Category: GHC Staff

This is a post by So Yoon Sim, 2014-2015 Research and Policy Fellow at Grameen PrimaCare in New York City.

According to National Institute of Mental Health, one in four adults in the United States—approximately 61.5 million Americans—experience mental illness, and one in 17—about 13.6 million—live with a serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder. However, approximately 60 percent of adults, and almost one-half of youth ages 8 to 15 with a mental illness received no mental health services in the previous year.

As a Research and Policy Fellow, I had the chance to participate in a Mental Health Workgroup, launched by the Maternal Infant Community Health Collaborative (COMADRES) in January, representing my placement organization Grameen PrimaCare. Different health care providers that serve immigrant populations in Queens, New York City, joined this workgroup to identify gaps and barriers and develop innovative strategies to tackle mental health issues in the community.

In New York City, mental and emotional wellness has been under-prioritized in medical and social support services. Nearly 40 percent of adult New Yorkers with serious mental illness did not receive mental health treatment in the past year. Furthermore, barriers to mental health care and low utilization rate among ethnic minorities create substantial disparities in health outcomes across different populations and communities. In Queens, which has the highest percentage of immigrants of all the boroughs in New York, the patient to mental health provider ratio is 897 to 1, in comparison to New York City’s ratio of 510 to 1, and among all U.S. counties the top performing 10% ratio is 521 to 1. In terms of service utilization, African American and Hispanic Americans used mental health services at about one-half the rate of whites in the past year and Asian Americans at about one-third the rate.

At our biweekly meetings, we first discussed challenges and the root causes of the mental health issues. In addition to genetic or biological causes or substance use that is not adequately addressed, we identified other contributing factors that are specific to the immigrant populations we serve. Multiple stressors that cause mental health issues include, poverty, work environment, social isolation, a crowded home, trauma and stress during the immigration process, domestic violence, and the general climate of fear and mistrust, among others. All participating providers also expressed the importance of culturally and linguistically appropriate services, which will help improve the adherence to medication and follow-up appointments and reduce the stigma attached to mental illness.

What we aim to achieve through this workgroup is to increase the overall community awareness of mental health issues by setting up an effective referral system among providers and organizing educational sessions and mental health fairs at public schools, which provide mental health screenings for children and also serve as a social space for immigrant parents. As in other public health issues, our major focus will be prevention: increasing community prevention efforts and creating more opportunities for community cohesion and support to reduce isolation.

Still, more work should be done to reduce treatment gaps and expand access to mental health services. In January, shortly after we launched our mental health workgroup, NYC First lady Chirlane McCray announced a partnership that will create a roadmap for a more inclusive mental health system in New York City, of which a comprehensive layout is still being drafted. McCray in The Root:

“I recently had the privilege of announcing that the city will invest $78.3 million annually to provide counselors and treatment to the most vulnerable New Yorkers, including children, families living in homeless shelters and the survivors of domestic violence. Our goal is to create a truly inclusive mental-health system that can serve as a model. This investment is just the first step.”

On June 29, 2015, our workgroup attended one of the five borough town hall meetings hosted by Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, which McCray and commissioners of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene attended. During the public session, I presented the major findings about stressors that affect the immigrant populations we serve, introduced our mental health workgroup’s initiatives, and expressed the needs for the city government’s collaboration with community partners such as our selves.

As Global Health Corps fellows, we believe health is a human right. Coming into GHC, I certainly believed this, but also felt as though calling something a “human right” has become a “sexy” buzzword trend. Sometimes the word seems so quotidian that almost everything is becoming valued as a human right. I share an office, for example, with an organization that believes housing for people living with HIV/AIDS is a human right. Having worked for four years in a Baltimore City HIV/AIDS clinic, I saw firsthand how adequate housing provided a sense of stability that could allow one to focus on his or her long term health when not faced with the pressing question of where to live for that day. Housing as a human right? You bet. More recently, while researching the topic of women in technology for a presentation I made recently, I discovered a 2011 report from the UN Special Rapporteur that asserted access to the Internet is a human right. In a world in which the internet is needed to gain and perform a high number of jobs, lack of internet access is a detrimental economic burden. Furthermore, we’ve seen how social media has allowed people to have a voice in democratic processes and move forward human rights agendas. Be it housing, Internet or healthcare, the demand for each of these to be treated as a human right would greatly contribute to equity and empowerment.

