A culture of care: helping activists and their allies look after themselves

@ OpenDemocracy

Self-care is often the last thing on the minds of frontline human rights defenders. But it is the only thing that can make activism sustainable.

Last year at least 321 human rights defenders, in 27 countries, were killed, and frontline activists are increasingly also the targets of digital attacks and state oppression . The impacts of these threats transcend the activists’ work, rippling out to create fear and anxiety in their daily lives, for their families and within their communities. This lack of wellbeing is as paralysing as insecurity can be. Given this, self-care becomes a precondition for social justice work, and so – as feminist activist and writer Audre Lorde famously said – an act of political warfare.

People on the front line of that war need and deserve the support of donors and allies beyond their own communities. Many of those who we support at The Fund for Global Human Rights (the Fund), where I work, face steeply escalating security challenges and so we are in ongoing conversations with them about how we – as a donor and ally – can better, and over the long term, help lift the physical and emotional burden that insecurity places on them. From these conversations my colleagues and I have learned some important lessons about how to fund and support the security and well-being of frontline activists – but also about ourselves.

After the emergency

When we think of security risks and infringements of our wellbeing, it’s often acute dangers that come to mind: threats linked to a particular activity or event; the deep sadness that comes with the sudden death of friends. But the first lesson is that emergency help in response to an acute situation isn’t enough.

Within the human rights community, a focus on emergencies alone has encouraged the rise of ‘hard security’ experts and organisations, and emergency funds for the immediate evacuation of activists facing imminent risks. All these are great and necessary for responding to life-threatening security breaches. However, they do not address the long-term security and wellbeing needs of frontline activists or their communities once the emergency period has ended.

Right now, for example, the Fund is supporting the temporary relocation of four community leaders and their families. They were receiving threats because of their community’s resistance to a mining project that would destroy their land and jeopardise livelihoods. This relocation – and the accompanying strengthening of physical security for the community – can be absolutely necessary as a last resort. But it has consequences that last: disrupted learning for children, disrupted livelihoods for everyone, and ongoing guilt for placing one’s family in this position, to name a few.

Emergency help in response to an acute situation isn’t enough

Add to these long-term effects of acute danger the everyday risks of the work. Some are inherent in the pursuit of justice and equality itself, such as feeling powerless when campaigns fail or new injustices occur. Others are due to the specifics of the place where the work is done: war zones and humanitarian crisis areas are obvious examples, but women who work outside the home may be unable to escape the risks and stress of continuous sexual harassment even in their local neighbourhood.

In addition to being short-term, many security interventions fail to address the cumulative and insidious effects of day-to-day strains and frequent reminders that the world is unjust. To be effective, security and wellbeing measures require long-term relationships, flexible funding and a deep understanding of the specific work done by an organisation and its inherent risks.

For example, in two countries where the Fund operates – which cannot be named due to security risks – we have found that by helping activists to counter immediate physical threats we have won the trust needed to have deeper, more complicated conversations about wellbeing. These conversations address which day-to-day risks may be necessary or acceptable to get the work done; when pulling back from activism for a period could actually help sustain the work over the long term; and when colleagues need help to take a back seat. As a result of these deeper conversations, activists say they feel more open to ask for the additional wellbeing and security support they need: whether it is relocation, retreat space, support for medical bills, help to generate independent income sources, security cameras, psychosocial support or just flexibility to change what they are doing without affecting funding.

Through these conversations we have found that general, long-term funding makes it easier for frontline activists to openly share realities about emotional strain and security threats. This is because activists know they can adapt their work to changing circumstances without putting continued support in jeopardy.

It’s all relative

It is hard to feel well when you don’t feel safe and it is hard to feel safe when you don’t feel well. To complicate things still further, any individual’s idea of what ‘well’ or ‘safe’ feels like changes drastically depending on their environment and circumstances. Our second lesson at the Fund has been that wellbeing is relative and support must respect cultural differences.

A long-term grantee in Latin America recently went on a two-day meeting away from her country and told us that even this temporary respite from danger fostered deeper strategic thinking and longer-term resilience, simply because she could finally get a good night’s sleep.

