tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/sex-slavery-14551/articlessex slavery – The Conversation2019-06-19T13:39:31Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1185272019-06-19T13:39:31Z2019-06-19T13:39:31ZStudy shines light on how vulnerable children are trafficked in Nigeria<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/279542/original/file-20190614-158967-1iwya16.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Trafficking is a very real threat for kids in Nigeria.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paschal Okwara/Shutterstock/Editorial use only</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The international trafficking of children has received much attention in recent times. But, little attention has been paid to how it plays out and its unique dynamics in Nigeria.</p>
<p>Child trafficking is one of the most flourishing organised criminal enterprises in Nigeria. <a href="https://punchng.com/oyo-becoming-hot-spot-of-girls-trafficking-nis/">In Oyo State alone</a> (Nigeria has 36 states and a federal capital), the Nigerian Immigration Service rescued 464 trafficked children and arrested 101 traffickers and 120 end-users between 2016 and this year.</p>
<p>Nigeria is a source, transit spot and destination for human trafficking. Close to 1.4 million Nigerians live in <a href="https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/2018/data/country-data/nigeria/">slave-like conditions</a>.</p>
<p>An investigation into the recruiting strategies of traffickers and their networks could be helpful in arresting this menace.</p>
<p>With this in mind, I conducted <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10246029.2014.922107">research</a> in which I examined the recruitment strategies of trafficking networks. I interviewed drivers, domestic servants, those who employed domestic servants, and trafficking agents in two communities in Ibadan, Oyo State where the crime is endemic. </p>
<h2>Research findings</h2>
<p>My research found that traffickers have established markets where they supply trafficked children who are younger than 18. Their clients include plantation agriculturists, brothel house owners, and middle-class urban households. Based on their needs, the farmers, brothel owners and urban households contact traffickers to obtain children to work for them. </p>
<p>The brothel managers demand children for sexual exploitation. Farmers, meanwhile, use the trafficked children for cheap labour on plantations.</p>
<p>Households demand child domestic servants to lessen the burden of executing domestic chores while at the same time engaging in paid work. In deciding whether to hire domestic servants, households adopt the so-called “make or buy strategy”. Under the “make strategy”, households devise a plan to split housework and home management between family members. The “buy strategy” is adopted only when the activities go beyond what households believe they can manage – then, they “outsource” to a domestic servant.</p>
<p>If they decide to go this route, the household specifies the age and sex of the preferred domestic servant. For most employers, sex is considered alongside age. </p>
<p>Other required qualities include the ability to communicate in the employer’s language or <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-west-africas-pidgins-deserve-full-recognition-as-official-languages-101844">pidgin English</a>, good character, history or place of origin, and the ability to work under stress.</p>
<h2>Recruitment strategies</h2>
<p>Traffickers can recruit from child trafficking endemic communities in Oyo State or other states. Our respondents adopted two major strategies in recruiting children as domestic servants and child prostitutes. The first involves the use of relatives, coworkers, religious associates, club members and neighbours to lure children away.</p>
<p>The second strategy relies on recruiting agents or traffickers. The traffickers use field agents. Here, trust is vital. Without trust, it’s difficult for prospective employers to get to the traffickers. The agents ensure that prospective employers are genuine and not part of the security apparatus.</p>
<p>For traffickers who are indigene (that is, from the communities where the children are recruited from), the method is usually deception. They trick parents into releasing their children for supposed training in the city. A 16-year-old domestic servant affirmed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was my uncle who came to Igede to tell my people that he wanted me to assist him with his business that was booming. He took me from Benue to Benin and dropped me with a woman at a brothel house. I was expected to sleep with men and pay money for the house I slept in every morning. I cried throughout the three days I stayed there … I ran away … I went back to Igede. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another strategy is to use people from the recruiting community to get children to work in town. A trafficker stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I have one Alhaji (meaning a Muslim who has completed the holy pilgrimage to Mecca) in Benue State. We got to know each other through wheat trading. Any time I need people to work here (in Ibadan) … I will just call on him and since we have been able to establish trust and confidence, it is not difficult for him to get some of these children for me. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Trafficking season</h2>
<p>My research participants who recruit from Igede community in Benue state told me they are more likely to get more children during the <a href="https://www.nigeriagalleria.com/Nigeria/States_Nigeria/Benue/Igede-Agba-Festival-Benue.html">New Yam Festival</a> when people of Igede extraction return home to thank their communal deity for a bumper harvest before officially eating the new yam. </p>
<p>The traffickers and agents use this period to entrap new children. They come to Igede with lots of money to attract attention. I found that traffickers set out on the recruitment journey towards the end of the year and returned early in the year with newly trafficked children. A female domestic servant said all Igede indigene who live or work elsewhere were expected to return home to join in the Christmas festivities. Most of the traffickers can be seen in the community at this time, as often they bring the children home and then return with them to the city.</p>
<p>The traffickers or agents engage in house-to-house canvassing, asking and persuading people to release their children to them, usually on agreed terms. Once this is settled, the local community agent either transports the children on his or her own, or awaits a vehicle sent by an associate in Ibadan to transport the new recruits. </p>
<p>A private vehicle is usually hired from Ibadan, which is more than 500kms away, to avoid suspicion.</p>
<h2>Combating the scourge</h2>
<p>To combat trafficking, it’s important for the Nigerian government to understand and deal with the factors that predispose children to being trafficked. These include rural underdevelopment and poverty, for instance. The <a href="https://www.naptip.gov.ng/?page_id=112">National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons</a> needs to strengthen its campaign aimed at fighting the trafficking of people within Nigeria. </p>
