Vulnerabilites of a modern day sex slave

On Wednesday, May 13, 2015, I presented on the topic of Sexual Violence and Trafficking at the Impact of Family Violence Conference held at Ottawa University (May 13-14) in our nation’s capital. We had light streaming into the greenhouse like glass board room which overlooked the lush green of early spring and the Rideau Canal, with its crystal clear water. A halcyon day for such a sad and dark topic. And yet with a group of passionate participants the discussion was probing, animated and sometimes contemplative. We were there to understand together what the nature of modern day sex slavery was where a perpetrator harbours and violates individuals’ human rights with threats of violence, to their personal being or of persons close to them, for personal gain. Who is most vulnerable? Its young girls and women, young boys, children under the age of 16. The indigenous population is disproportionately represented and most trafficking, contrary to popular belief, is domestic not international. A typical story may evolve like this. A young person is lured by someone she believes she is in love with. He plies her with gifts and then increases her emotional and financial dependence on him. Often he gets her hooked on drugs and then makes her repay the debt she owes by prostituting herself. There is use of physical violence and threats of violence to keep her enslaved, completely altering her perception of reality and debilitating her independence. The perpetrator lives off her avails and sometimes gets her to become the “bottom bitch” to ensnare into the “game”, and control, other young girls/women like her. Sometimes he gets her to engage in illegal activity such as credit card fraud and drug trafficking and uses these as additional threats to keep her psychologically bound.

As the discussion progressed we all recognised that a survivor may not self identify as a victim of trafficking and hence getting her to leave is an extremely sensitive and tricky issue that has to be done with a “do no harm” approach. One has to carefully weigh the potential harm in any solution before offering it up. The best approach is therefore to address their basic needs for food, shelter and sleep because tackling the big issues relating to their physical, psychological and emotional well-being could take years. With the commodification of sex on a global scale and the thriving porn industry controlled by large mafias this issue has to be addressed at many levels. Sadly though, perpetrators of domestic trafficking may be local gangs or even sole operators such as "boyfriends" or, in some cases, parents! We had more questions than answers at the end but did recognise the need for strategies in Prevention, Protection, Prosecution and Partnership as common themes among agencies that are set up to help.

In India the circumstances may be different but the basic elements of the trafficking crime - kidnapping, harbouring, controlling and violating all forms of human rights for personal gain and profit - are essentially the same!

Coincidentally, on the day I was presenting, the following news item made headline news in the National Post.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/migrant-sex-workers-caught-up-in-ottawa-sting-facing-deportation-further-exploitation-activists

As a first step let’s all learn a little more about this issue by taking MCIS’Online Training to Address Human Trafficking. It is rich with videos where survivors tell their stories!
http://helpingtraffickedpersons.org/

Impact of Family Violence Conference is an initiative of the Social Services Network
http://www.socialservicesnetwork.org/

Airline seats, religious accommodation and our multicultural societies

Recently, I flew a budget airline to London. As is always the case I had a seat in economy. Mine was an aisle seat in the middle row. There was a middle aged Indian woman seated beside me in the centre and beside her, on the other aisle seat, a young Englishman. This woman was clearly agitated with the seating arrangements. Her teenage daughter was in the middle seat in front of her flanked by two men and her husband was two rows behind us flanked by two women. She began by wildly gesticulating to the airline stewardess to request a seat change, to which the woman said since the flight was full she could do nothing but maybe her co-passengers would oblige. At this point I knew what was coming and my spine stiffened. Clearly I was a candidate for the switch with her husband. I am usually not mean and like to oblige - but not in this instance. I was not charitable enough to trade an aisle for a middle seat, especially one that was a closer to the toilet. I must have repelled her with a fairly defensive and stern stance because she immediately turned to the guy seated to the other side of her and asked if he would switch with her daughter who, she claimed, was afraid to be seated beside two men. To my astonishment, the young man immediately obliged and squeezed his gangly body and limbs into the middle seat between two portly men, to allow her daughter to sit beside her. Now she could have ridden on her wave of success and made the same request of me. Alas she did not because she had read my body language.

