Why Invisible Child’s #Kony2012 Campaign Gets No Applause From Me

In short: #Kony2012 #StopKony misrepresents N. Uganda, spreads misinformation abt Kony/the LRA, denies Africans’ agency and is imperialist. It raises the perennial question of “Who represents Africa?”

For example: This tweet (one of many prime examples) succinctly exemplifies all that I critique in this piece:

In fact, it reminded me of my post-colonial readings of Karl Marx. Reading this quote from his “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: “Sie können sich nicht vertreten, sie müssen vertreten werden” spurred me deeper into my anti-colonialist, post-colonialist fervor. Literally translated from German, “Those who cannot represent themselves must themselves be represented,” the quote revealed to me just how insidious the narrative of “saving” and “speaking for” the subaltern is.

HOW DOES THIS TIE INTO Invisible Children’s #Kony2012 CAMPAIGN?

If “awareness” is the payoff for paternalistic, imperialist, “white man’s burden” NGO campaigns, I don’t want it. (Just the name “Invisible Children” denies and co-opts the agency of Ugandans- many of whom have organized to protect child soldiers…). I stand by this: if you’re more comfortable talking about Africans than you are talking to an African person, you really should not be in the business of representing Africa. Furthermore, if you cannot find an African nation on a map, let alone acknowledge Africans’ agency, you should not be providing “solutions” or “aid. Certainly, if you think that Uganda is in Central Africa, you should not be disseminating (mis)information that could have implications on policy.

Presumably, this campaign is supposed to raise awareness in the international community of Joseph Kony and lead to his arrest and/or death. The assumption is that taking down the leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army will eliminate the problems. Thing is, Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army are symptoms of corrupt governance. Invisible Children’s video strangely omits Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s complicity in the horrors of the conflict that began in the late 1980s in Northern Uganda at the beginning of his (prolonged) presidency. Clearly, the international justice community is aware of Joseph Kony, because his name has been on top of the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s “most wanted” list for nearly a decade. Not to mention the fact that the United States armed forces have made several attempts at fighting the LRA and killing Joseph Kony, all of which resulted in the displacement of Sudanese and Congolese civilians as the LRA scattered about Central Africa.

[Also, I suggest a little light research into Invisible Children's spending practices.]

Abolitionism Alone Won’t End Slavery & Human Trafficking

So I saw this tweet and it set off a series of tweets about the fallacy of using the failure of police forces to enforce anti-trafficking laws to dispute the prevalence or significance of human trafficking. Human trafficking is a crime that is hard to quantify on a global & national scale b/c of the sheer lack of awareness/sensitivity.

Let’s say that City X is a known hub for human trafficking- specifically labor trafficking or the trafficking of minors into the sex trade. In a year, the police force only makes 637 arrests pertaining to trafficking.  What went wrong here? Local police forces are likely not equipped to identify and address the crime of trafficking. This can be attributed to a lack of political will, which hinders the enforcement of the anti-trafficking laws. That fact is, the number of arrests (or even the number of convictions or the severity of the punishments) does NOT correlate to the prevalence of the crime.

Beyond Abolition: Ending Slavery in Mauritania

[Crossposted at Future Challenges Organization]

Slavery is forced labor or exploitation with little to no pay (beyond subsistence) as a result of force, fraud or manipulation. Human trafficking (often called modern-day slavery) usually involves the added elements of recruitment, transportation and receipt of trafficking victims with the intent of exploitation. Slavery does not necessarily involve the trafficking of a person, but it does involve exploitation, forced labor, exploitation, abuse and slavery-like conditions. A person is a victim of trafficking if he or she has been moved within a country or to another country as a result of force, fraud or manipulation and is exploited or made to work as a slave. It is estimated that there are over 27 million slaves today worldwide and they are exploited in many forms including: forced labor, forced begging, sexual exploitation, forced marriage and the sale of body parts.

The Mauritanian government, under President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, has recently announced measures to regulate the working conditions of domestic servants and workers within the country‘s borders. However, approximately 20 percent (well over half a million) of Mauritania‘s population remains enslaved particularly in the domestic and agricultural sectors. Mauritania has failed to fully abolish slavery within its borders, in spite of repeated passages of laws abolishing the slave trade in the years 1905, 1981 and 2007.

