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Beyond victimhood: The untold realities of Nepali brides in South Korea

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Nepali brides in South Korea are often portrayed as victims of violence, abuse, exploitation, slavery, and trafficking. But are these the only realities of Nepali brides? Nilima Rai in this article, challenges the dominant monolithic narrative of victimhood and sheds light on the other realities of these women – many of whom navigate such matrimonies with resilience, academic and professional achievements, and significant socioeconomic and cultural contributions in Korea and Nepal. Through patchwork ethnography, this article reveals Nepali brides’ overlooked agency, aspirations, achievements, and contributions beyond their image as victims.

Image by Sukanto Debnath

‘They call us Bhote ko budi,1 someone with Pothi Visa,2 who didn’t find a suitable man to marry, the victims of domestic violence and abuse, and someone who is miserably sitting in a corner and crying over their ill fate,’ one of the Nepali brides said. This illustrates the racist, sexist, and negative remarks the Nepali brides encounter in their day-to-day lives. This article discusses how the dominant narrative of victimhood further reinforces stigmas and prejudices of Nepali brides.

Transnational marriage in South Korea: Nepali brides

Transnational marriage between Nepali brides and Korean men began in the early 1990s when Nepali migrant workers entered Korea through the Industrial Trainee System.3 These brides, mainly belonging to socio-economically marginalised Tibeto-Burmese ethnic groups, are preferred4 due to their physical similarity to Korean people.

Nepali women participate in transnational marriage as an opportunity created by globalisation but with an expectation to fill the bride shortage vis-à-vis the ongoing crisis of social reproduction in South Korea. Like other foreign brides,5 Nepali brides make compromised choice of marrying foreign men and settling outside their country to escape poverty, attain upward mobility, or find access to labour markets that are otherwise denied to them.6  Conversely, Korean men7 rejected in the local marriage market due to their low socio-economic status and societal expectations of women seeking brides outside their racial/ethnic pool in countries such as China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Cambodia, Mongolia, and Nepal to name a few.

In Nepal, such marriages occur through commercial marriage brokers, mutual friends and relatives living and working in Korea. Since the early 2000s, Nepali women have entered transnational marriage through the marriage agencies/bureaus in Korea and Nepal.

The media’s victim narrative and its impact on Nepali brides

With the active involvement of the marriage brokers as matchmakers and the negative implications of such commercialised marriages, Nepali brides are often disparagingly depicted as ‘victims’ – the victims of trafficking, slavery, domestic violence, abuse, and deception. For more than a decade and even today, domestic and international news media have been replete with the sufferings of Nepali brides in Korea, portraying them as pitiful, bleak, wretched, sold, trafficked, and enslaved in Korean households. A rapid increase of unregulated marriage agencies in Nepal and Korea has resulted in increased numbers of fraudulent marriages engendering domestic violence and abuse of some of the Nepali brides. News media have widely reported cases of violence against Nepali brides along with their testimonies. Such efforts have highlighted the grave concerns of violence against those Nepali brides who experienced domestic violence and abuse. However, the paucity of research on the overall experiences of these brides, and the overwhelming representation of these women in media not only created their image as ‘women in peril’ and labelled them as ‘victims’ but also reinforced the already existing stigmas and prejudices against these women within the Nepali diaspora community in Korea.

These brides are subjected to gender-oppressive slurs by the Nepali diaspora community which sees them as ‘promiscuous’, ‘leftovers’, or someone who has a problem or is behaving strangely, thus ineligible to marry a man from their vicinity. The media’s tendency to depict Nepali brides merely as victims, the lack of research as well as the condescending attitudes of the Nepali diaspora community and the potential threat of oppressive slurs has often resulted in the silencing of Nepali brides.

‘Other Nepali brides in our community scolded me for allowing them to take my video and giving an interview to one of the media people,’ said one of the Nepali brides. This illustrates the negative implications of such narratives of Nepali brides fostering distrust and discontentment not only towards the media but also within the Nepali diaspora community. Some expressed their resentment through words, while others demonstrated it through their act of refusal, hesitation and constant need for reassurance that those approaching them were not affiliated with the media.

The realities of other Nepali brides

Narrating these women’s stories only through victimhood perspectives obscures the other realities of brides who claim to be empowered through economic gain, freedom of mobility and the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. These are the Nepali brides whose lived realities differ from those who suffer from violence and abuse.

‘Do we look like the victims of domestic violence or unhappy in our marital life, like how these journalists often portray us? Rather, I think I made the right decision getting married and coming here as I have more freedom to work, earn and live my life on my own terms,’ one of the Nepali brides said.

Similarly, another Nepali bride expressed her frustration, saying, ‘I am sick and tired of how these Nepali media represent us. A few years back, one of the journalists asked for our (her husband and her) photo, saying they wanted to cover the stories of Nepali brides. Still, in the end, they published our photo under the awful title and story that talked about how pitiful Nepali brides are. I am more than happy with my husband, who speaks fluent Nepali and actively contributes to Korean and Nepali literature and society. We both are hotel entrepreneurs. So, do you think my story fits into one of those stories published in the newspaper?’

Nepali bride with her husband tending their kitchen garden at Jeju-do, South Korea

The Nepali brides who were not victims of violence – and whose stories did not fit in with the articles published in news media – claimed to have made adjustments early on in their marriage, particularly in terms of language, food, and culture. They are now content with their familial relationships, have successfully established their professional careers, and are able to support their left-behind/natal families in Nepal.

These brides wish to be recognised as successful entrepreneurs, educators, nurses, police officers, poets, counsellors, interpreters, and promoters of Nepali culture, food, and language across the Nepali border. Instead of questioning their intentions in choosing a foreign spouse and vilifying them as ‘gold diggers’ – those who marry old Korean men for ‘card’/citizenship – and helpless victims of violence – who are beaten, battered, and abused by their husbands and in-laws – they want their achievements and contributions in both Korea and Nepal to be valued and acknowledged.