These kinds of requests touch on many issues that are quite close to all of us - personal space, our sense of who we are and our individual rights balanced against the need to accommodate under reasonable circumstances. I am motivated to share this story because on a recent CBC radio program ("The Current")I heard Alana Stockman ("Alana"),a feminist writer, say she was made to feel like I did, guilty for no reason, when an Orthodox Jewish man on an El Al flight refused to sit beside her. She stayed put in her window seat refusing to move. On this show, she and another writer Sharon Shapiro ("Sharon") shared their views on what El Al should have done under these circumstances. Sharon said they should have ensured they have a policy (given this is a frequent occurrence) whereby they designate rows, or they have people make specific requests at the time of booking that the airline could then try and accommodate. Alana opined that such policies have the effect of entrenching a social system which can discriminate against groups at will – in this case, women. In her view we would once again be handing over to fundamentalists, the right to make women “invisible”.

For our purposes the point I am making is that as religious fundamentalism gains societies are having to make more and more decisions around accommodation and, given the intended and unintended consequences that could ensue, these must be given careful consideration and thought.

A recent example of such a fundamentalist act is Indiana’s Religious Freedom Bill. Signed into law by Governor Mike Pence last month, this law actually allows individuals and corporations to deny services where it goes against their religious conscience. In effect, this draconian law actually gives people the right to deny other people their rights in the name of religion. The groups most vocally opposed represented the LGBT community which saw it as a direct attack on them given recent incidents where businesses had denied services for gay weddings. However, under this legal regime anyone can potentially be denied a service under the cover of religion.

In light of the above, the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling last month in MLQ V. Saguenay, which went the other way, came as a breath of fresh air. In rejecting a Municipality's right to have a prayer at the beginning of their meetings, the court held "the evolution of Canadian society has given rise to the concept of neutrality according to which the court must not interfere in religion and beliefs".

So coming back to the El Al story what's the right treatment of someone seeking religious accommodation. I believe Canada’s legal approach is best, to buck the rise of fundamentalism. There would be two tests that the person seeking accommodation would have to respond to. One, would the accommodation result in the violation of values in a civil society? If it would, then there would be no accommodation. If however there is not likely to be a violation of such values, the person seeking a different seat may have the right to be accommodated. However, the request would then have to pass a second test- whether their religion obligates the individual to act in a certain way that they would require such accommodation? Here is where, in our example, the Orthodox Jewish person's right to be accommodated may come undone. It appears there is nothing really in Judaism which calls for such segregation of the genders in physical space, therefore this trend towards increasing state sanctioned segregation is recent. Apparently, the first bus lines segregating genders was introduced in Jerusalem in 2001 and now there are over a 100. If the strict practice of Judaism does not obligate genders to be segregated then this man's argument that it would go against his religious conscience to remain in close proximity with women would have to fail, with the airline having no duty to accommodate. These tests do not provide all the answers but they do provide some direction for how societies should be grappling with these complex issues as we become more multicultural and global.

Enriched by a Community Screening

It was a nice Saturday evening and I went to attend the documentary screening of Deepa Mehta’s “Lets Talk About It” just to show my support to MCIS Language Services' Doc fellow, Roxanna Nastase, and our DOC Program Manager Sree Nallamothu, both of whom were hosting it. However, I came away enriched and quite exhilarated.

All I knew ahead was that this was a screening at a low income neighhourhood, 100 Lotherton Pathway in North York. It seemed like we had to drive forever on Lawrence Avenue West to get to our destination. Finally we hit Caledonia Street and turned into 100 Lotherton, a residential condo, tucked away in relative obscurity. I had been to this part of Toronto, pre law school, when working as a welfare worker for about six months. There had been no reason, since, to experience a slice of life among this cross section of the population. I always bemoan the fact that my life follows a set pattern giving me little reason or opportunity to veer from its mundane path. I therefore was truly grateful for this chance.

