In Western Australia, Aboriginal women go to prison for unpaid fines

January 7, 2019 by 62 Comments

What’s it called when a force seizes women of color and holds them hostage until they, or someone else, pays for their release? Kidnapping? Trafficking? Slavery? In Western Australia, as elsewhere, it’s called criminal justice, and it targets Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Debbie Kilroy, Executive Director of Sisters Inside, decided that enough was already way too much, and so this past Saturday she organized a GoFundMe campaign to bail out one hundred single Aboriginal mothers. While the effort is terrific, why are women, and particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women still being held hostage by the State?

Here’s Debbie Kilroy’s plea: “Western Australia’s response to poverty and homelessness is imprisonment. Western Australia refuses to change the laws where people who have no criminal convictions are imprisoned if they do not have the capacity to pay a fine.  People are languishing in prison for not being able to pay their fines.  Single Aboriginal mothers make up the majority of those in prison who do not have the capacity to pay fines. They are living in absolute poverty and cannot afford food and shelter for their children let alone pay a fine. They will never have the financial capacity to pay a fine.  So we want to raise $99,000.00 to have at least 100 single Aboriginal mothers freed from prison and have warrants vacated.  If you can financially assist this movement it would be greatly appreciated.  The funds will only be used to release people from prison.”

In August 2014, a 22-year-old Aboriginal woman, called Ms. Dhu, died in custody in Western Australia. She was being held for unpaid parking fines. Ms. Dhu complained, some say screamed and begged, of intense pains. She was sent to hospital twice and returned, untreated, to the jail. On her third trip to the hospital, she died, in the emergency room, within 20 minutes. It is reported that she never saw a doctor. Her grandmother says she “had broken ribs, bleeding on the lungs and was in excruciating pain.”Ms. Dhu was murdered by State systems of accounting. She was in jail for $3,622 in unpaid fines. The jail staff and the hospital staff decided she wasn’t worth believing or treating. She wasn’t worth the bother, and so Ms. Dhu died and remains dead. No amount of accounting will bring her justice. Her family and community are left to struggle with the State systems of accounting that value their lives as beneath assessment. What does justice for Ms. Dhu mean today?

Ms. Dhu’s case has become the standard by which we mark the incarceration of Indigenous women in Australia, but that doesn’t mean things have improved. A year ago, Human Rights Watch reported“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison are the fastest growing prison population, and 21 times more likely to be incarcerated than non-indigenous peers.” While the report was perfectly accurate, it was also perfectly redundant, given that it reiterated issues came up in major reports published in  2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017. Last month, reporters Hayley Gleeson and Julia Baird wondered, “Why are our prisons full of domestic violence victims?” 

Women, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, end up in prison for unpaid fines. Women suffering domestic violence call the police, and, if they have unpaid fines, the police come … and take the women to prison, as happened to a 35-year-old Noongar woman in September 2017. In what world does that make sense? In our world.

In Australia, rates of incarceration are increasing regularly, and women’s rates of incarceration far outnumber the rates for men. Why? Explanations include criminalization of women’s homelessness, women’s mental illness, women’s addictions, women’s poverty, women’s health. The bottom line is women. Cash bail systems and prison for unpaid fine systems are just another weapon in the State war on women. While Western Australia is the only state in Australia that imprisons people for unpaid fines, the issue is mass and hyper incarceration. As Debbie Kilroy noted, “The wheels are just turning so slowly. This is a priority for many Australians across the country, it’s not just a West Australian issue. It’s nice to say we will get draft legislation in six months but come on.”

We don’t need another report. We need action, and not only in Australia. If you can, consider donating to Debbie Kilroy’s FreeThePeople campaign, here. Whether you do or not, remember the women, around the world, who call the people because they are being abused and end up in prison. It’s way past time to shut that system down. Come on.