Furthermore, these women are often fluent in the Korean language and are pursuing/pursued further academic and professional endeavours in Korea; things they believe they could not have achieved in Nepal. Based on my research, Nepali migrant workers and students rely heavily on these brides to book public venues and bargain in local shops. They also rely on them for critical services such as translating/interpreting sensitive court cases and counselling in medical and mental health cases. Furthermore, these brides provide constant support and services as teachers and educators in schools, institutes, and migrant worker centres; provide health and safety orientations in factories and industries; act as counsellors to facilitate immigration procedures; work as nurses in hospitals, as police officers, established women’s shelters for migrant workers and provide all the necessary support in the rescue and repatriation of undocumented migrant workers.

Highlighting these women’s stories as achievers and contributors is not to trivialize the gravity of the issues related to violence against Nepali women/brides at all levels in and outside the country. The main aim of this article was to discuss the consequences of one-way narratives of victimhood that have negative implications on the lives of other Nepali brides who are happy with the positive outcome of their struggles in a foreign land. There is a need for in-depth research into the broader experiences of these women and for a multi-stakeholder dialogue and deliberation with state and non-state actors such as news media.

Endnotes

1. ‘Bhote’ is “a derogatory term for ethnically Tibetan people from northern Nepal (Gurung 2022, 1746). This kind of racial slur has been used against Nepali brides in Korea due to the resemblance or the similar physical features of Korean men with these ethnically Tibetan people.

Gurung, Phurwa.2023. ‘Governing caterpillar fungus: Participatory conservation as state-making, territorialization and dispossession in Dolpo, Nepal’ EPE: Nature and Space 6, No.3: 1745-1766.

2. In Nepal, the word ‘poth’” or ‘hen’ is a derogatory colloquial term often used as an oppressional slur that evinces male dominance or superiority over women (Lama and Buchy 2002).

Lama, Anupama and Marlene Buchy. 2002. ‘Gender, Class, Caste and Participation: The Case of Community Forestry in Nepal’ Indian Journal of Gender Studies 9, No.1: 27-41.

3. Before the Employment Permit System (2004), Korea systematised the inflow of migrant workers by introducing the Industrial Trainee System in 1991. Nepali migrant workers entered Korea through this trainee system. In 1990, 43,017 Nepali migrant workers were recorded in Korea.

Rai, Nilima, Arjun Kharel, and Sudeshna Thapa.2019. Labour Migration from Nepal-Factsheet: South Korea, Centre for the Study of Labour and Mobility and Foreign Employment Board, Nepal. https://archive.ceslam.org/fact-sheets/factsheet-south-korea

Based on my research findings, some Nepali brides were found to enter Korea through the trainee system in the early 1990s and later married Korean men.

4. Kim, Kyunghak, and Miranda De Dios. 2017. ‘Transnational Care for Left-Behind Family in Nepal with Particular Reference to Nepalese Married Migrant Women in Korea’ Global Diaspora and the Transnational Community: Migration and Culture.

5. Kim, Minjeong.2018. Elusive Belonging: Marriage Immigrants and ‘Multiculturalism’ in Rural South Korea. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.

6. Based on the findings of the study.

7. Kim, Hansung, Sun Young Lee, and In Hee Choi. 2014. ‘Employment and Poverty Status of Female Marriage Immigrants in South Korea’ Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 23, No.2: 129-154.

This blog post is based on the empirical evidence collected from field research in South Korea and Nepal (2023-24) for my doctoral study.

 

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

 

About the author

Nilima Rai is a Ph.D. candidate in Gender Studies at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. Her research explores the lived realities of Nepali brides in South Korea. She holds master’s degrees in Development Studies from Erasmus University, the Netherlands, and in Conflict, Peace, and Development Studies from Tribhuvan University, Nepal, and the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka. Her interests include migration, marriage and labor mobility, social justice, women’s rights, and the intersections of conflict, disaster, and gender.

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Women’s Week 2023 |“I am a girl, not a woman”: how recognizing diverse girlhoods can foster the inclusion of young mothers in debates on womanhood and girlhood.

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In Uganda, young mothers are predominantly called women, although some young mothers contest that representation and prefer to be called girls.  The normative insistence on categorizing young mothers as women despite girlhood being a transitional phase locks young mothers in an in-between category, a space in which they can be neither girls, nor children, nor women. International Women’s Day celebrations further risk widening the gap between such girls whose daily realities centre on survival, writes Annah Kamusiime. The need to recognize diverse girlhoods is a first step in ensuring that girls are included in discussions on womanhood and girlhood.

During one of the interviews I conducted in 2021 for my PhD research on representations of young motherhood, Nandi, a 16-year-old Ugandan mother, told me, “Even though I am a mother, I am a girl, not a woman”. Her statement is an example of the agentic manoeuvres of girls whose voice remains silenced and their existence pushed to the liminal space – liminal because as mothers, they are in an in-between category where they are not girls anymore, nor children, and nor women, especially when they are not married.

Being a parent is the main marker of transition to adulthood/womanhood; in most of Uganda others also include menarche, a sexual debut, and wifehood. But the young mothers I spoke to did not consider themselves to be adults – women – despite having borne children. And, having borne children, they were no longer children themselves. As a result, their needs as young mothers may not be adequately addressed by efforts that separately target girls, children, or women. Young mothers who fall into none of the marked categories of girl, child, or woman thus face marginalization and exclusion.  In this article, I discuss why the recognition of a distinct category of diverse girlhoods is necessary to further their inclusion – also in celebrating International Women’s Day.

 

‘Girl’ or ‘woman’? How words make worlds

The terms we use are not neutral – the way in which words are combined allows for certain meanings to flourish and for others to be minimized. For instance, consider these two statements: “The girl-child is pregnant” versus “The girl is pregnant”. Both can be used to describe an adolescent mother. But an emphasis on a pregnant girl as a child (as the first statement does) may elicit a different interpretation and response when compared to using only the word ‘girl’. And often such word choices are deliberate. Words make worlds; struggles over meaning are not just about semantics – they are strategic, they have an effect, they shape discourses, actions and rhetoric, and they are contested. Thus, there is a need to be reflexive on how we frame different categories of persons because conceptions shape engagement.

