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Blog
by
Rachel Moran
Paid For : My Journey Through Prostitution
If you like sex, this is not a letter to you. If you like women, this is not a letter to you. If you’ve somehow put these things together and decided they give you the right to buy what you like, this is a letter to you.
If you’re a misogynistic bastard who gets off on hurting women, this is not a letter to you. Apart from the fact that nothing here would get through, I wouldn’t waste my fucking writing skills on you.
If you’re a man who buys sex and thinks you’re engaged in a mutually beneficial transaction that’s causing no harm, I’m talking to you.
I met many of you. So many. Too many. And I always wondered about you. I wondered, how could you justify this to yourself? How could you tell yourself – and believe it – that I was happy to have strangers’ fingers, penises and tongues shoved into the most private parts of me? How did you convince yourself that I’d be happy about something you’d never, in your wildest nightmares, wish on your own daughter? I wondered, most of all, how could you look at me and not see me?
Let me tell you who you are: you are the ‘good’ punter. You’re the man who has a laugh with the woman you’re buying. You’re the man who strokes her hair. You ask her how her day’s been. How she’s feeling. Why she’s doing this. Did you ever think to ask that of yourself?
You are the ‘good’ punter. If you see a bruise on her you’ll ask if she’s okay. Is anybody treating her violently? Yes. Many men are. Go in the bathroom. You’ll find one above the sink.
The truth, that you’re so desperate to flee from, is that you are just like a gentle rapist. Your attitude and demeanour does not mitigate what you do. The damage you’re causing is incalculable, but you tell yourself you’re doing no harm here, and you use the smiles of the women you buy as some kind of currency; they allow you to buy your own bullshit. I would know; I doled out that currency many times, and we both were that, we both doled out currency in different ways, you and me.
You came along because you wanted to spend what you had to spend, your load, which also meant your money; and you looked at me and you touched me and you fucked me and then you held me. That was always the worst part. I want you to know that. That was always the worst part.
I didn’t want to be held by you. I didn’t want to be cuddled. I didn’t want you close to me, never mind inside me. Your arms around me made me want to puke more than your penis ever did. I shut out that part; it was too horrible. Every moment with you was a lie, and I hated every second of it. And you bought that lie; believe me it was a lie you bought. I know, because I sold it.
In Costa Rica they say: ‘Who is more at fault, the one who sins for the pay or the one who pays for the sin?’ Those words were taken from a book about men like you. Victor Malarek’s ‘The Johns’. Can you see the truth in them?
You can, but you don’t want to acknowledge them. You don’t want to face up to that. It doesn’t fit with your view of what you do. It doesn’t fit with your view of who you are. But I know who you are.
I can see you now. You are the ‘good’ punter. You’ve got your fists shoved in your ears. You are the ‘good’ punter. And you don’t want to hear.
FreeIrishWoman
First published: http://theprostitutionexperience.com/
Paid For:My Journey Through Prostitution
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By: Farida Akhter
Rana Plaza, the eight-storey building housing at least four garment factories in the building’s third to eighth floor, collapsed on the morning of April 24, 2013. It was not just an accident. The day before, the inhabitants of the buildings saw large cracks developing in the building and the local engineers advised evacuation. Accordingly, the shops on the first floor and a private bank took measures for evacuation. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers Association (BGMEA) warned the garment factory owners of the building and asked not to open the factory till they gave clearance. The workers were asked to leave in the afternoon of 23rdApril.
But next day, April 24th, the factory management (from third to eighth floor) asked the workers to return to work and threatened to sack or not pay the salary to those workers who would not come to work. The garment workers did not want to come. They were afraid that the building might collapse at any time. Fearing the threat of sacking or losing salary, in the morning, around 8:30 am, more than 70% workers (roughly 3,500), were inside the building. Majority of them were young girls. There was power cut (which is quite normal every day), so the generators were on. The building trembled and within two minutes the building collapsed leaving no space to get out.
Sohel Rana, the owner of Rana Plaza is a close affiliate of a Member of Parliament,Talukdar Murad Jong of the ruling party Bangladesh Awami League, built the eight storey building obtaining the approval for only 5 storeys from the municipal authorities in 2008. He built the building without following any building code, flouting rules and abusing his political clout. There was no one to monitor to see the safety of the thousands of workers working in this building.
Aoshi, a female worker rescued after 36 hours of the collapse said, “Work at the (garment) factory was stopped following discovery of a crack in the building. We were not supposed to come (to work) the following day. But we were asked to come and told that there will be no problem.”
