In my last blog post for UUSC, it seems fitting to write about our recent work on Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. This is the type of work that brought me to UUSC — and the type of thoughtful, grounded work that makes UUSC's work different, challenging, and important.

Over the last couple of weeks and months, UUSC has worked hard to build a program from the ground up in Haiti, forming partnerships on the ground, running workshops to help people deal with trauma, and creating the base for a long-term recovery program in the country. And that work is important — finding those people who might be left out of the recovery is UUSC's unique niche. It's what sets us apart, and what makes our work significant.

But, what about those affected by the earthquake who aren't in Haiti? Today, there are roughly 100,000 Haitians living in the United States without any sort of legal status — and those people were at high risk for being sent home in the midst of a disaster. In January of this year, just a few days after the earthquake shook Haiti to its core, President Obama declared that Haitians in the United States could apply for Temporary Protected Status (TPS).

UUSC began working on this project immediately, developing workshops where people could come and learn how to fill out the appropriate forms to assist Haitians in applying for TPS. Next, UUSC developed clinics where local Haitians can start the application process, including submitting requests for fee waivers. And, just as we have formed local partnerships in Haiti, UUSC is working with local partners here in Boston, like Greater Boston Legal Services, in order to make these workshops as effective as possible.

One thing I have always loved about this organization is that it is flexible and adaptable. Unlike a place that relies heavily on government grants, UUSC is funded primarily by individuals — and because of this, our work has few boundaries. If a disaster requires that we send in a trauma team to Haiti, that's exactly what we will do. If we need to seek legal expertise state-side to help bolster local advocacy efforts, we can.

UUSC isn't a big organization — but it has a big impact. I have felt honored to work alongside a group of colleagues who are committed to the core, and our recent undertakings in Haiti are no different.

Thank you, UUSC, for the opportunities you have given me — and the opportunities I know you will continue to provide for individuals facing a variety of barriers to their own rights. The recent work in Haiti is no exception in a long history of protecting those who most need help in raising their voices.

Browsing the New York Times the other day, I came across this article, "Quake Ignores Class Divisions of a Poor Land." In it, Marc Lacey and Simon Romero make this basic argument:

_{"Earthquakes do not respect social customs. They do not coddle the rich. They know nothing about the invisible lines that in Haiti keep the poor masses packed together in crowded slums and the well-to-do high up in the breezy hills of places like Petionville."}

I beg to differ. Here is the thing...when a disaster strikes, Lacey and Romero have a point. It can hit anywhere, at anytime, and affect anybody. But that's where a disaster's inability to discriminate ends. In the press coverage immediately following the earthquake in Haiti, many news and relief organizations pointed out that the reason Haiti is such a large-scale disaster is because of the lack of infrastructure that exists in the country in the first place, and fundamentally, that's true. What this argument fails to mention is that existing structural inequalities, on top of poor infrastructure, magnifies the impact of the disaster on certain people. People's ability to rebuild after an earthquake, or a tsunami, or a cyclone — it's only as strong as their place in society beforehand.

Lacey and Romero continue:

_{President Rene Preval was the most vivid example of just how democratic natural disasters can be, his grand office at the presidential palace flattened and his home badly damaged.}

That is absolutely true. There is no doubt that everyone in Port-au-Prince is facing the impacts of heavy devastation. But, while he is an extreme example, the president of Haiti is also a perfect example of the discriminatory nature of disasters. Rene Preval can rebuild. He can access relief, he can access food and fresh water, and he can use the connections and finances he had before the disaster to rebuild his life after it.

This was true in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when wealthy homeowners found that the complexities of the insurance policies they held were almost insurmountable. But with time, patience, and a lot of lawyers and money, they could get their insurance claims fulfilled. Those with little before Katrina were completely left behind, their houses abandoned because they didn't have the means to take on the structural power barriers that marginalized them before the storm.

The truth is, disasters do discriminate. Disenfranchised members of society become more so, struggling to survive, let alone rebuild livelihoods. Inequalities that existed are merely magnified, forcing some people onto the edges of society. UUSC works to lessen those deep divides — work that is more complex than traditional relief efforts — but, fundamentally important in the effort to foster long-term change.

Assuming that disasters affect everyone in the same way is dangerous. It undermines relief efforts and deepens longstanding inequalities. So when an earthquake, or tsunami, or flood, strikes, existing divisions aren't "ignored"; they are magnified. Remembering this fact is the key to rebuilding.

