China Flash: Only condoms can save China from a "raging epidemic" of syphilis and other sexually transmitted infections

This 'as told to' interview was granted to me by Dr Neil Schmid, Beijing chief of sexual health charity DKT International, and first ran in Time Out Beijing's November edition. The text below is by and (c) Neil Schmid, not me. 

China has the highest overall contraceptive prevalence rates in the world: 88 per cent of women of reproductive age (15-49) use contraceptives. But that official figure is highly problematic: it’s unrepresentative of sexual activity across the Chinese populace for the fundamental reason that it excludes unmarried women and all men, married or unmarried. So it’s a highly gendered measurement of what constitutes normative contraceptive use. And in China, that concept forms the basis for the entire family planning policy as well as access to and, crucially, knowledge of all contraceptive methods. The upshot of this situation is that married women bear the brunt of contraceptive responsibility, men don’t, and those outside of married couples -- namely 249 million people -- are largely ignored in terms of sex education and general public discourse on all the contraceptive methods available. I want to address these inequalities and other sexual health concerns first by promoting condom use among youth and by providing both women and men with additional contraceptive options.

At the moment, the Government’s family planning policy favors IUDs [intra-uterine devices] and sterilisation for married women, and these two methods currently amount to roughly 50 per cent and 30 per cent respectively (i.e., a whopping 80 per cent) of all contraceptives used by that group. The legacy of this system is that because all these procedures were, and still are, done in government-controlled clinics, contraceptive choices have been highly limited. Not having a variety of choices means that information about other contraceptives isn’t necessary, and both institutions and parents are thus never obliged to develop the knowledge and concern to communicate different options. Also, hormonal contraceptives such as the pill, implants and injections don’t generally appeal to Chinese women because they often believe that hormones disrupt the body’s balance. An unfortunate result of the lack of short-term contraceptives among younger, unmarried women is that multiple abortions are relatively common and there’s frequent misuse of emergency contraceptives such as the morning after pill. If used excessively, both these methods can affect fertility in the long term. Finally, there a social conservatism that feeds into these larger patterns: you’ll often see adverts for abortion clinics in the Beijing subway, but you would never, ever see an advert for a condom.

Today’s Chinese youth have enormous amounts of freedom, access, and mobility which their parents never had. Enablers range from rapid urbanisation to apps like Momo, billed as ‘the magical tool to get laid’, which were completely unthinkable among their parents’ generation. Where the state was once revolutionary in addressing citizens’ reproductive and sexual health needs, it’s now turned a conservative eye to the new revolutionary changes affecting its population. The negative results are a rapid increase in unwanted pregnancies, abortions and STIs. 50 years ago, syphilis was virtually eliminated from China by government initiatives. Now an epidemic rages, with an average of more than one baby per hour being born with congenital syphilis in China. And unfortunately that’s one out of multiple STIs which are increasingly rampant across the population. As important and useful as IUDs and hormonal contraceptives might be in preventing unwanted pregnancies, they do nothing to stop the ever-growing spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

DKT International runs extensive programmes addressing sexual health in China. Visit their site.  To read my China Flash series of articles about contemporary China, please click here.

Persephone Speaks: The forgotten women of Bosnia

I am urging everyone to back a major new documentary by the brilliant film-maker Ivana Ivkovic Kelley, whose project Persephone Speaks focuses on the use of rape as a war strategy. The film follows a survivor's quest to shed light on the international community's failure to acknowledge the effects this crime has on women's lives, long after the war has ended. There are only 10 days left before the fundraising campaign is over.



The project is more timely than ever, given that global awareness of this issue is rising. It's also amazing to witness the power of film-making on global politics, with William Hague stating that his consciousness was raised by Angelina Jolie's hard-hitting 2012 film In The Land of Blood and Honey, which focuses on the issue. That feature was a sombre and extremely admirable fictionalisation of real events, strongly influenced by actual witness and testimony. 

For readers who want to know more about the global issue of rape in war (although, I should add, rape and all forms of gendered sexual violence and gendered abuse are absolutely endemic in peacetime societies too, everywhere in the world, regardless of colour, class, religion, culture, language and hemisphere) then I strong recommend the Women Under Siege Project, which provide extremely gritty and exhaustive documentation, testimony and research. A trigger warning strongly applies. 

