Frida state of mind #frida #kahlo #Mexican #artist #icon #feminist #colorful #flower (Taken with Instagram)
#mothernature #beauty #sunset #godsglory #iphoneography #clouds (Taken with Instagram)
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We don’t think government can solve all our problems. But we don’t think that government is the source of all our problems – any more than are welfare recipients, or corporations, or unions, or immigrants, or gays, or any other group we’re told to blame for our troubles.
President Barack Obama during his speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention
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A woman cries as she speaks of her fear that her ex-boyfriend will kill their children. A member of one of the successor groups to the paramilitaries, he wounded her in a knife attack after she left him. She is afraid of walking outside because members of his group control many neighborhoods, and if they see her they may report back to him. She is in hiding in a safe house in Barrancabermeja, Santander.
Sexual violence against women and girls has been called a habitual practice in Colombia’s five decades of warfare between the military, guerrillas, and paramilitaries. But in interviewing these displaced women and girls, I realized that the terror and violence does not end for them when they flee armed groups. Leaving their villages and moving to cities only exacerbates the economic, social, and cultural vulnerabilities that make them susceptible to violence.
Read the rest after the jump.
Photo © 2008 Stephen Ferry
Pool Daze
The Ethiopian government is forcibly displacing indigenous pastoral communities in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo valley without adequate consultation or compensation to make way for state-run sugar plantations.
A South Omo resident describes: “Our great, great, great grandmothers and grandfathers lived in this land. Our fathers lived here and me I live here… The men take a fish hook and go to the river and catch a fish and bring it to me to eat. They also go and hunt to bring food for the children. Whose land is this? It belongs to me.”© Photo 2007 Brent Stirton/Reportage by Getty Images
![humanrightswatch:
The US must stop sexual violence against immigrant farmworkers.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrant farmworker women and girls in the United States face a high risk of sexual violence and sexual harassment in their workplaces because US authorities and employers fail to protect them adequately.
In a new 95-page report, Human Rights Watch documents rape, stalking, unwanted touching, exhibitionism, or vulgar and obscene language by supervisors, employers, and others in positions of power. Most farmworkers interviewed said they had experienced such treatment or knew others who had. And most said they had not reported these or other workplace abuses, fearing reprisals. Those who had filed sexual harassment claims or reported sexual assault to the police had done so with the encouragement and assistance of survivor advocates or attorneys in the face of difficult challenges.
Farmworkers described experiences such as the following:
A woman in California reported that a supervisor at a lettuce company raped her and later told her that she “should remember it’s because of him that [she has] this job.”
A woman in New York said that a supervisor, when she picked potatoes and onions, would touch women’s breasts and buttocks. If they tried to resist, he would threaten to call immigration or fire them.
Four women who had worked together packing cauliflower in California said a supervisor would regularly expose himself and make comments like, “[That woman] needs to be fucked!” When they tried to defend one young woman whom he singled out for particular abuse, he fired all of them.
© 2011 AP Photo](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m44gqjcK131r2y8uzo1_250.jpg)
The US must stop sexual violence against immigrant farmworkers.
Hundreds of thousands of immigrant farmworker women and girls in the United States face a high risk of sexual violence and sexual harassment in their workplaces because US authorities and employers fail to protect them adequately.
In a new 95-page report, Human Rights Watch documents rape, stalking, unwanted touching, exhibitionism, or vulgar and obscene language by supervisors, employers, and others in positions of power. Most farmworkers interviewed said they had experienced such treatment or knew others who had. And most said they had not reported these or other workplace abuses, fearing reprisals. Those who had filed sexual harassment claims or reported sexual assault to the police had done so with the encouragement and assistance of survivor advocates or attorneys in the face of difficult challenges.
Farmworkers described experiences such as the following:
- A woman in California reported that a supervisor at a lettuce company raped her and later told her that she “should remember it’s because of him that [she has] this job.”
- A woman in New York said that a supervisor, when she picked potatoes and onions, would touch women’s breasts and buttocks. If they tried to resist, he would threaten to call immigration or fire them.
- Four women who had worked together packing cauliflower in California said a supervisor would regularly expose himself and make comments like, “[That woman] needs to be fucked!” When they tried to defend one young woman whom he singled out for particular abuse, he fired all of them.
© 2011 AP Photo
