by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor & Founder, The WIP

• WIP Contributor Cheery Zahau interviews a woman raped by Burmese soldiers in her ongoing coverage of human rights abuses and rape as a weapon of war. •

For the first time in my life, I see a clear pathway to a future that is sustainable, safe, and free from oppression. Today I feel convinced, down to a cellular level, that the solutions and answers to every issue our global society faces – from the grave injustices committed against women and children to the severe effects of climate change and poverty – can be found in the global women’s movement – a movement that is growing, transformative, and one that I predict will take the world by force this decade.

by Emel Baştürk Akca
- Turkey -

Once one of Turkey’s biggest public producers of alcoholic beverages and tobacco products, TEKEL has outlets and factories all over the country. But ever since the Turkish giant opted for privatization and terminated about 10,000 employment contracts, its former employees have been fighting for labor rights protection and equitable compensation. Left with nothing but a termination notice, the workers have converged in the Turkish capital of Ankara and launched what has become the greatest protest the country has seen for 30 years. Camped out in tents in front of the Confederation of Turkish Trade Union’s (TURK-IS) headquarters for more than two months now, the number of strikers continues to grow. Despite freezing cold temperatures and snow, the strike continues to gain momentum and support as more protesters join them daily.

by Wazhmah Osman
- Afghanistan/USA -

Today Afghanistan finds itself in a state of collapse and at the center of a powerful network of global terrorism. Kabul is a city filled with anxiety, insecurity, instability, trauma, and uncertainty; lost souls at the mercy of warlords turned government officials and disillusioned by development aid that has only reached and made a small sector of society obscenely rich. Suicide bombs, corruption, military planes, armored vehicles, and convoys of tanks are a regular part of everybody else’s lives.

by Aditi Bhaduri
- India -

With her large flashing eyes rimmed with kohl and flowing hair, she is the quintessential dancer. Despite her chain-smoking, she is the picture of health and surprisingly agile. But then again, she has been breaking down traditional stereotypes for years as an acclaimed dancer in a country where dancing is frowned upon. Moreover, she has distinguished herself by performing "Hindu" dances in a country whose arch-rival is “Hindu India”.

by Lesley D. Biswas
- India -

The annual Bidhannagar Fair at Kolkata’s Central Park is a swarm of enthusiastic children and their parents. Amidst the tangle of toy vendors and the squeaking and jarring sounds of their toys, seven-year-old Khushi picks out a plastic doll. Brightly colored, the doll is Barbie’s clone, the only difference is that it costs a mere INR 30 (0.64 USD). It’s a cheap substitute for the popular brand and it’s dangerously toxic.

by Mandy Van Deven
- India -

Barker is aware of her own complicated position as a colonial outsider in the bittersweet story she shares, and smartly uses her power to leverage an increasing awareness of the challenges faced by this small South Asian country that has been persistently ravaged by conflict and a recent natural disaster that stunned the world.

by Melissa Hahn
- USA -

“The one thing you can never ask yourself is ‘why’, because with suicide there is never an answer.” Though my 83 year-old grandmother’s advice rings true, the question haunts me nonetheless: why did my cousin Kevin, a 26-year old Marine Lance Corporal, take his own life after returning from his second tour in Iraq?

I search for answers with his immediate family, but few clues are forthcoming. My father’s brother, a retired Navy pilot, is grieving quietly. My aunt, so proud of my cousin when he wore his dress uniform, is angry at him for being “so stupid.” Meanwhile, my own family stands lamely on the periphery – wanting to show our love and support, but incapable of entering that inner sanctum shared by those in the armed forces.

by Anna Clark
- USA -

So goes the entirety of the 17th untitled poem in Vera Pavlova’s new collection, If There is Something to Desire: 100 Poems. A bestselling poet in her native Russia, with her work translated into 19 languages, this is the first full collection of Pavlova’s to appear in English (though her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, and Tin House). Born in Moscow in 1963, Pavlova studied music at the Schnittke College of Music and the Gnessin Academy before turning to poetry in her twenties. The change was a rapid one: Pavlova published 72 poems in Segodnia, a Russian daily, which started a buzz that she was a literary hoax.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

In an unmarked meadow by the side of the road at The Geysers, the 30-square-mile steam field about 70 miles north of San Francisco, California, the air smells like sulfur. Clouds of steam drift up from fumaroles, or open holes of rapidly boiling brown water, and waft across the landscape carrying the smell of rotten eggs.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Rebel was the theme of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The message was everywhere: On screen before every film; on the front cover of the film schedule, which read “This Is Your Guide to Cinematic Rebellion”; and in the originality and creativity of almost every film selected by Sundance Institute President and Founder Robert Redford and Festival Director John Cooper for this year’s festival. Rebellion meant great films, particularly documentaries.

