April 29, 2024

Child Marriage? – child abuse

October 25, 2015 by

Scars Across Humanity Post 7

Chapter 4 Early and Enforced Marriage:  child abuse by another name

This is an issue about life, families, communities, broken dreams and shattered bodies. It is about girls at risk of marriage; just as much as it is about the millions of adolescent mothers and girls in marriage.    Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda World YWCA

This is not marriage, but rather the selling and buying of young women.      Ahlam al-Obeidi, Iraq radio

Child Marriage1Some mind-blowing statistics

Every three seconds a girl under the age of 18 is married somewhere across the world – usually without her consent and sometimes to a much older man. The United Nations Population Fund suggests that, every day, 39,000 girls marry too young. It is predicted that more than 140 million child brides will have entered marriage in the decade up to 2020, 18.5 million of them under the age of 15; if nothing changes, the annual figure will grow from 14.2 million in 2010 to 15.1 million in 2030. As the General Secretary of the World Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) observes, the number of children married under age is now higher than the total population of Zimbabwe!

child-not-bride-nigeria-info-photo-courtesy-budgit

Figures like these do indicate the massive numerical scale of the problem and the difficulties in eliminating it. But they do not unpack the human misery enfolded inside them. A moving exhibition mounted in 2014 by the United Nations in Geneva opened that up. Through very sober photographs and short, poignant narratives we came face to face with the wrecked hopes and tragic lives of survivors of child marriage. Ghulam had wanted to be a teacher, but was pulled out of school at 11 to marry a 40-year-old man; 14-year-old Afisha, in Ghana, was unable to be educated because of her father’s poverty, and instead was sold as a bride for cola nuts and 60 cedis (about £25); Asia was ill and bleeding from childbirth at 14, as she cared for her two-year-old child and new- born baby…….

Read more in Scars Across Humanity

Filed Under: Scars Across Humanity, Scars Across Humanity

Female Genital Mutilation

October 24, 2015 by

Scars Across Humanity Post 6

Chapter three: Female Genital Mutilation

  female-genital-surgery

‘The pain of circumcision is like a heavy burden I always carry with me. It is like darkness in my life, in my chest. You can never forget it.’ FGM Survivor

Up to 140 million women worldwide have undergone female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C). That equates to more than twice the entire population of the UK. Women who have endured this process assure me that it is something that stays forever in the memory, and it often revisits them without warning.  A Sudanese writer recalls her own experience of being cut at the age of six:

“Despite the passage of twelve years, the scene still remains vivid in my memory. From the moment the horrendous experience has begun, and until the last day of your life, it will never cease to torment you. I will never forget the faint sound of the scissor cut- ting my flesh four times, the stitching four times or relative hideous pain in urination or retention, the accompanying complications and the nightmares of vicious cycle of cutting-stitching-cutting and legacy of hereditary pain.”

A report on FGM issued by the UK government in 2014 suggested that around 140,0FGM-Anti-FGM00 women in England and Wales are living with the consequences of FGM and around 10,000 girls under the age of 15 are likely to undergo cutting.

Female genital mutilation has no known health benefits, in any of its forms. On the contrary, it is known to be harmful to girls and women in many ways and is extremely painful and traumatic. The procedure involves cutting off the clitoris, and, depending on the extent of the process, other parts of the external genitals may also be excised. Three main forms of FGM are practised. . . . . .

read more in Scars Across Humanity

Filed Under: Scars Across Humanity, Scars Across Humanity

Chapter 2 Violence begins before birth

October 22, 2015 by

Scars Across Humanity Post 5 

Chapter 2 Violence Begins Before Birth: Selective Abortion and Infanticide

india-10-16-12-female-foeticide

(Photo- campaign to save the girl foetus)

Having a girl is to plant a seed in someone else’s garden.   Hindi saying

In India, where female infanticide has existed for centuries, now female foeticide has joined the fray

Dr Sabu George, a Delhi-based researcher, has spent the past quarter-century exposing what he calls ‘the worst kind of violence’ in Indian history – the elimination of millions of unborn girls. He regards it as nothing less than ‘genocide’, and describes the first few months in the womb as ‘the riskiest part of a woman’s life cycle in India’. An incident reported in a newspaper article illustrates the problem:

