EMPOWERING AFGHAN WOMEN

Q&A: Al Jazeera meets photojournalist Reza
After witnessing inequality, veteran photojournalist Reza started Aina, a media training NGO to empower Afghan women. D. Parvaz Last Modified: 04 Nov 2011 18:39 inShare2
One of Aina's students, Mehria Aziz, co-directed the Emmy nominated Afghanistan Unveiled [Reza Deghati] Reza, who goes only by his first name, has spent 25 of his 30-year career as a photojournalist in war zones. In that time, he noticed the real cost of war - the destruction of cultures and of human relations. He then noticed that in Afghanistan - where he's spent a lot of time since the early 1980s - most NGOs tend to focus on rebuilding the things that have been physically destroyed by bombs. In other words, schools were built, but little attention was paid to where the education provided in those buildings would come from. Motivated by a heady mixture of frustration and hope, in 2001 Reza - a celebrated Paris-based photojournalist and documentarian for National Geographic - sold off some of his own prints and equipment to kick off Aina (Farsi for "mirror"), a program aimed at providing media media training to women (whose stories he said male foreign correspondents could not tell) and educational material to children. In the decade that has past, Aina has trained at least 500 Afghan women in audio and video techniques, teaching them how to report, photograph and document their own lives. Aina has also produced an educational magazine, Parvaz (pronounced Par-vaaz and no relation to this writer) and completed pilot projects in Sri Lanka, Uganda and more. Reza, who had started informal photography training in Pakistani refugee camps in 1983, spoke to Al Jazeera when he was at the World Innovation Summit for Education in Doha, Qatar, participating on the "Learning from Game Changers" panel. Parvaz: Tell us about your first trip to Afghanistan - what was the situation like then? Reza: The fist time was in 1983, when Afghanistan was occupied by the Russian army. I was working for Time magazine at the time ... During the Russian invasion, Afghanistan was still a really old, traditional country, and the Russians were really trying to emancipate Afghan women, and this was the biggest mistakes the Russians made. They tried to push women to the front too fast, and it created a lot of reactions [among] the people. Parvaz: Then you kept going back. Reza: I kept going back. I was there for the collapse of the Russians and the pro-Russian government, and I went there many times during the time of the Taliban, all during times of war. And this was not only a photographer, In 1990, I worked as the director of operations for the United Nations in Afghanistan, so I was very engaged with the condition of women there. Parvaz: Does what's being reported about the state of Afghan women comport with what you're observing on the ground? Reza: First of all, even the female journalists coming from the outside and trying to work with Afghan women, they are not really allowed to enter the intimate lives of the women because they are somehow always surrounded by male drivers, male interpreters, male security - that's whey even foreign women don't have a chance to intimately understand Afghan women. The only way to have the stories told was to train Afghan women themselves. And through their eyes, we were able to hear and see much deeper stories. Parvaz: So there's no reluctance for these women to tell their stories, they just need the right way to tell it. Reza: They need to be able to really work with people who they trust. When we train women there, they work with other Afghan women. And they have all suffered the same things. Parvaz: The US invaded/occupies Afghanistan for a number of stated reasons, one of them to improve the state of human rights in the country, especially for women. Have things improved for women there? Reza: The way that foreign countries came and started to emancipate women was wrong. For them it was "Hey, everybody, let's take off the burqas and go out onto the street. Even better with a miniskirt." This is the concept of freedom that was shown to them by international organisations, while we know how many generations it takes to bring cultural change to a country. They don't want miniskirts, but they want rights - they want to be educated, they want access to jobs, they want equality. But all this, when you look at the Afghan culture, it takes time ... When Afghans see women in Bermuda shorts, wearing sleeveless shirts and no bra, talking to men on American military bases, they ask me: "Is this democracy?" Parvaz: Has the situation for women improved, and how, specifically? Reza: Yes.They're not living under the Taliban now and they have more economic comforts. There are more women getting educated, and what my organisation is doing is training as many women as possible to enter communication and information centres.The effects of this will show in two or three generations, when more and more women will be running media organisations. And what they are writing, producing and broadcasting now comes from Afghan women, and they know how to spread their words and their education ...even if the Taliban come back into power, these women are there as the seeds of the resistance. Parvaz: What is the future for women in Afghanistan? Reza: It will be very tough. They were given false signals by the coalition forces that they would get freedom - [the] same for Afghan men, but women suffered more. Aina will stay there after US forces leave - I've been there for 30 years. I've seen Russians coming and leaving; I've seen Taliban coming and leaving, I've seen al-Qaeda coming and leaving, I've seen Pakistan's army coming and leavin http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/11/201111425558372171.html

CHIDI & DEB 232 BY by chukbyke

CHIDI & DEB 22 BY by chukbyke

OKWELE COMMUNITY ROME & FRIENDS

‘LA POLIZIA E’ ANCHE NOI’......PROTESTA....ROMA

 ‘LA POLIZIA E’ ANCHE NOI’
Un amico poliziotto in ferie voleva andare con i figli e moglie per la manifestazione (pacifica) di oggi a Roma ma era stata chiamata di urgenza per mantenere ordine durante la manifestazione……. E tornato ferito…non grave…… che ironia …che vita…

DEB & CHIDI RECEPTION by chukbyke

NOL: DALLAS 27/08/2011 CHIDI, DEB & NOL (a)

NOL: DALLAS 27/08/2011 CHIDI, DEB & NOL (a)

DEB &CHIDI...Dallas 27/08/2011

The Nigerian Connection

The Nigerian Connection - People & Power - Al Jazeera English

http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/peopleandpower/2011/08/201189141348631784.html

The Nigerian Connection - People & Power - Al Jazeera English

Investigating the plight of African women caught up in a web of organised crime, prostitution and human trafficking.

