Global Roundup: Morocco Refugees’ Menstrual Health, Dominica LGBT Activist, Mexico Domestic Workers, Namibia LGBTQ+ Community, Canada Indigenous Women Street Patrol
Global Roundup: Morocco Refugees’ Menstrual Health, Dominica LGBT Activist, Mexico Domestic Workers, Namibia LGBTQ+ Community, Canada Indigenous Women Street Patrol
Curated by FG Contributor Samiha Hossain
In recent years Morocco has become a transit and a host country for people seeking asylum – and around 70% of refugee women in the country do not have access to hygienic products that meet their needs. A series of workshops were held across five cities in Morocco to address menstrual health care. The Life is a Cycle event was the first of its kind for the North African country, with the workshops seeking to empower 250 refugee women and girls with menstrual health education and care packages. The week-long event was facilitated by UNHCR partnered with the feminist youth-led movement Politics4Her, the Moroccan Family Planning Association (AMPF), and migrant, refugee, and youth support Fondation Orient-Occident.
According to Rabab Talal, the Reporting Assistant from UNHCR Morocco, many refugees do not talk about menstruation due to shame and stigmatization. The unstable situation of the population and the socioeconomic challenges prevent refugees and asylum seekers from acquiring sanitary pads and long-lasting products like reusable pants.
These women end up ignoring their menstrual health, which is likely to give rise to significant health risks due to inadequate menstrual hygiene management. Even worse, it can also lead to higher dropout rates among school-aged girls, or lower attendance levels which can reduce their academic performance. -Rabab Talal
In each workshop, the attendees were allowed what many of them had never had before, a safe space to talk about menstruation. One woman from Nigeria stood up in front of the group. She said: “In my culture menstruation is seen as something unclean, during menstruation I am not allowed to share a bed with my husband, and I need to use a separate bucket to wash, I am not allowed to go to church even one week after my period.”
Women were not the only ones who received the workshops, men were also invited to join separately to discuss menstruation. Furthermore, Politics4Her’s team of young feminists worked to adapt their menstruation toolkit to the migration context to make it relevant for women refugees. The educational booklet was distributed to the workshop attendees with their menstrual care packages.
Daryl Phillip, who heads Minority Rights Dominica, says the island has a long way to go for queer people to feel free.
The law has changed in Dominica, but it will still take time to change people’s attitudes. Before and even now, people allow themselves to treat LGBT people as second-class citizens. -Daryl Phillip
On April 22, the High Court of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States ruled that sections 14 and 16 of the Dominica Sexual Offences Act, which sentenced people in same-sex relationships to 10 years’ imprisonment, were unconstitutional and void. In particular, the judges found that these laws clearly infringed the rights to privacy, liberty, and security, as well as protection against discrimination.
Phillip explains that there is still a lot of animosity and it is fuelled by the local churches. He also notes that there is a culture of impunity that does not encourage LGBT people to report the violence they suffer.
While LGBT+ people are everywhere, they can’t live out their love in the open and we’re urged to stay in the wardrobe. It’s a very heavy situation, exacerbated by the island’s small population of just 70,000 and the pusillanimity of local politicians on societal issues. -Daryl Phillip
Phillip’s organization tried to develop a helpline in Dominica, in collaboration with the Caribbean Vulnerable Communities Coalition in Jamaica, but it didn’t work. They do, however, organise a small evening every year around the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, around 17 May, when they get together. He says it makes up for the lack of a bar and leisure space during the rest of the year.
Phillips mentions that the triumphs of other Caribbean countries including the decriminalization of homosexuality in Belize (2016), Trinidad and Tobago (2018), Barbados (2022), then Antigua and Barbuda (2022) and Saint Kitts and Nevis (2022) have been immense sources of inspiration for Dominica's LGBT community. However, he acknowledges that there is still a long way to go and that the law on public indecency, which has not been repealed, may be used to repress forms of expression of homosexuality.
A television program promotes an upcoming presidential debate as domestic worker Concepcion Alejo goes through her morning routine, in her apartment in Mexico City, Wednesday, April 24, 2024. Alejo is among approximately 2.5 million Mexicans — largely women — who serve as domestic workers in the Latin American nation. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)
Alejo, 43, has quietly worked cleaning the homes and raising the children of wealthier Mexicans for 26 years. Alejo is among approximately 2.5 million Mexicans — largely women — who serve as domestic workers in the Latin American nation, a profession that has come to encapsulate gender and class divisions long permeating Mexico. Despite reforms under the current government, many domestic workers continue to face low pay, abuse by employers, long hours and unstable working conditions some equate to “modern slavery.”
I’ve never voted all these years, because it’s always the same for us whoever wins. … When have they ever listened to us, why would I give them my vote? I have hope that at least by having a woman, maybe things will be different. -Alejo
Still, as two women politicians — former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum and former senator Xóchitl Gálvez — are leading the race to the June 2 presidential election, it’s unclear how much it will shift the realities of working women in the country.
