Stories from the city, stories from the sea

Do you work on women's empowerment?

My response to this question, posed by Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times

Sure, I can tick the box saying I work on the empowerment of women and girls. A big tick. But truth is, I don’t do much. “Can you write your own name?” I might ask. “Does your daughter go to school?” Probing question after probing question, I tease out the threads of women’s lives until they become whole stories without an end.

I might talk to their husband, or their son, but I might not. I might sit amongst the cacophony of colour a group of women create when they sit together in saris to discuss violence against women, or early marriage, or dowry, or divorce and ask what has changed their world. I might laugh at a woman pulling at my curls, tight and defiant in the humidity, and accept her offer of a banana or mango. I might cheer, or cry, or clap as I hear about twelve year old Tania who was promised to a man four times her age; or Nasrima who has rebuilt a road so her daughter can go to school; or Kuki who is training Tasmina to take over her role as leader of the local women’s empowerment group when the funding runs out.

I will lift my lens to meet their eyes. Trying to capture smiles, the shy ones, the individuality of the woman in her black chador, the wisdom in the grandmother, the hope in her daughter. Lights! Camera! Action! I will bring all three with me, and feed off the symbols we devour of life for the bottom billion; dirt floors, roaming chickens, naked children, tube-wells. The bloated bellies aren’t so popular these days, or the big eyes staring vacantly, so I will look for the children who have clothes on, whose teeth are clean and white, who can lift their heads and focus on me.

At the end of the day I will open my notebook, filled to the brim with more tales than I could ever tell, and sort through them. Should I pick Tania and Shopna who have started a small spice business from their slum, fingers stained yellow with tumeric? Maybe Moutushi, the first in her family to finish high school, or Maya, the first to use contraception in her village? Should I choose the educator? The midwife? The mother? The village elder? The husband who supports his wife’s economic independence? How can I choose one when the world is so full of little earthquakes reshaping what it means to be born a girl in Bangladesh?

Do I work in the area of women’s and girl’s empowerment? I guess I don’t. Not really. But by telling the stories of those who do on a daily basis, as part of CARE Bangladesh’s SHOUHARDO Program, I know a lot of people who do. This is their story.

Little earthquakes

Shunajur Village is sixteen kilometres from anything resembling a town centre. To get there you have to follow a small dirt road for fourteen kilometres, then continue on foot up and over the river. At the small shack on the left after the bridge, turn left and follow the dirt path into the trees. You know you’re in the right place when you get to the thatched huts. If you’ve got access to a four wheel drive, the journey takes about an hour in good weather; much longer by any other means.

As far as villages go, this one is pretty lucky. It has a tube well providing safe access to drinking water, and sanitary latrines. The odd cow, a handful of goats and ducks add their animal sounds and smells into the village mix which remind me of the hobby farm I used to spend summer holidays in. Not that I eat cows or goats or ducks, or even eggs. Trying to explain that to the villagers is like trying to explain that where I’m from falling pregnant isn’t dangerous. The very idea is hard to grasp for women who give birth on dirt floors with the help of traditional midwives, of whom 79% are illiterate and untrained. I use the term ‘women’ loosely, since 60% of women have already given birth by the age of 20. I’m 28 years old. These statistics scare me.

At least I don’t have to be scared for the girls in this village. Through women’s empowerment support early marriage is widely understood as being dangerous. Considering the average age of marriage for girls is 14 years old, this is something to be excited about. Here girls are lucky, they can carry on being girls and go to school until they’re 18; they don’t have to worry about giving birth on dirt floors just yet, let alone dealing with a husband or a family in law.

In fact, the future is as bright as it has ever been for the girls in this village. With any luck, they may not have to give birth on dirt floors with the assistance of the local midwife who was trained by her mother, grandmother, or neighbour. The name and number of the local government health visitor is well known here, so the possibility of delivering little Jasmin or Faisal with the help of a trained midwife is a little bit closer to becoming a reality. These girls may also have some say in deciding the size of their family, as the welcoming of contraception use by the older, respected women is becoming more widespread. Since all of this healthcare costs money, though, nothing is guaranteed.

When I say this healthcare costs money, it’s important you know what I mean. I’m not just talking about the actual care itself. Of course these women will probably have to pay for the doctor and/or nurse, and any follow up medication or bandages etc. But they also need to pay to actually get there. Those sixteen kilometres on foot when you’re pregnant, sick, or injured must feel like six hundred. The alternatives are paying a rickshaw puller (man on a bike) or CNG driver (motorised baby-taxi) to take you there, and then bring you home. This is expensive stuff though, if you’re from this village. It’s a long way, and they don’t earn very much.

When I say they don’t earn very much, it’s important here too that you know what I mean. In this village, women earn money through selling vegetables they grow in their front yards, or by hand sewing detail onto salwar kameezes. If you do a combination of these, you can expect to earn between 100-200 taka, or AUD$1.85 - $3.75 per day. This doesn’t leave enough to buy luxuries like apples, let alone pay for rickshaws or CNGs. Considering that most women aren’t involved in paid work, this again puts these women in the lucky column. With only 4% of women earning a cash wage, earning anything at all is a huge step in the right direction. We all know what money buys.

Which brings me to how optimistic I am for this village, or more correctly, the people who live in it. From the outside, it looks like they’re getting a lot of the important things right. They’re becoming healthier, educating their children, and earning money. On the governance side, they’re forming committees enhancing women’s empowerment, and solving village problems collectively, then marching up to the local government to demand the services the law says they should be receiving. Their girls will be women before they become wives and mothers, and their boys better equipped to be good husbands and fathers.

Yes, as far as villages go, this one is pretty lucky. Or not, really, since luck had nothing to do with it.

I was only 19

In an unusual move I am taking the time out of my Bangladeshi adventures to add my two cents worth in to the The Matthew Johns Incident even though I’m far away and even though it’s no doubt been done to death in the Australian media and even though I see so much worse on a daily basis in terms of the treatment of women and the construction of masculinity and femininity here in the ‘desh but … this particular media issue has basically enraged me more than most, and the subsequent Facebook retaliation of ‘bring back the biff’ and other such ‘support matty’ groups leaves an awful taste in my mouth.

For a more articulate and considered position on the issue than I can muster right now take a peek at this response by Rachel Hills, a young Sydney based journo firmly in my age group.

My response:

I've tried picturing myself at 19, buoyed on the confidence of too much champas (ok, let's pretend I would not have been skolling Bicardi Breezers), in a room with an older (semi) famous sportsman flattering me enough to part with my clothes and then trying to work out what to do as another (semi) famous sportsman and then another (semi) fam.., and another, and.... until I couldn't help but want to run and hide from the naive, insecure, inexperienced and easily (mis)led girl I remember I was when I was 19.

Consent; rape; power; age; masculinity; femininity; just say no; she didn't say no; we should all say no; oh to be a footballer's wife; oh to be older; did she say no? I don't remember; what goes on tour; just get over it; she's in it for the money..........whatever

To borrow (and slightly amend) from Redgum: "She was only 19".