing their jobs.”
But there are calls for further legislative change. In May 2019, the United Nations’ independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity released a report which urged Georgia to “ensure that the process of legal recognition of gender identity is based on self-determination by the applicant, is a simple administrative process, is exempt from abusive requirements, recognises non-binary identities and is accessible to minors.”
Nevertheless, Bakhtadze believes that the Ministry of Justice is not yet interested in starting that process. “They prefer to wait for the decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR),” she says. Bakhtadze is currently representing two trans men who are contesting the Georgian authorities’ refusal to legally recognise their gender change.
Without further legislative and administrative changes, continues Bakhtadze, trans women will have to continue supporting themselves with illegal sex work, during which they frequently face violence. Trans men, meanwhile, will continue to work without contracts in near slave-like conditions. “Every day, we are pushing these people to commit administrative crimes and leave them vulnerable,” warns the lawyer.
A further issue, says Bakhtadze, is that transgender people are often afraid to come out in front of their employer when they sign their work contracts — as they must present identification documents which often do not reflect their gender identity. She also stresses that Georgia is a small country: “being refused a job on grounds of identity can automatically mean losing potential jobs in the same field, since employers know each other.”
Nevertheless Tamar Zarkua, a lawyer with the Equality Movement, a Tbilisi-based NGO, speaks of some positive trends in preventing discrimination in the workplace. Georgia's Ministry of Internal Affairs has initiated trainings for police officers to better identify and document discrimination based offences. However, the outcome of these trainings is still unclear, since “even with many such offences documented in 2018, courts have only established a discriminatory motive in two cases,” says Zarkua.
There is always another option for transgender people — seek asylum, and never look back. Tired of fighting for recognition and fair treatment, Nata says that she seriously considered emigrating to claim asylum. Yet after a long battle with depression, she has decided to stay in Georgia. “I don’t judge those who left, but my place is where I was born and raised. I need to change the environment around me. If that had started in previous generations, maybe we wouldn't be struggling now.”
Editor's note: GlobalVoices contacted Georgia's Ministry of Justice to request a comment on the recommendations contained in the UN report, but had received no response by the time of publication.

author: Tamuna Chkareuli


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The link between gender-based violence and child abuse in Trinidad & Tobago · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

A series of screenshots taken from a YouTube video titled “Gender Based Violence: A Guide To Global Issues”, posted by Global Citizen.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of how women fight gender violence in Latin America.
Trinidad and Tobago has long struggled with gender-based violence (GBV). In December 2016, after the body of 20-year-old bank employee Shannon Banfield was found in the warehouse of a variety store in Port of Spain, citizens declared that they had had enough. Yet, the country's first murder for 2017 was that of 16-year-old schoolgirl Rachael Ramkissoon.
Although protests, anti-street harassment campaigns and public remembrances have raised national awareness about gender-based violence(GBV), it continues to happen — with disturbing ripple effects that impact children and youth.
One of the country's most recent cases of GBV involved 31-year-old Naiee Singh, whose estranged husband followed her to work and shot her dead in the parking lot before turning the gun on himself. When his relatives, in a newspaper interview, claimed he had been “pushed over the edge,” social media understandably lashed out against victim-blaming.
However, nearly two weeks later, when it was reported that eight-year-old Mukeisha Maynard — who was initially thought to have autism — was beaten to death by her father Michael who later hanged himself, the initial response was very different.
In a public Facebook post, Zahir Ali, president of the Glimmer of Hope Foundation, who says he had met the little girl, ostensibly as part of his charitable outreach, said:
Autism is something that can lead you into Great Depression. […] Only God knows what parents of autistic children are going through, especially [in this country where] there is absolutely nothing put in place to help the less fortunate parents who can’t afford to pay for the occupational and speech therapy services.
The online narrative soon turned from the violence of the murder/suicide to one in which the focus was the child's disability. It was later reported that Maynard was not autistic, but rather, had speech apraxia, allegedly brought on by injuries sustained during an assault from her father when she was less than a week old. Her mother, Maysonia Thomas, was also beaten.
To explore the connection between intimate partner violence and violence against minors — and understand why the response to two equally heinous crimes was so disparate — I contacted Dr. Gabrielle Hosein, head of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at The University of the West Indies’ St. Augustine campus, who has been actively involved in building region-wide feminist movements and advocating against gender-based violence, for an analysis.
Hosein began our telephone conversation by suggesting that people may have reacted differently to the two murder/suicides because the Singh case was pre-meditated. Despite the restraining order against Singh's ex-husband, he had acquired a handgun and waited at her office with the intention of killing her. The Maynard case, on the other hand, did not seem as calculated.
Hosein agrees, however, that there was a concerning connection between the crimes, and that the link is global, cross-cultural, and cross-racial:
I think the central point is that violence against women and violence against children are deeply connected, that children are deliberately made victims and witnesses to violence against women as part of an assertion of control over ‘the family’. … Such violence begins through partner rape, continues through physical and sexual abuse of pregnant women, and takes on additional forms through children growing up in violent homes where they, too, face greater risk of physical and sexual abuse.
While cultural triggers may be unique to different countries, the roots appear to be fundamentally the same. Data shows that women are often at an increased risk of intimate partner violence when they are pregnant, so according to Hosein, abuse can begin in the womb. “Kids are not incidental to the violence and these are not isolated cases,” she explained. “In fact, children are often physically harmed as part of the demonstration of control. This idea of men ‘owning’ their families is something we need to challenge.”
Since its establishment in 2015, the Children's Authority, charged with the protection of minors in Trinidad and Tobago, has reported investigations of more than 20,000 cases of child abuse. Two days after Maynard's death, chairman of the Children's Authority, Hanif Benjamin, commented that society as a whole had failed her, saying, “Everyone has a part to play in protecting children.”
Given a separate 2011 incident in which Michael Maynard was arrested and charged with assaulting Mukeisha (then eight months old) along with her mother, Hosein noted that social services have a critical role to play.
Tracy Hutchinson-Wallace, co-founder of the nongovernmental organisation Autism Spirit, agrees that both social services and wider society failed Mukeisha Maynard. In a telephone interview with Global Voices, she called for both the public and private sectors to do their part to support parents, asking, “Why is it that services that are critical to responsible parenting — health centres, school meetings, therapy sessions — are only available during working hours?”
The other aspect of the narrative that bothers Hutchinson-Wallace is the suggestion that disability is a tragedy: “If an able-bodied child is killed, the perpetrator is a monster. But if the child has a disability? Poor thing, he snapped.” In the Maynard case, she said, “The father showed full remorse. He recognised what he did. His last act was caring for the girl [On realising his daughter was dead, Maynard reportedly dressed her, combed her hair and placed her on a bed before killing himself]. His recompense was that he took his own life. The child did not deserve it. There are so many victims here.”
Hosein believes that the Maynard case is an important one to track to analyse the wider situation and see where social interventions and protocols failed. The father, for instance, had a history of violence, his threats extended beyond the core family unit, and he and his two children lived in poverty, all of which should have been red flags to social service agencies.
Hutchinson-Wallace agrees that finding solutions begins with admitting where processes have failed:
The first step should have been to remove the child from the situation. Authorities need to instill families’ trust regarding how they deal with these issues. Even amidst violence and threats, there is no assurance that something will be done — and this has been the case with successive governments.
She believes that in the short term, more resources need to be put in place for early intervention, and that wider society needs to act more like the proverbial village when it comes to looking out for children.
“Don’t lose sight of the fact [cases like Singh's and Maynard's] will repeat,” Hutchinson-Wallace said:
We will all forget, but we are all responsible. We need to keep speaking out until something is done. It’s a privilege to be a citizen of this country. To deserve that privilege, we are obliged to give back every single day. If you benefitted from something — a good education, a solid family life, strong community support — you have work to do to help others.”
In celebration of International Women’s Day 2020, marked globally on March 8 every year, The University of the West Indies’ Institute for Gender and Development Studies, along with NGOs and corporate sponsors, will host the fourth annual Women’s Rights Rally and March in Port of Spain on March 7, in a continued effort to raise awareness of the plight of women.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


