Inolvidables Mariposas (Unforgettable Butterflies)

Three of the four Mirabal sisters (Patria, Dedé, Minerva, María Teresa)
who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic
and were assassinated in 1961. Painting found here.

"The United Nations Honors the Butterflies:

After their death the United Nations declared November 25th as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.  The official document states the following "The date was chosen to commemorate the lives of the Mirabal sisters. It originally marked the day that the three Mirabal sisters from the Dominican Republic were violently assassinated in 1960 during the Trujillo dictatorship (Rafael Trujillo 1930-1961). The day was used to pay tribute to the Mirabal sisters, as well as global recognition of gender violence.  The sisters, referred to as the "Inolvidables Mariposas", the "Unforgettable Butterflies" have become a symbol against victimization of women. They have become the symbol of both popular and feminist resistance. They have been commemorated in poems, songs and books. The memory of the Mirabal sisters and their struggle for freedom and respect for human rights for all has transformed them into symbols of dignity and inspiration. They are symbols against prejudice and stereotypes, and their lives raised the spirits of all those they encountered and later, after their death, not only those in the Dominican Republic but others around the world."

- Regarding the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (November 25th) and the related Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign (November 25 - December 10).

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I had planned to post about another subject this past weekend... that is,  until I discovered that the United Nation's International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was Saturday (the 25th). Of course, here in the states, we are presently inundated with a spate of celebrity sexual harassment "news-breaks" on a daily basis, but I think these just tend to numb us to the more serious atrocities that women face in other locations around the world. While I can understand how sexual harassment is certainly part of the equation, somehow - barring rape - it strikes me as a lesser evil than, lets say, murder, mutilation and disfigurement. Tragically, the latter comprise the (daily) "news-breaks" in other countries. The Dominican Republic is a prime example; sadly, the Mirabal sisters were not its last female victims. Related to its absolute ban on abortion for any reason (up to and including the health of the mother) 90,000 illegal abortions are performed every year and, consequently, botched abortions are the third leading cause of maternal death in that country. Inset right is a photo of a suitcase... one which, unfortunately, contains the remains of  a 16 year old (pregnant) girl, Emely Piguero. The suitcase was found this past October on a roadside in the Dominican Republic (see here). It is unclear whether she was the victim of her boyfriend, the system, or a combination of the two, but, it goes without saying that she is, yet, another "unforgettable butterfly"... one amongst (too) many across the globe...

"We are seeing the ugly face of violence brought out into the light: the abuses of power that repress reporting and diminish the facts, and that exclude or crush opposition. These acts of power draw from the same roots, whether they concern the murder of a woman human rights defender standing up against big business interests in the Amazon basin, a young refugee girl forced to have sex for food or supplies, or a small business employee in London forced out of her job for being ‘difficult’, after reporting the sexual misconduct of her supervisor. In each case, and over and over, these acts of abuse have stemmed from a confidence that there will be no significant reprisal, no law invoked, no calling to account.

But everyone has the right to live their life without the threat of violence. This holds for all people, no matter what their gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity or caste, and irrespective of their income level, sexual orientation, HIV status, citizenship, where they live, or any other characteristic of their identity.

Violence against women and girls is not inevitable. There are many ways to prevent violence in the first place and to stop cycles of violence repeating."

- Excerpt from the 2017 "message" by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

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"Police said a 25-year-old woman was stoned to death in a so-called "honor" killing outside a court in Lahore, Pakistan, because she married the man she loved—an action that many Pakistani families believe bring dishonor on the family. She was supposed to marry her cousin. Around a dozen men, including the woman's father, two brothers and former fiancé, attacked her with bricks. (Reuters)


'I killed my daughter as she had insulted all of our family by marrying a man without our consent, and I have no regret over it,” her father told police, adding that it had been an “honor killing.'

The anecdote is horrifying. But even more horrifying is the regularity with which honor killings and stonings occur in Pakistan. Despite creeping modernity, secular condemnation and the fact there’s no reference to stoning in the Koran, honor killings claim the lives of more than 1,000 Pakistani women every year, according to a Pakistani rights group."

- Story and photo found in this Washington Post article.

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"There's an epidemic in our country that our government is refusing to respond to. For Indigenous women in Canada, the idea that they might go missing is a terrifying reality. The United Nations has urged Canada to launch a national inquiry on missing and murdered Indigenous women. But Harper has not been willing to act. Disappointing as the news is, it's, unfortunately, not surprising that a settler-colonial state does not value the lives of Indigenous women as much as other citizens.

The RCMP recently released information stating that the number of missing and murdered is around 1,200 women. The rate that Indigenous women go missing is disproportionately larger that any other group in this country and Indigenous women are three times more likely to experience violence than non-Indigenous women are.

