Global Report on Internal Displacement 2019
There were 28 million new displacements associated with conflict and disasters across 148 countries and territories in 2018.
Carte des nouvellement déplacés internes :
▻http://www.internal-displacement.org/global-report/grid2019
#IDPs #déplacés_internes #asile #migrations #réfugiés #statistiques #2018 #rapport #chiffres #monde #cartographie #visualisation
Ces réfugiés dans leur propre pays
En 2018, il y a eu autant de nouveaux « déplacés internes » dans 55 pays que de réfugiés en séjour dans le monde entier.
A voir le nombre de personnes exilées à l’intérieur de leur propre pays, celui des réfugiés paraît faire moins problème. A fin 2018, le nombre de réfugiés recensés dans le monde entier atteignait 28,5 millions, soit autant que celui des « déplacés internes » supplémentaires enregistrés au cours de la seule année dernière.
Selon le Rapport global 2019 de l’Observatoire des situations de déplacement interne (IDMC) du Conseil norvégien des réfugiés, dont le siège se trouve à Genève, on comptait, à fin 2018, 41,3 millions de personnes vivant en situation de déplacés internes dans 55 pays, suite à des catastrophes naturelles ou à des conflits. Il s’agit d’un effectif record de personnes déplacées dans leur propre pays du fait de conflits, de violence généralisée ou de catastrophes naturelles.
Catastrophes naturelles
Parmi les désastres qui ont provoqué l’an dernier quelque 17,2 millions de nouveaux déplacements, certains sont très probablement dus au changement climatique. Ainsi, les incendies qui ont détruit une grande partie de la forêt californienne et qui ont contraint 1,2 million d’Américains – sans compter les morts – à abandonner leur domicile et à s’installer ailleurs peuvent probablement être attribués au réchauffement climatique et à la sécheresse.
Au contraire, le Bangladesh n’a enregistré l’an dernier « que » 78’000 déplacements de personnes en raison des inondations. C’est presque l’équivalent de la population de la ville de Lucerne qu’il faut recaser sur des terrains sûrs dans un pays comptant 1’100 habitants au kilomètre carré. Le Bangladesh prévoit de construire trois villes de taille moyenne pour accueillir les déplacés récents et ceux qui ne vont pas manquer d’affluer dans les années à venir. Mais que pourra-t-on faire lorsque le niveau de la mer montera ?
Au Nigeria, cet immense pays de plus de 100 millions d’habitants, 80% des terres ont été inondées par des pluies torrentielles, causant 541’000 déplacements internes.
Problème : les personnes qui, en raison d’inondations ou de conflits locaux, doivent chercher refuge ailleurs dans leur propre pays se rendent systématiquement dans les villes, souvent déjà surpeuplées. Comment imaginer que Dhaka, la capitale du Bangladesh récemment devenue une mégapole approchant les 17 millions d’habitants, puisse encore grandir ?
Violences et conflits
En 2018 toujours, 10,8 millions de personnes ont connu le sort des déplacés internes en raison des violences ou des conflits qui ont sévi surtout dans les pays suivants : Ethiopie, République démocratique du Congo (RDC), Syrie, Nigeria, Somalie, Afghanistan, République centrafricaine, Cameroun et Soudan du Sud. Outre ces mouvements internes, des personnes sont allées chercher secours et refuge notamment en Turquie (3,5 millions), en Ouganda (1,4 million) ou au Pakistan (1,4 million).
Les trois pays qui comptent le plus de déplacés internes dus à la violence sont la Syrie, (6,1 millions de personnes), la Colombie (5,8 millions) et la RDC (3,1 millions). S’agissant de la Syrie, nous savons que la guerre civile n’est pas terminée et qu’il faudra faire des efforts gigantesques pour reconstruire les villes bombardées.
Mais que savons-nous de la Colombie, depuis l’accord de paix entre le gouvernement de Santos et les Farc ? En 2018, il y a eu 145’000 nouveaux déplacés internes et de nombreux leaders sociaux assassinés : 105 en 2017, 172 en 2018 et 7, soit une personne par jour, dans la première semaine de janvier 2019.
