For two weeks from the end of July to the beginning of August, Medellin has its biggest festival, La Feria De Las Flores (The Flower Festival). During the time, the city is filled with people from all over the world, who come to see the many parades, free concerts and other 130 events that are packed into the 2 week period. The fair, was originally created in 1956 to celebrate independence of the region of Antioquia and the peak time for the blooming of local flowers.

The second most popular parade is the "Desfile de Autos Antiguos" (Old Cars Parade), where citizens with cars older than 1980 can showcase them in a city parade. The main parade, and the culmination of the festival, is the "Desfile de Silleteros", (Parade of Flowers) where locals carry large and colorful flower decorations on their back, displaying the rich variety of Flora that Colombia has to offer. After the event, a major fiesta commences, where everyone in the city consumes large qualities of Aguardiente, the national licorice-flavored alcoholic drink until the sun comes up the next day.

For Hostels, the flower festival is the peak time for tourism, as backpackers swarm to Medellin from all over the Colombia to find cheap accommodation and enjoy the festival. As it was our first year with the festival, we were not exactly sure what to expect. However, come the first day of the festival, we were absolutely slammed with reservations. Almost over night, we went from 15 to 36 guests, our absolute maximum. We even had some slightly desperate backpackers sleeping in hammocks, extra couches or whatever sleeping space they could find around the hostel.

On a final note, its great to be back in Medellin and working in the Hostel after finally finishing graduate school. Although it was slightly overwhelming going straight into the flower festival immediately after arriving, it helped me quickly get back into the swing of hostel management. I have 4 more months left before Miles comes back, so its good that I have some experience under my belt from one of the hostel's craziest times thus far.

In Chile, a 23-year-old woman has been leading students protests against the government of President Sebastian Piñera. Her high-profiled actions are posing a serious challenge to the government and may lead to a significant overhaul of the country’s education system.

Until a few months ago, Camila Vellejo Dowling was almost unknown in Chile. But recently she became the second female leader in the 105-year history of the University of Chile’s student union. When students protests gradually started last May, she quickly became their face and voice, and has led popular protests and cacerolazos – a kind of popular protest during which participants bang pots and pans.

The student leader said that the government strategy of violent students repression only aggravated the situation, cancelled dialogue and worsened the political climate in the country. Students’ demonstrations provoked a drastic fall in popularity of the government of Chilean billionaire Sebastian Piñera, whose positive image came down to 26% among respondents and obliged him to take emergency measures to confront the crisis.

Although Vallejo preaches non-violence, she has received several death threats and has been given police protection. Vallejo is demanding better salaries and work stability for teachers and for the government to assume responsibility for education at the universities which, according to her, are no longer accessible to the general population. She acknowledged, however, that it is very difficult to obtain structural reforms with a rightist government, saying that what they want is a long term political and educational reform in the country.

Students are demanding a new framework for education in Chile, and an end of the Chilean school voucher system and its replacement by a public education system managed by the state. Presently in Chile, only 45% of high school students are in traditional public schools. Most universities are in private hands.

The majority of Chileans (estimated in 72 to 80%) support the student movement, which has been energized by a 48-hour nationwide strike by the Workers United Center of Chile (CUT). Although Deputy Interior Minister Rodrigo Ubilla stated that the strike was a “great failure,” the CUT released a press statement saying that 82 social and labor union organizations had joined the strike.

As a response to student demands, President Piñera said that the government would improve education financing, cutting interests rates on students’ loans from 6.4% to 2%, would help indebted students and would provide fellowships. But the government promises did little to control the uprising.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, education costs in Chile make it the country with the most expensive higher education. According to Chilean economist Marcel Claude, student’s debt is close to 174% of their annual salary and 50% among them are heavily indebted.

President Piñera’s response to new demonstrations was to announce a US $4000 millions in education through a new proposal called GANE (Great National Accord for Education) which was also rejected. Should popular demonstrations gather momentum, the government may confront a situation very difficult to deal with, particularly after workers joined the student protests.

When Camila was recently asked about the effect on people of her striking good looks she responded, “I am attractive and don’t have any problems in acknowledging it, but I didn’t decided when I was born how I was going to look like. What I decided is which was going to be my political project and my work with the people.” In the unstable political situation of Chile now, the leadership of a 23-year-old woman can help chart a new course for her country.

Dr. Cesar Chelala is an international public health consultant and writer.

Crossposted from the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet.

As summer comes to an end, school is just around the corner for children across the United States. For children enrolled in state schools, this typically means the return of unhealthy lunches that are best described as "fast food": hamburgers, chicken nuggets, fried snacks, and sugary soft drinks. Yet school lunch programs can play a key role in reinforcing healthy eating behaviors by integrating such measures as school gardens, nutrition education, locally sourced organic food, and efforts that affirm the value of mealtimes.

Childhood obesity is a major problem in North America, where annual obesity rates have seen significant gains in recent decades. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 17 percent of U.S. children and adolescents aged 2-19 are obese, nearly triple the share in 1980. Many studies document the connection between a school's food environment and dietary behaviors in children. As anyone who grew up in the U.S. public school system can attest, lunches served in the country are highly processed and high in sodium, sugar, and fat.

• School feeding programs can play an important role in improving nutritional-intake for children worldwide. (Photo credit: Bernard Pollack) •

With children preparing to begin the school year, Nourishing the Planet offers the following five solutions for schools to encourage healthy eating:

• Connect Local Farmers to Schools: Providing locally sourced foods in school cafeterias improves diets and strengthens local economies. The U.S. state of Vermont is a leader in the nationwide Farm to School movement, which integrates food and nutrition education into classroom curricula and serves local foods in school cafeterias. Over the past decade, 60 percent of Vermont schools have joined the effort, forming a statewide network aided by the state's Agency of Agriculture, Department of Health, and Department of Education. Children benefit from farm-fresh foods for breakfast and lunch, and local farmers expand their business into a market worth over $40 million. Urban areas across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles, are also participating in this growing movement.
• Savor Mealtimes: Emphasizing the importance of mealtimes teaches children to appreciate the value and taste of good food. France, which has one of the lowest rates of childhood obesity in Europe, takes lunch very seriously. School lunches are well funded, and every part of the meal is prepared on school grounds in professional-grade kitchens--a stark contrast to the heat-and-serve kitchens in U.S. schools. Kids from preschool to high school are served four- to five-course meals and are encouraged to take time eating and socializing with friends. At some schools, detailed menus even suggest what parents should serve their children for dinner. Soft drink and snack machines are banned from school premises.
• Implement School Gardens: School gardens provide hands-on opportunities for children to cultivate and prepare organic produce. In the United States, REAL School Gardens creates learning gardens in elementary schools in high-poverty areas of north Texas. The organization has found that the school gardens not only nurture healthy lifestyles and environmental stewardship, but can also improve academic achievement through active participation. REAL School Gardens supports 81 schools, providing daily access to nature for more than 45,000 children and 2,700 educators.
• Nutrition Education: The city of Chicago's public school district doesn't offer mandatory nutrition education as part of its curriculum. To fill this void, the nonprofit Communities in Schools of Chicago (CISC) connects 170 schools to volunteer professionals who run a broad range of programs that address the social, emotional, health, and enrichment needs of students. Demand for nutrition classes has almost tripled in the past four years. This is due in part to the results of a Personal Health Inventory administered by CISC to more than 5,000 students, which showed that nutrition was the lowest scoring area.
• Equal Access to Healthy Foods: Childhood obesity disproportionately affects low-income families that may not be able to afford healthy foods. Schools in Greeley, Colorado, are taking a giant leap forward by cooking every meal from scratch. This is a much healthier alternative to the processed factory-food items that dominate school cafeterias today, and can be more cost effective for poorer school systems that take advantage of U.S. federal reimbursement rules. With 60 percent of the city's students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, Greeley is proving that it isn't only rich school districts that can provide their children with healthy meals.