The Feminization of Migration and the Fight Against HIV

[crossposted at Future Challenges Organization's blog]

Is there a direct relationship between the feminization of migration and HIV prevalence on the African continent? The answer is more complicated than it appears. While the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the aftershocks of regional conflict have had disproportionate impacts on African women, the assumption that HIV/AIDS and conflict/displacement are somehow related is spurious. Yes, migration in its myriad forms- primarily labor migration and forced migration- does add risk factors that contribute to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but we cannot say that it is a direct relationship. Women who migrate for work face vulnerabilities (risk factors including separation from partners, family, loss of support base) that increase their chances of being infected with HIV.

Areas where there are disruptions in the social order tend to have higher HIV rates. This includes war zones, impoverished and disenfranchised outer-city slums. There are various forms of migration: examples include forced migration due to regional conflict or land grabs or labor migration in response to high regional unemployment. It is important to note that in the last fifteen years, we have seen the feminization of migration on a global scale. A majority of refugees and internally displaced people are women and their children, and an increasing percentage of migrant laborers are women. A growing number of rural-to-urban migrantsare women in both Asia and Africa. Globally, women represent about 50 percent of the migrants.

Areas with low levels of education, high unemployment tend to have high rates of circular labor migration. In South Africa, gendered migration patterns were largely due to the several factors. First, a decline in patriarchal control, plus the end of Apartheid afforded women greater mobility. Prior to the fall of the Apartheid government, Influx Control Acts specifically granted economically-productive (Black) African men the right to migrate for work, while limiting their female counterparts‘ mobility.

In 1995, 38% of South African women ages 15-65 were actively looking for work. In 1999, that figure was 95%. This trend South African women entering the migrant labor force occured in the context of decreasing marital rates and income insecurity. Taking all of these factors into account, there is a trend of women increasingly constituting temporary, migrant labor populations. Migration is essential to economic well-being- especially for women.

In West Africa, migration patterns have been a mainstay of the regional economic bloc, dating back to the trans-Saharan trade of the 8th century. This includes North-South migration within Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria and the longer distance migration between the northern Sahelian countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad) and the coastal countries to the south. Historically, migrant populations have been mostly male, but recently, women have comprised significant number.

High HIV Prevalence Among Migrant Women:

There is a circular relationship between HIV and population mobility.  Migrants face separation from their partners and families, also separation from the social mores that might govern their behavior- particularly when they face loneliness and isolation in communities that are not theirs. Additionally, migrants‘ vulnerability to exploitation is exacerbated by a loss of localized social support systems, linguistic differences and power imbalances between job seeker and employer. For migrant women, especially refugees and internally displaced persons, sexual violence is a risk factor. For all migrants, lack of access to healthcare is a major factor in heightened prevalences of HIV among migrant populations.

Labor Migration

In South Africa and Northern Tanzania, migrant women have higher prevalences of HIV than their non-migrant counterparts. This is due, in part, to the fact that the sex trade serves as a complementary work sector to local mining industries. In the mining sector, workers often live away from their spouses, living in company-owned housing. For this reason, among others, there is a demand for a localized sex industry. Within the sex trade, young girls often recruit their peers, citing opportunity and income. However, for the less-fortunate, sex trafficking is their entry into sex work. I discuss the overlap between human trafficking and HIV/AIDS in Africa in this article.

Forced Migration

A 2007 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) report questions the commonly-held belief that there is  direct relationship between conflict, forced migration and wartime rape and increased HIV prevalence among internally-displaced persons and refugees. The data, culled from seven countries/regions affected by conflict [Democratic Republic of the Congo, Southern Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Somalia, Burundi, and Sierra Leone] revealed that there was no increase in prevalence of HIV infection during periods of conflict. However, it is important to note that the sample population was primarily refugee and IDP women and children who sought and received antenatal care.

There is no substantive evidence that refugees exacerbate the HIV epidemic in their host communities. With the exception of the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, HIV prevalence is higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Most refugees on the African continent are fleeing rural areas- which typically have lower HIV prevalence- affected by conflict. This may explain why refugees generally have a lower HIV prevalence than that of their host communities. In Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, HIV prevalence in urban areas  affected by conflict had similar rates to urban areas unaffected by conflict. In the rural areas of these countries, the prevalence of HIV infections remained relatively low and stable. Furthermore, there is no evidence that refugees exacerbate the HIV epidemic in their host communities.

