Women’s rights activists
have been searching for evidence of human rights abuse for decades, in attempt
to reclaim women’s rights. Across the globe they have been seeking testimonies
and additional representation for women, trying to make the world a more
welcoming place for women and a better place for all. It has been a long and difficult
journey, one that will continue for a long time to come. Many people see or
hear of the violence and oppression happening to women elsewhere in the world,
and they sympathize with the women who are facing such injustices, but too
often do nothing to prevent it. The book “Just
Advocacy? Women’s rights, Transitional Feminism, and the Politics of Representation”
taught me the importance of being more than just an advocate for a good cause.
When I read this book I also learned the importance of doing research and not
instantly victimizing women in such situations, as there is always more than
one side to a story. In order to come closer to gender equality, women need to
have more representation, which in turn can help change policy and also make
impacts on cultural level.
There are different ways that problems of
gender inequality can be tackled. When facing the problems in Muslim regions,
religion is a large factor to be considered. Many women feel that they have to
choose between religion and rights. Women Living Under Muslim Law (WLUML) uses
internal advocacy to empower women to understand their rights and options, and
help empower themselves to obtain equality. With the tools of knowledge, this
well-intentioned organization effectively helps women reject oppression. External
advocacy is not as effective for this situation because of the global north’s tendency
to lack understanding and have stigma against the Muslim religion, as well as
the perceived notions of victimizations towards the Muslim women.
Following 9/11, the
political strategy of the U.S. was to depict Afghanistan under the Taliban and
al-Qaeda as breeding terror and suppressing the rights of women based on
religion, and that these are contrary to American values. Muslim women, particularly of the Taliban and
al-Qaeda, were victimized through these agents of representation. This has
caused the oppression of women and terrorism to seem interconnected to viewers,
which helped the “war against terrorism” gain more support. This strategy of war
politics was completely derived out of self-interest to justify military action,
not for the well being of the Afghani women. There are numerous examples of
such strategies of representation throughout Bush’s presidency, which promised
liberation and a safer civilization through military action. Even when a
horrible injustice towards women is seen and understood as problematic, there
is often not much done to change it. The U.S. military does provide some aid to
women living under the Taliban who have been beaten or sexually assaulted, but
that does not prevent the problem from continuing to happen like internal
advocacy can.
Prostitution is a global
problem that is driven by economic disparities and objectification of women in
patriarchal societies. “The commonplace that sex workers or consumers of
commercial sex are passive victims of patriarchy assumes a static notion of
gender identity attached to victimizations-an injury or wound-and ignores the
myriad forces and range of identifications (race, ethnicity, sexual
orientation, etc.) that shape human agency and subjectivity.” Only trafficked
women are considered to have had their human rights violated, not the majority
of women that have gone into prostitution for other reasons. Anti-sex slavery
campaigns have been applying their agency on reforming laws and even attempting
to abolish prostitution, but they have only had limited success and are in need
of greater scales of intervention.
During WWII, the Japanese government
bought women from mostly Korea for “comfort stations” for their military. These
women were used as sex slaves, approximately 2,000, and least one-third of them
didn’t survive. These women filed a class action suit against the Japanese
government for their treatment during WWII.
They demanded an apology, reparation, prosecutions of perpetrators and a
commitment to educate successive generations about these crimes against
humanity. The year after this suit was filed, the history of WWII sex prisoners
hit the international news when two NGO’s brought the issue to the United
Nation Commission on Human Rights Sub commission. These trials offered the survivors
a way to claim some social justice for what they had suffered. When they
returned home they endured social disgrace; many had to be given a new name and
they were forbidden to talk about their sex slavery. These trials gave these
survivors new identities along with the ability to call their experiences
“rape” rather than “prostitution”. Their storytelling also gave a voice to
women’s rights, which helped motivate and reconstruct history. As of
2005, when this book was published their has been no official apology from the
Japanese prime minister nor any acceptance of legal responsibility for military
sexual slavery. A private fund was started for a
