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Women without Borders- MotherSchools

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Permissions By checking the boxes below, you agree to the processing of your personal information in accordance with our privacy policy. You can change your mind at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of our newsletter, or by contacting office@women-without-borders.org.

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Strangers frequently tell Cambodian reproductive rights advocate and YouTuber Catherine Harry that she's ruining Khmer culture. Some even say that she cannot possibly be Cambodian, because no Cambodian woman would talk so openly about sexual health and reproductive rights. Catherine asks all of them the same question: what is Cambodian culture? No one has been able to give her a satisfactory answer, because culture is not a fixed thing - it is constantly evolving. Catherine's videos are just as much a part of Cambodian culture as the conservative 'Chbab Srey', the traditional code of conduct for Khmer women.

Catherine first became interested in feminism as a lead researcher and presenter at the BBC, working on a project with MSI about sexual and reproductive health. Researching for the project inspired her to reflect on her own experiences with sexism, shedding light on the discrimination that she "conditioned into thinking [was] ok."

"Feminism is about giving women choices. If she wants to stay at home, then she is free to stay at home, so long as she understands that she doesn't have to stay at home. But she shouldn't really impose her idea on other women and say that this is how all women should be."

The translation of the word 'feminism' means 'bias towards women' in Khmer, so few people in Cambodia are willing to broach topics related to women's rights. Catherine decided that if nearly no one in Cambodia was willing to talk about this, then it was her responsibility to speak out. In 2017, Catherine began working with MSI Cambodia, where she currently serves as a communications specialist. In addition to her work at MSI, Catherine currently has over 70,000 followers on YouTube and 400,000 followers on Facebook. Her videos cover topics from safe sex to abortion to LBGTI rights. She was named Forbes 30 under 30 for Asia and collaborates with UN Human Rights to combat gender stereotypes - but her work isn't without challenges.

"One of the things that makes me very controversial is that I empower women to own their bodies and I try to promote sexual liberation. Not just saying it's okay 'not to be a virgin' but 'it's ok to have sex when you want to and with who you want to so long as there's consent and you are of consensual age.'"

A video Catherine made busting myths surrounding virginity.

People often criticize Catherine, who is Cambodian, for being too 'Westernized'. However, these people have what she refers to as 'colonialism amnesia': they forget that racism and sexism are colonial imports, not the other way around. "Before colonialism", says Catherine, "countries [in the Global South] were actually empowering women - some countries were actually matriarchal. But in Cambodia, the French came in, and then they started saying that women who don't wear shirts or women who are topless are 'savages."

Young people in particular are clearly hungry for information about sexual health: Catherine gets messages from young women nearly every day, thanking her for the work that she is doing. She often hears from young LGBTI people, who find her voice uplifting as they discover their identity. The Internet can often be a difficult place to be a woman talking about safe sex and contraception, but Catherine is able to connect with people who she wouldn't have otherwise reached.

A cover photo for Catherine Harry's video on affirmative consent

Despite the success of her online advocacy work, Catherine nevertheless hopes that one day Cambodia, where protests are banned, can have its own Women's March. She wants to feel the sense of collective unity among protesters all fighting for the same cause.

"Sometimes I fall into this angry feminist trope...but I've read that sometimes it's not bad to be angry because it means that you are aware that something is wrong in society...sometimes I want to be in a group of people with that same purpose and that same energy."

Catherine also longs for the day that people stop using culture as an excuse for oppression, a day where inequality is not seen as a fixed feature of society. In the meantime, Catherine will continue speaking out on YouTube - and connecting clients with the care they need at MSI Cambodia.

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Meet the Cambodian YouTuber fighting for reproductive rights

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Strangers frequently tell Cambodian reproductive rights advocate and YouTuber Catherine Harry that she's ruining Khmer culture. Some even say that she cannot possibly be Cambodian, because no Cambodian woman would talk so openly about sexual health and reproductive rights. Catherine asks all of them the same question: what is Cambodian culture?

