by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

• Dermitáge's ads promise anti-aging with airbrushed before and after images. •

Now, nearing forty—and completely uninterested in make-up—I’m the target age for the exorbitantly priced cosmetics that promise to work against the effects of time. Although politically correct advertisers today claim to embrace the beauty in aging women, the forty-something models look like they’re twenty-five. The fifty-somethings barely have grey hair and look like me on a good day. The sixty-somethings are ridiculously airbrushed and women in their seventies are noticeably absent.

by Marianne Taflinger
- USA -

In Sweden, a doctor delivers Sari, and her family celebrates what will be the beginning of a long life, probably 83 years or more. She’ll attend at least 17 years of school and if she chooses to have children, they’ll be born when she wants them to be born, thanks to convenient and cheap contraceptives. If she has a baby, she’ll take off 15 weeks of work and still earn 80% of her salary. Sari is virtually guaranteed to make it to age 5 without any health complications and enroll in secondary school. Swedish society provides great health care and education that eases both mothers’ and girls’ lives.

By contrast, Adame will live a far more perilous life. Having been born in Niger, she has a high probability of dying before age 5. Like two thirds of all children born in Niger, no “skilled birth attendant” was present at her delivery. It’s likely that Adame will attend only 3 grades in school, and that she will die by age 45, living a life half as long than if she had been born in Sweden. Adame’s mother is practically guaranteed to lose at least one child and has a nine out of ten probability that she will lose 2 children in her lifetime. Due to the lack of contraception, Adame will likely have more siblings than her family can afford. And there’s a strong chance that Adame will suffer from malnutrition and lack a sufficient supply of water.

by Bia Assevero
- USA -

Ruud Gullit knows his soccer.

He’s Dutch for one thing, and the Dutch have produced some of the most spectacular talents that the modern era of the game has ever seen. From Van Basten to Bergkamp, from Rijkaard to Gullit himself, the Dutch have redefined the game more than once.

by Sarah Wyatt
- USA -

Years of hardship and backbreaking labor in the riot-stricken slums of Kibera in south Kenya have worn 18 year old Eshe Koome to the bone. A single mother of two, she walked out on her abusive husband and survived for two years as a daily wage laborer, loading vegetables and other goods for sale.

• Eshe is now able to earn a living wage at Kazuri. Photograph by Sarah Wyatt. •

Eshe's story captures in a nutshell how a group of formerly indigent, urban women operates a business for themselves. The Kazuri Bead Factory, located in the Nairobi suburb of Karen, is unique in that it is Kenya’s first visitors’ attraction of its kind, created for and by women. Founded by Lady Susan Wood in 1975, the company is known for its beautiful, hand-painted beads made from the authentic clay from the Mt. Kenya area. Kazuri (Swahili for “small and beautiful”), also produces a number of other goods popular with tourists including pottery, hand-beaded sandals and purses. The beads are often featured on three-dimensional art cards and can also be found in shadowboxes.

by Nancy Van Ness
- USA -

I knew it was bad, but I didn't know just how bad. Colonel Ann Wright, retired US Army, grabbed the audience’s attention at a panel called Women in the Military, hosted last month by Women Center Stage in New York City, when she said that one in three women in the military is sexually abused by her male colleagues. Ann wants to see huge signs displaying this statistic in every recruiting office, to let young women know what to expect if they sign up.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

What makes The Linguists so entertaining are the stars’ contagious love of linguistics; between them they speak over 25 languages and have devoted their professional lives to traveling around the world – on screen they venture to Siberia, India, and Bolivia – documenting obscure languages on the verge of extinction. Their work is exciting because Harrison and Anderson are up against the clock: currently there over 7,000 languages spoken around the world, but one is disappearing every two weeks.

by Pushpa Iyer
- USA -

Two weeks ago, late in the evening, Soma Bakshi, an educated, middle class young woman in Kolkata was set on fire by her husband and in-laws. This “incident” was preceded by a severe beating given to her by her husband and her mother-in-law. The only witness in this case was her two and half year old son, who recounted the beatings his mother received that night from his father and grandmother to the police. The boy still recalls his mother’s tortured cries. Soma, severely burnt, was kept gasping for life in the house without any attempt to seek medical assistance. Her parents, who arrived at the home some hours later after receiving news of an “accident,” rushed her to the hospital, where she died after a week of agony.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

While children around the world are taught that God loves all people, even the most pious of nations repress homosexuals; marginalize and abuse women; neglect the rights of children and wage war on fellow human beings often because of their different beliefs, races and ethnicities.