 

(Infographic Credit: ABC)

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It’s not me, it’s you: Breaking up with neoliberal capitalism in search of radical self-care feminism

January 3, 2019 by 1 Comment

In the twenty-first century of neoliberal capitalism, the question – “will I ever be good enough?” – wrings through the minds of millions of women and girls as they stare in the mirror. The answer to this question is no, you will never be good enough in the eyes of neoliberal capitalism. 

While this reality may prove depressing at first glance, when one starts to examine the strategic ways that neoliberal capitalism works to undermine individual self-confidence for the sake of profit, one sees the fallacy of such a question from the start. Unlike your mom, who may reassure you that you are “perfect just the way you are,” the money-mongering nature of neoliberal consumerism will always have a problem with who you are, how you look and what choices you make. Don’t feel bad, you’re not alone; no one is good enough. 

In We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl®, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement, Andy Zeisler, one of the founding members of the feminist magazine Bitch, works to demystify the aura of neoliberal capitalism and its subsequent effects of feminism. Zeisler describes what many view as “white-feminism” or “feel-good feminism” in this neoliberal age with a new label: marketplace feminism. 

Marketplace feminism is a particularly modern form of capitalist feminism that places women’s empowerment in the realm of consumer choice; The freedom of choice is seen as equivalent to gender equity. 

Yet the insidious nature of intersecting feminism with marketplace consumerism leaves poor, disabled and minority women of color especially at risk of abjection. Even for those women who can “afford” this type of feminism “the business of marketing and selling to women literally depends on creating and then addressing female insecurity”.

In a system set up for you to constantly fail, we must rid ourselves of self-scrutiny that places the blame on individual selves and instead study the ways in which institutional systems work to create barriers to our feminist realizations. 

In the eyes of progressively radical, anti-capitalist feminism, you have always been good enough, strong enough and beautiful enough, and you always will be. It’s time to stop internalizing the hateful messages of marketplace feminism that tell you you’ll never be good enough. It’s time to break up with neoliberal capitalism once and for all and start your journey towards radical self-care feminism.

 

(Image Credit: Medium)

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2019 is a time to reflect on who we are and who we want to be

January 2, 2019 by Leave a Comment

2018 was long. We should be prepared for 2019 to be as long and as arduous as the year before it. 

Unlike previous years, the year felt like it dragged on, a permanent fixture with all the malice, corruption and absolute worst of humankind coming out of the woodwork to capitalize and exploit, and then run off to the shadows when their feet were put to the fire. Stories of children being separated from their parents, gassed at the border, and dying from callous disregard by border patrol ended a year that presented our ability to ignore inhumanity and injustice for the sake of our own comfort. The government shutdown and the furloughing of federal employees into the unknown for a symbol of our racism and distrust of migrants seems to be the icing on a white supremacist cake. 

Women and girls coming out of the shadows to tell stories of the abuse and harassment that they faced at the hands of powerful men were met with ridicule and mistrust, even when they had nothing to gain from speaking up and speaking out. 

Then there’s the shadow of impending climate disasters, brought on by our own greed and desire to want more, hoard more, without a care to the destruction it will bring to other forms of life, to our children and our children’s children. They will inherit this world, and they will demand answers as to why we’ve given them a proverbial dumpster fire. We have caused the extinction of species of animals; as well as deforestation and despoliation of our waters and oceans. This has led to the displacement of large numbers of people whose lands and homeshave become uninhabitable. 

Today and every day this year there will be children who have no food to eat and will be blamed for their hunger. There will be parents who cannot afford to give their children proper medical care in this country. There will be Black boys and girls being talked to about the very real threat of having to interact with police officers that doesn’t end in their deaths. There will be girls as young as 9 being ogled at by grown men because their bodies have not been, and will never be, their own. 

