Running for Their Lives

No one can deny the power of language. As we all know, words can be contorted in ways that toy with our perceptions, prejudices, and sense of reality. The most obvious example of these tactics are apparent in the euphemistic discourse of the military and the strategic jargon used by governments:

• friendly fire


• collateral damage


• neutralize


• soft targets


• body count


• rogue states

In spite of all this questionable terminology, the word that irks me the most would have to be illegal aliens. Seriously...when did it become OK to officially refer to other human beings as aliens?? Sure, we're talking about illegal immigration and the coinciding cost in tax payer dollars, but let's not forget the ridiculous amount of public spending and foreign investments going into the supposed War on Terror.



Worst of all, the term, illegal aliens, conveniently separates the humanity from the real problems--NAFTA ( in the case of Mexico), poverty, war, struggling economies, corrupt governments--so much so that another ugly portrait is painted instead. This us against them mentality conjures up negative imagery involving: a group of foreign parasitic fence-jumpers who have the audacity to free-load off our system. How dare they! --You get the point.

So for just a moment, let's flip this lens.

How far would you go in order to save your family from poverty? Would you break the law? Would you risk your own life? Imagine that you had no other options....

Quique dreams of El Norte, a land of opportunity where the poor become rich, the sick can afford care, and children become educated. Despite this romanticized view of both Canada and America, for Quique, anything seems better than his life in Honduras.

At 20 years-old, Quique lives in an ubiquitous Central American slum, where his wife, young son, and 11 other family members live under the same corrugated tin roof. Since the average wage of a Honduran is a mere $900 CAD/ year, it is impossible to escape this trap of poverty. But for the sake of his family, Quique figures that it's worth a shot...

Him and his travel companions, Chacon, Daniel, and Eber, have only $100 between them but are determined as ever to cross that finish line. But the journey itself is not for the faint of heart. Spanning nearly 5000 km, the trip from Honduras to America is as long as it is dangerous. Not only are the border towns in both Guatemala and Mexico overrun by the most notorious of street gangs, their main mode of transportation will be hopping freight trains, the dangers of which range from getting pulled under a rail car to being brutally robbed by a travelling gang member. The trip to El Norte basically makes Everest look like a walk in the park.

So do Quique and his friends beat these terrible odds and make it to El Norte? Will they ever see their families again? Well, you'll have to watch the CBC documentary, Run For Your Life, to find out.

Watch Run For Your Life online right HERE!

Buying a Filipina Wife: Voices of Mail-Order Brides in Canada

The Philippine Women's Centre of BC (PWC) defines mail-order brides as "a formal transaction between a man and a woman from different countries, usually brokered by an agent, who is part of the mail-order bride industry, via catalogues or the Internet. The term is also applied to situations where men go to the Philippines with the intention of finding a wife."

It is no secret that many Western men love shopping for their potential wives in the Philippines. In fact, the desire for an Island wife is so strong that a whopping 5000 Filipina mail-order brides arrive in the United States every year, while 20,000 catalogue wives already reside in Australia. And Canada is also joining this growing club as the country's large Filipina domestic worker demographic will be soon eclipsed by that of Island-bought brides.

You’re not liking Filipina dating sites? We are what we are. The Philippines is over populated with mostly women. There is a very high poverty level and Filipino do not treat their women very well. So what it adds up to is so many [F]ilipina want out! The desire to leave and the fact they are the most beautiful women in the world and treat their men better than any other culture of women. That makes the Filipina very desirable to most men around the world. (quoted from a guy that runs one of the many objectionable Filipina "dating" sites)

Well, this must mean that Filipinas are living the high-life overseas in the comfort of their new mail-order marriages. Let's take a look at some of their experiences...

"Maria" expresses the economic disempowerment she is subjected to by her Canadian husband: "We then fight. I don’t have money at all. I have to make him satisfied. We have so many incidents. I can’t go shopping. Of course it’s natural for us women to go out shopping, to buy something. He’s not giving me any money. He doesn’t know that he should give me money and he just learned from me in the long run...."

"Then the lifestyle here, there is no respect at all. Like it’s not easy for me to just ask or borrow something like the vacuum or money. Sometimes I feel shy to tell him that we need this or we need that."