As I write this, devout Jews and Muslims—encouraged by their religious leaders and imbalanced politics—continue to kill each other in The Middle East. American politicians who identify themselves as Christian and insert “God bless America” in every speech pass legislation that slashes funds to educate America’s children while pumping money into a war that kills children in Iraq. Chinese police, some of whom may very well be Buddhists, continue daily to club Tibetan monks and nuns protesting abuses of human rights.

by Michelle Chen
- USA -

Tanya McLeod’s marriage was hurting, but her husband thought he could make it up to her when he brought her a cute dog as a “peace offering.” The family stayed together and the dog grew up alongside her children—until the day her husband decided to destroy the animal with his bare hands.

At that point, McLeod says, “I knew that he was capable of killing me.”

by Ellen Snortland
- USA -

Midnight. Intensely urban downtown neighborhood in Los Angeles where the alleys reek of urine and garbage. Dark Craftsman house in the Carpenter-Gothic style. My home. I cross the threshold and meet an interrupted burglar who raises his knife, ready to plunge it into my throat or heart. My scream is so intense he drops his knife, grabs his ears and runs like hell. “Thank you, mister,” I neglect to yell, because I was yet to know the impact this event would have on the balance of my life.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

My sister doesn’t have any children. Neither does my female cousin, nor my sister-in-law. A close female friend of mine from college wants kids but her relationship woes and her career haven’t allowed for an ideal child-rearing situation. Here in Germany, I’m a statistical rarity, as a university-educated woman with three children. Exercising the right to intellectually choose motherhood, or not, has marked my generation of women.

I recently Googled “reasons not to have kids” and got 26,700 hits. Many of the results linked to Corinne Maier’s bestseller from last summer, No Kid: 40 Reasons for Not Having Children. (Maier, by the way, is a mother of two.) Then there is childfreebychoice.com, which declares the resources of its website are “designed to be a haven for those who prefer to be childfree throughout their lives.” There are also countless parenting and women’s blogs where 30 – 40 something aged women (and men) explain their reasons against procreating.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

“Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. . .
Stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

• Renée and Jacques on their wedding day in Port-au-Prince, 1965. •

In practice, a woman’s place is no longer just in the home. She is often holding down the fort both at work and in the kitchen: juggling meetings while discretely pumping breast milk or fixing a quick dinner before working late into the night on her laptop in bed. Time is also squeezed in for listening to her husband’s trials and tribulations while to-do lists run through the back of her mind. The term “good wife” has been replaced with being a “good partner,” but the job description is similar.

Partnership is perhaps the hardest task to befall modern women. While many aspects of motherhood are instinctual, evolving with a life partner is a long, often arduous learning process. To live together—actively and harmoniously as two equal individuals—is a challenge that proved harrowing even for women like Barbara and Renée who survived dictatorship, war, poverty and fleeing their homes.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

They leave holding only their children's small hands in their own. A crumpled photo of a relative might find its place among their few possessions. Most often it is nothing more than a prospect—of safety, peace, or a new chance at life—that accompanies millions of people who flee their homes.

• Kenyan women flee the post-election violence with their belongings on their backs. Photo courtesy of the Humanitarian Coalition. •

Two women we have now come to know by name, Barbara and Renée, were lucky. Barbara didn't squeeze herself into the back of a VW Bug to get across the East German border. Renée did not cling for her life on a shabby boat in shark infested waters to get to America. They did, however, leave their homes and their families for a chance at a better life, a decision, which is never free from risk or worry.

Renée left Haiti with her husband in 1966 so that he could finish his medical studies in Canada. Uncertain of what lay ahead, they left behind their infant daughter and paid off a Haitian official to let them out of the country. Although a newly married couple, they sat separately on the plane to avoid suspicion by Canadian officials that they might be planning to stay. Their efforts would prove futile.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

Before we had our own children, my husband and I began sponsoring a child in Senegal named Absa, a pretty little girl with clever eyes.

