politics | Entries tagged with asia s. eastern: phillipines

TRIGGER WARNING FOR MENTIONS OF RAPE, ABUSE ETC:

Saudi Arabian torment of migrant workers at mercy of abusive 'madams'

Foreign workers in Saudi Arabia send £17bn to families back home annually. But for some, the cost in physical and mental abuse is too high, writes Jason Burke

Shortly after dawn, as the sun rises over the hills behind the city, tens of thousands of women will wake in the Saudi Arabian port of Jeddah and go to work. Maybe 14 or 16 hours later, their day will be over.

They are maids, almost all from the Philippines or Indonesia, working for £100-£200 a month. There are more than 500,000 of them in Saudi Arabia, among nearly nine million foreign workers who sweep roads, clean offices, staff coffee shops, drive the cars that women are banned from driving and provide the manpower on the vast construction projects.

The story of the maids rarely receives attention, except when a new shocking incident reveals once again the problems many of them face. Last weekend a 54-year-old Indonesian maid was beheaded by sword for killing her female boss with a cleaver. Ruyati binti Sapubi had, an Islamic court heard, endured years of abuse before finally attacking her "madam", as the maids call their employers, when denied permission to return home.

( Read more... )

Recall the recent headline:UN's ILO (International Labour Organization) says that domestic workers...are workers Hopefully this new ruling will help to combat this kind of abuse.

the_future_modernes

The Word on Women - Emotions high over Reproductive Health bill in the Philippines

BANGKOK (TrustLaw) – Two female presidents have governed the Philippines, an achievement its neighbours have yet to match. The country also has high-profile female politicians, activists and entertainers who have made names around the world.
Yet these powerful women who run countries and companies successfully have not been allowed to access family planning policies according at will. They cannot go through procedures like tubal ligation without their husbands’ consent or take contraceptive pills without being reminded it is, as the Catholic Church termed it, “intrinsically evil.”
Or, like an outspoken commentator said, “The absurdity is that Filipinas are free to vote, be doctors, lawyers and soldiers, run a business, a political party or the whole country, but cannot even take the Pill. Or we can, but we’re told we’ll go to hell for it.”
This could all change, if Noynoy, as the current president Benigno Aquino III, son of democracy heroine Corazon Aquino, is better known, gets his way in getting the Reproductive Health (RH) bill approved in Philippines’ parliament.
But first he has to get past the country’s most powerful institution, the Catholic Church, which has threatened civil disobedience and likened him to ousted dictator Marcos for warning against such actions.
The bill is currently in second reading and the heated debate over it will continue when Congress resumes in late July.
“SEX BILL”
Around 80 percent of Filipinos are Catholic. A poll last year showed seven out of 10 would support an RH bill that does not decriminalize abortion. The Church however opposes access to and information about contraception methods,
One Archbishop called the proposed RH bill a “Sex Bill” where the end products “are promiscuity, insensibility, amorality.”
MORE

the_future_modernes

World Economy: Women Weigh in on Poverty, Work and Debt

The International Museum of Women's online exhibit on women and the economy, features slideshows, podcasts, videos and essays on women from countries such as Sudan, Denmark, Philippines, USA, Costa Rica, Mexico, Argentina and how they view issues such as poverty, business, family, rights, money and much more.
Economica, IMOW's online interactive exhibit sets out to explore women's contribution in the global economy. Picturing Power and Potential, was a juried photography exhibit showing different ways in which women participate in the economy and are agents of change.
For example, the exhibit's Community Choice Award winner was Brenda Paik Suno, a third generation Korean-American who took pictures of a Jeju Granny of the Sea, a woman who is part of the tradition of female divers of the Jeju Islands who have harvested the sea for generations:

MORE

White House Communications Director Dodgey When Asked about War on Women

Daily Kos Associate Editor Kalli Joy Gray: I'd like to ask you about a different kind of war, and this is a war that I am particularly concerned about.

White House Director of Communications Dan Pfeiffer: Okay.

Gray: The war on women. [Audience applause.] We're seeing an unprecedented number of attacks on women at the state and federal level—everything from contraception to health care to food stamps, um, drug-testing of women receiving welfare in Florida. Women in Congress, including Nancy Pelosi, are talking openly about a war on women. So, I want to know if the president agrees with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and our new DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Shultz: Is there a war on women?

