Posts Categorised ‘Harassment’
Nov
21
Undocumented women working in the U.S. food industry are regularly exploited and humiliated, and are viewed as ‘perfect victims’ by sexual predators, according to a new report.
Sexual harassment and violence is a constant threat, said the women interviewed in the report ‘Injustice on Our Plates: Immigrant Women in the U.S. Food Industry’.
In addition to the commonplace exploitation of immigrant workers, undocumented female workers also suffer from the gendered aspects of abuse.
They are isolated, vulnerable due to the lack of legal status, generally have little knowledge of their rights and are thought to lack credibility.
Many do not report the abuse and attacks out of fear of losing their jobs or being deported. As women are often the primary carers for their children, such fears are often more widespread among women than men. Losing their job might mean that they will be unable to support their family. Deportation could even mean being separated from them.
The men harassing and abusing them are often their supervisors or other men who the women depend on to keep their jobs as well as for practical aspects of the job, such as transportation to and from the fields.
In a similar report from California released in the mid 90’s, a worker told the the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that one of the fields was referred to as the ‘field of panties’, because so many women had been raped by their supervisors there.
These women are some of the most vulnerable women in our society. They work under excruciating conditions for extremely low wages. They have few entitlements, and often face too many barriers to execute the few entitlements they are aware of. Their human rights are grossly violated.
Lack of papers does not justify the constant fear of and actual sexual harassment and abuse, just as it does not justify all the other forms of abuse these women endure on a daily basis.
No woman should be the ‘perfect victim’ of rape and sexual abuse.
This report has identified these women as just that. We can not allow for them to be identified, but not helped.
Tagged: Immigration, Rape, Sexual Abuse, Sexual violence, U.S., Violence against women
Nov
09
Anti-abortion campaigner Philip Benham, founder of the group Operation Save America, met in court yesterday charged with making and distributing ‘Wanted’ posters featuring personal details of doctors performing abortions in North Carolina, US.
Benham describes the posters as information tools and claims that he is exercising his right to freedom of speech. Others however, name these actions ‘calls for murders’, referring to the assassinations of four doctors following similar posters.
The most recent murder took place last year, when Dr. George Tiller, who survived an attempted murder in 1993, was killed while attending church. In 1993 and 1994, four doctors depicted on wanted posters were killed.
You can see a CBS news report about the wanted posters here.
Tagged: Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy
Oct
19
Illustration from stock.xchn.com
My friend emailed me this great story yesterday, which really made my day. It’s a bit old, so some of you might have read it already, but I don’t think a woman like this can be mentioned too often!
Lisa Robinson, her husband and five-year old son had been on a day trip to Cardiff when their return journey on the train turned unpleasant. A group of about 30 soccer supporters on board the train were celebrating their teams’ win and at one point started shouting sexist abuse to a woman on the platform. When Robinson asked them to stop, the chanting was turned directly on her. Robinson said to the BBC that the chanting became ‘sexist and quite obscene’, so after a while she got up and pulled the red handle and stopped the train. When the driver came out, she asked him to call the police. He didn’t. Instead, he reset the handle and continued to drive, forcing the family to be subjected to abuse throughout the journey. When Robinson and her family arrived at their destination, she asked the driver to call the police, but again he refused.
That’s when she decided to take no more. She went down on the tracks and stood in front of the train until action was taken. Meanwhile, she said, some of the men from the train continued to abuse her and pulled out their camera phones to take pictures of her.
Finally, the police was called. After the incident, Robinson said to the BBC:
This is my community, this is my village. We’re not going to be bullied and certainly for women and families, they should be able to travel on the train in peace and quiet and go about their business without being bullied like that.
Truly a woman of action. As commented by the Observer’s Eva Wiseman: ‘Lisa Robinson sat on the tracks for us – I might get T-shirts made.’