<p>A good place to start would be to target festival periods to educate the communities from which children are sourced about the scourge of child trafficking. Such education needs to expose the gimmicks traffickers use to lure vulnerable children. The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons may also need to revisit its current strategy and leverage more on inter-agency collaboration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118527/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oludayo Tade does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An investigation into the recruiting strategies of traffickers and their networks could be helpful in arresting this menace.Oludayo Tade, Researcher in criminology, victimology, electronic frauds and cybercrime, University of IbadanLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871472017-11-28T13:21:23Z2017-11-28T13:21:23ZChildren born of sexual violence under Islamic State need support<p>With the <a href="https://theconversation.com/its-caliphate-largely-gone-islamic-state-plots-another-way-forward-87036">collapse</a> of Islamic State’s (IS) “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, it is time to think about the next steps for those who have suffered under them. In particular, the children who have been born as a result of sexual violence perpetrated by IS fighters.</p>
<p>The precise number of children born within IS as a result of this violence is difficult to establish. But in March 2016 it was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/over-31000-women-are-currently-pregnant-within-the-so-called-islamic-state-new-report-reveals-a6916756.html">estimated</a> that there were 31,000 pregnant women living within the caliphate. While the circumstances surrounding these pregnancies is unclear, a recent <a href="http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/HJS-Trafficking-Terror-Report-web.pdf">report</a> on the use of sexual slavery within IS highlighted an economic dimension. This includes the payment of an additional <a href="https://ctc.usma.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/CTC-SENTINEL-Vol9Iss4.pdf">US$35</a> for each child born to a woman held as a sex slave.</p>
<p>These children suffer unique challenges. They are issued <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/23/opinion/isis-children-european-union.html">birth certificates</a>, but as Islamic State is a non-state actor, they are effectively <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/07/children-isis-fighters-syria-raqqa-orphans-uncertain-future">stateless</a>. Indoctrinated with extreme ideology from birth, current IS fighters <a href="https://f.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/2725/files/2016/04/the-children-of-islamic-state.pdf">consider</a> these children to be potentially better and more lethal fighters due to the normalisation of violence.</p>
<p>These factors pose significant challenges for children who escape IS. These children lack a recognised nationality, bringing problems such as discrimination and lack of access to education and healthcare. They are also often viewed as a threat to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/05/islamic-state-trains-purer-child-killers-in-doctrine-of-hate">security</a>. Rather than being recognised as victims in need of support, children of IS are frequently seen as “guilty by association”. When entering a refugee camp north of Raqqa in May 2017, some of these children and their mothers were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/07/children-isis-fighters-syria-raqqa-orphans-uncertain-future">labelled “the Daeshis”</a>, meaning Islamic State families, and shunned by others in the camp.</p>
<p>Further, children born of sexual violence in conflict, which includes children of IS, exist in what the the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict has previously <a href="http://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/key-documents/reports/">termed</a> an “accountability gap”. While children born of sexual violence have been <a href="https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/iwp_2010_08.pdf">recognised</a> as victims eligible for reparations as a result of truth commissions or national legislation in places such as Timor Leste, Chile, Peru and Sierra Leone, there are often <a>strict criteria</a> such as the mother being single. Further, these children have been <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/forgetting-children-born-of-war/9780231151306">neglected</a> within the criminal justice processes developed in response to mass atrocities. </p>
<p>So, how should the international community respond? My tentative answer contains two elements. Firstly, the international community has a role to play in helping these children rebuild their lives. Secondly, consideration should be given to how the International Criminal Court (ICC), which <a href="http://www.redress.org/international-criminal-tribunals/international-criminal-court">integrates</a> retributive and reparative justice mechanisms, can hold IS members responsible for sexual violence and recognise children born of this violence as victims entitled to reparations. </p>
<h2>Rebuilding lives</h2>
<p>Firstly, these children will require legitimate documentation. Governments should therefore respond to calls by the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/uk/stateless-people.html">United Nations</a> to grant citizenship to children born under IS. Some cases may be <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/23/children-caliphate">complex</a>. There may be cases where the child is born of one or two foreign parents; where the mother’s home country enforces discriminatory laws denying women the right to transmit their nationality to their children; or where the child is orphaned. The international community must establish cooperation and coordination mechanisms to deal with such cases and ensure the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/4566b16b2.pdf">best interests of the child</a> are respected.</p>
<p>Support <a href="https://f.hypotheses.org/wp-content/blogs.dir/2725/files/2016/04/the-children-of-islamic-state.pdf">networks</a> should also be established to coordinate integration into communities and entry into the education systems of national states.</p>
<p>Combating stigma of children born of war is key. Governments should adopt national stigma strategies with specific programmes to support mothers and children born from sexual violence, as recommended in the UK’s new <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/645636/PSVI_Principles_for_Global_Action.pdf">principles</a> on this subject.</p>
<h2>Criminal prosecution</h2>
<p>Then, in order to close the accountability gap, it is imperative that IS members responsible for crimes of sexual violence are prosecuted and that children born of this violence are recognised as victims. While it has been <a href="https://www.utrechtjournal.org/articles/10.5334/ujiel.364/">reported</a> that some IS members have been tried in domestic courts, the ICC has yet to play a role. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1072146/un-calls-international-prosecution-isis-members">UN</a> has recently called for the ICC to exercise its jurisdiction with respect to crimes committed by IS in Iraq. But of course, prosecuting IS for international crimes raises a host of <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-to-prosecute-islamic-state-fighters-for-war-crimes-55738">challenges</a>, including jurisdictional issues and lack of precedence. </p>
<p>Should members ever face prosecution at the ICC, children born of sexual violence may be captured within the definition of <a href="https://genderandsecurity.org/sites/default/files/Eng_-_Forced_Pregnancy.pdf">forced pregnancy</a>, an international crime for which individuals can be held criminally responsible under the <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/nr/rdonlyres/ea9aeff7-5752-4f84-be94-0a655eb30e16/0/rome_statute_english.pdf">Rome Statute</a>. But the main element of this crime is <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2016_02331.PDF">confinement</a> of the mother, rather than the recognition of sexual violence that has resulted in the pregnancy and birth of a child.</p>