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Guyana’s 2020 general election results mired in controversy · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Incumbent President David Granger smiles after casting his ballot during Guyana's general elections on March 2, 2020. Screenshot taken from a YouTube video posted by Guyane la 1ère.
A no-confidence motion against Guyana's governing coalition, A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC), by the opposition People's Progressive Party (PPP), filed in the country's parliament on December 21, 2018, finally resulted in a general election that took place on March 2, 2020, a year after it was constitutionally due.
Just as controversy plagued the vote of no-confidence, so too has it afflicted the way the results of the election are being handled. Nearly a week after the vote, a clear winner has not emerged, with a March 6 editorial in the Stabroek News, widely considered the country's paper of record, accusing the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) of “working in the interest” of the current government and “rigging the 2020 general elections right before our eyes”.
The battle was always going to be fierce because there's a lot at stake. Guyana's recently discovered reserves of oil and gas will effectively be controlled by whichever political party emerges victorious in the election, and the influx of foreign investment from the country's fledgling energy sector stands to transform its economic potential. The International Monetary Fund has projected that the Guyanese economy will grow by 85% this year, with The Economist reporting that by 2024, the country's new-found wealth “could lift income per person from $5,000 to $19,000, nearly the same as in Poland.”
The opposition PPP, reportedly eager to get back into office, has a predominantly East Indian support base comprising about 44 percent of the population; Afro-Guyanese, who mainly vote for the incumbent, number about 30 percent. There was also mounting public dissatisfaction with APNU leader David Granger's administration going into the election and disagreement among the coalition partners that the APNU could ill afford, since the party only holds only a slight parliamentary majority.
Guyana subscribes to a proportional representation system, with the 65 seats in its National Assembly allocated using the Hare quota formula.
After the polls closed at 6 p.m. on Monday, March 2, election observers urged GECOM to announce results in a timely fashion. But in an relatively vast country where votes are still counted manually, the process can be slow; partial results were not expected until Wednesday at the earliest.
By Thursday, March 5, nine of Guyana's ten regions had declared their results: the PPP was in the lead by more than 50,000 votes. The only area left to declare its results was the APNU stronghold of Region 4, which includes the capital, Georgetown, continuing southward to Timehri, along the east bank of the Demerara river, and including the country's second largest town, Linden.
A screenshot from Google Earth showing some of the areas included in the contentious Region 4.
On the heels of reported problems with a spreadsheet (by law, results must be verified according to the official Statements of Poll) and a data entry clerk being found with an unauthorised laptop and flash drive, the PPP was granted a court injunction barring Region 4's returning officer from declaring the results until they could be properly verified.
That same day, the US Ambassador, along with the British and Canadian High Commissioners and the Ambassador of the European Union to the country, released a joint statement questioning the credibility of the Region 4 results that GECOM published, and urging that a proper count be conducted based on the Statement of Polls.
The well-respected Carter Center, which has a long history in Guyana, also said it was “deeply concerned about the events that took place […] at the Office of the Returning Officer for Region 4 and the decision to announce results that had not been verified”. In a preliminary statement about the elections, the Carter Center noted that “the result of the electoral system is a complicated ballot”, and urged the country's political leaders “to commit to reform the ‘winner-takes-all’ election system currently in use”.
Meanwhile, despite international scrutiny and a formal legal challenge of the Region 4 results, both parties have claimed victory.
There are also reports that, contrary to the usual protocol, GECOM had barred local journalists from its command centre from March 5, when the Region 4 debacle began. Since then, protests have broken out over the election results, fuelling rumours and fears of post-election violence in a country with a history of political rivalries rooted in race.
On March 8, a judge will rule on whether or not the High Court has the jurisdiction to hear an application asking that Region 4's votes be tabulated according to the law, prior to the declaration of a final result.
Update, March 8, 2020: Guyana's Acting Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire has ruled that the court does have jurisdiction to hear the Region 4 verification suit. Arguments are scheduled to be heard at 3 p.m. Guyana time (GMT/UTC – 4h) on March 10, 2020.


