Anything positive about this?

I don’t know much about child maid trafficking, but I have to say this: couldn’t it be a great opportunity for rich families not only to get in-house help, but also to help a bright child from a poor family have a chance to make something more of his or her life?

What if a rich family hired a child maid and she only worked a couple of hours a day, had a nice room, went to school and was treated kindly?

It seems wrong to make any child work for money; then again, it also seems wrong to let them lead the life of leisure most North American kids and teenagers seem to be living.

I wonder what former child maids would have to say about this. Abusive households aside (no one should ever be abused, child or not, employee or not), would they have preferred to be left in their village with the limited options it offered, or be shipped off at the age of 10 to a house where they are well-treated, not overworked and with a chance for an education?

Until I get to converse with such a young lady, here is an article worth reading on the topic.

Child maid trafficking spreads from Africa to US

By Rujkmini Callimachi, Associated Press Writer; published on December 28th 2008

Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door.

They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn’t much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms. To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair.

But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. She was their maid.

Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family’s crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the day and no days off.

The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa. Families in remote villages send their daughters to work in cities for extra money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life. Some girls work for free on the understanding that they will at least be better fed in the home of their employer.

The custom has led to the spread of trafficking, as well-to-do Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate to the U.S. Around one-third of the estimated 10,000 forced laborers in the United States are servants trapped behind the curtains of suburban homes, according to a study by the National Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley and Free the Slaves, a nonprofit group. No one can say how many are children, especially since their work can so easily be masked as chores.

Once behind the walls of gated communities like this one, these children never go to school. Unbeknownst to their neighbors, they live as modern-day slaves, just like Shyima, whose story is pieced together through court records, police transcripts and interviews.

“I’d look down and see her at 10, 11 — even 12 — at night,” said Shyima’s neighbor at the time, Tina Font. “She’d be doing the dishes. We didn’t put two and two together.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Good Samaritan Can Be Sued. Bad Judgment?

From the Digital Journal.

By: Carol Forsloff.

Someone is stuck in a car at risk for explosion or plunged into a river where the occupant is in danger. If you decide to play a Good Samaritan and rescue someone, you could be sued for doing it according to the decision of the California Supreme Court.

People are outraged about the fact that the Court decided that those who provide non-medical assistance can be sued if injuries result. But do we know all the facts and is the rush-to-judgment public reaction justified?

This recent case, presently debated in the press and by the public, develops from a decision made by the court about the rights of an accident victim to sue for injuries received when someone removed her from a vehicle that had been badly damaged after an automobile accident involving an automobile carrying a group of people going home from work. The Court declared that a Good Samaritan who pulled a co-worker out of the damaged car can be sued for her actions because the care she provided wasn’t medical. Northridge resident Lisa Torti maintains that her injuries were worsened by the actions of Alexandria Van Horn who allegedly yanked her “like a rag doll” from the car that had crashed on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

This Good Samaritan issue has caused serious outcry from people around the country, which appears to be reasonable; but there may be elements of the case that people don’t know. However, given what has happened with other sensational cases, perhaps it might be reasonable to reserve judgment about it until all the facts are known. It’s easy to become emotional over something where only the rough outlines of the case are been presented, so responsible experts suggest that everyone wait until case conclusions, before deciding whether the Court made the right decision or not. One famous case gives an example of how a rush-to-judgment response can be wrong.

Read the rest of this article here.

To cover or not to cover, that is the question

Have you guys heard yet about this incident: Georgia judge jails Muslim woman for refusing to take off her head scarf? It’s reminiscent of many similar episodes in the last couple of years all over the States and Canada. I’m only going to mention one of them, because I’m going to use it to make a point later on: the case of the 12 year-old Sikh student whose school didn’t want him to wear his kirpan to school (check out the in-depth file of the case on the CBC website).

My first question: why are we not allowed to wear headgear inside a courtroom? Is it a matter of security or a matter of protocol and respect?

From what I gleaned during my (limited) research on the matter (thank you, Google), it seems that each judge decides as to the details of the proceedings in their courtroom, including the matter of headgear. This means that the rules change from courtroom to courtroom according to the judge, and we know that decisions are in large part the results of not only individual characteristics but to upbringing and cultural traditions.

It does make sense that judges are allowed to make such decisions, since the courtroom is their ‘office’ – why are we allowed to choose how we function in our cubicles but a judge not be allowed the same? And, on a side note, one day I will figure out a way of sitting on a judge’s chair, pounding the gavel and shouting out ‘Order in the court!’.

