In Concert with Women's Resilient Voices

In most workshops, there is the standard podium or table, the PowerPoint, the attendees sitting in chairs, hearing, learning, making sense of some important topic.

Not so much at the Young Women's Resilient Voices for Empowerment Through Performance parallel session at the 2016 Commission on the Status of Women. This was a fully engaged gathering of complete participatory theatre. A program conceived and designed by Dr. Beth Osnes, Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Chelsea Hackett, PhD student in Educational Theatre at NYU and the Starfish School in Solola, Guatemala, now directed by Vilma Saloj, "Her Infinite Impact" is a 12-session introduction to expanding vocal range and efficacy through exercises, games and theatre activities. 

The session involved voice and body warm-ups, group imagery creation and partner discussions which culminated in the entire group of about 16 and then smaller groups of approximately four each contributing to the expression of what it means to empower women and how that would look as a statue-like representation. Commentary was then offered on the perceptions that each presentation elicited within each participant.

Developed as a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project, the program itself is now mainly used in Guatemala at the Starfish School. Its larger purpose, however, is adaptation to any group that wants to physically empower womens' voices through the creation of strong, stable and secure manifestations of the environment needed to do so and ultimately to transfer that to the women themselves.

In the near future, the program will be introduced in Tanzania, New York City and Boulder, Colorado, and it is working to develop opportunities for women to advocate in communities through their vocal and civic strength.

Corruption in Cambodia Tied to Violence Against Women

“The court is politicized; if you’re not a part of the system, you don’t exist. It’s so corrupt.”

These words reflect experience - the experience of a Cambodian Parliamentary member, of the opposition party, who is a woman. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, and she was awarded the Leadership Award in Washington D.C. She is the author of domestic violence laws in Cambodia. Her entire life has been about gender equality – fighting for women’s rights as human rights. One of the laws she authored regarding domestic/marital rape resulted in her almost losing her seat in parliament due to challenging Cambodian culture. She says that challenging culture is inevitable if one wants to make an impact.

The NGO CSW session of March 14, 2016, “Ending Violence Against Women and Girls,” brought together panelists from Morocco, Colombia, Iran, and Cambodia. They presented social, cultural, financial, and political factors as intersecting with the issue of violence against women and of women’s inequality in their various nations and regions. The women represented at this session work with UN Watch, Liberal International, and the International Network of Liberal Women.

In the case of Cambodia, the parliamentary official discussed the role of corruption in politics and the legal system in blocking access to women seeking justice for violence perpetrated against them. She said:

“As soon as you go to court, you have to pay the judge or he won’t even let you into the courtroom; so, access to justice is limited for those who don’t have the resources.”

She cited the negative effects this has, especially on rural women in poverty who do not have the resources that allow them to be heard within this corrupt system.

The Cambodian parliamentary member continued:

“A political campaign must be used for any gender-based movement; otherwise, government leaders won’t do anything.”

Even though the political and legal system seems both corrupt and apathetic, she chooses to work within it, though in actuality transcending it, so that she can bring change that provides hope and justice to women facing violence.

Men of Faith: Fight Gender-Based Violence by “Loving Your Neighbor”

“Most men don’t overtly abuse women or girls or other gender identities, but that’s our apathy by not doing anything, challenging others, so we’re complicit in this gender-oppression outside and inside the church.”

Men of faith, love and serve those in your community by being attentive to gender-based violence wherever and whenever you suspect it. Take action. Start by respecting and honoring the women in your lives so that you are setting the right example. Then, influence those you can to do the same. Do even more than that. Hold them accountable to do so.

These were just some of the messages communicated in the NGO CSW session of March 14, 2016, “Engaging Men of Faith to Be Champions in the Fight to End Gender-Based Violence.” The session was led by We Will SpeakOut.US, a coalition of U.S. faith-based organizations that have united to educate and take action against gender-based violence. The conversation included the moderator, who in the past served as a journalist covering the 1994, Rwandan genocide; an Episcopal church pastor from Liberia; an Anglican church pastor from Burundi; and the director of CONNECT, a local New York-based organization dedicated to ending family and gender violence.

The presenters gave several concrete steps for men of faith to take in combatting gender-based violence. They said that pastors and leaders in faith-based institutions must be challenged in regards to the sometimes harmful messages they convey to their congregations that perpetuate gender-based violence and a lack of professional help-seeking by victims. They spoke out against the prevalent apathy of men of faith on this issue. Further, they cited the “rumor mill” in such organizations, along with the associated negative attention that brings to victims, as a major reason for victims not reporting these acts of violence. 75% of abuse goes unreported, they said.

Finally, the Liberian pastor encouraged parents to have conversations with their children about sexual issues and gender-based violence so as to bring attention to such important areas that will serve to help protect and preserve people’s good, and especially women’s security.

Transformation of a Sex Trafficker

“I brainwashed the women that I trafficked … You make them fall in love with you, and then you start taking them to the strip bars and to the clubs where the pimps and the prostitutes hang out so they get intrigued with the lifestyle.”

This is how a former sex trafficker explained what sex traffickers do to young women to convert them from fun-loving children to sex workers.

In the NGO CSW session of March 14, 2016, “From the Trafficker’s Perspective: What Will It Really Take to End Human Trafficking?” a former trafficker shared his spirit-rending story. After a period of abuse at home “in all dimensions,” he ran away and then suffered from a lack of food and shelter. In this period of vulnerability, at age 14, he was enlisted into the deep, dark world of human trafficking. He spent the next 35 years trading in human souls around the globe - in Colombia, Iceland, Holland, Italy, Canada, and the United States. The reach of traffickers is further and wider than one might think.

Then, came his story of transformation. He ended up in Colombia after spinning the globe to decide on a vacation spot.

“I wanted to have vacation, have fun. I had sex with girls and made them come to Canada on a visa to work … to the strip bars.”

But, then, something strange happened as he was on his way to a strip bar in downtown Bogota.

“I saw a friend and asked him where the strip bars are. I met up with him that afternoon and went downtown in Bogota. I said we’re going to the strip bar … I was going to cut through the church. I went inside the church and I saw people praying. I looked around and saw lots of saints. It was called the Church of San Francisco. I felt something in the church. I started crying. And I felt the Holy Spirit. That happened in 2003. I didn’t go to a strip bar ever again. I told the people I worked with in human trafficking that I’m done with that.”

And he was. He has not turned back.

The moderator, with Pathways to Peace and Operation Big Sister, highlighted the experience of many traffickers, themselves enticed into the lifestyle after experiencing abuse, abandonment, and manipulation. Indeed, the goal is not just to lay blame, but rather to seek out viable solutions for such scourges on society. She said that men need to be included in this conversation. Finally, as the former trafficker’s story conveys, there is hope for change and for real transformation.