L’Assemblée nationale colombienne ne veut pas mettre en œuvre les accords de paix, encore moins rendre des terres aux paysans et accomplir la réforme agraire inscrite à l’article premier de l’accord de paix. Les Farc ont fait ce qu’elles avaient promis, mais pas le gouvernement. Ivan Duque, qui a remplacé Manuel Santos, s’est révélé incapable de reprendre le contrôle des terrains abandonnés par les Farc – et repris par d’autres bandes armées, paramilitaires ou multinationales, ou par des trafiquants de drogue. Triste évolution marquée par une insécurité grandissante.
Et que dire de la RDC ? C’est au Kivu, Nord et Sud, véritable grotte d’Ali Baba de la planète, que les populations sont victimes de bandes armées s’appuyant sur diverses tribus pour conserver ou prendre le contrôle des mines riches en coltan, diamant, or, cuivre, cobalt, étain, manganèse, etc. Grands responsables de ces graves troubles : les téléphones portables et autres appareils connectés à l’échelle mondiale ainsi que les multinationales minières.
Il y a probablement bien d’autres pays de la planète où les violences sont commises par des multinationales qui obligent les habitants locaux à fuir devant la destruction de leurs villages et de leurs terres. Où vont-ils se réfugier ? Dans les villes bien sûr, où ils espèrent trouver un toit. Mais un toit ne suffit pas, ni l’éventuelle aide humanitaire apportée par la Croix-Rouge et les Etats occidentaux. Quand débarquent des dizaines de milliers de déplacés, les municipalités doivent aussi construire des écoles, des hôpitaux, assurer la distribution d’eau potable et l’évacuation des eaux usées.
Dans les pays africains où il arrive que moins de la moitié des habitants aient accès à l’eau potable, un déplacement important risque fort de remettre en cause tout le programme gouvernemental. Le rapport de l’Observatoire des situations de déplacement interne va même jusqu’à prévoir que certains des Objectifs de développement durable fixés par les Nations unies en 2015 ne pourront jamais être atteints.
Displaced people: Why are more fleeing home than ever before?
More than 35,000 people were forced to flee their homes every day in 2018 - nearly one every two seconds - taking the world’s displaced population to a record 71 million.
A total of 26 million people have fled across borders, 41 million are displaced within their home countries and 3.5 million have sought asylum - the highest numbers ever, according to UN refugee agency (UNHCR) figures.
Why are so many people being driven away from their families, friends and neighbourhoods?
Devastating wars have contributed to the rise
Conflict and violence, persecution and human rights violations are driving more and more men, women and children from their homes.
In fact, the number of displaced people has doubled in the last 10 years, the UNHCR’s figures show, with the devastating wars in Iraq and Syria causing many families to leave their communities.
Conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Yemen and South Sudan, as well as the flow of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar to Bangladesh, have also had a significant impact.
Most do not become refugees
While much of the focus has been on refugees - that’s people forced to flee across borders because of conflict or persecution - the majority of those uprooted across the world actually end up staying in their own countries.
These people, who have left their homes but not their homeland, are referred to as “internally displaced people”, or IDPs, rather than refugees.
IDPs often decide not to travel very far, either because they want to stay close to their homes and family, or because they don’t have the funds to cross borders.
But many internally displaced people end up stuck in areas that are difficult for aid agencies to reach - such as conflict zones - and continue to rely on their own governments to keep them safe. Those governments are sometimes the reason people have fled, or - because of war - have become incapable of providing their own citizens with a safe place to stay.
For this reason, the UN describes IDPs as “among the most vulnerable in the world”.
Colombia, Syria and the DRC have the highest numbers of IDPs.
However, increasing numbers are also leaving home because of natural disasters, mainly “extreme weather events”, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), which monitors the global IDP population only.
The next biggest group of displaced people are refugees. There were 25.9 million by the end of 2018, of whom about half were children.
One in four refugees came from Syria.
The smallest group of displaced people is asylum seekers - those who have applied for sanctuary in another country but whose claim has not been granted. There were 3.5 million in 2018 - fewer than one in 10 of those forced to flee.