Additional Examples:

• The Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) coordinates relationships among school cafeterias and local food producers in California's San Francisco Bay Area, bringing nutritious meals to students who might not otherwise be able to afford them.
• The Fresh from the Farm program in Chicago conducts classroom activities such as tastings, cooking demonstrations, visits from farmers, helping in school gardens, and field trips to local organic farms.
• Revolution Foods delivers tasty and healthy breakfasts, lunches, and snacks to schools in Colorado, California, and Washington, D.C. Many of the ingredients are organic and locally sourced, and no artificial flavors, trans fats, high-fructose corn syrup, or milk with hormones and antibiotics are used at all.
• Seeds of Nutrition helps schools in Atlanta, Georgia, start school gardens and teach children how to prepare delicious recipes using the fruits of their labor. The group also collaborates with teachers to create cross-curricular lessons that center on gardens and food.
• The Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley, California, is a one-acre organic garden and kitchen classroom where inner-city students at a local Middle School participate in all aspects of growing, harvesting, and preparing seasonal produce.
• New York City's enormous school district used its market power to pressure vendors to reduce food prices and eliminate unhealthy items, including fried food, artificial ingredients, and trans fats, from its cafeterias. With this welcome change, many children now enjoy fresh fruit, salad bars, whole-grain breads and pasta, and foods made with low-fat and low-sodium recipes.
• In 2010, Italy adopted a nationwide policy to supply all school cafeterias with locally sourced organic food in an effort to curb childhood obesity and preserve culinary traditions. Seventy percent of all school cafeteria food in Rome is now organic, with ingredients coming from 400 Italian organic farms.

Kenya is considering carrying out the first constitutional amendment to fix the provision requiring that composition of women in parliament must be one third of the total elected members of parliament.

The amendment will give women a technical knock-out and deny them up to 72 seats reserve in parliament.

Some politicians and analysts say that achieving such a number is impossible even if some constituencies were reserved for women since you cannot force people to elect women only. Cabinet met on Thursday 18 August and resolved that the tenet on women representation was technically impossible to achieve.

After the meeting, the cabinet decided to set a task force that will prepare a constitutional amendment bill to deal with the provision termed as technically impossible. The government is racing against time to pass all bills into law before August 27 deadline.

Section 81 (b) of the constitution states that “not more than two-thirds of the members of elective public bodies shall be of the same gender.”

However the cabinet meeting chaired by President Mwai Kibaki found that the section was impractical and resolved that a taskforce be formed to come up with an amendment bill for the section.

The move by the cabinet has elicited strong opposition from different women groups including Federation of Women Lawyers, FIDA, Maendeleo Ya Wanawake among others.

Kenya National Human Rights Commission chairperson Florence Jaoko criticized the government’s move terming the move as unconstitutional.

“Women have had a disadvantage traditionally due to social and traditional way of life and the one-third rule was a stop gap to balance gender in elective positions,” says Jaoko.

The new constitution creates 290 constituencies which means that women would get at least 72 seats plus should the one-third rule apply as stipulated. One woman would be elected to parliament as representatives from each of the 47 counties.

David Kuria Western of Nakuru Human Rights Network says, “It cannot happen in any democracy, the principles of democracy demand that every person has the right to vie for whichever elective posts they want, women should as well compete for the seat.”

Women rights activists have already threatened to move to court to block the cabinet from amending the section that limits the number of either gender to two thirds.

Experts say that a constitutional crisis was possible should the country go to the polls and fails to fulfill the section of the constitution saying that the senate and the parliament would be unconstitutional.

Addressing Kenya’s Nation Newspaper, lawyer Paul Mwite and Issack Hassan who is the chairman of Interim Independent Electoral Commission said that the “two organs would be considered unconstitutional if either gender exceeds one-third.”

Hassan observed that the way out was to come up with a way to compel political parties to come up with a formula to compel political parties to reserve certain number of seats for women.

Judy Thongori, a lawyer and rights activist said that she would be in court “immediately after the election to stop the parliament and the senate from sitting if the gender balance is not respected.”

The constitution that was voted into law last year by an overwhelming 6 million plus Kenyans envisaged a better representation of women in a parliament where men have dominated for many decades now.

The current parliament has 22 women legislators constituting ten percent of the total 222 legislators. Women make up to 52 percent of the total population in Kenya according to 2009 population census.

“However the representation of women in parliament and ministries among other appointive and elective bodies does not reflect this majority percentage.” Said Ms Gunilla Carlson, Swedish Minister for International Cooperation when she met women legislators in Nairobi city recently.

Maendeleo ya Wanawake leader in coast province Surea Roble has opposed the latest move by the cabinet to amend section 81 (b) saying it was wrong to deny women representation as required by the constitution.

Varying views and opinions have been given by Kenyans with some saying that women should not “be given seats on a silver plate but should compete with men for the seats”

Former President Daniel Moi recently said that Women should “not have special seats reserved fro them but should join other people in competing for the sets.”

Various women groups and rights activists have proposed a formular of dividing the 290 constituencies into four clusters of constituencies. “ Each of these four clusters will elect women in rotation in each election.” Proposed Wambua Kanyi of Women’s Political Alliance. By so doing he argued it would ensure that each group of constituencies must elect women.

This rotational method is however faced with a challenge of going against the very constitution that guarantees right for any person to vie for elective posts subject to set standards.

It would be the first time in the history of Kenya women would get such a high number of positions in the elective seats something that would be a big gain for them should the one-third rule be followed.

