Reviews

The Women's Action Network organises events throughout the year to raise awareness of human rights abuses being experienced by women across the world, and celebrate the powerful individuals tirelessly campaigning on their behalf. Here we review some of our previous highlights.

• Vera Chirwa at the human rights action centre
• Persepolis
• Nawal El Saadawi's visit
• Shirin Ebadi's book launched

Vera Chirwa at the human rights action centre

Millions of people in Africa live with HIV/AIDS. This is a human rights issue because in rural parts of Africa, people don't have access to the medical care they need. Many women are victims of gender-based violence, ranging from domestic violence to mass rape as a form of warfare in the Congo, Darfur and Chad.

Vera Chirwa, the human rights activist, who was a prisoner of conscience for 12 years in Malawi, gave a talk on HIV/AIDS on 22nd May. Also speaking were Mary Rayner and Rosy Parsons, co-authors of the recent Amnesty report I am at the lowest end of all: Rural women living with HIV face human rights abuses in South Africa.

All three speakers indicated that various socio-economic factors need to be redressed, for women in particular. These factors included:  low levels of education, society's general shyness about sexual matters, some traditional cultural values, such as polygamy, gender-based violence, and economic disempowerment.

Vera Chirwa concluded by saying: 'We have to help by empowering women economically and politically so women can say no and stand up to their husbands.'

Rosy recommended action based on the South African report with health centres in rural areas and for transport for women with HIV/AIDS to get treatment.  Vera Chinwa's Book, Fearless Fighter is available through Zed Books for £12.

Report by Christine Ottery

Persepolis

Persepolis is a black and white graphic film about a creative young girl growing up in Iran during the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. If this sounds quite depressing to you, you're right but it is also one of the most charming films I've seen in a long time.

The film is only black and white in its presentation.  Persepolis tackles many issues surrounding its central character, and proceeds to explore a complex political environment with refreshingly simple animation and characters crafted by the creator's first hand experience. The film's naive visual style provides us with a more palatable way of viewing scenes of violence and while losing none of its emotional impact, the film's charismatic protagonist provides us with honest and heart felt reaction to the rapidly changing world around her. 

Persepolis is not directly about human rights, but it is easy to see how the injustices experienced by Marjene Satrapi (the main character and creator of the film) would motivate her to create this exceptionally strong statement about the situation in Iran. In an interview for film magazine Little White lies (16/2008) Marjene says that she did not intend for the film to be political and that is why she wrote it in her own name.   That way she is simply describing what she has seen with her own eyes. Considering the subject matter of the film it is hard to imagine how it could not be political, but it might not have been her main objective.

Persepolis deals with issues such as political prisoners, executions, torture and suppression of the people of Iran as a whole but women especially and still manages to make you laugh. This is a fascinating and insightful reflection of a grim reality. I recommend anyone to go and see it.

Review by Karin Norgren and Tommy Spencer

Nawal El Saadawi's visit

On 15 October the auditorium at the Human Rights Action Centre was packed with people keen to see the discussion between the writer, human rights lawyer and campaigner for women's rights in Egypt, Nawal El Saadawi and journalist Yasmin Alibhai Brown. 

With much charm and humour, Nawal told us that her Egyptian nationality may be withdrawn from her, and that all 45 of her books may soon be banned in Egypt. But nationality is not important to her, and  she wishes to live among people who speak out and tell the truth, wherever they may be. She described how her brother got all the attention when she was a child, and how, when told this was God's will, she refused to believe in an unjust God. In her view, children should take their mother's name, to break the patriarchal pattern of property being handed down from father to son, and to establish the family rights of the mother. She also thinks that education should be free of any religious bias, and either completely secular or with all faiths and philosophical positions including atheism given equal weight.

She warned that no problem can be solved in isolation, as everything interconnects with politics and economic conditions, and sees globalisation being connected to the growth of poverty, which in turn leads to the growth of fundamentalism. Universities she criticised for teaching only fragmented knowledge, disempowering their students to make significant changes to their society, and she sees Eve as the original dangerous dissident, having dared to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and so being labelled as a sinner by a repressive patriarchy concerned to hold on to power.

Two of her many inspiring comments: Hope, like knowledge, is power, so hope too is vital to progress. And truth is like the sea - it changes, and we need to change with it.

The session ended with a standing ovation for this brave woman.