Earlier this month, police arrested two people after the discovery of 400 pieces of bones believed to be of female foetuses in the town of Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh. Last September, the remains of dozens of babies were exhumed from a pit outside an abortion clinic in Punjab. According to investigators, that clinic was run by an untrained, unqualified retired soldier and his wife. To dispose of the evidence, acid was used to melt the flesh and then the bones were hammered to smithereens . . .

read more in Scars Across Humanity published next month

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Introduction and Chapter 1 Quotes

October 20, 2015 by

Scars Across Humanity Post 4

Over the next few days I’m offering quotations and brief excerpts from the beginning of each chapter, so you can think about whether it’s a book you might want to read. Today is from the introduction and first chapter

Introduction –

Nov 25 – UN Day for The Elimination of All forms of Violence Against Women. Story of the Mirabal sisters 

There is one universal truth, applicable to all countries, cultures and communities: violence against women is never acceptable, never excusable, never tolerable.           United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

On 25 November 1960 in a sugarcane field in the Dominican Republic, three sisters were brutally assassinated. They had been tortured, strangled and clubbed to death. They were three of the four Mirabal sisters who had spent many years highlighting the corruption and injustice of Rafael Trujillo, the infamous Dominican dictator, .. . . . . . . .

mirabal sisters

Chapter One 

A global pandemic

One in three women may suffer from abuse and violence in her lifetime. This is an appalling human rights violation, yet it remains one of the invisible and under-recognized pandemics of our time.    Nicole Kidman

‘Reflecting on the vast crowd of Egyptians who gathered in Tahrir Square in 2011, Mark LeVine suggested: What made Tahrir truly revolutionary . . . was that in the Square you could see, feel, the possibility of a new Egypt, a different Egypt, an Egypt that could fulfill the dreams of the majority of its inhabitants. Young and old, rich and poor, Muslim and Copt, metalhead and Sufi, everyone radiated ‘silmiyya’ – peacefulness – even as they screamed at the top of their lungs . . .

Two years later, on the second anniversary, the mood of the crowd in Tahrir Square was very different. . . . .

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Chapter Contents Page

October 19, 2015 by

Scars Across Humanity- post No. 3

Chapter Contents

Thanks for all your interest. As promised – some more information of what’s in the book.

The Introduction focuses on the justice-seeking Mirabal sisters, telling the story of their brutal assassination and the consequent significance of November 25.

The following nine chapters expose the problems of violence against women, through the life cycle of women globally and the stories of those caught up in them. I travel through selective abortion, female genital mutilation, child brides, honour killings, intimate-partner violence, trafficking and prostitution, rape, ending with sexual violence in war.  These are not fun chapters. Many of the stories I have found heart-breaking. And anger easily goes with grief. But it cannot be right to be cushioned from knowing about these atrocities; that way, nothing changes, and change in these areas is absolutely vital.  

The last four chapters look at attempted explanations and ways forward: critically investigating evolutionary psychology, sociobiology, functionalism, and patriarchy among other ideas. I’ll leave you to guess ahead of time which explanations lead to dead ends! The final two chapters probe religion. Writing as an outsider here to most religions was not easy. But reflecting as an insider to Christianity was probably even more soul-searching.

If you want to see the chapter headings in the book format, please click here on the contents page- 

Scars Chapter Page

 

The book is 276 pages long so it is a fairly big read. My next few posts will give the quotations which open each chapter. I hope they might just help to ease the prospective reader in gently!

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Scars Across Humanity

Scars Across Humanity. Launch Dates

October 18, 2015 by

Launch Dates  will be updated over the next few weeks. Launches will be in different formats depending on context.  So far, confirmed dates are:

October 23     Dedworth Festival 4pm and 7pm – organised by Revd Louise Brown (louise-brown7@sky.com)

November 10  Oxford, ‘Just Love ‘ – organised by Naomi Grant (naomi.grant@st-annes.ox.ac.uk)

November 18  Speaker’s Chambers,  House of Commons, Westminster  12.30  (Invitation only – requests received)

November 22  Parish Rooms Coton, Cambridge  7.30pm – call 07806615645

November 25   Eastbourne CRE – organised by SPCK  (gmannering@spck.org)

