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Jesus Christ.

An earthquake in China has killed almost 9,000 people, as of an hour ago. That number is obviously likely to climb.

This of course follows on the heels of the the cyclone in Myanmar that has officially killed 32,000 people, with total death toll estimates in the range of 60,000 to 100,000. And then there’s the far, far (far) less extreme but closer to home and still tragic case of deadly tornadoes in Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia.

I’m willing to place some money on opportunist “religious” folk using these unimaginable events as some kind of vehicle to condemn abortion and gay rights (but already too nauseous to verify if it has happened). But even my rational atheist self is pretty damn freaked out by this happening all at once. And perhaps rightly so. I’m no scientist and don’t pretend to be, but I don’t quite believe that global warming had no hand in any of these natural disasters.

Quite honestly, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if there is anything to say in the face of so many lives lost. There perhaps will be as there are further developments. This will not go away overnight, and there are likely to be ramifications for many years. In many areas, there will be poverty, hunger, homelessness and violence. In Myanmar, all of this has begun or is strongly anticipated. And in addition to caring for the simple reason of our shared humanity, as feminists we know that when natural disasters strike, women suffer the most, in addition to children and those who are the most economically disadvantaged

The American Red Cross has been helping in Myanmar, and I can only assume that aid is on the way to China. You can make a donation to the International Response Fund through their website. If you would like to specify where you would like the funds to go — for instance, if you want your donation to go specifically to the Myanmar crisis — you will have to make your donation to Red Cross over the telephone at 1-800-HELP-NOW.

If you know of other/better charities or ways to help, please let me know and I will add them to the post.

[Photo of earthquake wreckage in China via National Geographic.]

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This greatly pleases me: a Hong Kong man who posted sex videos of his ex-girlfriend online without her consent could face jail time.

A jilted Hong Kong boyfriend who posted video clips on the internet of his ex-lover having sex with him was warned on Monday that he could face jail.

Lee Wing-fung, 29, uploaded nude photos and video clips in an act of revenge when his former girlfriend refused to get back together with him.

He was sentenced to 240 hours community service in September after admitting criminal intimation and publishing indecent material.

However, the prosecution claims the sentence was too lenient and is now seeking a jail sentence for Lee.

It says the fact that he threatened the woman beforehand and published her name and work address with the video clips deserves a jail sentence of at least 12 months.

In the earlier hearing, the defence claimed Lee resorted to the action because he was devastated when his girlfriend ended their three-year relationship.

A true threat of punishment for such an action isn’t exactly one that you see often, even if the practice itself is becoming more and more common. We’ve long had people who steal and release homemade sex videos by celebrities. Then came the camera phone phenomenon of taking pictures up women’s skirts and posting them online or passing them around to friends. Now, the practice of posting sex videos without one person’s consent has increased, with the success of sites like xTube and YouPorn. For those who don’t know, these sites are the YouTube of porn — anyone can upload videos to the site, so long as they own the copyright to the material. They are designed specifically for amateur porn, and though the sites have a rule that the consent of all participating parties in the video must be obtained to legally publish it, there isn’t exactly any way to enforce such a requirement.

Though I’m sure that this kind of thing has happened to men as well, with straight men being the primary consumers of porn, women are mostly the ones getting screwed over. No matter how much a woman is comfortable and unashamed of her sexuality, as a general rule, she still wouldn’t want images of herself engaging in a sexual act available for anyone to see — particularly without her consent. Beyond simple modesty concerns, this is a highly rational worry, seeing as how one’s entire career can be unfairly jeopardized for even the most benign photographs (of course, it’s also a huge violation of personal and sexual rights).

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No, really, I swear this time: I have no idea what to say.

*sputters something incoherent about racism, colonialism & sexism*

. . .

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An Indian TV station has done a bit of investigative journalism following a big ketamine drug bust, and found that pharmacists will dispense ketamine over the counter. For those of you who don’t know, in addition to ketamine being used as a recreational drug, it is also one of the most common “date rape drugs.” And no, it’s not supposed to be sold without a prescription.