As I’m overcoming cynicism, there’s one other human right I’ve come to purport: sexual education as a human right. I’m currently spending my fellowship at The Grassroot Project in Washington, D.C. which is a nonprofit that trains DC college athletes  to become HIV educators in DC middle schools using games and sports. One of my favorite responsibilities as a Program Manager is to conduct site visits at each of our programs. Occasionally, I also fill in for our student athletes in our programs when needed. During these visits, I was able to build a strong relationship with one of our partner schools and specifically one of the teachers whose class participated in The Grassroot Project. In her classroom, I was struck by a chalkboard filled with two columns: “What we know” and “What we want to know.” The class was beginning their sexual health unit and the teacher chose to start the unit with open conversation.  On the know column, there were facts such as “women have ovaries” and “male voices lower during puberty.”  On the want-to-know column, there were questions such as, “What is a wet dream?” and “Why don’t men menstruate?” I was impressed by these unabashed questions and more importantly, by the the safe and trustworthy atmosphere the teacher created. I had to learn many sexual health lessons by asking friends, as we received very basic information in my middle school health classes. My experience is receiving limited sexual education in school is far too common, but I was fortunate enough to have many outlets to turn to for information: the Internet, my parents, friends, higher education at the university level. But what about the girls and boys who do not have safe places to discuss sexual and reproductive health? Whose friends know as little as they do about sexual health? Whose cultures or families may discourage the discussion of anything related to sexual health?
Is it time to use a rights-based approach to sexual and reproductive health education? The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) defines a rights-based approach to comprehensive sex education (CSE) as “to equip young people with the knowledge, skills, attitudes and values they need to determine and enjoy their sexuality – physically and emotionally, individually and in relationships.” Is it time to use innovative outlets such as girls sports programs to teach women and girls about CSE through models like Girl Determined or Moving the Goalpost? If youth were taught about their bodies, sexual health, reproduction, and how to have safer sex, would we see ripple effects resulting in reduced incidence of HIV, unwanted pregnancy or maternal mortality?
Cynicism dismantled, I am ready to promote access to sexual health education as a human right. As we move forward into the Sustainable Development Goals, sexual health is on global radar. I see the movement for health equity growing, and am optimistic that we can expand our view of health to include education and discussion around more sensitive topics such as mental and sexual health. As advocates for social justice, we will continue to “bend the arc toward justice,” as Dr. King once said, embracing the arc in its many forms- and the arc I’m most excited to bend is the arc of access to sexual and reproductive health, human right and all.

This year I have been working as a health counselor in Newark, New Jersey at Covenant House, a shelter for homeless youth ages 18-21. One of my main roles is to assist our youth in accessing healthcare resources in the community. Since many of the young people who stay with us have not seen a doctor in years, the needs that we address are often extensive. We are fortunate to have our own mental health care team on-site, as well as a physician and nurse practitioner who visit us twice a week to provide health screenings and basic primary care. Everything else—from dental care to eye exams, prenatal visits to specialist care—is found in the community. That’s where I come in.

As I work to help people meet their wellness goals, some days I get to feel like a superhero. But the reality is I am not sweeping into this need-gap with anything novel. I connect people to resources that already exist; it’s as simple and as complex as that. Integrating advocacy knowledge and linking people to the right care in a dynamic urban environment is a great social and intellectual challenge. The phone is my superpower of choice, but being physically present in the community is just as important. Newark has some of the best resources for everything from HIV care to emergency dental services. Every youth’s needs are different and there is always more to do. I like to think of myself as a medical matchmaker—and when my job works, it is extremely gratifying.