This is not a condemnation nor a call for throwing in the towel or waving the white flag of surrender because things cannot change. It is a call to understand and reflect on what we can do in the upcoming year to change these consequences. To change the outcomes of our destinies as we slowly but surely head into the abyss. It means using our privilege to fight an unjust system that exploits marginalized communities. It means not just marching at permit approved protests but holding elected officials accountable as new elections come into play. It means putting bodies on the line in acts of civil disobedience, even it is hard to break the conditioning that being arrested falls in line with being bad. It means laughing and solidarity between groups where has been no companionship before. It means building power from grassroots, from bottom-up. Nothing will continue to be done when we hope for changes coming from top-down.  

These are our legacies as we head into 2019. They are not pretty, they are not happy; they are the truth of what the next year will bring to us. For we cannot look to our future if we do not understand the consequences of our actions in the past.

 

(Photo Credit: Bored Panda)

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Between Amal Fathy and Dafne McPherson Veloz, we see our terrestrial globe multiplied endlessly

December 31, 2018 by 18 Comments

Dafne McPherson Veloz

“I saw in a closet in Alkmaar a terrestrial globe between two mirrors that multiplied it endlessly.” (Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph”)

This year, the Mediterranean, the graveyard of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, the graveyard built by so-called democratic nation-States, spread across the entire globe, from the borderlands of the United States to the killing fields of the Occupied Palestinian Territories to the factories of India to the primary schools of South Africa to the garbage dumps of Mozambique to the houses where domestic workers live and work, in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and beyond. It’s not only that the world proliferated in toxic and lethal sites for more and more women, children, and men, but also that the capacity for concern and active caring declined. States of abandonment yearn to produce a globe of abandonment. The glue that holds that dreamt globe together is confinement: prisons, jails, immigrant detention centers, juvenile detention centers, accompanied by an increased use and greater proliferation of solitary confinement. Additionally, there are seclusion rooms, in schools and hospitals. This is our terrestrial globe, and, at the end of this year, it spins between two mirrors: Amal Fathy, in Egypt, and Dafne McPherson Veloz, in Mexico.

Amal Fathy is a widely known women’s rights defender in Egypt. On May 9, Amal Fathy posted a video on Facebook in which she described an incident of sexual harassment and criticized the government for refusing to address sexual harassment of women. Amal Fathy, her husband and their three-year-old child were taken into police custody. Her husband and child were released. Amal Fathy was held. The next day she was transferred to Qanater Women’s Prison. Since then Amal Fathy has been in so-called preventive detention. Her health has deteriorated. Four months after her initial arrest, Amal Fathy was convicted of “spreading fake news that harms national security.” She was also charged with membership in a terrorist organization. Fathy appealed the decision, was told that if she posted bail she could leave prison, posted bail, and then was told she could not leave prison because she was being charged as well as a terrorist. Amal Fathy was sentenced to two years in prison. Last Thursday, Amal Fathy was released on probation. Yesterday, Sunday, the appeals court approved the two-year prison sentence, and so Amal Fathy faces returning to prison.

Dafne McPherson Veloz was not a well-known person. In 2015, she worked in department store. She was the mother of a three-year-old child. One day, Dafne McPherson Veloz felt abdominal pains. They grew severe. She went to the restroom. The pains persisted. Finally, to her great surprise, Dafne McPherson Veloz gave birth to a child, who subsequently died of asphyxiation. Dafne McPherson Veloz went into shock and fainted in the bathroom. Immediately afterwards, she was charged with homicide. Dafne McPherson Veloz was convicted of that crime and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Dafne McPherson Veloz has spent three years behind bars. From the outset, she maintained her innocence. Doctors say she suffered from hypothyroidism, the symptoms of which masked the pregnancy. Although Dafne McPherson Veloz went to the doctors, none mentioned that she was or might be pregnant. Dafne McPherson Veloz and her attorneys have argued consistently that her trial was improper, both because of inadequate evidence and because the judge relied on “stereotypes” of how a woman, a “good mother”, should live. In other words, Dafne McPherson Veloz “should have known” she was pregnant and so she is guilty of murder. After three years, Dafne McPherson Veloz’s request for an appeal has been heard; her case will be heard January 21, 2019.

