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IN 2005 Neill Blomkamp made a six-minute film that highlights xenophobia and social segregation in South Africa. But instead of using colour as the basis for examining the mechanics of discrimination, Blomkamp’s scenario, set in 1990 when Apartheid was still in effect, has extraterrestrial refugees as the unwanted in South Africa.

The documentary-style Alive in Joburg runs for six minutes and has become known as much for its special effects — remarkable for a short film with a limited budget — as for its subject matter.

More remarkable however is that, according to Blomkamp, all the interview statements which do not explicitly mention extraterrestrials were taken from actual interviews with South Africans:

I was asking black South Africans about black Nigerians and Zimbabweans. That’s actually where the idea came from [...] There are aliens living in South Africa [.] I asked “What do you feel about Zimbabwean Africans living here?” And those answers — they weren’t actors, those are real answers…

TODAY AT 2.30pm New York time, Eve Ensler took the floor before Senators Barbara Boxer and Russel D. Feingold et al (subcommittees) to speak once more about vaginas, of how their violation is a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo — and every other conflict zone on the map.

Ensler drew on her experiences and knowledge of the issue, based on her repeated forays into DRC and other war zones — including Bosnia, Afghanistan and Haiti — and her interaction with victims/survivors and those who aid them. Ensler has stated,

It is not too strong to call this a femicide, to say that the future of the Congo’s women is in serious jeopardy. This is an economic war that is being fought on the bodies of women…

Testimony

An extract of her testimony follows (link to the complete transcript included):

IN KEEPING with the focus on women, sex and prostitution for the last couple of days, this story by Dominique Soguel. She and documentary filmmaker Amy Brown scared the hell out of the taxi driver, Stalin, by having him drive them from Esmeraldas, Ecuador to Club Sensation, a remote brothel about 31 miles away, just south of Colombia.

En route, I explained that we were working on stories about sex workers along the Ecuador-Colombia border, particularly undocumented Colombian women who turn to the trade as a means of survival upon arrival in Ecuador.

We focused on the province of Esmeraldas as a major entry point for Colombian refugees displaced by ongoing military, paramilitary and guerrilla violence in the southern provinces of Colombia. The formal economy of the city survives on the oil, fishing and timber industries, whose male-dominant work forces provide a solid clientele for brothels, some of which function as camouflage for drug trafficking. [...]

TODAY Nicholas Kristof writes, in his NY Times oped, about prostitutes in the US, pointing out that because so many of them are from minority groups and “throwaway children”, it’s easy for those teens (usually girls) to be exploited from a very early age.

Jasmine Caldwell was 14 and selling sex on the streets when an opportunity arose to escape her pimp: an undercover policeman picked her up.

The cop could have rescued her from the pimp, who ran a string of 13 girls and took every cent they earned. If the cop had taken Jasmine to a shelter, she could have resumed her education and tried to put her life back in order.

Instead, the policeman showed her his handcuffs and threatened to send her to prison. Terrified, she cried and pleaded not to be jailed. Then, she said, he offered to release her in exchange for sex. [...]

YOU MIGHT be feeling the pressure. Economic, academic, job-related, health, motherhood.

Or marriage.

As in, where’s yours?

As if it’s a product, neatly stacked between the covers of a book, elegantly bound in satin ribbons or tied to a bright flock of mismatched balloons. A composite that comprises the wedding album, the vacuum-packed lacy layer-cake dress, the small triumphs in tasteful household acquisitions received as gifts; the miniature couple eternally dancing across the memory of almond icing.

Forgotten is the pledging of heart and mind to mind and heart. Instead, it seems to have become all about artistically-posed sepia prints and silver frames and the video you can show your friends, neighbours and other wives who flit into your circle, however briefly.

… and other developing countries: 1 woman out of every 22 dies, either during her term, giving birth or after birth. In the UK the mortality rate is 1 in 5,100 women; in the US, roughly 1 out of every 10,000.

Just to be clear, WHO defines Maternal mortality as:

the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management but not from accidental or incidental causes.

On the back of yet another celebrity adoption, Kevin Watkins, director of the UN’s Human Development Report Office, rightly points out that while Madonna and Mercy have their name in lights, there’s no reportage about Mercy’s mother and the millions like her who die because of poor health care:

SOMETHING MANY of us take for granted, whether we do it on a whim, or for a night of seduction: lingerie shopping. That delicious thrill of going to buy sweet nothings, little more than frills, a hint of lace, strong suggestion of lascivious mischief – all ready to play peek-a-boo with the flesh.

We might bitch about the unkind lighting, unnecessarily voluble mirrors and passage of time, but we get to snap on, tie up, pull down, breathe in, push out and strut our stuff to assess the effect of every last satin string, pink bow, velvet button, lace top, feather trim and silken seam.

We get to take along our mothers, sister, girlfriends, gay friends and expect the usual helping female hand to measure up, nip and tuck, fetch and carry, should we need it. We can spend whole days up to our knees in soft and sexy, sultry and skimpy before waltzing on home to surprise our significant other with a fait accompli.

THERE IS some interesting commentary on this story (if you’re not familiar with the case the wikipedia link is useful), but what strikes me is that if Fritzl is not convicted of murder his maximum sentence will be 15 years in prison. For murder he would get life.

Granted, the man is already 72 years old, so 15 years and probable retributive abuse from other prisoners – he may not survive the term of his imprisonment. It’s also possible he will be found guilty of murder.

But it’s the principle of the thing. Murder by neglect, especially of a child, is murder. And if not the sex slave of her father, how else can one describe the situation of the captive daughter, Elisabeth?

Josef Fritzl, the Austrian engineer accused of imprisoning his daughter beneath the family home for more than two decades and fathering her children, today pleaded guilty to incest but denied murder and enslavement. [...]

SO HORRIFIC (like all sexual abuse / violence) I can hardly begin to cover this. Rape in South Africa has always been a desperately under-reported crime with desperately under-funded treatment / prevention / education. This latest focus in hate attacks based on sexual orientation is tremendously disturbing given that

South Africa has one of the world’s most progressive constitutions and became the first country in Africa to allow gay marriage in 2006, but homosexuality is still widely frowned upon and same-sex unions are often decried as “un-African.”

The brutal rape and murder last year of female soccer player Eudy Simelane, a lesbian, threw a spotlight on homophobic violence, particularly toward women.

MSNBC story

This is no more than yet another excuse to justify violent acts, exertions of power and all those other old chestnuts – which sadly seem to sum up so-called corrective and other rape. Even the term “corrective rape” should be redressed; the implication that forced sexual congress can in any sense be a measure of acceptable discipline, is despicable.

SHE’S NINE years old, has allegedly been repeatedly raped by her step-father, and up until Wednesday was pregnant with twins as a result of the sexual abuse.

But Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho has said, despite circumstances, she should have given birth by cesarean section — after the full nine month gestation period.

The child weighs about 80 lb / 36kg and according to Fatima Maia, director of the public university hospital where the abortion was performed, the young girl’s uterus is very small – as one would expect of a child’s body. While the muscular uterus can and does stretch up to 500 times its size to accommodate a pregnancy, the doctor who confirmed the pregnancy also stated that the child’s pelvis was too small to support carrying twins until birth. Some risks include growth-restricted infants, and uterine rupture and pelvic trauma to the mother.

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