November 25  WATCH display at Church House, Westminster 12- 4.30pm

November 25  Church House Bookshop, Westminster London bookshop@chbookshop.co.uk

November 26   Sarum College Bookshop 6.30pm e:bookshop@sarum.ac.uk

Cancelled: Scars Across Humanity: An Illustrated Talk with Elaine Storkey

November 29   Trinity Churches, Shrewsbury – organiser Phil Cansdale

December 2     ‘Restored’  reception and AGM,  6-9pm. CAFOD 55 Westminster Bridge Road, London, SE1 7JB 

December 6   10.30  Golders Green Parish Church W Heath Dr, London NW11 7QG

 

Filed Under: Scars Across Humanity

Scars Across Humanity

October 18, 2015 by

My new book will be published on November 25th to coincide with the UN Day for the Elimination of All Forms of Violence  Against Women. I shall be giving the title and heading quote for each chapter every day for the next two weeks.

 

scars across humanity flyer A5 (22 06 15) (2) (3) (1) scars across humanity flyer A5 (22 06 15) (2) (3)

Here, meanwhile are some of the generous commendations:

‘Powerful and absorbing, Scars Across Humanity painstakingly documents the gross injustices facing women around the world. Some of the stories made headlines, many passed unnoticed and too many occurred much closer to home than we might realize. Elaine has done us a great service in not only describing what is happening, but also seeking to understand why it happens – and what needs to be done to tackle this worldwide problem. This is not an easy book to read, but it is a necessary book. I hope the stories she shares and facts she brings before us will encourage us all to pray – and to join in the work of bringing healing and an end to gender-based violence.’

Jackie Harris, Editor, Woman Alive

 

‘This is a courageous and a terrifying book. We all know that acts of violence against women are a problem, but never have we realized the scale of the problem is so huge. Where others would be cautious to speak out for fear of offending the sensibilities of other cultures, Elaine Storkey is clear and fearless, inspired by true compassion. Scrupulously researched and documented, illustrated with both statistics and personal stories, this is a book that changes perceptions and could play a substantive role in achieving change.’

Margaret Hebblethwaite Sante Fe, Paraguay

‘Elaine Storkey’s book is well researched and deeply moving. She captures most vividly for her readers the way in which patriarchy, religious and cultural traditions, complications in the law, lack of education (not always) and isolation can combine and lead to women being abused, being permanently disfigured or their untimely death. This violation of the human rights of girls and women is indeed a “deep scar” across humanity. The collusion that perpetuates the deepening of this scar will only cease when there is true respect given to girls and women in societies throughout our world. Reading this book can be the first step to breaking that collusion.’

The Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin, Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons

‘This is a timely book, emerging as the world awakes, too slowly, to the problem of violence against women and girls. Elaine Storkey examines this issue through her characteristic twin lenses of clarity of thought and kindness of heart, carefully building up a mosaic of facts, figures and testimonies of those who have suffered in many different settings. I challenge anyone to read this book and emerge unchanged.’