So it was not an accident, it was simply an organised killing. It can be termed a “Rana-made” killing of the readymade garment workers. As the factory is located in Savar, the suburb of Dhaka, the incident is called Savar Tragedy. Till today (April 28th afternoon) the death toll is 354, recorded as missing 1050 and 2507 rescued live victims. Many are still trapped inside the rubble. Many of them are in hospitals. Some have amputated hands and legs. Traumatized and saddened by the death of their colleagues, those who are alive, are not able to talk normally. The dead bodies are collected in Odhor Chandra school building, the injured are receiving treatment in Enam Medical Hospital in Savar and in Dhaka hospitals.
The list of the missing is growing longer. The relatives of the victims are carrying photo identities or holding a paper with information about the workers while they are waiting to see those rescued, alive or dead. They have come from outside Dhaka only to find out their sons, daughters, husband, wife, mother etc are dead. They are demanding at least the “dead body” of their dear ones and running from hospital to hospital. “Give us at least the dead body, please so that we will have a grave” – demanded those who gave up hopes of finding their relatives alive.
The victims are mostly young women (between 25 to 30 years) most of them unmarried, newly married or are those having one or two kids below 5 years of age. Mothers of the victims were there to look for their daughters; some of them were looking after the children of these working women.
The dead body of a young garment worker was found with a small piece of paper in her hand. She wrote, “Mama and papa, please forgive me. I will not be able to buy medicine for you anymore. Brother can you look after mama and papa”?
Another woman was crying for help from inside, “I have an infant baby, I have to breastfeed him. Please get me out for the child!”
These young women and men were all taking responsibilities of their families, so their deaths are a disaster to the family leading the family to poverty.
Rescue operation
The Army, Fire Brigade, Red Crescent Volunteers and the local people have been conducting the rescue operation. In fact, the local people comprising of garment workers from other factories, students including students of madrashas, shop owners, day labors, masons, health workers, bricklayers, women and many others joined their hands to rescue the workers by risking their own lives. These ordinary people and firefighters played an extra-ordinary role by using shovels, handsaws, hammers and other handy tools. They were cutting the walls, grills and floor to pull the victims out of the debris. They did not have any protective gear, wearing slippers, T-shirts, pajamas, jeans or trousers. A few had plastic helmets, but no protective tools. These volunteers, mostly young people (25 to 30 years), had to rescue both the dead bodies as well as live victims. Those who were alive could not breathe properly because of the air stinking with stench coming from the dead bodies around that started decomposing. Every minute, the volunteers found out the sound of the cry for help from inside among the debris. With time running out to save those still trapped inside, rescuers dug through mangled metal and concrete finding more corpses.
The survivors were badly dehydrated in stifling humidity and temperatures reaching 35°C in the daytime and about 24°C overnight. Rescuers have been trying hard to make holes in the rubble and send some dry food and water. No one knows whether they could reach them. The ordinary people were coming to help with money, blood donations, food, water, torches for volunteers etc.
Once the victims are rescued, members of other agencies such aa the army took them to hospitals in ambulances. There are, however, complaints from the families of the victims that the authorities were not using their maximum effort with equipment needed for such a rescue operation.
Apparel factories in Rana Plaza
The building housed five apparel factories. These are: Ether Tex Limited, New Wave Bottoms Limited, New Wave Style Limited, Phantom Apparels Limited, and Phantom Tac Limited, employing about 5000 workers. Several million shirts, pants and other garments were produced by the Apparel factories in the building per year.
The New Wave companies, according to their website, make clothing for major brands including North American retailers The Children's Place and Dress Barn, Britain's Primark, Spain's Mango and Italy's Benetton. According to Ether Tex, ‘Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, was one of its customers’.
Canadian clothing line Joe Fresh parent company Loblaw and other Western brands had some products made in the building. Loblaw promptly acknowledged its involvement in the plant, and said in the statement that it has vendor standards aimed at ensuring its products are made in a "socially responsible" way, but the company noted there are some gaps when it comes to building safety.
Primark, a major British clothing chain responded promptly in acknowledging that it produced garments in the collapsed factory.
Lack of safety standards
The Savar Tragedy is the worst ever for the country's booming and powerful garment industry, surpassing a fire five months ago that killed 112 and injuring hundreds of workerr which brought widespread pledges to improve worker-safety standards. Since then, very little has changed in Bangladesh, where low wages; $ 38.50 a month, have made it a magnet for numerous global brands and propelled the country to no. 2 in the ranks of apparel exporters.