Both the Prime Minister Raila Odinga and Vice President Kalonzo Musioka have assured women that the cabinet “did not have the intention to deny women the positions but was looking at practical ways to apply the provision of equity in a democratic way.”

Peter Karare is a freelance journalist based in Nakuru County of Rift Valley province in Kenya, East Africa.

After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the Bush administration rolled out its “Global War on Terror.” Although the Obama White House doesn’t use that moniker, many of its policies are indistinguishable from those of its predecessor. Both administrations have focused on combating the symptoms of terrorism rather than grappling with its root causes. Longtime BBC correspondent Deepak Tripathi was based in Kabul, Afghanistan for 15 months in the early 1990s, where he gained a unique perspective about the genesis of terrorism from his access to Afghan leaders and citizens during the civil war following the expulsion of the communist regime there.

Breeding Ground makes a significant contribution toward understanding the origins and triggers of terrorism. Tripathi traces the development of a ‘culture of violence’ in Afghanistan—largely due to resistance against foreign invasion—from the “U.S.-led proxy war” against the USSR to the current U.S. war. Without such historical insight, efforts to make us safe from acts of terror will prove futile.

Absent from the national discourse after 9/11 was a substantive inquiry into why nineteen men could hate the United States so much they would blow themselves up and take more than three thousand innocents with them. The source of that hatred can be traced to foreign occupation of Afghanistan as well as resentment of the United States for its uncritical support of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.

Tripathi reproduces an October 7, 2001 statement by Osama bin Laden that says, “What America is tasting now is something insignificant compared to what we have tasted for years,” citing “humiliation and degradation.” Bin Laden adds, “Millions of innocent children are being killed as I speak. They are being killed in Iraq [from the blockade and sanctions] without committing any sins.” And he writes, “Israeli tanks infest Palestine . . . and other places in the land of Islam, and we don’t hear anyone raising his voice or moving a limb.”

Bin Laden’s statement mirrors the grievances set forth in a 1998 Al Qaeda declaration, which listed Israel’s control over Jerusalem, the Palestinian problem, and Iraq as its three primary complaints. The declaration cited America’s “occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors and turning its bases into a spearhead” against Muslims. It complained of “the huge number of those killed” by the blockade of Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. The declaration described U.S. aims as “religious and economic,” with a desire to serve Israel’s interests by diverting attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and the murder of Muslims in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Tripathi dialectically traces the rise of radical Islam against communism in Afghanistan, U.S. support for the Islamic forces to repel the Soviets, and the later development of terrorism in opposition to American policies once the Soviet Union was expelled from Afghanistan.

In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and began a ten-year occupation to prop up the struggling Afghan communist government which had come to power the year before. “The rise of communism radicalized the country’s Islamic groups,” Tripathi writes. After the invasion, bin
Laden moved to the Afghan-Pakistan border to “liberate the land from the infidel invader.” Supported by the CIA, he created an organization to fight the Soviets. It became part of the Mujahideen, which was based in Pakistan and backed by the United States.

The U.S. and its allies financed the war against the Soviet Union with billions of dollars worth of weapons. American aid was funneled by the CIA to the Mujahideen via the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) in Pakistan, which received $3 billion in U.S. assistance for its efforts. President Jimmy Carter began a policy of active confrontation with the communists by authorizing secret support of the Mujahideen. When Ronald Reagan assumed the presidency, he made a conscious decision to increase CIA military aid to the Mujahideen. By 1987, 65,000 tons of arms and ammunition was going through the CIA pipeline to the Afghan resistance. “These fundamentalist fighters were willing to endure extreme hardship and make the ultimate sacrifice—martyrdom,” notes Tripathi. Many defectors and prisoners of the Mujahideen were tortured or killed. The ISI had a great deal of influence over Mujahideen leaders.

“Terror was fundamental in the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan,” according to Tripathi. The occupation lasted until 1989 when the Soviet Union was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan due to its devastating costs. In the decade of war and brutality, over 1.3 million Afghans were killed and more than a third of the population became refugees.

Bin Laden formed Al Qaeda in the mid-1980s to overthrow corrupt, heretical regimes in Muslim countries and replace them with Islamic law. “Al Qaeda’s ideology was intensely anti-Western,” Tripathi says, “and bin Laden saw America as the greatest enemy that had to be destroyed.” While the United States supported radical Islam against the communists in Afghanistan with money and weapons, it “failed to recognize that the demise of the Soviet empire would leave the United States itself exposed to assaults from groups like al Qaeda,” Tripathi writes. “In time, this failure proved to be a historic blunder.”

After the demise of the USSR, which was partially attributable to its loss in the Afghan war, Afghanistan sank into chaos and civil war. Radical Islamic forces came to the fore. “Helped by America and its allies, the Afghan resistance generated its own culture of terror, which grew in Afghanistan—and beyond—over time.” Afghanistan, which generally had been a peaceful country, became identified with global terror in the 1990s. Toward the middle of that decade, the Taliban rose to prominence. Comprised of young Afghan refugees from the war against the Soviet Union, many grew up in Pakistan. Most of the Taliban leaders hailed from poor backgrounds. Relying on strict Shari’ah law, they promised to restore peace and security to Afghanistan. But it came at a price. Shi’a Afghans, women and ethnic minorities became victims of Taliban atrocities. ISI supplied the Taliban with military equipment and fighters. By 1998, the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan. “Torture and ill-treatment had become systematic.”

The adage, ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ is nowhere more relevant than in Afghanistan. The CIA gave weapons and copies of the Quran to Afghan and Arab groups. The virulent anti-communism of Carter, Reagan and President George H.W. Bush backfired. “Al Qaeda and the Taliban’s anti-Western ideology was a grotesque mirror image of the Carter and Reagan-Bush administration’s anti-Soviet policy,” Tripathi observes. “The rise of Al Qaeda and its Afghan hosts, the Taliban, was as much a reaction to America’s relentless pursuit of an anti-Soviet policy as it was a symbol of the fundamentalists’ will to advance their brand of Islam.”

George W. Bush launched his “war against terror” after the 9/11 attacks by invading and occupying Afghanistan. The dead include 1,672 Americans, 2,604 coalition troops, and, by the end of 2010, at least ten thousand Afghan civilians. Under the guise of fighting terror, Bush also attacked and occupied Iraq, which had no connection to Al Qaeda. In Iraq, 4,474 Americans, 4,792 coalition troops, and between 101,906 and 111,369 Iraqi civilians have been killed. Those occupations continue to claim lives. Between 9/11 and 2012, the projected cost of these two wars is $1.42 trillion.