People and Power Last Modified: 10 Aug 2011 10:12

Filmmakers: Orlando von Einsiedel and Caroline Pare

Every year tens of thousands of West Africans migrate to Europe in search of a better life. But for some of them that search will end in tragedy, as they fall victim to competing mafia gangs that prey on the hopes of the desperate. In southern Italy, it is Nigerian women who are among the most exploited, with many ending up trapped in the nightmare world of the sex trade.

In the first of two special reports, Juliana Ruhfus investigates the plight of African women caught up in a web of organised crime, prostitution and people trafficking. In the following account Chiara Caprio, an Italian journalist who was involved in the making of the film, describes what they found out in southern Italy.

The ghetto of Destra Volturno, an assembly of houses once used by Neapolitan tourists, is surrounded by flowers as it hosts the funeral of Mary Morad, a seven-year-old from Ghana. She was killed by a man with psychiatric problems. But in Castel Volturno, more than one-third of the 25,000 official citizens are African and, in particular, Ghanaian and Nigerian.

Al Jazeera came to investigate the phenomenon of Nigerian organised crime in this small town, quickly forgotten after serious riots in 2008, when hundreds of Africans took to the streets to protest against the massacre of six young Ghanaians committed by Giuseppe Setola, the army of the Casalesi clan.

Mary's family is waiting for the coffin and tension grows as delays and friction increase. Bose Atta, Mary's Nigerian mother, who was trafficked to Italy to be forced into prostitution, is nervous. She cries as her friends express anger against Mary's father, a man from Ghana who is now married to another Nigerian woman.
Finally, the coffin arrives and a group of men start celebrating with a Muslim rite. An improvised march towards the cemetery starts under a warm sun overheating a tormented African community.


Stronger than ever

"The Domitiana crosses Castel Volturno for 28 kilometres," says Stefano Ricciardiello, a detective at the local police station, a small and shabby office overwhelmed by new and old papers covering stories of murders, repatriations and organised crime. "The new African mafia's activities have invaded the whole territory."
He is showing us along the roads where, one after another, Nigerian women and young girls are waiting for clients.

According to the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), Italy is now the main destination for more than 10,000 Nigerian prostitutes, trafficked from Benin City to European cities and criminal hubs, just like the Domitiana and its coast.

"Nigerian criminals are able to find agreements with all the mafias, from Colombians to Chinese. But it's an easy game for them in Italy also for another reason: the high number of Italian clients who look for prostitutes night and day," says Giovanni Conzo, a prosecutor at the anti-mafia section in Naples.

"This organisation is stronger than ever. We should stop them before they take full control of our region," he adds. But Conzo's words offer just a glimmer of hope.
Using voodoo to enslav
Isoke Aikpitanyi, a former victim of trafficking and now the main reference point for Nigerian women in Italy, knows how this business is managed in Caserta's area. As she walks in Castel Volturno's historic centre, she explains: "Today in Italy there are almost 10,000 madams, each one in control of an average of two or three girls."
Madams are the key, she explains. They are the main actors in this exploitation. They force girls into prostitution and ask for money to repay the debt. They work with "brothers", men who are in charge of physically trafficking the "babies", as girls forced into prostitution are called.

But Nigerian human trafficking is often associated with drug smuggling and a distorted use of religious tradition.

The women and girls are often forced to undergo a Juju oath-swearing ritual that commits them to repaying the money they owe to their smugglers on pain of death or insanity.
"The Juju, the voodoo rite, it's not a bad practice. It was used to bring justice, but they ruined everything," says Isoke with anger. "They don't care how they make their money as far as they make it. They use Juju to enslave."

Even in this hell, there are people who try not to lose hope. Sister Antonia, a Nigerian nun of the Sacred Heart of Jesus order, manages a shelter, the Casa Santa Maria dell'Accoglienza, launched in 2000 in the Fernandes centre by the Capua-based Caritas. Here, more than 70 women have found a place to stay and 10 children have been born.

"We were called by the bishop of Capua, Mons. Bruno Schettino, to promote these girls' integration. They are all former prostitutes. If they want to change their lives, they know they'll always find a place here," Sister Antonia says.

The women can stay for between six months and a year, a period when they dedicate their time to education and "to gain[ing] their dignity back," explains Sister Antonia. The nuns give the girls the opportunity to write down their stories and explain what happened and who forced them into prostitution.
"We try to make them understand that Juju won't have any effect on them," she says.
But we met girls who still work on the streets and believe in the agreements they made. Some of them have to repay debts of up to $58,000 and are still terrified of the powerful consequences of Juju on their families and themselves.


The Nigerian Connection can be seen from Wednesday, August 10, at the following times GMT: Wednesday: 2230; Thursday: 0930; Friday: 0330; Saturday: 1630; Sunday: 2230; Monday: 0930.




The Nigerian Connection II:

In the second part of the special investigation, The Nigerian Connection II, Juliana Ruhfus follows the trail from Italy back to Benin City in Nigeria, from where women, desperately seeking an escape from grinding poverty, are trafficked to Europe.
To pay for their travel, many of them incur massive debts to organised crime gangs in the false belief that a lucrative regular job awaits them at the other end. Often they are forced to undergo a Juju oath-swearing ritual that commits them to repaying the money on pain of death or insanity.

When they arrive in Europe, they discover the only way they can do this is by agreeing to work in the sex trade. A Juju priest who is involved in the trade justifies the use of ritual practices on the grounds that he is offering a service to the community.
But as Juliana discovers, it is not just traditional African religions in West Africa that contribute to this trade on bonded labour. Evangelical Christian pastors have been involved too.

The Nigerian Connection II can be seen from Wednesday, August 17, 2011.

Duncan Mighty - Koli Water