Two young women, Dafne McPherson Veloz and Amal Fathy, stare at each other and see themselves, multiplied endlessly.  They see women refusing to accept the globe of abandonment as inevitable. Patriarchy, and prisons, will attempt to expand, but women are resisting, in small and enormous ways. Tomorrow starts a new year of struggle and hope, however difficult, abounding. One must imagine Dafne McPherson Veloz and Amal Fathy happy.

Amal Fathy

 

(Photo Credit 1: El Sol de San Juan / Miriam Martinez) (Photo Credit 2: Amnesty)

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What are you worth (children of Valhalla Park)

December 28, 2018 by Leave a Comment

What are you worth (children of Valhalla Park)

Valhalla – the palace of immortality
in Scandinavian mythology –
where rests souls of heroes slain
and there are statues and the like 
to the memory of illustrious individuals

What are you worth
children of Valhalla Park 
(might some even say
children of a lesser)

I know folks out there 
a computer literate mother 
of many offspring who 
I’ve not seen for a while

(how might they be
are they on the straight
and the narrow path
are they safe there)

What are you worth
children of Valhalla Park 
and the immediate surrounds
of your fertile growing minds

Are you worth more
or less than the biologically 
blue-eyed and blonde souls
wherever they find themselves

Are you worth more
than your counterparts
in the Palestines Yemens Syrias
of our globalized earth-ghetto

(what of the girl-child
forever at the bottom 
of the feeding queue
voting fodder cannon fodder
for politicians and spokesmen)

What are you worth
children of Valhalla Park 

What are you worth children 
anywhere and everywhere

Penned after a social media condemnation of the recent slaying of children in the area.

 

(Photo Credit: Voice of the Cape)

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Children are being abused in immigration facilities where there is neither justice nor accountability

December 27, 2018 by Leave a Comment

In July, ProPublica’s investigation of the conditions of immigrant youth shelters found a disturbing number of incidences of sexual abuse in multiple shelters around the United States. Within the past five years, police have responded to 125 calls reporting sex offences at shelters that solely serve immigrant children. Those numbers don’t include the additional 200 calls from more than a dozen shelters that care for at-risk youth. For children who are already facing obstacles, taking the dangerous trek crossing the border with or without their parents, the incidences of being abused by other residents and staff members is continuous traumatization. These children’s centers have received nearly $4.5 billion for housing and other services since the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America in 2014. The high-profile incidents, where staff and residents have acted as predators, have led to arrests. One of the more heinous reports include a youth case worker who was convicted of molesting seven boys over nearly a year at an Arizona, having worked for months without a full background check. 

Substantial changes to protect children or investigate incidences at the shelters have been slow to address the issues in the shelters, to the point of gross negligence.

Late last month, investigators warned that the Trump administration had waived FBI fingerprint background checks of staffers and had allowed dangerously few mental health counselors at a tent camp housing 2800 migrant children in Tornillo, Texas. More recent reports suggest that investigations into reports by migrant children are opened and closed, within alarming speeds. Often within days, or even worse, hours. 

In one incident, a 13-year old named Alex was housed in Boystown, outside Miami. Alex was assaulted by other residents of the facility. After a few days of harassment by the perpetrators, Alex reported the assault to his counselor: “The counselor told him that a surveillance tape had captured the teenagers dragging him by his hands and feet into a room, and that there might have been a witness. But Alex’s report did not trigger a child sexual assault investigation, including a specialized interview designed to help children talk about what happened, as child abuse experts recommend. Instead, the shelter waited nearly a month to call the police. When it finally did, a police report shows, the shelter’s lead mental health counselor told the officers ‘the incident was settled, and no sexual crime occurred between the boys like first was thought among the staff.’ And instead of investigating the incident themselves, officers with the Miami-Dade Police Department took the counselor’s word for it and quickly closed the case, never interviewing Alex.” 

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Miami reported that it had handled the boy’s case correctly and blamed Alex for the delays. The Archdiocese has received $6 million in Miami just last year to care for 80 children at Boystown. 