In addition to established competitive categories (U.S. Documentary, U.S. Dramatic Competition, World Cinema Documentary Competition, World Cinema Dramatic Competition, and Shorts) and non-competitive categories (Premieres, Spotlight, New Frontier, and Park City at Midnight), there was a new category for low-budget independent films appropriately titled Next. In every category, there were films whose themes seem particularly relevant for our time – films about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the recession and resulting unemployment, political revolutions, the search for environmental alternatives, and the incredible resilience of people when faced with extreme adversity.

by Priyanka Bhardwaj
- India -

Education remains an emotional subject in a poor and developing country like India, where it is seen as the primary means for social and economic mobility. Indian families are known to sell land and spend their life’s savings to educate their children, especially males. Such desperation means that any change in the sector is a highly debated subject.

by Rachel Meyer
- USA -

As I sit and write this, a young man sits in County Jail awaiting his sentence. Three years ago he was involved in a fight while in juvenile hall for drug related charges. This fight made him eligible for Division of Juvenile Justice, formerly known as California Youth Authority (I prefer to call it Gladiator School). However, it‘s not the fight that will likely send him to DJJ - it’s the two drug tests he failed in a row.

My client is a drug addict; he has not committed another violent offense. Since his time with me, he has enrolled in adult school, has set his sights on college, and has survived circumstances that would make most of us lie down in the fetal position and give up. And yet this young man can still be sent to prison or spend extended time in County Jail for smoking marijuana. Since the beginning of my employment in the California Juvenile Justice System as a Social Worker, I’ve come to accept that most of the adolescents I work with are entrenched in a system that trains them to become better prisoners rather than productive citizens. I often find myself asking, “Is this justice?”

by Wazhmah Osman
- Afghanistan -

While reports of systemic corruption and fraud are just beginning to surface in the international press as Western governments are becoming aware of it, this is old news to local Afghans. They know that every interaction with the government - even applying for an Afghan identity card or trying to access documents at the national archives and libraries as I have - requires navigating a dense labyrinth of bureaucracy which fosters nothing but bribery and corruption.

by Mandy Van Deven
- India -

Anyone who has ever sat through the frequent and painstakingly choreographed musical numbers in a Bollywood film can tell you that dance is an integral part of Indian culture. From Bhangra in the Punjab province to Kathakali in Kerala, each part of the country has its own distinctive combination of body movement, facial expressions, and hand positions which form the regional style. But nowadays in urban India, dance is not simply used as a form of cultural expression. Women of means are being seduced by a type of dance that is a little more, shall we say, exotic.

by Michelle Chen
- USA -

A typical suburban supermarket aisle today will feature free-range turkeys and grass-fed steak glistening in shrink wrap—a sign, perhaps, that Americans are growing more conscious of the connection between tonight's dinner and the environment. But while organics and natural products are trendier than ever, old habits loom large over the American appetite: despite evidence that carnivorous diets drive ecological destruction, milk, eggs and meat remain staples of the Western diet.

Still, while most Americans are not about to swear off cheeseburgers, concerns about climate change and environmental sustainability are raising public consciousness about the treatment of farm animals and the ethics of food production.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Amos Paul Kennedy Jr. is living the dream. After discovering his love of letterpress, Kennedy left his comfortable corporate job and devoted his life to his art. Today the self-described “humble negro printer” lives in rural Alabama and sells his socially relevant and politically charged letterpress posters for $15 each.

by Moira Birss
- Colombia -

“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid,” Jorge tells me. “Your right to freedom disappears - you have to limit your movements and activities.”

