Ethnos Project

Brazil: Movement Calls for March Against Law on Construction in Salvador

The Movement ‘Desocupa Salvador' - which recently claimed rights for public space during carnival -, is now calling [pt] people to march towards the City Hall on February 1. Major grievances include the illegal approval by the Mayor of amendments in a law that threatens the Enchanted Valley Ecological Park, an Atlantic Forest reserve, and allows tall constructions next to the beach.

Tags: Brazil Citizen Media Development Economics & Business Governance Latin America Law Portuguese Protest Updates

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Brazil: ‘Vale' is Elected the World's Worst Corporation

Researcher Telma Monteiro wrote on her blog [pt] about the election of the Brazilian mining company Vale as the world's worst corporation of 2011, with over 25,000 votes on the Public Eye Awards. She attributes the victory to Vale's involvement with the construction of Belo Monte Dam, in the Brazilian Amazon. Movement Xingu Vivo held a page “supporting” Vale's candidacy [pt].

Tags: Brazil Citizen Media Development Digital Activism English Environment Latin America Portuguese Updates

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Singapore: Greening Initiative

Singapore Sojourn mentions the programs of the government and initiatives from the private sector to make Singapore a greener city.

Tags: Development East Asia Economics & Business English Environment Governance Singapore Updates

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Slovakia: Roma “Apartheid” - and New Housing?

According to this report [en], a US-based Hindu group was shocked by the “maltreatment” of the Roma in Slovakia, calling “to end Roma apartheid.” At the same time, the Slovak government announced [en] a new wave of social housing construction for the Roma, expecting that “the number of illegal Roma settlements should drop by 25 percent within the next eight years.”

Tags: Development Eastern & Central Europe English Ethnicity & Race Governance Human Rights Law Politics Slovakia Updates

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Brazil: A View from Aboard on Pinheirinho Eviction

Jimmy Greer, an activist and sustainability consultant for I-See Global based in London, writes about “the brutal eviction” of Pinheirinho, in Brazil as “another example of a skewed approach to governing that is at odds with an active, connected and changing society that demands more from its elected officials.”

Tags: Brazil Development Digital Activism Freedom of Speech Governance Human Rights Latin America Law Politics Portuguese Protest Updates War & Conflict

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Brazil: Indigenous Leader Criticizes “Developmentism” Policies

Brazilian blogger Julio Carignano, from the blog Sítio Coletivo, interviewed [pt] a former indigenous Guarani chief, Teodoro Tupã, who criticizes the policies of progress and “developmentism” towards indigenous peoples - particularly on issues concerned with health and land.

Tags: Brazil Citizen Media Development Ethnicity & Race Freedom of Speech Governance Health Human Rights Indigenous Latin America Law Politics Portuguese Updates

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Digital mapping and governance: the stories behind the maps

This is a guest post from Jamie Lundine, who has been collaborating with Plan Kenya to support digital mapping and governance programming in Kwale and Mathare.

Throughout October and November 2011, Plan Kwale worked through Map Kibera Trust with Jamie Lundine and Primoz Kovacic, and 4 young people from Kibera and Mathare, to conduct digital mapping exercises to support ongoing youth-led development processes in Kwale county. One of the important lessons learned through the Trust’s work in Kibera and Mathare is that the stories behind the mapping work are important for understanding the processes that contribute to a situation as represented on a map. To tell these stories and to complement the data collection and mapping work done by the youth in Kwale, the Map Kibera Trust team worked with the Kwale youth to set up platforms to share this information nationally and internationally. Sharing the important work being done in Kwale will hopefully bring greater visibility to the issues which may in the longer term lead to greater impact.

Sharing stories of local governance

To support their work on social accountability, the Kwale Youth and Governance Consortium (KYGC) mapped over 100 publicly and privately funded community-based projects. The projects were supported by the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), Local Area Development Fund (LATF), NGOs and private donors. As one channel of sharing this information, the Consortium set up a blog called Nuru ya Kwale (Light of Kwale). According to KYGC the blog “features and addresses issues concerning promotion of demystified participatory community involvement in the governance processes towards sustainable development. We therefore expect interactivity on issues accruing around social accountability.” This involves sharing evidence about various projects and stories from the community.

One example is the documentation of the Jorori Water project in Kwale; through the mapping work, the Governance team collected details of the constituency development fund (CDF) project. The funding allocated to upgrade the water supply for the community was 6,182,960 ksh (approximately 73,000.00 USD). From their research the KYGC identified that the Kenya Open Data site reported that the full funding amount has been spent.

A field visit to the site however revealed that project was incomplete and the community is still without a stable water supply, despite the fact that the funding has been “spent.”

Jorori Water Project, built using approximately 6.2 million shillings (73, 000.00 USD)

Read more about the questions the team raised in terms of the governance of CDF projects, including the detailed the project implementation process and some reflections on why the project stalled. This is information on community experiences (tacit information) that is well-known in a localized context but has not been documented and shared widely. New media tools, a blog in this case, provide free (if you have access to a computer and the internet) platforms for sharing this information with national and international audiences.

Addressing violence against children and child protection

Another blog was set up by the Kwale Young Journalists. The Young Journalists, registered in 2009, have been working with Plan Kwale on various projects, including Violence against Children campaigns. The group has been working to set up a community radio station in Kwale to report on children’s issues. Thus far, their application for a community radio frequency has encountered several challenges. New media provides an interim solution and will allow the team to share their stories and network with partners on a national and internal stage.

The Kwale Young Journalists worked with Jeff Mohammed, a young award-winning filmmaker from Mathare Valley. The YETAM project not only equips young people with skills, but through peer-learning establishes connections between young people working on community issues throughout Kenya. The programme also provides young people with life skills through experiential learning – Jeff reflects on his experience in Kwale and says:

Jeff and the Kwale Young Journalists shooting a scene from “The Enemy Within”

“My knowledge didn’t come from books and lecturers it came from interest, determination and persistence to know about filmmaking and this is what I was seeing in these Kwale youths. They numbered 12 and they were me. They are all in their twenties and all looking very energetic, they had the same spirit as mine and it was like looking at a mirror. I had to do the best I could to make sure that they grasp whatever I taught.”

Jeff worked with the Young Journalists on a short film called “the Enemy Within.” The film, shot with flip-cameras, tells the story of 12-year-old girl who is sold into indentured labour by her parents to earn money for her family. During the time she spends working, the young girl “falls prey of her employer (Mr.Mtie) who impregnates her when she is only 12 years old.” Jeff reflects that “early pregnancies are a norm in the rural Kwale area and what the young filmmakers wanted to do is to raise awareness to the people that its morally unacceptable to impregnate a very young girl, in Enemy Within the case didn’t go as far because the village chairman was bribed into silence and didn’t report the matter to higher authorities.” This is a common scenario in Kwale, and the young journalists plan to use the film in public screenings and debates as part of their advocacy work in the coming months.

Jeff and the Kwale Young Journalists shot the film in four days – they travelled to Penzamwenye, Kikoneni and also to Shimba Hills national park to shoot 7 scenes for the movie. Read more about Jeff’s reflections on working with the Kwale Young Journalists on his blog.

Sharing ecotourism resources

The Dzilaz ecotourism team – a group that encourages eco-cultural tourism in Samburu region of Kwale county — also integrated social media into their work. During the last week (November 8th-12th) the group set up a blog to market the community resources, services and products. They also plan to document eco-culture sites and the impact that eco-tourism can have on the community. As of November 10th, 2011 the Dzilaz team had already directed potential clients to their website and thus secured a booking through the information they had posted.

The importance of telling the stories behind the maps

One important component to mapping work is to tell the stories behind the map. The three groups in Kwale are working to build platforms to amplify their grassroots level work in order to share stories and lessons learned. The information documented on the various platforms will develop over time and contribute to a greater understanding of the processes at a local level where youth as young leaders can intervene to begin to change the dynamics of community development.

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Myanmar (Burma): Betwixt and Between

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees considers the situation of between 110-150,000 Burmese refugees located in camps on the border with Thailand as one of 29 protracted refugee situations globally. And, according to East Asia Forum, there are also an additional 1.5-2 million refugees in Thailand and represent the ‘visible side of human rights abuse.'

Ruled by a military junta from 1962 to 2011, Burma, known locally and by the United Nations as Myanmar, has often been accused of violating human rights and the forcible relocation of civilians. Although an ostensibly civilian government was controversially elected in 2010, a quarter of seats in parliament as well as three cabinet seats are reserved for the army.

Other concerns include the use of forced labour, among them children, human trafficking and internal ethnic conflict. In an extensive post, Mary Ditton, a Senior Lecturer in Health Management in Australia, looks at the problem of internally displaced people and refugees:

Most of the self-settled migrants from Burma work in the manufacturing, food processing and agricultural industries throughout Thailand […]. Further to the constant fear and threat of deportation, they work in poor conditions with neither basic rights of association, nor employee and health rights. […] Only some forced migrants choose to officially seek asylum and reside under the protection of UNHCR. Other forced migrants decide to earn a living within the informal economy and endure the risks of being deported. This protracted refugee process means the actual refugee camp populations are made up of women, children, the elderly and disabled, as the able-bodied men and women seek work elsewhere. This ‘left behind’ population is prey to corrupt practices such as people and drug trafficking, smuggling, and child labour. The self-settled group is vulnerable to these practices as well, since they have no effective legal protection.

Burmese Refugee Project on Flickr

A group particularly at risk are children, especially from minority communities, as the Rohingya Arakanese Refugee Committee explains:

Last week the human rights group Arakan Project released a report on children’s rights in Northern Arakan State, in western Burma. Arakan State is home to about 735,000 Rohingya Muslims, one of the most oppressed ethnic minorities in Burma.

The report stated that over 40,000 Rohingya minority children in Arakan State do not have Burmese (or any), citizenship, despite being born and having parents who live in Burma. The children’s stateless status, along with several other draconian laws that discriminate against Rohingya, are in fact severe human rights violations and can have dire consequences on their health.

All Rohingya living in Burma, according to Arakan Project, are required to pay bribes to get permission to travel outside of their villages. Some are forced by the Army or border forces to build roads and guard and clean bases. Rohingya have been pushed off their land, and Arakan Project estimates that only 30% of Rohingyas have access to farmland, with the rest working mostly as casual day laborers.

A study in the United States of 400 refugee children has found that health is a serious concern even when they leave Thailand and Burma:

Some Burmese refugee children heading to the U.S. have toxic levels of lead in the blood, according to a study released this week in the journal Pediatrics. Researchers at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention measured lead levels in Burmese children living in Thai refugee camps. They found that children under age two were at highest risk. Fifteen percent of them had lead poisoning, as did five percent of all children. […]

[…]

Lead poisoning is extremely toxic and can severe health effects on children, including brain damage, mental retardation and lowered IQ levels.

Well-Being For Rohingya Refugee Bangladesh says that changes and reform in Burma might help improve the situation:

While many humanitarian groups have called for more aid for Burmese refugees displaced by years of conflict, there is some optimism now that a series of cease-fire agreements may offer some hope to deliver badly needed food, medicine and shelter supplies.

A recent field report published by Refuges International (RI) focused on two key goals: allowing humanitarian groups freedom of access to refugee areas and the removal of elaborate donor restrictions.

[…]

There are an estimated 500,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in Burma, and three million Burmese refugees in other countries, according to their study. There are also some 800,000 stateless Rohingyas in the west of the country, who live in dire humanitarian conditions because of their lack of basic human rights.

With the decrease in fighting now is the time for the humanitarian community – led by the UN Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator (RC/HC) and supported by key donors like the European Union, United Kingdom, and United States – to expand operations in Burma […].

A ceasefire recently signed between the government and rebels, as well as the release of political prisoners, has given some cause for hope. However, Tina McCloughy says more is necessary:

As part of my Fulbright research in Burma,Malaysia,and Thailand,a Burmese ethnic minority boy told me how he held on tight to his father’s back,as his father carried him through Burmese mountainous war zones to Thailand,leaving him alone in a refugee camp across the border. Why? Because the boy’s father saw how the Burmese government military had repeatedly torched his ethnic villages,schools,and never built them new schools. The only help any minority students have gotten in Burma has been from illegal forays by the Free Burma Rangers into Burma,risking their lives to take ethnic minority educators safely through dangerous conflict zones to be trained to start schools. Burmese minority educators shouldn’t have to risk their lives trying to educate their children.

Changing the lives of minority Burmese requires [Secretary of State] Clinton to also pressure Thailand and Malaysia to change their refugee policies,given that refugees continue to flow out of Burma and that it may take many years before Burma becomes safe for minority families. Thailand and Malaysia have deliberately refused to ratify the 1951 U.N. Convention protecting refugees,perhaps because they fear giving education and work rights to such an overwhelming number of Burmese minority refugees.

Following last year's visit by the U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, Andrew G. Lim writes on the Huffington Post that now is a “critical moment to press for further changes in the way that Myanmar's government deals with its ethnic minorities,” while Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, released from house arrest in 2010, this week addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in a video message:

The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate acknowledged the changes in her country and urged the international community to do more to support further reform.

Tags: Citizen Media Development East Asia Elections English Ethnicity & Race Feature Governance Human Rights Humanitarian Response International Relations Migration & Immigration Myanmar (Burma) Photos Refugees Thailand Video War & Conflict Weblog

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Cambodia: Photos of Urban Poor Village Demolition

Faine Opines uploads photos of the forced eviction of residents and the demolition of their homes in Borei Keila in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Tags: Cambodia Development East Asia English Human Rights Updates

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China: Kashgar’s City

Josh from Xinjiang far west China blogs about the future transformation of Kashgar city in Xinjiang. The old city's traditional mud home would be turned into modern buildings according to plan. The blogger asked: will you be still interested to visit Kashgar after the rebuilt?

Tags: Arts & Culture China Development East Asia English Ethnicity & Race Updates

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Video: Online Media by and for Indigenous People

Intercontinental Cry has a list of 12 recommended films on indigenous issues, some made by indigenous people from Brazil, Australia, Panama, USA, Northern Kenya, Colombia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Nicaragua: The Struggle for Food Sovereignty

Maddy M., a Voices of our Future correspondent for World Pulse, writes about how free trade agreements and other policies have affected the access to affordable, locally-produced, healthy food in Nicaragua. She also highlights citizens who are “working to raise awareness about the need to change the agricultural system in the country.”

Tags: Citizen Media Development English Food Latin America Nicaragua Updates

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Ethiopia: Reflecting on Corruption

A report by Global Financial Integrity shows that Ethiopia has lost $11.7 billion to outflows of illicit funds in the last decade. In 2009 alone, the figure was $3.26 billion, exceeding both the value of its total annual exports and the total development aid it received that year. And it is on the increase.

The report painted the outflows of illegal fund in a more plain language noting:

The people of Ethiopia are being bled dry. No matter how hard they try to fight their way out of absolute destitution and poverty, they will be swimming upstream against the current of illicit capital leakage.

Meles Zenawi (Prime Minister of Ethiopia) at the World Economic Forum in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, May 2010. Photo courtesy of World Economic Forum (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Janice Winter, a South African, wrote an opinion piece on Daily Maverick titled ‘Climate of Corruption in Ethiopia‘, which prompted many responses from both Ethiopians and non-Ethiopians. In her article, Janice highlighted the state of corruption in Ethiopia and called for strict examination of Melese Zenawi’s regime before the release of the Green Climate Fund which was a major point of discussion in COP17 climate talks in Durban.

The Green Climate Fund is a mechanism for transferring money from the developed to the developing world in order to assist the developing countries to counter climate change.

Reacting to Janice's article, Peter Auld said:

It should be fairly self evident that if you pay dictators to be dictators they will remain dictators.

Hopefully the Green Fund will remain at zero, and African begging bowls become a thing of the past.

Gabe A. Adamou praised Janice:

Kudos for Ms. Winters for setting the record straight. It is disgusting to see this blood-soaked tyrant who repeatedly ordered his security forces to shoot on peaceful protesters and who sent journalists and opposition political figures to jail for criticizing his dictatorial rule get a pass in the West, while the likes of Mugabe who are also tyrants but with less human right violations record than Meles are given pariah status. What is more repulsive is to hear that Western leaders and some in policy circles give him all the accolades for “his intelligence” and see that he is given large stage in regional/world affairs. It is encouraging to see independent journalists question the myth about him created by self-serving Western leaders and some lazy Western media journalists who parrot what they hear from official circles.

Al Mariam, a famous Ethiopian political commentator, in his rather extended response to Janice’s article further detailed the state of corruption in Ethiopia. In his article titled ‘Ethiopia: The Art of Bleeding a Country Dry: Ethio-Corruption, Inc. (Unlimited)‘ he stated:

I have long argued that the business of African dictatorships is corruption The devastating impact of corruption on the continent's poor becomes self-evident as political leaders and public officials siphon off resources from critical school, hospital, road and other public works and community projects to line their pockets. For instance, reports of widespread corruption in Ethiopia in the form of outright theft and embezzlement of public funds, misuse and misappropriation of state property, nepotism, bribery, abuse of public authority and position to exact corrupt payments and gain are commonplace. The anecdotal stories of corruption in Ethiopia are shocking to the conscience. Doctors are unable to treat patients at the public hospitals because medicine and supplies are diverted for private gain. Tariffs are imposed on medicine and medical supplies brought into the country for public charity. Businessmen complain that they are unable to get permits and licenses without paying huge bribes or taking officials as silent partners.

But Mulugeta Kassa does not agree with both Janice and Al Mariam:

Here comes Janice with her liberal contemplations and dare I state, jaundiced view of a South African who has turned livid by President Zuma being eclipsed by Meles Zenawi on issues of African concern. Her smear and sneer attack on Meles is nothing more than a punitive action by neo-liberals on an African leader who adamantly refuses to be arm-locked into accepting failed liberal policies. Much to the indignation and chagrin of Janice Winter and her army of befogged individuals from the discredited school of economic liberalism, Ethiopia today is a pluralistic democracy and as such would not sit on its hands while others try to circumvent democracy for there cannot be such thing as lawless freedom. To, therefore, claim that Meles is a dictator is as futile as trying to claim that the world is flat.

As the mainstream media kept on reporting the issue, Ethiopians on Facebook joined the debate. Abiy Tekelmariam, Ethiopian exiled journalist, who shared the link of the story wrote:

Officials of our generous developmental state share our wealth with rich nations.

Another Facebook user, Tessema Belay, reacted to Abiy’s status update:

“Yes!” We are being bled dry” … story of misery goes on…”

Another journalist in exile based in USA posted on his Facebook page:

After serious scrutiny of robbery of construction materials by some Ethiopians, Chinese construction workers said “do Ethiopians have a country called Ethiopia somewhere else?” and here, following an estimate of $11.7 billion of illicit money outflow, lets ask EPRDFites. “is that “Etvopia” real country geographically located around Malaysia and Arab banks?

Kiflu Hussein, Human Right activist based in Kampala posted the following comment on his page:

Daily stories of corruption in Uganda but no stories of corruption in Ethiopia.Why?Is it because like Joachim Bwembo put it in his recent piece that Meles & Co.are aboveboard & beyond reproach or is it because the press is totally muzzled? After finishing the piece I started, perhaps,I’ll jot down a word or two titled “Seeing Addis or Kigali from the sorry state of Kampala.”That may help to expound what Timothy Kalyegira rightly found a silly comparison between the “dysfunctional & normal “duties of a government.

According to the Transparency International’s annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Ethiopia ranks 120 out of 182 countries and territories in the world.

Tags: Citizen Media Development Economics & Business English Ethiopia Governance Sub-Saharan Africa Weblog

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Hong Kong Rethinks its Relationship with Mainland China

2012 will see the 15th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to mainland China. But Hong Kongers have little mood for celebration. A survey conducted by the University of Hong Kong in December 2011, found that the number of respondents who view themselves as Hong Kongers is more than double the number who view themselves as Chinese.

Over the years, it has been a received wisdom that blessing from the mainland underpins the development of Hong Kong. This is most apparent when China’s support helped Hong Kong endure the 2003 SARS epidemic crisis and the 2009 global financial meltdown. However, after recent social and cultural clashes with the mainland, the Hong Kong public is now questioning that wisdom.

Comical presentation of Professor Kong Qingdong, by Hong Kong cartoonist Cuson Lo

In January 2012, hundreds of Hong Kongers protested outside luxury store Dolce & Gabbana, which allowed mainland Chinese tourists but not local residents to take photos in front of the store. In a separate incident, disputes broke out between Hong Kong passengers and mainland tourists who ate on a train. It turned into a public fury when Peking University professor Kong Qingdong added fuel by saying that Hong Kong people are “running dogs”.

In fact, in recent months, news headlines in Hong Kong are all about how mainlanders ‘invade’ the city. Local hospitals are stretched to the limits as pregnant women from the mainland crossed the border to give birth with the hope of securing a Hong Kong passport for their offspring. Mainland buyers exhausted the Hong Kong baby milk powder market amid food scandals in China. And as millions of Chinese tourists visit the city every year, it seems that all local residents could feel is their disregard of civic values and rule of law.

Last year, Hong Kong netizens made a popular music video named Locust World, which described mainland Chinese as “locusts” who like to “jump queues, spit in public”, “shout in restaurants, hotels and shops” and would use up the city’s resources. A version with English subtitle could be found here:

A view which is very common among mainlanders is that “without China’s economic support, Hong Kong would have been dead long ago.” But many Hong Kongers now think that the “mainland invasion” has done more harm than good to Hong Kong. Certain sectors, like retail, finance and real estate, have benefited greatly from mainlanders, but the inflation and housing bubbles created make the rest suffer. Furthermore, Hong Kong’s public system is yet to be prepared for a large influx of mainlanders. There is also a fear of the erosion of traditional Hong Kong values like the rule of law.

These views are now prevalent among Hong Kong bloggers and social critics. It is a complex challenge facing Hong Kong, one interlaced with local vs. mainland and poor vs. rich conflicts.

At Asia Sentinel, Alice Poon, a former real estate professional and author of Land and the Ruling Class in Hong Kong, explores the value gap between mainland and Hong Kong, and the fact that only a narrow range of sectors could benefit from closer relationship with the mainland:

The unbridgeable gap seems to be between (Hong Kongers’) acceptance and (most mainlanders’) rejection of or aversion to universal values like rule of law, democracy, equality and liberty. It is not through the latter’s fault that they find these values alien; it’s just because they have been living under a political system that has infiltrated them with the idea that those are not Chinese values and therefore no good for them. The system has taught people that all they need worry about is the economy and how to make money and practically nothing else. Morals aren’t important. Corruption can be tolerated. There is of course no lack of intellectuals in China who have refused to be brainwashed and who truly embrace universal values, but most of them unfortunately are rewarded with either political exile or incarceration.

It goes without saying that the only Hong Kong people who welcome mainland tourists, immigrants and shoppers are developers and their cronies (real estate agents, contractors etc.), especially those who are large shopping mall landlords. Even for retailers, whether or not they can benefit from the influx depends on whether the products they sell are mainlanders’ favorites. As for the rest of Hong Kongers, all they can feel towards the swamping inflow is resentment.

Meanwhile, however, the influx of Chinese capitals and tourists could have some damaging long-term effects on Hong Kong’s economy. Stanley5’s Blog explains:

正正是因為「自由行」、中資企業來港上市，以及給境外人士投資地產，搞到香港白白失去產業轉型的機會。現在香港只有金融、地產與旅遊服務業，大量人才與資金被吸過去，地價租金又被推高，以至製造業消亡，其他產業也一蹶不振，就連我最愛的港產片也快要消失了。我經常說：論出口品牌，韓國有SAMSUNG，台灣有 HTC，新加坡也有CREATIVE，香港有什麼？山寨機？莎莎？屈臣氏？米蘭站？

It is because of Hong Kong’s dependence on mainland tourists, the listing of Chinese enterprises in Hong Kong, and Chinese investments in real estate that it loses the opportunity to transform itself. Today, Hong Kong can only boost its finance, real estate and tourism services industries, which suck in a large amount of resources and talents. The real estate bubble leads to the death of the manufacturing industry. Other industries and products, like my favourite Hong Kong films, are also dying. I always say: in terms of export brands, South Korea has Samsung, Taiwan has HTC, even Singapore has Creative. What does Hong Kong have? Copycat phones? Sa Sa? Watson’s? Milan Station? [Note: The latter three are Hong Kong retailers.]

但令我討厭的是，現在不少來自大陸的所謂「遊客」，其實並非來旅遊，也非欣賞香港，而是為了「辦貨」、帶水貨，賺兩地貨幣的匯率差價，還有不少人是挪用公款、洗黑錢 (例如 D&G 要保護的人)。但最難頂的是他們部分人的惡劣舉止與財大氣粗。你叫我要包容，我告訴你，他們很多人根本就沒有「自由行」的資格！

But what annoys me is that many of the so-called “tourists” from mainland come here not to tour, but to buy products only to resell them for a profit in the mainland. And a large number of them do this with black money (like those under Dolce & Gabbana’s protection). And what is most disgusting is their rude behavior. If you tell me to be tolerant, I would say that many of them do not qualify to be “tourists”!

Profile image of @leungmantao

If the abundance of natural resources is an economic curse for some countries, the closeness to Chinese spending power is another form of curse for Hong Kong. Hong Kong has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the world. This is where you can find the world’s third-most expensive shopping strip, while over 100,000 people have to live in 6ft by 2ft “cage homes”. As Hong Kong has gotten more and more wealthy, many local residents are left behind. Prominent social critic Leung Man To draws our attention to the decline of Venice as an ominous warning for Hong Kong:

想當年威尼斯衰落之後，只能憑觀光賺錢；但遊客一多，物價便升，地租更是貴得離譜，於是漸漸逼退老居民，終於鬧到今日這步田地，好端端一座輝煌千年稱霸地中海的貿易大城只剩下可憐的六萬個倖存者。至少在飲食上，如今我能看到香港「威尼斯化」的迹象，「價廉物美」變得愈來愈難，又貴又不好吃的地方反而日益增多；要是肯一擲千金，選擇倒是不少。眼見茶餐廳「餐蛋麵」那兩片餐肉愈切愈薄，北上定居的人群愈去愈多，你叫香港人怎能不生氣？怎能不感到危機四伏？

After its decline, Venice could only depend on tourism for income; but as visitors become numerous, prices of commodities and real estates skyrocketed. This drove away the local residents. Today, only 60,000 residents remain in this glorious city which once dominated the Mediterranean for a thousand years. I can see Hong Kong following the path of Venice, at least from its restaurants. It is increasingly difficult to find “value for money” eating out places, but it’s not hard to find places which are expensive but so-so. Of course, you still have many choices if you are willing to pay. As the piece of meat in the “meat-egg noodles” you get in restaurant becomes thinner, and more and more people around you migrate to the mainland, how can we not feel angry? How can we not feel perilous?

That being said, while Hong Kong could blame the mainland for all the social issues, it might have more to do with the policy failures of the Hong Kong government. In the opinion of blogger Grey Reporter:

香港作為一富裕城市，但貧富差距之驚人，基層生活的匱乏，以至中產的生活質素也好不到那裡。公義、多元性、市容、環保、文化創意…等都跟真正富裕城市相去甚遠，這一切和內地人也沒有關係。

As a prosperous city, Hong Kong has shockingly high inequality. The grassroots population lacks basic security, and the middle class is not much better. Justice, diversity, city planning, environmental protection, culture and innovation…… in all these regards, Hong Kong lacks behind other cities which can justly call themselves rich. All these have nothing to do with the mainlanders.

政府無長遠計劃鼓勵主流港跟少數族裔以至新移民共融，也沒有魄力去長遠解決香港的醫療人手不足，房屋及各項福利如教育學額不足等問題，仍是採取頭痛醫頭，腳痛醫腳，以及自生自滅的方式。於是，造成資源不足所出現的民粹意識，不深究政府的規劃缺失，把矛頭指向「外來者」爭資源。

The government has no long-term planning to encourage minority groups or immigrants from mainland to integrate into the Hong Kong society. It also lacks a comprehensive and long-term approach to tackle the lack of resources in health care, housing and education. It views them in bits and pieces. In the end, when cracks appear in the public system, populist opinion directs their anger at the “outsiders” who steal away their fair share. But what we should criticize is the government’s failure to plan for the long-term.

In the end, he hopes that ordinary Hong Kong people could realize the fact that they, like most mainlanders, live in an unjust political system under which the rich and the powerful collude. They share the same destiny, that is, to end this injustice:

其實香港人和內地人有著共同命運，就是對抗中共強權及與之勾結的富豪權貴，結束專制和不公義的執政狀況。相比之下，一些內地人的「不文明」舉動算不了甚麼。畢竟如果認為香港是一個包容的社會，便應該抱以寬容及「循循善誘」的態度。要知道，三、四十年前的香港也「文明」不了多少(現在也不見得香港人人文明守禮)，大家還不是如此走過來。

Actually, Hong Kongers and mainlanders share the same destiny – to end the authoritarian rule of the Chinese Communist Party and the collusion between the rich and the powerful. Relatively speaking, the “uncivilized” behaviors of some mainlanders do not matter much. After all, if Hong Kong calls itself an inclusive society, it should be more tolerant and patient. Thirty or forty years ago, Hong Kong was not much better (and not all Hong Kongers now are civilized). We have gone through the same path.

Tags: China Chinese Citizen Media Development Economics & Business English Hong Kong (China) Migration & Immigration Politics Video Weblog

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Video: One Year, One World and 52 Different Stories

Video journalist Maggie Padlewska will travel alone for one year, visiting a country each week for a total of 52 countries. During her journey she'll be recording, editing and producing videos of her interactions with communities, organizations and people under-represented by mass media and uploading them to the web, so that the stories of these people in lesser known communities come out into the world. This is the One Year One World.

One year One World is an initiative to raise awareness of people and communities living in some of the world's most fascinating but under-reported regions through an independent multimedia production. The mission is to provide lesser-known communitites with an opportunity to share their stories wth the world, to educate and inspire youth and adults to think about the global community, to help bridge the “communications gap” in media coverage and to promote peace and understanding around the world.

The idea to do this project came to Padlewska when she was filming a medical mission to a remote indigenous community in Panama. As she explains on this next video, during her trip, she realized that she didn't want to just report what the medical community was doing, she wanted to go beyond that.

Her pilot project took place with the Embera communities in Panama. The Embera are one of the few traditional pre- Columbian tribes remaining in Central America, and recently, their ancestral lands, mostly forests and jungles were declared a National Park. This meant that they weren't able to hunt anymore, which meant they had lost food security and needed to buy food from outside their community. They had turned to cultural tourism as a way to earn income, and this intrigued Padlewska:

Were the Embera peoples forced to embrace tourism as a means of survival after being prohibited from hunting? What implications has this had on the tribe's traditional lifestyle and cultural survival? Is the tribe being exploited? These are some of the questions that I asked the Embera Drua and Embera Quera, two indigenous communities currently living on government land.

This journey's video shows us how these communities are dealing with this new way to interact with outsiders, and what impact it is having on their traditional ways:

Padlewska plans to travel to Africa, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Asia and South and Central America as soon as she finishes her fundraising to back her year of travel.

Tags: Arts & Culture Citizen Media Development English Film Ideas Indigenous Latin America Media & Journalism Panama Spanish Travel Video Weblog

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Can mobile phone apps prevent violence against women?

In this guest post, Keshet Bachan, gender equality activist and blogger at Girls Report, questions whether mobile phone applications addressing street violence are an effective way to prevent violence against women. What do you think?

Can mobile ‘apps’ really prevent or discourage instances of violence against women? This question has been on my mind since a colleague shared this video from Voice of America about a mobile app called ‘Fight Back’, marketed as ‘India’s first mobile app for women’s safety’.

The video sparked an email discussion that raised some interesting questions that deserve a closer examination.

The VOA story provides a holistic view of violence against women and the developers of the mobile phone application admit that they are but one element in a broader system that needs to respond to instances of violence. They discuss the involvement of police and other duty bearers, such as municipal bodies, which need to address reports women make and do more to reduce their risks. I applaud this approach and the way in which the developers acknowledge the limitations of their application, which I find refreshing.

At the same time I feel this application distracts attention away from more prevalent (and deadly) issues. According to the World Health Organization 10-69% of women stated that they had been physically assaulted by an intimate partner at some point in their lives. The WHO also reports that 40-70% of female murder victims were killed by an intimate partner. A recent survey in the UK showed that one in three girls aged 13 – 17 reported sexual abuse from a partner and one in four had experienced some form of physical partner violence. The UK police receive a call for help regarding relationship abuse every minute.

The degree to which this mobile phone application promotes the notion of ‘stranger danger’ distracts attention from the urgent and more prevalent issue of family and intimate partner violence. Moreover, the fact that the application has a GPS tracker to trace a woman’s route home could inadvertently contribute to both increasing women’s fear of violence in public spaces as well as playing into the hands of those who seek to control women’s mobility by pleading the need to ‘protect’ them by knowing their whereabouts at all times.

In this context a colleague commented that a GPS enabled function could allow ‘even a moderately tech-savvy user to trace the woman in question’ – which could serve to increase traditional control over women who dare to step outside the confines of convention (and the home) even further.

There’s a disparity between the actual risk of being molested or assaulted in the street, and the level to which women fear it. One thing this mobile app could help with is mapping the actual instances of violence. This could in fact serve to reduce women’s fear, proving that violence outside the home is not as common or as severe as people might believe. At the same time the app could also shed light on the places where women are more prone to abuse (dark alleys or well lit train stations?) and call for concrete actions like streetlights to improve safety.

The application (as always) leaves it up to women to try protect themselves and does little to tackle the root causes of violence. For instance, research from India (where this application was developed) found that almost all police officers interviewed agreed that ‘a husband is allowed to rape his wife’, while 68% of judges felt that ‘provocative attire was an invitation to rape’ (Khan and Battacharya, 2010). The application would do well to connect its users to a platform for social mobilization and consciousness raising work that could create a critical mass of people who will work together to challenge traditional attitudes around gender.

Some of the other questions raised by this application, and others of its ilk, concern the development of such applications and the development of technology itself.

Does the sex of the person developing the application have an impact on the relevance of the application for persons of the opposite sex (i.e. can men develop useful applications for women)? Is technology itself biased in favor of one gender over the other (i.e. is technology inherently male)? As these questions assume rigid gender binaries the answer must inevitably be ‘no’. At the same time, research has shown that women use technology differently and that they are not well represented amongst technology developers.

Technology can be useful to both sexes and really it is a question of how one applies it that counts. In the same vein, it shouldn’t matter who’s behind developing the application but whether or not the application is answering a real need. (Let us recall that simply being a woman, doesn’t mean you’re more in touch with other women — the CEO of playboy is Hugh Hefner’s daughter).

I’m not convinced that women need a mobile phone application to protect them from strangers on a dark street. If I were asked ‘what do you think would make the streets of Delhi safer for women’, an app is not the first thing that would spring to my mind.

Tags: ICTs, mobile and technology gender protection ICT4D m4D mapping violence wait... what? women mobile app stranger danger fight back India

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Brazil: Toll Roads, Constitutional or Too Much?

All links lead to Portuguese language pages except when otherwise noted.

After the approval of the Urban Mobility Law at the beginning of 2012, a discussion surrounding toll roads in all national territory came back into play. According to the law, cities will be able to charge an “urban toll” with the intention of diminishing automobile traffic and improve circulation around the cities. However, the implementation of yet another toll makes internal mobility impracticable for a portion of the population, given that several important federal and state highways have already been privatized.

According to data from the Brazilian Association of Highways Concessionaires (Associação Brasileira de Concessionárias de Rodovias – ABCR), of which 55 companies are members,

Essas concessionárias operam 15.365 quilômetros de rodovias, o que corresponde a aproximadamente 7% da malha rodoviária nacional pavimentada.

These concessionaires operate 15,365 kilometers of highways, corresponding to approximately 7% of all paved domestic roads.

Tollbooths – Itiparina. Photo by Mariana Braga. (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

The tariffs vary from R$ 1,40 [US$ 0.80] (Highway BR 101 from Curitiba to Santa Catarina) to R$ 11,20 [US$ 6.20] (Highway BR 116 from Rio de Janeiro to Além Paraíba). It might seem irrelevant within a context of more than 180,000 kilometers of paved roads all across the country; although, besides corresponding to the main national and state highways, tollbooths are installed at a distance of approximately 80 km between each other, depending on the location.

Since 2007, an email has been circulating on the Internet, describing the final thesis of the Law student Márcia dos Santos Silva, from the State of Rio Grande do Sul. In her thesis, the student contends that:

o direito de ir e vir é cláusula pétrea na Constituição Federal, o que significa dizer que não é possível violar esse direito. E ainda que todo o brasileiro tem livre acesso em todo o território nacional. O que também quer dizer que o pedágio vai contra a constituição.

The right to come and go is a fundamental clause in the Federal Constitution, which means that such right cannot be violated. Moreover, every Brazilian has free access to all national territory. It also means that toll roads go against the constitution.

Even though the email presents some false information, like the constitutionality of free will to either pay or not pay these fees (all analyzed in the business consultant Marcelo Galvani’s blog), Márcia gave an interview to Radio CBN, in which she continued to defend her position against toll roads. A valid point of her argument corresponds to the fact that citizens already pay a specific tax (charged over gas prices) to the construction and maintenance of public roads.

Below her interview posted on the site Youtube, a discussion among those who defend the student’s position and those who are against her argument, reflects a bigger discussion on toll roads. Would its implementation be constitutionally correct given that there are specific taxes dedicated to highways?

Road works on highway BR 158, in Mato Grosso. Photo by minpanplac. (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

In a commentary left by Internet user sucrilhos, he arguments that,

O direito de um termina onde o do outro começa (…) O direito�� de ir e vir não diz que você pode ir pra onde quiser… se pensar desse jeito eu teria direito constitucional de entrar na sua casa quando quisesse… e você sabe que não posso, porque você tem o direito da propriedade privada e por ele você pode deixar entrar só quem você quiser, a menos que seja emitida uma ordem judicial….A mesma lógica se aplica aos pedágios, as estradas são privadas. Eles podem cobrar se quiserem.

One’s right ends where the other’s begins (…) The right to come and go doesn’t say that you can go wherever you want… if I think that way I would have a constitutional right to enter your house whenever I wanted… and you know I can’t, because you have the right of private property and because of it you only allow to enter who you choose to, unless a judicial order is obtained… Same logic applies to toll roads, these are private highways. They can charge if they want.

Alehage, on the other hand, referring to Art. 150, I, V of the Constitution, which authorizes tolls roads, defends that,

As leis se anulam umas às outras e não defendem aos nossos. Fácil saber que existam leis autorizando o pedágio, mas essas leis entram em conflito com a lei que Márcia citou. Ela não está espalhando desinformação, só defendeu uma tese sobre o assunto em uma faculdade, e é incompreensível tanta agressividade�� de vocês. Se criarem leis taxando o ar, a respiração… vamos apoiar, ou ser fora-da-lei?

Laws invalidate one another, and don’t defend ours [rights]. It’s easy to know there are laws authorizing the creation of tolls, but these laws create a conflict with the law invoked by Márcia. She is not spreading misinformation, she only defended a thesis about the subject in a university, and it’s incomprehensible that so much animosity is coming from you. If laws taxing the air, breathing, are created… are we going to support, or be outlaws?

According to the National Agency of Terrestrial Transportation (Agência Nacional de Transportes Terrestres – ANTT),

O processo de implantação [da concessão de rodovias] iniciou em 1995 (…) Esta parceria entre o governo federal e os governos estaduais deu continuidade ao processo de descentralização das atividades do Estado na área de transporte, transferindo à iniciativa privada a prestação de determinados serviços que, apesar de serem essenciais à sociedade, não precisariam, necessariamente, ser oferecidos pelo poder público. Essa transferência de responsabilidade vem possibilitando ao Estado, a alocação de maiores verbas para as atividades sociais, estas indelegáveis.

The process of implementation [of highways concessions] started in 1995 (…) This partnership between the federal government and state governments gave continuity to a decentralization process of State activities in the area of transportation, transferring to the private initiative the provision of services that, although they are essential to society, need not necessarily be offered by the government. This transfer of responsibility has enabled the state to allocate more funds for social activities, these can not be delegated, which cannot be delegated

Once transferred to the private sector, the concessionaires can readjust the initial toll value according to expenses and inflation. In a recent case however, published on the site Bom Dia Feira, federal Justice demonstrated to be against the concessionaire Via Bahia, which wanted to readjust the toll to a medium increase of 9.33%, because they didn’t conclude improvements on the BR-116 highway, located in the State of Bahia, as promised.

The journalist Adamo Bazani though, writes in his blog Ponto de Ônibus, that

desde quando foi criado [o CIDE – Imposto sobre combustíveis], em 2002, o tributo arrecadou R$ 68,8 bilhões. Mas deste total, apenas R$ 35,6 bilhões foram investidos em melhorias nos transportes, um dos principais objetivos deste tributo, mais um, dos muitos impostos que o brasileiro paga.

since [CIDE – tax over fuel] was created, in 2002, it has collected R$ 68,8 billion [US$ 38 billion]. Yet, from this total, only R$ 35,6 billion [US$ 20 billion] were invested in transportation improvements, one of the main objectives of such tribute, and just another of the many taxes paid by Brazilians.

Independent of an ideological or judicial position, several drivers challenge the law and prefer to “run away” from tollbooths. Several videos are circulating around the Internet showing how to drive by without paying.

Unconstitutional or not, in a country like Brazil, highly dependent on road transportation, the discussion regarding the payment of a toll raises certain considerations indispensible for the country’s sustainable growth. While new transportation alternatives are not heavily invested in, the payment of taxes and tolls appears, once again, contradictory to ‘you get what you pay for'.

Tags: Brazil Citizen Media Development Economics & Business English Governance Latin America Law Portuguese Video Weblog

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Venezuela: Soledad Ramírez, One of Caracas' Heroes

Ten years ago, Soledad Ramírez created the Rincón Infantil San Edmundo [es], a center that today helps 200 at-risk children from Minas de Baruta in Caracas. Journalist and blogger Mirelis Morales highlights Soledad's work in a video in her blog about Caracas [es].

Tags: Citizen Media Development Education Latin America Spanish Updates Venezuela Youth

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Bolivia: March Demands Road Through TIPNIS

Last year we reported extensively on a march to protest a road that would go through the TIPNIS indigenous territory; on December 20, 2011, a group demanding the building of the road started their own march towards La Paz: “This pro-road march wants the law approved in October by President Evo Morales that strictly prohibited the road through the TIPNIS to be reversed” Dario Kenner explains in the blog Bolivia Diary.

Tags: Bolivia Citizen Media Development English Indigenous Latin America Protest Updates

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Guatemala: Child Labor in the Sugar Cane Fields

The recent investigation done by journalists of Plaza Publica in Guatemala has uncovered how government authorities, although legally having to prevent child labor, allow children under 14 years of age to work in their cane fields, which is a physically demanding and dangerous work.

Sugar Cane Pieces by Chris McBrien CCBy

In the article Child labor and exploitation in Guatemala's sugar Alberto Arce and Martín Rodríguez Pellecer explain how children work in the sugar fields where workers are paid by tonnage cut. While most adult workers cut two to three tons, that doesn't even add up to minimum wage, about 7.5 USD per day. One of the families interviewed, where the father works with his two sons, one 12 and the other 13, don't even make minimum wage between the three of them.

Para llegar al salario mínimo, con un salario de Q20 por tonelada es necesario superar las tres toneladas diarias. Para el finquero, la media normal que un cortador puede extraer es de seis toneladas. Los cortadores dicen que a partir de dos o tres es inhumano.

To reach the minimum wage, with a salary of Q20 per ton it is needed to cut more than three tons daily. For the plantation owner, the normal amount a cutter can extract is of 6 tons. The cutters say that more than two or three is inhuman.

At Flamenco, Picture by Alberto Arce, CC BY

Following is the short video they shot as they went into a sugar cane plantation to take photographs using an antique wooden camera. From the article:

Plaza Pública ingresó sin pedir permiso a la propiedad privada de Kuhsiek para hacer unas fotografías artísticas sobre trabajadores de la caña. En ese momento, no se sabía quién era el dueño de la finca. Ya dentro se descubrió el trabajo infantil. Allí, en una conversación informal entre el empresario agrícola, uno de los reporteros que escriben esta nota y el fotógrafo Rodrigo Abd, se acordó una entrevista formal en su oficina de la capital.

Plaza Pública went in without asking permission to the private property of Kuhsiek, to take some artistic photographs of cane workers. In that moment, it wasn't known who the owner of the plantation was. Once inside, the child labor was discovered. There, in an informal conversation between the agricultural businessmen, one of the reporters writing this note and the photographer Rodrigo Abd a formal interview in his office in the capital was agreed upon.

The greatest irony is perhaps that the owner of the Flamenco plantation is no other than Otto Kuhsiek, the president of the Guatemalan Chamber of Agriculture. In the interview, he didn't deny that children may go to the fields, but suggested that they don't actually work there:

El presidente de la Cámara del Agro se define como una persona que trata de cumplir con la Ley: “No conozco las edades de los niños que se encontraban en mi finca, que estaban, en todo caso, en su período vacacional. Usted vio que había una escuela en frente de donde estaban. Y esos niños no son trabajadores, sino que vienen acompañando a sus padres. Son sus ayudantes (…) .

The President of the Chamber of Agriculture defines himself as a law abiding person: “I don't know the ages of the children found in my farm, who were, in any case, in the holiday season. You saw that there was a school in front of where they were. And those children aren't workers, but they come with their parents. They are their helpers “.

He went on to explain that workers are not exploited since they are free to go when they are tired. However, the journalists point out that at 5 pm workers can still be seen in the fields and because they are paid for what they can cut, they may be forced to chosing between feeding their families or getting some rest.

On twitter, under the hashtag #11deazucar, Guatemanal journalist Alejandra Gutierrez tries to take the focus from placing blame into the lives of these children:

¿Los cañeros? ¿los azucareros? ¿los compradores? ¿los padres? ¿el Estado? La tragedia es que esos niños tengan que trabajar. #11deazucar

The sugar cane cutters? the sugar workers? the buyers? the parents? the state? The tragedy is that these children have to work. #11deazucar

Child labor in the sugar cane fields is not new: back in 2007, this video with pictures of sugar cane workers in Guatemala, including children was uploaded on YouTube.

http://youtu.be/tPxmPpaMaFU

Although the sugar industry in Guatemala is one of the fastest growing and highest grossing in Guatemala, this growth and wealth is not passed on to the people farther down in the chain. In fact, the sugar association that brings together the 13 sugar processing plants in Guatemala, Asazgua, only guarantees a minimum wage for those who work processing the sugar, not those who cut it and believes the problems of the cane workers exposed are neither examples of child labor or, in fact, their problem, since they are cutters and not sugar workers: since they are providers they are not part of Asazgua and it is not up to them to stop this from happening.

At Flamenco, by Alberto Arce, CC BY

In the Plaza Publica article, Arce and Rodriguez tell of how the plantation owners and Asazgua show themselves as victims, suggesting that child work at the plantations is the farmers' choice, and that not allowing children to work at the fields might lead to the farmers or their children burning down the fields and sabotage the production.

The article and investigation had results, but sadly, not as expected. Journalist Alberto Arce posted on twitter that althought the Finca Flamenco farm ceased operations as a consequence of the article on sugar in @PlazaPublicaGT, there are cane workers who lost their jobs in Retalhuleu.

Tags: Development Economics & Business Guatemala Human Rights Labor Latin America Media & Journalism Spanish Video Weblog Youth

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Ethnos Project

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January 28 2012