From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord@igc.apc.org>
Newsgroups: soc.rights.human
Date: 25 Sep 92 11:58 PDT
Subject: ACT:Women's Rights
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1476700523:000:4278
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!hrcoord    Sep 25 11:58:00 1992


From: Human Rights Coordinator <hrcoord>
Subject: ACT:Women's Rights

/* Written  9:35 pm  Sep 24, 1992 by web:act in cdp:gen.newsletter */
WOMEN'S RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS -- ACT STATEMENT

Early in September, a Saudi Arabian woman was ordered to return 
home from Canada, where she had sought refugee status on the grounds
 "that I am a woman". The Refugee Board judges said that she would 
"do well to comply with the laws" of Saudi Arabia -- laws which forbid 
her to drive a car, require her to wear a veil and be accompanied by 
a man whenever she appears in public, and may impose imprisonment 
and torture if she disobeys. The woman is now in hiding. 

And in August, the Refugee Board ordered the deportation of Dularie 
Boodlal, the victim of vicious assaults from her husband in Trinidad, 
because she was seeking refuge only from "domestic 
violence, not political violence." Her husband, Kenrick Boodlal, has 
repeatedly told her that he will kill her if she returns to Trinidad; 
simply because she is his wife and would not tolerate being beaten.

Late in September, the Immigration Board agreed to bend the rules 
for Dularie Boodlal Q whose case had been taken up by a range of 
groups, including ACT Q and allow her landed immigrant status. This 
was carefully done, however, in such a way as to establish no precedent.
 Dularie's case cannot help the Saudi woman, or other women in her own
situation Q and there are many women in such situations.

Long before this case came up, Immigration Minister Bernard Valcourt 
had repeatedly turned down refugee claims from women seeking 
protection from gender persecution; and he clearly intends to continue 
to do so. He says that it would be "cultural imperialism" if Canada 
recognized these claims.

This incredible statement makes sense only if you believe that 
the values of a culture are determined only by that culture's men; 
if you assume that the values and lives of these women -- who have 
named their own oppression, who have identified themselves as 
persecuted for their sex -- are of no account.

Yet it seems that most countries in the world still do make that 
assumption. The United Nations, to this day, has never recognized 
violence against women, or persecution on the basis of sex, as 
fundamental human rights violations. Under international law, the 
only protection that existed for Dularie Boodlal existed as a side-effect 
of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Because Dularie's children 
were seen as worthy of protection, she might as their mother qualify for 
a bit of protection too. On her own, she simply did not matter.

Finally, can we really say that "domestic violence" is not political? 
When, around the world, women live under systems that discriminate
 against them and systematically act against their interests, and 
when the most powerful tool by which that system maintains itself 
is so-called "domestic" violence -- emotional abuse, beatings, rapes, 
murders of countless women?

It is hard to imagine how women have continued to struggle against 
states that treat them as less than human; that spend millions of 
dollars on bigger and better ways to kill people while strangling 
social services; that attack the environment in a fervour of "mastery" 
-- that women have struggled against these things while, in many 
cases, their lives at home have been a struggle simply to survive.

But as long as women must live every day of their lives in fear, 
their voices can never be clearly heard, their potentially revolutionary
 power will be smothered. This is intimately, essentially political.

And it is politics played out on human lives.

ACT for Disarmament asks all its supporters to fax or phone 
Bernard Valcourt and demand that the case of the Saudi woman be 
reopened and an appeal granted, and that domestic violence be recognized
as a basis for refugee claims. Valcourt's phone number is 819-994-2482, 
and his fax number is 819-994-0448. You can also write to Bernard
 Valcourt, 140 Promenade du Portage, Phase IV, 14th Floor, Hull, 
Quebec, K1A 0J9. 

If you want to help with a campaign to have women's rights 
recognized as human rights, please contact the ACT office and speak 
to Mary or Maggie.

For more on this issue, turn to page 4.