I would be afraid, too; Jorge and I sit talking after I have spent a good ten minutes trying to convince his bodyguard to let me see him. But I don’t mind the hoops I had to jump through - I actually would have been happy to undergo a bit more security, perhaps a metal detector or something more intimidating. After all, in a country like Colombia, where human rights defenders are targeted by both the judicial system and paramilitary actors, Jorge Molano is a walking target.

by Wazhmah Osman
- Afghanistan/USA -

I was born in Kabul, Afghanistan during the good years, in the early seventies. Among my fondest memories is walking to and from school holding the hand of my stylish mother who was then a French teacher at Lycee Malalai where I was in the first grade. I remember a lively city where men and women, Afghans and non-Afghans, wearing a variety of ethnic and western outfits, all mingled at the busy outdoor bazaars. On Christmas Eve 1979, the world as I knew it was shattered when the Soviets invaded, throwing Afghanistan into a war that has yet to end. It was one of the saddest and darkest days in Afghan history and for my family.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
- USA -

For me and my colleagues, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s new book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is exhilarating. Already in its 17th printing, Half the Sky pulls no punches in detailing the major abuses women suffer worldwide. Through personal stories, told by the women living them, sex trafficking, forced prostitution, honor killings, mass rape, and maternal mortality become shockingly real. Critics believe Half the Sky will ignite the global women’s movement as Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring did the environmental movement in the 1960s. So do I. This remarkable book moves the conversation from women’s issues to human rights; shows change is possible one woman at a time; and, most importantly, inspires hope.

by Sarah McGowan
Features & Photo Editor, The WIP

I was called a prostitute, I was called a thief…I was called all sorts of names, but none of the newspapers came to call me defender of children’s rights. Very ironic in a country when 10 girls are being raped per day. – Betty Makoni

For this final post of 2009, The WIP editors would like to share a podcast from our December 3rd event, co-hosted with Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund. This very special screening of the powerful new film Tapestries of Hope was followed by a conversation with Zimbabwean human rights activist Betty Makoni and Tapestries filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

Once one of the world’s most notorious prisons, Alcatraz is now home to a new type of visitor – nesting seabirds.

On a bright May morning this year, the sun cast bold shadows on the run-down beige buildings that tower over the dock area and make up the prison complex. A cement path leads up above the shoreline, where small waves lap softly against a steep incline covered with vegetation.

by Brittany Shoot
- Denmark -

Copenhagen is an odd mix of frustrating inertia and vigilant protest as week two of the COP15 UN climate conference at the city’s Bella Center continues in tandem with Klimaforum09, the people’s summit, and the Climate Bottom meetings — the second set of alternative meetings in the hippie outpost of Christiania. The reports out of the Bella Center are consistently underwhelming as G77 countries and smaller island nations have felt ignored. Many were also insulted by documents leaked from Danish authorities earlier this week stating intentions by a powerful bloc including the UK, United States, and Denmark to lock out any agenda from the Global South. Recently, the Obama adminstration drew ire for making dismissive statements about the importance of the Kyoto Protocol, its relevance to the current discussions, and the United States’ intention to work cooperatively with other countries in an effort to retain Western power. This, in combination with rising hostilities, has further aggravated an already tense mood in the city.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
– Germany -

They were East Germany’s dream couple in the eighties. But shortly after the fall of the Wall, which divided East and West Germany from 1961 until 1989, a scandal would taint the image of actors Jenny Gröllman and Ulrich Mühe.

When East Germany’s state security service’s surveillance files were declassified in 1991, Mühe discovered that his ex-wife had been spying on him and reporting to a secret police officer about his activities during the regime in communist East Germany. Gröllman vehemently denied this accusation until her death from cancer in 2006. That same year, in an ironic twist of fate, Mühe played a secret service agent who monitors a dissident playwright in the Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others. One year later, in the summer of 2007, he also died of the same disease.

by Abigail Wendle
- USA -

According to the Zimbabwe Rape Survivors Association, during last year’s highly contested presidential election an estimated 2,000 women and girls were the targets of politically-motivated sexual violence in Zimbabwe. State-sanctioned groups under President Robert Mugabe’s ruling party, ZANU PF, beat and raped women for participating in the opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and though men were also beaten, women were specifically targeted because they were easier to physically dominate. The violence, which occurred before international election observers arrived in Zimbabwe, was used to intimidate voters opposed to Mugabe’s re-election. According to Marwick Khumalo, head of the Pan-African Parliament, voter turn-out for the 2008 run-off was subsequently “very, very low.”

by Aditi Bhaduri
- India -

As US President Barack Obama commits a troops increase in Afghanistan and a recognition of the “good Taliban,” and as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton paves the way for India’s nuclear energy program, many here anticipate that the US might pressure India to keep its traditional ally in the region, Pakistan, in good humor. Add to that the contentious territorial dispute over Kashmir and the announcement by the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) that it would soon appoint an envoy on the territory, the US’ considerable diplomatic influence could put India in a difficult position.