Pfeiffer: Well, what I can say is that there is no question that there is a sustained effort from Republicans at the federal and state level to, uh, undo a lot of the progress we've done. I think the most, uh, prominent example was the effort to defund Planned Parenthood, uh, during the government funding battle a few months ago, which the president, uh, at that point told the House Republicans that if they wanted to defund Planned Parenthood, that they were going to have to shut down the government over it. We see this in Indiana, where, uh, Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law an effort that would, uh, illegally defund Planned Parenthood, and the federal government is involved in a lawsuit to stop that. And so he, the president, is very concerned about all of these efforts, uh, and the ones on the federal level that we can play an active role to stop, including the use of the veto pen, uh, the president will do that.

[Note from Liss: Notice that Gray asked him a yes or no question: Does the president agree that there is a war on women? And instead of straightforwardly answering her question, Pfeiffer mansplains the problem to her, as if she and her audience are stupid and/or unaware of the issues affecting women. The thing is, he implicitly answers yes just by his reflexive defensiveness; there's no need to defend the president's record if you don't agree that there's a war on women—but he won't say it, because openly acknowledging there is a war on women is to then admit that the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Act ain't fucking enough. Gray, fortunately, zeroes in and does not let him off the hook.]

Gray: Yes, but we also saw during the healthcare debate that, when it comes down to it, women's issues take a back seat for the "larger" issues, so, for example, the president said that accepting the Hyde Amendment, which punishes poor women in this country, was an acceptable status quo and that we needed to put that aside for the bigger picture. So, I'll ask again: Is there a war on women?

Pfeiffer: [pause] Let's talk about healthcare for a second, which is— [Gray laughs mirthlessly at his obvious evasiveness; the audience laughs; Pfeiffer holds up his finger, gesturing to her to hold on and listen.] The, the, the Hyde Amendment— ["Just say yes!" someone shouts from the audience] The Hyde Amendment was, uh, was the law of the land, and so—

Gray: It's renewed every year. It is not the law of the land. It is renewed every year. [Audience applause.]

Pfeiffer: Right, and, and if we tried to repeal it in health reform, there would be no health reform. And that, that was, that was the choice. It was a very simple choice, and so—

Gray: It was a simple choice?

Pfeiffer: It was, well, it's, you have two options—it's simple in the fact that you have two options; it's not an easy choice! [He says this like Gray is being a jerk.] You have two choi—you have two options: And it was no health reform and make that attempt, which would've failed and would most certainly not have passed the United States Senate, so that's the choice you have to make.

[He says this in this really matter-of-fact way, as if anyone would question the decision is an asshole, and when he says "the choice you have to make," I wonder who that "you" is supposed to be, really, because it's definitely not the women who are left without any choice because of the Hyde Amendment.]
MORE

I... didn't know that the Hyde Amendment was renewed every year. Are we for real??? Instead of making progress so that the damn thing LAPSES, we keep passing it like its no big thing????

effex

Hello!

the_future_modernes asked me to repost this:

* The flooding in Australia is still bad, bad, bad. Both the Australian Red Cross and the Queensland Government homepage are good places to donate (via

copperbadge).

* There's also flooding in Brazil, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. And Columbia is still recovering from flooding in early December. Googling gets me the Brazilian Red Cross (in Portuguese), the Philippine Red Cross, the Malaysian Red Crescent, the Thai Red Cross, the Sri Lanka Red Cross, and the Columbian Red Cross (in Spanish). Anyone know of other repudiable organizations?

the_future_modernes

Silicon Sweat Shops

[Editor’s note: Silicon Sweatshops is a five-part investigation of the supply chains that produce many of the world’s most popular technology products, from Apple iPhones, to Nokia cell phones, Dell keyboards and more. The series examines the scope of the problem, including its effects on workers from the Philippines,Taiwan and China. It also looks at a novel factory program that may be a blueprint for solving this perennial industry problem.]
TAIPEI, Taiwan — Hourly wages below a dollar. Firings with no notice. Indifferent bosses. Labor brokers that leech away months of a worker's hard-earned wages. A corporate shell game that leaves no one responsible.
Such conditions are widespread at the contract factories cranking out some of the most popular gadgets on the holiday season’s gift lists, according to labor rights activists and workers interviewed by GlobalPost.
Whether it's your cherished iPhone, Nokia cell phone or Dell keyboard, it was likely made and assembled in Asia by workers who have few rights, and often toil under sweatshop-like conditions, activists say.
[China's labor suicides: China worker suicides: a lost generation? and Foxconn suicides: Why higher pay won't work]