One of the challenges here is to broaden the sample population beyond the minority of refugees who had access to medical care. While the regions of origin for most refugees and IDPs are rural areas are typically characterized by low HIV prevalence, we cannot assume the same for future conflicts. Unchallenged assumptions about trends in migration, pandemics and regional conflict will only endanger the most vulnerable among us.

Article: What Do Côte D’Ivoire’s Displaced Populations Face?

[Cross-linked at Future Challenges Organization]

Macrotrends: [Migration + Pandemics + Globalization + Security & Anti-Terror Policy]

According to the United Nations, the conflict in Côte D‘Ivoire has displaced an estimated one million Ivorians. This is the aftermath of the November 28th election. Allasane Ouatarra is recognized by both the United Nations and the African Union as the winner, but the incumbent President, Laurent Gbagbo refuses to cede power, alleging voter fraud. The climate has devolved into one of violence. On 3 March, 2011, six women were shot by the Ivorian government‘s forces while peacefully participating in an all-women protest against Gbagbo‘s continued rule. On 17 March, 2011, pro-Gbagbo forces fired mortars into a market in the Abobo region of Abidjan, killing between twenty-five and thirty, injuring at least sixty. Residents in Abidjan‘s shantytowns live in fear of being harassed by militias claiming to be looking for Pro-Outtara „rebels.“

The events in Abidjan are a microcosm of the conflict in the country as a whole. Côte D‘Ivoire is flanked by Ghana to the east and Liberia to the west. The fighting has displaced an estimated 4 percent of the nation‘s population- about 100,000 of whom are fleeing westward to Liberia. There are also significant, untold numbers of Ivorian refugees fleeing eastward across the Ivorian-Ghanaian border. Estimates from the Ghana Refugee Board suggest that, as of early March, about 2,000 Ivorian refugees have fled to Ghana.

Liberia is recovering from a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003. Liberian orphans and child soldiers still remain a vulnerable group.

Al Jazeera: People & Power – Slaves to Football

For many African youth, football is a dream, an escape from locales bereft of opportunities. The glamourous images on the TV contrast greatly with the grinding mundane of daily life and restless youth chase after those dream images. Many are talented footballers. Some are not. The fact remains that their dreams are the foothold of unscrupulous traffickers.

Yes, human trafficking and football are connected. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that feeds off of the dreams and aspirations of African youth. Football recruiters transport boys thousands of miles away in Europe (or even domestically) with the promise of training at football academies for budding talent. There they are forced to work in conditions of forced labor or indentured servitude- even abandoned to become beggars and unskilled laborers in a strange land.

Unscrupulous traffickers and coaches profit from the domestic, international and transnational trafficking of Africa’s aspiring football stars. In the video, you see the example of one man in Côte D’Ivoire, who housed boys in his house and “sold” them to traffickers masquerading as recruiters.” The report indicates that he was investigated by the Ivorian government.

Fatou Diome, Senegalese author, tells the story of Moussa in her book “The Belly of the Atlantic.” Moussa, a Senegalese youth who was trafficked to Italy under the pretense of receiving training in a football camp and gaining exposure to FIFA’s talent scouts, offers a cautionary tale to the other football-obsessed boys in his home village. Instead of meeting talent scouts, he is rejected and abandoned, forced to beg to get the money back home. In his home village, he is seen as a failure because he came back from the alleged ‘land of plenty’ with nothing in hand. The story has a tragic ending.

However, this is not to say that all stories end in tragedy. Instead, I’d like to raise awareness about this issue. I will be blogging more about the organization I work for- Free Generation International and their ground-breaking initiatives.

William Wilberforce: Abolitionist or Opportunist?

[Cross-linked from Reclaiming the Narrative]

Interestingly imperialism’s ‘great saviour and hero’ Wilberforce was not amongst the original grouping (Hart, 2006, p. 1). Nor did he end up joining the society of his own volition or as a matter of conscience. Instead he was ‘recruited’ and sent into the abolition movement by the then Prime Minister William Pitt (Ferguson, 1998, p. 132; Williams, 1944, p. 123). The fake cover story about his moral and religious conviction compelling him to work for the abolition of slavery was made up later.