We arrived late because I did not know if we were at the right location and had to make a few phone calls to figure out where exactly in this residential building the screening was being held. When we finally made it in, we were ushered into a crowded space on the ground floor beside the elevator. It served as a meeting place for the building's residents and consisted of two rooms with an attached toilet. Although, this was a private condominium, it appeared degraded and in need of urgent work which the residents could ill afford. The smell of stale food hung heavily in the air. We joined the 30 odd people squeezed into the inner room watching the film which was projected onto the wall. In the adjoining room the hosts had provided an array of refreshments which were laid out on two tables. There were fruits, muffins, pastries, pita and dip, coffee and hot chocolate for people to help themselves to. But no one stirred till the film was done.

After the film concluded, the attendees helped themselves to food and drink and then gathered once again to engage in a conversation about this film on domestic violence. They were mostly West Indian and ranged in ages from 30 to 80. There were only 3 men. Samuel Park, who wears many hats as MCIS Training Facilitator, Korean Interpreter and a Community Worker was there as an expert panelist to engage with folks and to moderate the discussion. Also present was Tara Bootan a community worker who is involved in an initiative called the Action for Neighbourhood Change in this, one of Toronto City's 31 priority (high needs) neighbourhoods, which though vibrant, is ridden with poverty related issues.

Samuel started the conversation by framing the subject matter well. He highlighted the film-maker’s unique approach to the topic of domestic violence through the eyes of the affected children. Deepa Mehta has used an interesting approach, filming the children’s videotaped interviews of their parents where they ask them why they had done what they had. In some instances the interviewed parent is the abuser and in others, the victim. Our discussion was kicked off by a male audience member who remarked that the film was biased and that abuse was gender neutral. Samuel handled that comment cleverly by pointing to overwhelming statistics pertaining to women being the victims and then sought comments from others. At this point the women began to speak up and I was astounded by their clarity and their feminist analyses as they spoke of their experiences leaving abusive relationships, and of helping others who had decided to. They spoke about tricky situations they encountered where they did not know what the right response or course of action was and suggested that they be provided some training handling these situations in their community. They talked about the need to form informal community networks that women could reach out to, when close family did not offer the requisite support fearful of the “shame” it would bring them. They talked about elder abuse and the need for a different approach to ensure the safety and dignity of seniors in precarious situations, uncared for, either living by themselves or within extended families.

I have been to several conferences on domestic and sexual violence and have listened to academics speak about their community based research. However, I have never been as impressed as with these women who moved me with their passion, pragmatism and powerful voices. They are the women in the trenches confronting these difficult issues every day and reaching out and supporting each other with compassion, courage and caring. Samuel did an amazing job, elevating the quality of the discussion so sticky and nuanced issues were explored. After coming home, I researched this neighbourhood and found out that a model community is emerging where the residents are actively involved in community capacity building. Several of the participants at today’s screening had in fact voluntarily assumed leadership roles (http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/unitedway/2011/10/14/building_pride_and_a_sense_of_place.html). Sree and Tara had picked an appropriate venue for the screening of a film that could mobilise people around thoughtful movements in communities. I came away gratified with MCIS' role in making these screenings happen and determined to think of ways in which to engage this cross-section of women in future solutions to address this complex issue in our work at MCIS.

Thanks to the Trillium Foundation for their support of this amazing project which is igniting several such conversations in the City as we continue on with these screenings to the end of this year! Those in Toronto, please come out and attend our free screenings and engage in some awesome conversations!

Check out the schedule at http://www.documentariesforchange.org/

A beautiful City, Music and Education

"A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education." George Bernard Shaw

Yesterday, I enjoyed a beautiful night out on the town with a close friend. We were at the iconic Royal York Hotel rubbing shoulders with the City’s well known “do gooders”. The night was crisp and cold but the sky was clear and the City sparkled with a vibe that reflected its diversity and modernity. The crowd at the banquet was a friendly and cheerful one representing the City’s cultural richness. We had wonderful dinner companions. An Associate Professor of Music, Stephanie, who taught music history, played, composed, sang and taught classical and choral music, a singer in one of her choirs, and a Turkish real estate agent. The conversation was scintillating especially when Stephanie reminisced about the time she played the organ accompanying evensong at the enchanting St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. She waxed prolific about the choral music scene in London and I rushed home to message my daughter Uttara, a London resident, about potentially joining a volunteer choir there, given her musical interests and latent (!) abilities.