Another example that shows how words matter for girls: While I was writing this article, my 18-year-old daughter read it and told me that at school, their teacher told them that a girl becomes a woman on the day of her sexual debut. I asked her whether that mattered and whether it would make a difference if a girl would be referred to as a woman or a girl. Yes, she said, ‘girl’ and ‘woman’ mean different things, and it matters which is used. As in the case of Nandi, the labels  ‘woman’ placed on a ‘girl’ has specific connotations – it means she engaged in sexual intercourse yet she is expected to be asexual, she is a mother at the wrong time, and she has ruptured normative notions of conceptions of ideal childhood and youth because she is expected to be innocent.  As a result, young mothers are stigmatized and are seen as a threat to the social morals and social order, which fuels their exclusion.

These two examples show that yes, the label of a woman that is placed on girls who are young mothers matter to them even when everyone else may not acknowledge it. Many of the young mothers I have spoken to choose to be called girls, not children, or girl-children, or women. The failure to consider the desire for this distinct categorization means that these young mothers’ voices remain unheard. I therefore argue that we need to reimagine and reconstruct girlhood as diverse and distinct in policy, practice, and debates at different levels-national and international.

 

Girls just wanna be girls

Several renowned scholars studying girlhood, including those highlighted by Claudia Mitchell, have advocated for what they have referred to as the girl-method. Rather than continue to lump girls under either the categories ‘children’, ‘young women’, or ‘women’, they argue that it is vital to add ‘girls’ as a distinct category.  This would remove girls from the shadows and place them in the centre of the discussion on diverse girlhoods, including those of young mothers.

My argument above does not mean that we should dismiss distinct moments like the UN Decade of the Girl Child (1991-2001) and International Day of the Girl Child. Indeed, such moments have been and continue to be an open platform for considering and rethinking issues girls face. However, a merger of ‘girl’ with ‘child’ in what is celebrated as the day of the ‘girl-child’ has been problematized as being passive, essentialist, and homogenizing. My sentiments of the ‘girl-child’ label are that it emphasizes their innocence, vulnerability, and dependency and brings out connotations of powerlessness while also infantilizing girls.

It also poses a risk of illuminating the ‘child’ and marginalizing the ‘girl’ because the ‘child’ may take precedence over the ‘girl’. There are words which are nice sounding, such as ‘girl-child’, and the nicer they sound, the more useful they are for those seeking to establish their moral authority. To counter the risk of applying labels to exclude and marginalize girls, the category ‘girl’ ought to be conceptualized, deconstructed, and reconstructed from their perspective.

 

How International Women’s Day can exclude girls

This is my first ever blog article. I decided to write it because I wanted to reflect on how International Women’s Day (IWD) celebrations relate to the experiences of young mothers in urban poor locales, such as those that I have continued to engage with as part of my PhD research. In rethinking this year’s IWD theme (‘DigitALL: innovation and technology for gender equality’), several questions came to mind. For example, are girls considered in this debate on gender equality? How relevant is this debate on the role of technology and innovation for young mothers living in poor locales in Uganda where only 9% of the populations aged 15 years and above own a smart phone? Moreover, where only 8% of females use internet? And why should young mothers care about such discussions? How will tech-driven developments benefit them?

Unable to answer these questions, I decided to read up on International Women’s Day. What initially sparked IWD were spontaneous demonstrations to protest inhumane working conditions women faced and to press for improved working conditions. Other issues, such as the right of women to vote, were consequently included, and today IWD marks efforts to enact gender equality more broadly.

What is interesting is that International Women’s Day is assumed to be for everyone, everywhere, and is intended to celebrate and encourage collective action in pursuit of gender equality and extended rights for women. However, discussions about women’s suffrage, gender equality and parity are often far removed from the daily realities of many girls and women, including the young mothers in impoverished areas that I worked with – those who are primarily concerned with meeting their survival needs. In this way, specific categories of girls, or even women, including young mothers, may find themselves being excluded from efforts to enact gender equality and from celebrations of these.

International Women’s Day was initiated by working-class women and while it has since significantly highlighted the plight of women and efforts to close the gender gap, it is at a risk of becoming too universalized and corporatized to include women who face a range of intersecting struggles that stretch beyond voting rights and workplace equity. In celebrating International Women’s Day, it is important to remember those girls and women whose voices still go unheard, who move around in the shadows, and whose intersecting struggles leave them far behind.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Annah Kamusiime is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS-EUR). Her research interests are in gender and adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). She is also a Director of Programmes at Nascent Research and Development Organization Uganda.

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To celebrate International Women’s Day 2023, here’s a list of articles we’ve published on women’s struggles for gender equality

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Today, International Women’s Day is celebrated globally. To mark the occasion, we’re showcasing the blog articles on women’s struggles for gender equality that we’ve published on Bliss over the past five years. We hope that the articles inspire further action and discussion. Happy International Women’s Day!

Seed keepers, memory keepers: native women and food sovereignty | Leila Rezvani | March 8, 2019

When North America was colonised, the relationship of indigenous people with food was also colonised. But a group of women acting as seed keepers for their communities are fighting back, practicing decolonisation in their daily work and addressing the legacy of food colonisation through the reclamation of seeds and the traditions, practices, and affective relations that nurture human-plant-environment relationships and keep Native communities thriving, healthy, and connected.

 

Dilemmas for aid agencies working in Afghanistan under Taliban’s gender apartheid rule | Dorothea Hilhorst  | January 12, 2023

In late December 2022, the Taliban announced that aid organizations would no longer be allowed to employ women. It was the next step in a series of measures that make it increasingly impossible for Afghan women to study, live or think independently. In response, many aid organizations have stopped their work, others are continuing. What will be the effect of all this and where are the boundaries for continuing assistance?