The export-oriented readymade garment factories have been receiving cash incentives from the successive governments of at least 1 billion Taka ($133 million) but failed to make many of the industries comply with the industry safety standards resulting in frequent fire accidents and loss of lives. Besides the cash incentives, the RMG sector is provided with easy loans and waiving their bank interests etc. Due to failure of the safety standards, there have been deaths of 730 workers (excluding that in Rana plaza) in the past 11 years in building collapses, fires and stampedes. None of the RMG owners were seen to be punished for their irresponsible acts, resulting in the tragic deaths of the poor women of Bangladesh. After every incident, the owners declare compensation to the families of the dead workers but hardly any of those are implemented properly. The injured workers have to live a handicapped life, and are not looked after by the factory management any more. They are just “disposable workers”.
Thousands of Readymade Garment workers from the hundreds of garment factories across the Savar industrial zone and other nearby areas took to the street on 25th April in different parts of Dhaka city to protest the poor safety standards in the workplaces. They demanded arrest of the building owner Sohel Rana and the factory owners who forced the workers to go into the building knowing about the threat of collapse. Workers blocked the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, Dhaka-Tangail highway and Dhaka-Gazipur Road. Another group of thousands of workers gathered in front of the Garment manufacturer’s Association (BGMEA) building seeking the arrest and punishment of those responsible for the workers’ death in Rana Plaza. They said “It’s a pre-planned killing. Workers were forced to go and work in the building. We demand punishment for the garment manufacturers and building owners”.
Latest news is that the police arrested eight people in connection with Rana Plaza collapse in Savar. They have arrested the 3 owners including the Chairman of Phantom Apparel Limited and Phantom Tac Limited, the director of New Wave Bottom Limited and the chairman of New Wave Bottom Limited; also two engineers of Savar Municipality on charge of playing down the danger from cracks that developed in the building on behalf of the owners. However, Sohel Rana, the owner of the building who is also the local leader of Jubo League, could not be traced.
Last words........
It is difficult to end the story of Savar tragedy. The garment workers are now scared of the buildings. Earlier, they were scared of the gates being locked as they could not get out in time of fire accidents. But they have to work. They have to earn their living by working and looking after their families. Can’t the workplaces be made safe for them? How much does it cost? How much the owners have to reduce their margin of profit to ensure safety of the workplaces? On the other hand, the international buyers talk about compliances but do not want to pay for ensuring the safety standards. It is not enough to campaign as “blood stained” Bangladeshi garments. We have to hold corporations responsible both at national and international levels to ensure safety. Consumers in the western world can come forward to demand safety standards be met, but please do not campaign “stop buying” Bangladeshi clothes. The garment workers need the industry to earn their livelihood. This is the fundamental premise that should not be weakened or shattered. Such campaigns are to the advantage of the multinational corporations who will move from Bangladesh to other countries to repeat the same exploitation of the workers. Earlier campaigns of activists to promote products from least developed countries such as Bangladesh were not wrong, and we should continue the campaign despite this situation. However, we must now move away from the role of creating ‘consumers’ in the west to more politically engaged campaigns such as forcing the corporate world to be responsible for what happened in Bangladesh. The hands of everyone are stained with the blood of the workers. So every stakeholder must take responsibility.
[The information used in this article is from daily NewAGE, The Financial Express and few Bengali dailies. The interpretations are of the author]
The Lace Makers of Narsapur by Maria Mies …' a graphic illustration of how women bear the impact of development processes in countries where poor peasant and tribal societies are being ‘integrated’ into an international division of labor under the dictates of capital accumulation.'
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By Spinifex intern, Veronica Sullivan
The Australian literary community reacted last week with outrage and disbelief to Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s decision to cancel ‘his’ awards – the QLD Premier’s Literary Awards – after just three weeks in office. Newman’s decision, announced on Wednesday 4th April, raises a litany of issues about his motivations and their ramifications.
The cost saved to Queensland taxpayers, according to Newman, will be $240 000: a $230 000 prize pool, and $10 000 in administration costs. This is only a small portion – less than 0.04 per cent – of the Queensland Government’s 2011-2012 budget. The sum is not a substantial one to the government, but it is to the state’s arts community, as is the retraction of this important avenue of recognition for authors who are often otherwise overlooked.
Outside of the industry, literary news isn’t generally a hot-button political issue. Newman will have been relying on a general disinterest or ambivalence amongst Queenslanders, hoping they would accept his supposed budget-consciousness with no complaints about the long-term cultural ramifications. Ironically and hearteningly, the resulting public outcry in Queensland and around Australia has given the awards and the literary community far more publicity than they would ever have attracted ordinarily.
Newman failed to anticipate the passionate and vociferous response of Queensland’s readers, authors and booksellers, who abhor the possibility of being the only State without a literary awards program. In just over a week, an online petition for the reinstatement of the awards has already garnered over 3000 signatures.