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Theatre for Change

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We improve the sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls who have been marginalised, using participatory learning and drama. LEARN MORE

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Eve- Tuck Desire-based Research (see also Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities

by EVE TUCK · 2009)

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LGSM movement 1980s

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The book that tells the LGSM story, Pride, by Tim Tate, is set to release on Thursday 10 August 2017. It is published in paperback by John Blake Publishing and costs £8.99.

Tim is an author and investigative journalist and has done a fantastic job of presenting our story in our own words, providing an introduction and background text on the historical events of the time alongside the interview text.

Fourteen members of LGSM and/or Lesbians Against Pit Closures (LAPC) were interviewed, as well as five of the surviving key players in South Wales. Each contributor provides information on their respective backgrounds and the experiences and events that contributed towards their part in our story. Tim interweaves the interviews of each contributor to tell the real story in the words of those who were there at the time.

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The book that tells the LGSM story, Pride, by Tim Tate, is set to release on Thursday 10 August 2017. It is published in paperback by John Blake Publishing and costs £8.99.

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Decolonial Summer School

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Ni Una Menos Movement

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Página Oficial del Colectivo de activistas feminista NI UNA MENOS

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BLM -US, UK, Kanada & beyond

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'Just write STOP': the teenager helping Polish women flee abuse

Schoolgirl’s fake cosmetics site helps hundreds of women as domestic violence rises during Covid

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n April 2020, weeks after Poland went into its first Covid-19 lockdown, Krysia Paszko, a 17-year-old high school pupil, watched a TV report about Europe's surge in domestic violence cases, which had increased by up to 60% on 2019, according to the World Health Organization. Poland's largest women's rights centre, Centrum Praw Kobiet (CPK), had reported a 50% increase in calls to its domestic violence hotline in March.

Learning from the report that France had implemented a scheme in pharmacies that women could use to report domestic violence using the codewords "Mask 19", Paszko had an idea. With help from a graphic designer friend, she created a Facebook page for a fictitious cosmetics company.

Then she went to her personal Facebook page, where she wrote: "If you are in quarantine or isolation with a toxic or violent person, send a message" - and she linked to the cosmetics page. "If you ask a question about natural cosmetics," Paszko explained, "we will monitor you. If you write 'STOP', we will call the police on your behalf."

Paszko could barely keep track of the number of messages she received as her Facebook post was shared thousands of times. Within days, she had to call CPK for help. Since then, psychologists, lawyers and CPK volunteers, Paszko among them, have responded to the flood of requests.

The page is so convincing that it receives messages about the natural cosmetics advertised, along with supportive and congratulatory notes from people who have heard about the initiative through word of mouth or women's groups.

To filter out the less urgent messages, a web developer created a bot to organise requests. Psychologists can then immediately identify the women who need assistance, and another team responds to inquiries about the cosmetics that appear in the "other" folder.

To protect women whose partners monitor their communications, Paszko developed a system of coded questions to determine the type of assistance needed. Based on her experience messaging with women, she created a 15-page guide to share with psychologists, who could begin by asking about "a skin problem", when it started, and how many people in the household suffer from the condition.

"What surprised me is that you can say nearly everything using the code," Paszko says, such as whether there is alcohol involved, or if violence is affecting the women's children.

You can say nearly everything using the code

Krysia Paszko

One of the first cases Paszko handled last spring began when a woman messaged the page while bathing her child. The emotional, physical, and economic abuse at her husband's hands had got worse during the pandemic, the woman said.

Her husband was at home more, and even if she managed to escape, the man controlled her finances, so she had no money and no place to go. Because he worked during the day, Paszko told the woman to pack just the essentials for her and her child. CPK ordered and paid for a taxi that took them both to its shelter in Warsaw.

CPK's shelter takes up one floor of an unassuming building in the capital. The space, whose location is kept secret, can house up to 20 women and children at a time. According to Urszula Nowakowska, the founder and president of CPK, violence during lockdown both escalated where it had already existed in a relationship and began in others for the first time.

A year on from the start of the world's biggest health crisis, we now face a human rights pandemic. Covid-19 has exposed the inequalities and fragilities of health and political systems and allowed authoritarian regimes to impose drastic curbs on rights and freedoms, using the virus as a pretext for restricting free speech and stifling dissent.