The youth at Covenant House don’t necessarily need my help to sign up for insurance or find a doctor. They are independent adults and many have had to take care of themselves from a young age. Still, I risk providing a glamorized picture of this healthcare landscape. What I have learned in the process of stretching out my arms between providers and patients has only confirmed the universal lamentation that I myself had never experienced at such a profound daily dose: our healthcare system is the very embodiment of inefficiency, and to a rather insufferable degree. Navigating this system is one of the most daunting tasks a person can face, as well as potentially dehumanizing and frightening during an already difficult time of illness. I have seen the effects of healthcare failure time and again. Every time a client has returned with a broken bone and no cast, a script for vital $600 medication not covered by insurance, or paperwork that traces a confusing trajectory from doctor to doctor with no continuity of care, I have begun to sense the crisis of a future medical student delving into this circus-like arena: how am I going to treat my future patients?

This year, I’ve been collecting euphemisms for why a doctor’s office is unable to see my clients. In the language of medicine, they have been “too many too count.” I discovered there is formalized, proper language for turning away a patient. “We no longer accept… err, we don’t participate in Medicaid,” the receptionist often stammers, catching himself. Based on my experience, I was not surprised to find that New Jersey is the state with the fewest doctors who accept Medicaid. In that moment, like a chivalrous Don Quixote, I vowed, “When I am a doctor, no patient will be turned away!” Could this someday be the case?

This year, I found myself surprised if I sent a youth off to a specialist appointment and they came back treated. I began trying to cover all my bases with insurance companies and I kept my expectations cautiously low. The number of things that can go wrong in the process of getting someone past a doctor’s reception desk would appear endless: the patient’s straight Medicaid plan just switched over to an HMO and needs a referral processed; the doctor providing the referral is not the primary care doctor listed on the plan; the referring doctor can’t be found in the system; the specialist doesn’t accept the new HMO; the doctor is in New York but the Medicaid plan is in New Jersey. All of this is just for the consultation.

We play a similar game for medication, imaging, and medical equipment coverage. For example, some HMOs won’t cover certain birth control medications. Others need preauthorization for splints or nebulizers. It’s one thing to read about health care failure in articles, but it’s another to witness it play out over and over on the ground level and encounter the human impact of such barriers to care. If practice makes perfect, we have perfected the art of doing a lot of extra work (necessitating mountains of paperwork and circuitous phone calls) with little benefit to show for it, aside from a rise in healthcare worker stress. All along the way, people get sicker, give up on seeing that doctor, and even die waiting for care.

After jumping through hoops with insurance companies for a couple of months, one of my clients asked the right question—the simple question: “What if someone has a brain tumor but doesn’t have insurance?” The young people I work with get it, and that lessens my fear that we will become complacent and begin to think a lack of access to care is normal.

The Affordable Care Act has been crucial in increasing insurance coverage to those who would otherwise fall through the cracks. But when many of our youth receive their Medicaid cards, it comes in the mail with a user manual the size of a dictionary. They don’t often know what to do with their coverage, and they don’t have access to phone and internet to research and call providers, much less the time to go doctor-shopping. Lists of accepting providers are not well-updated, and their numbers are becoming fewer while patient loads are increasing.

Medicaid-accepting offices in Newark are often run-down, overcrowded, and located in areas that are not safe. Accessing care simply becomes too much of a nuisance. But even when one gets past these barriers to make an appointment, they still risk being turned away from the office due to an insurance technicality. Being sent away from the doctor when you are sick–this is what pains me the most. As a future physician, I don’t want to just treat patients who can afford to see me. That’s not what my classmates and I have studied and sacrificed for.