Excerpted from “Will The Real William Wilberforce Please Stand Up?”

The film „Amazing Grace“ gives the impression that Wilberforce recruited William Pitt, not the other way around.  It places him as a moral compass when he really was a political opportunist.

Background

The first enslaved Africans were brought to Britain in 1555.  They were likely kidnapped or deceived by slave traders and unscrupulous chiefs and elders.  An 11 million Africans were trafficked in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, about 1.4 million died during the voyage.  That’s a mortality rate of about 8%.  [Hochschild, Adam, Bury the Chains, The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery, London: Macmillan, 2005]

It is also interesting to note that all the time William Pitt, the man who appointed him, was Prime Minister all bills to abolish the kidnapping and deportation of Afrikan people failed to make their way through Parliament. It was only after the death of Pitt in 1806 that the abolition of the slave trade bill finally made it onto the statute book.

(Formerly) Enslaved Africans Freed Themselves

Too many ppl mistake abolition & nominal/legal emancipation for freedom. The fact remains that enslaved Africans claimed their freedom before emancipation. Without the active lobbying of Africans like Mary Prince, Olaudah Equiano, Ottobah Cuguano, Jonathan Strong, James Somerset, Joseph Knight, Ayuba Diallo, George Bridgewater, Ignatus Sancho, William Davison, Robert Wedderburn, Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, John Ystumllyn, William Cuffay and Julius Soubise there would have been no bill abolishing the slave trade in Britain’s territories.  There were 20,000 Africans living in Britain at the end of the 19th century, a significant number were free.  There are published autobiographies detailing the horrors of slavery.

The abolition of the slave trade in Britain occured at the confluence of several socio-political events

The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) stirred fears of slave uprisings in British colonial holdings.  In some parts of the colonies, the population of enslaved Africans was nearly equal to the population of European settlers. In fact, the abolition bill was postponed when the Haitian Revolution erupted and the British sent troops to suppress the revolution.  It soon became clear that the continued importation of enslaved Africans would only fortify a slave  rebellion.  In March 1807, Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act. (Denmark abolished slavery in 1802.  The US abolished slavery in 1808)

However, making the law doesn’t make the crime go away. Don’t confuse legal/nominal emancipation for freedom. Don’t confuse abolition for freedom.  The state was required to compensate merchants for the cessation of the trade.  The British gov‘t depended on the tax revenue from slave-owners.  The law only abolished the slave trade- not slavery.  It did not make provisions for the emancipation of enslaved Africans, nor did it address the deportation of free Africans in Britain.  Slavery was not abolished in Britain’s territories until the passage of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.  Wilberforce, in an effort to prove that he was not a reactionary, opposed the emancipation of enslaved Africans, instead calling for the gradual emancipation.  He deemed enslaved Africans unfit for emancipation.  (There is anecdotal, nay, documented evidence that Wilberforce was a virulent racist.  He refused to allow the few African and Asian guests he had to eat at his table, instead forcing them to eat behind screens where they were out of sight).

Another factor in the abolition of the slave trade was the French colonies’ dependence on British slavers.  The French bought up to 50% of the slaves that Britain imported for its sugarcane plantations, which were much more productive than Britain‘s.  Abolishing the slave trade would undercut their comparative advantage (a specious term, yes) insofar as the slave population wasn‘t self-sustaining (generational slavery).  Basically, the cessation of the slave trade was advantageous to the British, because it meant that the French had to rely on Portuguese or Spanish slave traders (who were a smaller part of the slave trade).  It also meant that the French colonies would likely have to depend more heavily on multi-generational slavery, whereby enslaved Africans were “bred” for labor.

Another factor was the French Revolution.

Wilberforce’s Economic Interest in the Abolition of the Slave Trade

Wilberforce‘s family was heavily invested in the wool industry & the boom of cotton in the colonies was a threat to his family‘s holdings.  In essence, the abolition of the slave trade was a strategic move on Wilverforce’s part, to influence the global prices of cotton and wool- presumably to his advantage.