The point here is not to force anyone into therapy or a daily yoga practice

At the same time, frontline activists often push back against suggestions that they might need to focus on their own or their colleagues’ wellbeing. There is a certain macho culture amongst many activists which labels psychosocial support as necessary only after a breakdown or for those who see themselves as victims. To many, thinking about wellbeing can feel frivolous and selfish: our communities are under attack as we speak, so what if we have nightmares and can’t relate to our kids?

The funder-grantee relationship itself can limit openness. As mentioned above, some frontline groups are reluctant to share emotional needs for fear their funder will yank support or believe they are incapable of delivering on a funded project – which may very well be the case where trauma is untreated.

For all these reasons, funders and allies of frontline activists must understand local stigma and practices around wellbeing. We should use our position to make suggestions, based on our experience with other partners – not impose pre-determined solutions. In many of the countries where the Fund works, counselling and mental health support are viewed with deep suspicion. The broader body-mind awareness culture that has gained popularity in the global north in the past couple of decades is seen as the refuge of those who just aren’t strong enough.

The point here is not to force anyone into therapy or a daily yoga practice, but rather to stimulate an ongoing conversation between activists, allies and funders which allows all to see the emotional strain of the work, makes seeking support normal and provides an assortment of possible mitigation strategies – which may be different across cultures and regions.

We are all in this together

In my two decades working for international human rights and social justice organisations, I have watched colleagues getting sick with worry, trauma and guilt, often with little more support than collegial compassion and a shared sense that this is just how it is. I myself remember calling peers late at night during my research or advocacy trips, from phone booths in bus stations and on deserted public squares (before affordable international cellphone service was available), to talk about what had just happened and how best to stay safe.

While these calls were soothing, the makeshift networks we cobbled together amounted to neither risk mitigation nor care. They were an expression of friendship: necessary but not enough. Some of this is changing, with more formal structures being put in place at the international level. But the recent crisis over alleged bullying and a toxic work environment at Amnesty International highlights just how far we still have to go.

Funders and other allies to frontline groups are not exempt from stress: we too have full workloads and exist in a culture that celebrates overwork and burnout as a badge of honour. In fact, a 2019 UK survey shows that 80 percent of charity workers have experienced workplace stress in the past 12 months. At the end of the day, if we are not willing to take our own security and wellbeing seriously, no one will trust we have theirs in mind.

Perhaps most importantly, we have learned that true security and wellbeing requires an ongoing culture of learning. It might even require a fundamental reboot of the way we work. Some funders are beginning to question the conceptual framing of holistic security and wellbeing: this is not just about being safe and feeling good, but rather about the sustainability of the work itself. Flexibility, collectiveness, inclusion, diversity, respect and self-awareness are strategies for achieving this, as well as being at the core of a world where human rights are defended.

"If it's not fashion, it's just clothes."

Personally, I want my clothes to be clothes: warm or cool as needed, functional, and above all an extension of my mood and personality.

And so when I started Kær’s apparel line, it was pretty much just about making clothes for myself. Which is something I have been doing since I was a teenager.

Me at 16, wearing my favorite pants and sweater. Both of which I had made myself.

During Kær’s first couple of years, I ran into issues with the sizing. Stylists wanted to pull (borrow) from my line, but they requested clothing made for the models they wanted to feature: extraordinarily skinny and extraordinarily tall. Me? I’m a solid medium and vertically challenged for a Dane. And since my samples were made for me, they didn’t quite fit the models. “So, make size 00 samples,” I was told.

For a nano-second I relented — mostly because I honestly had no idea about what would work in the fashion world, and so I did as I was told. I remember one particular Sunday, making patterns for sizes that, in my experience, wouldn’t sell much, but that stylists told me they needed for shoots. It felt futile and a bit sad.

Soon after, a publicist told me I really should only work with light-skinned (or white) models because “fashion has to be aspirational.”

And I looked at my rack of size 00 clothing and thought: “Aspirational to whom?” That’s when I decided to make clothes, not “fashion,” for anyone who liked to wear them.

The crew, after our 2018 NYFW live shoot at Galleria Ca D’Oro in Chelsea, NYC. From left to right: Liz, Danie, Ada, me, Phil, Maryam, Tijana, and Bibi. Photo credit: Hassan Kinley Photography 2018.