Dinner was lovely. There were delectable spinach pastries and vine leaf rolls as starters, a delicious pasta dish for the entrée, salad and, for dessert, Noah’s pudding, which came complete with the recipe.

Following dinner came the headliner. The key-note by the University of Toronto President, Eric Gertler, which ended up being a missed opportunity. At a time when universities have to rethink their relevance functioning in their current form, given the debt load students carry unable to find jobs in the current market, the largest university in Canada bears responsibility to shine light on a new path? With several key influencers present in the room, this talk should have challenged us to re-imagine a world where physical classrooms are replaced by all forms of synchronous and asynchronous learning, where the portals of education find students wherever they are in their lives and where there are dynamic and synergistic collaborations with alumni, industry, other institutions and even nation states! This is the time to rethink the revenue model that universities operate by, given the role education has come to play as a life- long pursuit what with technological advancements altering our reality at break-neck speed. We simply have to keep up with these changes, to do better at work and to live fuller lives! Gone are the days when we could pay lip service to words like innovation and civic engagement, without actually demonstrating how this would look. If universities are only concerned with maintaining market share and boundaries, in traditional ways, then all they will be left with are empty classrooms and expensive real estate, while the educational start-ups ride the high waves. Do we want Canada’s largest university to maintain the status quo, with a deluded sense of its importance in its current form, or do we want it to rise up to the greatest challenges that universities are facing today and pave the course?

I marveled at the symbolism of having a music professor at our table. Especially one who was disrupting the world in her own little way. She was bringing classical music from the ivory tower to untrained singers and lay audiences, breaking down barriers and unraveling the mystique surrounding it. And the diversity of folks gathered in that room each had a similar story to share, a piece of wisdom to impart to help both Toronto and Canada stay ahead of the curve, with a shared commitment to achieving excellence in this knowledge economy. I am proud to say that we have contributed to this in our own small way at MCIS. We continue to help newcomers get a leg up in life qualifying them to work as language professionals, making our courses both geography agnostic and asynchronous.

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MCIS offers several on line skills building courses related to language training (www.mcislanguages.com)
Free online training to address human trafficking (built under the auspices of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General) is being offered to social work students at some post secondary institutions with wonderful results! Check it out at http://helpingtraffickedpersons.org/

On Walking !

All I needed was a great pair of shoes and a warm coat!

I love to walk. My mom says I started early and once I did there was no stopping me. We lived in a large colony in Bombay up to my 6th year and search parties were on the look out for me every single day, following my long disappearances. I made friends easily and therefore invited myself into my mother's friend's homes when I needed to rest from my wanderings. Those were innocent times and luck was on my side in that we lived in a locale where people looked out for each other. However, this was no small colony and my mother's panic must have known no bounds especially after I was once found stuck between 2 floors in one of those cage elevators when a cruel young kid had pulled the door shut with me in it and someone from upstairs had pressed the button. Anyway all this notoriety resulted in my being nicknamed Odukaali (wandering legs).

The fact is I simply loved to walk. I must have inherited the gene from my father who walked everyday, rain or shine, from before I was born. As a teenager I joined him on weekends and school holidays. He loved having mom or us kids as walking buddies and regaled us with interesting stories about ordinary people and I lapped it all up, especially the one about how my future husband would be the best match for me! I tried to keep up my walking after coming to Canada. However, with the demands of a yoga routine and career my walks became more sporadic and even more so in the winter.

It was too cold or too slippery were the excuses that I readily used to talk myself out of it. I took to the treadmill sometimes. And yet, the hill on which our house is located is a favourite with my friends Sophia, Bill and Diane. Sophia a deeply spiritual woman who considers the hill a sacred place with divine energy. The three of them walk every day, through the winter. Bill is 87. In the fall he raked the leaves in his yard by himself and filled 28 bags. This hill is not for the faint-hearted and he does at least 3 everyday. Sophia who is in her mid 60s does 8 in under 2 hours and Diane who is in her mid 50s jaunts up and down as if she is taking a walk in the park! Sophia is the one who lured me out a few summers ago. Like my dad she is a wonderful storyteller and has bags of tales about her healing practice, her patients, her beautiful mediterranean summer garden, health fads, gluten free recipes and of course her trips to Corfu, Greece where she hails from. I have joined the group in the summer and on weekends but have chickened out when the barometer hit 0 Celsius.

