By Kathy Moorehead Thiessen
This reflection, originally published by Christian Peacemaker
Teams on CPTnet on Aug. 28, echoes the Church of the Brethren concern
for women and girls abducted by the Boko Haram Islamist insurgents in
Nigeria. Author Kathy Moorehead Thiessen calls for attention and action
in a time when women in various places around the world “are being
treated like rubbish, something to be used and thrown away”:
Today as I sit in Quito, Ecuador, a participant in the Christian
Peacemaker Teams biennial gathering, messages are coming from both of my
communities on two sides of the world. The calls have similar themes:
sisters are being stolen, governments must investigate their
disappearances and their murders, violence against women must stop.
From Suleimani, Iraqi Kurdistan, where my CPT team has been working
with partners who have sought to help thousands of displaced minority
groups, came a call from the Kurdish women’s group Jian (Life). They
proclaimed Sunday, Aug. 24, a day for a civil demonstration on behalf of
the Yazidi women whom members of the militant group known as IS
(Islamic State) have captured and enslaved in the city of Mosul.
Clandestine phone calls from a few of these women described desperate
conditions and horrific abusive treatment. They told of women and girls
forced to become wives of fighters and others sold into slavery.
Sixty activists from several women’s organizations and other civil
society groups gathered in front of the United Nations office in the
capital city of Hawler/Erbil. They demanded that the UN do more to help
the Yazidi women and girls enslaved by the militant group. At the end of
the march, several activists were able to take their message into the
UN building to ask the representatives and the Kurdish Regional
Government to act on this emergency and to take urgent measures to help
the vulnerable women.
At the same time, in Winnipeg, Canada, a
group of Anishinaabe women have created a protest camp on a strip of
land outside the Manitoba provincial government legislature. They are
saying to the Canadian government that they have waited long enough for
an investigation regarding the 1,200 missing and murdered indigenous
women in Canada.
The impetus for this protest is the murder of 15-year-old Tina
Fontaine, whose body was found wrapped in a plastic bag in the Red River
two weeks ago. The Canadian federal government still refuses to
acknowledge that the numbers of missing and murdered indigenous women
are important enough to declare a national inquiry. As Justice Minister
Peter MacKay rejected calls for an inquiry, he said, “The government is
addressing the issue of missing and murdered aboriginal women in other
ways.” Yet, the indigenous women of Canada are still disappearing and
many are turning up murdered.
These are messages from and about women of two minority cultures.
They echo each other across the world--women are being treated like
rubbish, something to be used and thrown away. This violence must stop.
The Yazidi women of northern Iraq and the Aboriginal women of Canada
deserve to live in homelands where there lives are safe and considered
precious. Their governments and the rest of the world are under
obligation to make that happen.
“Is now the time to make that
change? Is now the time we say no sisters more stolen? We say that
violence against women must stop. And if we go home and do nothing about
this it’s a missed opportunity.” -- Wab Kinew, Canadian Indigenous
musician.
-- Kathy Moorehead Thiessen is a Christian
Peacemaker Team member serving in Iraqi Kurdistan, where Church of the
Brethren member Peggy Gish also is part of the CPT team. The mission of
Christian Peacemaker Teams is to build partnerships to transform
violence and oppression, with the vision of “a world of communities that
together embrace the diversity of the human family and live justly and
peaceably with all creation.” CPT got its start with help from the three
Historic Peace Churches: the Church of the Brethren, Mennonites, and
Friends (Quakers). See www.cpt.org.
Source: 9/3/2014 Newsline
No comments:
Post a Comment