<p>Indeed, there is no specific crime of fathering a child through sexual violence. This gap in the legal framework has been identified by international criminal legal experts Patricia Seller and Maxine Marcus as something <a href="http://richmedia.lse.ac.uk/centreforwomenpeaceandsecurity/20160616_prosecutingConflictRelatedSexualViolence_SellersAndMarcus.mp3">for future jurisprudence</a> at international criminal tribunals.</p>
<h2>Developments at the ICC</h2>
<p>Despite the lack of formal recognition of children born of sexual violence in current legal frameworks, such children have featured in cases at the ICC. </p>
<p>For instance, in the ongoing case against <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/uganda/ongwen">Dominic Ongwen</a>, who was charged with forced pregnancy, amongst other crimes in March 2016, ICC chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, drew <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/Transcripts/CR2016_25802.PDF">attention</a> to “a whole category of other victims: the children born in captivity resulting from these forced marriages, who sometimes face hostility and taunts as a result of their parentage”.</p>
<p>Bensouda’s statement suggests that attention will be paid to children born of sexual violence within this case, perhaps at the <a href="https://www1.essex.ac.uk/tjn/documents/Paper_4_Children_in_Conflict_Large.pdf">reparations</a> stage, where the harms suffered by these children could be addressed.</p>
<p>There are of course <a href="https://theconversation.com/iccs-bemba-ruling-is-a-landmark-but-falls-short-of-a-big-leap-56687">limits</a> to international criminal prosecutions. But it is encouraging to see that, should IS fighters ever face trial, jurisprudence is being developed which may allow children born under their reign to be recognised within the process.</p>
<p>Children born under IS raise a host legal and social issues that require a sensitive and coordinated response from the international community. Rather than being punished for the life they have been born into, the cloak of stigma and suspicion surrounding these children should be removed – and they should be supported in moving forward with their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87147/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eithne Dowds does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Such children suffer unique challenges.Eithne Dowds, Lecturer in International Criminal Law, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/521852016-02-23T14:37:22Z2016-02-23T14:37:22ZHow to help the women and girls rescued from Islamic State<p>Violence against women, especially in war, is so pervasive around the world it’s often not considered news. But the barbaric treatment of women by the group known as Da’esh or Islamic State (IS) has for once managed to attract some specific attention. </p>
<p>When IS <a href="https://theconversation.com/isis-sweeps-across-borders-and-takes-grip-of-an-iraq-collapsing-back-into-civil-war-27886">overran the city of Mosul and much of northern Iraq</a> in June 2014, it abducted <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/islamic-state-slaves-yazidi-girls-sold-isis-slavey-bought-back-families-years-salary-1728081">more than 5,000 women and girls</a> of religious and ethnic minorities (the vast majority being <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-who-are-the-yazidis-30280">Yazidi</a>, Turkmen and Christians). They were systematically isolated from their families and many watched other family members being murdered, particularly men and older women. </p>
<p>Women often bear the brunt of war, but IS is responsible for some of the most egregious treatment of women in recent history, with girls and women effectively becoming weapons of war. These young women and girls (some as young as 12) are being systematically raped and assaulted nearly to the point of death, with many being forced into marriage and religious conversion, sold or given as “gifts”.</p>
<p>Initially, IS and its supporters denied that the women abducted were being sexually exploited. But in an <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10/22/islamic-state-sex-slave_n_6027816.html">October 2014 issue</a> of its publication Dabiq, the group publicly acknowledged it was keeping sex slaves. Justifying it with a predictably narrow and self-serving <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/islamic-state-releases-fatwa-for-male-owners-of-women-slaves/a-18950434">interpretation of Islam and Islamic law</a>, it stated it considers these women the “spoils of war”. </p>
<p>It states that these “apostates” are legitimately enslaved, declaring that “Islam allows it and we will do it”. The group even says that slavery and rape will benefit the girls and young women, as it exposes them to the “true Islam”. </p>
<p>It’s not uncommon for them to attempt suicide in captivity in a bid to end their suffering, and due to the conservatism of their communities, many who do somehow return home are ostracised. They may even face death at the hands of male family members eager to avenge their family’s loss of morality – a woman’s purity and chastity are linked to a family’s honour. This also contributes to the problem that the actual number of victims is unknown, as many rapes go unreported out of stigma and shame. </p>
<p>Sexual violence and physical abuse is one of IS’s key psychological weapons. It has driven thousands of families from the north and west of Iraq, expanding their territory in their wake. Some more <a href="http://icsr.info/2015/09/icsr-report-narratives-islamic-state-defectors/">cynical observers</a> also argue that the promise of sex slaves, cars and houses is a ploy to attract young men from countries where they have no prospects of marriage or wealth thanks to inequality and unemployment. </p>
<h2>Psychological impact</h2>
<p>Several hundred of the captured young women have since <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-33964147">escaped</a> or been <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/02/22/report-islamic-state-releases-43-christian-hostages/80724820/">liberated</a> from multiple locations across northern Iraq and eastern Syria. Those who have returned are in dire need of physical assistance associated with sexual abuse (including unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV) and psychological support. </p>
<p>These women and girls are in a very unstable mental state, suffering from acute levels of stress, anxiety and depression with many showing strong suicidal tendencies. Many victims are unable to comprehend the barbaric treatment they have experienced and witnessed and are unable to sleep more than a few hours at a time due to nightmares and intrusive thoughts. </p>
<p>The precarious and monotonous conditions in the refugee camps are not contributing positively to their mental states either, with many feeling under constant threat of being captured. Because of this, many are desperate to leave Iraq, where they are constantly reminded of their time in captivity. </p>
<h2>Desperate for help</h2>
<p>Plenty of public attention is given to the physical needs of those affected by the conflict in the Middle East, but this often overshadows the scourge of serious psychological trauma.</p>