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How Chinese social media platforms control information on COVID-19 · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

Image from the Stand News.
Canada-based Internet censorship research organization, Citizen Lab, points out in their latest report, “Censored Contagion: How Information on the Coronavirus is Managed on Chinese Social Media“, that on December 31, 2019, China’s web censors introduced a new list of 45 coronavirus-related keywords to block online discussion about the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. According to the report's authors, the scope of censorship broadened in February 2020, with the identification of 516 coronavirus-related keyword combinations blocked on the messaging and social media app WeChat between January 1 to February 15.
The research notes that at the initial stage of the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, the censorship curbed alerts to the public on the threat of the then-unknown virus. Later, the censored contents were broadened to include criticisms of top leaders and officials, government policies, speculative stories, any reference to Dr. Li Wenliang, and Chinese netizens’ demands for political change. Prior to being investigated by the police, Dr. Li was among a number of Wuhan-based medical practitioners to first raise the alarm about the new coronavirus. He died as a result of the virus on February 6, sparking online criticism of the Chinese authorities.
Citizen Lab's research found that on December 31, 2019, one day after a number of medical workers — including the late Dr. Li — attempted to alert the public to the spread of a new SARS-like virus, the Chinese web censors updated the list of blocked terms on social media.
YY, a Chinese streaming platform, introduced 45 coronavirus-related blocked terms in its mobile application on December 31, 2019. The list included “Wuhan unknown Pneumonia”（武漢不明肺炎), “unknown SARS” (不明沙市), “SARS variation”（沙市變異), “P4 virus research lab”（P4病毒實驗室), “Wuhan fresh food market”（武漢海鮮市場), and “Wuhan censored epidemic outbreak”（武漢封禁疫情).
As social media platforms in China are obliged to follow the instructions of the country's Propaganda and Cyber-administration Authorities, the finding shows that Beijing was well aware of the outbreak since last December. However, instead of informing the public of the health threat, it banned news of the virus from circulating online. On the same day the newly-blocked terms were introduced, eight netizens were arrested for spreading rumors. It was later revealed that the “rumor-mongers” were medical workers — among them, the late Dr. Li — discussing the outbreak with family members or peers on WeChat groups.
WeChat, in fact, adopted a more sophisticated censorship system. While some sensitive terms like “June Fourth” and “Tiananmen Square” are completely blocked, the app has been using artificial intelligence (AI) to detect the semantic meaning of the texts — which means only a certain cluster of keywords would trigger censorship. The research team therefore ran tests on WeChat between January 1 to February 15, identifying at least 516 keyword combinations that were blocked. Should a user send messages containing those combinations, the messages would remain blocked in the server and not delivered to the intended recipient.
The research team then grouped the keywords into content categories:
Censored COVID-19-related keyword combinations cover a wide range of topics, including discussions of central leaders’ responses to the outbreak, critical and neutral references to government policies on handling the epidemic, responses to the outbreak in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, speculative and factual information on the disease, references to Dr. Li Wenliang, and collective action.
Among the 516 keyword combinations, 192 are related to China’s top brass and their role in handling the outbreak. In fact, 87 percent of the terms in this category contains references to Chinese President Xi Jinping, such as “Xi Jinping + formalism + epidemic prevention” (習近平+形式主義+防疫), “Xi Jinping goes to Wuhan” (習近平到武漢), “Someone [a substitution of Xi Jinping] + in person” (某人+親自), and “Xi Jinping + epidemic spread” (習近近+疫症蔓延).
After Wuhan was locked down on January 23, many netizens wondered why the Chinese leader did not go to the city in person to lead the battle against COVID-19. Instead, Xi entrusted Chinese Premier Li Keqiang to visit the center of the epidemic. Such criticism soon became a key target of the censors, as shown in the censorship patterns above.
The second most censored content terms were related to criticisms of government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-related institutions, and their policies regarding containment of the outbreak. As many as 138 keyword combinations were found in this category, including wordplay on COVID-19, calling it the “virus of officialdom” (官狀病毒), as well as “local officials + epidemics + central government + cover-up” (地方官+疫情+中央+隱瞞), “Wuhan + CCP + crisis + Beijing” (武漢+中共+危機+北京), “hold + criticize China + Two Sessions + cover up” (舉行+批評中國+兩會期間+隱瞞), and “CCP + pneumonia + performance + rule” (共产党+肺炎+表现+统治).
In addition to the CCP and central government authorities, other institutions that triggered semantic censorship include the China Red Cross, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and the China Central Television Station (CCTV).
The China Red Cross was heavily criticized for corruption in its handling of citizens’ donations to Wuhan. As for the Wuhan Institute of Virology, speculations had been circulating on social media since late January that the Novel Coronavirus originated from its lab. Meanwhile, CCTV was slammed by netizens for its censorship practices, such as closing the comment function of its live-stream of the Spring Festival Gala.