The Bush administration developed a policy of torture and abuse of prisoners, many of whom have been detained for years without evidence of any connection to terrorism. The U.S. prison at Guantánamo became synonymous with the dehumanization of men of Arab and Muslim descent. Photographs of cruel treatment that emerged from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq sent shock waves around the world. The Guantánamo prison still operates under the Obama administration, which has also increased attacks by unmanned drones in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. More than 90 percent of those killed have been civilians, according to the Brookings Institution.

Rather than endearing us to the people in these countries, those policies incur hatred against the United States, making us more vulnerable to terrorism. Tripathi’s excellent work ends with a call to replace the military strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan with development, reconciliation, and reconstruction. It behooves us to heed his wise counsel.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School, past president of the National Lawyers Guild, and editor, most recently, of The United States and Torture: Interrogation, Incarceration, and Abuse (NYU Press)

Hundreds of foreign exchange students paid $3,000-$6,000 each to come to the U.S. this summer for what they thought would be a cultural exchange program to learn English and experience American culture. Instead, they found themselves working in deeply exploitative conditions packing chocolates at Hershey's plant in Pennsylvania for low wages. They are forced to work in back-breaking conditions and round-the-clock in production lines. When the students complained, Hershey's threatened to have them deported.

Yana, a 19-year-old girl from Ukraine, lifts boxes that weigh 40 pounds -- nearly half her weight. Peng, a 21-year-old economics student from China, also lifts heavy boxes during his eight-hour shifts at the warehouse.

Hundreds of students from Ghana, Turkey, Mongolia, and other countries each paid up to $6,000 for the privilege to come to America in a cultural exchange program this summer. Now Hershey's pays them around $8 an hour for their warehouse work, minus costs of housing -- leaving many students broke, tired, and disillusioned.

Why would Hershey's want to use foreign exchange students as cheap, manual labor? According to the National Guestworker Alliance, a group helping the students, it's about profit. Hershey's is laying off 500 American workers in the next year. The company's strategy is apparently paying off: Hershey's pocketed $130 million in just the last three months.

The foreign exchange students are asking Hershey to refund the thousands of dollars the students paid to come to America. And that's not all: The students also want Hershey's to convert their low-paying positions to living wage jobs for local residents in Pennsylvania.

This is important because their demands ends the exploitation of student workers at the Hershey's plant, returns the money they paid for a cultural exchange, and makes these jobs living wage jobs for local Pennsylvania workers.

Please sign the petition to Hershey's demanding the company refund the students' costs to come to America and give their jobs back to American workers who live near the warehouse.

To learn more about the situation and to sign the petition, visit http://www.change.org/petitions/hershey-stop-exploiting-student-guestworkers

Thanks for being a change-maker,

The Change.org team

This just in from the Center for Partnership Studies:

You can make a difference in our world by taking CPS's acclaimed online Caring Economics (CEC) Leadership Training program. Women and men from eight different countries have already enrolled in our exciting fall trainings, but several spaces are still available in Cohort D, which focuses on Empowering Women. It starts on September 20 and meets on seven subsequent Tuesdays -- with one session with CPS President Riane Eisler, author of The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics. We've extended the application deadline for Cohort D to Wednesday August 24 to give you the chance to become a certified Caring Economics Leader this September.

You can get more information and enroll online (Click the red "Apply" button at the top of the page to enroll), or contact our program coordinator sharonrose.cps@gmail.com Accepted participants for the September group will be notified by August 26th (U.S Women's Equality Day!), so you can register and get your welcome packet in plenty of time to gear up for the program.

The CEC training is more urgently needed now than ever before, given the failure of national and international leaders to understand the enormous human, environmental, and financial return on investment in the most essential human work: caring for people, starting in early childhood, and caring for our natural environment. Becoming a Certified Caring Economics leader offers you the an opportunity to engage deeply with the principles of Caring Economics, build the skills to make a difference in your communities and our planet, and connect with other leaders from around the world.

We offer two CEC tracks: the Real Wealth track and the Empowering Women track, both designed to help you bring a new perspective to your colleagues, organization!on, and policy-makers on what is, or is not, economically valuable Here is the program information (Click the red "Schedule" button at the top of the page for the schedule of classes.)

Here are comments from people who have taken our trainings:

"It was incredible to be part of an amazing cohort of caring conversation leaders across the globe - most of us the first in our respective countries!"

"I had a feeling of exaltation and empowerment realizing that I now have a strong
argument and solid facts to help people, corporations, universities, and policy-makers understand the economic implications of non-caring policies, and the language to discuss how important caring is for everyone."

"I'm struck by the overwhelmingly positive feedback I received [after my presentations] about the material and the need for Caring Economics. I feel excited to continue to build momentum within this movement."

Please re-post this announcement for friends and colleagues who would be interested in this exciting opportunity!

SlutWalks started in Toronto in April in response to a police officer who said women wouldn’t be victimized if they didn’t dress like sluts. The first walk in Toronto touched a nerve, and people around the world are organizing and participating in satellite SlutWalks to say that sexual assault is about power, not our clothing choices. SlutWalkers also challenge the negative connotation of the word “slut.” No matter how people dress, they deserve respect.

I concur, and so on Saturday I marched from the White House to the Washington Monument with more than 1,000 SlutWalkers. The mood was upbeat and supportive. Some people wore next to nothing, while others were fully clothed. Many people held anti-rape and anti-victim-blaming signs. Tourists lined the sidewalks taking photos of us, many cheering and encouraging us as we walked.

After the walk ended, despite an initial downpour of rain, hundreds of people stayed to hear talks from 22 survivors, allies, and community activists. I was the fourth speaker. The audience supportively cheered and clapped throughout the talks.

My reason for participation was very personal. As I said in my talk, I wanted to honor the many rape survivors I know and love, including my grandmother.

Recently my grandmother wrote the book The Illness That Healed Me with the hopes of being able to help other survivors through the healing process. Because she writes about the abuse by her father, some of her siblings won’t speak to her. She, like all rape survivors, never “asked for it.” They should never be blamed or shamed.

I’m grateful I could participate in SlutWalk D.C. and add my voice to the growing choir of people who are sick and tired of victims being blamed. Instead of focusing on clothing choices, we all should focus on prevention programs and initiatives.

Some people have dubbed these events the future of feminism, though there are many people who take issue with the walks. This evening at 6 p.m. at our headquarters at 1111 Sixteenth St. NW, AAUW is hosting Re: Action — A Debate on SlutWalk to discuss both sides. It’s free and open to the public.

Holly's blog was originally published on AAUW Dialog.

Holly Kearl is program manager for AAUW’s Legal Advocacy Fund. She previously worked at the National Women’s History Museum as program director. Building off past volunteer work at domestic violence shelters, she’s a weekly volunteer with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network’s Online Hotline.

Alyne da Silva Pimentel would have been 37 years old today if Brazil’s government had honored its responsibility to protect her fundamental human rights.

