Tuesday 25 September 2012

Waxing in a refugee camp and other feminist issues

I'm a feminist. It's not the only way I define myself. I am also Irish, a news junkie, a coffee addict and a bit flaky (Last summer, I informed my family I was moving to Beirut. Then I went to Rwanda for a holiday instead. See? Flaky.) Like it says there on the side panel, I'm an NGO worker, a writer and a student who has a wide variety of interests that range from mass atrocity response operations to make up, with a liberal dash of music and alcohol in between (I mentioned I was Irish, right?).

Most of these traits are unlikely to prompt further questioning. The feminist thing though, well, that's a different story. Cliches that are so overused I can't be bothered to describe them here still apparently spring to the minds of a lot of people when they hear the word 'feminisim'. To me, being a feminist just means you believe in equality. Pretty simple. The all round awesome Caitlin Moran puts it far more eloquently: If you have a vagina and you feel you should be in charge of it, then you're a feminist. Although I believe men too can be feminists, which makes her definition slightly problematic.

Saying you're a feminist somehow needs to be justified. But that makes sense somehow, since apparently these days, almost everything a woman is or everything she does has to be justified. Why do you always wear make up? Why don't you wear make up? Why are you a stay at home mother? Why are you a working mother? And so on.

Why is everything a woman does seen to be representative of women as a whole? Why haven't we yet learned that what each individual woman does with her life is just that; what that particular woman wants to do with her life.

It's something I've been thinking about quite a lot this last year. You don't realise the perceptions people have of you until you do something which seems, to them, out of character. When I tell people I'm studying Human Rights, I often get "But you're not a hippy?". When I told people I was going to Africa, there was a lot of "Really? You know you won't be able to use your straightener over there?" (Which, incidentally is a lie. I could use my hair straightener. The humidity would just immediately undo all its hard work, that's all). As a girl who straightens her hair far too much and always has painted nails (clearly, I'm in need of a hobby) apparently that pigeon holed me as being a certain 'type'. I'm not sure what type that was exactly but it was not the type who studies human rights and goes to Africa, that much was clear.

It seems that as women today we have a lot of choices. But increasingly it's becoming more important that you are seen to be making those choices. It may be whatever choice you want but you have to make distinct, categorical choices or else people feel uncomfortable. You can't be getting a Brazilian wax before you go working in a refugee camp -which is exactly what a friend of mine did. She also always made sure her eyebrows were always immacuately plucked once she arrived in the camp. Some people turn to alcohol to deal with stress. She turned to tweezers. Not such a big deal. But many friends of ours had a big issue with this. How terrible of her to care about her appearance when she does such a job?! People have expectations- girl who goes to work in a sub-Saharan refugee camp: probably a bit hairy and smelly. Certainly not waxed and plucked. Women can't have multi faceted personalities. You can't be a whole confusing mix of things. You have to choose damn it!

Similarly (but with less refugees), I have a well documented weakness for fashion magazines which is not only problematic in terms of my bank balance but also for how I am perceived. I never get on a flight without a hefty stack of glossy magazines. I have been known to buy Vogue in languages I can't actually read (I travelled a lot that particular month and I'd already bought all the main English language ones okay? Stop judging!). When I'm working or studying, most of my reading material is pretty heavy. Genocide, torture, rape. That kind of thing. Some pretty pictures are often a nice distraction. Plus, travelling is stressful and I often find it hard to concentrate on anything more serious than Marie Claire. This often surprises colleagues of mine. Apparently it's unimaginable that a girl who has a major interest in studying mass atrocities is also up to date with her A/W trends.

I'm well aware that as feminist issues go, these are relatively minor ones. There's no honour killings, stoning for adultery, etc type issues to be worrying about. These are obviously much smaller issues in comparison but they are issues none the less and ones I plan to focus on in this blog in the future. There's been a lot in the media in the last year about the perception of women, war on women and such. Debate is good. Really good. A lot of it has stemmed from America but with the abortion debate once again raging in Ireland and electoral gender quotas having recently been introduced, there's much to be discussed about feminism in Ireland today.