• Absa in Senegal. Photo courtesy of World Vision Germany. •

It has been seven years and our children know the pictures of Absa, standing behind a large wooden bowl and holding onto a tall wooden mortar.

Recently, we received a check-list with a blank space next to school attendance. My eyes rested on the latest picture of Absa, now almost a woman, and I wondered what would become of her?

I called the aid organization and asked why Absa was no longer in school. The woman on the other end of the telephone line sighed.

by Natasha Dokovska
- Macedonia -

“I have seven children, I don't work, neither does my wife. For many years I thought about selling my kidney so I could give my children a better life, but just recently I found someone to buy it,” says 40 year old Ekrem. He explains that it was not a difficult choice because the 1,000 Euro ($1,465 USD) he got as compensation for the lost kidney will enable him to mend some holes in his home, pay electricity bills, and get enough firewood to last for the rest of the winter.

“Fortunately this was not a cold winter so we managed to keep warm with what we've got, otherwise we would have frozen to death,” says Ekrem.

Ekrem is one of the many Macedonian citizens who see selling their organs as a chance to save themselves from poverty. He does not consider the consequences. According to a Macedonian organization that works with people with kidney diseases, for Ekrem and about a hundred other Roma citizens in the country, it is the only way to offer a modest life for their children.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

As a child, my parents told me almost every day to be grateful for the food on my plate. When I occasionally grimaced at the offerings, my father would say, “No problem, we can put you on a plane tomorrow. There are plenty of kids in my hometown who would love to trade places with you.” I took my father only half seriously, but was still too young to be completely sure. It wasn’t until I saw true poverty for myself, that I understood just how quickly another little girl would have taken my place at our table; delighted to sit behind a mound of food that I was too spoiled and finicky to finish.

I was seven years old when I first went to Haiti, and I will never forget the other children my age who smiled at me in wonder, their bare feet scurrying across the hard pavement. To see their bones poking through their skin made my own bones ache. Every time they smiled at me, despite me having everything they didn’t, a piece of my naïveté drifted away.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

January 30th marks the 75th "anniversary" of Hitler's rise to power. Today, appropriately, we begin a nine-part series by Rose-Anne Clermont conceived as "Parallel Histories from Different Worlds." The series begins with the early experiences of two of the women closest to Clermont whose lives were tranformed under brutal dictatorships more than 50 years ago.

In the next part of this series, the two women Clermont interviewed, Barbara and Renée, talk about the challenge of growing up in poverty, with scarce food and resources. - Ed.

• Barbara and her brother, Michael in 1937 in Germany. •

by Eva Sohlman
- Sweden -

How does a society best deal with its immigrant minorities? This is a question which has become increasingly urgent as more people than ever leave their home countries due to conflict, climate change and globalization. But as they aspire for a brighter future in new lands, these “new” citizens risk being discriminated against, marginalized and even isolated.

The French riots in 2005 and late last year served as a brutal wake-up call and reminder about what can happen if a society lets its immigrant communities drift in the periphery without integration. But while some countries have tried to deal with racism and ethnic discrimination such as Britain, which suffered race riots in the 1980s, some of the initiatives did not always have the intended effect – as in the case of multiculturalism.

Speaking at his offices in the majestic Littauer building at Harvard University, Amartya Sen, Indian economist, philosopher and winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics tackles the topic in a rare interview.

by Tess Raposas
- Philippines -

Maria was 16 when she first came to visit the Philippines from California and decided to remain here. Witty and talented, she became a popular movie icon. Then barely in her twenties, she plunged into an early marriage with an upcoming politician from the north. Nineteen years later, her body was found slumped on the stairwell of the 13th floor where she had fallen from the 23rd floor of the condominium unit where she was staying. She was only 38. Why?

Maria was also a mother of six whose life became an archetype of marital wretchedness. Even if she had wanted out of her marriage, it would have been impossible for her to opt for divorce: the Philippines is one of only two countries in the world where divorce is not allowed. (The other country is Malta, another Catholic stronghold, like the Philippines.)

by Eva Sohlman
- Sweden -

Harold Bloom, Yale literature professor and cultural critic, is one of America’s most prominent and provocative intellectuals. Unabashedly, he has always spoken up for what he calls “the fight for truth and beauty” making a lot of foes in the process, but also some friends. As one of the first critical voices against the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, Bloom landed in the hot seat with the satire “MacBush” in 2004. Lately, he sparked worldwide outrage by calling Harry Potter “garbage”. Speaking at his home in New Haven where he is recovering from a recent health scare, a pale and weak Bloom seems to have symbolically embodied what he calls the “poor state of the nation”.

