Global Roundup: Yazidi Woman's Story on Film, Pakistan Aurat March, Black Woman Wins Ancestral Home Case Posthumously, Accessible Edmonton Gym, Maasai Women Rangers Defying Poachers and Patriarchy
Global Roundup: Yazidi Woman's Story on Film, Pakistan Aurat March, Black Woman Wins Ancestral Home Case Posthumously, Accessible Edmonton Gym, Maasai Women Rangers Defying Poachers and Patriarchy
Curated by FG Contributor Inaara Merani
Mediha Ibrahim Alhamad, a teenaged Yazidi girl and subject of the documentary Mediha. She spent years as a captive of Islamic State fighters. ‘I used the camera to heal,’ she says. Photograph: LoveWorld Media. (The Guardian)
CW: sexual assault, rape, sexual enslavement
In August 2014, IS fighters attacked Mediha’s village, Tal Qasab, the heartland of the Yazidi people. Marking one of the darkest periods of IS brutality in Iraq and Syria, more than 3000 Yazidis were killed, around 7000 were kidnapped and forced to become soldiers or slaves, and tens of thousands of individuals were displaced. To this day, there are still roughly 3000 women and children that are still missing. Mediha was rescued after the city she was held in was liberated.
After she was released, Mediha felt that nobody was listening to her. She found a friend and her solace in film, using a camera that was gifted to her by US documentary filmmaker Hasan Oswald. She began documenting her family’s story as well as the personal challenges she encountered after her release from captivity, which Mediha says saved her life.
When nobody would listen to me and I was told not to talk about what I went through, the camera became my only friend. I found that when I spoke to it and confided in it, I would instantly feel better, like a weight lifted off of me. I used the camera, and now the film itself, to heal in many ways. It was my outlet and it remains so. – Mediha Ibrahim Alhamad
The footage that Mediha created was compiled and edited, and was turned into an award-winning documentary titled “Mediha”. The film includes videos from her parents’ wedding, as well as shots of the internally displaced people (IDP) camp in Iraqi Kurdistan where Mediha lived with her uncle and two of her brothers after she was rescued in 2017. While Mediha filmed her video diaries and other footage, filmmaker Hasan Oswald filmed community members trying to locate and rescue Yazidi captives. He was also able to get Mediha’s reunion with her siblings on camera.
I have a faint wish and hope that my mother is still alive and that maybe someone will recognise her in the film and tell her that we are alive. I know she would be proud of this film and of me. If she is alive, I know she would come home if she knew her children are alive and well. – Mediha Ibrahim Alhamad
While the film has premiered around the world at film festivals, it will be available to watch online, this week, on the Human Rights Watch film festival website.
Thousands gathered at the march. (Getty). (Pink News)
On International Women’s Day, thousands of protestors gathered in various cities in Pakistan for the annual ‘Aurat March’. However, after lessons learned in previous years, this year, the march looked slightly different. Advocates gathered in masses on March 8 in cities such as Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, and Multan to promote gender equality and safety against gender-based violence and to denounce sexist norms in the country.
This year, instead of simply hosting the Aurat March, the organization held a press conference in advance of the march to update the media. In an attempt to ensure the event would be an inclusive and safe space for women and the LGBTQ+ community, the collective announced it would be disallowing cisgender men from the media to attend. In previous years, Aurat March has been taken over by cis men journalists who are unwilling to share the floor with women and trans journalists.
Aurat March is an independent collective that hosts the annual rallies; this year, they highlighted the need for a ceasefire in Gaza where over 25,000 women and children have been killed. The collective also discussed the right of women to be able to walk home safely and occupy public spaces without harassment.
There were also local art installations launched on the same day as the march to promote gender equality. For example, in a street tunnel where women are often subject to sexual harassment, catcalling phrases were written and painted onto the walls. Using stories from women and trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people, the organization was able to create a display which reflected the realities of women’s experiences in Pakistan.
Take a walk in our shoes…Leave the tunnel with questions and discomfort. See where that takes you. – Aurat March street tunnel installation
Josephine Wright shared her gratitude on Thursday, Dec. 21, 2023 about the donations her family has received from her GoFuneMe.com page that includes an NBA player, musicians and especially actor, director Tyler Perry who is building Wright a new home. But she thanks everyone. “It just wasn’t them. It was ordinary people … people sent in (money) from all over the world.” Drew Martin dmartin@islandpacket.com. (Island Packet)
In February 2023, development company Bailey Point sued 94-year-old Josephine Wright as parts of her home encroached on the developer’s land, they say. Wright spent her last days fighting to protect her family’s ancestral home on Hilton Head Island, in South Carolina. Now, two months after her death, she has posthumously won the case, leaving her home to children, grandkids, great-grandkids, and great-great-grandkids.
Last year, after receiving notice that she was being sued, Wright did not back down from the fight. Instead, she stood her ground, which garnered national attention and support from celebrities like Tyler Perry and Snoop Dogg. She called the lawsuit a bullying tactic.