Still, there is hope here, because exciting change is on the horizon. Recognizing that our current system can’t get much worse should become our launching-pad to the calculated risk-taking we need to make changes–and indeed it has. Doctors are not waiting for a top-down approach to change; we are seeing new models of care pop up all over the country, such as the Ideal Medical Practice. A sense of urgency frees ourselves up for innovation, and selling a novel idea to society about what care can look like becomes easier in the face of a system that is fully agreed upon to be unsustainable. As science changes, medical care will follow suit, and we will need a model that is flexible enough to grow with us and our evolving concept of health. Understanding where our current system fails is key to forming the ideas for structures that work. That is why I am grateful for the fumbles and failures amidst the successes of my case management work. And in this way, I have hope that we will someday be able to throw the exam room door wide open to all who need to see the doctor.

Uganda, a land-locked country in sub-Saharan Africa, is one of the countries where youth graduating from schools and universities find it very difficult to get jobs. According to a recent report by Action Aid International Uganda, Uganda National NGO Forum and Development Research and Training, 62 percent of Ugandan youth do not have any form of employment.

The poor policies and the lack of quality education in Uganda do not provide sustainable jobs to the youth in need, especially the ones doing arts courses. When considering the training of our next generation, the curriculum produces young people seeking jobs rather than entrepreneurs interested in creating their own business who can create jobs.

According to my experience as a student while still in secondary schools and university in Uganda, students typically spend 13 years in primary and secondary schools and subsequently enroll in university courses. There is a higher admission of students to university for studying the arts and other liberal arts courses with fewer students enrolling in scientific courses such as medicine or engineering. This is attributed to the high financial cost and time commitment to science programs. Additionally, few youth aim to pursue vocational courses, such as tailoring or catering, mainly due to a cultural and traditional stigma that these are less respected pursuits.

While practicing as a graduate nurse in Mbarara Regional Referral Hospital in 2011-2012, I noticed that even with the many job-seeking youth, there is still a staffing gap at hospitals and health facilities, especially in rural and semi-urban areas. Many youth opt for arts courses and the few students who purse medicine don’t want to work in rural areas. This is due to their poor attitude towards staying in rural and semi-urban areas; and a lack of leadership training advocating for Ugandans to stay and work in own country.

In May 2014, ACODEV completed a survey to identify solutions for the increasing levels of unemployment among youth in Uganda. Results found that, on average, the ratio of applicants to a single vacancy opportunity is 1:425; thus securing a formal job at an existing organization is a very competitive process. ACODEV also discovered that most unemployed youth are trained social or developmental workers. During this survey, we also invited young people to apply to a few employment opportunities at ACODEV like Project Field Assistants (PFA). Many of those that applied didn’t have even a single vocational skill or leadership training during their training at school. The candidates interviewed therefore suggested changes to the curriculum in schools from a theoretical to practical focus, including vocational and mentorship opportunities, allowing them to learn entrepreneurial skills. They believe this would be a solution to the high level of unemployment in Uganda.

In view of the above, ACODEV has developed a very strong internal capacity building of its staff as well as establishing training and consultation avenues for youth in the areas in which we operate. This helps to empower the next generation to make informed decisions. We do so through our Orphan and Vulnerable Children Project, Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Project, our Vocational Center, and apprenticeship opportunities. Historically, we build capacity of institutions through leadership development which we’ll continue to do at our soon to-be African Center for Leadership and Development (ACLED).

Through our Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) programming, many of the vulnerable children and youth in Kasese District villages are equipped with vocational skills such as catering, tailoring, wood/metal work, and farming. Therefore, ACODEV has not only helped to support the development and empowerment of youth, but it has also answered the call by the Commissioner for Youth and Children Affairs, Ministry of Gender and Social Development, Kyateeka Mondo. In one of his speeches in February 2014 while launching a report by Action Aid International Uganda (AAIU), Mr. Mondo said “we need a purposeful, focused and targeted education system for youth to avoid being duped in courses that are not relevant to the job market.”

Youth are like flowers that, if put to good use, can produce plenty of fruits. As such, through ACODEV’s project implementation, we believe Uganda will experience faster development of solutions to educational and vocational challenges.