With 14 categories, including an emerging author award for an unpublished manuscript, the Premier’s awards are a valuable platform for publicising new and unheard voices. One of the categories was the lauded David Unaipon Award for best unpublished Indigenous manuscript. Aboriginal writing is underrepresented in Australia generally, and the David Unaipon award is unique.
The premier has been unrepentant about the potential devastation he has released on Queensland’s literary community. Newman says he’ll make “no apologies” for his decision, which ironically comes in the midst of the National Year of Reading. Newman’s election campaign included a commitment to preserving the state’s arts and culture. His retrograde attitude raises worrying echoes of a previous narrow-minded Queensland government – the paradoxical mix of conservatism and institutionalised corruption which ran rampant under Joh Bjelke-Petersen in the 1970s and 1980s.
In the wake of the axing another parallel arises, with Spinifex author Francesca Rendle-Short’s childhood in 1970s Queensland. As relayed in her memoir, Bite Your Tongue, Francesca’s mother, Angel, was an evangelical Christian who campaigned for strict censorship of school English texts and conducted book-burnings. Her targets were books which she perceived as immoral and depraved, including To Kill a Mockingbird, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the works of Virginia Woolf.
Ironically, from this creatively repressed environment, Francesca grew to become an artist, author, poet and creative writer. She is also Program Director of the Creative Writing degree at RMIT University.
While retracting funding from literature does not equate to condemning or banning it, it does demonstrate a disregard for the importance of the arts which is cause for concern. Francesca has observed the unfolding of these events with sadness. “I really didn't think that Queensland would return to being a one-party state again, but it has,” she says. “I thought we had learned lessons from the past. The LNP's current hold on a 78 seat majority to Labor's 7 seats, without an upper house to oversee the business of government and its policy and decisions, shocks me deeply. All sorts of terrible decisions will now be made with this kind of mandate.
“The other shock is how quick Campbell Newman was to axe the award – after only ten days in office and as one of his first decisions – what will happen in 100 days? Given the decision was made over such a paltry amount, and given the timing, this act of his is acutely symbolic. It says so much about Newman and the LNP's view of literature and writing and reading, and the value of the arts in our community.
“But I also know that in adversity there is hope and life, and that some of the best writing will come out of Queensland over the next term of government. The state will produce writing that is incisive, inspired, inventive, resonant and bountiful."
In the wake of the decision to cancel the awards, the Queensland literary community has rallied. An alliance of booksellers, authors and various industry figures have been vocal in expressing their determination to continue the awards in some form, with or without government support. The group is calling for the awards to be renamed the Queensland People’s Literary Awards, in recognition of their new grassroots nature.
The group is fronted by Krissy Kneen, who has reiterated her opinion that literary prizes are not about the money, but about attaining wider recognition for deserving authors who otherwise go unnoticed. She says, “the most important thing is the kudos of the nomination”. Although authors may welcome financial recognition of their work, money is not generally a prime motivator in the choice a writing career.
In an interview on the ABC Radio breakfast program on Wednesday 4th April, Queensland-raised journalist and writer Matthew Condon confirmed the awards would go ahead without prize money. He said that while sponsorship and monetary prizes are strong incentives, the awards would be given this year without financial recompense for the winners. He stated his hope that “as long as the awards are kept alive in this new form, then one would hope down the track, that patronage is attracted to that”.
As scary as it is to acknowledge that a state government can completely discard its recognition of literature, the reaction around Australia has been passionate and overwhelmingly optimistic. Readers and writers are not prepared to give up on the awards, and judging by these responses their survival is assured, whatever form they may take.
Follow Veronica on Twitter: @veronicaahhh
Francesca Rendle-Short's website: http://francescarendleshort.com/
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By Pauline Hopkins
On International Women’s Day I walked my 11-year-old daughter into school, early enough that there was time to play and socialise before the school bell rang to mark the start of lessons. A couple of her friends came bounding up to say hello to her, before declaring that they had been intending to play on the basketball courts but they couldn’t as the boys were there. I pointed out to them that just because boys were playing on the court, it should not mean that they could not play there as well. I was shocked that they seemed surprised at the suggestion. It was a revelation that they were entitled to occupy and claim some of the court space for themselves, rather than allow it to be exclusively for boys just because they were there first.
So I told them a story. A story of my youngest sister who in 1975 was excluded from the kindergarten’s outdoor playground equipment and who was told by the boys to go inside and play with the other girls, playing pretend cooking and quiet indoor games. This single-minded girl refused to comply. So the next day, she decided to become “Peter” for the day, and made my mum help her dress as a boy, with her hair tucked into a cowboy hat. She did not want to be a boy, but she certainly wanted to be allowed to access the exciting, active equipment that the boys had laid exclusive rights to.
