Now there is a group called Ethical Oil that is using Saudi women’s human rights as a justification for proceeding with the environmentally devastating Tar Sands project.

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While the human rights of Saudi women are unquestionably being seriously violated, that has been true for some time and we have done little to help them because we need Saudi oil.  And we continued to support the Saudi regime even though most of the 911 attackers were Saudi.  But now it is convenient to say that we support Saudi women, regardless of the fact that Tar Sands will do nothing to help Saudi women and is also detrimental to women who live near the project.  Maryam Adrangi explains,

The premise is that supporting “conflict oil” from Saudi Arabia would prop up a regime that is oppressive to women. The underlying motive, however, is not to talk about women’s liberation, but rather to deflect negative attention from the tar sands.

If women’s rights were of genuine concern to EthicalOil.org (and all the individuals that make it possible such as Ezra Levant, Alykhan Velshi, Kathryn Marshall, and their corporate oil buddies) then there would be conversation about the impacts that tar sands extraction has on women.

The tar sands boom has created dangerous jobs with long hours, fostering a culture of alcohol and substance abuse in the off hours. As a result, rates of sexual violence towards women have increased and women working in the industry have reported sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and unequal pay. Gender-based discrimination have also resulted in unequal access to higher paying jobs in communities in the region, and with skyrocketing housing prices and costs of living, there is also unequal access to housing.  Increases in female homelessness exacerbate the challenges faced by women in the area.

Climate Connections has more on this here and Grist covers it here.

The, Feminist Peace Network recently started another website, Occupy Patriarchy, which is focusing on bringing a feminist perspective to the Occupy movement.  One of the things that has quickly become apparent to us is that for women to participate in Occupy events, they need to feel safe.  There have been a number of incidents of sexual assault, harassment and rape and how some of those incidents have been handled has been distressing.  It is clear that is something that needs to be addressed but the right, which is fighting a losing battle to control the message in the face of the Occupy movement  has seized on this as a reason to shut down Occupy camps.

Brandon Darby offers this twisted logic on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government website,

The reality is that ideological underpinnings of the Occupy movement–such as collectivism, “consensus” decision making, and antipathy towards law enforcement—often lend themselves to the disorder that predators see as opportunity. Far from “empowering” women, the Occupy movement’s anarchist and socialist principles and policies are exposing female activists to greater danger. They cannot maintain order because they are in the midst of rebelling against it.

Right and capitalism, which allows such things as human trafficking and the porn industry to flourish while funding for domestic violence programs is slashed is perfectly safe for women? And unfortunately, it would appear that there are also those in the Occupy movement that feel that damsel rescuing is the honorable metaphor to use.  Via Feminists Occupy London:

The fallacy of the Damsels in Distress argument is so transparent that it should really be a litmus test–if you have to invoke it in order to win your point, it is a losing idea, so quit acting like you think we should thank you.

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This Sunday, November 6th, Tar Sands activists are planning to encircle the White House to let President Obama know that proceeding with this horribly destructive project is a bad idea.  I plan to be there and my sign will say, “Saudi Women’s Lives Are Not A Call For Tar Sands”.

In the current weak (sic), an OWFI delegation visited repeatedly the district of Haweeja, west of Kirkuk city in Iraq, to find that the villages have practically turned into contaminated backyards of radioactive waste of the live ammunition operations field of the US base. This matter has initiated human tragedy in levels unprecedented in the district, and yet was totally ignored by both the Iraqi and US governments who were not concerned with the human lives wasted in the surroundings of the military operations training field.

Within a Haweeja population of 109,000 people, a new disabled generation of infants and children were born with abnormal and under-developed brains, most of whom suffer polio, paralysis and sometimes blindness. The cases registered in the local clinic are 412, while the real numbers add up to more than the 600. Similarly, cancer spreads in all ages, with big numbers among teenagers who currently await their death without any treatment offered by the Iraqi government or the US military which is responsible for the contaminations resulting from their daily live ammunition radiation and emission. The US government continues to grant all the liberty for its military arsenal to practice shelling and explosions in the training field of Haweeja which is only one mile from the homes of families, with no barriers to stop children, sheppards and sheep to walk across in the ammunition training fields.

Most of the disability and cancer cases are in the villages closest to the US base training field, and in the direction of the wind, i.e. south of the field, such as Al Kubeyba, Al Hamdouniya, Al Aatshana and Hor Al Sufun. For example, Al Kubeyba village has a population of 1400 people – out of whom 21 cases were diagnosed with cancer. 3 have recently died while 18 are awaiting their destiny desperately with no hope of being provided treatment or medication by the authorities who should be held accountable.

OWFI delegate invited a group of reporters on August 23rd to witness, report and reveal the Haweeja dilemma globally, thus reversing the censorship of the authorities over it. It arrived to our attention that a resident of Haweeja had taken a sample of soil to Kirkuk Health Department, to be threatened in his next visit that he is summoned for investigation by the US military forces.

OWFI calls for the international courts and tribunals to set up a war crime tribunal committee to investigate into the party which was responsible of contaminating the air, soil and water of Haweeja and thus causing birth defects, disabilities, polio, paralysis and cancers. OWFI also calls upon the international humanitarian organizations to support the people of Haweeja against their daily sufferings, knowing that the Iraqi government deprived them of clean drinking water, adequate basic services, and sources of income. Moreover, there is absolutely no governmental concern of providing them with physical or psychological treatment or medication in any way.