“I am 77 years old and I have never seen this country in such a bad state. It is madness. What we are seeing is the fall of the Roman Empire, only now it is the fall of America, the glory of our Empire. This war is what Parthya was to Rome.

by Imelda V. Abaño
- Philippines -

At the December UN conference in Bali, Indonesia, experts and concerned people alike discussed how poor women in developing countries bear the brunt of climate change in a wide range of ways. They have to walk to fetch water or wood for fuel and carry it back to the household. They have to work longer hours in the fields to till the soil, which has hardened due to severe drought, and yet they receive fewer benefits because of low wages and low crop production. And despite their efforts, they have little decision making power because in these areas, women are considered merely as housewives. In India, as one example, women have very little bargaining power when marketing their crops. When children or spouses fall ill from diseases, it is women who care for them. It is women who will do without or with less when food is scarce.

"Life has been hard, since heavy rains always wash away many of our crops and cause flooding in our village," said Mariana Dau from a farming village in Sumatra, Indonesia who talked about how climate change has affected their family’s life and also their financial security.

by Katharine Daniels and Patricia Vásquez
- USA -

Headlines around the world are reporting the news of the shocking yet seemingly inevitable assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi this morning. In Al Jazeera’s report “Daughter of Tragedy,” Kamran Rehmat describes what happened as “An inescapable aspect of the near-Greek tragedy governing the Bhutto family.” He comments that “What ever else the mind-numbing killing of Benazir Bhutto in Thursday’s suicide attack will mean for Pakistan’s future, there is little doubt that politics in this south Asian country will never be the same again.”

Benazir Bhutto was killed just a few miles from the scene of her father's execution 28 years earlier. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, a former prime minister and the founder of the party that Benazir led, was executed by hanging on charges of conspiracy by the then-military regime. That event motivated Benazir to devote her life to politics.

by Tess Raposas
- Philippines -

In coastal communities all over the Philippines, it is ironic that seawater is abundant everywhere but effectively, there’s not a drop of clean water to drink. But the problem exists throughout the country, and in fact, across the world. Residents must travel miles away to collect fresh water, which must be also be consumed sparingly because in the absence or shortage of this basic commodity. Children suffer the most. Not only are children usually assigned to be the handy collectors of water for many households, but they are also the most susceptible when it comes to water-borne diseases.

• Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink for many of the world's most improverished people.
Photograph by Debashis Basu. •

Lack of clean water and adequate sanitation facilities are realities that poor people in almost every corner of the world have to contend with every single day of their lives. They end up paying a very steep price for the lack of something so basic to well-being.

by Eva Sohlman
Sweden

SANA'A, Yemen – For a Yemeni woman the most common route to a jail cell is love or prostitution. Another is to be raped. “The most common reason why a Yemeni woman is in prison is relationships with men,” says Najiba Naji, director of the state prison in Yemen’s capital Sana'a.

• Unlike some 30 years ago, women in Yemen today cover most of themselves from head to toe. Photograph by Eva Sohlman. •

Yemen, known by the Romans as "Arabia Felix" (Happy Arabia) in the days when it flourished from the incense trade, is strategically placed at the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean. Today it is one of the world's poorest countries, on the periphery of world politics, and more known by the epitaph, “The land of the three Ks – Kidnappings, Kalashnikovs and Khat”. Ironically, this marginalization has meant that the country has ended up at the center of world events once again.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor, The WIP
USA

Five long years after the 2003 invasion of Iraq the chatter coming from the White House reads like déjà vu. Despite the calls from world leaders and weapons experts to “stop and think,” the White House appears stubborn and determined to rush into another ill-conceived, poorly executed, and unsupported pre-emptive strike. In 2003 there were very few women’s perspectives in the debate that ultimately led to the war. The foreign policy experts, the politicians, and the journalists on television and in print during the critical period before the invasion were overwhelmingly male. The lack of women’s voices parallel a lack of perspective. That lack of perspective is similarly noticeable today as the White House drums up support for another war.