"Nika" grew up in the Visayan region of the Philippines in a peasant family. Since her older sister had married a foreigner and was reaping the financial rewards of her new lifestyle, Nika was also determined to become a mail-order bride...She finally decided on her future husband, "Tom," after exchanging a series of letters with him. Tom had boasted about his booming taxi business back in Canada and had promised to sponsor Nika to the country.

Sadly, Nika's new life in Canada would be marked by her husband's incessant verbal and emotional abuse. He monitored her phone calls, he forbade her from watching TV, and even regulated how much she ate. In order to signal Nika to stop eating, Tom would simply slap her.

As a Filipina working in Hong Kong, "Perlita" met her Canadian husband, "Keith" through a "friendship" service....She decided to apply for residency through Canada's Live-in Caregiver Program (LCP) in order to secure her own incomce once she arrived in the new country. However, once Perlita had the couple's first baby, Keith would no longer allow her to work outside of the home.

And his abuse would not stop there. After Perlita gave birth to their second child, Keith started to control all aspects of her life--her social life, her finances, and even her mobility. He also inflicted brutal attacks on her in which he punched Perlita in the face, suffocated her in front of their children, and cruelly threatened her by holding a gun to her head.

Right, so despite the high instances of domestic abuse, the inherent marginalization of being bought in a developing nation and brought into the First World as a wife-servant, and being caught in this devastating Catch-22 with very few options, this really sounds like a better life...

All the personal excerpts from Filipina Canadians were borrowed from Canada: The New Frontier for Filipin Mail-Order Brides as published by the Philippine Women's Centre of BC. Please note that this is only a brief overview of the issue so please visit the above links for a more comprehensive exploration...

Hate's Twisted Logic

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others." -- Nelson Mandela



Today, I was cruising by one of my favourite blogs and became completely struck by their last post. It was a heated response to the blatantly racist sentiments expressed by a shameless hate monger on a South African blog. While I won't shed light on this individual's identity because I wouldn't want to intentionally link him to my site, I will try to logically critique his hateful rant without dropping too many F-bombs along the way. In the meantime, I will refer to this individual as X. (Please note that the following is a highly censored version of how I really feel about X's perspective)...

So the most disturbing of X's claims is: "Blacks deserved apartheid fair and square." If that isn't abhorrent enough, he even goes on to say, "In fact, blacks were treated way too softly; [South] African authorities made the fatal mistake of thinking of blacks as HUMANS, an item of faith which has been debunked by black African HISTORY (and ‘African-American’ behaviour in the civilised world). By ‘civilised world’ I mean WHITE-ruled states."

Not only is X's diatribe downright deplorable, it blatantly disregards both the historical and sociological implications of colonialism. First of all, to have the audacity to even suggest that Black Africans deserved apartheid is just as reasonable as saying that every individual who was ever lynched, raped, or murdered somehow deserved that fate. According to X's twisted reasoning, I would imagine that even slavery would also qualify as merely a deserved consequence of the grand plan. Having your villages pillaged, women raped, land stolen, cultures suppressed, languages lost, religions vilified, and not to mention being beaten, shackled, and shipped over to the New World as a "savage" would somehow all be justified in the name of civilizing Africa. Wow, X, you really provide one convincing argument.

If X had bothered to do any of his homework, he would realize that the colonial machine can only blame itself for the social, political, and economic fall-out facing Africa and other previously colonized nations. Perhaps X didn't realize that stripping entire societies of their traditional ways of life might somehow have devastating long-term effects on the system, or how the breakdown of colonial enterprises such as cash crop agriculture would also contribute to the continent's current instability. Not surprisingly, X didn't consider how colonial cartography, that conveniently ignored traditional religious and tribal territories, might play a part in Africa's civil conflicts. What about issues regarding the forced dislocation and diaspora of traditional African communities? Couldn't this trauma also be enough to have a negative ripple-effect for future generations? But according to X's worldview, such civilized powers are apparently infallible.

