I was 7 years old when this album came out, but the words served as the soundtrack to my late teens; before I’d read about gender, welfare, economic segregation, and revolution; before I had the ‘technical expertise’ to deliver programs for change, at a time when I just felt what social justice was and wanted it.

These lyrics were first sung now 21 years ago in 1988.  So this is a part of my scattered catalogue of personal and key moments linked to violence against women.  What has happened since 1988 in strides for gender equality, and to counter its most extreme perversion, violence against women?

1991, A House of Lords decision overturned the common law rule that held a man could not be criminally liable for having sex with his wife without her consent.  This made marital rape punishable.  1995 In Antigua, the Sexual Offences Act was passed which also prohibits marital rape.  In certain circumstances.  Such as if the couple has a separation agreement or is divorced.  The law is piecemeal and doesn’t affirm women’s rights to absolute bodily integrity.

Feb 2009, photos of Bajan born, pop-star Rihanna’s bruised face circulated the world.  Not long afterwards, a colleague of mine described his sleepless night, littered with thumps, slams, and kicks as a man attacked his girlfriend on the other side of a trendy hotel wall, in a ‘safe, tranquil neighbourhood’ of Port of Spain.  Later Chris Brown apologized publicly.

2003, I met an ethnic Albanian woman who had survived gang rape by Serbian police in Kosovo.  There were 5 of them.  She aborted the child of one, and was subsequently called an ‘unreliable’ claimant by the UK immigration department.  She and her family had felt her husband’s and children’s broken bodies were enough evidence to secure refugee status, without having to re-live her own sexual torture before them at hearings.  It took years of representations and undignified uncertainty for her and her family before finally a concession, with limited relevance to the facts of her case, allowed her to stay in London.

Christmas 2008, an Egyptian lady stood waiting for me outside the front door of a drop-in centre where I worked, her hair wrapped under plastic to shield her from cold raindrops.  Her husband had raped and beaten her for years, and she had finally left him with two children.  The husband had returned to Egypt, taking his vast wealth, and re-married, abandoning her without money and threatening to kill her if she returned to Cairo for ‘dishonouring’ their marriage.  UK law currently prevents non-national women, even those married to UK citizens, from accessing public funds such as housing or income support.  This traps many newly married women in situations of violence with nowhere to go.  So this frightened lady, having been house detained for years, struggled to explain her story to me in English to protect her children from having to translate it.  She had been turned away from basic protection and support.  Amnesty International and Black Southall Sisters are holding a mass lobby of UK parliament on 2^nd November to push for a change to this law.

These last two tales come from one of the richest countries in the world.  A land of chubby bankers and bonuses.

10^th June 2009, a decision was made in Opuz v Turkey at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  Nahide Opuz proved that Turkish authorities had failed to offer sufficient protection against domestic violence when she and her mom repeatedly reported extreme brutality at the hands of the mother’s husband, until one day her mother was killed.  The Court made several important points in its landmark ruling including that when authorities are aware of grave instances of domestic violence, it falls upon them to undertake effective action and waiting for the victim to come forward for protection is not enough.  The Court also found that Turkey had failed to protect against discrimination on the basis of gender and held that its failure to protect women against domestic violence breached their right to equal protection of the law, even if unintentionally so.  ECHR rulings set a standard for all European member states.  These are the kind of legal precedents we should be looking to, to create protective environments for women.

Instead, in 2009 as Antigua and Barbuda is reportedly ranked among the top 50 nations in the UN human development index, we hear stories of rape victims being told to stay at home until morning because there are no police patrols available to pick them up for protection or healthcare.  We hear of police raiding nightclubs and attempting to cart dancers, undressed, to Newgate Street, stripping them of dignity they fight to hold onto.  You can hear the police snickering and feel their perception of luck as they arrest women without underwear.  We hear testimonies of migrant sex workers being raped at knife point, too ashamed to tell their story to police officers who are likely to turn around and say they deserved it, or simply deport them back to the structural poverty they were trying to escape.  So afraid that when they come forward it’s too late to take DNA evidence, too late to start emergency contraception or post exposure prophylaxis which could safeguard them against HIV.