Many obstacles are put into place to stop children like Alex from speaking about their assaults. Children are intimidated by their attackers from coming forward, especially if that attacker is a staff member. Staffers at immigrant shelters report or conduct investigations, if at all, at a snail’s pace. Finally, many youth and their families fear reporting to the police, for fear of arrest and deportation. 

Alex’s mother, Yojana, enraged that it had taken nearly three weeks to hear of the incident from staff, immediately wanted to go to the police and demand accountability from the shelter and the attackers, but her status as undocumented made her fearful of retaliation and arrest from ICE. As ICE agents have been arresting parents and family members, or members of their household when they come forward to claim their children — 170 sponsors or people connected to them have been arrested and 109 of those people had no prior criminal record — Yojana and her husband Jairo’s fear of being detained was legitimate. Alex feared his report would delay his release from the center. 

Youth immigrant shelters have received large sums of money from the federal government to take care of children separated from their parents or detained because they came into the country as unaccompanied minors. When those children are hurt or abused while in those shelters, it is this country’s fault, the fault of the citizens who ignore and vilify those same children and their families. It is the non-profit’s fault for taking their money and not investing it in the care of children who are housed and waiting to go to their parents or guardians. The fault lies in the current administration and previous administration who caused the crises in Central America and now refuse to come to terms with the consequences of their actions in creating large populations of asylum seekers.

 

(Image Credit: ProPublica / Hokyoung Kim)

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Born, not in a manger, but in a prison cell or to a woman whose legs were shackled

December 25, 2018 by Leave a Comment

The year ends with a childbirth in New York in which the mother, Jane Doe, was shackled, even though New York law prohibits that, and the report of a childbirth in Western Australia where the mother was thrown into a cell and left, alone, to give birth, alone. In one instance, those who came arrived with chains; in the other, no one came at all. For the past few years, we’ve followed and shared the stories of those born, not in a manger, but rather in solitary confinement or in a prison cell and those born to women whose legs were shackled. Today’s a good day to remember those, and so, without further ado …

Let’s talk of those women who were thrown into cells, alone, to give birth.

Texas’ Minimum Security Death Row for Women:  In 2013, in Texas, Autumn Miller was force to give birth to Gracie Miller in a holding cell toilet. Guards then rushed in, shackled and handcuffed the mother, and took mother and daughter to the hospital. Gracie died four days later, in her shackled mother’s handcuffed arms.

How many women are forced to give birth in solitary confinement?: In 2014, Nicole Guerrerofiled a lawsuit against the Wichita County Jail, in Texas, and others for having forced her to give birth in solitary. The baby died. It’s a terrible story, and it’s an increasingly common one.

In England, women in prison give birth without midwife. Who cares?: In November 2018, a report detailed the conditions of childbirth in England’s prisons. The study centered on Layla who was forced to give birth without any care, 

In Western Australia, Bandyup Women’s Prison is still (akin to) torture: In December 2018, the Inspector of Custodial Services for Western Australia released a report that focused on the experiences of Amy, an Indigenous woman who was forced to give birth, alone, in a prison cell.

In each instance, the women – Autumn Miller; Nicole Guerrero; Layla; Amy – said they were in labor, and in each instance, the staff disbelieved and did nothing … or worse.

Let’s talk about shackling women in childbirth:

Women prisoners haunt the modern era: Our journey begins in 2009, when New York State passed the anti-shackling Bill S01290A, which “prohibits the use of any restraints during labor”. Remember that, and remember that it was 2009.

Did Mother’s Day end early this year?: In 2010, Pennsylvania passed its own anti-shackling law. In 2014, pregnant women prisoners were still being shackled, routinely, including during childbirth.

In New York, Jane Doe was shackled in childbirth, despite New York’s anti-shackling laws: And finally, just this month, “Jane Doe” sued the NYPD because, earlier in the year, they had insisted on shackling her, in childbirth, despite the prohibition on such shackling since 2009.