Instead, because she was poor and Afro-Brazilian, she died in 2002 after being denied basic medical care to address complications in her pregnancy. She was only 28 years old. And her death was completely preventable.

Although nothing can reverse Alyne’s fate, a groundbreaking decision handed down yesterday by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women means that Alyne’s mother and daughter will finally see justice served—and women worldwide will benefit from the ruling issued in her name.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has been fighting for Alyne and her family for more than eight years. The case we brought on their behalf is the first maternal death case to be decided by an international human rights body, and the import of this decision is tremendous—establishing that governments have a human rights obligation to guarantee that all women in their countries—regardless of income or racial background—have access to timely, non-discriminatory, and appropriate maternal health services.

The message to governments worldwide could not be more clear: Access to quality reproductive healthcare throughout pregnancy is a fundamental right—and governments that fail to protect this right will be held accountable.

Sadly, Alyne’s story is one of thousands in Brazil, and all around the world, in which women are denied, and in some cases refused, basic quality medical care to address common pregnancy complications. And the countless lives lost unnecessarily as a result mean that today’s victory can only be regarded as bittersweet.

But today marks the beginning of a new era. No longer can governments disregard the fundamental rights of women like Alyne without strict accountability.

Learn more: Full court decision, Press Release, and Case page.

Janna Chan is the Manager of Online Strategy and Response for The Center for Reproductive Rights, a global legal organization dedicated to advancing women's reproductive health, self-determination and dignity as basic human rights.

August 10th marked the 50th anniversary of the start of the chemical warfare program in Vietnam without sufficient remedial action by the U.S. government. One of the most shameful legacies of the Vietnam War, Agent Orange continues to poison Vietnam and the people exposed to the chemicals, as well as their offspring.

H.R. 2634, the Victims of Agent Orange Relief Act of 2011, which California Congressman Bob Filner just introduced in the House, would provide crucial assistance for social and health services to Vietnamese, Vietnamese-American, and U.S. victims of Agent Orange.

From 1961 to 1971, approximately 19 million gallons of herbicides, primarily Agent Orange, were sprayed over the southern region of Vietnam. Much of it was contaminated with dioxin, a deadly chemical. Dioxin causes various forms of cancers, reproductive illnesses, immune deficiencies, endocrine deficiencies, nervous system damage, and physical and developmental disabilities.

In Vietnam more than three million people, and in the United States thousands of veterans, their children, and Vietnamese-Americans, have been sickened, disabled or died from the effects of Agent Orange/dioxin.

Vietnamese of least three generations born since the war are now suffering from disabilities due to their parents’ exposure to Agent Orange or from direct exposure in the environment. The organization representing Vietnam’s victims, the Vietnam Association for Victims of Agent Orange/Dioxin, has set up some ‘peace villages’ to care for the severely disabled, but many more such facilities and services are needed. Dioxin residues in the soil, sediment, and food continue to poison many people in 28 “hot spots” in southern Vietnam.

Many U.S. veterans suffer from effects of Agent Orange due to their exposure in Vietnam, as do their children and grandchildren. Vietnamese-Americans exposed directly to Agent Orange and their offspring suffer from the same health conditions.

The bill, which the Vietnamese Agent Orange Relief & Responsibility Campaign assisted Congressman Filner in writing, defines “victim” as “any individual who is a Vietnamese national, Vietnamese-American, or United States veteran who was exposed to Agent Orange, or the progeny of such an individual, and who has a disease or disability associated with this exposure.” In addition to compensating the victims of Agent Orange, H.R. 2634 would also clean up the toxic hot spots in Vietnam.

One provision of the bill would expand programs and research for the benefit of U.S. vets and establish medical centers “designed to address the medical needs of descendants of the veterans of the Vietnam era.” This creates a presumption that certain birth defects that children and grandchildren of exposed victims suffer would be considered the result of contact with Agent Orange.

While the U.S. government has begun to fund environmental cleanup in Vietnam, it has refused to recognize its full responsibility to heal the wounds of war and provide assistance to Vietnamese, Vietnamese-American, and U.S. victims for the serious health and environmental devastation caused by Agent Orange.

There has been some compensation for U.S. veteran victims of Agent Orange, but not nearly enough. In spite of President Richard Nixon’s 1973 promise of $3.25 billion in reconstruction aid to Vietnam “without any preconditions,” the Vietnamese and Vietnamese-American victims of the disgraceful chemical warfare the United States conducted in Vietnam have not seen one penny of compensation.

Fifty years is long enough. It is high time to compensate the victims for this shameful chapter in our history. H.R. 2634 will go a long way toward doing just that.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and co-coordinator of the Vietnam Agent Orange Relief and Responsibility Campaign (www.vn-agentorange.org).

By Jeanne Mirer and Marjorie Cohn

The debate about the debt ceiling should have been a conversation about how to create jobs. It is time for progressives to remind the government that it has a legal duty to create jobs, and must act immediately – if not through Congress, then through the Federal Reserve.

With official unemployment reaching over 9%, the unofficial rate in double digits, and the unemployment rate for people of color more than double that of whites, it is nerve wracking to hear right wing political pundits say the government cannot create jobs. Do people really believe this canard? On “Real Time with Bill Maher” a few weeks ago, Chris Hayes of The Nation stated that the government should create and has in the past created jobs, but he was put down by that intellectual giant Ann Coulter who said, "but they (WPA jobs) were only temporary jobs.” No one challenged her.

Most of the jobs created under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) - and there were millions of them - lasted for many years, or until those employed found other gainful employment. They provided a high enough income to allow the worker’s family to meet basic needs, and they created demand for goods in an economy that was suffering, like today’s economy, from lack of demand. The WPA program succeeded in sustaining and creating many more jobs in the private sector due to the demand for goods that more people with incomes generated.

The most galling thing about pundits stating with such certainty that the government cannot create jobs is the implication that the government has no business employing people. In actuality, however, the law requires the government, in particular the President and the Federal Reserve, to create jobs. This legal duty comes from three sources: (1) full employment legislation including the Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978, (2) the 1977 Federal Reserve Act, and (3) the global consensus based on customary international law that all people have a right to a job with favorable remuneration to provide an adequate standard of living.

1. Full Employment Legislation

The first full employment law in the United States was passed in 1946. It required the country to make its goal one of full employment. It was motivated in part by the fear that after World War II, returning veterans would not find work, and this would provoke further economic dislocation. With the Keynesian consensus that government spending was necessary to stimulate the economy and the depression still fresh in the nation’s mind, this legislation contained a firm statement that full employment was the policy of the country. As originally written, the bill required the federal government do everything in its authority to achieve full employment, which was established as a right guaranteed to the American people. Pushback by conservative business interests, however, watered down the bill. While it created the Council of Economic Advisors to the President and the Joint Economic Committee as a Congressional standing committee to advise the government on economic policy, the guarantee of full employment was removed from the bill.