To see my sister’s experience reverberating in 2012 with a new generation and at a progressive modern school, certainly made me think on International Women’s Day. Yes, there are far more pressing and desperate issues facing women around the world-issues of discrimination and exploitation that are causing death, disease, poverty and distress. Yet it is still worthwhile remembering that simultaneously there are little incidents happening everywhere, like this one in the playground, that are sending either overt or implied messages to girls about their place in the world and their power, or lack of it.
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Last week The Age reported that cholesterol – lowering drugs increase the risk of diabetes and memory impairment. This is really bad news for around two million Australians who take these medications believing they’ll lower their heart attack risk. While the report is concerning, it is also comforting to know that there is now too much evidence for health authorities to ignore the side effects of statins.
Statins are drugs that block the enzyme in the liver responsible for making cholesterol.But the reality is that every cell membrane contains cholesterol, vital for the production of hormones, cellular repair and overall good health including that of the brain. Medication with statins such as Lipitor, Zocor and Pravachol rob our bodies of cholesterol, crucial for neurological function, so it’s no surprise that there’s an increase in dementia. Rising rates of diabetes are also understandable as cholesterol is required for the regulation of blood sugar levels.
But there is much more to the myth that is the cholesterol story. Dr. Uffe Ravnskov, author of The Cholesterol Myths explains that it all began with the landmark Framingham Heart Study, which followed healthy people in the early 1950s to see who had a heart attack and what distinguished them from the people who did not. High cholesterol was one risk factor–but it was only one of more than 240 others. Ravnskov said that the public health officials and cardiologists, confused a statistical association with causation, resulting in a new disease called hypercholesterolemia, the health issue of the 21st century.
According to researchers Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, many people who feel perfectly healthy suffer from high cholesterol– in fact feeling good is actually a symptom of high cholesterol. Living longer is an effect of high cholesterol with Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Yale University, reporting in 1994 that twice as many elderly people with low cholesterol died from a heart attack than did elderly people with high cholesterol.
It is pleasing to hear that a recent study has found that clinical and public health recommendations regarding the ‘dangers’ of cholesterol should be revised. This is especially true for women, for whom moderately elevated cholesterol may prove to be not only harmless but even beneficial. ‘High Cholesterol is not a risk factor for women’, says Dr Uffe Ravnskov, but in spite of this many women are being treated for high cholesterol.
The Cholesterol Myths begins with a story about Karla. She was a fit and healthy 62 year old cleaner when she learned she had an elevated cholesterol reading. She was instructed to change her diet and lose weight. ‘I was as fit as a fiddle’, Karla told Ravnskov. Even so she followed her doctor’s orders changing her diet to one of high fibre and using vegetable oils instead of butter and cream. Failing to lose the prescribed weight and unable to lower her cholesterol she was put on medication. In no time her ravenous appetite had disappeared and her positive demeanour was gone, but her cholesterol was way down.
Karla is not alone. Mary Adams began to notice slurred speech, balance problems and severe fatigue after she had been taking a commonly prescribed statin drug for three years. Her symptoms included loss of sleep due to restless and twitching limbs. She soon began to suffer loss of balance and problems with her gait and her fine motor skills were not what they had been. Once Mary took the next step and ceased taking her regular cholesterol-lowering pill she recovered her previous health.
So if cholesterol isn’t the villain what does cause heart disease? According to researchers Mary Enig and Sally Fallon, heart disease was very rare in 1900 responsible for about 8% of all deaths in the US compared with today’s figures of approximately 45%. The type of heart disease prevalent today is a myocardial infarction, or a heart attack where a blood clot obstructs the coronary arteries with the subsequent death of the heart muscle and is a form of heart disease that was almost unheard of before 1910. By 1950, coronary heart disease was the leading cause of death in the US.
We do need to counteract the high rates of heart disease. But rather than swallowing drugs that interfere with vital cholesterol function we need to adopt healthy lifestyles such as eating fresh foods, not smoking, avoiding pesticides and chemicals and taking up daily exercise.
Helen Lobato
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Out Now
 In the cold winter of 1875, two rebellious spirits travel from the pale sunlight of England to the raw heat of Australia....  Beautifully written by First Nations women on Gurindji country where the fight for equal wages began. This book...  I am seen by many as a danger. As having failed to understand the new rules, the new paradigm of successful motherhood.
 NEW EDITION
The women in this book may be among the last to have babies without the medical stamp of approval.
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