[sacw] sacw dispatch (18 Nov.99)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Web Dispatch
18 November 1999
________________
#1. Important New Book - 'South Asia on a Short Fuse'
#2. Fighting Domestic Violence in South Asian Families in the US
#3. The Little Maids of Dhaka
________________
#1.
SOUTH ASIA ON A SHORT FUSE:
Nuclear Politics and the Future of Disarmament
by Praful Bidwai & Achin Vanaik
1999, 384pp.
ISBN (Hardback) 0195651782

Published by:
Oxford University Press
2/11 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110002, India
________________
#2.
The New York Times
November 17, 1999
Giving section

IN A NEW LAND, SUPPORT FROM KNOWING SOURCES
By Linda Ocasio

TWO years ago, when Zahida Nasim moved from Pakistan to
Rego Park, Queens, she quickly found that she was virtually a prisoner in
a household dominated by her husband's mother, sisters and brother.

The restrictions intensified, recalled Ms. Nasim, 28, when
she became pregnant. Her husband and mother-in-law refused to allow her to
seek medical care. ''My mother-in-law said she had 10 children without a
doctor, so why did I need one?''

Ms. Nasim had a miscarriage, but not before she had
desperately made a secret call to a New York-based Pakistani television
station, seeking help. Someone there gave her the telephone number for
Sakhi for South Asian Women, a Manhattan advocacy group that assists
immigrant victims of domestic violence.

Through Sakhi, which means woman friend in Hindi and
several other South Asian languages, Ms. Nasim found the moral support and
guidance she needed to flee the family that had imprisoned her, and to
make a new life on her own. During her stay at a women's shelter in
Harlem, she began to learn English, and now lives in a single-room
occupancy hotel and attends Touro College in Manhattan, where she is
studying computer science.

Every wave of immigration brings with it a new set of needs and
spawns a new set of philanthropic institutions. Many
charities serving today's immigrants can trace their roots to the turn of
the century. But among the large, long-established organizations are a
handful of small new groups, like Sakhi, that spring directly from a
particular first-generation experience.

The collision of cultures, the greater freedom for women
in America and the stresses of life in a new land have allowed advocacy
groups for women organized by immigrants for immigrants to ''leapfrog over
other stages of development in immigrant communities,'' said Madeline Lee,
executive director of the New York Foundation, which offered early support
for Sakhi. ''There's no question it's a new phenomenon,'' she said.

In the past, Ms. Lee noted, it usually took two
generations for an immigrant community to form its own organizations.She
said she could not recall any other issue that had generated as quick a
response as domestic violence has prompted among first-generation
immigrants. In 1987, the Foundation provided money for another advocacy
group, the New York Asian Women's Center, for its work on domestic
violence, and since then, it has helped organizations like Sakhi that
serve women from Korea, Greece, Arab countries and central Asia.

Sakhi was formed by first-generation immigrants, all South
Asian women who arrived in the United States for college and graduate
studies in the early 1980's, and who eventually pursued careers in law,
film and banking. For this reason, Sakhi has been indispensable to women
who are ostracized and accused of becoming ''Americanized'' when they
assert their rights and seek respect from their families and their
communities.

HAVING an organization that is staffed by women who spoke her
language and shared her culture was critical to Ms. Nasim
and the many other women who found Sakhi through word of mouth and the
Internet (www.sakhi.com). ''They would rather speak in
their mother tongues,'' said Prema Vora, Sakhi's executive director.
Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, Punjabi and Gujarati are some of the languages
that are spoken there.

Sheela Soorya, who sought assistance from Sakhi seven years
ago to end years of emotional and physical abuse, agreed. ''It
makes such a difference, people from my own culture believing in me and
supporting me,'' Ms. Soorya said.''There was tremendous pressure from my
husband and family to go back.''

For the last 10 years, Sakhi has assisted Indian,
Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepalese, Sri Lankan, Bhutanese and Indo-Caribbean
women by informing them of their rights, providing support groups for
survivors of domestic violence and helping them obtain legal and medical
aid. Sakhi helps women obtain job training, alternative housing or shelter
and the public assistance they need to escape a violent situation at home.

Sakhi is run by a two-member staff, a board of directors
and a volunteer base of 50 women. By its own count, in the last 10 years
Sakhi has supported more than 2,000 women seeking relief from violence in
their homes, some of whom find their way to the group's offices in the
flower district.

''We let women know there are options,'' said Ms. Vora, who
began as a Sakhi volunteer. ''And we educate the community about
taking responsibility for the issue.''