Wilberforce was not a men whose religious convictions compelled him to crusade against the continuance of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.  He was compelled by his friend, William Pitt, to carry out an act of political and economic expedience.  It is nothing short of revisionist history to asset that William Wilberforce was an abolitionist of any sort.  He was simply a man acting in his own self-interest.

Article: The Overlap Between Human Trafficking and HIV AIDS in Africa

[Cross-linked at Future Challenges Organization]

There has not been very much discussion on the overlap of human trafficking and HIV/AIDS on the continent of Africa.  Both human trafficking and HIV/AIDS are recognized as impediments to economic development on the continent of Africa.  HIV/AIDS is acknowledged as one of the push factors for human trafficking in southern Africa, in addition to poverty and undereducation. The  HIV/AIDS epidemic has disproportionately affected marginalized groups- particularly women and children.  Subsequently, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among victims of human trafficking is higher than that of the general population, and because of their status, these victims often do not have access to the medical care that they require.

The fact is that Africa is a very young continent.  Some 60% of its population is under the age of 24. Additionally, the continent of Africa has over 14 million AIDS orphans. These children live with particular vulnerabilities. As children, they are already susceptible to exploitation (human trafficking, in particular), as one or more of their parents is deceased. Children who have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS are more susceptible to traffickers’ manipulations. For example, older children trying to feed their siblings are most likely to be lured by a trafficker’s fraudulent job offer.

Article: How Trade Agreements Affect Access to Affordable AIDS Treatments in Africa

Crosslinked at Future Challenges Organization

(Macrotrends: Pandemics + Globalization)

„Because TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights)allowed countries to issue compulsory licences only for domestic use, however, countries without local drug-manufacturing industries, including 37 in Africa, were unable to use compulsory licences to keep medicines affordable.“ („A ‘crisis in waiting’ for AIDS patients:Trade rules will make it harder to get cheap generic medicines)

In the year 2009, an estimated 1.3 million adults and children died as a result of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. African women and girls are particularly vulnerable to HIV. As about 76% of all HIV-positive women in the world live in Africa south of the Sahara. Since the beginning of the epidemic, more than 15 million Africans have died from AIDS.

While access to antiretroviral treatment is beginning to mitigate the toll of AIDS, fewer than half of African AIDS patients are receiving the treatment.  In 2009, only 37% of AIDS patients have access to antiretroviral treatments, compared to just 2% in 2002. According to the UNAIDS factsheet, between 2004 and 2009, AIDS-related deaths decreased by 20% in sub-Saharan Africa.

HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths are on the decline among children on the African continent. In southern Africa, between 2004 and 2009, the number of children under 15 who became newly infected with HIV was reduced by 32% (fell from 190 000 in 2004 to 130 000 in 2009). Between 2005 and 2009, the percentage of pregnant women living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa who received antiretroviral drugs to prevent transmission of HIV to their children increased from 15% to 54%.

Idea: New Governance & Counter-Narcotics in West Africa

Crosslinked from Future Challenges Organization’s blog

The rise of tricontinental drug trafficking between North America, Africa and Europe is directly tied to increased demand for drugs on the European continent. The insufficiency of INTERPOL, the UN‘s Office on Drugs and Crime and other organizations‘ responses to the influx of drug trafficking in West Africa suggests that the political will of the nations of West Africa is necessary. The fact is that drug trafficking is a matter of national security; the business of drug trafficking creates the pathways for illegal weapons dealing and even trafficking in persons. The “Economic Community of West African States” (ECOWAS) is currently well-positioned to be an acting body in the fight against drug trafficking in West Africa.Cooperation between ECOWAS‘ fifteen member states (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Côte D‘Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinee, Guinee Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo) can address the national security weaknesses exposed by drug traffickers‘ activities: police/military vulnerability to corruption (exacerbated by gross socioeconomic inequalities) and high unemployment.  For example, the “Inter Governmental Action Group Against Money Laundering in West Africa” (GIABA), under the umbrella of ECOWAS, can possibly expand its operations to cover drug trafficking, as it already combats weapons trafficking and the financing of terrorist organizations in West Africa.  Even if West African nations don‘t have the resources for effective counternarcotics operations on the individual level, it is possible that collectively, the resources can be better used.