Global Roundup: Chad Women & Land Ownership, Taiwan Trans Woman Victory, Bolivia Feminist Organizer, Nigeria Queer Students, Indigenous Woman Journalist & Author
Global Roundup: Chad Women & Land Ownership, Taiwan Trans Woman Victory, Bolivia Feminist Organizer, Nigeria Queer Students, Indigenous Woman Journalist & Author
Curated by FG Contributor Samiha Hossain
Milla Nemoudji is photographed in a village of Binmar, Chad, July 19, 2024. AP Photo: Robert Bociaga
Women in Chad are asserting their rights to own and control land. Land access is often controlled by village chiefs who require annual payments. Women are also often excluded from land ownership and inheritance, leaving them dependent on male relatives and reinforcing their secondary status in society. The struggle for land rights is compounded by the dual legal system in Chad where customary law often supersedes statutory law, especially in rural areas. While recent legal reforms mean laws recognize the right of any citizen to own land, application of those laws is inconsistent.
When Milla Nemoudji, a 28-year-old from a village in southern Chad, divorced her husband following years of physical abuse, she found herself without means for survival. With little support for women in her situation, divorce being relatively rare in Chad, she fought for economic independence, taking on several jobs. Last year, however, a women’s collective arrived in her village and she decided to join, finally gaining access to land and a say over its use.
There’s no one to come to your aid, although everyone knows that you are suffering. If women weren’t losing access to farmlands, they would dare to leave their husbands earlier. -Milla Nemoudji
Founded by Adèle Noudjilembaye in 2018, an agriculturist and activist, the N-Bio Solutions collective is a rare initiative in Chad negotiating on behalf of women with traditional chiefs, who then seek out residents with available land willing to lease it. So far, Noudjilembaye runs five such collectives with an average 25 members. Although these initiatives are slowly gaining popularity, they are limited by financial resources and some women’s hesitancy to risk the little they have.
Despite the violence and neglect, many women stay (in that situation) because of financial dependency, fear of societal judgement or lack of support. -Adèle Noudjilembaye
Not only do such initiatives support women’s economic independence, they lead to women adopting sustainable farming practices. Despite the lack of support from traditional leaders and local authorities, women in the village of around 120 people have found strength in the collective. Nemoudji dreams of better educational opportunities for the children in her community so they can break the cycle of poverty and violence. She advocates in the community for changes in the land ownership system.
Photo: I-HWA CHENG/Getty Images
Lisbeth Wu, a trans woman in Taiwan, won legal recognition after four years in court. Earlier this week, the court ruled that she may have her legal gender changed on identity documents without undergoing surgery on her genitals. The decision marks the fifth such legal victory for trans people in Taiwan, according to the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights (TAPCPR), an activist group which supported Wu’s lawsuit through pro-bono legal representation.
Wu began her lawsuit in 2020, after her application for a legal gender change without surgery — which she filed on November 20, International Trans Day of Remembrance — was summarily rejected. But her case dragged on for years, even as similar cases like those of Xiao E and Nemo ended in victory, while Taiwan’s Constitutional Court delayed its decision on whether to hear the case or return it to the Taipei High Administrative Court (THAC). As it did in the landmark Xiao E case, the THAC eventually ruled against a 2008 Ministry of Interior memo which mandates two mental health assessments and proof of surgery for all gender changes. The court once again found this week that the mandate is not supported by law, and goes against the Taiwanese Constitution’s proportionality doctrine, which states that a person’s constitutional rights cannot be infringed unless “necessary” to protect those of another.
LGBTQ+ rights have steadily expanded in Taiwan in recent years, after it became the first Asian country to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019 — although that victory has proven to be only a partial win, as couples in which one partner is Chinese are still bureaucratically prevented from tying the knot. The country’s 21st annual Pride march is believed to have been the largest in East Asian history.
Administrative agencies should stop being lazy, change unconstitutional and illegal interpretations as soon as possible, and give transgender citizens the right to gender autonomy. We congratulate [Lisbeth Wu], who can finally have her gender identity recognized by law in the land she loves and live the way she wants! -TAPCPR
Julieta Ojeda in Mujeres Creando’s Virgen de los Deseos, a cultural and political space in La Paz, Bolivia. (Ben Dangl)
NACLA spoke to feminist organizer Julieta Ojeda about her grassroots work in Bolivia for abortion access and empowering feminist struggles. The Virgen de los Deseos in La Paz is home to the cultural and radical organizing space of the feminist movement Mujeres Creando. This well-known hub for feminist organizing hosts self-defense classes for women, reproductive health clinics, a popular radio station, a busy café, and much more. Ojeda has been a central member of Mujeres Creando for years.
Ojeda explains how the collective now has a stronger “political currency” than it did a decade or two ago because of state institutions’ failures in meeting people’s needs. The organization is seeking the decriminalization of abortion.
We discuss decriminalization because we think we shouldn’t renounce our utopic horizon, and while the state must guarantee certain conditions for women who seek an abortion, it shouldn’t regulate the decision of a woman who wants to have an abortion. -Julieta Ojeda
Mujeres Creando gives advice and accompaniment to women who want to have an abortion. Mujeres en Búsqueda de Justicia (Women Seeking Justice) is able to seek the legal interruption of pregnancy in two cases: in the case of rape or when the life or health of the woman is at risk. According to Ojeda, despite abortion being legal in those cases, the state still fails to fulfill its role.