Furthermore, OWFI holds the US government accountable for the devastation of tens of thousands of Haweeja residents who suffer from having one or more disabled children in their immediate family (25% of newborns), thus forcing the residents to abstain from having more children who are destined to suffer alongside their parents. OWFI demands an adequate financial compensation for the victims and their families, as they have been subjected to what amounts to be crimes of war. Exposing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians to depleted uranium and other radiation from a US base which is implanted within Iraqi villages shows a clear disregard for Iraqi human life and disrespect to international treaties. The US administrations demonstrates willingness to plague lives of thousands of unsuspecting innocent infants and teenagers with disability and cancer while denying them medication or even acknowledgement of any rights.

OWFI hopes to get help from international organizations to help reduce the sufferings of the people of Haweeja. Our experiences of eight years have taught us not to expect any positive response from both US and Iraqi governments who have cooperated in imposing the disaster in the first place.

Yanar Mohammed
Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, president
23/08/2011

Women of reproductive age are at significant risk from the effects of radiation on their bodies and reproductive systems. Studies show women’s exposure to radiation may harm her future ability to bear children and can cause premature aging. The U.S. Center for Disease Control warns pregnant women that, in the event of exposure to radiation, even at low doses, the health consequences for unborn foetuses “can include stunted growth, deformities, abnormal brain function, or cancer that may develop sometime later in life…

…In the two decades after Chernobyl, approximately 200,000 people died. Women living in highly contaminated areas in Ukraine and Belarus were affected by chromosome disorders, leukaemia, psychological trauma, depression, and multiple birth defects in their children. Among women who lived in the affected area, medical studies detected high levels of thyroid and breast cancer. Unfortunately, the former Soviet Union failed to provide timely and continuous information about the effects of radiation on human health.

In light of the unique risk to women’s health caused by exposure to radiation, the Japanese government and international agencies must take immediate action. Yet neither the World Health Organisation nor the International Atomic Energy Association – the two international bodies that monitor health and nuclear security respectively – have provided any information about the effect of radiation exposure to women’s bodies. Even a simple google search on the impact of radiation on women does not yield much, nor are there steps that women can take to mitigate the impact on her health and her children.

At the very least, pregnant women and women of childbearing age should be offered the opportunity for counseling about the risks and given the opportunity to access food and water that is radiation-free.  But as IPS points out, for those already exposed, the damage is done and cannot be reversed and the result is that there will be many miscarriages and children born with birth defects.

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As I write this, I note that the radiation readings at the Fukushima nuclear power plant are the highest they have been since the earthquake and tsunami struck, a start indication that this the magnitude of this crisis is not in any way decreasing and in all likelihood, will get worse.  Think it can’t happen in the U.S.?  The Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio had to be shut down after abnormally high readings last week.

As the World Health Organization notes, women and children account for more than 75 percent of people displaced by disasters. For those women, disaster magnifies health care disparities and the burdens assigned by gender roles…

…As caretakers, women may spearhead the family’s search for shelter and safety. Away from home, the women displaced in Japan could face increased vulnerability to sexual assault.

There are already reports of vulnerable women being preyed upon,

There have been reports of men approaching single women, pretending to be a police officer or someone from an aid organization offering to take them to a ‘safer place’. They are trying to take advantage of stranded women during the crisis. Please spread this around, and tell anyone you know who is in Japan. Don’t go anywhere alone, buddy up with someone and stick together.

And bear in mind that interpersonal violence is already a huge issue in Japan. Domestic violence in Japan jumped 20.2 per cent in 2010.  In most cases the victims are women.  Also, while it is good that American troops are providing humanitarian assistance, it is important to remember that there is a long history of American soldiers preying on Japanese women near U.S. military bases in Japan.

A women-only shelter has been set up.  The contact information is:

Asia Japan Women’s Resource Center
Shibuya Coop 311
14-10 Sakuragaoka
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150
Japan
Tel: 03-3780-5245
Fax: 03-3463-9752
Email: ajwrc@jca.or.jp

In addition to physical safety concerns, there are also concerns for pregnant women who may not be able to get adequate health care.  But beyond that there is another crucial concern in the aftermath of this disaster. As The Daily Beast points out,

A full-blown nuclear meltdown would be devastating for pregnant women and their fetuses, which are particularly vulnerable to the lasting effects of radiation. Should the worst-case scenario become a reality, it could lead to a generation of children born with all manner of maladies, from congenital malformation to mental retardation. Even at radiation levels too low to make a mother-to-be sick, health consequences for a fetus can be severe, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…

…Because ionizing radiation can cause DNA damage, it can thwart the cell division necessary for healthy formation of essential organs. Birth defects resulting from exposure to radiation include smaller organs, microcephaly (a condition in which a baby is born with a smaller brain) and lowered cognitive functioning. However, these effects “usually require relatively high doses of radiation” and such extreme levels are not yet confirmed, said Dr. Douple in an email.

Finally, many women in shelters are without such basics as tampons and babies need diapers, formula, etc. supplies of which are usually an afterthought, but the need is very real.

As aid begins to make its way to Japan, the vulnerabilities specifically experienced by women and children need to be fully addressed and an integral part of relief efforts.

Amen to that.  Carmody goes on to offer an excellent list of reasons why we need to make the connection between breast cancer and social justice:

• What if your primary language is not English? What if you live in a food desert?
• What if your profession is hazardous to your health?
• What if you don’t have health insurance?
• What if you do have health insurance but not an extra $8,000?
• What if you bear the burden of this country’s environmental waste, which is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer?
• What if the federal agency entrusted to ensure your food is safe, approved a growth hormone that increases your risk of breast cancer?

When we examine those questions, we get a very different awareness than just run for the cure, get a mammogram and eat right.  Kudos to Carmody for this excellent re-framing.