...
By the time a gadget reaches Apple's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City or any other U.S. retailer, it may have passed through the hands of a heavily indebted Filipina migrant worker on the graveyard shift in Taiwan, a Taiwanese "quality control" worker who'll soon be fired without warning, and a young Chinese worker clocking 80-hour weeks on a final assembly line, at less than a dollar an hour.
Recent years have seen a drumbeat of reports on such abuses. In 2006, in an audit following a British media report, Apple found that workers in a factory assembling iPods in China were working excessive overtime hours.
Earlier this year, the Pittsburgh-based National Labor Committee, a nonprofit human rights group, alleged that workers at a supplier to Microsoft, Dell and other brands in Dongguan, China, were clocking mandatory 81-hour weeks, on average. (Dell said in an email that a "corrective action plan" has since been developed after a joint audit of the firm with other customers. A Microsoft spokesperson said it was investigating the supplier firm and would make any "necessary improvements.")
Embarrassed companies have vowed to do better. They've drafted "codes of conduct" for their Asian suppliers, and promised more factory audits to catch abuses.

here's the problem

the_future_modernes

How a Tiny Town Sent an International Water Giant Packing:In the fight for water independence, Felton, California has become a symbol of what can be achieved.

In 2008, weeks after communities all over the United States celebrated the Fourth of July, the tiny town of Felton, Calif., marked its own holiday: Water Independence Day. With barbecue, music, and dancing, residents marked the end of Felton’s six-year battle to gain control of its water system. The fight, like the festivities, was a grassroots effort. For when a large, private corporation bought Felton’s water utility and immediately raised rates, residents organized, leading what was ultimately a successful campaign for public ownership and inspiring other communities nationwide.MORE

World's Water Supply: Here Are the Haves and Have Nots

British-based risk consultancy Maplecroft has released a new report showing which countries have the most precarious and stable water supplies. The report is intended to help guide investors, underscoring just how serious water supply is getting when it comes to the world economy. From farming to manufacturing, investors in various industries are starting to seriously weigh where they put their money based on how secure water supplies are or will be, and companies with interests in areas with unstable water supplies are having to put water efficiency in a place of priority. Though it focuses on areas of risk, the report also reveals whole new areas in water where investors may want to pile in funds.
Reuters reports, "African nations led by Somalia, Mauritania and Sudan have the most precarious water supplies in the world while Iceland has the best, according to a survey on Thursday that aims to alert companies to investment risks... A "water security risk index" of 165 nations found African and Asian nations had the most vulnerable supplies, judged by factors including access to drinking water, per capita demand and dependence on rivers that first flow through other nations."MORE

The Price of Water: A Comparison of Water Rates, Usage in 30 U.S. Cities

A first of its kind survey of residential water use and prices in 30 metropolitan regions in the United States has found that some cities in rain-scarce regions have the lowest residential water rates and the highest level of water use. A family of four using 100 gallons per person each day will pay on average $34.29 a month in Phoenix compared to $65.47 for the same amount in Boston.

The survey, conducted by Circle of Blue over the last several months, also found that average daily residential water use ranged from a low of 41 gallons per person in Boston to a high of 211 gallons per person in Fresno, Calif.MORE

Philippines: Manila Water Crisis

Metro Manila, the national capital region of the Philippines, is now experiencing a water shortage crisis with millions enduring water supply rationing. Desperate for a bath, disgruntled residents have taken to breaking a water pipe in Malabon City. Filipino bloggers try to make sense of the crisis. Blackshama's blog finds the fact this rationing is done during the rainy season worrisome.

August is historically the wettest month. Unless weather patterns change, next month may be the driest August. September is the last month of the wet season and then the dry begins. The only thing to be done is to lessen water use.
MORE

Will Drinking Water for Millions be Devastated by Natural Gas Drilling?

The ordinary tap water available to 12 million residents in the New York Metropolitan area has been reliably clean and flavorful since 1842, when an aqueduct was built to bring pristine water from upstate to the city. For years the prideful city's water is a consistent winner in blind taste tests. Easy to take for granted, it comes as a shock to learn it is now endangered by natural gas drilling.

For a couple of years there have been media reports from Pennsylvania to Texas of drinking water so tainted that folks are able to light the water from their kitchen tap on fire. There have been more than 300 instances of contaminated water in Colorado since 2003, and more than 700 instances in New Mexico, according to Bruce Baizel, senior staff attorney with Earthworks' Oil & Gas Accountability Project. In West Virginia a once lushly forested area has been transformed into a dead zoneMORE

Community Water Solutions in Action in Laos

XIENG NGEUN, Laos -- With just 13.4 percent of the country’s 6.3 million people having access to piped water at present, Lao authorities would have to work more than double time if the rest of the population are to have clean and safe water within a decade.

Here in Xieng Ngeun however, no one is waiting for the government alone to provide the townspeople with their water needs.