• Global demands to pursue diplomacy with Iran over nuclear development fall on the deaf ears of the Bush administration. Photograph by
Nic Persinger. •

by Tess Raposas
Philippines

• Thousands flock to Obando Bulacan for its annual fertility festival. Photograph
by Darwin Go. •

The town of Obando, just 16 kilometers northwest of the capital, Manila, sits on flat, low-lying coastal plains bordering Manila Bay to the west. Fishing is the major means of livelihood, along with raising ducks, other poultry and hogs. There is also garment and jewelry making and some food processing. 14% of the population live in rural barangays (Tagalog for barrios, otherwise known as districts or wards, the smallest local government unit). The rest of the households make up the urban population. The average monthly income is slightly below what the Department of Social Welfare and Development has established as the minimum for a family of six.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
Germany

• Hamburg boasts pint-sized anti-Nazi graffiti.
Photograph by Photocapy. •

The Nazis offered incentives to German women to procreate and introduced the “Lebensborn” program (fount of life in German) to create a master race of blond, blue-eyed children. Mothers with three or more children under 10 years old received “honorary cards” allowing them to jump shopping queues and get discounts on their rent. Cheap state loans were offered for parents, and there was the “Mother’s Cross” medal: bronze for four children, silver for six and gold for eight.

by Victoria Stirling
Canada

"It's not the fact that one day I will die," Joan said, ” The problem I have is wondering just how it’s going to happen!"

• The author in her early nursing days. Photograph courtesy of Victoria Stirling. •

I’m aware that this is a highly sensitive subject for a lot of people, but it’s one I feel needs to be talked about openly. It's often been said that taxes and death are two inevitable facts of life; this reality applies equally to every one of us, no matter where we reside. Well, our taxes change, but dying remains the same singular experience it has always been. Each of us has to face that final end of life; no one else can do it for us.

From the late seventies up to the end of the nineties I worked as a staff nurse in an acute care hospital. My primary clinical experience was working on a respiratory, cardio-vascular unit. Sadly during that time I was witness to many patients' demise. Some patients went peacefully to sleep, while others endured rigorous resuscitative measures before finally expiring. A number of them suffered much pain, and often prayed or pleaded for release.

by Viktorija Plavcak
Slovenia

Slovenia, a new member of the European Union since September 2007, is a state where the rights of individuals are trampled on every day and nobody cares. Some may feign concern in public, but in the solitude of their homes they spit on those who don't fit in. They curse them and their children, calling them thieves, crooks and killers. Even worse, they threaten them with violence and want the government to evict them from any safe haven they might find in the country.

• Ljubljana, capital city of Slovenia. Photograph by Rosino. •

When the Gypsies came to town

When I was little, it was a holiday in our village when Gypsies came to town. Their air of mystery made our imaginations soar. We adored it when they came on horseback, with all sorts of haberdashery and kitsch. When they set up a carousel, we kids rode round and round for hours, making us very late getting home from school. Winter or summer, they wore only light clothes. They made a lot of noise. Old gypsy women offered to tell our fortunes or begged for money, food or clothes, and my parents never refused. They didn't always come in groups; sometimes individual travelers came to mend all sorts of things from umbrellas, to pots and pans, or they sharpened knives and scissors.

by Imelda V. Abano
Philippines

When I visited a dumpsite last week to do a story about scavengers, I saw a group of children sifting through mountains of trash and asked: "What do you do when you're hungry?" They stared and laughed at me before replying: "When we're hungry, we just tighten our belts."

• In the Philippines, many of
the country's poor scavenge
from dumps to survive.
Photo by Imelda V. Abaño. •

Elena is just 35 years old, but she looks much older. She has five children. She sorts with her bare hands through the putrid waste, looking for anything of value - plastics, some glass, aluminum, bits of cardboard or metal - and stuffs her finds into a sack. Elena rises at 4am; 13 hours later, she will have filled several sacks, each weighing around 40 kilos, with recycled detritus. After 13 hours of work, she tosses her sacks up onto her back and hauls them to the middlemen. They will buy everything she and her children have managed to salvage in a day – and for that effort, she collects a measly $18 USD. Then she goes home to a nearby slum to prepare the family meal.

by Patricia Vásquez
Managing Editor, The WIP
USA

Think about it. The headlines scream it out. Lives of unspeakable pain and loss. And usually it is women, the caretakers of children and a vulnerable population by themselves, bear the vast brunt of the suffering. But even worse is that a pattern of growing violence, more and more barbaric, is being directed at women at a level never seen before in the annals of human history.