Places hit by conflict and violence are most affected
At the end of 2018, Syrians were the largest forcibly displaced population. Adding up IDPs, refugees and asylum seekers, there were 13 million Syrians driven from their homes.
Colombians were the second largest group, with 8m forcibly displaced according to UNHCR figures, while 5.4 million Congolese were also uprooted.
If we just look at figures for last year, a massive 13.6 million people were forced to abandon their homes - again mostly because of conflict. That’s more than the population of Mumbai - the most populous city in India.
Of those on the move in 2018 alone, 10.8 million ended up internally displaced within their home countries - that’s four out of every five people.
A further 2.8 million people sought safety abroad as newly-registered refugees or asylum seekers.
Just 2.9 million people who had previously fled their homes returned to their areas or countries of origin in 2018 - fewer than those who became displaced in the same period.
The world’s largest new population of internally displaced people are Ethiopians. Almost three million abandoned their homes last year - many escaping violence between ethnic groups.
The conflict in the DRC also forced 1.8 million to flee but remain in their home country in 2018.
In war-torn Syria, more than 1.6 million became IDPs.
Venezuelans topped the list of those seeking asylum abroad in 2018, with 341,800 new claims. That’s more than one in five claims submitted last year.
Hyperinflation, food shortages, political turmoil, violence and persecution, have forced hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans to leave their homeland.
Most left for Peru, while others moved to Brazil, the US or Spain. More than 7,000 applied for asylum in neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago - just seven miles off Venezuela’s coast - last year alone.
Annielis Ramirez, 30, is among the thousands of Venezuelans seeking a better life on the islands.
“All my family is in Venezuela, I had to come here to work and help them,” she says. "I couldn’t even buy a pair of shoes for my daughter. The reality is that the minimum salary is not enough over there.
“I’m here in Trinidad now. I don’t have a job, I just try to sell empanadas [filled pastries]. The most important thing is to put my daughter through school.”
Those driven from their homelands mostly remain close by
Almost 70% of the world’s refugees come from just five countries: Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar and Somalia, according to the UNHCR. And their neighbouring nations host the most.
Most Syrians have escaped to Turkey and more than half of Afghan refugees are in Pakistan.
Many South Sudanese go to nearby Sudan or Uganda. Those from Myanmar - the majority Rohingya refugees displaced at the end of 2017 - mainly fled to Bangladesh.
Germany, which doesn’t border any of those countries with the largest outflows, is home to more than half a million Syrian and 190,000 Afghan refugees - the result of its “welcome culture” towards refugees established in 2015. It has since toughened up refugee requirements.
When assessing the burden placed on the host countries, Lebanon holds the largest number of refugees relative to its population. One in every six people living in the country is a refugee, the vast majority from across the border in Syria.
The exodus from Syria has also seen refugee numbers in neighbouring Jordan swell, putting pressure on resources. About 85% of the Syrians currently settled in Jordan live below the poverty line, according to the UN.
Overall, one third of the global refugee population (6.7 million people) live in the least developed countries of the world.
Many go to live in massive temporary camps
Large numbers of those driven from their home countries end up in cramped, temporary tent cities that spring up in places of need.
The biggest in the world is in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, where half a million Rohingya now live, having fled violence in neighbouring Myanmar.
The second largest is Bidi Bidi in northern Uganda, home to a quarter of a million people. The camp has seen many arrivals of South Sudanese fleeing civil war just a few hours north.
Bidi Bidi, once a small village, has grown in size since 2016 and now covers 250 sq km (97 sq miles) - a third of the size of New York City.
But what makes Bidi Bidi different from most other refugee camps, is that its residents are free to move around and work and have access to education and healthcare.
The Ugandan government, recognised for its generous approach to refugees, also provides Bidi Bidi’s residents with plots of land, so they can farm and construct shelters, enabling them to become economically self-sufficient.
The camp authorities are also aiming to build schools, health centres and other infrastructure out of more resilient materials, with the ultimate aim of creating a working city.