<p>There is little psychological assistance available for these destitute young women. One organisation that’s stepping in to help is <a href="http://en.wadi-online.de">WADI</a> the Association for Crisis Assistance and Solidarity Development Cooperation. This Iraq-German based nonprofit focuses on women’s rights in the Middle East and is providing psycho-social assistance to the traumatised female survivors of IS’s abuse. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107126/original/image-20160104-11938-xkitcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/107126/original/image-20160104-11938-xkitcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107126/original/image-20160104-11938-xkitcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107126/original/image-20160104-11938-xkitcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107126/original/image-20160104-11938-xkitcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107126/original/image-20160104-11938-xkitcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/107126/original/image-20160104-11938-xkitcs.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">WADIs mobile teams take care of Yazidi girls.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">WADI</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>WADI’s Dohuk teams consist of committed young women who visit refugee camps to offer psycho-social support. WADI has also established a women’s activity centre in Dohuk that provides a safe all-female environment and a break from the miserable conditions in the refugee camps. </p>
<p>The centre aims to make the women feel “at home”, empowering them and encouraging them to have a say in the peace and reconciliation process. The centre also offers referrals for much needed psychological aid and health care. Awareness training into women’s rights is also available. </p>
<p>Sadly, the current efforts are merely the beginning, and funding for such projects is scarce. Every day more women become victims; mental health is a taboo topic in many Arab countries, and efforts to help sufferers are therefore very poorly resourced. Although there has been an international response, it’s been direly inadequate given the scale of the challenges and needs. </p>
<p>And all the while, even though IS has <a href="https://theconversation.com/iraqs-battle-for-ramadi-isnt-just-about-defeating-islamic-state-52617">lost some ground</a> in Iraq and Syria, there’s no indication that this horror story will end any time soon.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/52185/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leanne Simpson receives funding from the British Ministry of Defence via their Defence Science and Technology Laboratory. </span></em></p>Domestic and sexual slavery are being used as weapons of war – and the victims are too often forgotten.Dr Leanne K Simpson, PhD Student, School of Psychology | Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/486732015-10-08T19:24:04Z2015-10-08T19:24:04ZThe suffragettes were rebels, certainly, but not slaves<p>It was at a 1913 meeting for the <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/Womens-Social-and-Political-Union">Women’s Social and Political Union</a> (WSPU) in London that suffragette <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/emmeline-pankhurst-9432764#synopsis">Emmeline Pankhurst</a> cried: “I would rather be a rebel than a slave.”</p>
<p>Pankhurst was a <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-women-would-have-waited-far-longer-for-the-vote-without-world-war-i-29860">militant campaigner</a> for women’s voting rights, a calling that meant she and many others were imprisoned repeatedly by British authorities.</p>
<p>The story of the political opposition experienced by these early-twentieth-century activists is told in the upcoming film <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/suffragette">Suffragette</a> (2015), which made <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/05/meryl-streep-backlash-suffragette-t-shirt-slogan">headlines</a> this week after Pankhurst’s <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1938818.Emmeline_Pankhurst">words</a> were used in a <a href="http://www.timeout.com/london/film/meryl-streep-and-the-stars-of-suffragette-on-feminism-family-and-fame">marketing campaign</a> to promote it. </p>
<p>Response to the campaign – which involved the film’s stars, including Meryl Streep (who plays the role of Pankhurst), donning t-shirts emblazoned with the contentious slogan – was swift:</p>
<p>Buzzfeed noted people’s “<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/krystieyandoli/people-are-upset-about-meryl-streeps-id-rather-be-a-rebel-th#.nivKxpazEk">upset</a>” reactions and Vulture deemed the choice of slogan “<a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/10/meryl-streep-suffragette-shirt-is-unfortunate.html">unfortunate</a>”, while The Mary Sue described it as “<a href="http://www.themarysue.com/suffragette-shirts/">tone-deaf</a>”.</p>
<p>So why the outcry? Pankhurst’s quote speaks to one of the greatest rifts in the history of feminism. Not only does it suggest an analogy can be drawn between women and slaves. It also suggests that slavery was a choice, ignoring the competing privileges and injustices derived from race and class.</p>
<p>It demonstrates how the interests of women of colour are seen as peripheral to women’s rights activism, when in fact they should be at its <a href="http://www.blackgirldangerous.org/2015/09/how-can-white-women-include-women-of-color-in-feminism-is-a-bad-question-heres-why/">centre</a>. In the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere, such language has been used to overlook how racial, class and gender oppression intersect.</p>
<h2>A history of antislavery and women’s rights</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97511/original/image-20151007-7363-5p3wk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1085&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The inhumanity of the Atlantic slave trade was intrinsic to the spread of colonialism and chattel slavery.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Slave_ship_diagram.png">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Prior to the expansion of the <a href="http://www.understandingslavery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=369&Itemid=145">Atlantic slave trade</a>, liberty versus tyranny – slavery versus freedom – were linguistic flourishes frequently used by Enlightenment philosophers.</p>
<p>Though this language had not yet attained clear racial overtones, hypocritical paradoxes soon emerged.</p>
<p>The political theory of Enlightenment philosopher John Locke relied heavily on the rhetoric of liberty versus tyranny. But, according to <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/191463?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">James Farr</a>, Locke was “a merchant adventurer in the African slave trade” who promoted England’s colonial policy.</p>
<p>A similar lexicon inspired protofeminist philosophers and social reformers. <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Mary_Astell.aspx">Mary Astell</a>, in <a href="https://archive.org/details/somereflectionsu00aste">Some Reflections Upon Marriage</a> (1730), asked:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If all Men are born Free, how is it that all Women are born Slaves?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Kathryn Kish Sklar and James Brewer Stewart demonstrate in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1042321.Women_s_Rights_and_Transatlantic_Antislavery_in_the_Era_of_Emancipation">Women’s Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation</a> (2007), the nineteenth-century foundations of the antislavery and women’s rights movement were intertwined.</p>
<p>For many social reformers, rhetorical slippage occurred when describing the oppression of abducted and enslaved Africans and that of women, so racial overtones became increasingly common.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1017&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1278&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1278&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97383/original/image-20151006-29243-14dh8ch.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1278&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Europe Supported by Africa and America (1796), by William Blake.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blake_after_John_Gabriel_Stedman_Narrative_of_a_Five_Years_copy_2_object_16.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women “may be convenient slaves”, <a href="http://www.egs.edu/library/mary-wollstonecraft/biography/">Mary Wollstonecraft</a> wrote in <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3420">A Vindication of the Rights of Woman</a> (1792), “but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent.”</p>