 

Q: What do you do?
A: I work at a human-rights organization.
Q: What kind of human rights?
A: Well, it's pretty broad...

Often, when I try and give a three-minute "elevator speech" on the content of our work here at UUSC, I end up stymied. And it's not because I'm detached from the work of our human-rights organization. It's because human-rights work is complex, UUSC's approach is unique, and our scope is broad. Even our partnership model, which we call an "eye-to-eye partnership" model, is different from most organizations'. We drop our agendas, listen to our partners, and do our best to respond to their needs.

And when it comes to our partners, no two are alike. We work with women's unions in Latin America, organizers in Northwest Arkansas, shrimp fishers in the Gulf Coast, and Imams in Darfur.

Recently, a colleague likened each partner to a different species of tree — and the analogy stuck with me.

Here is the thing about trees — they are all different. Each has its own strengths that nature helped to cultivate, and each fits its native environment in very specific ways. Trees adapt to their surroundings and live long, healthy lives. Trees have roots in the soil, their turf — and trees represent each landscape's uniqueness and quirks.

The Kakamega Grassroots Intitiative could be likened to the mulberry sapling.

Take a mulberry sapling, for example. Mulberries grow quickly, sprouting up to provide sustenance in unlikely areas. The leaves of the mulberry can be turned into silk, making them useful financially.

If we were to describe one of our partners in Kenya, the Kakamega Grassroots Initiative, we might liken it to a mulberry sapling. When post-election violence swept through Kenya in January 2008, leaving between 400,000 to 600,000 people displaced, UUSC needed partners that could meet the challenge head-on, respond quickly, and help people meet their immediate needs.

Like a mulberry sapling, the Kakamega Grassroots Initiative could do all of that. Just as a mulberry sapling grows quickly, so did the Kakamega Grassroots Initiative. Just as mulberries provide sustenance, the initiative helped provide for the immediate needs of the community by distributing things like food and water. Just as the leaves of the mulberry sapling can be turned into silk, loans that the Kakamega Grassroots Initiative gave out are now being turned into long-term income-generating projects.

A mangrove has strong roots, necessary in its native Myanmar.

Another example is our partner in Myanmar, which defends the rights of people who are at risk of exploitation and abuse following last year's deadly cyclone. Our partner, whose name is withheld for security reasons, might be likened to a mangrove. A mangrove is common and blends into its environment. In a place like Myanmar, this attribute is crucial: humanitarian work is risky and challenging.

The mangrove is also indigenous to Myanmar, so, like our partner, it knows and understands the local politics at play and the different dynamics in the area.

Mangroves are interesting too in that they can defend unstable areas during a storm with the help of their massive underground network of roots, which makes them strong. Our partner's roots in Myanmar are like the mangrove's — without them, our partner would likely be unsuccessful in its attempts to protect those whom it aims to serve.

Extending the Olive branch isn't just a metaphor for our work in Gaza.

In Gaza, an olive tree might be the most likely metaphor for our partner. In a land of long-standing conflicts, no tree could be more emblematic than the olive tree. Extending the olive branch isn't just symbolic in Gaza, it also represents the beginning of change for the communities where UUSC has partnered with the American Friends Service Committee to develop youth leadership and practical aid.

The olive tree is indigenous to the area, a critical factor when choosing a partner in Gaza. By working with local youth, UUSC has chosen to work with those who are continually growing and producing, a quality that makes the olive tree prized. And like the youth whom we partner with, the olive tree is tenacious — it tolerates difficult situations and continues to grow and strengthen.

So in the end, it's not that our work and our partners are so complex, it's that, like the many qualities of trees, no three minutes of explaining could do them justice. It's their diversity and unique strengths that make our partnerships so effective.

(Photo courtesy of IRIN, www.irinnews.org) Learn more about UUSC's work to protect and strengthen women's rights in Afghanistan.

As if women in Afghanistan haven't suffered enough from years of war and Taliban leadership, a new scourge has just hit Shia women — a law that forces Shia women to be sexually available, always, to their husbands.

The law applies to women of Afghanistan's Shia minority, who make up roughly 15 percent of the population. A separate family law will be drafted for Afghanistan's Sunni majority.

However, this law is not Shia law, culturally, or legally. It is a law of Afghanistan, written for the Shia population. Its an important distinction, because, all too often, people interpret restrictive decisions like these as cultural norms — and this just isn't the case.