Wright’s home has been owned by her late husband’s family since the Civil War. Decades ago, Hilton Head Island was mostly occupied by Black residents, especially those belonging to the Gullah Geechee ethnic group. The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of African people who were enslaved on the lower Atlantic coast of the US, on rice, indigo, and Sea Island cotton plantations. Their ancestors descend from the rice-growing region of West Africa. Their language, Gullah Geechee, is a unique Creole language spoken in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Whereas Gullah owned over 3500 acres of land following the Civil War, the community now owns less than 700 acres, with the majority of land ownership retained by white members of the community.
Although the developer initially would not approve the building of a 147-housing-unit until the suit with Wright had been resolved, the encroachment and boundary issues have been resolved, and Wright’s family will be free to continue living in their ancestral home. Additionally, Bailey Point can no longer contact the Wright family about purchasing the land.
In December 2023, Wright posted a video thanking people around the world for their generous donations - not just celebrities, but ordinary people who chose to exhibit kindness. Wright’s GoFundMe page surpassed $350,000, and this helped launch the Josephine Wright Foundation, which is dedicated to helping other families with resources and educational awareness about land preservation and how to protect one’s home and rights.
Credit: Canva; Elham Numan/Xtra.
After graduating from their fitness-trainer program in 2017 and working at a big box gym, Toni Harris began to understand the barriers and discrimination that the LGBTQ2S+ community encounters in the fitness world. They made it both their personal and professional mission to better understand the fitness needs of the queer and trans community and to contribute to the building of a space in Edmonton in the Canadian province of Alberta to meet those needs.
They met Zita Dube-Lockhart during their fitness-trainer program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and they immediately connected and shared similar views on fitness accessibility, body neutrality, and inclusion. In 2019, Harris moved their solo personal training operations to Dube-Lockhart’s gym space and they formed a partnership, creating Action Potential Fitness.
Action Potential Fitness is LGBTQ2S+-friendly and has a fitness program designed for trans people, created by trans fitness professionals. Over 70 percent of the fitness centre staff identify as LGBTQ2S+, and it is one of the few safe fitness spaces for the queer and trans communities The Fitness Trans Formed program strives to help trans people reconnect with their bodies, rather than just helping them move their bodies.
The program is run out of the Action Potential Fitness centre, but is run through a nonprofit organization that Harris and Dube-Lockhart established to be able to continue to develop programs for the trans and gender-diverse community at little to no cost. The nonprofit, the Centre for Trauma-Informed Fitness, assists in accessing grants and funding and opens up the ability to partner with similar organizations. Since the program began in January 2023, there have been three cohorts and around 50 participants that have finished the Fitness Trans Formed program. Of the eight fitness team members helping run the programs, seven identify as trans or queer.
We recognize that health is an individual and communal experience, mediated by issues of accessibility, social power and privilege. There are often difficulties in accessing the right information and professionals who understand and have similar lived experiences. – Zita Dube-Lockhart
In the coming months, Harris and Dube-Lockhart will be hosting their first industry workshop for fitness professionals, helping others make their spaces more inclusive for the queer and trans community. The next Fitness Trans Formed sessions will begin this month, including a youth program which also incorporates DiversiFit, the centre’s program for neurodiverse clients. They are also considering a hybrid option for the program to accomodate any individuals who experience barriers in accessing their facility or who do not feel safe out publicly.
At a time when trans rights in Alberta are being attacked, Harris and Dube-Lockhart are more determined than ever in their mission to provide safe and affirming spaces for trans and non-binary clients of all ages.
Team Lioness members relay data on radio of wildlife sightings © Tony KARUMBA / AFP. (France 24)
A group of Maasai women in Kenya are determined to tackle poachers and patriarchal prejudices. Known as Team Lioness, the women remain unarmed as they trek through the land nearby Amboseli National Park. They say that keeping track of wildlife and fighting poaching is their main responsibility.
The Maasai community, semi-nomadic herders living in southwest Kenya and northern Tanzania, practices a number of patriarchal traditions that many Maasai women do not agree with such as gendered norms, child marriage, and female genital mutilation. Most of the Team Lioness rangers say they had a very difficult time convincing their families to support their ambitions, but they persevered and were able to prove to their communities that they were as capable as anyone else.
The 17 women that are part of Team Lioness, however, are not funded by the government-run Kenya Wildlife Service, this initiative was created by the International Fund for Animal Welfare which pays the rangers’ salaries.
Although there was initially some resistance from community members, especially from men, the rangers have been able to demonstrate their capability in supporting the wildlife and their community. Naiswaku Parsitau, a 70-year-old Maasai community leader, says that although she had doubts about these women becoming rangers in 2019, she has since changed her mind. Now, when she sees a hyena roaming nearby her small village of Risa, Parsitau calls Team Lioness.
When we have those issues, we call the rangers and they patrol at night to protect the animals. They help us a lot and they can inspire other women. – Naiswaku Parsitau
Inaara Merani (she/her) recently completed her Masters degree at the University of Western Ontario, studying Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies with a specialization in Transitional Justice. In the upcoming years, she hopes to attend law school, focusing her career in human rights law.
Inaara is deeply passionate about dismantling patriarchal institutions to ensure women and other marginalized populations have safe and equal access to their rights. She believes in the power of knowledge and learning from others, and hopes to continue to learn from others throughout her career.