Now, in all fairness, I know nothing about how reputable this news source’s stories generally are. The story strikes me as being written in the same kind of over-sensationalized style that “consumer affairs” shows have, and since those kinds of stories are often exaggerated I always take them with a grain of salt. Also, the station only mentions having visited one pharmacy. Certainly, it is significant if the first pharmacy they visited sold the drug over the counter, but the logical thing to do would go to other pharmacies and make sure that it wasn’t a fluke (and of course report any that do sell the drug).

I wasn’t able to find any information on the prevalence of rapes in India that are facilitated by the so-called “date rape drugs,” though a lot of articles on the subject being published within the past couple of years suggests that it may be on the rise, and more than one referred to the drugs as being “popular” in this context. Also, Mumbai is the most populous city in the world. This means a couple of things: that if these drugs are being used to facilitate rape, there are a lot of women in danger, and a problem that could be considered statistically “small” in Mumbai could potentially be considered a major issue by more general standards. Without claiming a pandemic when there’s no evidence of one, all of this certainly is enough to freak me out big time.

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I will own up to the fact that I initially chuckled a little bit at the absurdity of this headline: China to stop arresting women for carrying condoms (h/t KaeLyn). But in truth, it’s no laughing matter.

Chinese police are to stop arresting women who carry condoms, traditionally seen as evidence of prostitution, in an effort to help curb the spread of AIDS, state press said Friday.

Despite efforts to stop the practice, women in China are still being sent to labor camps for prostitution offences merely because they were carrying condoms when detained by police, the report said, quoting an expert.

“We have investigated many education-through-labor camps and we have found that for those sentenced for prostitution, the sole evidence was that they possessed condoms,” Xinhua quoted the unnamed expert as telling an AIDS conference here.

That’s right — arresting women and sending them to labor camps simply because they were carrying condoms. No actual evidence of prostitution needed (of course, I wouldn’t support the government arresting actual sex workers and sending them to labor camps, either). And the men, I presume, are good to go. But that isn’t even the really interesting part:

The comment appeared to contradict remarks by Han Mengjie, a senior official at the cabinet-level AIDS prevention office, who was quoted by Xinhua as saying a campaign to end the practice was put in place as early as in 2001.

“In 2001, the propaganda bureau and the police issued a joint directive that as for the use of condoms, they would not be considered evidence,” said Han.

“As far as I know, since we started our AIDS awareness campaign and consulted with the police ministry, police throughout China have stopped using condoms as evidence.”

. . . Police in China enjoy extraordinary powers to deal with minor crime, and are allowed to convict and sentence suspects to up to two years in labor camps, without trial.

Firstly, I gather (and someone correct me if I’m wrong) that if government agencies are contradicting each other over what types of “evidence” they’re using, there couldn’t have possibly ever been an actual law against women carrying condoms. That law in itself would be a travesty, of course, but it’s even more horrid to arrest women without even informing them that what they’re doing is a “crime,” beforehand.

Secondly, it apparently wouldn’t even need to be a law, since police can detain people in labor camps for up to two years without a trial.

I don’t know what the hell to make of this. Misogyny? Extreme abuse of authoritarian power? My best guess is a combination of the two. It would be interesting to know how they choose to stop women — my money is on appearance-profiling alone. As China becomes increasingly urbanized, and as urban-dwellers become more financially successful, one has to imagine that women exercising sexual freedom would start to follow — and of course, the Chinese government strongly discourages reproduction, anyway. You think they’d love this sort of thing (but yeah, I know — women shouldn’t have sex and not have babies, they should just not have sex at all). In any case, I’m sure that quite a few of these urban successful women carry condoms — and yet I can’t quite see them being “mistaken” for prostitutes, stopped by police and whisked off to a labor camp.

So, my fellow Americans, this is indeed the country whose ass we’re kissing as though our lives (instead of just our economic future) depends on it. The more powerful they become, I imagine the more that disturbing shit like this will come to light.

But on second thought . . . detaining people at the whim of the government for extended periods, under completely fabricated charges and without a trial? Hmm, maybe our governments’ values aren’t so different, after all.

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A very sad article at the NY Times about how young female victims of sex trafficking are at an extremely high risk for HIV got even sadder when I saw the accompanying language.

Adding another bleak dimension to the sordid world of sex slavery, young girls who have been trafficked abroad into prostitution are emerging as an AIDS risk factor in their home countries, according to a study being released today.