If a judge feels disrespected because a woman is wearing a headscarf, maybe he should be given the chance to understand why she is wearing it and what it represents. I’m sure that any fair-minded person who understands the importance of the headscarf for the woman wearing it will not impose such a rule on her.

On the other hand, let’s admit it folks: prejudices against Muslims and Arabs has exponentially increased since September 11th 2001. In this context, the headscarf can become a symbol of misplaced anger. In such a case, can a judge’s judgment be trusted?

I personally don’t wear a headscarf, and, while I can appreciate why my friends do, I think the same goals can be accomplished without having to wear a headscarf. But I admire my friends for trying to become better, and we respect each others’ opinion.

But there are some situations in which this common respect isn’t as easy to achieve, as there are confounding factors such as security involved. Remember the kirpan issue I mentioned at the beginning of the post? Well, while a headscarf can’t potentially hurt anyone, a kirpan can. The young boy who took the kirpan to school was 12 years old. I’m certain his intentions were good; but we all know how high school can be.

Not allowing the young man his kirpan implies that other young men and women are controlled for similar objects, which can also be used as weapons. Were this young man going to a school controlled for such weapons, it wouldn’t be very fair for him to be allowed to bring a dangerous item, however symbolic it might be, to a controlled area, when no one else is allowed anything of the sort (I personally have a little Swiss knife I carry everywhere with me, and wouldn’t be happy about not being able to take to school).

However, in a school not controlled for such items, is it fair to demand that all Sikh youngsters divest themselves of their kirpans while other teenagers might be bringing whatever they want to school? And you know what… Even in a controlled school, if a teenager wants to create damage, he or she will find a way using whatever is handy.

The point that I am very clumsily trying to make is that policy makers seem to have forgotten about the causes behind violent incidents. Because of the shocking images that are high school shootings, they are trying to do what they can in the shortest amount of time possible to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again. But taking away objects that are obviously usable in such violent ways doesn’t keep schools safe; quite the contrary, as such actions prevent teenagers from acting out, they will only contain their anger for a longer while, making its explosion all the more dangerous.

So now the question that must be asked is: how are we going to reach out to these teenagers and help them channel their frustrations into something positive?

Collective sigh: it’s about time

It seems that something might finally be happening in the entire Zimbabwe nightmare…

U.S. no longer supports Zimbabwean unity deal: envoy

The United States cannot support Zimbabwe’s proposed power-sharing deal as long as Robert Mugabe remains as president, the top U.S. envoy to Africa said Sunday.

“We have lost confidence in the power-sharing deal being a success with Mugabe in power. He has lost touch with reality,” said Jendayi Frazer, U.S. assistant secretary of state for foreign affairs.

Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai agreed on Sept. 15 to form a unity government, a pact supported at the time by the United States. But the agreement has since stalled over the distribution of cabinet posts and other key government positions.

Tsvangirai said this week that 42 of his supporters have been abducted by suspected state agents, a development that force his Movement for Democratic Change to pull out of power-sharing talks.

“We think [Mugabe] has reneged on the principle of power sharing,” Frazer told reporters in Pretoria, announcing a shift in U.S. policy toward Zimbabwe.

Particularly worrying, she said, was the rapid spread of cholera, an easily treatable and preventable disease that has killed at least 1,000 Zimbabweans since August.

Frazer cited accusations from Mugabe that western powers have waged biological warfare to deliberately start the epidemic as an indication the Zimbabwean president is “a man who’s lost it, who’s losing his mind, who’s out of touch with reality.”

Read the rest of the article here.

Want to help the distressed? Think about it carefully…

I… I just… I really don’t know… What can you say about the post below? Seriously?

Woman Sued for Rescue Effort in Car Crash; Legal Experts Say California Ruling Could Make Good Samaritans Hesitate

By Sysan Donaldson James, published on December 19th 2008

No good deed goes unpunished, or so goes the saying.

Such was the case with Lisa Torti, who is being sued for pulling a now-paralyzed friend from the wreckage of a Los Angeles car accident in 2004.

The victim’s lawyers claim the Good Samaritan bumbled the rescue and caused injury by yanking her friend “like a rag doll” to safety.

But Torti — now a 30-year-old interior designer from Las Vegas — said she thought she had seen smoke and feared the car would explode. She claims she was only trying to help her friend, Alexandra Van Horn, and her own life has been adversely affected by the incident.

“I know [Van Horn] has a lot of financial issues and her life has changed,” she said. “But it’s not my fault. I can’t be angry at her, only the path she has chosen to take. I can only pray it helps her.”