Persephone Speaks shows a survivor tracing and confronting perpetrators, testifying to the reality and aftermath of rape and seeking formal justice in the international community and courts system. As Kelley says, she wishes to

...acknowledge the effects this crime has on women's lives, long after the war has ended. Females are nonstop targets during wartime, as demonstrated by the mass rapes implemented as a policy of genocide during the Bosnian war. Because this atrocity is grossly ignored by the international community and international tribunals, this film revisits one survivor, Bakira, who continues to fight for justice on behalf of others all over the world.   

From her tiny smoke-filled office on the shrapnel-damaged outskirts of Sarajevo, to her monthly sojourns to the Hague, her goal is for perpetrators to be brought to justice. To this day, war rape survivors continue to join her group, finally sharing their stories with this woman who will ensure their testimonies are heard in the courts in Sarajevo or the Hague.  

 In many cases, the perpetrators are either awaiting trial or have been rewarded by the Serbian government for successfully running a "camp", often in the form of a promotion within the local police force. We have witnessed incidents of this same "reward" behavior in similar conflicts around the world. In situations such as these, many survivors have expressed anger, fear, and shock, especially when they see their attacker, years later, in high level positions or vacationing beside them on the Adriatic coast.  

Bakira... sets out to find where the perpetrators, named in numerous testimonies, now live, subsequently providing this evidence to the Hague and other courts.

Kelley and her team have initiated a Kickstarter campaign to raise $12,000 which will enable the completion of Persephone Speaks by autumn so that it can hit the international film festival circuit when it debuts. More than $8,000 has already been pledged (disclosure: I pledged some after reading the Women's Views on News feature - Kelley is a stranger to me) but according to Kickstarter custom the full target must be reached, or nothing.

Please help. In the words of the director,

It is through projects such as these that light is shed on human rights issues. The continued treatment of women around the world, especially during times of conflict, needs to be heard through as many channels as possible. Unfortunately, war rape survivors are often seen as a problem, a by-product of war that needs to be swept under the rug. Our work will be done when the world comes together to ensure female victims of war are not forgotten and the perpetrators are brought to justice.

Be a part of making Persephone Speaks happen by becoming a backer here and showing your support on the documentary's Facebook page here.

You might also be interested in finding out about Women for Women International's March of Peace from 5th-12th July 2013, which follows a 120 km route through Bosnia and Herzegovina to Srebrenica - the exact route taken by refugees of the war.

Novelist Kishwar Desai's Sea of Innocence: women, India, safety, secrets and violence in paradise

I wanted to support The Sea of Innocence, the Costa-winning novelist Kishwar Desai's latest book, which will be published by Simon & Schuster on 30th May in hardback at £12.99. The text below is from the press release - but I love Desai's novels for their brilliant combination of urgent topicality, taut plotting, strong style and an unforgettably clever, funny and resourceful heroine.

Kishwar Desai sprang onto the literary scene in 2010 with Witness The Night, which introduced the characters of the tough, cool social-worker-cum-detective heroine Simran Singh, who was investigating a murder case and tackling the issue of female infanticide. This powerful debut went on to win a Costa and was also longlisted for The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, The Man Asian Literary Prize and The Impac Award.

Desai’s second novel, Origins of Love, saw Simran travel between Delhi and London in a story involving the exploitative, largely unregulated and hugely profitable international surrogacy industry. It
received rave reviews and helped spark a global debate - which I wrote about in this New Humanist piece.

In her third novel, The Sea of Innocence, Desai’s heroine Simran is holidaying in Goa with her daughter when she is sent a video of a blonde teenager alone with a group of Indian men. The teenager is missing and Simran knows she must act, and fast, in order to save her. Everyone seems to know what has happened to her, but no-one will talk. Soon Simran herself is targeted to force her into silence and her Goan paradise becomes a living nightmare.

Like all Desai’s novels, The Sea of Innocence is a gripping detective story, but it is also the exploration of a serious social problem. In 2011, 21 British Nationals died in Goa and the book reflects on the infamous case of Scarlett Keeling, who was raped and murdered there 5 years ago, and the recent gang rape in Delhi. Desai looks at the role of women in India. She explores how, in the age of globalization, such issues affect all of us.

Kishwar Desai is an author, broadcaster and journalist who splits her time between Delhi, Goa and London. She will be in the UK around publication and will be available for interviews and to write features.

NOTES:

• For further information contact Hannah Corbett; Hannah.corbett@simonandschuster.co.uk
• ...or Gina Rozner at Giant Rooster PR: Gina@giantroosterpr.co.uk

Extradited to a future of torture: the reality of solitary confinement and a screening of Valarie Kaur's film Worst of the Worst

UK premiere of film about the Connecticut Supermax prison that houses two extradited British nationals. With Amnesty International & Special Guests from the USA Solitary Watch.