Criticisms of central and local governments’ policies to fight the outbreak were also heavily censored, as reflected in keyword combinations like “Centralized Quarantine + Wuhan Lockdown” (集中隔离 + 武汉封城), “public opinion guidance + Politburo + centralized leadership + standing committee” (傳播 + 判死刑 + 危害公共安全 + 病毒), “public opinion guidance + Politburo + centralized leadership + standing committee”（舆论引导 + 政治局 + 集中统一领导 + 常委会）and “since January 3 + notified US of + epidemic”, (1月3日起 [+] 30次向美方通报 [+] 疫情信息).
Although the compulsory quarantine measures in Wuhan and other cities have been praised for their effectiveness in containing the spread of the virus, Wuhan residents were angry that the government offered little support in the early days of the lockdown, leaving medical workers and their patients in a desperate situation.
Chinese netizens were also shocked by a statement made by a high court in Heilongjiang which, in its interpretation of existing criminal law, stressed that anyone who intentionally and maliciously spread the virus to undermine public safety could be sentenced to death. As more cities and regions in China required close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 patients to be quarantined, there were conflicts between law enforcement officers and citizens who refused to subscribe to the policy. The court statement therefore served as a warning to those considering resistance.
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s daily briefing on February 3, 2020, about the Chinese government having “notified the United States of the epidemic and [China’s] control measures 30 times altogether since January 3”, generated mockery online, as Chinese citizens were only made aware of the outbreak after CCTV aired pulmonologist Dr. Zhong Nanshan’s interview on January 20. People were outraged that even amidst the outbreak, CCP leaders continued to view political propaganda as more important than public accountability.
News about Dr. Li's death and calls for political reforms also triggered censorship. Citizen Lab's research identified 26 combinations on this content category, including “coronavirus + human transmission + Li Wenliang” (冠状病毒+人传人+李文亮), “epidemic + color revolution + Li Wenliang”( 疫情+颜色革命+李文亮), “epidemic + virus + Li Wenliang + Central government (疫情+病毒+李文亮+中央), “Wuhan + 5 demands” (武汉+五大诉求), and “Wuhan + Liberate” 武漢+光復. Borrowing political vocabulary like “5 demands” and “liberate” from the 2019 Hong Kong protests, many netizens called for freedom of expression reforms after learning of Dr. Li's passing.
News about the COVID-19 outbreak in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan also faces censorship. About 99 keyword combinations in the research were related to the Chinese-speaking regions, like “Medical workers + strike + partial close the border checkpoints” (醫護人員+罷工+局部封關), “Carrie Lam + Puppet” (林鄭月娥+傀儡), “mask + Taiwan + export + nation” (口罩+台灣+出口+國家), “Macau + government + wear mask” (澳門+政府+戴口罩).
In Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s refusal to tighten control on border checkpoints after the Lunar New Year faced strong public criticism; there was also speculation that Beijing did not approve the border control measures. Medical workers from government-funded public hospitals took the lead in launching a strike to press the Hong Kong government to tighten border control, and pro-Beijing groups in Hong Kong pressured the government-appointed Hospital Authority to punish its employees. In Taiwan, the government’s decision to ban the export of masks created an uproar on social media in mainland China.
The report found 38 keyword combinations related to speculative or non-official claims, such as “Wuhan pneumonia epidemic out of control” (武漢肺炎疫情失控), “Wuhan + Infection + Tens of thousands” (武漢+感染+十幾萬), and “Shanghai + Background + Drug + Virus” (上海+背景+药物+病毒).
While some academic studies have estimated that the scale of the outbreak could be as many as hundreds of thousands infected in Wuhan, such discussions are not allowed in China. Even though official data on March 6 showed that there were 49,797 infections in Wuhan, the Chinese government never admitted that the city was out of control, even after the January 23 lockdown of the city, during which many Wuhan residents were calling for help on Weibo and WeChat.
Reports from government-affiliated media outlets also triggered blocking on WeChat, via 23 keyword combinations including “Relevant + Disease control + Travel ban + Virus” (有关+疾病控制+旅行限制+病毒), and “Pneumonia + Disease control and prevention + Virus + Medical journal” (肺炎+疾病预防控制+病毒+医学期刊).
On March 1, China’s Provisions on Ecological Governance of Online Information Content became effective. These regulations provide a legal framework for enforcing content platforms to censor vaguely defined “harmful” or “negative information”, including exaggerated headlines, celebrity gossip, vulgar or sexually suggestive content, and “inappropriate comments and descriptions of natural disasters and large-scale incidents”.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, many critics raised concerns about the Chinese media's failure to alert and inform the public, and the implications of such information repression on global public health. In its report, Citizen Lab stressed the need for the international society to address the problem:
Censorship of the COVID-19 outbreak is troubling, and shows the need for thorough analysis of the effects of information control during a global public health crisis. Countering misinformation and uninformed speculation related to the epidemic may help keep public fear in check and remove information that would mislead people about how best to protect themselves. However, restricting general discussions and factual information has the opposite effect and limits public awareness and response.
the global impact of COVID-19