Carolina Solana de Dios, 47, said she started working as a live-in nanny when she was 15 to escape an abusive household. While she feels free from the abuse and knows her job is important, she added: “When you work in someone else’s house, your life isn’t your own.” Domestic workers often pick up the burden of domestic labor for the growing number of women professionals entering the workforce.
While neither presidential candidate has spoken explicitly about domestic workers, both Sheinbaum and Gálvez have proposed addressing soaring violence against women in Mexico and working to close the country’s gender pay gap. But Norma Palacios, head of the country’s domestic workers union, known as SINACTRAHO, said many of the social advances seen in recent years haven’t trickled down to poorer classes of working women, least of all domestic workers.
Nothing has changed, and (domestic workers) continue to face informal working conditions, in precarious work, with low salaries facing violence and discrimination, even if on paper we should have more labor rights…It’s still a woman who is going to be at the head of a country — a sexist country, a country of inequality, a country of violence against women, a country of femicides. -Norma Palacios
Equal Namibia participants marching at the Namibian Pride Parade, where the call for the decriminalisation of the Apartheid-era sodomy law was a focal point at the march in Windhoek, November 2021. Omar van Reenen/Handout via Thomson Reuters Foundation
The courts (are) our last hope and our beacon of liberation. -Omar van Reenen, co-founder of Equal Namibia
LGBTQ+ advocate Friedel Dausab brought the appeal against Namibia's long-standing sodomy law, arguing the criminalisation of sodomy and related offences was unconstitutional. Arguments were heard in October and the court is expected to rule in June. The court decision comes at a crucial time, in a year in which Namibia has seen a number of fatal hate crimes and two parliamentary bills seeking to limit LGBTQ+ rights, said van Reenen.
Though parliament passed both new bills, they are currently awaiting presidential approval to be passed into law. Van Reenen said while the sodomy law was rarely enforced, it had far-reaching influence on other policies. The law has been cited as a reason not to provide condoms in prisons, despite the spread of HIV/AIDS among incarcerated men. Legislators also excluded protection for discrimination against sexual orientation in the country's updated labour law in 2007, despite it being grounds for protection in earlier legislation.
Namibia's record on the legal recognition of LGBTQ+ rights has been mixed in two cases in the last year. The Supreme Court affirmed residency rights for same-sex couples married outside the country where one spouse did not have Namibian citizenship, but overturned a decision providing the right to citizenship for children born through surrogacy to same-sex parents. The ruling prompted a backlash from conservative NGOs, politicians and churches, followed by countrywide protests.
The last year has also seen a rise in hate crimes, according to Equal Namibia, which has reported that six LGBTQ+ Namibians were killed in hate-motivated attacks. Parliament has passed two private member's bills in the last year, seeking to counter the court decision on same-sex marriages abroad, one by defining marriage as a union "between persons of the opposite sex". But both bills have yet to be signed into law by President Nangolo Mbumba.
These bills have further "fanned the flames of hate," said van Reenen. While van Reenen has faith in the justice system, the activist does not want to rely on the courts alone in an increasingly hostile environment for LGBTQ+ Namibians.
We need some sort of validation that we exist and belong in Namibia, and that the constitution protects us too. -Omar van Reenen
From left to right: Kirstin Witwicki, Cambria Harris, Elle Harris, Kera Harris and Melissa Robinson. (Morgan's Warriors/Facebook)
A new community patrol gearing up to hit the streets of Canadian city Winnipeg is being led by Indigenous women and family members of one of the victims of a serial killer who's currently on trial. The group has filed to reserve the name "Morgan's Warriors" as a non-profit, and they have been working on a community needs assessment to figure out which gaps they could help fill in the city, Kirstin Witwicki said. They're also still looking to secure funding once everything is in place.
The group's name is inspired by their cousin, Morgan Harris, who was one of four women killed by admitted Winnipeg serial killer, Jeremy Skibicki. The name is to "honour our cousin Morgan, and to turn our grief into action," Witwicki said, and their slogan will be "helping is healing."
We had this new vision and we want to make sure we do it in a way that honours not only my cousin but all the other victims of this tragedy that happened but all the other victims of the MMIW2GS crisis. And we determined we needed to build something from scratch in a very authentic way. -Kirstin Witwicki
Jeannie Whitebird, who is an artist and traditional helper, said she's 100 per cent behind every community group that feels a need to come together to support families. They also could have an incredible opportunity for connection and communication from one person to another, especially those who are impacted by missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people (MMIW2GS), said Whitebird. She also said that when the patrol gets up and running, it will give people an outlet for their energy and grief.
I think a lot of grief is just loss of control, and this gives people an opportunity to use their energy again. During the trial part here, it is very empowering to take back some of that control and say, yes, this horrible, terrible thing happened, and unfortunately [all of Canada] just kind of let it happen … by turning a blind eye, or studying a problem to death instead of actually acting on it. -Kirstin Witwicki
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.