Girls who were forced into prostitution before age 15 and girls traded between brothels were particularly likely to be infected, the study found. Shunned by their families and villages on their return, they sometimes end up selling themselves again, increasing the risk.

The study, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, concerns girls from Nepal trafficked into bordellos in India, but the problem is also emerging elsewhere, said the lead author, Jay G. Silverman, a professor of human development at Harvard’s School of Public Health.

Girls from China’s Yunnan Province sold to Southeast Asian brothels, Iraqi girls from refugee camps in Syria and Jordan, and Afghan girls driven into Iran or Pakistan all appear to be victims of the same pattern, he said, and are presumably contributing to the H.I.V. outbreaks in southern China, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Yes, that’s right: the girls are to blame for the HIV outbreaks.

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Here’s a great article about the the personal stories of sex slaves (”comfort women”) held by Japan during WWII.

At the age of 81, stooped and frail, Lin Yanjin is one of the last remaining witnesses to the truth about Japan’s wartime sex slaves.

For five months in 1943, she was raped every day by Japanese soldiers who occupied the Chinese island of Hainan. She remembers the beatings and cigarette burns that left her swollen and in constant pain. She was 17 years old.

Only 47 “comfort women” survivors are still alive and willing to tell their story of sexual slavery and repeated rape by hundreds, if not thousands of Japanese and Allied soldiers. Up to 50 soldiers raped the same individual slave each day.

Speaking out has become increasingly important to many victims, due to the repeated denial by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that these women were forced into the roles as sexual slaves. He instead prefers to characterize them as willing and consenting prostitutes.

I can only commend and thank these brave women for speaking out and sharing their stories.  I hope that their campaign for awareness will not be in vain. They deserve, at the very least, to receive public recognition and an apology in their lifetimes.

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I’ve written here before about the forced birth control and abortions taking place in China. Now, here’s a tiny bit of good news on the matter. Thanks to a Federal Appeals Court ruling yesterday, Chinese women who had forced abortions can seek asylum in the U.S..

Courts previously have allowed victims of forced sterilization to seek asylum here. On Wednesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the same protection should be given to victims of forced abortions and their spouses.

“Both forms of persecution have serious, ongoing effects,” the three-judge panel wrote in its unanimous decision. “We see no way to distinguish between the victims of forced sterilization and the victims of forced abortion for withholding of removal eligibility purposes.”

The San Francisco-based court made that determination when it ruled that Zi Zhi Tang can remain in the United States because the court found that Chinese officials forced his wife to undergo an abortion in 1980 because the couple wasn’t married.

Obviously, this doesn’t even constitute so much as a band aid over the Chinese population control and forced fertility control issues. Every woman who is forced into this situation will not be able to seek asylum in the U.S. I imagine that few will, and that if many try, the ruling will eventually end up being overturned. And after all, the entire point is that we need to prevent forced abortions, not try to “make it up” to the women once they’ve had them.

However, I’m happy to see that finally, our courts are starting to realize that gendered violence and oppression is in fact equally as harmful and widespread (if not more so) as violence and oppression directed due to race, religion or political beliefs. This is a constant struggle in our legal system, and it is appalling.

So, while clearly recognizing the limited practical scope of such a decision, we do need to stand up and applaud the symbolism and precedent that this ruling sets, and hope that it will be a continued one.

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In my twisted mind, this seemed appropriate for Memorial Day:

AlterNet has a great piece up about new recent finding that 29% of incarcerated veterans are in on rape or sexual assault charges, which means that they are twice as likely to be incarcerated for that reason than non veterans. Why? Here’s one insightful answer:

Sexual violence has been a de facto weapon of war since the beginning of the patriarchal age. Raping and assaulting women is seen as a way to attack the honor of the enemy, and women have always been the spoils of war. The result is that many types of violence against women are exacerbated by militarism, including the indirect effects on civilian populations both during hostilities and after the conflict ends and soldiers go home.

. . .