author: Oiwan Lam


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Why did it take Peruvian authorities 3 years to investigate this woman’s murder? · Global Voices
Gabriela García Calderón Orbe

Solsiret Rodríguez Aybar. Screenshot from video on YouTube.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of how women fight gender violence in Latin America.
Three and a half years ago, 23-year-old Solsiret Rodríguez Aybar went missing from her home in El Callao, a city next to Peru's capital Lima, where she lived with her partner Brian Villanueva. A mother of two, Rodríguez studied sociology at the Federico Villarreal National University and was an activist at the “Ni una menos” (“not one woman less” in English) movement.
Despite her parents filing a missing person's report at that time, authorities have never investigated her case. The media has also largely ignored it.
It was only in February 2020, under the auspices of a new prosecutor, that the first arrests connected with Solsiret's case were made. Shortly thereafter, authorities found out Rodríguez was dead and that her remains had been hidden in the house of her former home all this time.
Villanueva's immediate family is now being investigated for murder, after several years during which the police never called them to testify. Their house had never been searched.
Peruvian social media has since exploded in outrage. Why did it take over three years for the Peruvian authorities to begin to pursue justice for this young woman's family?
On August 24, 2016, Brian Villanueva filed a police report alleging Solsiret had abandoned her home. Two days later, Solsiret's parents tried to file a report for their girl's disappearance, but police did not accept it due to the previous report filed by Villanueva.
A recent story about the case said:
El superior Dante Pastor se negó a admitir la denuncia aduciendo que por su “amplia experiencia”, seguramente Solsiret se había ido de la casa, probablemente con otro hombre y estaba “con la cabeza caliente”.
Chief police officer Dante Pastor refused to take their complaint, alleging that, due to his “vast experience,” most likely Solsiret had left the home, probably with another man and that she had a “hot head.”
The parents were finally able to file the report on September 1 of that year, but they have pointed out that prosecutor Lucila Aliaga, in charge of the case at that time, did not take any measures to find the young lady.
In 2018, the case was taken by prosecutor María Quicaño. Also according to Solsiret's parents, the investigation did not progress. It was only when prosecutor Jimmy Mansilla Castañeda picked up the case in January 2019 that things started to unravel.
Tracking Rodríguez's phone proved to be vital: The investigators found out that the SIM card had been removed from her phone and inserted in the phone belonging to Andrea Aguirre Concha, Villanueva's sister-in-law.
Aguirre and her partner Kevin Villanueva, who is Brian's identical twin, were arrested on February 18, 2020, and shortly after revealed that Solsiret Rodríguez's remains were hidden in the house she shared with Brian.
According to Aguirre's testimony, Rodríguez died after falling and hitting her head while the two women were arguing. The autopsy results, however, don't seem to corroborate this story. Peruvian National Police Director José Luis Lavalle said in a press conference:
Aquí se ve que habrían ejercido violencia sobre la víctima y esto nos trae a las posibilidades de un homicidio calificado; es decir, un asesinato, y que el móvil gira alrededor de un conflicto al interior de este grupo familiar.
Here we can see that violence was exerted on the victim, and this makes us think of an aggravated homicide, meaning it is a murder, and the motive is related to a conflict within this family group.
Carlos Basombrío, who was Minister of the Interior at the time when Rodríguez went missing, and who had stepped down due to unrelated reasons, tweeted his regrets at having believed a report by the police that asserted she had willingly left her partner and children:
Si pudiera renunciar de nuevo lo haría de nuevo.
Asumo toda la responsabilidad política. pic.twitter.com/SXDyXSB1fP
— Carlos Basombrio (@CarlosBasombrio) February 19, 2020
If I could resign again, I would.
I take all the political responsibilty.
Journalist Mabel Huertas summed up the case:
2 fiscales, uno tras otro, renunciaron a investigar el caso de Solsiret, no les dio la gana, faltaron a su principal función, defender a una ciudadana y perseguir el delito. Un tercer fiscal en el 2019 hizo su trabajo y finalmente la justicia está cerca. @FiscaliaPeru vergüenza.
— Mabel Huertas (@mabel_huertas) February 19, 2020
Two prosecutors, one after another, dismissed Solsiret's case investigation, they didn't feel like investigating, disrespected their main job: to defend a citizen and punish a crime. In 2019, a third prosecutor did his job and finally justice is near. Shame on Peru's public prosecutors.
Carlos León Moya, a columnist in several media outlets, expressed some questions:
Sobre el caso Solsiret. Su cuñado, Kevin Villanueva, siempre fue el principal sospechoso. Entonces, ¿cómo así NO registraron la casa de su pareja? ¿Cuándo lo hicieron, tres años y medio después? Además, la Fiscalía estuvo meses sin hacer la denuncia. Les importó un pito.
— Carlos León Moya (@contracultural) February 19, 2020
About Solsiret's case. Her brother-in-law, Kevin Villanueva, was always the prime suspect. So, why hasn't his partner's house been searched? When did they do it, three and a half years later? Besides that, the Attorney's Office spent months without filing a report. They really didn't give a damn.
Kathe Soto, a friend of late Rodríguez, wrote about how the pain she has lived through the past three and a half years:
Hace 3 años, 5 meses y 26 días recibí una llamada qe marcaría mi vida.
Llamaban para decirme qe Sol, una d mis mejores amigas, no había llegado a casa, estaba desaparecida.
Hicieron “investigaciones” y decían q ella se había ido.
Sol nunca se fue, hoy sabemos q la desaparecieron. pic.twitter.com/toDUJfGm7G
— Kathe Soto (@kateSotoT) February 18, 2020
Three years, five months and 26 days ago, I got a call that would change my life.
I was told that Sol, one of my best friends, hadn't arrived home, that she was missing.
They carried out “investigations” and said she had left.
Sol never left, they made her disappear.
In 2019, a record of 168 women were victims of gender violence in Peru, while there were just four prison sentences passed for femicides in Peru. In October 2019, Peru sentenced a man to life for femicide for the first time.
Saira Luján, an activist from Paro Internacional de Mujeres, told Salto Diario:
Las mujeres víctimas de violencia no solo se enfrentan a sus agresores y a la sociedad machista sino también al sistema judicial que, lejos de garantizar protección de acuerdo a una normativa nacional aún deficiente, duda de ellas, las revictimiza y obtienen sentencias arbitrarias que incluso llegan a la absolución de la pena del agresor.
Women who are victims of violence not only face their aggressors and a sexist society. They also face a judicial system that, far from ensuring protection according to insufficient national laws, also questions them, revicitimizes them, and pass arbitrary sentences that sometimes even acquit the perpetrator.
As of February 20, 2020, 25 women were killed due to gender violence in Peru.
Eighty-five percent of these murders occur in the context of “partnership, cohabitation, sentimental relationship, ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands,” says deputy for Women's Rights at the Peruvian Ombudsman's Office, Eliana Revollar. As psychiatrist Martha Rondón says:
… el hombre cree o hace creer que es el jefe de la familia y que debe “sancionar” a la mujer por no obedecer. Por eso la cela, por eso la controla y por eso en muchos casos, le quita la vida.
… men think or make others believe they are the family bosses, and that they have to “punish” a woman if she won't obey. That's why he is possessive of her, he controls her and that's why, in many cases, he takes her life.

author: Gabriela García Calderón Orbe


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A ‘sweet’ deal: Sugar war ends between Tanzania and Uganda after years-long embargo · Global Voices
Amanda Lichtenstein

