Mixed Media Art Workshop to focus on Activism Against Gender Violence
In partnership with Eagle Rock Plaza, a workshop led by AF3IRM/GABNet LA member Loralei Bingamon:
16 Days of AFFIRMation
AF3IRM, the Association of Filipinas, Feminists Fighting Imperialism, Re-feudalization, and Marginalization, (formerly known as GABRIELA Network/GABNet) is taking part in the 16 Days of activism against gender violence which happens each year from November 25 - December 10. Our goal is to arouse, organize, mobilize, and incite women to take action against gender violence.
We will be blogging, protesting, writing, and educating in our communities wherever we have chapters. Please join us! Comment! Take part in the action! We have 16 days to illuminate the injustices of gender violence. Here we go!
Please email campaigns@gabnet.org with any questions or more info.
We will be blogging, protesting, writing, and educating in our communities wherever we have chapters. Please join us! Comment! Take part in the action! We have 16 days to illuminate the injustices of gender violence. Here we go!
Please email campaigns@gabnet.org with any questions or more info.
Dec 01
DAY 7: Gabnet Youth Affirms Commitment to End Dating Violence
Today members of Gabnet Youth of the Civitas School of Leadership at the Edward Roybal Learning Center in Los Angeles discussed dating violence among young girls of color.
At-risk youth are impacted disproportionately by dating violence. One in three teens will experience a form of dating violence in their lifetime. Nearly 92% of girls who enter the correctional system have reported sexual or physical abuse. Women and girls living in poverty are twice as likely to be raped than those who are not.
These unsettling statistics are unknown to many, which the members of Gabnet Youth vowed to change. “We will continue to discuss dating violence, as well as other major issues that affect us girls, because it is rarely talked about in the community, our schools, and at home,” said Cassandra Roman.
Gabnet Youth affirms their commitment to ending dating violence and will meet again on November 21st to plan future workshops, events, and demonstrations. To join or for more information, please contact Ivy Quicho at (951) 333-4306 or organizing@gabnet.org.
TOMORROW: AF3IRM/GABNet to RALLY AGAINST ESCALATION OF WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
EMERGENCY PROTEST!
TOMORROW, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 5pm
Westwood Federal Building
11000 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
GABNet is disgusted by the Obama administration’s decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We have examined US intervention in Afghanistan and this war’s impact on women and have seen that the US-backed Karzai/warlord alliance has only dragged women down further in Afghan society. This year alone, martial rape has become legal – a law was passed requiring women to have sex with their husbands up to four times a week, a law that must be followed unless the woman is ill. Islamic fundamentalism views women as sub-human, fit only for household slavery and procreation. Sexual crimes against women, gang raping, lust murders, abductions of young females, blackmail of families with eligible daughters, etc. were commonplace during the rule of the pre-Taliban fundamentalists, who now once again have key positions in the government of Hamid Karzai. They are free to brutalize Afghan women in areas under their domination and the unholy alliance of Karzai’s gang and the United States will only protects and funds murderers.
During this 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence we must answer the call to protest the escalation of the war in Afghanistan and continued US occupation!
AF3IRM/GABNet stands in solidarity with the women, the people of Afghanistan!
[For more information on the AF3IRM/GABNet contingent, please email organizing@gabnet.org or call Ivy Quicho at 951-333-4306.]
AF3IRM/GABNet Riverside commemorates World AIDS Day
In Honor of Worlds Aids DAY AF3IRM/GABNET Riverside recognizes the plight of women affected by this disease as many of them struggle, with little hope, to survive. Globally, HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age. An estimated 146,692 (in 2007) women in the US are affected by AIDS. Areas such as the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia have had alarming increases in women affected by AIDS ( numbers that exceed that of men affected by aids ). These women are often victims of sexual violence and rape, in which, a condom is rarely if ever used. This lack of protection increases their possible exposure to HIV…AIDS…and inevitably death.
“‘She died after passing her HIV to her husband’. This is an often-repeated sentence in Zimbabwe. The echoes can be heard in homes in workplaces and in graveyards, at times shrill, at times in a hushed whisper. The tone, though, is always accusatory…The corollary to this statement, i.e. ‘He died after passing HIV to his wife’, is seldom heard” – Madhu Bala Nath36.
(numbers Taken from the Avert website http://www.avert.org/women-hiv-aids.htm)
Nov 30
AF3IRM/GabNet San Diego held a film screening for In the Time of the Butterflies on Sunday, November 29th. AF3IRM San Diego members and allies gathered at the Bonita Sunnyside Library to watch the film in celebration of International Women Human Rights Defenders Day.