• Date of event : 16th May 2013, 6pm - 9pm
• Location : Kings College, Room S-2.08, King’s Building, Strand, London WC2R 2LS
• Event web page here
• All are welcome. Tickets are free.
• Click here for eventbrite details

Flagging up an upcoming special event entitled “Extradited to a future of torture: the reality of Solitary Confinement in the USA”, hosted by the International State Crime Initiative at King’s College. The event will feature the UK premiere of Worst of the Worst (link takes you to the trailer), a new 30 minute film made by Valarie Kaur with the Yale Visual Law Project. Valarie Kaur, is an award-winning filmmaker, civil rights advocate, and interfaith leader based in Connecticut who wanted to make this film on Supermax prisons after visiting Guantanamo Bay. She is the founder of Yale Visual Law which was launched in 2010 with two primary goals in mind: to create a cutting-edge pedagogical space where law students could be trained in the art of visual advocacy and to produce well-researched, professional documentary films on legal and policy issues. See the trailer online by clicking here. The film tour the UK with dates TBC in Scotland, Wales, North England in Summer 2013.

Worst of the Worst exposes the physically and psychologically abusive conditions of confinement in the Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, Connecticut, the prison that houses extradited British citizens Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad.

Talha Ahsan is an award-winning British muslim poet and translator. He was been detained over 6 years without trial, charge or prima facie evidence on the controversial 2003 US-UK Extradition treaty on allegations relating to association with an obsolete foreign jihad website from 1997-2002 covering Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. He was extradited to the USA on 5th October with his co-defendent Babar Ahmad and is now in solitary confinement in Connecticut at the Northern Correctional Institution. The trial will be in October 2013. Full details on the case and family campaign: www.freetalha.org

Babar Ahmad is Talha’s co-defendant. Before he was extradited, he was detained without trial for over 8 years, the longest period of detention without trial faced by any prisoner in British history. An e-petition to have his trial in the UK gathered over 149,000 signatures. See the site Free Babar Ahmad for more information.

Special guests from the USA James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, directors of Solitary Watch, and Amnesty International’s Tessa Murphy will discuss the issues in a human rights framework. James Ridgeway and media editor Jean Casella co-founded Solitary Watch in 2009, in order to "bring the widespread practice of solitary confinement out of the shadows and into the light of the public square." Their work has helped to fuel a growing national movement opposing the use of solitary in U.S. prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, and immigrant detention centers. 

The Amnesty International report on Supermax prisons by speaker Tessa Murphy can be read here. In a 2012 statement of concern about Talha Ahsan & Babar Ahmad’s extradition, Amnesty International noted: 

There is ample evidence in the USA and elsewhere that prolonged confinement to a cell with social isolation can cause serious physical and psychological harm. Concerns about such impact are heightened with regard to individuals, like some of those extradited, who have pre-existing medical conditions or mental disabilities. (Full statement available here).

Talha Ahsan’s new creative writing from Supermax prison will be read by his brother Hamja Ahsan. Writings from other prisoners in solitary confinement will be read by poet and playwright Avaes Mohammad.

Special guest James Ridgeway said :

Supermax prisons and solitary confinement units are America's domestic black sites, these are places where genuine torture takes place. 

People in the UK should care about what happens in American supermax prisons, just as they care about what happens at Guantanamo... [because] British nationals are now being extradited to the U.S. to face decades of torture in solitary confinement.

Aseem Mehta, co-director of Worst of the Worst, said :

In making the film, we listened to all of the actors whose lives were touched by supermax - the inmates in solitary, the guards who report for duty each day, the policymakers and officials who oversee the facility, the architect whose legacy has become the prison, the family members and friends whose loved ones are inside, the lawyers and advocates who navigate the law that governs the prison's logic. We came away with the conclusion that the institution harms everyone who it touches, that everyone who enters Northern ultimately leaves damaged.

The event host is Dr. Ian Patel of International State Crime Intitiative.  Dr. Patel is in the law department at King's College London. He specialises in criminal justice, criminal law, and international human rights. He is a fellow at the International State Crime Initiative. His recent article on Talha Ahsan case and prolonged solitary confinement was published in the New Statesman here.

Further resources:

• 25 minute Extradition Film now online about Talha Ahsan & Babar Ahmad
• The Free Talha Ahsan Campaign www.freetalha.org and Facebook page and YouTube channel