So, where is that shining star, the one that will lead us to healthy childbirths for all, irrespective of status and location? States are passing anti-shackling laws:

Shackling the birthing, dead and dying: All in a day’s work: In 2014, Nevada outlawed shackling women in childbirth, thanks largely to Valorie Nabors, who had been incarcerated in the at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center and refused to accept the shackling she had undergone as inevitable or acceptable.

In January 2014, Maryland passed the Healthy Births for Incarcerated Women Act. In February 2014, Massachusetts stopped shackling women in childbirth. In March 2018, North Carolina stoped shackling women in childbirth.

The news has been difficult … and partial. Jails are largely opaque and seldom report the conditions of childbirth. Immigration detention centers are worse. When laws are passed, as in New York and Pennsylvania, constant monitoring and intervention is needed. But for now, let us thank the wise women and their supporters who campaign tirelessly for the dignity of women … everywhere. The struggle continues.

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Where is the emotion? Using stories as vehicles for liberation

December 24, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Stories are powerful tools to remembering the history of oppression as they illuminate emotions that convey larger themes of structural inequities. In South Africa, storytelling is cultural tradition that allows the rich past of South Africa to be passed down through generations. In a country, whose history is colored by the violent systems put in place by apartheid and colonialism, stories are a necessary tool to resistance as their emotional power inspires individuals to work to envision a more just future. However, the lasting legacy of apartheid and colonialism is working to erase certain stories by censoring them. 

In February 2018, the film, Inxeba, was banned by the South Africa’s film appeal tribunal. The film tells the story of the relationship between two men who meet during a traditional initiation rite in the mountains of the Eastern Cape. The tribunal critiqued the film’s scenes of gay sex as having no artistic value, and that they could “increase tensions in society”. Protestors claim that the ban is homophobic, unconstitutional and a way to perpetuate toxic masculinity in South African culture. While it is imperative to reflect on what the censorship of Inxebameans for queer men, it is also essential to reflect on what it means for South African women. This censorship supports the toxic masculinity that not only perpetuates violence against queer men but also against women. About one in five women in South Africahave experienced physical violence, and 40% of South African women have experience some form of sexual violence. What does it mean for the safety of oppressed people in South Africa if a story about love and tenderness that combats toxic masculinity is erased? 

These stories are not only erased through film censorship but also through global social media platforms. In December 2017, about 200 young girls marched through the streets of Johannesburg to demand that Google and Facebook respect African culture. The platforms continuously remove cultural images and videos that feature bare-breasted women. Lazi Dlamini, the organizer of the march, explained, “These are Africans celebrating their culture. Google and Facebook must respect us because they are operating in an African land”. Social media is an important platform for stories to be heard and shared globally. The censorship of African bodies by western social media platforms demonstrates how pervasive colonialism is, as oppressive structures adapt to a digital era. 

The active erasure of the stories of South African people is another way the South African education system remains colonized. Alex Mashilo of the South African Communist Party says that when schools teach about communism they do not teach about the role the South African Communist Party played in liberating South Africa. Instead, schools teach the narrative of the communism of Joseph Stalin. This speaks to how the colonized educational system in South Africa wants to lift up western narratives and silence alternative stories of liberation in order to keep individuals oppressed within a capitalistic patriarchal society. 

It is imperative that stories are working to tell a complete narrative of South Africa. This means that heroic stories about South African men fighting in the liberation struggle are told just as often as the stories of South African women enduring sexual violence at the hands of comrades. If South African education systems are not teaching certain narratives, students cannot remember their past in order to envision a more inclusive future. If the stories about liberation that are being taught are only about trauma, pain, and sadness, then the narrative is incomplete. While the collective pain and trauma of Black people in South Africa is real, so are the moments of profound joy, love, and tenderness. These stories exist and create hope and inspiration for a future to strive toward. These stories are also necessary to demonstrate that trauma and pain do not have to always define the experiences of Black people. However, sitting with the emotions of these stories and how they relate to the present is not enough.As Sisonke Msimang teaches us, “If a story moves you, act on it”. Stories need to be vehicles that lead to action. As we engage in the emotionally laborious work done by storytellers, we must respond by creating action that aims to stimulate a more liberating future.