<p>Historian Moira Ferguson <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1395131?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">observes</a> more than 80 such comparisons in Wollstonecraft’s book. Some refer directly to chattel slavery in European colonies; others focus on slavery as a metaphor for unfreedom.</p>
<p>Similarly, British poet and printmaker <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/william-blake-9214491">William Blake</a>’s 1796 etching, <a href="http://web.utk.edu/%7Egerard/romanticpolitics/blakes-plates.html">Europe Supported by Africa and America</a>, linked the oppression of women to racial exploitation in European colonies.</p>
<p>Alongside the power imbalances borne of colonialism, this rhetoric had negative implications for the way Europeans engaged with non-white peoples. Ferguson describes the rhetorical reliance on slavery as “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/469240">Anglo-Africanism</a>”:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a colonialist discourse about slavery that unwittingly intensified negative attitudes towards Africans in general and slaves in particular.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The comparison between women and slaves became even more prevalent amongst US social reformers. Here, chattel slavery was so much more tangible because of its geographic proximity.</p>
<p>This analogy was ingrained in the reform vocabulary of US antislavery and women’s rights reformers such as <a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/slavery-and-anti-slavery/essays/angelina-and-sarah-grimke-abolitionist-sisters">Sarah and Angelina Grimké</a> and <a href="https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/elizabeth-cady-stanton/">Elizabeth Cady Stanton</a>. These women were also pioneer suffragists for movements in the US and the UK.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=839&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97550/original/image-20151007-7366-54b35t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1054&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sojourner Truth, c.1870.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sojourner_truth_c1870.jpg">National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/11/sophia-princess-suffragette-revolutionary-anita-anand-review-radical-indian-royal">Indian</a> and other non-white women were also intrinsic to transnational women’s movements. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2013/03/03/despite-the-tremendous-risk-african-american-women-marched-for-suffrage-too/">African American</a> women such as <a href="https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/sojourner-truth/">Sojourner Truth</a>, <a href="http://www.blackpast.org/aah/terrell-mary-church-1863-1954">Mary Church Terrell</a> and <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/ida-b-wells-9527635">Ida B. Wells</a> were at the forefront of the antislavery, women’s rights and anti-lynching movements.</p>
<p>But internationally, Leila J. Rupp <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2168389">argues</a>, white women reformers tended to forge bonds between one another.</p>
<p>In addition, prominent white suffragists like Stanton sidelined the efforts of women of colour. They also infused their women’s rights arguments with <a href="http://the-toast.net/2014/04/21/suffragettes-sucked-white-supremacy-womens-rights/">white supremacy</a>, using violent language to justify what they saw as the greater importance of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/356565.White_Women_s_Rights">white women’s rights</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/laura-clay/">Laura Clay</a>, the founder of Kentucky’s first suffrage organisation, <a href="http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/laura-clay">wrote</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The white men, reinforced by the educated white women, could “snow under” the Negro vote in every State, and the white race would maintain its supremacy without corrupting or intimidating the Negroes.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Similarly, <a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/rebecca-latimer-felton-1835-1930">Rebecca Felton</a>, the first female Senator in the US, <a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/rebecca-latimer-felton-1835-1930">argued</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I do not want to see a negro man walk to the polls and vote […] while I myself cannot vote at all. […] If it needs lynching to protect woman’s dearest possession from the ravening human beasts – then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The history of women’s rights, suffrage and feminism is infused with white women’s racist diatribes. Such utterances demonstrate a systematic misunderstanding of racial and class oppression.</p>
<h2>Making and remembering history</h2>
<p>So how does Suffragette fit in? It is a film that clearly has good intentions.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=936&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97579/original/image-20151007-7375-1ykhj1a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An anti-suffrage postcard, c.1910s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://thesuffragepostcardproject.omeka.net/">Women's Suffrage Postcards/The Suffrage Postcard Project</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It will likely have a historically sound narrative, pass the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-bechdel-test-doesnt-tell-us-about-women-on-film-20062">Bechdel test</a> and doubtless be uplifting.</p>
<p>Suffragette seems particularly concerned with the exploitation of <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/laura-schwartz/film-review-suffragette">working class women</a>, an issue that can be overlooked due to the tendency to focus on privileged middle-class white women.</p>
<p>It will also create <a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-hope-that-the-cultural-return-of-the-suffragettes-lasts-this-time-26657">positive images</a> of defiant suffragists, unlike the ridicule produced by anti-suffragists or the negative popular culture depictions of characters such as Mrs Banks from <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058331/">Mary Poppins</a> (1964).</p>
<p>But even Mrs Banks echoes Pankhurst when she encourages women to “cast off the shackles of yesterday” in the song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvk1NZDFvZU">Sister Suffragette</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GF4VvM48z78?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sister Suffragette from Mary Poppins (1964).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When creating historical memory, however, there is the constant danger of repeating the problems of the past.</p>
<p>Much black feminist scholarship critiques the power hierarchies of feminism. As <a href="http://www.egs.edu/library/bell-hooks/biography/">bell hooks</a> writes in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/250792.Ain_t_I_a_Woman">Ain’t I a Woman</a> (1981), nineteenth-century black women understood that “true freedom entailed not just liberation from a sexist social order that systematically denied all women full human rights.”</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/356566.But_Some_Of_Us_Are_Brave">All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us are Brave</a> (1982), Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott and Barbara Smith identify another key paradox: if scholars of race are primarily concerned with men, and scholars of gender focus on white women, where do women of colour fit in?</p>