In the aftermath of the rise in unemployment which followed the “oil crisis” of 1975, Congress addressed the weaknesses of the 1946 act through the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act of 1978. The purpose of this bill as described in its title is:

"An Act to translate into practical reality the right of all Americans who are able, willing, and seeking to work to full opportunity for useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation; to assert the responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable programs and policies to promote full employment, production, and real income, balanced growth, adequate productivity growth, proper attention to national priorities."

The Act sets goals for the President. By 1983, unemployment rates should be not more than 3% for persons age 20 or over and not more than 4% for persons age 16 or over, and inflation rates should not be over 4%. By 1988, inflation rates should be 0%. The Act allows Congress to revise these goals over time.

If private enterprise appears not to be meeting these goals, the Act expressly calls for the government to create a "reservoir of public employment." These jobs are required to be in the lower ranges of skill and pay to minimize competition with the private sector.

The Act directly prohibits discrimination on account of gender, religion, race, age or national origin in any program created under the Act. Humphey-Hawkins has not been repealed. Both the language and the spirit of this law require the government to bring unemployment down to 3% from over 9%. The time for action is now.

2. Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve has among its mandates to "promote maximum employment.” The origin of this mandate is the Full Employment Act of 1946, which committed the federal government to pursue the goals of "maximum employment, production and purchasing power." This mandate was reinforced in the 1977 reforms which called on the Fed to conduct monetary policy so as to "promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices and moderate long term interest rates." These goals are substantially equivalent to the long-standing goals contained in the 1946 Full Employment Act. The goals of the 1977 act were further affirmed in the Humphrey-Hawkins Act the following year.

3. The global consensus based on customary international law that all people have a right to a job with favorable remuneration and an adequate standard of living

In the aftermath of World War II, and for the short time between the end of the war and the beginning of the Cold War, there was an international consensus that one of the causes of the Second World War was the failure of governments to address the major unemployment crisis in the late 20’s and early 30’s, and that massive worldwide unemployment led to the rise of Nazism/facism. The United Nations Charter was created specifically to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” To do so the drafters stated that promoting social progress and better standards of life were the necessary conditions “under which justice and respect for obligations arising under treaties and respect for international law can be maintained.”

It is no accident that one of the first actions of the UN was to draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (UDHR or the Declaration). The Declaration was ratified by all then members of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. It is an extremely important document because it not only recognized the connection between the respect for human dignity and rights, and conditions necessary to maintain peace and security. The Declaration is the first international document to recognize the indivisibility between civil and political rights (like those enshrined in the Bill of Rights) on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other. The UDHR is the first document to acknowledge that both civil and political rights are necessary to create conditions under which human dignity is respected and through which a person’s full potential may be realized. Stated another way, without political and civil rights, there is no real ability for people to demand full realization of their economic rights. And without economic rights, peoples’ ability to exercise their civil rights and express their political will is replaced by the daily struggle for survival.

The Declaration, although not a treaty, first articulated the norms to which all countries should aspire. It stated that everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living. This includes the rights to: work for favorable remuneration, (including the right to form unions), health, food, clothing, housing, medical care, necessary social services, and social insurances in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability or old age. There has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding these rights. In fact, most people have never heard of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Similarly, most Americans do not know that the UN drafted treaties which put flesh on the broad principles contained in the Declaration. One of the treaties enshrines Civil and Political Rights; the other guarantees Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These treaties were released for ratification in 1966. The United States ratified the treaty on civil and political rights and has signed but not ratified the economic, social and cultural rights treaty.

The latter treaty requires the countries which have ratified it to take positive steps to “progressively realize” basic economic rights including the right to a job. Almost all countries of the world have either signed or ratified this treaty. When most countries become party a treaty, they do so not because they think they are morally bound to follow it but because they know they are legally bound. Once an overwhelming number of countries agree to be legally bound, outliers cannot hide behind lack of ratification. The global consensus gives that particular norm the status of binding customary law, which requires even countries that have not ratified a treaty to comply with its mandate.

The conspiracy of silence

With the duty to create jobs required by U.S. legislation, monetary policy and customary law, why has the government allowed pundits to reframe the debate and state with certainty the government cannot do what it has a legal obligation to do?

We allow it because of the conspiracy of silence which has prevented most people from knowing that the full employment laws exist, that the Federal Reserve has a job creating mandate, and that economic human rights law has become binding on the United States as customary international law.

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan knows about the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act, and he has introduced legislation that would fund the job creation aspects of that Act in the “The Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act,” HR 870. It would create specific funds for job training and creation paid for almost exclusively by taxes on financial transactions, with the more speculative transactions paying a higher tax.

If Congress refuses to enact this legislation, the President must demand that the Federal Reserve use all the tools relating to controlling the money supply at its disposal to create the funds called for by HR 870, and to start putting people back to work through direct funding of a reservoir of public jobs as Humphrey-Hawkins mandates.

There is nothing that would prevent the Federal Reserve from creating a fund for job training and a federal jobs program as HR 870 would require, and selling billions of treasury bonds for infrastructure improvement and jobs associated with it. The growth in jobs would stimulate the economy to the point that the interest on these bonds would be raised through increased revenue. There is no reason the Fed on its own could not add a surcharge on inter-bank loans to fund these jobs. These actions could be done without Congressional approval and would represent a major boost to employment and grow the economy. If the Federal Reserve is going to abide by its mandate to promote maximum employment, and comply with the Humphrey Hawkins Act, and the global consensus it must take these steps.

Failure of the Fed and the President to take these affirmative steps is not only illegal, it is also economically unwise. The stock market losses after the debt ceiling deal is in part based on taking almost 2 million more jobs out of the economy and will only further depress demand creating further contraction in the economy. This is not an outcome any of us can afford.

Jeanne Mirer, who practices labor and employment law in New York, is president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and past president of the National Lawyers Guild.

From 2004 through 2009, more than 1,000 teachers were recruited from abroad -- most from the Philippines -- to fill gaps in math, science, and special education in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Each paid thousands of dollars to recruiters and moved thousands of miles for the chance to teach in Maryland.

Now, after giving up everything, these teachers may be forced to leave the U.S. because of a labor violation against them by Prince George’s County Public Schools.

Earlier this year, a group of Filipino teachers filed a complaint with the Department of Labor to get the school district to pay more than $4 million in back wages.

• Teachers facing deportation rally •

Join the Filipino justice organization, Katarungan in telling the Department of Labor to reprimand Prince George’s County Public Schools for violating temporary foreign worker laws without punishing its teachers and students. To sign petition, click here.