Sakhi took shape in the summer of 1989, when 40 women met
at Barnard College to discuss domestic violence and the establishment of
the new organization, which would not be strictly a service provider or
charity, but an advocacy group that could challenge the causes of domestic
violence. The name was also crucial: Sakhi for South Asian Women wanted to
bridge the differences among a vastly diverse population.

Even before the group was officially formed, the founders
started to receive phone calls at home from battered women. It was clear
that South Asian women were not calling the police or shelters, and that
Sakhi had struck a nerve. ''It was considered bad, a dishonor to the
community to air dirty laundry,'' said Mallika Dutt, a Sakhi founder who
is now a Ford Foundation program officer in New Delhi.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the
New York Asian Women's Center provided workshops on the issue and acted as
mentors for Sakhi's organizers. The group ''didn't know what an order of
protection was,'' Ms. Dutt said. The first year, expenses came out of
their own pockets, and their apartments became makeshift offices.

Ms. Dutt, who had just graduated from New York University
Law School, was a lawyer with the firm Debevoise & Plimpton and did pro
bono work on behalf of the women seeking help.

Another founder, Tula Goenka, already working as a film
editor, put together pamphlets about Sakhi.

Sakhi continues to do the grassroots organizing and
outreach to inform women of their rights and to build alliances with other
groups.

For example, Sakhi leaders and volunteers march in the
Indian and Pakistani parades to make sure domestic violence is not
marginalized.

Ms. Goenka said she believes the message is getting
through. She cites as an example the popular Diwali Festival which
commemorates the Hindu New Year. In 1990, its organizers would not let
Sakhi participate in the festivities or distribute literature.
That has changed.

''Now, the organizers reach out to us, we have a table, and we
perform dances with a social message,'' Ms. Goenka said.
________________
#3.
THE LITTLE MAIDS OF DHAKA

An organisation working with child domestic labour in Bangladesh estimates
that there are 250,000-300,000 resident child servants in Dhaka. This is one
of the most inaccessible and secretive forms of child employment, with its
own particular hazards for the children.

By Jeremy Seabrook
Third World Network Features

SHOISHOB, an organisation working with child domestic labour in Bangladesh,
has just published the results of a survey which covered more than 10,000
middle-class households in Dhaka. In these households, nearly 8,000 resident
servants were counted, of whom 2,500 are minors, more than 80% of them
girls. The peak ages of child servants are 10 or 11 and 14 or 15.

Helen Rahman of SHOISHOB says, 'You often hear middle-class women say of
their servant, "Oh, she is just like my daughter." I have yet to hear a
servant say of her employer, "Oh, she is just like my mother."'

On the basis of the survey, SHOISHOB estimates there are between 250,000
and 300,000 bandhu maids, that is, resident child servants, in Dhaka. This
is one of the most inaccessible and secretive forms of child employment. It
is also for the children themselves one of the most hazardous, not excepting
the child flower-sellers weaving among the traffic, the workers in garages
and repair-shops, the child workers in plastics, chemical and
shoe-factories. It is simply that the hazards are different.

The servants are children of some of the poorest families. Their earnings
are often negligible. A majority earn between 100 and 200 taka a month
(US$2-4); the second highest number receive no pay at all. They are fed
and sheltered, which has two advantages for their impoverished families. It
represents one less mouth to feed, and it also 'protects' the future
marriageability of the girl. That is to say, the middle-class family is
thought of as a safe place, unlike the streets of the slums where their
parents live.

This perception is often mistaken. 'We know that large numbers of servants
are abused,' says Helen Rahman, 'not only beaten, but also abused sexually.'
This is one reason why 10- and 11-year-olds are often preferred. They are
considered to be beneath the age of sexual vulnerability.

As far as the older girls are concerned, the women of the house sometimes
feel it better if their husbands' sexual activities are restricted to
servants. It keeps them in the home. They are less likely to look outside
for sexual consolation. Of course, if the son of the household makes a
relationship with a servant, it is unlikely to be viewed with the same
collusive indulgence.

The pattern of work is exploitative in the extreme, and even those
employers who regard themselves as liberal towards their maidservants seldom
perceive the demands they make on them. 'It is a habit of mind,' says Helen
Rahman. 'Many people believe they cannot live without their servants. It is
this that we have to challenge.'

I was struck by the truth of this a couple of days later when talking with
a highly educated professional woman, whose two daughters were in the USA,
both married to Americans. She said the reason why she could not think of
settling in America is that she has been spoiled by having everything done
for her; a privilege in Bangladesh which she could not expect to find in the
United States.