And clearly, X must have been sniffing glue when he blindly questioned the very humanity of both Black African and African American communities. Perhaps the following list will help sober him up enough to refrain from passing on such blatant garbage as truth--Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Malcom X, Rosa Parks, C.L.R. James, Maya Angelou, Sojourner Truth, George Washington Carver, Phillis Wheatley, William Edward Burghardt DuBois, Toni Morrison, Spike Lee, James Brown, Duke Ellington, Akua Lezli Hope, Langston Hughes, Billie Holiday, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Qunicy Jones, Carol Mosely-Braun, Sidney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr., Derek Walcott, Patricia Hill Collins, Harry Jerome, Portia White, Mary Ann Shadd... These individuals are all a mere tip of the iceberg when reflecting the enormous social, cultural, academic, artistic, athletic, scientific, technological and political contributions Black men and women have made around the world. This truth, X, is undeniable. Neither your hate nor your bigotry will ever take that away...

The Global Price of Sex

As you've probably figured out by now, I'm a major CBC junkie. So on Sunday night, I was tuned-into none other than my favourite channel when I stumbled upon this documentary, Sex Slaves. And yes, it was just as disturbing as it sounds...

Global sexual trafficking steals the lives of half a million women every year. Often these women come from the margins of society where poverty and everyday survival become the centre of their existence. They are either lured or kidnapped by a very sophisticated network of organized criminals in order to feed the profits of this thriving, multi-billion dollar industry. And as Sex Slaves so painfully illustrates, the business of buying and selling human lives is definitely booming in Eastern Europe.

This is when we get a glimpe into the life of Tania. At first glance, she exudes the energy and vitality of a beautiful young woman until you start to see the dark trauma in her eyes. As Tania shares her unimaginable story, you wonder how any human being could endure such pain and anguish.

Her story begins in Russia. After Chernobyl's nuclear catastrophe in 1986, Katia's family was eventually relocated to the Ukraine. Consequently, their intense radioactive exposure came at the price of numerous health problems as three of Tania's siblings were diagnosed with various cancers. Her younger brother's condition was so severe that he would soon die without the proper treatment. Adding even more insult to injury was that the high cost of medical care would prevent the family from seeking these much needed treatments due to their dismal income. Therefore, Tania took it upon herself to help her loved ones out if this futile situation.

This when the opportunity of a lifetime seemed to fall right into her lap. As a waitress at a local cafe, Tania had crossed paths with an older women who held promises of a better life. The woman claimed to have international connections within a legitimate nanny business in which Tania would be the ideal employee. This new career could earn her more than $1000 a month. While plenty of doubts had crossed her mind, Tania finally conceded that this could be her one big break to secure a better life for both her daughter and siblings. Little did she know that she would be entering an underground world of sex and slavery.

Tania was taken to Turkey where she was sold to one of the country's homegrown pimps. He had bought her for a cool $5000 from her supposed friend back in the Ukraine. This friend turned out to be a highly accomplished human trafficker with dozens of unsuspecting girls and women under her belt. Apparently, this businesswoman was sending her own daughter to law school by selling the souls of these young lives.

In Turkey, her latest Ukranian victim endured months of sexual torture. Tania was trapped behind closed doors in an Instanbul villa as she slaved for 24 hours a day as a prostitute. Not only was she regularly beaten and raped by both her pimp and paying johns, Tania never saw a single penny from any of her profits. In fact, her pimp was so cruel as to propose that she could actually pay for her freedom by working off her debt, or purchase price of $5000. This became Tania's only source of hope...

After an exceptionally cruel beating, one of Tania's johns had noticed multiple burn marks all over her body. When she had come clean about her pimp's regular abuse, this particular john decided to buy Tania her freedom. Soon after her return home, Tania's younger brother passed away.

Sadly, Tania's story only echos the horrific tales shared by thousands of women worldwide. While both Canada and the United States have introduced harsher anti-trafficking bills to further protect victims within each country, such legislation obviously does not extend to the international community. And as the human trafficking industry exists to barter innocent lives in exchange for cheap and cruel sex, thousands of others stand to make a killing from these transactions.

**This PBS site has clips from the documentary as well as interviews from each of the women featured in the film: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/slaves/

Tears for Bangladesh----Wrath of Cyclone Sidr

The wrath of Cyclone Sidr ravaged the southwestern delta of Bangladesh on Thursday.

Storm winds reached up to 240 km/hr.

It is estimated that over 3000 people have died.

Hundreds of thousand more are left homeless...

without food

or clean

drinking water...

and are in desperate need of aid!

http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/world/852/

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/17/world/asia/17bangladesh.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7100879.stm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/16/asia/bangla.php