According to UNESCO’s “International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education,” sexuality education can provide “age-appropriate, culturally relevant and scientifically accurate information” to young people. It also helps dispel myths related to sexual and reproductive health. Exposure to sex education also assists youth in developing life skills such as decision-making, confidence, assertiveness, responsibility, asking for assistance and empathy.  When positive attitudes and values are nurtured, ideas can flow into open-minded individuals with self-esteem and respect for others, particularly respect related to sexual and reproductive health.

In Uganda, the government encourages parents to participate in reproductive and sexual health education by monitoring body changes in their children, helping them cope, observing their hygiene practices, and knowing their children’s peer groups. Additionally, parents are encouraged to have time to open up and talk to their children, and build parental relationships by representing themselves as role models and engaging in productive activities.

But, this is not always the case. In many instances, pupils drop out of school because of lack of sexual and reproductive health awareness and access to basic needs. One example is Gaba Demonstration Primary School (GDPS) located in Kampala District, Uganda. At GDPS, it was noted that out of every ten pupils who started at the Primary One level, only four students completed Primary Seven.

For young girls, it is very challenging. Some of the basic needs, that the adolescent girls who are going through puberty lack, include sanitary towels and undergarments. Because of lack of resources, this may lead girls to accept money in exchange for sex. This has not only led them to having unwanted pregnancies but also young girls are compelled to get married when they are still young thereby missing education.

Noting these cases in Uganda, we (ACDOEV-Uganda) partnered with Save the Children International in Kampala to implement a project called Keep It Real. In the project, parents testify what they went through when they were adolescents, and what they believe will help the youth facing challenges today.

By implementing this project, I have been able to discover a number of concerns about why parents strongly support our efforts talking to parents as well as their children (13-19 years). Some of the concerns brought forward included parents who were too busy working or too shy talking to their children because of the cultural beliefs and values, especially on issues of sexuality. In conjunction, orphaned children are either abandoned or brought up by guardians who don’t attach any importance giving them a sex education.

Therefore sex education and awareness among the parents and their children in central Uganda, will not only help the pupil prevent HIV/AIDS and early pregnancies but it will also allow them complete school and become important citizens.

Colombia legislators have recently voted in favor the “Rosa Elvira Cely” Law, which seeks to increase the penalties for crimes against women in my country. The bill proposal came as a struggle for justice from civil society organizations after the brutal rape and murder of Rosa Elvira Cely, a night school student, in one of Bogota’s parks in 2012. Advocates had to face a Congress that has historically turned away from women and girls, regardless of social class, race, religion or political opinion.

Colombia is part of an alarming global trend that renders women and girls to be second-class citizens. This subset of the Latin American population is affected in multiple ways (economically, socially physically, psychologically) and for the same underlying reasons that give way to the forced pregnancies in Nigeria and the wage gap in developed countries which makes women earn 16% less than their male counterparts.

In my country being a woman makes you 10 times more likely to be killed than if you are a male. Although the Colombian government has developed the National Policy for Gender Equality, the results on the prevalence of social and institutional acceptance of violence against women are still unsatisfactory.

While this violence usually takes place between individuals, the State also must have a responsibility to intervene, as anything less would be a systematic violation of human rights against women and girls. This disregard was precisely what happened in the case Gonzalez et al (“Cotton Field”) v. Mexico, which led to the international responsibility of the Mexican State for neglecting to prosecute the forced disappearances of hundreds of women.

While idleness on the one hand is unacceptable, ineffective action is just as damaging to this cause and to the movement for women’s gender equity. Each year, UN member States and activists gather to renew commitments at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York. Though it is a tremendous effort from the civil society perspective, this meeting often is one where official UN member State’s delegations give each other pats on the back, convinced that things are better, that for this summit it’s enough to have a new female Senator, a new Tumblr campaign, a trending hashtag, a new background color for Facebook profile pictures. Last year, while I was attending the CSW, I received a call from a colleague from Bogota alerting me of a case in which a woman was stabbed to death because of her sexual orientation. Exactly one year after, also while at CSW, I had to monitor news of a woman in Swaziland who was killed with an ax for the same reasons. These cases are often reported under the simplistic labels of “intolerance“, “jealousy” or a “common crime“.