<p>This gap is where the theory of <a href="https://theconversation.com/four-decades-of-thinking-gender-the-gains-struggles-and-debates-30831">intersectionality</a> comes in. Since oppression and privilege are derived from many different sources – gender, race, class, ethnicity, religion – the way these factors interlock must not be taken for granted, as they have been in the past.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1247&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1247&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97376/original/image-20151006-29254-14vme95.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1247&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emmeline Pankhurst in prison, c.1911.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emmeline_Pankhurst_in_prison.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The way British suffragettes used the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0424.00240/abstract">language of slavery and tyranny</a>, according to Laura E. Nym Mayhall, led them toward militant social protest. Routine imprisonment and force feeding meant their references to “shackles” did not necessarily mean chattel slavery.</p>
<p>Yet, as the Pankhurst quote demonstrates, they also <em>did</em> mean slavery. Specifically chattel slavery? Sometimes yes, sometimes no; but suffragists were certainly aware of the connection, and exploited it largely for the benefit of white women.</p>
<p>This permeated the historical memory the suffragettes created. Emmeline’s daughter <a href="http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/the-role-of-british-women-in-the-twentieth-century/christabel-pankhurst/">Christabel Pankhurst</a> entitled her history of the British movement <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1309283.Unshackled">Unshackled: The Story of How we Won the Vote</a> (1959).</p>
<p>Even today, the politics of remembering is tainted by the tendency to remember white women’s history. This system of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/05/suffragette-film-publicity-campaign-erasure-feminism">erasure</a> is repeated by the celebrations surrounding the suffrage centennials.</p>
<h2>Rebel, yes; slave, no</h2>
<p>From a historical perspective, then, the use of this Pankhurst quote is not only accurate; it’s all too familiar.</p>
<p>If we look to Pankhurst’s many other speeches, as Bustle <a href="http://www.bustle.com/articles/115089-7-emmeline-pankhurst-quotes-meryl-streep-should-have-used-instead-for-her-suffragette-t-shirt">suggests</a>, we would certainly find less offensive quotations. But we would also find more of the same.</p>
<p>In a June 1912 editorial for the WSPU newspaper <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/WvotesM.htm">Votes for Women</a>, Christabel Pankhurst wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Woman Suffrage […] is a case of one sex being held in bondage by the other sex.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And Emmeline Pankhurst’s autobiography <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/34856/pg34856.txt">My Own Story</a> (1914) concluded:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For men to remain silently quiescent while tyrannical rulers impose bonds of slavery upon them is cowardly and dishonourable, but for women to do that same thing is […] merely respectable.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/97692/original/image-20151007-9646-ogprmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=704&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A British suffragette commemorative stamp, c.1999.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yang Chao/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To understand the suffragettes, we need to consider what they said and why they said it; to view them as the fallible products of their time as well as the radicals they were.</p>
<p>And today, it is worth emphasising that Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan, Romola Garai and Anne-Marie Duff are rich, privileged, white women who are celebrity movie stars – certainly not slaves.</p>
<p>There is a perversity in claiming otherwise when <a href="https://theconversation.com/blacklivesmatter-and-the-myth-of-a-postracial-america-46491">racial discrimination</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/young-australians-views-on-domestic-violence-are-cause-for-concern-but-also-hope-47405">domestic violence</a> remain very present concerns; ISIS are selling <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3219288/I-want-blue-eyed-Yazidi-teen-describes-IS-slave-market.html">Yazidi women</a> as sex slaves; and thousands of adults and children continue to fall victim to <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html">human trafficking</a> worldwide every year.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48673/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ana Stevenson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Meryl Streep and the stars of the upcoming film Suffragette donned t-shirts emblazoned with the quote “I’d rather be a rebel than a slave,” they reignited a contentious debate in feminism.Ana Stevenson, Visiting Scholar, Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies Program, University of PittsburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/461652015-08-17T14:05:49Z2015-08-17T14:05:49ZThe treatment of Yazidi women highlights a historical issue: what makes someone human?<p>The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html?ref=world&_r=0">recent revelations</a> about the savage treatment of Yazidi women at the hands of Islamic State, or ISIS, fighters is the latest in a shocking set of disclosures regarding the group’s behavior. It sadly echoes the the abject treatment and sexual abuse reportedly suffered by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/world/middleeast/isis-held-us-aid-worker-as-sex-slave-before-death.html?ref=world&_r=0">Kayla Mueller</a>, the American hostage who died in February while being held by ISIS.</p>
<p>For Americans, the disclosure is all the more uncomfortable because the reported trade in these women recalls many of the attributes of slavery as practiced in the US until the American Civil War – a controversial <a href="http://www.bpnews.net/44186/obama-draws-pushback-on-isis-crusades-slavery">comparison</a> made by President Obama himself earlier in the year.</p>
<p>The horror of the systematically brutal treatment of these women cannot be rationalized by any religious philosophy. And it conforms to a general perception of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html">radical Jihadism as a medieval one </a>that defies conventional conceptions of what we like to call “modernity.” </p>
<p>But the behavior of ISIS raises a broader question: what does it mean to be “human” in the modern world?</p>
<h2>Being human</h2>
<p>The answer may seem obvious to most of us. Being human is defined physically. It is being a member of a species. </p>
<p>Those with a more metaphysical approach might define it philosophically. As René Descartes said, <a href="http://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-7/descartes-i-think-therefore-i-am">“I think; therefore I am.”</a> </p>