The proposed law, which states that the wife "is bound to preen for her husband as and when he desires," essentially makes Shia women sexual chattel. It goes further, saying, "As long as the husband is not traveling, he has the right to have sexual intercourse with his wife every fourth night. Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband."

Thankfully, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has come under intense scrutiny for signing this legislation last month. Bowing to intense pressure from most of the world, Karzai has agreed to send the law to the Ministry of Justice for review. However, he also defended the law, saying it had been "misinterpreted" by the west.

If you find this deplorable, there are things you can do. You can write a letter to U.S. leadership, letting them know you want them to put pressure on the Afghan government to strike this law from the books. You can write a letter to your local paper, letting them and others know that this is happening. You can also support UUSC's Civil Liberties Program, which partners with groups in Afghanistan that educate women and bolster their rights. But don't let the women of Afghanistan come under even crueler and more restrictive laws than they have already been forced to deal with.

I watched a young man cry the other day. Tears streamed down his face as he described, in vivid detail, the atrocities he both witnessed and participated in, in Iraq. He, alongside other veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, was participating in a four-day conference called Winter Soldier.

The point of Winter Soldier, as I saw it, was two-fold. First, it provided a space for these damaged souls to raise their voices and build solidarity, while painting a picture of large-scale, systemic abuse within the military. Secondly, it aimed to grow the resistance movement within the military, a task that, after listening for four days, I realize is incredibly, painfully difficult.

I think about this today in the wake of Justice Sunday 2008, because, more and more, I am thinking about the value of life, the values of our society, and the moral questions this war raises.

This year, UUSC is asking UU congregations around the United States to examine the question: The Cost of Iraq: Who Pays the Price? I am finding, on close examination, that we are all paying the price, both economically and spiritually, for this ever-shifting mess we call the war in Iraq (part of the larger so-called Global War on Terror). Right now, if you examine the financial debt created by this war, there is no argument that, as a society, we will, indeed, pay an economic price for this war. Our kids, and our kids’ kids, will likely be saddled with the $3-5 trillion of debt created for this war.

But to me, far more distressing than this debt is the human toll of this war – the price that those waging this war, on the ground, are paying. After listening to four days of testimony, one thing is clear to me: when it comes to the war in Iraq, abuses within the military are not anomalous episodes that are limited to individual soldiers. They are the result of orders issued from the highest levels of our government.

Below are just a few of the snapshots from Winter Soldier, an event that should be examined by everyone who wants to understand the toll on humanity that this war is exacting.

*****

Dehumanization – Part 1
It was excruciating to hear soldiers’ first-hand experiences. More than once, I had to look down and focus inward, unable to listen to another story about death, destruction, or dehumanization alongside gross illustrations of ignorance and racism.

Take, for example, the way that four soldiers described in detail how they were forced to take pictures of the dead. Not pictures for documentation purposes or for keeping records of those killed in friendly fire, but what soldiers described repeatedly as “trophy photos,” photos of their “kills.” They described not only being congratulated on their first kills, but also being encouraged to photograph the dead, sometimes in front of community and family members, while other soldiers laughed, jeered, and, at times, mutilated the bodies.

When one soldier refused to take such a picture, he was hazed in a variety of cruel and dangerous ways – as punishment, he was given only a half-empty medical kit and not provided the gas mask that all other soldiers in his platoon carried.

Dehumanization – Part 2

There was the story of an 18-year-old soldier who signed up as a “foreign observer.” On September 11, 2001, from the small community he grew up in on Long Island, he had seen smoke rise from the twin towers. Angry, he made the choice to enlist, to fight for the things he held dear, his family, his town, New York, and America. But now, as I looked at him, he was something else entirely – deadened, quiet, pained. Testifying in front of cameras, he wished he could take that day back, that day of anger, when he chose war.

“I was a great soldier once upon a time,” he said. “But now I stand here doing more for my brothers than I ever did there.”

He told a story about pushing humanity’s limits, about dehumanizing the other, about the place that war can take us. Once, he saw a little boy on the side of the street holding up a small stick, as if to indicate a gun. The boy was about six years old, maybe playing at war the way many children do – a real life Iraqi version of cops and robbers, right there with an American soldier. But for the soldier, it was not a game. This soldier, the young man in front of me, told of his internal struggle not to shoot this boy, a six-year-old with nothing more than a stick in his hand. He was angry at this son of Iraq for things he had never done, for things he had nothing to do with.