Rights and Freedom is a new Guardian reporting series to investigate and expose human rights abuses at this critical time, and elevate the voices of people on the frontlines, fighting back for themselves and their communities.

Before arriving at the shelter, the woman Paszko had helped to leave her husband had been too ashamed and afraid to talk about her abuse with her parents. After a few days at CPK, she opened up to them. She has since moved in with her parents, found work and enrolled her child at a nursery school.

There is a very consistent march towards limiting women's rights in Poland

Zuzanna Warso, human rights lawyer

Even before the pandemic hit, domestic abuse was rife in Poland, although the extent of it was downplayed by the ruling ultra-conservative Law and Justice Party (PiS). Last August, a 2019 study commissioned by the government but not made public was leaked to the press. It found that 63% of Polish women had experienced domestic violence during their lives. The study noted that what connected perpetrators was a sense of impunity: they are confident they will not be punished.

A month earlier, according to reports, the justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro filed a request to withdraw Poland from the Istanbul Convention, a Council of Europe treaty drawn up to combat violence against women. The prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, and other ultra-conservatives claim the treaty represents an ideological view on gender at odds with Poland's "traditional family values". News outlets reported that the country aimed instead to create a regional treaty on "family rights" with other far-right governments in central and eastern European countries such as Hungary.

Efforts to withdraw from the convention and a decision by the constitutional court to impose a near-total ban on abortion represent "a very consistent march towards limiting women's rights in Poland", says Zuzanna Warso, an expert in human rights with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. The country already has one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws. And the pandemic may have been used as a pretext to further reduce legal protections for women in Poland.

Last October, Paszko joined a rally of 100,000 people on Warsaw's streets to protest against the abortion ban. Despite tight restrictions in response to Covid-19, the demonstration marked one of the largest in Poland since the fall of communism, a show of anger against the PiS. As proceedings wound down, Paszko headed home and tried to sleep. At 2am, she opened the Facebook page, and a message popped up.

"Help. Please help," it said. "He wants me to leave the flat. I have blood on my face. I don't know where to go. What should I do?" The woman's partner had gone out to a party and come home drunk. Paszko asked if she should call the police on her behalf, but the woman was scared because her partner had threatened more violence if she involved the police.

He had packed her belongings in a suitcase and ordered her to leave, but she had nowhere to go. Paszko coordinated with shelters in the area to find one that had room. Within a few hours, the woman had made it out safely to a local crisis intervention centre.

Since last spring, more than 500 women throughout Poland, and Polish women living in the Netherlands and Germany, have received help through Paszko's cosmetics page, according to Monika Perdjon, a therapist and emergency responder for CPK. Paszko admits that taking on such an initiative as a teenager is a heavy responsibility, but she is happy that such a page exists and is having an impact.

"Maybe it's a paradox, but it's kind of optimistic: that [they] can get help instead of staying in the situation for years," she says.
Adapted from reporting originally commissioned by the Stanley Center for Peace and Security's journalism and media programme as part of Red Flags or Resilience.

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'Just write STOP': the teenager helping Polish women flee abuse

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n April 2020, weeks after Poland went into its first Covid-19 lockdown, Krysia Paszko, a 17-year-old high school pupil, watched a TV report about Europe's surge in domestic violence cases, which had increased by up to 60% on 2019, according to the World Health Organization.

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Sylvia Tamale (2015)

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Above the Parapet – Women in Public Life: Sylvia Tamale

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Veronica Gagó (2020)

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Professor Is Empowering & Inspiring Future Generations of Feminists Across Latin America | NowThis

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on "Feminism for the 99%" (2019)

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Barefoot College: Education for the Solutions of Tomorrow

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"We dreamed of creating a different opportunity for rural women. One in which they were free to learn."

Barefoot College International forges a first-of-its-kind, women-centered, global network dedicated to sustainable development for marginalised rural communities in over 90 countries.

The Barefoot College International global mission is to cultivate global equity by increasing economic mobility.

"I want to learn more solar. I want to do more than I have already."

- Florentina, Belize Solar Mama

"This training is going to improve my village and teach my sisters to also become Solar Mamas."