<p>Others might focus on the legal aspects, as enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights that was first proclaimed in 1948. It states that all humans have inalienable, fundamental human rights that <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/Introduction.aspx">must be protected.</a> </p>
<p>But the sorry fact is that the definition of who is a human – and thus worthy of our concern – has always been contested and it still is today. </p>
<p>And the most important point is that this definition has had an enormous effect on when and where countries act to save lives; where and when they provide aid; and who is enslaved and abused. </p>
<p>The answer to these questions essentially distinguishes between who is human – and thus vulnerable and worthy of our protection and resources – and who is not. </p>
<h2>Humanitarian intervention and gunboat diplomacy</h2>
<p>Let’s take the example of humanitarian intervention and civilian protection. </p>
<p>Over a decade ago, George Washington University political scientist Martha Finnemore wrote a short but highly informative book on the <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100775070">history of military intervention.</a>. In it she pointed out that the reasons that countries – or the international community as a whole – intervene has altered dramatically over time. </p>
<p>For example, the Europeans did so initially to collect sovereign debt in the early and mid-1800s – mostly from Latin America. They would sail in and seize any taxes that had been collected and stored in customs houses. That was a perfectly acceptable practice at the time. But imagine the gunboats sailing to Argentina today, a country that is officially bankrupt, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-07-17/-no-why-argentina-refuses-to-pay-its-debts">to seize their money from bank vaults!</a> </p>
<p>Indeed, the very idea of humanitarian intervention only developed later, and very selectively – initially to protect people “like us.”</p>
<p>So, for example, a coalition force led by the Russian Empire invaded the Muslim Ottoman Empire in 1877 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_%281877%E2%80%9378%29">to protect orthodox Christian Slavs</a>. Protecting your religious and ethnic brothers and sisters was acceptable. They were human. Others were not.</p>
<p>In fact, the universalizing of the definition of the human to justify intervening where there is no ethnic or religious tie is a relatively recent idea.</p>
<p>It is one that has only really gained traction since the end of the Cold War. </p>
<p>As the United Nation’s “<a href="http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/adviser/responsibility.shtml">Responsibility to Protect</a>” initiative makes crystal clear, when it come to humanitarian intervention to protect vulnerable populations, humanity isn’t defined by religion, skin color, gender, race or caste. But that initiative has taken off only in the last 15 years and the principle has been applied only on a <a href="http://www.unric.org/en/responsibility-to-protect/26988-the-responsibly-to-protect-on-a-case-by-case-basis">very limited basis.</a> The multilateral intervention against <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/18709571">Muammar Qaddafi’s</a> government in 2011 remains the most prominent example.</p>
<h2>The principle and practice of sexual violence</h2>
<p>Of course, addressing these issues in practice is always more complicated than in principle. And the issue of who is a human is still very much contested today – far more so than many of us might imagine.</p>
<p>Take the example of the inhumane treatment of the Yazidi women, held against their will, sold like chattel and sexually abused. It has all the hallmarks of slavery. Yet while an extreme example, it is by no means unique – either historically or in today’s world. </p>
<p>Historically, we know that women have been enslaved and abused on a mass scale. The treatment of Korean “Comfort Women” during the Second World War is an issue that still divides South Korea and Japan, as <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/south-korea-man-sets-himself-alight-anti-japan-rally-support-comfort-women-1515152">the self-immolation of a South Korean man</a> on August 12 demonstrated. The same kind of sexual violence has been documented in numerous, <a href="http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/about/bgsexualviolence.shtml">more recent wars.</a></p>
<p>So it’s not that sexual violence in war is a new problem. But it has become more documented and prominently discussed in policy circles in recent years. </p>
<p>The UN acknowledged, for example, that rape is a weapon of war and <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/newsevents/pages/rapeweaponwar.aspx">classified it as a war crime only in 2008.</a></p>
<p>This recognition is in large part explained by the fact that we have expanded our definition of the human – and thus become more aware of the issue. </p>
<h2>21 million slaves…at least</h2>
<p>Yet according to the <a href="http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/">Global Slavery Index,</a> classifying certain people as not human is still a characteristic feature of many societies, particularly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.</p>
<p>Modern slavery can take many forms: from using children as soldiers to men on fishing boats and women as industrial workers or as prostitutes. In each case it reduces a person to a commodity, denying them their essential humanity. </p>
<p>The United Nations estimates that there are upward of <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=48037#.Vc4Uc0Wf7N8">21 million slaves in the world today</a>, while the Global Slavery Index offers the larger figure of <a href="http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/">35.8 million</a> – the number changing depending on how they define a slave. </p>
<p>Sadly, these figures suggest that it is the reporting of the problem, rather than its scale, that has changed.</p>
<p>What is disturbingly clear from one major New York Times story is that a Yazidi can be given her freedom by her owner (albeit with ISIS’ definition of the still limited rights of a Muslim woman) and thus <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/14/world/middleeast/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html?ref=world&_r=0">“become human.”</a></p>
<p>That’s an idea so at odds with contemporary Western thinking it once again begs the question: if you are so opposed to it, what are you willing to do about it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The recent revelations about the savage treatment of Yazidi women at the hands of Islamic State, or ISIS, fighters is the latest in a shocking set of disclosures regarding the group’s behavior. It sadly…Simon Reich, Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/365332015-01-27T11:08:31Z2015-01-27T11:08:31ZJapan government continues to deny responsibility for sex slavery<p>In 1943, during the height of World War II, fifteen-year-old Liu Mianhuan was tied up and taken away by Imperial Japanese troops from her village in Yu County, Shanxi Province, China. </p>
<p>She was confined to a cramped cave dwelling near the Japanese military stronghold in Jingui Village as one of the troops’ “comfort women.” Japanese soldiers raped her during daylight hours and a military officer took his turn at night. </p>
<p>The torture injured the teenager so badly that before long, her entire body swelled. “The pain was so excruciating that I could neither sit nor stand.” Liu recalled when she spoke with me decades later, “When I needed to go to the latrine I had to crawl on the ground…I wanted <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/chinese-comfort-women-9780199373895?cc=us&lang=en&">to die.”</a> </p>
<p>Liu’s account is typical of Chinese comfort women’s wartime experiences and similar to the ordeal of other women forcibly drafted from Japanese-occupied areas in the Asia Pacific between 1931-1945. </p>