Located 25 kilometres south of the World Heritage City of Luang Prabang and part of the province of the same name, Xieng Ngeun boasts of having Laos’s first water-supply and sanitation project in which the community has taken part in all its stages, from planning to implementation.
MORE

One Year After Ontario Ban: Over 80 Percent Decline of Pesticides in Surface Waters

In April 2009, it became illegal to sell or apply pesticides for cosmetic lawncare in Ontario, Canada. It seems like a no-brainer risk versus benefits analysis: the benefit is ...hmmm, just cosmetic...while the risks are real, documented, and pervasive. But somehow the allure of a green, weed-free lawn keeps conquering rationality. A year later, does the preliminary data on the effectiveness of Ontario's cosmetic pesticide ban prove it is a good idea?

The scope of the pesticide ban is described on the News Ontario website:

Pesticides cannot be used for cosmetic purposes on lawns, vegetable and ornamental gardens, patios, driveways, cemeteries, and in parks and school yards. There are no exceptions for pest infestations (insects, fungi or weeds) in these areas, as lower risk pesticides, biopesticides and alternatives to pesticides exist. More than 250 pesticide products are banned for sale and over 95 pesticide ingredients are banned for cosmetic uses.

If you are a World Cup fan or a golf player, you might be asking yourself: but what about a perfectly groomed playing field? The Ontario ban provides for the continued use of some banned pesticides for special applications, under strict oversight of the Ministry of the Environment. Other exceptions include combatting poisonous plants or disease-carrying insects.MORE

In New Mexico, Ancient Traditions Keep Desert Waters Flowing

New Mexico has a spiritual power emanating from the landscape -- its rios, mesas, llanos, sierras -- that informs our traditional cultures.

Native Americans live each day in a vibrant relationship with everything around them. For them, New Mexico is not just a place to live. It is a way to live.

Similarly, Indo-Hispanos have created an intimate relationship with the landscape over the past three or four centuries. They built acequias -- communal irrigation systems—not only to sustain an agricultural lifestyle, but also to caress and sustain the Earth and its natural creatures.

Acequias evolved over 10,000 years in the deserts of the Middle East and were introduced into southern Spain by the Moors during their nearly 800-year occupation. Spanish colonizers took acequias to the New World. Acequias included specific governance over water distribution, water scarcity plans, and all other matters pertaining to what was viewed as a communal resource. The mayordomo, or watermaster, of the acequia made decisions about water distribution among community members, with the consent and advice of the acequia members.

This communal system of irrigating was a response to the scarcity of water in arid regions and was key to the survival of agricultural communities. In many instances, the acequia governance system was also used to settle other community conflicts, especially in areas like New Mexico, located far from the seat of government in Mexico City. The irrigation system that evolved over centuries and that was implemented in New Mexico was created to ensure a formal civil process to resolve water-rights issues, especially in dry times. Each irrigator had one vote to elect the mayordomo. The mayordomo had ultimate authority over water disputes and his word was final. He derived his authority from the communal power vested in him by all of the irrigators.MORE

Ugandans Return Home to a Demolished Water Infrastructure

AUSTRAILIA: The Biggest Dry is Global Warning of Water Scarcity

The Price of Hydropower Pursuits in Patagonia

War on Water: A Clash Over Oil, Power and Poverty in the Niger Delta

The Himalayas, A Special Report

la_vie_noire

Maguindanao Massacre witness killed.

A former militiaman who failed to get protection from the justice department after he tagged the powerful Ampatuan clan as being responsible for the Maguindanao massacre has been felled by an assassin’s bullet.

Six months and two weeks after he first appeared on television with his face hidden behind a mask to talk about the massacre, Suwaib Upham was gunned down by a lone attacker on June 14 in Parang town, Maguindanao province, some 100 kilometers from where the carnage occurred.

It was only on Thursday following media inquiries—or more than a week after the shooting first appeared on the town police blotter—that official information on Upham’s killing came.

Philippine Daily Inquirer informants in Maguindanao said Upham—believed to be in his 20s—had been moving from one place to another to avoid coming to harm after agreeing to testify against the Ampatuan clan.

Centerlaw Philippines, which assists families of 14 of the massacre victims, laid the blame for Upham’s death on acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for not supposedly giving any protection to the witness.

His death was recorded on the police blotter as just another case of killing. There was no mention on the blotter of him being a massacre witness.

Upham, a member of the disbanded Ampatuan militia, was shot dead at around 8 p.m.

“The gunman remained unidentified and the motive was still unclear. We are still determining the real motive of the attack,” Senior Supt. Alex Lineses, Maguindanao police chief, told reporters.

Police have apparently made no arrests.