Examples are not hard to find. Before and during WWII, the Japanese enslaved as many as 200,000 “comfort” women, and after the defeat of the Japanese, the United States continued to use tens of thousands of Japanese women as sex slaves. During the 1990s more than 5,000 women were trafficked into South Korea primarily to work as “entertainers” near U.S. military bases. Hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, frequently for the purpose of ethnic cleansing in countries such as Bosnia, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Amen. Read the whole piece. It’s short, but spot-on. I will be up-front and say that I have a lot of problems with the military, but I definitely believe that teaching people to kill will devalue humanity. If those that we teach to kill are predominantly male, if they grow up in a patriarchal culture where they are taught that women are not worth much anyway, if the people who are teaching them to kill purposely exclude women and create an environment that encourages pornography and prostitution, women are going to be at the top of the list of the devalued.

Notice that rape cultures seem to exist mostly in strongly in all-male, patriarchal, hyper-masculine organizations. Fraternities. Sports teams. And yes, the military. Get a bunch of men together, teach them about how important masculinity is and that they are meant to devalue anything feminine and be aggressive? You’ve got yourself a recipe for rape.

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Over the past several days, there has been rioting in southwest China over forced birth control measures. Though China has had a One Child Policy in place for a long time, they have recently been enforcing particularly strict measures.

The violence appeared to stem from a two-month-long crackdown in Guangxi to punish people who violated the country’s birth control policy. The policy limits the number of children families can have legally.

. . .

According to villagers and witness accounts posted on the Internet, officials in several parts of Guangxi mobilized their largest effort in years to roll back population growth by instituting mandatory health checks for women and forcing pregnant women who did not have approval to give birth to abort fetuses.

Several people said officials also slapped fines starting at 500 yuan and ranging as high as 70,000 yuan, or $65 to $9,000, on families that had violated birth control measures anytime since 1980. The new tax, called a “social child-raising fee,” was collected even though the vast majority of violators had already paid fines in the past, the people said.

According to an account published on a Web forum called Longtan, officials in Bobai County of Guangxi boasted that they had collected 7.8 million yuan in social child-raising fees from February through the end of April.

Many families objected strongly to the fees and refused to pay.

Witnesses said in such cases villagers were detained, their homes searched, and valuables, including electronic items and motorcycles, confiscated by the government.

I in no way condone murder or other physical attacks, but no wonder they’re rioting.

I understand the need for China to curb their population growth. It’s a problem. I don’t have an answer (I wish that I did), but I do know one thing: forced birth control measures do not work. Not only that, they are high, atrociously immoral.

As members of the reproductive rights movement, we need to recognize this. It’s long overdue. The pro-choice movement has a really ugly history of ignoring and in some cases supporting the highly racist and abhorrent forced sterilization of women of color. It’s something that many white reproductive rights activists are unaware of or do not like to discuss. It’s not pretty. But we have to face the difficult duty of confronting it if we can ever move past it.

We cannot, therefore, in good conscious support or ignore the forced birth control policies of other nations– particularly if we are going to support abortion rights in other countries. Reproductive rights (and in this case, reproductive justice might be a better term) is not only about the right to not bear children– we also must fight for the right to bear children. Historically, white activists have not faced this challenge. But women of color always have. If we ever want to see the existence of real reproductive freedom, we need to recognize and raise our voices about this issue just as strongly as we do when it comes to abortion and access to birth control.

American women of color never should have faced forced sterilization or any other coercive birth control method. And Chinese women certainly should not have their money and possessions stolen from them because they dared to use their uteruses.

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A college in China has been found to force new students to undergo pregnancy tests. Want to guess what happens if they test positive?

The college in Urumqi, capital of the far western region of Xinjiang, had tested new students for several years and would ask those who tested positive to leave, the Beijing News said, citing students.

“We are a closed boarding school. Every year we ask new students to take routine health checks. The pregnancy tests are just a part of that. This is a duty toward the students and families,” the paper quoted an unnamed school official as saying.

The school, where girls aged 17 and 18 comprise 70 to 80 percent of new spring semester students, gathered “whole classes” of girls into a hall to pass urine samples on to doctors, the paper said.

. . .

“It’s a big loss of face to be tested pregnant,” student Xiao Ping said.

No book learnin’ for the impure, I guess.

Also, Yahoo! and/or Reuters (who makes the decision?) filed this story under the “Odd News” section. Not under “World” or “Health”– no, the section where they keep stories about crazy animals and stupid criminals. Though that shouldn’t come as a big surprise (what do you think I was doing looking at the odd news?). Hehe. Discriminatory, sexist, privacy violations are always so cute, don’t you think?

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