Not this year. No more excuses. I went out and invested in a good pair of walking shoes. The daughter left me her Canada Goose jacket and hiking boots as further incentive and I apparelled myself with the rest of the cover. I am out on the hill with the first light on weekends and holidays. I will figure something out for weekdays. I still pant up and down and am kept buoyed by Sophia's stories, Diane's words of encouragement and Bill's sheer presence. I do at least an hour. And really there is no substitute for filling your lungs with fresh air, listening to the cadence of your walk, feeling the incredible gratitude that you must for your limbs and lifting your mood with the endorphins that flush your system at the end of it. I am convinced that Pharma companies will do no business if everyone walks away their depression, insomnia and what not! I have overcome serious sciatic pain with this. And the mental clarity and quietude that follow are just the icing on the cake!

So put on your shoes and a warm coat and walk your troubles away!

Remembering K. Balachander

K. Balachander meant many things to many folks. First and foremost he was a wonderful storyteller and a director par excellence. He was also a social commentator who tackled such diverse and controversial topics as prostitution, political corruption, sexual infidelity and cross generational romance. He was a stickler for detail, down to the last cobweb, as he recreated real life on screen to transport the audience into his world and his stories. In the
kollywood of yesterday where dialogues were predictable, characters were stereotypical and song and dance sequences and cameo actors carried a film, he brought nuanced dialogues, de-glamorised the protagonists by infusing them with complexity and conflict and brought out the acting talent in all. He was the thinking person's filmmaker and yet through his sheer genius he became populist quite like Woody Allen, also extremely prolific and versatile as the latter. He made the transition to TV quite seamlessly and gained even wider appeal through this medium.

I felt a peculiar closeness to him for two tangential reasons. One, he bore a striking physical resemblance to my dad. There have been occasions when my dad received a celebrity's reception, when, mistaken for KB, he was escorted to a front row seat at an event. Two, my father and he wrote to each other over several years. My father who could not accept anything but the best from KB was quick to point out flaws in his work through long eloquent letters. To KB's credit he responded to each one in great detail giving as good as he got. Even though the letters smacked of egotism and his desire to be right, they spoke to his enduring passion for storytelling and film-making.

Time to go back and watch his films starting with my most favourite "Thaneer Thaneer" - where a villager famously describes the plight of people in his drought ridden village with the words "k**ndi kazhava kooda thanni illai" ( no water to even wash one's a*se"") - pretty refreshing and controversial for celluloid of his era!

Remembering my dad on Dec 4, 2014

My dad died ten years ago, today. I remember him for the wonderful man he was. He is still my guiding light and if I am well and happy it is because I believe his hand and caring continue to guide me, as do the principles he lived by.

Everyone looked up to my dad for his liberal views, scrupulous honesty and civic mindedness. He raised a poor young boy, Thiraviam, with the same love and caring as his own children. He abhorred inequality based on caste and gender. He did however struggle with his conditioned responses to maintain an image for the world. While, he may not have totally embraced us going against the grain and marrying across caste lines, he was open-minded enough to reflect on his conflicts.

When it came to honesty, he was never conflicted. He never told a lie and would not take anything that he believed he did not rightfully earn. He never twisted facts or rationalised to suit his purpose. I still remember the many gift hampers he would turn away from the door every Diwali. Among the elite set in Mumbai it is customary for wealthy patrons of the banks to ply Managers with gift hampers. I don’t ever recall seeing what one contained because they never made it through our door.

And boy was he civic minded! Every day there was a letter to this or that authority, about a pothole, an open transmission line and some such safety hazard or suggestions for more streamlined operations of some administrative branch or a damning commentary on some activity that ripped off the consumer!

During his last days, he lost interest in his favourite pass-times, reading the newspaper and balancing his cheque book! However, his values remained. I still recall the moment when he clutched my hand and said “Konthe (baby) always keep your word!”