- Marina, Ivory Coast Solar Mama

"We are women! When you get something, don't leave it. Take it in the brain and use it."

- Fatma, Zanzibar Solar Mama

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The Barefoot College connects rural communities to solar, water, education, professions and advocacy to help communities and individuals take control of their lives and the wellbeing of their communities.

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RAWA Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan
(2019)

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Women in Afghanistan have been affected by wars and occupation of their country for decades. The plight of Afghan women has often been instrumentalized by imperialist forces, in particular the USA, to justify and legitimize their war-mongering policies in the region. However, women have been at the forefront of fighting both, imperalist and fundamentalist forces in their county.

The following is an interview conducted by activists of the Kurdish Women's Movement with Samia Walid, activist of RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan). It was first published in German in Kurdistan Report.
Can you please tell us about the history and mission of RAWA? What were Afghan women's conditions when your organization was first formed? What is your role in society? How do you organize?

Apr. 28, 2003: RAWA demonstration to condemn dark days of Saur in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), is the oldest women's organization in Afghanistan that fights for freedom, democracy, social justice, and secularism. RAWA's founder was Meena who formed this group at a young age in 1977, with the help of some other female university students in Kabul. Meena was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan in 1987 by agents of KHAD (Afghanistan branch of KGB) with the help of the bloodthirsty fundamentalist gang of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. She was only 30-years-old. What distinguishes RAWA from other associations is the fact that we are a political organization. When RAWA was found, Afghanistan was under the oppression of the USSR puppet government and later Russian invasion, and Meena felt that the struggle for independence, freedom, and justice was inseparable from the struggle for women's rights. After Meena's martyrdom, RAWA continued fighting against the Afghan Islamic fundamentalists and their international backers till today.

RAWA still work underground in most parts of Afghanistan but faces enormous difficulties. The Jihadi leaders, warlords with bloody pasts of horrific crimes, are in control of the current government and parliament, and have their separate kingdoms in different parts of Afghanistan. Abdullah Abdullah, the CEO of Afghanistan, is one of these Jihadi leaders who belongs to the criminal gang of Shorae Nizar. This creates a dangerous situation for us as these thugs our biggest enemies who do not hesitate in hindering our work and harming us. In other parts of Afghanistan where the Taliban fundamentalists are in control, RAWA faces the same oppression. All our members use pseudonyms for protection and we can never go public with our work. Despite these obstacles, it is still possible for us to continue our political activities in most parts of the country due to our contact with locals and the fact that their hatred for these criminals translates into support for us.