Sugar cane is transported in Kampala, Uganda, a “sugar-surplus” nation, March 2009, by Malc Wicky via Flickr CC BY 2.0.
After a years-long ban on sugar imports from Uganda, Tanzania announced that it would partially open up trade with its East African neighbor as long as the agreements happen between the two governments and not private companies.
The long-awaited agreement was finalized on February 27, 2020, at the State House in Entebbe, Uganda, in the presence of officials from the two countries:
Tanzania has partly allowed to open up its borders to Ugandan sugar exports following more than a year of being locked out. The sugar will be traded under a new arrangement that will only involve government-to-government
— Radical Entrepreneur (@IkoteBrian) March 6, 2020
The deal should make Tanzanians happy after a nearly four-year sugar shortage in the country, where, in 2016, Tanzanian President John Magufuli insisted that sugar traders must acquire permits to control mounting problems such as lack of quality, smuggling and corruption in the regional sugar trade business, according to the BBC.
Tanzanian authorities claimed that imported sugar from Uganda was not actually manufactured there and instead had been imported from Kenya and repackaged in Uganda.
The Magufuli administration imposed a 25 percent tax on imported sugar from Uganda, according to The Citizen. By 2018, Tanzania halted the issuance of permits, essentially banning sugar imports from Uganda, according to the East African.
Stirred into countless cups of chai and coffee on a daily basis, sugar is an essential staple in East Africa. These restrictions on Ugandan sugar imports in Tanzania spiked the price of sugar on shelves and in some instances created a hoarding situation among local producers, according to Sammy Awami of the BBC.
In 2018, The Citizen reported that a 50-kilogram bag of sugar was priced at 65,000 Tanzanian shillings ($30 USD) on the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar and 120,000 TZS ($60) in mainland Tanzania.
Sugar advertised for sale in Ugandan shillings, Gulu, Uganda, 2011. Photo by UK DFID, open government license.
In the spirit of East African unity, however, Tanzanian authorities went on a two-day tour to Uganda on March 1, 2020, to inspect several sugar factories’ manufacturing processes, including Kakira Sugar Works and Kinyara Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited.
Negotiations on terms and conditions of sugar trade between Uganda and Tanzania after production inspection underway.@AKyambadde @mtic_uganda pic.twitter.com/QDUolBPLsP
— ELIJAH TURYAGUMANAWE ?? (@elijahturya) March 1, 2020
Sugar production inspection to ascertain production capacity and originality by minister of trade @AKyambadde and Tanzania’s minister of agriculture Hon Japheth Hasunga. pic.twitter.com/gjWY6KgjNy
— ELIJAH TURYAGUMANAWE ?? (@elijahturya) March 1, 2020
After a successful tour, Japheth Hasunga, Tanzanian minister of agriculture, stated that government-to-government sugar trade would begin soon, according to the Daily Monitor, a Ugandan daily:
We are satisfied with the current rate of Uganda’s sugar production and we shall start with 30,000 metric tonnes, but that will depend on the prices, we don’t know how much the factories will charge and then we shall place another order. We shall start business as soon as possible.
The move will strengthen East African integration as Tanzania begins to import more sugar from Uganda in addition to places farther afield, such as Brazil. Meanwhile, Uganda, designated a “sugar-surplus” country, primarily exports its sugar to Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Zambia.
Minister Hasunga confirmed a continued sugar production deficit in Tanzania, with more demand than supply. “Annual production capacity stands at 300,000 metric tonnes per year, which presents the country with a deficit of 90,000 metric tonnes,” reported The Daily Monitor.
Under this new agreement, there will not be an import tax as per guidelines stated in the East African Community Common Market Protocol.
While many praised the latest effort between Tanzania and Uganda to revive the sugar trade between the two neighbors, the deal raised questions among netizens about the effectiveness of the East African Community (EAC), a regional intergovernmental organization comprised of six East African countries: Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
This netizen identified what appear to be two competing schools of thought about the EAC:
There seems to be 2 competing schools of thought about the EAC .. the first as exemplified by @pvl1111 regards it as an artificial unsustainable donor driven boondoggle and the second exemplified by @cobbo3 regards it as a transformational socioeconomic project:who’s right??
— Frantz Fanon (@waweru) March 1, 2020
Established 20 years ago, the EAC comprises 177 million people with a combined gross domestic product of $193 billion per year. Guided by an initial treaty signed in 1999, the EAC aims to strengthen interregional cooperation along political, economic and social lines as one of the “fastest-growing economic blocs,” according to its website.
A major feature of the EAC is the Common Market established in 2010 to ease trade among the six countries. Common Market guidelines recommend zero import tax on all goods and services to encourage more trade.
But this netizen called out the EAC as a “mirage,” citing a few examples beyond the sugar wars where cooperation and agreement among EAC countries faltered:
Kenya and Uganda have been each other's important trade partners even before the EAC. Tanzania has blocked Ugandan goods as well (timber, milk products, sugar). So really the whole EAC thing is a mirage at the moment
— Dicta Asiimwe (@AsiimweDicta) March 1, 2020
Another netizen pointed to the ongoing “milk wars” between Uganda and Kenya, wondering if the EAC might be afraid of a “rising” Uganda:
Uganda-Kenya milk war boils over with no end in sight of regional trade tiffs. Is East Africa becoming afraid of “rising” Uganda? 1/5https://t.co/vPkeqpgEBX
— Charles Onyango-Obbo (@cobbo3) January 20, 2020
The escalating trade dispute arose after Kenya accused Uganda of importing milk that did not meet quality standards and blocked its entry, causing Ugandan dairy companies significant financial losses.
Uganda-Rwanda relations have also soured in recent months after Rwanda closed its border with Uganda and halted trade with Uganda, according to World Politics Review, a move that has resulted in millions of dollars in losses.
These EAC trade disputes signal larger issues among the EAC community and “critical gaps in regional integration,” according to the East African.
It's left to be seen whether the Tanzania-Uganda sugar deal will sweeten the growing bitterness within the EAC.