Genocide. Ethnic Cleansing. War. Terrorism. Torture. Human rights abuses. Repressive military governments. Repressive religious fundamentalist governments. Rape as a tool of war. Child soldiers. AIDS. Ebola. Global warming. Epic drought. Famine.

by Neeta Lal
India

Kaveri Nambiar, 25, a Brahmin woman from Chennai in southern India, married a farmer’s son in Punjab, up north, a few months ago. But rather than glowing with the happiness of newly married bliss, the young bride is undergoing treatment for depression! The reason? Major socio-cultural disorientation on all fronts: from her inter-caste marriage to the stress of being uprooted and replanted in a culture almost as foreign to her as if she were living in another country: she has had to adjust to the different language and customs of her new home, it’s no wonder that Kaveri sought help. “Mom, please let me come back home,” is her constant request to her hapless mother over phone.

• As men outweigh women in India, many grooms seek brides from other regions and castes. Photograph by Curtis Palmer. •

by Imelda V. Abaño
Philippines

• Women like this 70-year old landfill dweller in Baguio City must find water wherever they can.
Photograph by Imelda V. Abaño. •

In many developing countries, it’s a woman's job to collect water for cooking, cleaning, drinking and sanitation. Women and girls walk an average six kilometers each day to fetch water. They carry around 20 kilograms - roughly the weight of a piece of travel luggage - on their heads.

"We walk long distances every day, sometimes slipping on rocks in the process, but we go on. The water isn't good. It’s brackish. We don't have clean water but we have no choice," says Dela Cruz as she carries two water pails on her way back home.

by Natasha Dokovska
Macedonia

19-year old Natasha Kmetovska and 10-year old Heroldina Iljazi both died last year after being hit by stray bullets; their killers have yet to be found. Natasha was killed at the New Year’s celebration held in downtown Skopje, Macedonia’s capital. Little Heroldina was struck and killed in her own yard by a stray bullet fired during a wedding celebration in her neighborhood. In both cases the police say they are continuing their search for the perpetrators, but they persist in classifying the deaths as accidental rather than criminal.

• Photograph by Jonathan Sopko •

An 11-year old girl was recently injured in the Albanian-dominated Gazi Baba settlement in Skopje, where firing guns at family celebrations is steeped in tradition; there isn’t a single celebration without gunfire. The girl was playing on the balcony of her home when she was hit in the back by a stray bullet. She was immediately rushed to Red City Hospital where doctors began treating her injuries. She is still fighting for her life.

Only one day later, three-year-old Jana was walking with her mother through the yard of her daycare center when she was shot in the foot by a stray bullet. She too was sent to the hospital, but despite her doctors’ best efforts, the injury will leave her disabled for life.

by Louise Belfrage
News Editor, The WIP
Argentina/Sweden

Having spent the summer months in Europe, away from my home in busy, wintry Buenos Aires, many observations have become permanent tenants in my mind. One of the issues that I am most consumed by is how much personal interest in or caring about critical international issues differs from continent to continent. Personally, I find myself hungrily reading everything written on the four yearlong conflict in Sudan and the horrific, unabated genocide in Darfur.

• A young African man at NYU's
"One Week for Darfur"
candlelight vigil held in March.
Photograph by Sarah VanTassel. •

I encountered similar levels of disinterest in France and in Italy. The French seem to be either very upset or very thrilled about their new Le President de la Republique, as many call Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy. Italians on the other hand seem most concerned about the difficulties switching to the European currency is causing them. They complain loudly about how they no longer can afford the month-long vacations they used to be able to enjoy. “Now only Americans come to spend their cash,” sighed the owner of my bed and breakfast inn in Bellagio, by Lake Como in northern Italy.

by Suad Hamada
Bahrain

Bahraini women facing divorce, child custody or alimony disputes walk with heavy hearts and slow steps into Shariah Courts, fearing humiliation and injustice from judges in the only court system that rules over these issues. These women know they have no legal way to challenge arbitrary, inconsistent and unjust verdicts because Bahraini civil law doesn’t have any jurisdiction over Shariah Court verdicts.