Our political activities include publishing our magazines and articles, and mobilizing women to get this consciousness and join our struggle. We collect and document the killings, raping, pillage, extortion, and other crimes of these warlords in remote parts of Afghanistan. Our social activities are providing education to women (not just literacy classes but social and political awareness as to their rights and how to achieve them), emergency aid, making orphanages, and health-related activities.
What is your analysis of patriarchy? In what ways is it linked to the state, imperialism and capitalism?
Patriarchy is constantly supported and nurtured by reactionary feudal, capitalist and imperialist governments all over the world mainly to erase the role of women in the society, especially in politics. Governments of all kinds, especially feudal governments tied to imperialist colonizers like Afghanistan's, see the strength and consciousness of women as a serious threat to their domination and have used different means to stop their growth and consciousness. Considering such governments are anti-people by nature and can only last by oppressing the masses and their struggle, the suppression of women is their prime target. By strengthening feudal misogyny and culture, they deprive women of all their rights and thus cripple half the society and can be assured of no struggle and resistance from it. These governments never take any steps for the emancipation of women, rather they tighten the chain around women. Today Afghan women's situation is more disastrous than ever. The US invaded Afghanistan under the pretext of 'women rights' but the only thing it brought on our women in the past eighteen years is violence, murder, sexual violence, suicide and self-immolation, and other misfortunes. The US brought to power the most vicious enemies of Afghan women, the Islamic fundamentalists, and committed an unforgivable treachery against our suffering women. This has been its tactic for the past four decades. By nurturing Jihadi, Taliban and ISIS which are all Islamic fundamentalist elements and not just murderous criminals, but misogynists as well, the US has practically oppressed our women.
In what ways do you link women's liberation to the resistance against occupation?
We see the liberation of Afghan women in their liberation from imperialist colonizer, Islamic fundamentalists and the puppet government. The freedom of women is directly tied to the resistance and revolutionary struggle of women against the main cause of their suffering and misfortune, meaning occupiers and their internal lackeys. We believe that fundamentalists and murderous and corrupt groups involved in killing, looting and other crimes and treacheries have no source of support except for foreign powers, without which they would not survive a day. By raising the political consciousness of women and by exposing these people as the root cause of their misfortunes, we want to organize women in a resilient struggle against them who will be as readily annihilated as they were created by their foreign masters.
Afghan women's rights have been instrumentalized especially by US imperialism to justify and legitimize the invasion of Afghanistan. In what ways did this narrative undermine your women's activism on the ground?
The US is a master at diverting revolutionary and political struggle of people, especially women. In the past eighteen years, in addition to supporting the most anti-women elements all over Afghanistan and ensuring that these elements remain untouchable, the US has introduced a stream of educated women into the government and other institutions, NGOs, civil society, and women's networks. This has a dual purpose. First, it uses these women to deceive the world about the real situation of Afghan women and presents them as its achievement in its tiring war. Second, by taking such educated women under its wing, it makes sure that they don't join the revolutionary struggle, thus depriving the women's movement of valuable people. Recently, a group of sell-out, power hungry women from 'Women's Network' met with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as 'representatives' of Afghan women. Gulbuddin is one of the most bloodthirsty misogynist criminals who is well-known for throwing acid on the faces of women in his younger days and these women went to meet him to whitewash his misogynist Islamist party, all for fame, power and money. Women like Fawzia Koofi, Habiba Sarabi, Sima Samar, and others sit with Jihadi and Taliban criminals every other in exchange for money and power, and treacherously introduce themselves as representatives of the oppressed women of Afghanistan. These women ignore the flogging and stoning of women by the Taliban and point to their 'good' programs for women if they join the government! These women stand next to the ruling powers as traitors to our suffering women and have no ties or sympathies to the Afghanistan women.
Why did RAWA decide to stay in Afghanistan or in the region, instead of moving its activities to Europe/Western countries? What do you think about the increasing NGO-ization in Afghanistan and other countries in the Global South, sponsored by western institutions?
RAWA believes that it can only turn into a powerful movement with the backing of the masses, and this backing comes by staying and working in Afghanistan, even if the situation is hell-like. People only trust revolutionary organizations that stand by them in practice and are active inside the country. Our experience has shown that organizations that have clipped their roots from Afghanistan and moved to Europe and other countries have been dissolved shamefully. One of the reasons RAWA has lived for this long and continues its struggle is because we chose to stay in Afghanistan despite the bloody situation.

NGOs are a major part of the backbone of imperialism in our country. NGO-ization, we believe, is almost as dangerous as the formation of the puppet government of Afghanistan. The NGOs formed in Afghanistan are almost all through the funding of the US and other Western powers. They are a hotbed for recruiting youth to form the future puppet governments of Afghanistan which will have the appearance of a modern, democratic government, but whose heads will be brainwashed to serve as much more loyal lackeys of these powers. NGOs are also used to suck out nationalism and revolutionary struggle out of the heads of our youth by giving them huge salaries and lives abroad. It is well-established that none of these NGOs serve the people and women and are simply giving out slogans of 'reconstruction' and 'aid for people' to hide their true purposes.
Afghanistan has been invaded, exploited, attacked and severely damaged by imperialist forces over the past decades. This has affected women in particular. Although RAWA has led campaigns to put the Taliban's systematic sexual violence before justice, we have seen misogynist corrupt people rise to high political positions with the support of the US. How do you analyze sexual violence in war? In what ways and with whose support has sexual violence been used as a tool of war in Afghanistan? And what does justice for Afghan women look like in your perspective?
Like in every conflict in most of history, women and children have been the prime targets in the war and conflict of Afghanistan. They have been the most vulnerable targets of fundamentalist groups that have ravaged our nation for almost three decades now. Rape and other forms of sexual violence became common after the Jihadis, created, nurtured and backed by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, came to power in 1992 after the defeat of the Soviets. The different factions of Jihadi warlords divided on the lines of ethnicity led by Gulbuddin Hekmatary, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf, Karim Khalili, Ahmad Shah Masood and Abdul Rashid Dostum, looted and raped the people of Kabul, door by door. Women were abducted and kept in basements and empty buildings and repeatedly raped and tortured. Most were eventually killed with their mutilated bodies found after the faction members left a particular area. The accounts of such women are stories of horror and nightmares.