Baroness Maeve Sherlock, House of Lords

Filed Under: Scars Across Humanity

Harriet Tubman on International Women’s Day

March 8, 2014 by

It is not difficult to be inspired by Harriet Tubman. She was a woman who suffered injustice, oppression, brutality and betrayal, yet persevered and trusted God to enable her to keep going. Her tenacity is summed up in her much-quoted reflection: ‘I always tole God, I’m gwine (going to) hole steady on you an’ you got to see me through.’
Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Maryland in about 1820. She had a wretched childhood, suffering many beatings and then a massive head injury at thirteen when she refused to help a foreman punish a slave. The headaches which were to occur for the rest of her life often came with visions and a deep sense of God’s presence. Although illiterate she had learned bible stories from her mother, and prayer was to be a constant source of hope and help. Years later, she prayed for her own slave master, a cruel and unfeeling man, urging God to change his heart. When no change and Harriet found he was sending her to a chain gang far from her family, she altered her prayer and asked God to remove the man from the earth. A week later the man died, and Harriet was utterly remorseful that she had ever prayed for someone’s destruction.
In fact, most of her life was about deliverance rather than destruction. When she discovered that both her parents had been promised release from their slavery, so technically their children should not have been slaves, she felt the weight of injustice. There was no possibility of legal redress, as such steps were beyond her, but she did feel that God was guiding her to achieve her freedom nevertheless by running away. Her husband, a freed slave, would not support her attempt, and her brothers who left with her became afraid and returned, so she continued alone. She hid by day and travelled by night, finally reaching Pennsylvania, a Free State. The arduous nature of her journey and the danger it put her in seemed to bring her closer to God. She recalls how she prayed to God, lying on the cold ground: ‘Oh dear Lord, I ain’t got no friend but you. Come to my help, Lord for I’m in trouble!’ God did come to her help, and brought others to aid her, for she travelled without detection and arrived in the North and to freedom.
Harriet had made use of the network known as the Underground Railroad. This was a well-organised system of free and slave blacks, white abolitionists and other activists against slavery. The Quakers were very involved as well as other Christian groups. There were various ‘stops’ on the railroad where people took her in. At one stop she was suddenly ordered by the lady of the house to sweep the yard. Later she discovered that the slave hunters had come, but were satisfied that she was one of the family’s slaves. In all, the journey to Pennsylvania was of some ninety miles, and when Harriet arrived she spoke how everything around her seemed tinged with heaven.
Harriet was not content with her own freedom, however, and went back to rescue her family. In all, over the next eleven years she made between thirteen and nineteen trips back to the South and brought out more 100 slaves to freedom through the underground railroad (some even suggest 300) . In fact, Harriet became such a threat to the pockets of plantation owners that an abolitionist claimed that they had offered a reward of $40,000 reward for her capture – although this enormous sum has never been verified. Accurate numbers are less important however than the fact that she guided people to safety and enabled them to leave a life of slavery behind. And when the American Congress, dominated by the Southern States, passed the Fugitive Slave Law requiring the free states to recapture slaves, Harriet still did not give up but began to take slaves farther north into Canada where slavery was prohibited.
The rest of her life saw an extension of her passion for justice. She was active in the Civil War. She guided the Combahee River Raid which liberated more than 700 slaves in South Carolina. She even became involved in the women’s suffrage movement. Wherever there was a call for liberation, Harriet was active.
Yet she refused to accept any accolades. Always, she insisted that she merely followed the guidance of God and did nothing without his prompting, his authority or his protection. For the God she believed in is the God who loves human beings, and calls us to neighbour love. For all believers he is indeed the God of justice.

This article was first published in Woman Alive July 2011

Filed Under: Women

The Clash of Civilizations and the Plight of Christians

October 4, 2013 by

This autumn marks the 20th anniversary of Samuel Huntington’s perceptive essay ‘The Clash of Civilizations’. Arguing that in Europe the ‘Velvet curtain of culture has replaced the Iron Curtain of ideology’, Huntington went on to predict that the future driving force for international conflict would be culture and religion, rather than geopolitics or economics. For example, the conflict along the fault line between Western and Islamic civilizations was likely to become more virulent and, ‘from the bulge of Africa to central Asia’, we could expect continued battles between Muslims and neighbours: ‘Islam has bloody borders.’

 

The essay, and book that followed, were treated with derision from many of the intellectual elite. Fouad Ajami was one of the first to insist that Huntington had ‘underestimated the tenacity of modernity and secularism’ in places where previously absent. This expanding mindset would ultimately prove stronger and act as a preventative force against civilizational conflict. Yet just eight years later, the optimism of these critics was put to the test as the ‘power of modernity’ idea was dealt a sharp blow by the carnage of 9/11.

There are problems, of course, with Huntington’s thesis. What defines a ‘civilization’ is unclear; its contours are fuzzy. Some civilizations are vast – ‘Western civilization’ envelopes countries and whole continents. Others – Japanese – are marked by a single entity. Some civilizations, like the Islamic, are religiously defined, with Arab, Malay, or Turkic subdivisions; others, like China, have old religious undertones and changing. And although civilizations have certainly clashed over the last twenty years, almost as many clashes have occurred within them. The death toll in the conflict between Sunni and Shia in Syria gives testimony to the fact that a single religion may have its own fault lines.