author: Amanda Lichtenstein


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Campaign urging Wuhan residents to show gratitude to the Communist Party leadership in fighting COVID-19 backfires · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

After telling the rest of the world to recognize China's enormous sacrifice and effort to fight COVID-19, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has launched a propaganda campaign urging the Chinese people to thank the leadership of the party.
A satirical image from Stand News about how the visit of Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan in a residential district in Wuhan to showcase the success of the government in handling COVID-19 turned out differently after residents shouted “fake, it is all fake” and “it is all [performance]” from their apartment windows.
But instead of showing gratitude, many people expressed anger on social media resulting in the complete removal of all news and comments related to the campaign named “thank-CCP education”.
As official figures on newly infected COVID-19 cases in China continue to drop in the past two weeks, it seems that propaganda authorities could not wait but demonstrate the supposed success of the CCP in leading the fight against the epidemic. However, the political propaganda effort has been questioned by angry citizens who were either quarantined for weeks or witnessed the sudden deaths of their family members, neighbors, and acquaintances.
An example of the propaganda blitz took place on March 5, 2020 when Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan visited a residential district in Wuhan. The visit was organized to showcase the success in the management of a quarantined area. Resident representatives were invited to guide the tour. But during the visit, a number of residents shouted “fake, everything is fake!” and “it is all [performance]” from their apartment windows.
The video soon went viral on social media and even state-affiliated media outlets like People’s Daily and Global Times published the video on their overseas social media accounts such as Facebook and Twitter.
In response to the incident the following day, the city’s new CCP secretary Wang Zhonglin stressed the need to educate citizens on how to be thankful to the party. His briefing in front of city officials was widely reported by local media outlets:
要在全市廣大市民中深入開展感恩教育，感恩總書記﹑感恩共產黨、聽黨話﹑跟黨走、形成強大正能量。…… 武漢人民是英雄人民，也是懂得感恩的人民。
It is necessary to educate people to express their gratitude, they should thank the Party’s General Secretary [Xi Jinping], the CCP, they should obey the Party and follow the Party, they should become a strong positive energy… People in Wuhan are heroic, and they are people who know how to express gratitude.
His talk immediately caused an online uproar. Hong Kong Citizen News picked up a number of typical responses from Webio:
我們不需要被教育感恩！這是你根深蒂固的奴性又出來作祟了，還是幾千年封建社會官員的劣根性在作祟了！
We don’t need to be educated to express gratitude. Such saying is a reflection of your nature of being a slave which was common among officials back in the feudal era.
王忠林，你想對上面感恩就感恩，但千萬別拖着武漢老百姓和你一起感恩，他們還在瘟疫的威脅下苟延殘喘，沒心情和你一起跪下，高呼萬歲。
Wang Zhonglin, you want to say thank to your leader, no one would stop you. But don’t bring residents in Wuhan with you. They are still suffering from the plague and [many] don’t have the mood to kneel down and say long live the emperor with you.
According to a media report quoting from unverified minutes of a meeting organized by the State Council Information Office on March 7, authorities called for the removal of all news stories and commentaries about the “thank CCP education”. In the meeting, Huang Kunming (黄坤明) of the Central Propaganda Department stressed the need for all news units to alleviate people's concerns and be “strategically aligned in their [people's] consciousness”.
Among the censored posts, veteran Chinese journalist Chu Chaoxin’s article was the most popular:
2349條生命，2349次死亡，他們屍骨未寒，他們的家人、朋友、同學都還在悲痛之中，他們的家人、朋友、同學甚至自己都還在醫院里躺著等著搶救，根本無力悲傷，此時卻有人要對他們加強感恩教育，這是沒有人性的行為。
2349 lives and 2349 proclamations of death. Their family, friends, and colleagues are still grieving; their family, friends and they themselves could still be in hospitals suffering from the disease. They don’t even have the strength to properly grieve and now somebody is telling them to learn how to say thank you. This is against humanity.
Wang Zhonglin’s talk is the latest example of the propaganda authority’s narrative to turn the health crisis into a ‘heroic battle’ of the Chinese people under the CCP leadership.
A similar attempt can be seen in the publication of ‘A Battle Against Epidemic: China Combatting Covid-19 in 2020′, a book that highlights “General Secretary Xi Jinping’s commitment to the people, his sense of mission, his far-reaching strategic vision and outstanding leadership as the leader of a major power.”
The book was launched on March 2 soon after the World Health Organization concluded its expert tour and praised China for taking aggressive measures to contain the spread of COVID-19.
On March 4, China state-owned Xinhua News Agency published an opinion piece titled “With Reason on Our Side: the World Should Thank China” (理直气壮，世界应该感谢中国). Below is a major argument of the post (translated by Human Rights in China):
We should now say, with reason on our side, that the United States owes China an apology, and the world owes China a thank you; without the enormous sacrifices and efforts made by China, the world could not have gained a precious window of time to combat the novel coronavirus epidemic; one can say that China has, by its own strength alone, staunchly held off the novel coronavirus epidemic for a very long time. It’s truly earth-shattering, and the gods themselves would be moved!
But such argument has been undermined by the CCP's latest propaganda campaign which has unsuccessfully tried to convince local citizens to show gratitude to the party and the national leadership in handling the COVID-19 crisis.
the global impact of COVID-19


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In photos: #8M throughout Latin America · Global Voices
Melissa Vida