Justice for women can only be achieved by the complete annihilation of the present government composed of Islamic fundamentalist elements and other US sell-out. Leaders of Islamic fundamentalist parties involved in war crimes particularly against women need to be prosecuted and punished. Once our women accomplish this task, we can say that justice has been served.
In war-torn countries, women are often victimized and silenced during war and peace alike. It seems as though their agency, will power and political demands are sidelined at all stages of conflict, even in peace-making efforts. In rare instances, women are essentialized in a tokenistic manner as crying, helpless victims, incapable of speaking for themselves. What is Afghan women's role for peace and justice?
For Afghan women peace can only be achieved by justice and justice can only be attained by freeing Afghanistan of foreign occupation and Islamic fundamentalism. The removal of these traitors and murderers from power, and their persecution and punishment is the justice women are seeking for peace, prosperity and real democracy. And this is on attainable by an organized struggle of conscious women.

The peace talks that are ongoing between the US, Taliban and several prominent Afghan figures, including women, is salt on the wounds of our women. The phony women claiming to represent women are their worst enemies and they are negotiating with the most dangerous enemies of women to give them more power and money than they already have.
What is the kind of society that you are struggling for? What efforts do you make to realize your utopias in the here and now?
We are struggling for an independent, free and democratic society run on the pillars of social justice, and where women and men are equal in every aspect. The path to this is a long and hard one and it is a huge task to mobilize and organize women into a large movement, but we believe there is no other option for attaining these values.
What does women's freedom mean to you and your movement?
Women's freedom for us is our participation in every sphere of the society built on independence, democracy, secularism and social justice. It is our complete equality with men in every aspect. This freedom and equality is tied directly to politics and society. Only a society free from occupation and the fundamentalist misogynist virus, where democracy and social justice are implemented can break the chains of violence against women and accommodate the complete freedom and rights of women.
As the Kurdish Women's Movement, we know that RAWA values internationalism as an important aspect of resistance and liberation. Women in Afghanistan have taken to the streets in support of the women's revolution in Rojava. What are your thoughts on the women's struggle in Rojava or in Kurdistan more generally? What can we learn from each other?
The struggle and sacrifices of the lionesses of Kurdistan have been an inspiration and source of strength for us. Their struggle against ISIS and other medieval-aged criminals have given us huge lessons. We know that no force on earth, not ISIS and its superpower backer and other countries in the region, can stand in the face of true resistance from the masses. We know, for the millionth time, that no struggle can succeed without the participation of women. We understand the sacrifices we have to make in order to attain our dream society. When we hear the name of ISIS in Afghanistan we associate it with the resolute and brave women of Kurdistan, not with the terror it is waging in our country. We believe they are defeatable and don't stand a chance in the face of a genuine women's movement. While we obviously believe these things as we have set foot on this path, this struggle is a luminous proof of our beliefs.
In terms of women's global struggle for freedom, what do you think is the way forward for us to be working together in common fights against patriarchy and other systems of violence and oppression?
RAWA believes international solidarity with independence-seeking, freedom-fighting, democratic and progressive organizations and parties as a vital part of our internal struggle. Our struggle converges with the Kurdish people's struggle as most of our enemies are similar in nature. We are fighting imperialism and their fundamentalist mercenaries. On this point, we have to share our experiences and lessons so we can better go through this arduous struggle.

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Interview: Afghan Women's Struggles against Patriarchy, Imperialism & Capitalism

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Komun: Women in Afghanistan have been affected by wars and occupation of their country for decades. The plight of Afghan women has often been instrumentalized by imperialist forces, in particular the USA, to justify and legitimize their war-mongering policies in the region.