Global Roundup: Palestine LGBTQ+ Activists, Peru Indigenous Women’s Rights, 1st Vietnamese Woman in Space, Jamaica GBV Survivors, Queer Muslim Sex Educator
Global Roundup: Palestine LGBTQ+ Activists, Peru Indigenous Women’s Rights, 1st Vietnamese Woman in Space, Jamaica GBV Survivors, Queer Muslim Sex Educator
Curated by FG Contributor Samiha Hossain
Human rights lawyer and activist Rauda Morcos has never hesitated to advocate for LGBTQ+ Palestinians. Morcos helped create ASWAT, the first organization for Palestinian lesbians, also known as the Palestinian Feminist Center for Gender and Sexual Freedoms. ASWAT started out as a humble email group back in the late 1990s. Intending to open up the conversation around sexual orientation in Palestine, the organization operates as the first line of support for women, as well as men, who have questions about their sexuality.
I said to myself if I were to die achieving my goal and putting the word out that we are equal within our Palestinian community as women, as lesbians, and as queer, then it’s worth it. -Rauda Morcos
Based in Haifa, Morcos has seen many positive changes for LGBTQ+ Palestinians over the last two decades. Nevertheless, activists like Morcos have paid a high personal cost for fighting against repressive and ingrained societal norms that further marginalize often vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community.
The challenges that face all Palestinians are the same, occupation and a lack of freedoms because of the restrictions imposed on the Palestinians due to the occupation. Not only the destruction but the human rights violations against Palestinians are the most stressful at the moment. Not only in the West Bank because Palestinians inside Israel feel very threatened at the moment. -Rauda Morcos
Maisan Hamdan – a Palestinian writer and activist born in the port city of Haifa – has split her time between Haifa and Berlin since 2017. But distance doesn’t make her any less connected to her birthplace. Before 2017, Hamdan volunteered with alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society, an organization working to improve the rights of LGBTQ+ Palestinians.
I became very much connected, but in a different way. Seeing LGBTQ issues in Palestine as a part of a huge international intersectionality showed me that we can’t separate issues when it’s about oppression and resistance. -Maisan Hamdan
Hamdan’s activism has included attending protests in Haifa and participating in internationalist pride in Berlin, where she gave a speech about the experiences of queer people in Palestine. She adds that queer Palestinians are fighting both colonialism and patriarchy and that it’s essential for others to work to understand the complexity that she and other queer Palestinians inhabit.
Women witnesses and judges raise their arms at the end of the reading of the sentence of the Ethical Court in Defense of the Bodies and Territories of Women, held in the city of Tarapoto, in the Peruvian Amazon jungle, at the National University of San Martín. Image: Mariela Jara / IPS
A symbolic Tribunal was held in the city of Tarapoto, capital of Peru’s San Martin department in the Peruvian Amazon region. On April 26, this Ethical Tribunal in Defense of Women’s Bodies and Territories took place. At the open hearing, four cases were presented, involving Peruvian women from the Amazon and Andes regions who are suffering violations of their individual and collective rights. The event shined a spotlight on the systematic way the Peruvian government’s actions and lack of actions impacts the well-being of the women, their families, and their peoples. It was part of a series of meetings called Pre Fospa, the national prelude to the Pan-Amazon Social Forum.
The eleventh international edition of the Fospa will take place in three Bolivian sites from June 12–15, with the presence of around a thousand delegates from participating organizations. At the Fospa meeting, a group will deliver the Tarapoto letter, a declaration that came out of the three days of collective work and reflection on the part of over 50 indigenous organizations and agencies of civil society. The letter includes the conclusions of the Tribunal.
The judges established that “the testimonies demonstrate one type of effect on their day-to-day lives, as the result of unilateral government decisions that don’t respect, protect, or guarantee the rights of the indigenous peoples.” The Tribunal was presided over by Amazonian indigenous leader Marisol Garcia, and composed of Mar Perez of the National Coordinator of Human Rights; Cristina Gavancho of the Legal Defense Institute; and Laly Pinedo, a feminist activist from the National Network for the Promotion of Women.
For one of the cases, Leona Pizango, a member of San Martin’s kitchwa peoples, denounced that she, her husband and her four children were all expelled from their chacra [small farm] in the community of Callanayaku by forest rangers from the Cordillera Azul National Park, an area comprising 5,225 square miles that was created in 2001 for the protection of its biodiversity. Leona was relocated to a tiny, remote plot of land, where she had to begin all over again from nothing.
I used to raise pigs, chickens, ducks, and to grow yucca and plantains for our food; the park rangers chased us out, cut down all my plants, threw away my things, and didn’t allow us to take anything. My husband died shortly afterwards, from sorrow over what had happened to us. I was left a widow, a single mother. With all the grief I had, I have made myself into a strong, upright woman to support my children and make sure they can study, but it’s all been very sad. -Leona Pizango
The other testimonies highlighted discrimination toward Indigenous women from authorities and how river contamination and mining activities have disproportionately affected women’s health, including their sexual and reproductive health.