• Photograph by Wendy McGregor •

Hanan Mohammed can’t forget what a bitter experience she had in the Shariah courts when she went there to seek an increase in her inadequate alimony. The judge who “avoided any eye contact” not only declined to increase the amount of her alimony, even though he knew that her ex-husband had gotten a sizable salary increase, but he was openly hostile and rude to her, with no provocation. She says her rights have been violated and that she feels “humiliated” by the encounter.

by Imelda V. Abaño
Philippines

• A native farmer atop the Ifugao Rice Terraces. Photograph by Imelda V. Abaño •

by Sarah Wyatt
USA

Danielle Malchoff, 17, was a two-time champion at the 2007 World Eskimo-Indian Olympics (WEIO), held July 18-21 in her hometown of Anchorage, Alaska. At first glance, Danielle looks like any average teenager – her pierced eyebrow and black fingernail polish both testaments to youth culture. But Danielle knows she also represents the historic culture of her ancestors, competing fiercely in the WEIO games even though she only began participating last year. An Athabascan and Aleut, Danielle says, "I grew up in the Native community, but still learned a lot about my culture by participating". "These games have been handed down from generation to generation. Each game has its origin and a functional purpose [in the culture]."

• Danielle prepares for the Alaskan high kick. Photograph courtesy of Sarah Wyatt. •

Danielle received her coaching for the one-foot high kick competition from the current record holder, Carol Pickett.

This specialty requires the athlete to jump off the floor using both feet, to kick a suspended object with one foot, and then land on the floor using only that same foot. This event originated from caribou hunting; a messenger kicked high in the air as a signal to the hunters that the animals were running near.

Danielle is a high school senior who is already taking college courses. During the summer she works at a Native heritage center, and volunteers with other local causes.

For Danielle, like so many of her peers, the sports events are not the only cultural activities in which she participates. "I am active in Native dance groups," she said. "I believe it’s vital for my generation to preserve our heritage."

by D-L Nelson
France

Old wars are usually forgotten as soon as new wars make headlines. The war fought in Bosnia between March 1992 and November 1995 is such a war.

• The bridge at Mostar near the center. Photograph courtesy of May Maitland •

by Natasha Dokovska
Macedonia

The sounds of the tambour and clarinet - loud Gipsy music – throngs of young people dressed in traditional costume, a wood table piled high with food and plenty of dry red wine…this was the backdrop for a marriage between Esma and Redxep last month in the first Roma community in Europe, Shuto Orizari, located in the northern part of Skopje, the capital of Macedonia.

• Romani woman and her child in Eastern Europe. Photograph by Lori Scott •

“Esma was my friend; she lives near our house. Esma [did] not want to be married, but she was [forced] to by her father, Ramce. He sold [Esma] to the parents of Redxep,” say Resmija, one of Esma’s friends.

The neighbors of Esma’s family claim that she was sold for 1000 Euros (approximately $1,300 USD); they confirm that all of Esma’s other sisters have been sold off as well. In a country where the average monthly income is around $690 (USD), Esma’s bride-price will certainly help sustain the family. They say that Esma’s parents haven’t worked for ten years, and that this is one means of survival.

by Judy Tatelbaum, M.S.W
USA

A current trend flooding American mainstream media (and one that is shaping perceptions of weddings as grotesque exhibitions of egomaniacal women out-of-control) is the coverage on TV, websites and in print, portraying brides-to-be as "Bridezillas". Similarly, popular shows like the Bachelor and Bachelorette pit scores of hopeful men and women against each other in a competition to win the affections of those who have resorted to finding "true love" on reality TV. These abstractions of marriage are often run in tandem with never-ending coverage of the supposedly inevitable collapse of "ideal" celebrity marriages. The latter, especially, are usually accompanied by statements implying that a woman's success will almost certainly rock if not destroy her marriage, if she has managed to have one.

The following WIP article counterbalances the Bridezilla viewpoint and reality TV confections, and offers a wiser perspective on not just weddings, but the natural courses of the marriages that follow them. These reflections come from an inspiring professional therapist in practice for over 30 years, who deals with the deeper issues of being human with incredible compassion. Not surprisingly, the two books on overcoming grief and emotional suffering that she has authored, have both become best sellers.
– Ed.