In the Time of the Butterflies is based on a novel by Julia Alvarez, fictionalizing the lives of the Mirabal sisters from their personal accounts of what happened during the time. The drama tells the story of a woman who, along with her family, found the courage to defy a corrupt dictator — and paid a fearful price for their actions. Minerva Mirabal (Salma Hayek) and her sisters Patria (Lumi Cavazos), Mate (Mia Maestro), and Dede (Pilar Padilla) are the daughters of Enrique (Fernando Becerril), a man who owns a plantation and a small store in the Dominican Republic during the rule of the despotic Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (Edwards James Olmos).
When several members of her family are killed by Trujillo’s forces, Minerva pledges that she will some day win revenge against the dictator, though when the leader first encounters Minerva, it’s after she helps foil a friend’s poorly planned assassination attempt.
AF3IRM/GabNet Irivine member, Christina, honors Women Defender, Mia Mingus
Mia Mingus
Age: 28
Co-Executive Director of SPARK Reproductive Justice Now
With the Senate’s most recent amendments to healthcare reform, I choose to spotlight Mia Mingus. Mia Mingus is an active defender of women’s reproductive rights. She is co-executive director of SPARK, a coalition that joins with communities to build and sustain a powerful reproductive justice movement throughout Georgia and the South.
Current healthcare reform has denied recognition of women’s reproductive rights as worthy of being provided to our country’s citizens. Let us recognize the work Ms. Mingus is doing in the field of women’s reproductive rights, as an advocate for women and an organizer for communities around her.
In a speech she delivered on gender violence, Ms. Mingus said:
“Violence against women is a form of sexism and we cannot end it until we can end sexism. Sexism is a form of oppression and we cannot end it until we end oppression—in all forms.
But in order to do this we must commit ourselves to forging a better world and a better community.”
Mia Mingus is also involved in advocacy for the queer, API, and disability social justice movements. She was named one of the 30 Most Influential Asian Americans Under 30 for 2009 on Angry Asian Man’s annual list.
For more information, see her recognition on Asian-American blog http://www.angryasianman.com/2009/05/30-under-30-mia-mingus.html.
AF3IRM/GabNet Riverside member, Jennifer, honors Women Defender, Somaly Mam
Somaly Mam is the epitome of what a shero is. Having been sold into slavery by a man that pretended to be her grandfather, Mam has no recollection of her age, her parents or life before the brothel. While living in the brothel she experienced the horrors of rape and violence. She witnessed things that no human being should, including the vicious murder of her best friend. (1) However, she was able to escape the brothel with the aid of a French social worker.(2) Though many people that escape do not go back, Mam is even more admirable for returning to Cambodia to save girls from the fate that her best friend went through.
She created the nonprofit organization called AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire, translated it’s Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances) which effectively takes down brothels and councils the victims so that they can go back into the world. Many sex slaves, even after they leave the brothel, carry the emotional scars from the experiences, some are mentally ill and some even contract STDs.Mam’s organization has rescued about 3,000 girls and provides them with counseling in hopes of giving them a future.
Mam has faced and overcome great odds to become a model for change. She is threatened often by brothel owners and her daughter was even kidnapped, though was later returned. Despite all of this, Mam has continued living in Cambodia and giving girls new hope and love. For all of her relentless efforts to stop sex trafficking and her endless generosity, Somaly Mam is an exemplary shero.
1. http://www.somaly.org/whoweare/somaly/
2.http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1894410_1894289_1894268,00.html
AF3IRM/GABNet Officer Laureen Abustan Honors Woman Defender Andrea Smith
As this Thanksgiving weekend comes to a close, we cannot forget the plight of the Native American people and their continued determination. Therefore, we must honor one notable women defender of indigenous women’s rights - Andrea Smith, a Cherokee professor, feminist, and anti-violence activist. Her work has focused on issues of violence against women of color and their communities, specifically Native American women. She was co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, a national grassroots organization that engages in direct action and critical dialogue to end violence against women of color and their communities. INCITE! is a supporter of AF3IRM/GabNet and the Mariposa Alliance.
For many years, Ms. Smith has been a persevering social justice advocate for anti-violence activism, working as a rape crisis counselor and starting the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations. She also was a founding member of the Boarding School Healing Project, which “seeks to document Native boarding school abuses so that Native communities can begin healing from boarding school abuses and demand justice.” Currently, she is an assistant professor at the University of California, Riverside’s Department of Media and Cultural Studies.
Having worked with Amnesty International, Ms. Smith coordinated the research project on sexual violence and American Indian women. In 1991 at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, she represented the Indigenous Women’s Network and the American Indian Law Alliance. In 2005, she was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize “as a woman who works daily for peace” in recognition of her research and work regarding violence against women of color in the U.S.
Quoted as being “one of the greatest indigenous feminist intellectuals of our time,” Andrea Smith has truly proven to be a human rights defender for not only Native American women but for all women alike.