This is clearly a universal issue which demands collective action. As a fellow I have been able to travel and work on these issues as you may recall my earlier published travel memoirs. However, this quarter of my fellowship I have been primarily working in New York and I feel I owe some of my readers a second account of my experiences, with the renewed hope of having completed my work at Planned Parenthood Global and offered some relief to the women who suffer from gender violence and reproductive oppression in our 10 focus countries.

Though the reports that tell the stories of these women and girls end by highlighting their bravery, and courage, it is not possible to end this blog on a positive note. For every surviving, fighter (the tireless women around the world) there is a society that naturalizes the attacks and the violence, that knows this is not passed history, that knows this will continue to occur and that does little or nothing to understand the real reasons behind these injustices. For every story we read about attack survivors in Colombia, gang rapes in India, or systematic disappearances of women in Mexico, many think: “These are isolated incidents,” “That’s just war” “That happens all the time” or even, “women should not walk alone at that hour of the night” “She was looking for it”.

These thoughts have clouded our collective conscience for far too long and as such I’d like to end this blog by emphasizing the importance of how we come to discuss these issues. The wording as you will see is very crucial. The way in which these issues are talked about has also given rise to several myths and realities which I would like to highlight. Essentially, this framework can help us connect to what happens to women and girls around the world.

1. IT IS NOT “passion” “jealousy”, “madness“, “obsession“. It is gender discrimination. It is violence against women because of the fact they are women.

2. IT IS NOT possible to “justify”, “attenuate”, “pardon” gender violence. On the contrary, the crime can be more serious and reprehensible if directed against a specific group of people (women and girls) and it is motivated by hatred or patriarchal prejudices.

3. IT IS NOT an “isolated incident”, “intolerance”, “common crime”, “poverty”, “lack of education“. Although factors such as violence or lack of opportunities affect the prevalence of this problem, the real name of the phenomenon is violence against women, ranging from street harassment to feminicide. It is a systematic and consistent practice, which occurs under the jurisdiction of the State.

It is my goal to begin to call things by their name, hoping that we can find solutions to these most egregious cases of inequity that we too often read in the news.

Twitter: epalomino88

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Legisladores colombianos han votado recientemente a favor de la Ley “Rosa Elvira Cely”, que busca aumentar las penas para los delitos contra las mujeres en mi país. El proyecto de ley surge de la lucha por justicia de las organizaciones de sociedad civil, después de la brutal violación y asesinato de Rosa Elvira Cely, una estudiante de escuela nocturna, en uno de los parques de Bogotá en 2012. Los/as activistas tuvieron que enfrentarse de cara a un Congreso que históricamente le ha dado la espalda a mujeres y niñas, independientemente de su clase social, raza, religión u opinión política.

Colombia es parte de una alarmante tendencia mundial que considera a mujeres y niñas como ciudadanas de segunda clase. Este segmento de la población latinoamericana se ve afectado de múltiples maneras (económica, social, física, psicológica) y por las mismas razones subyacentes que han originado los embarazos forzados en Nigeria y la brecha salarial en países desarrollados que hace que las mujeres ganen 16% menos que sus contrapartes masculinas.

En mi país, ser mujer te hace 10 veces más proclive a ser asesinada que si fueras hombre. Aunque el gobierno colombiano ha desarrollado la Política Nacional de Equidad de Género, los resultados sobre la prevalencia de aceptación social e institucional de violencia contra la mujer siguen siendo desalentadores.

Si bien esta violencia suele tener lugar entre individuos, el Estado también tiene la responsabilidad de intervenir, cualquier cosa menos sería una violación sistemática de los derechos humanos contra las mujeres y las niñas. Esto fue precisamente lo que generó la responsabilidad del Estado mexicano en el caso González y otras (“Campo Algodonero”) vs. México, por dejar en la impunidad la desaparición forzada de cientos de mujeres.