Amanda Nguyen 1st Vietnamese woman in space speaks with Juju Chang on GMA, May 3, 2024. ABC News
Amanda Nguyen will soon be the first Vietnamese woman to go to space. Nguyen’s mother's family were boat refugees from Vietnam who used the stars to help navigate their way to safer shores. Now, the daughter of those immigrants is set to make history as the first Southeast Asian woman to fly to space.
It has always been my dream to be an astronaut. I have a connection with the stars, because it's what led my family to freedom. -Amanda Nguyen
Nguyen wants every young Vietnamese girl to know that they belong. But her dream was put on hold and almost didn't come true after she says she was sexually assaulted in 2013 while studying astrophysics at Harvard University. As a survivor, she was fueled by frustrations with how her own case was handled and started speaking out, dedicating her time and shifting her focus to fighting for justice.
When I spoke up about my story, other survivors all across America had faced these issues too. How terrible is it to want to pursue justice, and yet, the rate of conviction is 1%. What does that tell survivors? -Amanda Nguyen
Nguyen has been a major driving force behind both Congress and the United Nations unanimously passing rights for sexual assault survivors, including the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights. She still had dreams to shoot for the stars and when Space for Humanity said they would get her a ticket on Blue Origin she said she was overwhelmed with "profound gratitude."
I am the dreams of my ancestors – and I am so grateful to that part of me, to the girl who existed before I was hurt, the child in me who loves the stars, my mom, who crossed the ocean. I get to say to them – we'll get to fly to space. -Amanda Nguyen
Alicia Bowen-McCulskie, founder and executive director of Circle of Care Jamaica. Photo by Bokeh Clicks Fotos.
CW: sexual abuse
Alicia Bowen-McCulskie is the founder and executive director of Circle of Care Jamaica. In 2022, Bowen-McCulskie regained control of her life by openly sharing her story at the age of 42. She shared how someone in her family had sexually abused her as a child. Like many who share similar stories, she thought that the situation was her fault and therefore, said nothing. Throughout her life, Bowen-McCulskie said, five men sexually assaulted her; four of them were men she knew.
Bowen-McCulskie’s professional path eventually led her towards working with survivors of abuse and gender-based violence. She credits divine intervention for helping her find her purpose.
One day, I think I read the 2016 Women’s Health Survey for Jamaica and it said that one in every four women at that time had been a victim of intimate partner violence or domestic abuse. I said to myself, ‘My story is not in that report because I never reported my cases.’ I began to think about the services and types of support I would have wanted as a victim. -Alicia Bowen-McCulskie
In Jamaica, it is still culturally taboo to speak about abuse, since addressing it might bring shame on one’s family. As Bowen-McCulskie says, “Perpetrators feed on silence.” Circle of Care offers “holistic care and support services to individuals impacted by physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.” Women and girls are able to access psychosocial support, resources and the care that they need to heal. Bowen-McCulskie explains how women are too often prevented from accessing support due to their shame, fear and trauma.
Though the primary focus of her NGO is on women and girls, Bowen-McCulskie stressed that men and boys are sometimes the victim and not the perpetrator. Circle of Care is currently working on a partnership with the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) where victims of any gender can be referred to for support.
In 2022, the JCF recorded 241 reported rape cases and in 2023, the count exceeded 171 reported cases. Bowen-McCulskie knows all too well that her story is one in a sea of many, and she has made it her duty to protect victims of sexual abuse and amplify the voices of survivors in order to help others suffering in silence.
Photo by Lauren McCune
42-year-old educator Wazina Zondon is best known for the collaborative project Coming Out Muslim: Radical Acts of Love, which uplifts stories at the intersection of Islam and queerness.
Founded in 2011 with the artist Terna Tilley-Gyado, the performance has served as a site of catharsis and reflection on stages and college campuses across the United States.
In addition to her creative practice, Zondon has been a sexual health educator since college. During that time, she has worked with incarcerated people, high school students, and sex workers to understand the relationship between pleasure and safety. Them talked to Zondon about teenage crushes, the importance of “nonchalant” sex education, and how faith practices can deepen and expand our relationship to queerness.
In undergrad, Zondon’s dream was to do international health work for the UN. She started getting involved with Planned Parenthood and doing sexual health promotion on campus. Then she ran street outreach with high school students, who were peer educators trained to hand out condoms and safer sex packets.
I loved it. I loved being able to bring young queer Wazina into it and ask ‘How can we talk about sex ed in a way that doesn’t tokenize, dismiss, or desexualize? In a way that doesn’t make it over-the-top or super titillating or put too much attention on one or two communities? How do I talk about queerness in an almost nonchalant way?’ -Wazina Zondon
Zondon says that even as a child, she understood that the double standards imposed on her were because of culture rather than God. When approaching sex education with people for whom religious or spiritual contexts have created shame around pleasure, she shares her own experiences and emphasizes that sexual identities can be explored within one's faith.
As an educator, I know it's deeply harmful when faith, spirituality, and the traditions of others are judged or placed in a good-or-bad dichotomy, even when there are painful experiences. -Wazina Zondon
Zondon has been thinking a lot about the end of life and how queer Muslims might not have their loved ones part of their final rite. Non-cis people might not get the proper burial or the proper pronouns being used. So Zondon has been working on this project to practice the choreography of death and dying.
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.