 

Why gender matters to social movements | Stacey Scriver and G. Honor Fagan | January 20, 2020

There are right and left, radical and conservative social movements at work in today’s volatile and unequal world. Whether directed towards a transformative social justice agenda or not, social movements themselves do not exist outside of the structures of power. Even among social movements directed towards deep social justice, gender inequality remains a key concern, since gender-related inequalities persist, both within the movements themselves, as well as in their recognition, support and the response to them.

 

Morocco’s ‘ninjas’: The hidden figures of agricultural growth | Lisa Bossenbroek and Margreet Zwarteveen | December 6, 2018

In Morocco’s Saïss region an agricultural boom is unfolding, premised on a process of labour hierarchisation shaped along gender lines. Female wageworkers find themselves at the lowest strata and take little pride in their work and are stigmatised. In such a context, how are rural women able to engage in agricultural wage work without losing their dignity and without being stigmatised? What can we learn from their daily working experiences?

 

Professional indigenous women acting to transform urban spaces in Mexico: methodological reflections | Azucena Gollaz and Marina Cadaval | March 7, 2023

Research practices often still do not adequately recognize the multiple points of views, experiences, and knowledges of those we work with. In the process, the meanings that people give to their own lives and to reality are often overlooked, which silences subjective interpretations. In this blog, we share some reflections on the methodological process developed while carrying out a project about the right to the city with indigenous women in Guadalajara, Mexico. Thinking of research as a living system comprising numerous collaborative gears turned and interlocked by different types of support can help us do research more mindfully and responsibly.

 

‘Empty’ laws and Peruvian women’s ongoing struggle for therapeutic abortion | Zoya Waheed and Romina Manga Cambria | March 15, 2019

Laws and regulations are policy tools that are seen as strong and effective in securing rights, but should we assume that this is always the case? Looking at therapeutic abortion, evidence from Peru leads us to believe otherwise. Legislation of protection laws often fails to be translated into practice.

 

Moving beyond women as victims in post-conflict peacebuilding efforts in Liberia | Christo Gorpudolo | January 27, 2020

Liberia, a war-torn country for much of the 1990s, initiated several post-conflict peacebuilding programmes with the hope of building sustainable peace. But a study of the Palava Hut Program as a transitional justice mechanism showed that such efforts can be thwarted by the reduction of women to victims of war. The opportunity to rebuild gender relations damaged during wars can be missed in the process. Besides rethinking the link between women and victimhood, women’s inclusion in peacebuilding programmes based on lived experiences can help to equalize men and women in the peacebuilding process, argues Christo Gorpudolo.

 

Reclaiming the space for feminism in development practice: the role of ‘femocrats’ | Clara Mi Young Park | July 1, 2019

In spite of international pledges to gender equality and development that leaves no one behind, the current wave of populism and autarchy is materializing in the form of resurging patriarchy, oppression and exclusion. This has spurred a counter movement of feminist activism across the globe. At this juncture, this article discusses the role of feminists in development organizations that can and must also do their part to promote change that is premised on gender and social justice.

 

‘EleNão!’ ‘NotHim!’ Women’s resistance to ‘the Brazilian Donald Trump’ |  Marina Graciolli de Paiva | October 2, 2018

The run-up to the Brazilian presidential election to be held on 7 October reminds spectators of the coming to power of Donald Trump two years ago. Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing politician, is running for the election, and while many are cheering him on, others are watching aghast as he heads the polls. In this article, Marina Graciolli de Paiva looks at the implications of the election of Bolsonaro and shows how the Brazilian women’s resistance movement is countering the rise of a fascist government.

 

Why should there be spaces for queer women, led by queer women? | Heather Tucker | November 17, 2017

NGO’s which receive funding from HIV interventions as well as international LGBT donors are interested in expanding their diversity efforts, for instance by including queer women in their training on human rights.  However, NGOs underestimate the working of intersectionality and fail to grasp why it is important for queer women to be understood on their own terms, recognizing their specific problems and enabling their separate organizations.

 

#MeToo and the need for safe spaces in academia | Brenda Rodríguez, Bruna Martinez and Vira Mistry | June 2, 2020

Initiated back in 2006 by African-American civil rights activist Tarana Burke, the #MeToo movement exploded in 2017 during the sexual misconduct scandal of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein when actress Alyssa Milano asked her Twitter followers from across the world to share their experiences of sexual harassment. As the hashtag went viral, a number of others also emerged, shedding light on sexual harassment in specific sectors. This included the #MeTooAcademia and #ScienceToo hashtags that highlighted the prevalence of sexual harassment in academic spaces and the need for change.

 

The power and limits of women’s collective agency in fragile contexts: from pastoralist communities to refugee environments | Holly A Ritchie |March 6, 2018

Women’s groups and networks have been cited as key instruments for fostering women’s pathways of social and economic empowerment. Yet, with limits to collective agency, Holly Ritchie argues that the emergence of broader women’s movements and struggles remains cautious and constrained in a context of fragility.

 

Bewitched, bothered and bewildered: a study of witchcraft accusation in Northern Ghana | Issah Wumbla | January 14, 2019

Witchcraft accusation and consequent banishment that still persists globally can be viewed as a form of violence against women and children. While it is believed that women are accused of witchcraft mainly due to their socio-economic status, an intersectional analysis of witchcraft accusation in Northern Ghana shows that other factors also contribute.

 

Revolution and music: women singing out in Sudan | Katarzyna Grabska and Azza Ahmed A. Aziz | August 12, 2019

With the attention to Sudanese women musicians actively participating in the current uprising in Sudan, this article reflects on the history of women’s involvement in music and how their performances have acquired political claims over time.