We say that Kær is “inclusive design” because that’s the parlance of the business: “fashion” is for slim, tall, light-skinned women, and “inclusive design” is for anyone who’s not that. The first is considered aspirational, the second politically correct (at best).

But the truth of the matter is that Kær is design that makes me happy, because at the end of the day that is my personal aspiration: joy.

There are, of course, other reasons inclusivity is important to me. I struggled with body-image and eating disorders for years. My family is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural. I am an immigrant with crooked teeth and grey hair. My day-job is focused on equality and justice.

And yet, when I think of Kær, the main motivation behind my design is joy. I work with models and other professionals who express joy. If we manage to deliver a little bit of fashion equity along the way, so be it.

If it’s not clothes, it’s just fashion.

Kindness shouldn't be optional

A short while ago, I got into a not-so-pleasant conversation with a family member about the way the United States government is treating children. Specifically children who come here alone to seek asylum, or who are separated from their parents at the border.

I was referring to well-documented subhuman detention conditions and the fact that many children are forced to represent themselves in court before they can even sign their names. The member of my family was referring to debunked myths about an invasion of rapists and thieves.

Let’s just say it didn’t end well.

On the upside, it made me think about our capacity for empathy and kindness, and how we often forget to exercise either or both.

And thus Kær kindness t-shirts were born: a manner to literally wear our commitment to kindness.

I’m an eternal optimist, but I’m also a realist: I don’t think these t-shirts are going to have any impact on those who believe immigrants automatically are criminals or that asylum seekers automatically lie.

However, we are giving away all profits from the sales of these shirts to the non-governmental organization Kids In Need of Defense, so they can provide even more children with the legal aid they need.

It’s not a lot.

But it’s a start.

My best friend just turned 90

This one is personal.

I moved to Brooklyn from Peru 14 years ago. As I recall, I arrived with 5 suitcases, a baby, a husband, and a cat. Now, a divorce, another marriage, 2 cats, 3 apartments, 5 jobs, and 8 marathons later, there have been only two constants: my amazing daughter. And the Cyclone.

I don’t have a photo of us at the Cyclone, but here’s my girl sitting right across from it one June morning a gazillion years ago. Or maybe just 9. But it feels like a gazillion.

For those of you who don’t know, the Cyclone is one of the world’s oldest roller-coasters. It feels a bit like it’s put together with Duct tape and staples, in part because it actually might be: Duct tape was invented in something like 1902, and the Cyclone didn’t open until 1927.

But, y’all, it opened in 1927! The Cyclone is 90 years old this year!

For me, the Cyclone is the place I go when I’m happy, sad, confused, or just generally emotionally overwhelmed. I went there on my 40th birthday with a close friend, and in my recollection we were at the top of the ride when I told him I’d found a knot in my breast (it later turned out to be benign). I went there alone on a foggy summer night after dark when all my things were in storage and I was flying out to Iraq for research the next morning. I think I took 4 rides that night. I went there on the day my daughter graduated from elementary school, and we whizzed around and around and laughed till it hurt.

If there aren’t too many people waiting on line, they’ll let you ride as many times as you want, just keeping your seat while other patrons file in and out. Or at least they used to. They’d obviously charge you a ticket each time, but they lowered the price a bit every ride. One time when I was really sad I made it around 6 times, and by then the ride was just $1. I think they figure no one can stand it more than 5 times in a row. To be honest, the sixth ride did connect me directly with my survival instinct. Sometimes that’s a really good thing.

Me and my girl that same June summer day in front of the Cyclone This was the same day the UN Security Council adopted a resolution condemning sexual violence as a weapon of war. The things I remember, folks…

Aight, I’m done with the trip down memory lane, except to say this: if you are in New York City and you haven’t been on the Cyclone, you need to go now. Contrary to popular belief, Duct tape doesn’t last forever, and last time I went I saw a few staples coming out. Now’s the time!