When he told the audience of not shooting the boy, they stood up and clapped. How far has humanity gone when not shooting a six-year-old with a stick is something we can applaud?

That, in turn, made me cry.

*****

Abuses and the rules of engagement

Over four days, we saw other evidence of a disintegrating moral compass. Take the stories I heard about shovels, which are read by the U.S. military as indicators of Iraqi hostility. According to on-the-ground military protocol, an Iraqi who is simply walking on a road can’t be considered hostile simply by virtue of his or her existence. However, an Iraqi who is carrying a shovel on the road is an entirely different story. The argument is that shovels could be used to bury improvised explosive devices, or IEDs.

That’s why, in testimony after testimony, soldiers described how they carried shovels with them, sometimes entire truckfulls. The shovels provided cover in cases where an Iraqi was accidentally killed. By placing one next to him or her, that Iraqi was transformed into a hostile combatant. If the soldiers felt remotely threatened, they knew they could act with impunity – as long as they had a shovel handy. It was that simple.

But, in a country desperately struggling to rebuild, shovels are often necessary. People need to rebuild their homes, their schools, their mosques – and they often have nothing more than the labor their bodies can generate. In a country where shovels are ubiquitous with the effort to rebuild, the idea that a shovel alone indicates hostile intent is more than ironic – it’s criminally absurd.

But what about helping?

Sometimes cruelty came in other forms. We heard testimony about humanitarian rations, which, according to the soldiers I listened to, they were told not to hand out. One soldier told a story of how he was specifically ordered to stop handing out humanitarian rations, and only carry them. At the end of his deployment, on his return to Kuwait, he still had the rations with him. His sergeant told him to bury them. That’s just what he did, heart heavy – he buried the humanitarian rations he’d been carrying around.

Other soldiers told stories of “meals ready to eat,” or MREs, which are equipped with a chemical mechanism that heats the meal. By themselves, outside this meal-heating mechanism, the chemicals are dangerous. Many soldiers talked about giving these chemical packets, without the food, to young children. Others talked about throwing bottles of urine at people on the side of the road, driving their Humvees over the ruins of ancient Babylon, defecating in U.N. headquarters, and, possibly most sad, shooting and bombing mosques for no other reason than that they were there.

*****

Supporting our troops

I also heard the story of attempted suicide. One young man was charged with misconduct when he attempted suicide because, by making the attempt, he prevented his return to Iraq. Once he was dishonorably discharged from service, he lost his ability to get benefits from the army or go to college. He had few options open to him.

He decided to deliver pizzas, but only once a week, because he couldn’t handle more than that. Now, on some days, he gets so drunk he blacks out. That takes care of the pain. Sometimes, instead of going to his job, he spends his day at the VA hospital, begging for help to get him back on his feet. But so far, he’s gotten none.

This was the same man who’d seen the twin towers fall, who on September 11 was looking to kill. And, slowly, he got to the point where the only thing he wanted to do was die. He hated Iraqis, once upon a time. But where is he now?

Our responsibility

Winter Soldier is not a story of good and evil, where everything works out just so. It’s not black and white or us versus them. It’s a story of some of the darkest moments in American history; of systematic racism and imperialism; tradeoffs between human resources and human life; the erosion of faith in the military; and destructive aggression by an occupying power – the United States of America.

But this story is not just their story. It’s our story too, as citizens, as humans. We own this war. We pay for it. We vote for and against it. Few questioned the government when they told us that weapons of mass destruction existed or that Saddam Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda. We listened when they told us that we had to send more troops for the surge. We have failed too.

In the end, this is a story of judgment. It’s a story of coming to terms with anger and frustration towards the troops, who, in many ways, are the machinery that propels this war. It’s the story of my internal struggle with the issue of supporting the troops and what that means. In many ways, Winter Soldier helped me realize that it’s the troops who are leading this movement against the war, that they own this resistance movement.

Bumper stickers and flags are not actions of support; no, supporting the troops means listening to those who have waged this war, and then responding to what they need and what they know.

And, it’s up to us to do this.

So, look at it, watch the testimony, and hear for yourself.

 

In the wake of International Women's Day 2008, I learned through news stories around the United States that as a high-end prostitute, I could make $5,500 an hour. So, I did the math. For one day as a high-end prostitute, just one day, just 8 hours, I could actually make more money than I will this entire year at my job – a job I love. As a woman, knowing that my value, as society would have it, lies in my body ... Well, that’s a hard pill to swallow.