 

When children have children: Can postponing early motherhood help children survive longer? | Sofia K. Trommlerová  | September 21, 2020

In 2010, approximately 34% of young women in developing countries – some 67 million – married before reaching 18 years of age. An additional 14-15 million women will marry as children or adolescents every year in the coming decades. Child marriages lead to pregnancies and childbirths at an early age, which can have negative consequences for the health of both mother and child. Does the age at which motherhood takes place matter, and can postponing motherhood into adulthood help increase the chances of children surviving beyond five years of age? My study of teen pregnancies amongst Bangladeshi girls shows that age does matter, and it matters quite a lot.

 

There’s no stopping feminist struggles in Latin America during the COVID-19 pandemic | Agustina Solera and Brenda Rodríguez Cortés | December 10, 2020

As the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign draws to a close today, Agustina Solera and Brenda Rodríguez Cortés reflect on the challenges women in Latin America have faced over the past year and how, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, they have stood strong as ever, braving the particularly difficult conditions that they have had to face this year.

 

Challenging humanitarianism beyond gender as women and women as victims | Dorothea Hilhorst, Holly Porter and Rachel Gordon | March 7, 2018

Problematic assumptions related to women’s position and role in humanitarian crises are unpacked in a special issue of the journal Disasters on gender, sexuality and violence. The main lesson drawn from the special issue is that aid actors should tread carefully and seriously invest in their capacity to carefully monitor the intended and unintended effects of programming on gender relations.

 

Feminist political ecology in research and action | Wendy Harcourt | March 8, 2018

On 8 March 2018, Professor Wendy Harcourt will be inaugurated at the International Institute of Social Studies, becoming one of the few female professors at the Erasmus University. This blog is a reflection of her personal journey to professorship and on the ‘Well-being, Ecology, Gender and Community’ (WEGO-ITN) project that she heads, which will be launched on the same day at the ISS.

 

Menstruation: from concealed topic to part of the public agenda | Jacqueline Gaybor | March 5, 2018

Menstruation and its multiple social, economic, environmental, health and technological dimensions surprisingly is starting to be discussed globally, in multiple arenas and under very different and sometimes opposing frameworks. But how is this issue positioned at this early stage of an emerging research agenda? Which actions have been implemented? This blog is a reflection on the importance of thinking outside the box.

 

There’s so much we still have to do to address gender injustices once and for all | Lize Swartz  | March 8, 2021

Today we celebrate International Women’s Day, but as always, there are some positive developments we can commend and others that we should be horrified about. The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly exacerbated gender injustices and created new gender inequalities. At the same time we can fortunately witness the strengthening of discussions on gender relations and things we’re still doing wrong (and those things we’re setting right). We’ve reached the tip of the iceberg and the rest – the assumptions and silences that perpetuate gender injustices – lurk beneath the surface, a silent colossus standing between us and real progress. In this post, we celebrate attempts to chip away at those parts of gender relations that are less visible, but just as crucial to address.

Opinions expressed in Bliss posts reflect solely the views of the author of the post in question.

About the author:

Bliss, the blog of ISS on global development and social justice, aims to provide a space where research ideas and findings are brought to the development community in a timely way. With the blog, ISS will address different audiences in policy, practice and the public at large. The blogs are grounded in ongoing research and speak to broader implications for current development trends and issues. Most importantly, the blogs will continue to uphold the best of ISS traditions: to (re)present the voices of people and communities that are marginalized in development.

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There’s so much we still have to do to address gender injustices once and for all

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Today we celebrate International Women’s Day, but as always, there are some positive developments we can commend and others that we should be horrified about. The COVID-19 pandemic has strongly exacerbated gender injustices and created new gender inequalities. At the same time we can fortunately witness the strengthening of discussions on gender relations and things we’re still doing wrong (and those things we’re setting right). We’ve reached the tip of the iceberg and the rest – the assumptions and silences that perpetuate gender injustices – lurk beneath the surface, a silent colossus standing between us and real progress. In this post, we celebrate attempts to chip away at those parts of gender relations that are less visible, but just as crucial to address.

It’s International Women’s Day again! Who could’ve thought that we’d have gone through so much in just one year’s time? Last year on 8 March, they were still considering whether borders and public spaces should be closed and measures imposed. And here we are. All of us suffered the COVID-19 pandemic. No-one remained unaffected. And I think especially women had a hard time as schools closed, remained closed, and they had to balance jobs with childrearing and other tasks traditionally assigned to them. I take my hat off to each and every woman who has faced adverse circumstances over the past year and who has somehow managed to conquer them.

Bliss has received many contributions over the past year about the pandemic from our academics, who have diverse research interests. We’ve seen discussions about things we hadn’t considered. The vast array of articles on different dimensions of the pandemic helped us make sense of what’s happening and take stock of the bigger picture beyond our unhappiness with lockdown measures and the inconvenience they were causing. Inequalities were and still are worsening, and new injustices emerging as the pandemic rages on globally.

One of the articles that grabbed my attention was an article by ISS alumna María Gabriela Palacio, who flagged the rising inequality in academia due to the pandemic as gendered and racialised. In her article she described how women were struggling to fulfill their academic obligations due to the burden of unpaid work they had to shoulder in addition to their work as academics, which is known to be precarious and demanding. She quoted “a sizeable social gradient in the extent to which families feel able to support their children and provide home schooling”.

This growing inequality in academia, which is already highly unequal, needs to remain a topic of discussion. It shouldn’t be normalised or dismissed. Women who manage to do so much and remain standing are superheroes in my eyes, but that doesn’t mean that we should assume that they want to be superheroes.

Another regular author on Bliss, Professor Thea Hilhorst, is also talking about gender relations. But she has a somewhat different focus: the plight of men. At least in the article published today in Dutch newspaper Trouw, where she turned the notion of toxic masculinity ever so slightly on its head by arguing that men have feelings, too, and that we also need them to be involved in reconstructing societies ravaged by conflicts.