 

(Photo Credit: ThisIsAfrica)

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In Western Australia, Bandyup Women’s Prison is still (akin to) torture. Shut it down!

December 22, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Inside Bandyup Women’s Prison

On December 12, Neil Morgan, the Inspector of Custodial Services for Western Australia, released a scathing report summary, benignly entitled The birth at Bandyup Women’s Prison in March 2018. Just in time for Christmas, the report tells the story of Amy (not her real name) who gave birth, alone in a cell, at Bandyup Women’s Prison, the only women’s prison in Western Australia. The Inspector’s media release on the report opens: “The Inspector of Custodial Services, Neil Morgan, has voiced serious concerns about a birth at Bandyup Women’s Prison on 11 March 2018. Despite pleading for help multiple times for over an hour, a woman (‘Amy’) gave birth alone in a locked cell at 7.40pm. Staff observed events through a hatch in the cell door, but the door was not unlocked for several minutes after the birth.

On releasing a summary of his report into the birth, Mr Morgan said: `I wanted to know how such an event could occur in a 21st Century Australian prison and to prevent it happening again.’” What do we imagine a 21stCentury prison, Australian or otherwise, is, and especially for women? Bandyup Women’s Prison has been known as a hellhole for years, and yet … there it is.

On releasing a summary of his report into the birth, Mr Morgan said: `I wanted to know how such an event could occur in a 21st Century Australian prison and to prevent it happening again.’” What do we imagine a 21stCentury prison, Australian or otherwise, is, and especially for women? Bandyup Women’s Prison has been known as a hellhole for years, and yet … there it is.

Here is Amy’s story, reduced to a timeline. At 5:30, Amy made a cell call, saying she was in labor. She was taken Bandyup Health Centre. The nurses were not told of the cell call. So, they gave her paracetamol, or acetaminophen, and sent her back to her cell. At 6 pm, the prison went into night lock down. At 6:30, Amy made a number of cell calls. She sounded distressed and said she was in labor. Custodial staff came to the door, and talked to Amy, through the door. Amy became increasingly distressed. Nursing staff arrived around 7:35, a full hour later. According to the Inspector’s report, “By this time, Amy’s distress was palpable, and she clearly needed help. However, the nursing staff could only assess her through the locked cell door, because the only person with cell keys was a senior staff member in the gatehouse.” At 7:40, alone, in a cramped cell, Amy gave birth: “Excessive delays continued even after Amy had delivered her child. Due to poor record keeping, we cannot put a precise time on it, but it took somewhere between seven and 12 minutes before the officer from the gatehouse arrived with the keys, and the cell door was opened. This finally allowed assistance to be provided. Amy and her baby were transferred to hospital that evening.”

Why was Amy in prison? The Inspector’s report begins: “On 30 January 2018, a woman we will call ‘Amy’ appeared in court. She was in the late stages of pregnancy and was granted bail subject to a number of conditions. However, she was unable to meet the conditions and was taken to the Melaleuca Remand and Reintegration Facility (Melaleuca). On 17 February 2018, Amy was moved to Bandyup Women’s Prison (Bandyup).” Amy was in prison because she couldn’t pull together enough money to post bail. 

Why was Amy in prison? Amy is an Indigenous woman, living in Australia. In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in prison are the fastest growing prison population. Amy is an Indigenous woman living in Western Australia. Western Australia has the highest imprisonment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in Australia and boasts the highest rates of Indigenous prisoners awaiting trial. 