“And the fault was not mine, nor where I was, nor how I was dressed,” on a sign during #8M in Quito, Ecuador, March 8, 2020. Photo by Belén Febres, used with permission.
Check out Global Voices’ special coverage of how women fight gender violence in Latin America.
On 2020's International Women's Day, women around the globe protested for their lives and their rights. World headlines focused on the marches in Latin America, which gathered hundreds of thousands of women—while some estimates point to one million protestors in Santiago, Chile, alone. Women marched against femicide, gender violence, inequality, and voiced their support for abortion rights.
The photos below were taken by members of the Global Voices community.
In Quito, Ecuador, protestors demanded first and foremost an end to violence committed against women. According to Belén Febres, our contributor from Quito, women also marched for more labor rights and wanted people to recognize the variety of feminist currents. They also demanded better environmental protection and thereby protested against extractivist businesses.
#8M in Quito, Ecuador, March 8, 2020. Photo by Belén Febres, used with permission.
Women in Brazil focused on the country's high femicide rate, abortion rights, transwomen's rights, sexual harassment and, of course—against president Jair Bolsonaro. In the lead up to his election in 2018, women protested under the slogan “not him” (“ele não,” in Portuguese). Recently, Bolsonaro made a sexist remark against an award-winning female journalist as she was facing a smear campaign led by his supporters.
Protesters at 8M also took aim at recent defunding of public policies that aid victims of gender violence, and many paid tribute to Marielle Franco—a black woman, activist and politician who was killed in 2018. To this day authorities haven't resolved her case.
#8M in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The sign says: “to live without violence is a women's right.” Photo by Fernanda Canofre, used with permission.
#8M in Belo Horizonte, Brazil: A feminist collective embroidered names of women killed in femicide cases in 2019. Photo by Fernanda Canofre, used with permission.
#8M in Belo Horizonte, Brazil: Marielle Franco, the councilwoman killed nearly two years ago, was also homaged by the women marching. Photo by Fernanda Canofre, used with permission.
#8M in Belo Horizonte, Brasil. The sign says: “instead of flowers, we want: respect, dignity, voice!” Photo by Fernanda Canofre, used with permission.
In Chile's capital Santiago, over one million women marched the streets on March 8. According to our contributor in Chile, Gabriela Mesones Rojo, women chanted:
Perdimos el miedo, las mujeres somos parte fundamental de Chile y ahora saben que somos fuertes y tenemos voz.
We are not afraid anymore, we, women, are a fundamental part of Chile and now they know that we are strong and that we have a voice.
Women also protested for reproductive rights, sexual education in schools, the end of gender violence and impunity, and new constitutional laws that protect women. On April 26 2020, Chile will partake a referendum to decide whether Chile needs a new constitution.
In some areas of the capital, police repressed the march, according to the photographer who took this photo. She said that police shot tear gas and water cannons shortly after this photo was taken near the University of Chile.
“Gender violence kills more than coronavirus,” #8M in Santiago, Chile, March 8, 2020. Photo submitted by a contributor who wished not to be identified, used with permission.
In Chile and elsewhere in Latin America, women protested femicide with bare breasts smeared with red paint symbolizing blood.
#8M in Santiago, Chile, March 8 2020. Photo by Gabriela Mesones Rojo, used with permission.
In Guatemala, too, women marched the streets. According to our contributor from Guatemala, who preferred to remain anonymous for safety reasons, women denounced abuses committed by “white and mestizo public figures, but also by indigenous community leaders.” She added that students also denounced abuses committed by staff in universities. She continued:
There is also violence within our social movements, there is also oppression within the fight for human rights. Maya women's bodies are also violated in these activist networks. But we also want to show that we are not alone anymore, that we are organizing ourselves and will continue to denounce abuses.
Protesters also demanded justice for the 56 girls who were burnt to death in the Virgen de la Asuncion Safe House in 2017, where many reports point to the authorities’ negligence.
The sign below reads: “How I wish I was a wall so you would be outraged when they touch me without permission”.
#8M in Guatemala City, Guatemala, March 8 2020. Photo submitted by a contributor who wished not to be identified, used with permission.
In Colombia, many women focused on reproductive rights.
Estella Porras, our contributor from Colombia, says “that the total decriminalization of abortion has been a central demand of the protestors, especially since the issue was on the Court's agenda this past week but did not pass.”
One of the slogans of the #8M march was:
Ni De la Iglesia,
Ni del Estado
Ni del Marido
Ni del patrón
Mi cuerpo es mío, y solo mío, y solo mía la decisión
It's not the Church's,
Not the State's
Not the husband's
Not the boss's,
My body is mine, only mine,
My decision is only mine to take.
#8M in Bogota, Colombia, March 8, 2020. Photo by Cacería Violeta, used with permission.
Protestors also marched against the link between gender violence and violence directed at local leaders. Women in general already face a high rate of femicides, and women who are human rights defenders and journalists have compounded risks related to their work.
Women in Mexico protested the country's high rate of femicide and the alleged inaction of the state.
“Tens of thousands of women went to the streets of Mexico to demand justice for the victims of femicide and gender violence, and demand real answers from the government to deal with the urgent situation and danger that women go through in the country,” Giovanna Salazar, our contributor, said.
Official figures point to more than 80,000 women who marched in Mexico City alone.
#8M in Mexico City, Mexico, March 8, 2020. Photo by Anette Eklund, used with permission.
For Anette Eklund, our other contributor from Mexico, some of the biggest refrains were: “Existo porque resisto” (“I exist because I resist”) and “Si no nos mataran seríamos más” (“If they wouldn't be killing us, we would be more”). Indigenous women in Mexico also protested against violence, such as the Otomi women.
#8M en Mexico City, Mexico. Photo by Giovanna Salazar, used with permission.
Women in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, met on March 7. The sign in the back reads: “Congratulations Bolivia, we are first in gender violence because of machismo.”
According to Fabiola Gútierrez, our contributor from Bolivia, the largest demands from Bolivian feminists were the legalization of abortion, faster and more efficient judicial procedures in cases of gender violence, sexual education in schools, and non-discrimination of LGBTQ people.
#8M in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, March 7, 2020. Photo by Belén Pereira, used with permission.
In Brussels, Belgium, Latin American women also showed their support. The sign on the back reads: “In support to the national strike from Brussels #onedaywithoutus.” On March 9, women from Mexico also striked. The sign on the right reads: “A woman who fights. The future of all women is changing.”
#8M in Brussels, Belgium. Latin American women community. Photo by Melissa Vida, used with permission.

author: Melissa Vida