<p>The Japanese government, however, continues to deny imperial Japan’s responsibility for forcing the women into sex slavery during this period. </p>
<h2>A series of denials in 2014</h2>
<p>This past fall, a renewed campaign of denial began after a major Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun retracted a series of articles on <a href="http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201409110080">“comfort women.”</a> </p>
<p>These articles, most published in the 1990s, cited the memoir of Seiji Yoshida, a former Japanese soldier. Yoshida wrote that he had participated in forcibly drafting comfort women on the Korean island of Jeju, but his story was <a href="http://www.asahi.com/articles/SDI201408213563.html">later discredited,</a> and has not been used by the scholarly community in studying the comfort women system since.</p>
<p>The current campaign of denial does not focus on factual errors of journalism, but on international criticism of Japan’s wartime wrongdoing. </p>
<h2>Pushing back against international critics</h2>
<p>On October 14, 2014, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official was sent to New York requesting that Radhika Coomaraswamy, a former United Nations Special Rapporteur, revise her <a href="http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201410160051">1996 report</a> on imperial Japan’s forceful recruitment of sex slaves. </p>
<p>Activists and conservative media outlets from Japan have also sought to discredit a <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/110/hres121/text">2007 US House of Representatives Resolution</a> that urged Japan to “formally acknowledge and apologize in a clear and unequivocal manner.” </p>
<p>Recently the Japanese government even went so far as to request a major American publisher, <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2015/01/15/statements-by-japan-publisher-over-textbook-passage-on-comfort-women/">McGraw-Hill,</a>to edit passages on comfort women in its history textbook. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69650/original/image-20150121-29767-1wylgtx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69650/original/image-20150121-29767-1wylgtx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69650/original/image-20150121-29767-1wylgtx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69650/original/image-20150121-29767-1wylgtx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=636&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69650/original/image-20150121-29767-1wylgtx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69650/original/image-20150121-29767-1wylgtx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/69650/original/image-20150121-29767-1wylgtx.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chinese girl interviewed by allied soldier.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">en.wikipedia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The voices of denial in Japan insist that no objective evidence exists to prove the forcible abduction of women by the Japanese military. </p>
<p>I learned otherwise while researching a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/chinese-comfort-women-9780199373895?cc=us&lang=en&">new book on the subject</a> and interviewing women who survived such sexual exploitation. </p>
<h2>Chinese testimony</h2>
<p>The twelve survivors whose stories recorded in our book were all detained by force to be the Japanese military comfort women when their hometown was occupied.</p>
<p>Zhu Qiaomei,for example, owned a small restaurant on Chongming Island near Shanghai when Japanese army came in the spring of 1938. The soldiers forced her to service the troops as a comfort woman from home. Outraged, her husband joined the local resistance force to fight, but was caught and beaten to death. The sexual assault against Zhu Qiaomei and other women in the town continued until the Japanese army left the region in 1939.</p>
<p>Many have stepped forward to give similar testimony, yet the Japanese government insists that there is no evidence of abducting women by force. </p>
<p>Because the Imperial Forces destroyed incriminating documents at the war’s end, the international community has reason to ask: in re-constructing the facts of war trauma, who can claim the legitimacy of objectivity? Whose words count? </p>
<p>There is <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/comfort-women/9780231120333">ample evidence</a> to show that the sexual violence committed against women under the umbrella of the comfort women system took place across all battle zones and areas occupied by Japan during the Asia-Pacific war. </p>
<p>Investigations in China suggest that in addition to the comfort women drafted from Korea, Japan, and other regions from the early 1930s to 1945, approximately 200,000 women were drafted from mainland China by Imperial Japanese Forces. </p>
<p>The great majority, as in the cases of Liu Mianhuan and Zhu Qiaomei, were abducted from their homes and enslaved in the improvised “comfort facilities.”</p>
<h2>Owning up to the past</h2>
<p>What is equally disturbing about the rhetoric of denial is the claim that historical facts somehow inflict damage on Japan’s honor. </p>
<p>For the majority of Japanese and the rest of us around the world, recognizing comfort women’s sufferings is not done to disgrace contemporary Japan, just as commemorating the victims of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb does not disgrace Germany and the United States. Quite the contrary. </p>
<p>Taking responsibility to recognize and rectify past wrongs could greatly help Japan gain trust and respect from the international community. </p>
<p>This happened, for example, when a US Congressional investigation led to the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/08/09/210138278/japanese-internment-redress">1988 American apology</a> for and restitution made to Japanese-Americans wrongly interned during World War II. Far from damaging US honor, this step to remedy an historic wartime wrong was widely welcomed.</p>
<p>Japanese nationalist rhetoric has portrayed the issue of comfort women as realpolitik. Even our book documenting Chinese comfort women’s sufferings has been described by a Japanese politician as China’s attempt to start a comfort women battle in the US. </p>
<p>Ironically, research about the history of comfort women in China was inspired by a grassroots movement in Japan to provide humanitarian support to the victims. </p>
<p>In Japan – despite nationalist denials for seventy years since the war – citizen groups, researchers, lawyers, intellectuals, and <a href="http://www.massviolence.org/The-Japanese-Imperial-Army-s">lawmakers</a> have worked diligently to redress imperial Japan’s wartime wrongs. Their actions reflect the honor of humanity and have won them international respect. </p>
<p>My own research on this issue was inspired by a Vassar College student’s senior thesis whose concern for the suffering of exploited women in distant countries exemplifies the best approach to resolving the comfort women issue: let humanitarian principles guide our actions and attitudes. </p>
<p>It is through compassion – in Japan and abroad – that East Asia will be able to move beyond the current tensions and political stalemate toward true reconciliation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peipei Qiu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1943, during the height of World War II, fifteen-year-old Liu Mianhuan was tied up and taken away by Imperial Japanese troops from her village in Yu County, Shanxi Province, China. She was confined…Peipei Qiu, Louise Boyd Dale and Alfred Lichtenstein Professor of Chinese and Japanese and Director of Asian Studies Program, Vassar CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.