Mientras que la indiferencia por una parte es inaceptable, la acción ineficaz es igual de perjudicial para el movimiento por la igualdad de género de las mujeres. Cada año, Estados miembros de la ONU y activistas se reúnen para renovar los compromisos de la Comisión de la Condición Jurídica y Social de la Mujer (CSW) en Nueva York. A pesar de ser un gran esfuerzo desde la perspectiva de la sociedad civil, esta reunión es a menudo una donde las delegaciones oficiales de los Estados miembros se dan palmadas en la espalda, convencidos de que las cosas están mejor, que para esta cumbre es suficiente tener una mujer en el Senado, una nueva campaña de Tumblr, un hashtag que es tendencia, un nuevo color de fondo para las fotos de perfil de Facebook. El año pasado, mientras asistía a la CSW, recibí una llamada de un colega de Bogotá alertándome de un caso en el que una mujer fue apuñalada a muerte a causa de su orientación sexual. Exactamente un año después, también encontrándome en CSW, tuve que supervisar la noticia de una mujer en Swazilandia que fue asesinada con un hacha por las mismas razones. Estos casos usualmente se reportan bajo las etiquetas simplistas de “intolerancia”, “celos” o un “delito común”.

Esto es claramente un tema universal que exige una acción colectiva. Siendo una GHC fellow he podido viajar y trabajar en estos temas, como podrán recordar en mis memorias de viaje publicadas anteriormente. Sin embargo, este cuatrimestre de mi fellowship la he pasado en su mayoría trabajando desde Nueva York y siento que le debo a algunos de mis lectores una segunda cuenta de mis experiencias, con la esperanza renovada de haber completado mi trabajo en Planned Parenthood Global y habiendo ofrecido algún tipo de alivio a las mujeres que sufren de violencia de género y opresión reproductiva en nuestros 10 países de enfoque.

Aunque los informes que cuentan las historias de estas mujeres y niñas terminan resaltando su valentía y coraje, no es posible terminar este blog en una nota positiva. Por cada sobreviviente, luchadora  (las mujeres incansables de todo el mundo) hay una sociedad que naturaliza los ataques, la violencia, que sabe que estos hechos no son historia, que sabe que seguirán ocurriendo y que hace poco o nada para entender las verdaderas razones detrás de estas injusticias. Por cada historia que leemos sobre ataques a mujeres en Colombia, violaciones  grupales en India, o  desapariciones sistemáticas de mujeres en México, muchos piensan:”Estos son incidentes aislados“, “así es la guerra” “Eso pasa todo el tiempo” o incluso, “las mujeres no deben caminar solas a esa hora de la noche” “ella se lo estaba buscando“.

Estos pensamientos han nublado nuestra conciencia colectiva durante demasiado tiempo y, como tal, me gustaría terminar este blog resaltando la importancia de cómo deberíamos aproximarnos a estos temas. La redacción, como verán, es crucial. La forma en que estos temas son discutidos ha originado varios mitos y realidades que me gustaría destacar.

1. NO ES “pasión” “celos” “locura” “obsesión”. Es discriminación de género. Es violencia contra la mujer por su condición de mujer.
2. NO es posible “justificar” “atenuar” “indultar” la violencia de género. Por el contrario, el crimen puede ser más grave y reprochable pues se dirige en contra de un grupo específico de personas (mujeres y niñas) y es motivado por odio o prejuicios patriarcales.
3. NO es un “hecho aislado”, “intolerancia”, “crimen común”, “pobreza”, “falta de educación”. A pesar de que factores como la violencia o la falta de oportunidades afectan la prevalencia de esta problemática, el nombre real del fenómeno es violencia contra la mujer,  que va desde el acoso en la calle hasta el feminicidio. Es una práctica sistemática y reiterada, que ocurre bajo la jurisdicción del Estado.

Es mi meta para comenzar a llamar a las cosas por su nombre, con la esperanza de que podamos encontrar soluciones para los casos más flagrantes de desigualdad que muy a menudo leemos en las noticias.

Twitter @epalomino88