As of October 2009, we have 48 recorded sexual offences this year.  Last year we had a total of 75.  Both these numbers fail to reflect invisible victims, like the rape described above.  We hear of there being no consistent protocol for victims who do come forward.

September 2009, An amendment to the Antigua Education Act is tabled which would legally exclude pregnant girls from school.  Women’s organisations and feminists react violently.  The issue is put on hold.

Another of Tracy Chapman ‘s songs, ‘Across the lines’, speaks to the economic segregation that in 1980′s America divided whites from blacks.  20 years later, what lines are we creating right here in Antigua?  Women are divided.  Women who don’t get promoted or paid equally, because they are women, still snub fellow women… Women who choose a different method of resisting this same patriarchal system when they wear 6inch heels at night, and then peel crumbled Queen Elizabeth’s, originating from men’s pockets, from the crevices of their bodies to send to their families.  Working people draw lines between those born here struggling to make a living, and those living but not born here trying to escape a jagged, less forgiving poverty an island hop away.

Is anyone else as enraged as me at all these walls and lines?  I want to know!  I want the richest states to offer real refuge to women fleeing violence.  I want to bulldoze the system that keeps women poor despite being the backbone of our Caribbean economies.  I want to beat power and gender inequalities to a pulp, starting with enforcement of good legislation designed to protect women, and scraping of legislative amendments that seek to perpetuate the poverty cycle; and propose not just to violate a pregnant schoolgirl’s rights to education but to declare class warfare on girls who don’t have money to be flown away for an alternative education.  I want police to be respectful of migrant sex workers, and to know that they are highly vulnerable to violence and rape from Antiguan men, and too have a right to police protection.  I want legislators to make it the states obligation to protect all women behind walls or attacked in parked cars, or face Court for breach of duty.

Looking back at my reflections on violence against women, there have been moments that generate anger, interspersed with moments of individual victories, hope and progress.  Reducing something like violence against women requires dogged persistence, a free mind, and a dash of madness.  It’s about smashing down walls, crossing lines, putting women and not moralizing views first, and reaching out to share some of your strength.

These women’s tales scramble my emotions and gnaw at my soul, but their resolute spirits could humble us all.  So if we are stronger, more forceful, more angry, more determined, more powerful, together our brains and efforts will one day drop like a ton of bricks, and the perpetrators flailing fists and flaccid bits will be pinned down and controlled.

I’m not writing this to rapists, or those who hit.  They can’t be persuaded by fingers on a keyboard.  But you can.  And so can your decision makers.  We are tiptoeing around when together it is our voices that should be feared by men hiding behind masks.

These are just some of my stories from a larger narrative about violence against women.  What are yours?  Think about it, I bet you have your own.  All these stories, these struggles, matter.  How will you contribute to the struggle here and now, and end this?

Join us during 16 days of activism to end violence against women, starting November 24^th.

“If a man tells me he’s not gonna use a condom, I tell him get out of here!”

“Hablamos de sexo seguro cada dia.”

“We talk about safer sex every day.”

‘Empowerment.’  It’s a word used a lot in discourses on feminism, and a word you probably expect to see in any current writing on women’s development.  But you, like a lot of other women, and feminists, might rarely connect the word ‘empowerment’ to a prostitute, a sex worker.

In fact, feminists globally rarely engage in a deep, non-stereotyping way with street walkers or ladies of the night.  Instead they mostly feel sorry for prostitutes who they feel need to be saved from a patriarchal society that exploits them.  They say that prostitution is a form of violence against women, and these women are ‘victims’ either of male dominance, or of a class or economic system that oppresses them and leaves them far from ‘empowered’.  Other feminists – the type that flinches at shaving her legs and isn’t sure she should express any type of conventional female sexuality – feels personally affronted by women who paint their lips and wear thigh high boots saying this continues the objectification and subordination of all women.  God(dess)-forbid that they exploit their sexuality!  Even if they are savvy to the wider gender inequalities that drive their trade and exploit this unequal system to feed two kids or send money home to build a house.