All these statistics are part of the narrative of a country that has marginalized Indigenous women for centuries. It's time to hear their voices.

'We have entire communities living with knowing that it's a fact that, in their lifetime, their mother or their sister or their daughter or at least someone they know is going to go missing,' says Jessica Brant, a Mohawk woman who participated in the recent VIA rail blockade protest to bring attention the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal women."

- Excerpt from this Huffington Post article. Photo found here.

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"The first doctor to be brought to trial in Egypt on charges of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been acquitted, crushing hopes that the landmark verdict would discourage Egyptian doctors from conducting the endemic practice.

Raslan Fadl, a doctor and Islamic preacher in the village of Agga, northern Egypt, was acquitted of mutilating Sohair al-Bata’a in June 2013. The 12-year-old died during the alleged procedure, but Fadl was also acquitted of her manslaughter.

No reason was given by the judge, with the verdict being simply scrawled in a court ledger, rather than being announced in the Agga courtroom.

Sohair’s father, Mohamed al-Bata’a, was also acquitted of responsibility. Police and health officials testified that the child’s parents had admitted taking their daughter to Fadl’s clinic for the procedure.

Despite his acquittal, the doctor was ordered to pay 5,001 Egyptian pounds (about 600 USD) to Sohair’s mother for her daughter’s manslaughter, after the pair reached an out-of-court settlement."

- Story and photo found in this Guardian article: Egypt’s first female genital mutilation trial ends in not guilty verdict.

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"Unlike the widely publicized cases in which Taliban members attacked two randomly selected schoolgirls in Afghanistan*, most acid attacks are perpetrated in Bangladesh, India, and Cambodia against victims the perpetrators know.  The significant majority of acid violence victims in India and Bangladesh are women attacked for transgressing traditional gender roles that place them in subordinated positions.  In Cambodia, women are often targets of acid violence largely because of their socio-economic insecurity.

Acid violence reflects gender inequality and discrimination in society.  Often acid attacks are perpetrated against women because they transgress gender norms that relegate women to subordinate positions.  Indeed, a significant portion of attacks in India and Bangladesh occur when a woman exercises decision-making power by rejecting a suitor’s marriage or love proposal.  Acid attackers aim for a woman’s face in an attempt to destroy what many members of society consider to be one of her most important assets—her beauty.

In Cambodia, women commonly attack other women.  In these cases, the victim is typically the perpetrator’s or partner’s wife or mistress.  Even in acid attack cases perpetrated by women, gender inequality is a factor.  In a society in which women are often socially and economically insecure without a male provider, women may attack their husband’s or partner’s wife or mistress to break up the relationship by disfiguring the victims and thereby securing their social and economic position."

- Excerpt from: Combatting Acid Violence in Bangladesh, India, and Cambodia. (.pdf)

* In a related story (2008) from Afghanistan, a total of 15 girls and teachers were splattered with acid by men on motorcycles. Apparently, this was the terrorist's way of discouraging girls from going to school and upholding a previous ban created under Taliban rule.

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Some happy faces in Tanzania found here.

I wasn't sure at first about posting the stories above; a few regarding horrific global realities I hadn't been aware of previously. After all, the facts are very depressing and one feels all the more helpless and hopeless. But, then again, maybe that was the point. Knowledge is power. Nothing can change if it's consistently hidden and disregarded.

Of course, you might say that none of the examples above (apart from the Canadian article) actually reflect the experience of we "civilized" women of the western world*, but - in a holistic way - I think they do. They are, after all, chapters in our gender's story, our "morphic field" (if you will), that is, herstory.

Moreover, the women in countries like Pakistan, Egypt and India, are currently - to quote Che Guevera again - in the "belly of the beast" when it comes to the emancipation of women. And it is these women in part who will play a crucial, and (possibly) pivotal role in securing global peace in the future. They're living at ground zero... and if there is somewhere a rot at humanity's core, these women might be the ones to finally eradicate it.

And, judging by those happy Tanzanian female faces, the "news" is not all bad. There are a number of organizations of women dedicated to righting the many wrongs that continue to target women (specifically) in this day and age. (I will list a few shortly).

Meanwhile, just in case you're thinking that another day devoted to women's issues is a bit redundant, well, guess again. What we see here and here has been a long, long, LONG time coming. Truth can never have enough reinforcement.

* Obviously, women in the west suffer other forms of violence. Domestic violence for one... and sexual assault. For instance, NOW estimates that here in the States a million women are raped each year... that one in five women will be raped during her lifetime. The bottom line: only 3% of the perpetrators serve time in prison.

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Note: A few of the news articles found here were brought to my attention by this (2014) Huffington Post article: International Day For The Elimination Of Violence Against Women: Headlines We Can't Ignore.

Additional links:

The Avon Global Center for Women... also here, and here.

Additional information regarding FGM can be found here, and here.