The American Federation of Teachers says that there are nearly 20,000 foreign teachers in the U.S. Minimum wage violations are a problem for many. At least 17 school districts nationwide have been discovered underpaying foreign teachers.

Prince George's County's foreign teachers did the right thing by seeking labor protections. Their actions protect American workers by holding school districts to wage laws.
They have also helped Prince George’s students: The percentage of classes taught by highly qualified teachers increased by a third -- to 65 percent -- from 2003 to 2007 in part due to hiring from abroad.

Yet the Department of Labor is essentially penalizing these teachers for following the law and reporting wage violations. This will discourage foreign workers from requesting labor protections in the future, which will hurt both foreign and American teachers.

Click here to ask the Department of Labor to ensure PGCPS teachers aren’t the ones paying the price for their employer’s failure to comply with labor laws.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

- Change.org team

Yes, the US has a debt problem. But, more than that, it has a priorities and accountability problem. Yet, rather than giving Washington a pause for reflection, the S&P downgrade of US debt from ‘AAA’ to ‘AA+” merely gave Capitol politicians renewed opportunity for elaborately orchestrated hissy fits that won't lead to introspection or policy change.

First, let’s again acknowledge the irony that this rating agency rubberstamped $14 trillion of toxic assets in the five years leading up to the crisis of 2008, thereby enabling the Wall Street manufacturing and global dispersion machine to thrive. Then, let’s sign that Washington still doesn't get it.

We racked up debt predominantly, but not exclusively (less revenue due to fewer jobs and an antiquated system where not everyone pays a comparative share contributed, as did the cost of three wars) because of the choice to subsidize Wall Street.

Nearly 80% of the new debt created by the Treasury since the financial crisis was either sold through the banks, is sitting on the Fed's books doing nothing productive, or was used to bolster various elements of the banking system through cheap loans, guarantees for faulty assets, and other methods.

Chances are near one hundred percent, that this next round of debt will exhibit the same pattern. The Treasury will issue bonds and a big portion will wind up on the Fed’s books, doing zero for the greater population. More bi-partisan squabbling over why the economy isn’t growing quickly enough will eschew.

A few months ago, Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner made the talk show rounds to declare empathically that there was ‘no chance’ of a downgrade of US debt. After the downgrade, with the stock market plummeting, President Obama took to the airwaves to explain that the US was ‘AAA’ no matter what ‘some rating agency says’.

As Obama opined that ‘there will always be economic factors we can’t control,’ the stock market kept dropping. Some of that fall was for ‘technical reasons.’ People and firms borrow money to bet on the market, and put down collateral (or margin) in order to do so. When the value of their purchases (stocks) falls beneath a certain amount, they are required to put up more margin to continue to participate in the market. If they don’t have the cash, they have to sell stocks to come up with it, thereby pushing the market down further. These ‘margin calls’ were the technical cause of the Great Crash of 1929.

The other reason for the drop was uncertainty, precipitating cashing out stocks to buy bonds, and reaction to the fact that no matter what anyone says, we’re not in an economic recovery, and things are getting worse. In all, the Dow Jones Index dropped 633 points during the first post-downgrade trading day, regaining a third of it the next day.

The bond market shrugged off the downgrade, meaning global investors were buying, not selling, Treasury bonds. This puts the debt cap drama and catastrophic consequence threats into scary perspective. Recall, the sky was going to fall if we didn’t bail out and subsidize the banks, too. The political fear-mongering would be laughable if it didn’t have dire consequences for the rest of us – an anemic economy unable to add jobs effectively and a banking sector floated on debt.

So, does the downgrade matter? In terms of infusing the market with more uncertainty as to whether it might lead to another one – sort of. But, in terms of Washington, it means nothing. The GOP will blame Obama for causing it by not cutting spending further. President Obama and the Democrats will act defensive and dismissive about it.

Beneath the banter, remains the stark fact that the extra debt wasn’t created to help the economy, it was created to help Wall Street. Any future political fights (and there will be many) about debt, missing that point, will therefore be unable to tackle the most important economic problem we face – lack of job and real (not paper) growth in the US and throughout the globe. Political denial and finger-pointing is not productive growth policy, no matter which party is doing what.

S&P’s downgrade got a bit of this right when it labeled Washington dysfunctional, yet, by denying there’s more to the downgrade, S&P continues to shield its own actions in the crisis build-up and Washington’s reaction to it - massive bank subsidies and a tepid bank regulation bill that didn't even break up the too big to fail banks as Glass-Steagall did in the wake of the pain banks caused leading up to the Great Depression.

A one notch ratings drop from AAA to AA+ makes no difference to the US production capacity. Indeed, with all the scaremongering about how much more expensive it would be to borrow at a higher rate (reflecting the lower credit rating), the bond market rose in a sigh of relief that the downgrade was ‘over’ rendering the cost of the downgrade minor. As for other countries dumping our bonds, though they should because our policy remains financial market subsidization through debt creation, as long as the dollar remains the dominant global currency, other countries will lend to us though buying our Treasury bonds. They don’t want their own portfolio of US Treasuries to decline in value.

Obama stated that, “we need jobs and growth.” Absolutely. But austerity compromises won’t get us there. A reality check might. He said that Americans have come through (more denial, as we haven’t come through anything, we’re still in it) the biggest financial crisis since the 1930s with grace. He made no mention of the dual DC-banks role at all.

In the 1930s, the government made a bi-partisan decision to smack the banking system into place and separate bank trading and commercial functions so banks couldn’t take risks with other people’s money; it didn’t lavish Wall Street with cheap loans and debt at the public’s expense.

All Americans should be deeply concerned that our government supported, and continues to support, banks over people. The Treasury Department and Fed continue to mislead us over this. And we all pay the price.

Nomi Prins is a journalist and Senior Fellow at Demos. Her latest book is: It Takes a Pillage: Behind the Bonuses, Bailouts, and Backroom Deals from Washington to Wall Street (Wiley, September, 2009). Before becoming a journalist, Nomi worked on Wall Street as a managing director at Goldman Sachs, and running the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London.

This year I have, sadly, missed out on the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Last minute travel and work demands have kept me extra busy. I didn't make it to San Francisco or Berkeley for any screenings, but there is still time! Films are playing at the Oshman Family JCC in Palo Alto today (Sunday), and today and tomorrow at the Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. All of the films look so good! That said, I am really hoping to make it to The Matchmaker tomorrow night at the Rafael.

It’s been over a decade since the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) was passed into law, and a new report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that astonishingly little has been done since.

The TVPA defines a human trafficking victim as "A person induced to perform labor or a commercial sex act through force, fraud, or coercion [and] any person under age 18 who performs a commercial sex act."