For hundreds of years the feminist movement has been divided on the question of prostitution, so it is not something that can be fairly explored here.  And we should be clear, we are not undercutting the reality that sex workers are at high risk to HIV because they have multiple sex partners, and face poor working conditions, human rights violations, violence, or difficulties accessing friendly healthcare.  But we are saying that women in general, and feminists, could learn a lot from sex workers who in many instances are exercising their right to self-determination, which includes deciding how they earn money given the economic opportunities available to them.  And we are suggesting women start listening a little more.  Because those in the business of sex are more empowered in some ways than your average married woman, particularly when it comes to the nitty-gritty of their work and an issue like protecting themselves from HIV. 

HIV in the Caribbean is feminized – women are 2.5 times more likely to be infected with HIV than men.  Why?  We know biologically women are more at risk – there is more exposed surface area in the female genitals, there are higher levels of HIV in semen than in vaginal fluids, and more semen is exchanged in sex than vaginal fluids.

The academics and UN bodies also say Caribbean women are vulnerable because gender inequality makes us economically dependent on men.  Because we are subjected to domestic violence that reduces our ability to negotiate safer sex, and even in matrifocal societies where women head the house and provide the income (as is widely the case in our society), it is still accepted that the man will sleep around, because masculine norms of aggression, control, and risk taking allow him to.

To do something about this, women and feminists in Antigua and the region need to put their varied heads together; weaved, natural and locked.  And we need to engage with each other across class, jobs, education and feminist perspectives.  And we also need to take a personal look at ourselves – Ms Well-healed-go-to-church-with-my-man-every-Sunday, Ms Beauty Queen contestant, Ms Powerful-suited-business-lady, Ms Graduate – before we turn our noses up at that free condom being handed out on Market Street.

And we should start thinking about what we can learn from our fellow woman, who we’ve typically looked down on for her tight clothes, her forthrightness, her hard talking, her low class and morals.  Because you would go to a lawyer if you wanted legal advice, or an engineer if you wanted your car fixed, so here is an opportunity to engage with some professional advice from women who are in ‘the business’…

In fact, there are signs that sex workers have something to teach all of us women about empowerment, and with over 51% of people living with HIV being women in the Caribbean, the women’s movement and our governments cannot afford to be divided or excluding of any women’s voices in efforts to reduce HIV in the region.  The South African National AIDS Council recently recognized this point when it resolved to invite sex worker representatives to its future meetings.  Without condoning sex work, the Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said: “By bringing them here, it is not that we are encouraging a crime. We give recognition to the fact that these people are vulnerable to HIV and AIDS. The problem with health issues is that they do not belong to one individual only.”

Talk to your girlfriends about HIV and the difficulties you have in negotiating condom use.  And then talk to your little sisters and cousins about safer sex, because more new HIV infections are happening in girls 15-24 than any other group in the Caribbean.  Get a female condom and try it out.

Ultimately, the reasons for our risk taking are as complex and varied as we are in our womanhood.  But we women aren’t so different.  At some level we all exchange our sexuality and sex for something. 

But whether that something is love, security, reputation, youth, money, or an orgasm, the statistics make it clear – it’s not worth gambling your health for.  We Caribbean women need to start talking across our divides, across our lines, to meet the challenges of HIV together.

It doesn’t matter what he looks like, how bling his car is, how intelligent, how sweet he smells.  Even if he’s supporting you and the kids and paying all the bills.  Even if you love him and accept that he plays the field because he’s still a good dad and everyone knows you as a couple, and on small islands it’s hard to break off long-term relationships…  If you know he has multiple partners, or he can’t look you in the eye and tell you his HIV status when you probe, take a line you often hear repeated by sex workers in Antigua in several languages and dialects, ‘Put on a condom, or get out!’ 