So, sometime in the coming weeks, I'll be talking to some Irish politicians, activists and students (and maybe some people I meet in the pub. You know, for balance) about that scariest of things in politics: GENDER QUOTAS. Feel free to weigh in on the debate with a comment below or hit me up with an email/tweet- vagina owning or not as you may be. It's all about equality folks!

Sunday 23 September 2012

Top 10 Tips for Women Travelling To A Danger Zone


Sign in Jinja, Uganda
Sign in Jinja, Uganda. Not one of the top tips on offer here.
 
NGO worker and writer Louise Hogan has interned in Uganda and holidayed in Rwanda in the last 12 months and works in London the rest of the time on mass atrocity prevention and response issues particularly around women in conflict.
Here she shares her top 10 tips for surviving a spell in a war zone, including the importance of Vogue, leggings and old fashioned common sense plus advice on how to know when it’s time for flaming sambucas in a random African country…

1. Bring Your Ipod or Industrial Strength Ear Plugs

Listening to music doesn’t just pass the time when you’re travelling through war zones, but (much more importantly), it also drowns out the horrible scuttling of any creatures at night – and trust me; there will be scuttling creatures!
If you want a decent night’s sleep, some sort of listening device is essential. In the extremely unlikely event that there are in fact no scuttling creatures there will inevitably be roosters making themselves heard very early in the morning. Even in the middle of bustling cities. Actually, especially in the middle of bustling cities. And usually the call of a muezzin- not just in the Middle East but across large swatches of Africa and Asia too. If you want to sleep at all, this is an essential.
 

2. Embrace The Delhi Belly Diet

Sampling Sudanese food
Sampling Sudanese food
 
Accept the fact that you will get sick, often. It happens, no matter how many probiotic tablets you take. Years of first world standard food has left your immune system pathetically weak and you will get sick. Usually not very severely, often at least once a week. View it as the perfect diet- one detox day a week with no effort on your part? Girls in London would kill for that!
 

3. Swat Up On Semi-Survival Facts

You probably won’t need these for actual emergencies but they are good for impressing members of the opposite sex you meet in hostels and expat bars. Stuff like the NATO alphabet. The ability to swear in five languages- one of which should be slightly obscure (you won’t impress anyone swearing in Spanish!). Or the knowledge that when you lose control of a car, you should turn into the skid. Pretend you learned that one when driving a 4×4 across Zimbabwe. Casually drop these titbits into conversation and watch the boys be impressed (and become convinced you’re actually an Israeli spy, as happened to me in Kampala. Even though I’m Irish).
 

4. Practice Extreme Packing

Capsule packing, West Africa style
 
You will need practical things such as a wind up torch, a door jam, a first aid kit and a mini-pharmacy. You will also need frivolous things such as make- up and bikinis. Leggings are impossible to find in parts of Central Asia and East Africa. Throw a Vogue in your backpack. Glossy magazines are usually a big hit with the local women and girls. Set aside your reservations about exporting unrealistic societal expectations for how women should look; the over-the-top couture ads in Vogue and Harpers will cause much amusement and sharing out the magazines will be an easy ice-breaker in many parts of the world.
 

5. Be Afraid

Not being scared doesn’t make you brave; it usually means you’re ignorant of the real risks or just a bit of an idiot. I once backed out of going along to watch a political opposition rally in Kampala. Yes, I was scared. But I was scared because I had read up on the violent riots that had occurred after every other rally previously and, predictably, occurred after this particular one, with machete and stick wielding mobs roaming the streets. Being scared often keeps you safe.
 

6. Don’t Be Afraid

Lake Kivu, Rwanda
Lake Kivu, Rwanda
 
You should also use common sense. I’ll soon travel to Gisenyi, Rwanda. On the shores of Lake Kivu which emits a deadly methane gas, Gisenyi lies in the path of an active volcano, in an area where earthquakes are not unheard of. It is also war zone adjacent, being a mere 1.65 miles across the border from Goma in the DRC, where the UN and national troops are currently preparing for a rebel siege. But it’s safe. The Foreign Office, my guidebook, daily news reports and seasoned visitors all say it’s safe. Trust your own judgement and that of those who know what they’re talking about.
 

7. Don’t drink

A night out in Kigali – ignoring the first rule of drinking - which is not to do it
 
This depends on where you are. If you are in an African city you don’t know well, where the power goes out almost every night and most of the roads are unpaved, don’t drink. In that situation, you do not need your inhibitions lowered and your judgement impaired. Know when and where it’s safe and/or sensible to have a drink. This may prove difficult as expats/aid workers/dodgy security folk love to drink. Remember though, they are inevitably a lot more experienced than you; wait till you have your bearings before you join the Aussie UN workers for tequila.
 

8. Ignore Tip 7.



Face up to the fact that you may end up going out with some aid workers, doing some flaming sambucas then taking photos with the military police as illustrated above. Also face up to the consequences the morning after. I have never experienced any hangover as bad as a hangover under a beating Central African sun. Rehydration sachets will save your life. Seriously. Bring as many as you can.
 

9. Keep your feminine wiles under wraps. Sometimes.

Posing with the troops in Kigali
 
This is something I say cautiously; of course no matter how a girl behaves, she never invites trouble. But you need to protect yourself as well as you can. In the Middle East, dress modestly. Recognise that in some parts of Africa, the only white girls they’ve seen before are in music videos and porn films. They may not differentiate when they see you. Blondes will experience most hassle in this regard.
However, you can always use your feminity to your advantage. A little flirting in some instances can get you a seat on a cargo plane to some inaccessible part of the continent of your choice, for instance (always flirt with any South African man you meet in the developing world, where they come in ridiculously handy. And they make great bush pilots).
 

10. Bring Your Festival Kit

There won’t always be hot showers or toilet paper where you’re going. Baby wipes are the answer. Think of it as an extended Glastonbury.
 
This piece first appeared as a guest post on the excellant travel website www.savoirthere.com. Check it out!

Wednesday 19 September 2012

#SudanRevolts: Notes from the fringes of a revolution

I didn't know much about Sudan last summer, when I was offered an internship with SIHA- a regional women's rights network based in Kampala, Uganda. Trying to further women's rights across a region that encompasses Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda is no small undertaking. There's a lot of issues there. After extensive research (ahem, quick glance at their website), I realised SIHA focused much of their work on Sudan and set about learning as much as I could about the status of women there and the issues they faced.

What I learned wasn't very encouraging. Al-Bashir, the President of Sudan and his ruling NCP party have instituted a corrupted form of Shar'ia law. The ridiculously restrictive Public Order Laws have little to do with Islam but instead are used as a tool to exert social and political control on the country's citizens. Women can be arrested, fined or even lashed for "offences" such as wearing make-up or trousers, drinking alcohol or being alone with a man to whom they are not related (even in an office environment). Stoning is rare but unfortunately not unheard of. Outside of the capital Khartoum, the situation for women was even worse. Al-Bashir's regime was waging a genocidal campaign in Darfur where thousands of women had been raped or sexually assaulted by the Sudanese Armed Forces and their associated militias. Conflict had once again broken out in the border state of South Kordofan in June and early reports indicated the same policies of sexualised violence as a weapon to intimidate, terrorise and punish women (and whole communities) were also being instituted there.

A grim but unfortunately accurate summation. Fresh off the plane in Kampala and deposited at SIHA's rather leafy offices, I was fortunate enough to meet many Sudanese women who worked for or with SIHA or who attended the various workshops SIHA ran for women human rights defenders.

At first I was intimidated by these women. In my mind, they were Human Rights Defenders- capitals intended. They risked imprisonment, torture, rape and other horrific consequences for the work they did. But thinking about them in such terms made me forget that they were women first- and in some case girls. They wore nail varnish and eyeliner like I did, some of them had daughters my age, some were my age. The older women laughed at my pink skinny jeans while the younger girls lusted after my H&M sandals and at the coffee breaks we all sat around chatting and gossiping.

Seeing them in such human terms didn’t make the work they did any less impressive. If anything, it made it more. Most of these women would prefer to just get on with their lives, their biggest problem being what to throw together for dinner after work or if that boy they liked would ask them out. Instead, they found themselves thrown into a fight, out of their control.  One doctor, thinking of her own daughter at home, couldn’t turn away a young girl who’d been raped as a punishment for some imagined infringement. A lawyer couldn’t turn away the case of a female street vender who was imprisoned for selling alcohol, thinking what she would have done if her husband had left her and she had no other means of supporting her children in a country that wages war against its citizens but doesn’t provide them with social welfare. One journalist was imprisoned for reporting rapes carried out by members of the police and army. The government said that writing about such “unproven allegations” was akin to spreading lies.

These women didn’t want to be Human Rights Defenders. They just were. The term itself is problematic. It’s not a profession as such, something to be put on a CV. These women were from different walks of life. Some of them were professionals, some weren’t.  Some were very religious, some weren’t. Some of them were nicer and friendlier than others. Being a human rights defender doesn’t make you a saint. It’s incredibly stressful and many of the women showed signs of a life of tense, constantly looking over their shoulder, pressure.

Meeting Safia, in particular, made a huge impression upon me. Safia was a young artist and student who had dabbled with Girifna- a political activist group largely made up of students. She handed out some leaflets which denounced the regime and attended a rally. Nothing remarkable. But then she was kidnapped off the street, taken to a ‘ghost house’ and beaten, raped and tortured by three men. They knew who she was and they knew of her so called ‘political activities’. What happened to Safia was meant as a punishment for her and a warning to others.

Safia, demonstrating remarkable strength, spoke out about her ordeal and was forced to flee Sudan for her own safety. When I met her in Kampala, she was quiet but friendly, with a soft smile. She was remarkably pretty, with amazing cheekbones and short hair. As I got to know her better, she was no longer a Human Rights Defender or a Brave Woman. She was Safia, who was much more than one horrible thing that happened to her. She was an amazing artist, an expert at plaiting hair, terrible at time keeping and partial to the odd Pixar movie.  She liked brightly coloured jewellery, coffee and chocolate.
Safia

Safia with Hala Al-Karib at the opening of her first exhibition in Kampala, Novermber 2011

Safia and I at her exhibtion

Preparing Eid-Al Adha

Enjoying Eid Al-Adha!

With Zainaab Blindio, Executive Direcotr of Ru'ya Association from South Kordofan

Enjoying some good Kordofanian cooking!
 
It’s important to see these women as who they really are, not as the terrible things that have happened to them or as remote creatures who are impossibly brave. Often, I discovered, they are terrified, constantly worried and stressed. But they just carry on, like women all over the world do when they have burdens to bear.

When the revolts began in Sudan, I was pleased in a way. Maybe finally this was it, the beginning of the end for Bashir. But I was also scared, in case it wasn’t. What if these girls were going out on a limb and would bear the brunt of the inevitable repression if no one backed them up?
There's not much you can do from a desk in North London, besides obsessively checking the frustratingly scant news reports coming out. I wrote some articles about what was going on. I joined Twitter and obsessively tweeted and retweeted any updates on the situation I came across. It's bizarre, watching a revolution unfold on your computer screen, comprised of a mish mash of tweets, blog posts and the stale language of international news reports, from your 9-5. First thing in the morning, drinking coffee and trying to do my hair, I would check all my networks to see if anything had happened overnight. Overgrounding it to work, there would be more coffee when I got to the office and more digital monitoring. I began to build up some good links with activists on the ground and activists or journalists in Europe and the US who had much wider links than I did so the information I gleaned from Khartoum could reach people in London and New York who might have some clout. Or at least the means to get the issue more publicity.
I would check my twitter, facebook and emails last thing at night before I went to sleep. One weekday night when a few after work drinks had turned into an unplanned session, I returned home sometime after 3 in the morning and discovered my inbox crowded with messages about an activist, whom I had befriended through twitter and emails, had been arrested earlier that day. No one knew where she was. All I could do was send a few well chosen tweets to try and publicise her disappearance, hoping those better known than me would retweet it and help to pressure the Sudanese authorities into releasing her. Tweeting from my nice warm flat in London about this girl languishing in a cell somewhere in Kharotum, having been in a Camden pub when it was actually happening, made me feel incredibly guilty. But there was nothing else to do.
 
The protest movement known as Sudan Revolts fizzled out somewhat but I wasn’t disheartened like some (see this piece which expresses why not much more eloquently than I ever could) . I know there are many people in Sudan working quietly, at great personal risk as always, to end the genocidal regime of Bashir. But I shared in the anger of many at the recent protests in Khartoum against the now nototious anti-Islam viral video. These people will attempt to storm foreign embassies in anger at a slight against Islam yet they will not join their fellow citizens protesting in the streets at their own leader who corrupts Islam every day in their name?  I know many Sudanese activists who were deeply and personally hurt by that and I do not blame them.  

Sudan Revolts didn't explode in some sort of Arab Spring like some pundits predicted it would. But those people were never looking at the Sudanese case as the unique situation it is, but were instead lumping into into the category of "Arab" and assuming it would go down the path of Libya or Syria. That was a mistake and part of the reason why some international commentators have written off Sudan Revolts as a flash in the pan. It should be given credit for what it achieved and seen as a step on the road to revolution. Bashir will eventually fall and Sudan Revolts will be one of the most important catalysts in the series of events it will take to oust him. Most dictators don't fall in a day.

So there you have it; notes from the (extreme) fringes of a revolution. #SudanRevolts.







 

Friday 14 September 2012

Leaving London to live by the sea. . .



I really have a love/hate relationship with Galway City. It is a gorgeous city on Ireland's scenic Atlantic coast and it does have a great social and cultural life. Having said that, it really is small. As in, tiny. And when I say it's on the Atlantic Coast, I mean that quite literally. So for many months of the years it's rain sodden and gale force winds whip through the streets (umbrella's don't last long in this town). I'm currently back here for an extended period having been away for over a year and I'm none too pleased about it- although expressing this displeasure by referring to Galway as a "rock marooned in the bloody sea" when surrounded by native Galweigans was probably a mistake. Oh well, live and learn!

Having said all that, the one major plus of being back in Galway is living close to the sea again. The beach is literally less than a twenty minute walk from Galway city centre (told you it was small) and going for a run (I use the term 'run' quite loosely) along by the Prom is keeping me sane! The other evening, feeling lazy, I went for a more lesiurely stroll and brought my camera along.

 

 


 

 
 
There's not quite as much going on here as in London (sigh) but with scenery like that on your doorstep, I suppose it's not all bad!

 

Monday 10 September 2012

Improving Development: Irish Aid and Beyond

Last Friday, Joe Costello, Ireland's Minister For State for Foreign Affairs, launched the 2011 annual report of Irish Aid- the official foreign aid apparatus of the Irish government. Irish Aid is highly regarded in development circles, both by aid recipient countries and independent evaluators. As a small, neutral nation, there are rarely strings attached to Irish Aid and it has also targeted its funding to specific countries or areas, to try and ensure some continuity of development. Irish Aid was ranked second out of twenty one donors in its committment to African development by the first global survey carried out by the Centre for Global Development in Washington D.C. Plus some Ethiopian farmers I met in Addis airport last month, on their way to China for an information exchange trip focused on new agricultural technology, said they liked Irish Aid. A lot. So there.

Despite the fact that Irish Aid is, by all accounts, run professionally and transparently, Minister Costello felt the need to pledge increased accountability in how Ireland's development aid is spent. Now, this is largely political posturing. Ireland is making bailout repayments to the Troika, social spending is being cut, new taxes are being introduced and public anger is high. There may be some who question the reasoning behind providing development aid for countries abroad, when important social services in the country are being cut. Minister Costello's comments are most likely an appeasement of such critics.

But it does point to difficult issues which plague those who work in development; How to provide time and cost effective accountability and transparency measures. Donors (rightly) wish to know their money is being well spent and properly utilised. In making such demands however, some of their money is wasted on time consuming reporting and costly evaluations, which all drive up core costs such as staffing, making it difficult for charities and NGOs, big and small, to stay afloat. Since the recession, donors have been giving less money and making more demands, squeezing the third sector even more.