Hilhorst, Professor in Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction at ISS, argues that men need to be included in post-conflict reconstruction efforts because conflict gives rise to new or perhaps worse forms of toxic masculinity that remain long after conflicts are over. New perceptions of masculinity may emerge as women’s role is strengthened during conflicts or wars when they assume duties typically considered those of men. And during wars, men also resort to sexual violence and the torturing of civilians – something that remains in their conscience and perceptions of masculinity once the war or conflict has passed.

Men need to find themselves in the post-war reconstruction, as they’ve lost their identity twice – when the conflict started, and when it ended. Neglecting them can lead to greater toxic masculinity as they feel worthless and invisibilised. Thus, not losing sight of men is necessary to strengthen the position of women in society – it’s a dual process in which toxic masculinity is addressed and men given the room to explore alternative identities while women are supported. “A bird needs both its wings to fly,” goes a saying from the DRC that Hilhorst quotes.

Linking to this discussion, in 2018 on Bliss, Hilhorst, Holly Porter and Rachel Gordon in an article titled ‘Challenging humanitarianism beyond gender as women and women as victims’ called on aid organisations to tread carefully in programming gender relations. Echoing Hilhorst’ argument above, they argued that forgetting about men could lead to problems “ranging from mental health problems […] to the (violent) re-assertion of men and masculinities”. And, they argued, by seeing women as primary victims and primarily as victims, “other realities in which men and women assume different and more complex roles” are obscured.

Just over a year ago Christo Gorpudolo also argued on Bliss for the need to move beyond the notion of women as victims of war. She focused on a transitional justice mechanism in Liberia following the country’s long period of civil war and how framing women as victims was not helping the process. Importantly, she highlighted the need to equalize men and women in the peacebuilding process. “A way of approaching peacebuilding in Liberia in order to achieve a gender-just peacebuilding process would be to incorporate both men and women in the peacebuilding process based on their lived experiences—as equals and not necessarily according to a victim-perpetrator dichotomy,” she commented.

And besides reconsidering those who remain women throughout their lives are framed in gender programs and other interventions, we also need to consider the particular problems that queer women face. Back in November 2017, Heather Tucker on Bliss discussed the need to focus on the needs of queer women in Ghana in their own right. Tucker’s ethnographic study in Accra revealed that broader approaches to tackling issues affecting LBGTI+ communities fail to adequately recognise the particularity of problems affecting queer women.

Labeling is just one problematic aspect of the experiences of queer women. For example, the term ‘lesbian’ as it has come to be understood does not adequately reflect the dynamics of same-sex relationships in Ghana, where the term supi is used (she writes how it describes a relationship, not an identity, and how this relationship is defined as one between two women that is intimate and might or might not be sexual in nature). “It is therefore critically important,” Tucker argued, “that donors who are involved in funding queer projects pay attention to the specific nuances, needs, and desires of those they are trying to support.”

This small selection of articles on Bliss (there are many others that are just as interesting – see here and here and here, for example), shows just how much we still need to discuss about gender, and how much we still have to do to change it.

But we are starting to make the change ourselves – and this is crucial. The sentence above (‘how much we still have to do to change it’) is an invitation not to sit back and think of ‘what needs to be changed’, but for each and every one of us to get involved in redressing gender injustices.

Lastly, I want to particularly thank the female academics who have written for Bliss on gender-related, but also on other issues. It’s inspiring to know that the conversation on gender is continuing, but also that women are driving conversations in academia. Chapeau! And happy International Womens’ Day to all women!

About the author:

Lize Swartz

Lize Swartz is the editor-in-chief of ISS Blog Bliss and a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam, where she researches political dynamics of socio-hydrological systems. She is part of the newly formed Transformative Methodologies Working Group situated in the Civic Innovation Research Group

Are you looking for more content about Global Development and Social Justice? Subscribe to Bliss, the official blog of the International Institute of Social Studies, and stay updated about interesting topics our researchers are working on.

 

Women’s Month 2019 | Sex selection: an ordinary or violent act? by Christo Gorpudolo

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According to the United Nations Population Fund, there is a variation in the ratio of male to female birth—since the 1990s, 25% more male births than female have been recorded in different areas. Prenatal sex selection reflects a subtle act of violence rooted in social, political, economic, and cultural factors that re-enforces the persistent low economic status of women and value of girls in some communities. This could lead to an overall impact on the mental and physical health of women as well as the creation of a gender imbalance within the population.

Prenatal sex selection is a practice that involves the use of medical techniques to choose the sex of an offspring. Although it has been linked to medical practices that help balance the family, it also leads to sex-selective abortion, where predominantly the lives of girls are halted before birth. It is a form of violence against women that systematically discriminates against girls before birth and at conception, limiting women’s agency in matters relating to their reproductive health rightsplace women at an unequal hierarchical position within the family as decision makers on the sex of a child as well as family size.

This form of gender-based violence (GBV) as with many other forms of GBV is complex. It is rooted in cultural preferences for sons, societal ideas of the roles and responsibilities of women and men, and unmerited privileges for or the rights of men over those of women. In some places, continuity of family lineage and care for ageing parents, as well as wage-earning capacity are all factors that contribute to this form of discrimination. Generally, sex selection results from social, economic and cultural biases that favour men over women.

These cultural, economic and social biases raise the yet unanswered question: ‘are we collectively doing enough and investing in a society free of all forms of violence and befitting women?’

It has been nearly 40 years since The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the United Nations—a convention that has been ratified by 187 countries. However, sex selection, deeply rooted in economic and social biases, still exists in majority of these 187 countries, including Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, and India.

The practice of sex selection also affects girls after birth. Studies have shown that unwanted girls may endure neglect or be deprived of opportunities, creating a further disincentive for mothers to have daughters, since they don’t want to see their children suffer. UNPF (2018, no Page) provides the rationale.

In some agrarian economies, girls are at risk of being in poor health, lack of care or malnourished, to keep their brothers strong and healthy as a source of protection or an assurance for a bigger farmland or harvest and or to continue the family linage.

Sex preference also affects women’s mental health within the family.  Studies have shown that in some instances, women who give birth to only girls may be under huge societal pressure to produce a male child.