Emphasis mine.

the_future_modernes

South Asia: Looking Back At 2009 Part 1

South Asia: Looking Back At 2009 (Part 2)

India: the Sapling Project

ENVIRONMENT-INDIA: Creeping Deserts and Crouching Hunger

Phillipines: Life in Evacuation Centers

Hong Kong: New Year March for Democracy

Cambodia: Female Voices in the Blogosphere

Caucasus: 2009 Blog Review

Mongolia: Climate Change Affecting Nomadic Way of Life

THAILAND: With Hmong Expulsion, Army Asserts Foreign Policy Role

DEVELOPMENT: Filipino Communities Turn Trash Into Cash

SRI LANKA: A Nation Struggles to Forget a Tragedy

Armenia: 21st Anniversary of the 1988 Earthquake

Bangladesh:Television Zindabad

Videos on how Maternal Mortality Affects Communities

the_future_modernes

Philippines reels from mass killing - 24 Nov 09

Philippines 'witness' recounts killings - 26 Nov 09

The chief suspect in the killing of at least 57 people in the southern Philippines has turned himself in to local authorities.

Andal Ampatuan Jr, a local mayor and member of a powerful political clan in the Maguindanao province, says he surrendered to prove his innocence.

But Aljazeera later spoke to a man who said he was there when the killings happened, and he laid the blame squarely on Ampatuan Jr.

Marga Ortigas reports from Maguindanao.

The Maguindanao Massacre

On 23 November, the wife and two sisters of Buluan Vice Mayor Esmael Mangudadatu went to the town of Ampatuan to register him for the 2010 elections for the province of Maguindanao in the Philippines. They were Genalyn Mangudadatu, Vice Mayor Eden Mangudadatu of Mangudadatu town and Bai Farinna Mangudadatu respectively. A recipient of death threats, Esmael Mangudadatu couldn’t register himself for fear of being killed, and the police and the army didn’t grant him protections such that he could. It was thought that women, holding a place of respect, would not be harmed. For extra protection, the three were accompanied by the two female lawyers of the family, Cynthia Oquendo-Ayon and Connie Brizuela, a number of other family members, drivers and supporters and, again for safety, journalists and their assistants. (Apologies, I can’t find a list of all their names. Wikipedia’s partial list of names is the best I can do.) Aquiles Zonio of the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that Eden Mangudadatu was heard to say, ‘This is women power in action. Let’s help our men chart a better future for the province’.MORE

the_future_modernes

To start off, a couple of booksThe Real Cost of Prison Project Comics that have been thoroughly researched dealing with the War on Drugs, the cost of Prison Towns and how prison affects women and children.

The Incarcerated Woman: Rehabilative Programming in Women's Prisons (Paperback)

Resistance behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women

Lets take a short look at how disabled prisoners are treated in prison in a couple of developed countries:

USA Disablement, Prison, and Historical Segregation

The story of disablement and the prison industrial complex must begin with a trail of telling numbers: a disproportionate number of persons incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails are disabled. Though Census Bureau data suggest that disabled persons represent roughly one-fifth of the total population, prevalence of disability among prisoners is startlingly higher, for reasons we will examine later. While no reliable cross- disability demographics have been compiled nationwide, numerous studies now enable us to make educated estimates regarding the incidence of various disability categories among incarcerated persons. Hearing loss, for example, is estimated to occur in 30 percent of the prison population, while estimates of the prevalence of mental retardation among prisoners range from 3 to 9.5 percent.

Rates of learning disability are spectacularly high among prisoners; in studies conducted among incarcerated juveniles, learning disabilities have been estimated to occur in up to 55 percent of youth nationwide; in one single-state study, 70 percent of youth qualified for special education. As for mental disabilities, in California anywhere from one-sixth to one-fourth of prisoners are believed to have diagnosable “serious mental disorders.” Most stunning of all is a four-state study which examined juveniles imprisoned for capital offenses; virtually 100 percent of those studied were multiply disabled (neurological impairment, psychiatric illness, cognitive deficits), having suffered serious central nervous system injuries resulting from extreme physical and sexual abuse since early childhood.1

Why are so many prisoners in the United States disabled?MORE

( Read more... )

Profile

Discussion of All Things Political

January 2013

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Discussion of All Things Political

Entries tagged with asia s. eastern: phillipines

The continuing problem of migrant worker exploitation worldwide:domestic worker abuse Saudi Arabia:

Lord, save us from some of your followers.

Women speak: on poverty debt work and reproductive justice

Floods worldwide

Whats behind that sleek Apple iphone?

Water Links

(no subject)

from asia

Maguindanao Massacre in the Phillipines

The Prison Diaries

Profile

January 2013

Links

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags