March 8th was International Women's Day, and although this post is a day late, it's still a good time to reflect on the issue of women's rights. The International Women's Day 2007 site has a history of IWD. I find it unfortunate that in reading that page, I didn't come across one bit of information that I already knew. According to the site, the first National Women's Day was observed in the U.S on February 28th, a year after 15,000 women marched through New York city demanding better work conditions and the right to vote. In 1911, "More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women's rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination."

Race and class can afford a lot of privilege to those born in the America, but we would do well to remember that the relative equality women hold in the West is not a privilege of culture or birth. We have the rights we have because some individuals stood up and demanded them, and we shouldn't for one minute think that the status of women in America is secure. After all, feminists struggled for nearly 100 years before women won the right to vote in the U.S., and it hasn't yet been that long since it was granted. My own grandmother was 16 when women won suffrage in the U.S.

Nonetheless, it is easy for those of us who haven't had to struggle for our rights to feel like we are far removed from the trouble faced by our sisters who aren't born as lucky. In times and places of conflict, disaster, and lawlessness, women are the first casualties. As men die in battle, their mothers, wives, sisters, and grandmothers carry the trauma of loss and persecution.

In Burma, four teenage girls spent International Women's Day in jail, after being gang-raped by three SPDC officers and four soldiers. Their crime was allowing news of the rape to be leaked to the independent media after being paid hush-money.

In Malaysia, three mothers spent the day in overcrowded immigration detention centers with their newborn babies, with no idea of when they might be released. One mother was arrested with her husband and child less than 24 hours after giving birth. Another mother had had a c-section, and was reportedly bleeding at the time they were detained. Her husband had also just been released from the hospital with temporary paralysis.

I left off writing about my trip to Malaysia on December 6th, the day I visited the Chin Women's Organization and the ARRC. That evening at dinner, Ling and I discussed the events of the day. The Malaysian human rights NGO Suaram had been lobbying the government to release the pregnant women who were being held in detention. That day the immigration minister had agreed to release them into the care of the the Women's Ministry or an NGO, and said they had an unwritten policy not to arrest women but it was often hard to verify at the time of the arrest.

He also told me about a Shan women they'd found out about. She'd been trafficked from Shan State maybe 4 years ago, and was taken to a brothel in Kuala Lumpur. Not long before our talk, she'd tried to escape, and ended up in a car chase with her boss. He ended up hitting her, causing minor injuries, and then taking her to a clinic for treatment. A Shan man happened to be there the same day, and noticing her name on the registry, went to talk to her. She broke down crying and told her story to him, but the boss eventually interrupted and took her out of the clinic. Somehow the two managed to arrange a meeting for the following week, but the Shan man wasn't able to get any kind of contact information for her. He contacted others about the woman, though, and arrangements were made to stage a rescue and get her to a safe house. No one knew if she would show up, though, and no one knew how to find or contact her if she didn't.

I spent March 8th doing laundry, surfing the internet, and later going to see a band play at a local club - where I got irritated at having to stand up for so long in a crowded club. I even had a donut on the walk home at midnight. I never did find out what happened to the Shan woman though, and I have no idea where she spent yesterday.