This week Catholic writer, John L Allen offers another perspective.[1] He quotes the International Society for Human Rights, a secular organization based in Frankfurt, who claim that 80 per cent of all acts of religious conflict have been actually directed at Christians. According to the Study of Global Christianity at Wenham, Massachusetts, this translates to an average of 100,000 Christians killed each year for the past decade. Huntington was right in that many of these are Christians who have suffered at the hands of Muslim militia. But he was also wrong in identifying Christianity simply as a subset of Western civilization. Christianity is a global movement of 2.3 billion adherents. The Christians who have been maimed, raped and mutilated are not those in North America or Europe, targeted by competing ‘civilizations’ but are indigenous in those civilizations themselves, sometimes speaking the same language and eating the same food, or as members of ethnic and cultural minorities.

Over the last twenty years two thirds of the Christian population of Iraq has gone: exiled, or killed. The Pew Forum suggests that from 2006 and 2010, Christians faced persecution in 139 nations. Allen cites recent examples from Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, India, Burma, and Korea to reinforce this point. But he insists that this is not ‘limited to a clash of civilizations between Christianity and Islam.’ Hindu radicals were responsible for 500 deaths and 50,000 homeless among Christians in Orissa.  The 300,000 Christians who disappeared from North Korea, feared dead, were persecuted for refusing to join the cult around founder Kim 1l Sung. Allen’s conclusion is ‘in truth, Christians face a bewildering variety of threats, with no single enemy.’

The debate over Huntington will continue, but a much more urgent need is to address the human rights violations and anti-Christian persecution across the world; vehement opposition to it has to be on the agenda of all civilizations.

 

 

 


[1] ‘The War on Christians’ The Spectator Oct 5th

Filed Under: Church Times

No need for protection

July 4, 2013 by

Some years ago I was in Amsterdam to speak in an enormous celebration of Christian ecumenism. I breakfasted each day with a Catholic monk who was on his way to serve a community in the Sudan. The relaxed and warm atmosphere of the conference was very welcome to him; it provided a peaceful preparation for a future where he might be enveloped in conflict. On the third morning he disclosed to me that he was replacing a colleague who had just been martyred. My face must have registered shock and concern, as I asked what kind of protection they had. He shook his head at the word ‘protection’ and preferred to talk about ‘trust’, explaining, gently, that he was well aware that his own time there might end in death: ‘the brothers rarely come home, you see.’

His replacement of ‘protection’ with ‘trust’ sums up the commission Jesus gave to his disciples as he sent them out into the towns and villages (Luke 10). They were to go in faith and vulnerability, seek out the people of peace, receive from those they ministered to, and proclaim the Kingdom of God. The cultures they entered were not their enemies, but places where they healed the sick, and spread the Good News. What motivated the monk, and was commended to the disciples, was a trust in God which extended beyond suffering and death. For this trust alone, rather than concern for self-protection, could draw them into the life-giving service which changes lives.

I fear we see something rather different in the way we operate today in our Church. Over the last few years particularly, we have seemed pre-occupied with self-protection. We want to ensure that our views are safeguarded, our ways are heeded, and our power exerted. We become defensive in response both to secular culture, and to differences within the church itself. We are highly sensitive to being marginalised, unfairly treated, or wrongly perceived. We quickly feel persecuted or disregarded and respond defensively towards critics outside the church and to each other within it.

I can understand why Christians become defensive. There are forces in our world that oppose the Gospel and would love to see its power eliminated. But, surely, this is where trust in God must replace defensiveness. We need wisdom and maturity to respond. Especially within the church, trusting God enables us to listen to those who disagree, and look for ways of working together. We might even be able to acknowledge that though we do not get our way, God’s will could yet be being done.  But when we develop a siege mentality, we end the conversation and draw to a swift separation. This can harm our culture, but it is even more harmful within our Church. When we pull up the drawbridge, batten down the hatches, or retreat to the trenches we see other believers as those we need to be protected from, rather than brothers and sisters who love God and are called to love each other in God’s service.

Perhaps we need to gain more insight from the way in which Jesus refused to be drawn into self-protection. The Gospels record how he didn’t allow his family to protect him from the crowds; he overruled his disciples who wanted to protect him from the dangers ahead in Jerusalem and rebuked Peter who tried to protect him from arrest by violence. Everything about Christ speaks of vulnerability and trust in God, even to the point of crucifixion. It’s an enormous challenge to follow Christ, but even more challenging when we set off in the wrong direction.

 

 

Filed Under: Church Times