- Written by two feminists, one who wears ‘nerdy glasses’ and reads ‘big books’ according to her friend, the other feminist, who dances in kinky heels at night and has a lot to teach about feminism and HIV by day.

(First written for the Antigua Sun’s Gender Journal column)

I am typically a political animal, but this election has sent me into hibernation.  After months of vile, degrading, clawing and fang bearing, personal attacks, burning of constituency offices and hissing on soapboxes on every street corner, I have disengaged.  These campaigns have been venomous and ugly.  Did we not learn anything from the eloquence and the humility shown by Obama in his lengthy campaign?  From his refusal to react to slander, his abstinence from delivering personal attacks, even when merited…  Did we not learn from the Obama campaign that dreams can be fostered through politics?  That issues are the fabric of elections.  Something Obama has clawed back since becoming President, after eight years of substance deprivation.  Clearly not, because we’ve just accepted that our political parties released manifestos less than two weeks prior to polling day, and we have engaged with the mud throwing.  Both parties have spent from seemingly bottomless bank accounts during a global recession to ensure you and I see candidate’s faces at three metre intervals along all main roads running through a constituency.  The UPP posters even light up under headlights.  Beautiful.  A lot more beautiful than the walls of Gray’s Farm Primary School in the Prime Minister’s constituency which haven’t seen a lick of paint since we last had a working public library.  I have been to better kept schools made of mud walls in rural Africa.

Still, both parties find it perfectly acceptable to drown Gray’s Farm with sound-clashes of senseless propaganda during an evening when a small collection of women are coming together to think about what they can do about HIV and AIDS in their community.  How much has been spent and wasted in this election campaign and how much difference could we have made to the lives of our most vulnerable with it?  More cars for the underpaid police force that struggles to get to homes of rape victims or the robbed in the middle of the night; more psychologists for the most marginalized with mental health problems.   If we cared about such issues, rather than our duty-free x, or coloured t-shirts, we might have demanded a copy of each party’s manifesto long ago and then read it and pondered it, and asked critical questions of it.  But it’s ok, Buju and Shaggy came!  These big international artists must have been paid well to fly in and endorse a party in a democratic process they have no stake in.  I know at least one band that flew back to Jamaica in first class. 

I’d like to believe that after years of this overt bribery we are savvy to our vote being brought.  But maybe we still whorishly sell our votes, mimicking our government’s actions with UN ballots, making important decisions based on which global power will give greatest capital regardless of the economic and political independence that relinquishes, and the external pressures it exposes us to.  It seems unlikely that we will ever know how much Buju got paid or where the money came from, because we have no solid legislation which requires declaration of political financiers.

Is there anything good that can be taken from these election campaigns?  What has simultaneously impressed and confused me has been the high level of members’ involvement in these past months.  For weeks, men and women have been piling into the backs of pick up trucks, putting up tents, knocking on doors, and generally appearing very active citizens.  Probably they were brought, paid to do this.  I’d like to think not, and that perhaps this level of engagement has been borne out of a genuine desire to effect change.  Maybe we listened to Obama when he said, ‘Yes we can!’ 

 Now imagine a few of these pick-up trucks filled with benevolent hands and minds taking to the beaches every weekend to collect rubbish, or taking to the street to befriend our many disenfranchised young people hanging on street corners and stabbing each other in their spare time, or taking paintbrushes to the walls of a school in one of our poorest communities.  I would like to believe this collective energy, displayed by members of both parties, can be maintained after the election and translated into community based involvement, and used for tackling community issues in a way our current politicians will never do.  The kids or teachers who traipse to Gray’s Farm School every day wouldn’t care what colour the walls were painted, red or blue, but we’ve all forgotten them in these bitter campaigns.  Let’s take something positive from this election – non-partisan community energy, and put it to good use.