Pregnancy, Drug Use, and Why Prison Is Not the Solution

@HuffPost

In New Hampshire, a bill to redefine opioid use or addiction in “custodial parents,” including pregnant women, as child abuse is making its way through the legislature, despite vocal objection from the state’s medical community. Much media treatment of this bill and similar bills in other states presumes women are not generally held criminally responsible for terminating—or losing—a pregnancy.

This illusion is increasingly hard to sustain.

In March 2015, Purvi Patel, a 33-year-old woman in Indiana, was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment for, prosecutors claim, inducing an abortion. Patel has maintained she had a miscarriage, and has never tested positive for any of the abortifacients the prosecution claims she took. In fact, the pathologist for the prosecution partially relied on the long discredited “lung test“ to determine if the recovered fetus had been born alive: a practice from the 17th century disproven as bad science over a century ago. Whether a miscarriage or an induced abortion, it is clear that Patel is in jail for not carrying a pregnancy to term.

Indeed, state legislators increasingly seek to hold women criminally responsible for not having healthy pregnancy outcomes. Since the beginning of this year, at least eight state legislatures have introduced bills to redefine legal personhood as starting at “fertilization” or “conception.” Though voters have generally rejected personhood measures when put to a vote—three times in Colorado alone—they keep resurfacing in new versions.

From a medical perspective, fetal personhood bills make no sense. “Conception“ is not a medical term and is interchangeably used to refer to the moment an ovum is fertilized and the moment a fertilized ovum implants in the uterine lining. “Fertilization“ is a medical term—referring to fusion of male and female gametes to form a zygote—but not all fertilized ova implant in the uterine lining (that is: not all result in a pregnancy), and the precise moment of both fertilization and implantation is hard to determine. As a result, the length of a pregnancy is usually calculated with reference to the pregnant woman’s last period—when she clearly was not pregnant yet—because that moment is an observable factor that can be defined.

There are also obvious logistical problems with fetal personhood bills. An estimated 10 to 20 percent of known pregnancies end in miscarriages, with the actual number likely much higher as many women miscarry before they know they are pregnant. In addition, the risk of miscarriage is higher for specific groups of women, such as older women, women with weight problems, women who have already miscarried, those who have contracted infections or who have immune response issues, and those who regularly use drugs, including alcohol and nicotine.

As a result, the implementation of fetal personhood laws would require unconstitutional discrimination and invasion of privacy. If a fertilized ovum has the same rights as a person after birth, each miscarriage (or failure to implant) would need to be scrutinized for intentional or reckless neglect. Detection would only be possible by registering all incidents of unprotected sex, and effective surveillance would require regular pregnancy testing, in particular of women at risk of miscarriage (think mandatory weekly pregnancy testing for women over 40 until they reach menopause). Of course, no one is advocating this.

Proponents of punitive pregnancy-related provisions have, however, successfully advocated for the growing surveillance of pregnant women from marginalized or stigmatized communities through social services, and in particular through medical providers. The organization National Advocates for Pregnant Women has documented the growing arsenal of state laws that treat drug use and addiction in pregnant women as a form of child abuse. Because health care providers in all states must report child abuse to the authorities, this reframing forces doctors and nurses to breach patient confidentiality for pregnant women who admit to struggling with drug use or addiction. The predictable result is a breakdown in the therapeutic relationship at best, and at worst, a reluctance to seek care at all for the women who arguably need it the most.

Many of these bills are pushed through without consulting the medical community, which is the case for the bill currently pending in New Hampshire. House hearings are under way, and both pediatricians and obstetric-gynecologists will testify to its predictably disastrous effects on the provision of addiction treatment and child welfare.

To be sure, both child abuse and drug addiction are serious matters, which require appropriate state support. Attempts to redefine drug use or addiction as child abuse in pregnant women, however, disregard the medical and psychological needs of both abused children and pregnant women. Advocates of such legislation are attempting to transform the fiction of fetal personhood into law by appropriating the problem of child abuse and punishing pregnant women in need of treatment for substance dependency or addiction.

A fetus is not a child and a women’s right to choose an elective abortion should not be circumvented by legislating punishment for women in need of treatment for substance use disorders. Legislators should listen to the medical community. Whether the conversation is about elective abortion, treatment for substance use disorder, or any other medical intervention, decisions about care are best made by the patient in private consultation with her doctor.