I’ve heard the arguments before – the arguments that say, “Who is using who here?” and “Those wily women are the ones using the system – look at how much money they're making!” Yes, they're making a lot of money – tons, in fact. Say they decided to work one day a week for the entire year – just one day a week, at 44,000 a day – well, they would cash in at $2,228,000 for a year's work. Not a bad sum of money for working one day a week, I admit.

But here is the thing. What that says to women, all women, is that the most valuable thing they can do, the thing that is worth the most – is their body. The same holds true for strippers. They are not the ones that hold the cards – they are participating in a society-wide presumption that ultimately values their body far more than their mind. And that is extremely problematic. Every time an intelligent woman makes the choice to strip, or to escort, or to prostitute herself, she is reinforcing society’s decision to value her body above all other things. She is making it harder for women like me, women who could choose the route of a body-for-money trade, but who fight that choice, and the resulting social values it enforces.

And, there is more to this story, this story of women’s bodies.

A new phenomenon has emerged in recent months, a phenomenon that puts an alternative price on women’s bodies. It’s the outsourcing of birth, and, like prostitution, like stripping, it tells women that their ultimate worth lies in their bodies. But it goes one step further – it tells some women, like the women in India who are carrying surrogate babies, that they are worth less than the high-end prostitute.

Let’s do the math again. A high-end, western prostitute makes a little over $5,000 an hour. A low-end Indian surrogate, at $7,000 a pop, 9 months of full-time work, 24 hours a day (and, I think we can agree, pregnancy is full time) … that comes down to about $6.50 an hour.

So, what I’m learning, through the prices of prostitution and surrogacy, is not only do we value women for their bodies – we value some women’s bodies far more than others. If you are western, and cater to the New York governor, we will pay you! Your body is worth a lot! But, if you are Indian (sorry!), the best we can offer you is a 9-month minimum-wage job.

Is being paid to carry someone else’s baby the same as being paid to sleep with someone? Well, no … But both acts turn the women in either situation into little more than a physical entity. And that’s the problematic thing.

It’s tragic, what we are saying to women, not just here, but all over the world. All financial arguments fall flat in the face of the larger societal impact – the one that tells women that their value, their ultimate worth, lies in their ability to bodily and sexually serve society. So the question, at least for me, is, how do we create the shift to a society where the mind matters more than the chromosome?

A few weeks back, I was talking to a friend, a father who, when he reads fairy tales to his young daughter, changes the ending in each one. Instead of marrying handsome princes, each woman in his daughter’s fairy tales becomes a lawyer for Amnesty International, or a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, or a musician playing packed houses – or some other independent, intelligent, powerful woman.

On this International Women’s Day, I think of this conversation and feel hopeful that not only his daughter, but all women, will be able to see their lives as ones of opportunity.

We live in a time, and, here, in the United States, a society, that gives women unprecedented opportunities. For the first time in our political history, we have a female running as a serious contender for president. We also live in a time where we have articles like the one I recently read in the Atlantic Monthly, aptly titled, “Marry Him – The case for settling for Mr. Good Enough.” This article, a microcosm of attitudes that hold women, all women, back, reduces women to little more than objects that put childbirth, and marriage, ahead of all other goals. And that simply is not the case.

International Women’s Day marks the achievements, successes, and power of women, today and throughout history. Right here at UUSC, I hear stories every day of powerful women accomplishing great things. There is the story of Serafina, a 71-year-old grandmother in South Africa who fought both the police and the South African government for her right to equal access to water. Or there is UUSC’s female on-the-ground consultant in Darfur, who is training men about issues of gender-based violence, helping them become leaders in the struggle for women’s rights. There are the leaders of the Rock Women Group in Kenya, amazing women working to improve both their own lives and the lives of children in the slums of Nairobi. There are the women unionists of STITCH in Guatemala, leaders in a movement for economic equality for women.

In a society, and a world, where some would have women reduced to little more than child-bearing entities, often at painfully early ages – International Women’s Day is a big deal. It tells women that they can do, and be, anything they want – be that a mother, lawyer, doctor, musician, political leader, teacher, or, likely, some combination of roles. International Women’s Day celebrates women’s choices – choices that UUSC works every day to grow, in number and in kind.