“I don’t have any more fight left,” Torti told ABCNews.com, choking back tears. “It’s really emotional.”

From IHT.com: Islamic Feminism

Reclaiming my Religion

By: Nadira Artyk

My relationship with Islam has never been straightforward. I grew up in Soviet Uzbekistan, hearing my grandfather recite the Koran on a daily basis. Sometimes he would translate a few verses for us. I was drawn to the beauty of the prose. I sensed a strong connection and especially admired the values of social justice, equality and generosity of human spirit.

On the other hand, I was a Soviet Young Pioneer and later a Komsomol activist. Despite all my respect and love for my pious grandfather, I saw a mismatch between his words and my reality, at least in one area – there was no equality or justice to be found in Muslim families. The superiority of men over women was deeply entrenched and never questioned.

In Soviet Uzbekistan, women were emancipated in the public sphere, but that emancipation usually ended at the doorstep to their homes. Society remained deeply patriarchal and the principal roles for women were still those of wife and mother. Any aspirations of women that went beyond the “classical” female jobs of teacher and medic were discouraged.

I came to believe that gender inequality was part and parcel of Islamic teachings. As this didn’t fit with my world view, I distanced myself from my religion and embraced secular feminism.

My return to Islam began four years ago when I started a blog for women in Uzbekistan. Together with a couple of girlfriends, we raised some highly contentious and even taboo issues – domestic violence, family vs. career, child abuse, divorce, virginity, sexuality. At one point, the blog was taken hostage by some Islamist men who left highly restrictive and extremely conservative views on every topic.

I then decided to educate myself on the original sources – the Koran and the Hadith (the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad). That’s how I discovered progressive Islam and Islamic feminism. I came to understand that my faith had strong egalitarian messages within it; that the Koran and the Hadith, having been interpreted for 14 centuries by men, had layers of patriarchal bias stuck on them like layers of dust.

Fast forward to late October. I am attending the International Congress of Islamic Feminism in Barcelona, organized by the Islamic Council of Catalonia, and I hear stories of Muslim women from around the world who have faced similar challenges.

With the global rise of political Islam, the traditional messages of secular, Western-style feminism based on the concepts of democracy and human rights seem not to work any longer.

Feminists from Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Morocco, Senegal and elsewhere confided that when they tried to educate women about their rights based on the Western human rights agenda, they were often regarded with suspicion and asked whether those principles were compatible with Islam. Women responded with far greater enthusiasm to arguments based on the Islamic teachings, to solutions to their social problems that originated from within their own faith.

Islamic feminism is a fledgling movement, but it is fast spreading its wings. Its aim is to recuperate the egalitarian voice of the Koran. Its main struggle is to uphold gender equality within families. That’s where the Muslim feminists differ from classical feminists – they say a woman will only be capable of practicing all her rights in the public sphere if her rights within her family are respected.

The Muslim feminists point out that the Koran always describes marriage as a sacred and serious pact between two equal parties. The verse about marriage, “They are your garments / And you are their garments” implies closeness, mutuality and equality.

They go to the Koran and the Hadith to demonstrate that Islam does not inherently discriminate against women, that the Islamic scriptures grant women rights to inheritance, divorce, choosing a husband, respectful treatment by the husband, and even for being fulfilled professionally outside of the family.

The concept of equality of men and women is best illustrated in the Koranic rendition of the Adam and Eve story: “Oh mankind! Be conscious of your Lord, who has created you out of one living entity, and from it created its mate, and from the two of them spread abroad the multitude of men and women.”

A woman is recognized in the Koran as an equal partner in procreation. She is equal to man in the pursuit of education and knowledge; she has equal rights to make a contract, to earn and to own independently: “To men is allotted what they earn, and to women what they earn.”

With conservative Islam on the rise, the small and underfunded groups of feminists in Islamic societies are perceived as more radical than their secular Western counterparts.

Read the rest of this interesting article here.

Don’t understand what is going on? Look no further!

There seems to be many people out there who are willing to read and learn about what is going on so as to be able to take action. Absolutely brilliant! But there are as many people who just don’t where to start and don’t have many resources to turn to.

All I have to say is thank goodness for Google, YouTube and blogs!

To understand the basics of the present financial crisis, here is a little (amusing) video I was sent a couple of minutes ago. Of course it doesn’t explain everything, and certainly doesn’t go into the deeper reasons behind this problem, but it’s a great place to start looking.

Enjoy!

Woman ‘kills’ ex-husband in online world

Yes, yes, you read that title right. This is totally worth the read, and the questions it raises? Priceless.

From the CBC:

Woman ‘kills’ ex-husband in online world

A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, Japanese police said Thursday.

The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game Maple Story to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

“I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.

She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $5,000 US.

Players in Maple Story create and manipulate digital images called “avatars” that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.

In virtual worlds, players often abandon their inhibitions, engaging in activity online that they would never do in the real world. For instance, sex with strangers is a common activity.

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married to kill the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his online avatar was dead.

The woman was arrested Wednesday and taken nearly 1,000 kilometers from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.

Online miscreants usually banned

The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.

Bad online behavior is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions. In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.

When bad deeds lead to criminal charges, prosecutors have found a real-world activity to cite — as in this case, in which the woman was charged with inappropriate computer access.

In August, a woman was charged in Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality website Second Life.

In Tokyo, a 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing the ID and password from a fellow player of an online game in order to swindle virtual currency worth $360,000 US.

Virtual games are popular in Japan, and Second Life has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.

Fact or Fiction: you can accidently give birth to a baby while on the toilet and not even notice

Apparently, it’s fact.

If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself: here, here, here, and here.

Pretty disturbing, isn’t it.

Maybe I should start a Dark Tales for Dark Days series or something.

Follow-up debate: 19 year old commits suicide via webcam

Web Suicide Viewed Live and Reaction Spur a Debate

By BRIAN STELTER

Published: November 24, 2008

For a 19-year-old community college student in Pembroke Pines, Fla., the message boards on BodyBuilding.com were a place to post messages, at least 2,300 of them, including more than one about his suicidal impulses. In a post last year, he wrote that online forums had “become like a family to me.”

“I know its kinda sad,” the student, Abraham Biggs, wrote in parenthesis, adding that he posted about his “troubles and doubts” online because he did not want to talk to anyone about them in person.

Last Wednesday, when Mr. Biggs posted a suicide note and listed the drug cocktail he intended to consume, the Web site hardly acted like a family. On BodyBuilding.com, which includes discussions of numerous topics besides bodybuilding, and on a live video Web site, Justin.tv, Mr. Biggs was “egged on” by strangers who, investigators say, encouraged him to swallow the antidepressant pills that eventually killed him.

Mr. Biggs’s case is the most recent example of a suicide that played out on the Internet. Live video of the death was shown online to scores of people, leading some viewers to cringe while others laughed. The case, which has prompted an outpouring of sympathy and second-guessing online, demonstrates the double-edged nature of online communities that millions of people flock to every day.

Online communities “are like the crowd outside the building with the guy on the ledge,” Jeffrey Cole, a professor who studies technology’s effects on society at the University of Southern California. “Sometimes there is someone who gets involved and tries to talk him down. Often the crowd chants, ‘Jump, jump.’ They can enable suicide or help prevent it.”

On blogs and forums last week, some people wondered whether Mr. Biggs had hoped that by broadcasting his suicide, he would attract attention and cause someone to intervene. Viewers eventually called the police, but only after he had lapsed into unconsciousness. The video streaming Web site, Justin.tv, said Monday that it hoped its members would be “more vigilant” in the future.

It was not the first time someone had used the Web in this way. In Arizona in 2003, a man overdosed on drugs while writing about his actions in a chat room. In Britain last year, a man hanged himself while chatting online and webcasting. In both cases, other users reportedly encouraged the individual.

Sometimes other users show support in troubling ways. In a number of well-publicized cases in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere, people have formed suicide pacts on the Internet and met in person to carry out their plans.

“If somebody threatens suicide or attempts suicide, it’s never a joke,” said Joshua Perper, the chief medical examiner for Broward County, where Mr. Biggs lived. “It always requires attention. It’s basically a cry for help.”

Much of the evidence of Mr. Biggs’s suicide and the reactions of users was removed from BodyBuilding.com and Justin.tv after his death was confirmed. But according to a chronology posted by a fellow user, Mr. Biggs listed the pills he had obtained and posted a suicide note that he had copied from another Web site. He directed people to his page on Justin.tv, where anyone can plug in a webcam and stream live video onto the Internet. In a chat room adjacent to the live video, the “joking and trash talking” continued after Mr. Biggs consumed the pills and lay on his bed, according to the user, who said he tried to reach the local police from his home in India.

Several other concerned users called the police when it appeared that Mr. Biggs had stopped breathing. As officers entered the room, according to a screen capture of the incident that circulated online, 181 people were watching the video. In the chat room, users typed the acronyms for “oh my God” and “laugh out loud” before the police covered the webcam.

Read the rest of the post here.