The child domestics must be up in the morning before anyone else in the
household. The pattern of their labour is surprisingly similar. They sweep
the floor, wash their face, prepare breakfast for whenever the householders
and their children require it. They clean and cut vegetables, sometimes
prepare the meal. They look after the house, wait on visitors, and if there
is a party, are expected to serve all comers. They are also nearly always
the last to go to sleep after they have cleared away the evening meal,
washed the vessels and set the house in order for the morning.

People are often unaware of the degree to which they depend on their
servants. They say, 'Oh, she does nothing very much,' but in practice, their
presence is indispensable to the running of the household.

In Dhaka, there are three options for poor young women. All involve
clothes. They can make clothes, like the 700,000 young women who work in the
garment factories; they can wash clothes, like the hundreds of thousands
of maidservants, or they can take off their clothes, whether as sex workers
to service strangers, or as youthful brides. It is far from evident which is
the least onerous fate.

Helen Rahman does not believe that attacking child domestic labour from a
high moral position is particularly helpful. This, she believes, only
hardens attitudes. SHOISHOB is running schools for about 3,000 child
servants in Dhaka, although of course, these reach only those employed by
the most enlightened section of the middle class. The schools run for two
hours in the afternoon, from 3 to 5 p.m., when domestic duties are perhaps
lightest.

We visited one centre in Mirpur; a ground-floor verandah in a substantial
house, where bamboo mats have been spread on the concrete. There are about
20 children, aged from about 10 to 15, mostly girls, although there are
three boys. They work seriously, with the greatest application; studious,
obedient.

This is not only evidence of the disciplines of labour to which they have
already become accustomed, but is also the only activity of the day in which
they are the focus of attention. Most said that the afternoon is for them
the best part of the day.

Their ambitions are to become 'job-holders': that is, office workers,
doctors, teachers. One of the least researched effects of life in
middle-class families for the children of the poor is that their sense of
self, their identity may become impaired by continuous exposure to and
contact with the alien values of the households in which they serve;
especially if, as is often the case, they change jobs frequently.

They do not do this of their own accord. Often their parents may wish to
improve their income, to place them in a 'better' household; or they may
come to resent the growing involvement of their child with the employing
family and decide to move her without any reference to her wishes.

I asked the children what they dream about at night. One girl dreamed of
the old holy man who had died in the family she served, and some mentioned
the television series of Sinbad which they are allowed to watch, but most
spoke of the families, from whom their absence must seem like a punishment,
for wrongdoing they cannot fathom.

Confusion, overwork, extreme exhaustion; many servants are expected in the
'free' moments to look after the younger children of the household. They are
often left alone in the building when the mistress goes out. Few girls are
entrusted with outside errands. Most remain captive. One girl said, 'I stand
on the verandah, because there is nowhere else for me to go.'

Once you are alerted to their existence, their presence is clearly visible,
all over the city, dark faces looking out from behind grilles and windows,
effaced figures carrying children a few paces behind the parents, cleaning
metal vessels, sweeping doorsteps, chopping vegetables; an army of silent
unobstrusive waifs, without whose ministration the life of their privileged
mistresses would be laborious and enervating indeed.

It is astonishing how things can be taken for granted, until the injustice
or insensitivity of them are pointed out; how unnoticed evils may remain, as
long as they serve the interests of privilege. Helen Rahman believes there
are two ways forward. One is the shaming of people who depend unreflectingly
upon the services of their choiceless servants; and the other, the
recognition of domestic work for the labour it is.

If the girls had contracts, limited duties, due definition of what is
expected of them, that would also put an end to some of the worst abuses. As
it is, most girls have no idea of what to expect, they accept orders, they
take as given the demands upon their time and energies. It does not occur to
them that they could intervene in any significant way.

Levels of perfection are demanded of them which are expected in no other
job. If a girl breaks a dish or an ornament she will be scolded, and
possibly, punished. She will be told only of the things she has done wrong;
rarely praised for the patience and diligence with which she performs her
daily duties.

It is significant that of the 20 children in the Mirpur school, 17 come
from the country. This sets up echoes of Britain in the 19th century, when
unspoilt country girls were preferred as maidservants, because they have not
been ruined by urban life. Precisely the same justification, exactly the
same rationalisations are at hand in another culture, another climate, 150
years later.

My own grandmother's sister travelled in the carrier's cart in the 1870s
from their village in the heart of England to domestic service in London;
the same frightened children, apprehensive, docile, yielding, waiting to be
moulded by whatever values and expectations the receiving family chose to
impose upon them. - Third World Network Features

-ends-

About the writer: Jeremy Seabrook is an author and freelance journalist
based in London.

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______________________________________________
SOUTH ASIA CITIZENS WEB DISPATCH is an informal, independent &
non-profit citizens wire service run by South Asia Citizens Web
(http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex) since1996.