To combat this form of violence against women and girls, we have to begin a discussion on identifying and eliminating harmful gender stereotypes and roles that have given rise to the overt act of selective birth. We need to look more closely at the economic market systems that support higher-earning value of a particular sex and the social structures that link specific traits or attributes to power and success, as these are the subtle but yet violent act that hinders the birth of many girls.

References:
United Nations Population Fund (2018) ‘Gender biased sex selection’ Accessed March 23, 2019 https://www.unfpa.org
NCBI (2011) ‘The consequences of son preferences and sex selective abortion in China and other Asian countries’ Accessed March 23, 2019 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3168620/

This article is part of the series `Women´s Month 2019´, in which members of the ISS gender committee reflect on women´s issues on Bliss. Other articles of this series can be read here and here.

christo

About the authors:

Christo Z. Gorpudolo is a student of MA in Development Studies, Social Justice Perspectives (SJP).

 

Women’s Month 2019 | ‘Empty’ laws and Peruvian women’s ongoing struggle for therapeutic abortion by Zoya Waheed and Romina Manga Cambria

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Laws and regulations are policy tools that are seen as strong and effective in securing rights, but should we assume that this is always the case? Looking at therapeutic abortion, evidence from Peru leads us to believe otherwise. Legislation of protection laws often fails to be translated into practice.

In 1924, a therapeutic abortion law was passed in Peru. Ninety-five years later, this law, which allows for legal abortions when the physical or mental health of the mother is at stake, only exists on paper. There are many reasons why this law has not been implemented, ranging from a lack of awareness of the existence of the law to ambiguity when it comes to the law’s contents. While progress of some sort has been made over the last five years with the introduction of guidelines for abortion providers, it is important to understand that much more progress is needed for these women in Peru and elsewhere, as access to safe therapeutic abortion is still limited.

K.L and L.C: Keystone cases in the struggle for safe therapeutic abortions

The Human Rights Watch indicates that women across the world often opt for unsafe procedures because legal abortions are seldom provided in public healthcare facilities. Additionally, due to the uncertainties in the circumstances under which abortion is legal, healthcare providers fear punishment if they were to carry out a therapeutic abortion. Women are also often unaware of their right to therapeutic abortion, and in the cases they are, they’re refused the abortion due to the fear carried by healthcare providers. In other cases, women are refused legal abortions due to the bias carried by some healthcare professionals, who may not always agree that the mother’s life is in danger, and would thus see the abortion as unnecessary. Additionally, due to the social stigma attached to abortions, women may not want to get an abortion due to the fear of being judged.

Two cases were particularly relevant for discussion in Peru. In 2001, K.L., a 17-year-old Peruvian girl, was forced to carry an anencephalic fetus to term, a condition that made unviable the life of the fetus after being born. She gave birth and was forced to breastfeed the baby for four days until it finally died. These events caused her severe depression that required psychiatric help.

In another case in 2006, L.C. was a 14-year-old girl that fell pregnant after being raped repeatedly, which led her to attempt suicide. She survived, but woke up quadriplegic. Her mother requested a therapeutic abortion in order for her spinal column to be operated on to try and regain mobility of her body, but it was denied. Doctors claimed it was prohibited because the pregnancy no longer posed a threat to her physical health, so she was forced to continue the pregnancy.

After the cases of the K.L. and L.C., the Peruvian state was internationally condemned by the ONU´s Human Rights Committee for denying therapeutic abortion to these teenagers. As a response, in June 2014, the Peruvian Ministry of Health published the “Guía Técnica Nacional para la interrupción del embarazo por indicación terapéutica”, or the National Technical Guide for the Pregnancy Interruption by Therapeutic Indication, approved by a Ministerial Resolution Nº 486-2014/MINSA. This guide was looking to standardise the procedure and give more information to the health practitioners about it.

Despite its approval, there are still a lot of medical practitioners that refuse to implement it. As an example of this, in 2017 the Committee on Consumer Protection had to sanction a private healthcare facility with a fine for not approving a therapeutic abortion request, despite the evidence of mental health damage.

Persisting barriers (read: failures)

Despite the clarity of the law, it has not been implemented to the extent it should have. Often, people assume that passing a law and putting it in the penal code is enough to implement it. But when those responsible for implementing it don’t know enough about it, how is it supposed to protect those it aims to safeguard?

Even after the introduction of the guidelines, it is evident that the application of the law is scarce. Additionally, there isn’t much knowledge to be found on the application after the guidelines were created. The state is not taking the responsibility it should by ensuring medical facilities fully implement the law. Even though the discussion has been opened again, it’s clear that it’s not enough. A transformation in the norms and values that surround the topic of abortion must be addressed if the application of such laws is to be successful.

This article is part of the series `Women´s Month 2019´, in which members of the ISS gender committee reflect on women´s issues on Bliss. Other articles of this series can be read here.

Image Credit: openDemocracy. The image has been cropped.

zoyaAbout the authors:

Zoya Waheed is a Pakistani SJP student at ISS. She is the secretary of the Gender committee and is committed to women empowerment.

 

Romina

Romina Manga Cambria is a Peruvian GDP student at ISS. She’s inherited her feminism from her mother. She’s part of the Gender committee.

Women’s Month 2019 | Seed keepers, memory keepers: native women and food sovereignty by Leila Rezvani

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When North America was colonised, the relationship of indigenous people with food was also colonised. But a group of women acting as seed keepers for their communities are fighting back, practicing decolonisation in their daily work and addressing the legacy of food colonisation through the reclamation of seeds and the traditions, practices, and affective relations that nurture human-plant-environment relationships and keep Native communities thriving, healthy, and connected.

Understanding the colonisation of North America begins with understanding food. Europeans thought that Natives could be ‘civilized’ through their stomachs. Targeting Native diets and methods of food provisioning was a way to control and disempower. Native populations of humans, non-human animals, and plants were decimated due to disease and violence. In what is now called the United States, native groups were forced onto individual allotments, often marginal land away from ancestral homes. Sedentary farming was viewed as the rational form of land use, shaping the native in the white yeoman farmer’s image.