• Photograph from Flickr user WeNews used under Creative Commons 2.0 license. •

So how does this relate to numbers of people actually trafficked in the U.S.? That’s a surprisingly tough question. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to get firm statistics on modern-day slavery due to vast underreporting, the covert nature of the crime and the tendency to criminalize, rather than recognize, victims of sex slavery (even when they are children). Part of the problem is the misnomer “trafficking,” which inaccurately suggests that victims have to come from other countries. In fact, the term trafficking applies to any coerced sex or labor, including all prostituted children.

Moreover, as anti-trafficking organization the Polaris Project points out, clear numbers for the U.S. are particularly lacking. The Department of Justice estimates that 17,500 people are trafficked from other countries, but has no firm estimates on those trafficked within U.S. borders.

I suspect that U.S. citizens and policy-makers have a hard time imagining that modern-day slavery is prevalent in our country, and an even harder time understanding that the vast majority of trafficking victims here are U.S. citizens. The State Department estimates that of the world’s 27 million trafficking victims, about 100,000 live in the U.S. In contrast, the Polaris Project estimates that there are 100,000 cases of child sex trafficking alone in the U.S. each year.

Even if we use the State Department’s 100,000 figure, this means investigations were opened on only 2.5 percent of human trafficking cases. Even assuming that one case represents multiple victims, it is clear that federal efforts to address human trafficking in the U.S. are simply not effective.

However, our anemic efforts to combat trafficking in the U.S. do not stop us from pointing the finger at other countries. The State Department’s just-released 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report, which evaluates worldwide efforts to fight modern-day slavery, began including the U.S. only last year. And that was thanks to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said:

"One of the innovations when I became Secretary was we were going to also analyze and rank ourselves, because I don’t think it’s fair for us to rank others if we don’t look hard at who we are and what we’re doing."

So where does the U.S. rank?

The State Department uses a three-tier system. Tier 1 countries are in full compliance with the TVPA, Tier 2 countries are making “significant efforts” to comply and Tier 3 countries are making no efforts whatsoever. The U.S. is predictably ranked as Tier 1, which begs the question: How accurate is this rating system if a 2.5 percent prosecution rate gets us to the top?

The State Department’s ranking system misleads the public by focusing on purported efforts instead of actual outcomes. It has also been criticized for ranking China higher than deserved, and for lumping countries together with dissimilar records. The U.S. could standardize its rankings and avoid the latter criticism if it published national trafficking-prosecution rates–but that would expose the fallacy of U.S. superiority in efforts to combat trafficking.

State Department representative Luis C. de Baca defended the annual rankings, saying [PDF] such reports “can mean telling friends truths they may not want to hear.” I hope the State Department doesn’t mind some friendly truth-telling: Federal efforts to address human trafficking in the U.S. are an abysmal failure.

The above post was originally published on the Ms. Magazine blog.

Dr. Heldman is an Assistant Professor at Occidental College in Los Angeles. She specializes in the presidency, race, and gender. Her research has been featured in the top journals, and she is a commentator for FOX News and Al Jazeera English. Dr. Heldman co-edited, Rethinking Madame President: Are We Ready for a Woman in the White House? (2007). She is active in rebuilding efforts in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans and co-founded the New Orleans Women’s Shelter.

What do you want the future of feminism to look like? Gloria Steinem posed the question. What do YOU think and what are you going to do to make it happen?

• Gloria Steinem •

Rarely does such a feminist occasion occur and the Women's Media Center (www.womensmediacenter.com) which Gloria co-founded six years ago is using the film as an opportunity to launch an intergenerational discussion about the future of feminism.

This is a must watch film that Gloria uses as a rallying cry and asks people to use "their own voices" to plot the next 40 years of feminism which are very critical.

If you must miss the August 15th at 9pm EST/PST broadcast, there are more show times as follows:
August 18 – 11am,
August 17 – 8 pm (HBO 2),
August 20 – 2pm,
August 23 – 1:15 PM and 12:30 AM
August 28 – 5:15 PM

Please send this information to anyone who might be interested in the film and the campaign available at www.womensmediacenter.com/blog/gloria-steinem/

To assist the cause, here's what you can do:

Host a House Party with “Gloria.”
Gather friends and join the Women’s Media Center on August 15th at 9PM EST as we watch the premiere of the HBO Documentary, “Gloria: In Her Own Words.”

As an activist, Gloria has spent over 40 years creating change, now it’s our turn to step up. Gather some friends and learn about the past and future of the women’s movement.

Click here to learn more and sign-up to Host a Party, visit http://inyourownwords.nationbuilder.com/join?splash=1

Participate in a Live Chat:
Join Gloria on August 16 at 4pm EST/1 PST to talk about the film and the future of feminism. Log into HBO Connect http://connect.hbo.com/conversations/documentaries/gloria-steinem%3E for the chat.

Enter The Video Contest:

Submit a 2-minute video telling us what you want the future of feminism to look like and what you’re going to do to make it happen.

The winner of the contest will have a private 10-minute phone conversation with Gloria Steinem and the winning video will be featured on the Women’s Media Center Website.

Runner up entries will be posted on the Women's Media Center YouTube channel. Contest will launch on August 15 at 10pm EST following the documentary.

Join The Cause On Facebook:

In 140 characters, write on the Women's Media Center's wall http://www.facebook.com/womensmediacenter what you want the future of feminism to look like.

Join The Cause On Twitter:

Join the tweet-up during the documentary premiere on August 15th to talk about the future of feminism and what Gloria Steinem means to the movement. Use #gloria and #WMC to join the conversation.

For more information, visit www.womensmediacenter.com/blog/gloria-steinem/

Your thoughts on the future of feminism and the film are very important. Please share them by joining the cause!

Gerta Louisama is a member of the Executive Committee and the National Women’s Committee of Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, Heads Together Small Producers of Haiti, Haiti’s largest and oldest peasant group. She is also head of the local Tèt Kole Women’s Committee in her village of Savanette. Here she speaks about the Tèt Kole’s efforts to win recognition, social equality, and economic rights for rural Haitians, especially women.

I am a peasant women and the daughter of two peasants. I’ve been a victim of this society which ostracizes women.

• Gerta Louisama. Photo: Beverly Bell •

Beverly Bell has worked with Haitian social movements for over 30 years. She is also author of the book Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance and is working on the forthcoming book, Fault Lines: Views across Haiti’s New Divide. She coordinates Other Worlds, www.otherworldsarepossible.org, which promotes social and economic alternatives. She is also associate fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. You can access all of her past articles regarding post-earthquake Haiti at www.otherworldsarepossible.org/haiti.

Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in part. Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly Bell, Other Worlds.