Those of us in the third sector can whine about the endless reporting and receipt collecting we are forced to endure by those heartless donors who pay our wages but that's not productive. What would be productive is a dramatic restructuring of traditional donor-recipient relationship. Some donors have already recognised this. A number of considerably large, private donors I have come across have incredibly thorough application processes for grants. All projects and staff, past and present, are vetted and evaluated and numerous stages of proposals, presentations and interviews are required. Once approved however, the recipient is given a substantial grant to do with it as it wishes. The money must obviously be accounted for but the donor does not stipulate what it is to be spent on. After rigorously selecting a trustworthy recipient they then trust in their judgement to spend the grant wisely, whether it be on core costs, project costs, etc. This leads to a genuinely trusting, apprecative relationship on both sides and such an approach often allows recipients to cut down on the admin costs that result from endless reporting to donors.

Other donors are insisting that similar third sector groups amalgate or at the very least work together, so as to make money donated more effective. For example, one relatively small Irish city has numerous LBGT rights groups working exclusively from one another. One donor organisation I know of who prioritises LBGT  rights has insisted any group it funds demonstrate it is working in partnership with other, similar organisations so that there may be real, city-wide, effective campaigning on the relevant issues.

Having spoken to colleagues about these issues, the feeling I get is that private donors are largely restructuring their systems to try and overcome some the issues highlighted above. Governmental agencies however are not. Again, this comes down to politics. European countries in particular are in a difficult position. With the Euro Crisis dominating domestic politics, any money spent on aid must be rigorously justified. They are not the only ones however. A colleague of mine calculated her office devoted at least fifty hours to one grant from a particularly zealous Asian government agency- between proposal writing, email correspondence, reporting, etc. The grants was only for $6000. It literally was not worth the work that winning the grant neccesitated.

Friday 7 September 2012

Language & Politics in Rwanda (and some sightseeing)



In August I spent ten days in Rwanda, ostensibly for work but I managed to squeeze in a couple of days of extracurriculars! Kigali surprised me- compared to Kampala, where I spent a few months last year, it's much cleaner, orderly and feels much safer. It's pretty light on tourist attractions and night life however. Apart from the excellent Genocide Memorial Centre and some good crafts markets, there's not much to see. There are a few decent restaurants and bars, but literally just a few! Still, it's a nice chilled city to spend a few days in. 



I sent one hideously uncomfortable night in Butare in the south, where I failed to find a decent dinner and had to barricade my room door at night (not the safest of towns) before heading east to Kibuye, on the shores of Lake Kivu.



Kibuye is beautiful. A flooded mountain valley, the lake is full of islands- soaring mountain tops which are often shrouded with mist. It's an amazing landscape. We trekked around the lake much of the first day and hired a boat on the second day.










When I didn't have my tourist hat on however, I was doing research on genocide memorialisation for the African Union Human Rights Memorial. We saw some genuinely impressive attempts at societal reconciliation but it was glaringly apparent that Rwanda is heading for trouble. Recovering from genocide is an inexplicably difficult process for any society and it's impossible to say what is the "right" way to do it. The path Rwanda has chosen is already proving problematic however. Everyone we spoke to refused to disclose their ethnicity, referring to themselves only as Rwandans. This isn't as impressive as it sounds however as it was almost always disingenuous. Startling economic growth might have temporarily made Rwanda the darling of Western donors (although that era has now expired) but it hasn't magically caused deep rooted tensions to dissipate. The political language used when memorialising the genocide is particularly worrying; the genocide itself is almost always referred to as the 'Tutsi genocide'. This exclusive language is indicative of a wider political mindset.

This isn't mere nitpicking. Introduced in 2010, Rwanda's Anti-Genocide law claims to stop genocide denial. Hard to argue with that, right? Except it has been used to target opposition politicians who have called for the thousands of Hutus who were killed in the immediate aftermath of the 1994 genocide -whether through reprisal killings or disease- to be memorialised. Calling for appropriate acknowledgement of other victims is not denying the genocide happened. But that is how it is viewed n Kagame's Rwanda- you are for us or against us.

Kagame is due to step down in 2017. He could change the constitution in order to remain or step down in accordance with the law, in which case the country could be plunged into uncertainty. I'm not an expert on Rwandan affairs by any means but the impression I got from being in the country was far from optimistic. Having spoken to journalists and human rights experts infinitely more intimate with Rwanda since my return, I am even more pessimistic about where the country is heading, if the current situation remains.

But anyway, politics aside, it was a good trip.