Ojeda discusses how cases of violence against women and femicides have been on the rise in Bolivia. She believes it is in part due to the country incorporating femicide into Bolivian legislation (Law 348) – making the issue more visible. She also credits social pressure and women’s organizing for bringing the issue to light. She shares a hypothesis of her colleague María Galindo – the concept of “depatriarchalization.” It refers to men retaliating against the exercise of freedom by women. Ojeda notes that women are increasingly rebelling by deciding if they want to have children or not, if they want an abortion or not, if they want to end a violent relationship.
Ojeda believes that the work Mujeres Creando does gives power to societies. A priority for her currently is working on the issue of abortion from different perspectives, trying to expand the work they’ve done for years.
I also think the state and power transform you and absorb you; power gobbles you up. The political system is so structured that believing that your presence can change society is very naïve. That’s why I think we need to work from society and generate the awareness that women can take on collective struggles. -Julieta Ojeda
Love House illustration courtesy of Minority Africa
At the University of Ibadan, Love House began to grow as a haven for lonely people seeking the warmth of community. Its members hosted meetings in their hostels and different locations within the university. Gradually, by word of mouth, more members started to pour in. People who craved true community and friendship began to find each other and built solid relationships, many of which still thrive today even after some members have graduated and moved to several locations worldwide.
The first time Janet met Ayo, the latter played a Todrick Hall song in a banking hall, hoping to catch Janet’s attention. Before gaining admission into the University of Ibadan in 2019, Janet, bold and relentless about his identity, had attracted unwanted attention that led to him being kidnapped and kitoed due to his Facebook presence. Despite the ordeal leaving him traumatised, it strengthened his resolve to continue to be himself. Meeting Ayo, Janet says, was pivotal to their student experience.
I was added to a Whatsapp group that same day. We were a total of five members, students who were equally as lonely as I was and had met each other through stereotyping and Grindr. We were called Love House. It’s a community where nothing but love and kindness foster the bonds which bind us, a safe space. On the first physical gathering I attended, I still remember the warmth that tugged at my stomach, meeting these people who would go on to shape my experience as a student on this campus. -Janet
Blessing, another Love House member, had been groomed and assaulted by a distant relative shortly before meeting Ebube on Twitter. Months after opening up to Ebube about their ordeal and spending time with the community, they felt lighter and happier. Ebube has since gone on to be published in various magazines.
In many ways, they began to feel more like family. I could finally talk about crushes and things I was doing without switching pronouns or going silent. I didn’t know I didn’t have to feel shame all the time. I no longer had to laugh off slurs about my femininity. I used to be depressed all the time. -Blessing
Aside from being worried about constant surveillance and nosey people, one of the problems Love House faced was a scarcity of places to meet. Nonetheless, Love House is a space where members can build organic relationships, express themselves, and experience joy.
Tanya Talaga flying over Kistachowan sipi (Albany River) by helicopter. (Rodrigo Michelangeli. Courtesy of CBC)
Tanya Talaga’s new book, The Knowing, uncovers truths about Canadian history and colonization — especially the treatment of Indigenous women, who were married off to white settlers and stripped of their Indian status.
When Anishinaabe journalist Tanya Talaga set out to understand more about her own great-great-grandmother, Annie Carpenter, she never expected to find her buried in a forgotten cemetery near a busy highway in Toronto. Talaga's family knew Carpenter — a Cree woman originally from the James Bay Coast — had ended up in Toronto, though they didn't know how, or where she was buried. Her family searched for answers for more than 80 years before Talaga herself inherited the investigation. Talaga spoke with CBC about what she learned of her own family, how Indigenous women have been mistreated and erased throughout Canadian history, and how those attitudes remain today.
Talaga discusses how because of the Indian Act, her great-great-grandmother was enfranchised when she married a white man – effectively erasing her. A powerful man at the time who ran the Hudson's Bay Company, George Simpson, openly referred to Indigenous women as "half breeds," as "brown bits," as commodities, according to Talaga. He had at least 13 children with mothers who were Indigenous. He “threw away” both the Indigenous mothers and their children.
I can't imagine that a 12-year-old or a 13 or 14-year-old girl during the time of the fur trade would want to leave her family, her community, her language to go off and be a bride to some man. ... She doesn't know him, his culture, his language. But it was her, that girl, that made the family survive. -Tanya Talaga
One of Talaga’s goals with the book was to trace where the trafficking of Indigenous women and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls genocide start. She believes it started in this period.
These are the attitudes that were ingrained, built into the fabric of Canadian policy, bureaucracy, society. We are still fighting those images, those words, those feelings, those racist slurs. Today, our women are still so vulnerable. -Tanya Talaga
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Samiha Hossain (she/her) is an aspiring urban planner studying at Toronto Metropolitan University. Throughout the years, she has worked in nonprofits with survivors of sexual violence and youth. Samiha firmly believes in the power of connecting with people and listening to their stories to create solidarity and heal as a community. She loves learning about the diverse forms of feminist resistance around the world.