Bandyup Women’s Prison has been acknowledged, for years, as a hellhole. In 2015, it was the most overcrowded prison in Western Australia, famous for an Indigenous woman’s death in custody, gross mismanagement of vulnerable individuals and populations, sponsoring a culture of despair, and worse. In 2015, Neil Morgan, the same Neil Morgan, issued a damning report. Three years later, the State is shocked to discover the conditions of the 21stCentury Australian prison. The time for inspections,reports, shock and discovery is over. How many more women must give birth, alone, in a filthy cramped cell, simply because they can’t pay the exit fee? How many more Indigenous women must suffer torture and death behind bars for having committed the crime of being-Indigenous-woman? How many more Amy’s? Close Bandyup Women’s Prison today. Shut it down!

 

 

(Photo credit: The West Australian)

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France’s protest over a gas tax takes on new meaning

December 18, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Europe has been thrown into disarray for the past several weeks. In France, the Yellow Vests Protests, at first protesting their objection to Macron’s gas tax– a step in the right direction to combat climate change – have now risen to address the needs of poor working-class families, including calls for higher wages, lower taxes, better pensions and easier university entry requirements. While the protests may be co-opted by far-right leaders, especially at the behest of climate-change deniers in large corporations that are to blame for CO2 emissions, Macron’s austerity measures laid the foundation for the Yellow Vests. The gas tax was that straw that broke the camel’s back.

President Macron, a centrist millionaire who has no understanding of the struggles of the working class in France, came into power — thankfully ousting far-right candidate Marie La Pen —  “vowing to face down protestors and drive through long-postponed economic reforms.” His policy reforms were the austerity measures that are sweeping across the globe as capitalist elites consolidate power and wealth and working-class families pay the price. 

In his 18 months in office, Macron has reduced the power of the unions in workplace relations, ending the special benefits enjoyed by railway workers, and made it easier for companies to hire and fire staff. He ended the wealth tax on all assets from property — a whopping 70% cut in the tax for France’s millionaires: “It was meant to boost investment in the economy, but it was seen by many poorer voters as further proof that this former banker-turned-president was still primarily a friend of business, not of the squeezed working and middle class.” The biggest winners of the tax cut has been the richest 1% in France. 

The protests have largely moved hard-left, as demonstrators demand more funding for social programs. It remains to be seen whether far-right leaders will capitalize on the protests for their own gain. Given how close La Pen was to winning in the previous election, it remains to be seen if the shift of economic blame would push on La Pen’s anti-migrant and racist undertones. For now, however, it seems that the anger is at the political elite, who have largely ignored the sufferings of the working-class.

What does this mean for climate change? Attempting to lower CO2 emissions is essential in combating the damaging effects of the planet’s rising temperatures. At the same time, it is necessary that we understand the ways in which capitalism is the driving force of the rise of carbon emissions. The report issued by the United Nations scientific panel on climate change points to the rectification that “requires transforming the world economy within just a few years … Capitalism’s legacy is climate change. It’s logically impossible to claim that capitalism is a sustainable economic system and that climate change is real. Asserting both is the definition of trying to have your cake and eat it too. There is no debate as to who is to blame for climate change. Our economic masters have chosen to accumulate as much money as possibly while spending a sizable chunk on propaganda telling you that the certainty scientists have on this topic is actually just some big liberal hoax perpetrated by Al Gore.” 

The fight for the working-class and for the environment are inherently linked — alongside women’s demand for equality, because women will be damaged the worst by the climate change. The struggles for working class power, women’s power and the environment together require a struggle to end the economic system of capitalism before it consumes all the world’s resources and destroys the earth that we need to survive. Macron’s gas tax will not effectively change the problem. The forces of corporations that destroy the environment are the true culprit of climate change. We must demand and force their end, because if the world is irreparably damaged, if we are all on this sinking ship together, then the capitalists had best worry, not about their bottom line but rather the cliff the global proletariat will through them off of. A specter haunts the environment … 

The impact of Macron’s proposed budget on working people

 

(Image Credit: Femmes en Lutte 93) (Infographic Credit: BBC)

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