And in residential schools, Native languages, dress and diets were forcefully repressed and replaced with English, European clothing and foods like wheat and dairy, which were largely absent from Native diets previously (Vernon 2015).

The legacy of this physical and cultural violence is clear: today, at least 60 Native reservations struggle with food insecurity, and Native families are four times as likely as other US families to report having not enough to eat (PWNA 2017). This places many Native communities in a relationship of dependence with the US Government: the USDA provides canned goods, powdered milk, processed cheese and white sugar, contributing directly to high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity (Vernon 2015).

Fighting back

Native women are addressing the legacy of food colonisation by asserting their communities’ right to grow food for themselves—food that nourishes human bodies, cultural tradition, and the wider web of non-human species and environments. These women and the groups they work with not only promote food sovereignty but practice it: Winona La Duke of the Anishinnaabe founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project, which bought back 1,200 acres of tribal land that had been appropriated by the US government and began a project to revive the collection of wild rice, an important traditional food.

Rowen White of the Mohawk Nation founded Sierra Seeds, a company selling locally adapted and heritage varieties, and directs the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network (ISKN). In the winter of 2018, the ISKN came to an agreement with Seed Savers Exchange, a public access seedbank of rare and heritage varieties, to identify and rematriate[1] varieties of corn, beans and squash that originated in Native communities (White, n.d.).

Rufina Juarez, a Chicana Indigenous woman, helped organise the 14-acere South Central Farm, maintained by 350 primarily Central American families as a space to grow culturally appropriate, nourishing food in 20-by-30-foot plots. The farm was a haven for immigrants to grow food that connected them to the places they left behind: nopales, corn, squash, tlapanche and papalo greens, lettuces, strawberries, cabbages (Mark 2006). The farm was bulldozed in 2006 even after farm advocates were able to raise money to meet the $16 million asking price. (Juarez 2010, Gordon 2006).

And still, new challenges constantly arise: climate change alters traditional migratory routes of important game animals like caribou, land grabbing for industrial monocropping or extraction removes land from indigenous stewardship, and biopiracy[2] and corporate consolidation of the seed industry deteriorates crop biodiversity (Cultural Survival 2013). Native women continue to organise in the face of these challenges, recognising that colonisation is an ongoing, evolving process, deeply tied to the machinations of globalised capital.

Enduring practices

The work of seed keeping and the maintenance of community tradition it entails is often, but not exclusively, spearheaded by women. Collaboration between many stakeholders, Native or not, young and old, male, female, or otherwise, is key. I chose to highlight these initiatives because women are central and powerful, but are not burdened with speaking for ‘nature’, from an essentialised, gender-based position. Rather, their work builds on traditions of care, affectivity, and community network building that women and others have performed for generations, throughout the trauma of colonisation and the attempted, but unsuccessful, erasure of native foodways.

[1] “Rematriate” means returning the seeds to their place of origin. “Repatriate” is more commonly used, but here I chose to retain the word used in White’s article, which consciously imputes a feminine quality to the seed and the land to which it is returning.

[2] Biopiracy describes the process by which biological or genetic material (commonly from medicinal or crop plant or animal species) is obtained and exploited for commercial use without the knowledge or consent of the original ‘owners’ or stewards of the material. The most common situation is multinational pharmaceutical or agrochemical/seed companies using indigenous plant knowledge to locate commercially valuable species, stela them, and then patent them so they become exclusive property of the corporation. The term was originally coined by Pat Mooney of the ETC Group and popularized by Vandana Shiva of Navdanya.

References
‘Combating Food Insecurity on Native American Reservations'(2017) , pp. 1-4Partnership with Native Americans and Northern Plains Reservation Aid.
‘Maintaining the Ways of our Ancestors: Indigenous Women Address Food Sovereignty’ (Last updated 13 October 2013) (a webpage of Cultural Survival). Accessed 16 February 2019 <https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/maintaining-ways-our-ancestors-indigenous-women-address-food-sovereignty>.
Alvarez, L. (Last updated 2019) ‘Colonization, Food, and the Practice of Eating’ (a webpage of The Food Empowerment Project). Accessed 13 February 2019 <http://www.foodispower.org/colonization-food-and-the-practice-of-eating/>.
Gordon (14 June 2006) ‘LA’s South Central Farm Shut Down and Bulldozed’ Tree Hugger. Accessed 16 February 2019 <https://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/las-south-central-farm-shut-down-and-bulldozed.html>.
Mark (9 June 2006) ‘Could the battle for South Central Farm be coming to a close?’ Grist. Accessed 25 February 2019 <https://grist.org/article/mark2/>.
Juarez, R. (2010) ‘Indigenous Women in the Food Justice and Sovereignty Movement: Lessons from the South Central Farm’, NACCS Annual Conference: Chicana/o Environmental Justice Struggles for a Post-Neoliberal Age, 1 April 2010. San Jose State University pp1-10.
Vernon, R.V. (2015) ‘A Native Perspective: Food is More than Consumption’, Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5(4): 137-142.
White, R. ‘Indigenous Seed Keepers Network: The Long Way Home; Seed Rematriation at Taos Pueblo’ (a webpage of Native Food Alliance). Accessed 13 February 2019 <https://nativefoodalliance.org/indigenous-seedkeepers-network/>.

This article is part of the series `Women´s Month 2019´, in which members of the ISS gender committee reflect on women´s issues on Bliss.

Image Credit: https://www.stopthewall.org/apartheid-wrong

About the author:

leilaLeila Rezvani is a Master’s student in the AFES major. She comes from Southern Vermont, USA, and is interested in the politics of scientific knowledge production, seed systems, plant breeding and thinking about how the agro-food system could be more just for plants, people and non-human animals. She misses the mountains and hopes to work for a small seed company or farm someday (soon).