Among those living in Bidi Bidi are Herbat Wani, a refugee from South Sudan, and Lucy, a Ugandan, who were married last year.
Herbat is grateful for the welcome he has received in Uganda since fleeing violence in his home country.
“The moment you reach the boundary, you’re still scared but there are these people who welcome you - and it was really amazing,” he says. “Truly I can say Uganda at this point is home to us.”
Lucy says she doesn’t see Herbat as a refugee at all. “He’s a human being, like me,” she says.
However, despite the authorities’ best efforts, a number of challenges remain at Bidi Bidi.
The latest report from the UNHCR notes there are inadequate food and water supplies, health facilities still operating under tarpaulins and not enough accommodation or schools for the large families arriving.
Displacement could get worse
Alongside conflict and violence, persecution and human rights violations, natural disasters are increasingly responsible for forcing people from their homes.
Looking at data for IDPs only, collected separately by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), natural disasters caused most new internal displacement cases last year, outpacing conflict as the main reason for people fleeing.
On top of the 10.8 million internally displaced by conflict last year, there were 17.2 million people who were forced to abandon their homes because of disasters, mainly “extreme weather events” such as storms and floods, the IDMC says.
The IDMC expects the number of people uprooted because of natural disasters to rise to 22 million this year, based on data for the first half of 2019.
Mass displacement by extreme weather events is “becoming the norm”, its report says, and IDMC’s director Alexandra Bilak has urged global leaders to invest more in ways of mitigating the effects of climate change.
Tropical cyclones and monsoon floods forced many in India and Bangladesh from their homes earlier this year, while Cyclone Idai wreaked havoc in southern Africa, killing more than 1,000 people and uprooting millions in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi.
Idai was “one of the deadliest weather-related disasters to hit the southern hemisphere”, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.
Although linking any single event to global warming is complicated, climate change is expected to increase the frequency of such extreme weather events.
The WMO warns that the physical and financial impacts of global warming are already on the rise.
Phan Thi Hang, a farmer in Vietnam’s Ben Tre province, has told the BBC his country’s changing climate has already had a “huge impact” on rice yields.
“There has been less rain than in previous years,” he says. "As a result, farming is much more difficult.
“We can now only harvest two crops instead of three each year, and the success of these is not a sure thing.”
He says he and his fellow farmers now have to work as labourers or diversify into breeding cattle to make extra cash, while others have left the countryside for the city.
Like Phan’s fellow farmers, many IDPs head to cities in search of safety from weather-related events as well as better lives.
But many of the world’s urban areas may not offer people the sanctuary they are seeking.
Displaced people in cities often end up seeking shelter in unfinished or abandoned buildings and are short of food, water and basic services, making them vulnerable to illness and disease, the IDMC says. They are also difficult to identify and track, mingling with resident populations.
On top of this, some of the world’s biggest cities are also at risk from rising global temperatures.
Almost all (95%) cities facing extreme climate risks are in Africa or Asia, a report by risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft has found.
And it’s the faster-growing cities that are most at risk, including megacities like Lagos in Nigeria and Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Some 84 of the world’s 100 fastest-growing cities face “extreme” risks from rising temperatures and extreme weather brought on by climate change.
This means that those fleeing to urban areas to escape the impact of a warming world may well end up having their lives disrupted again by the effects of rising temperatures.
▻https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49638793
#conflits #violence #Bidi-Bidi #camps_de_réfugiés #bidi_bidi #vulnérabilité #changement_climatique #climat #villes #infographie #visualisation
Hundreds sacked after Bangladesh garment strikes - Channel NewsAsia
▻https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/hundreds-sacked-after-bangladesh-garment-strikes-11130318
The country’s US$30-billion clothing industry is the world’s second-largest after China. Its some four million workers at 4,500 factories make garments for global retail giants H&M, Walmart and many others.
Protests by thousands of employees over low wages began earlier this month, prompting scores of manufacturers to halt production.
One worker was killed and more than 50 injured last week after police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters in a key industrial town outside the capital Dhaka.
The demonstrations died down this week after the government agreed to raise salaries, but many returned to work on Wednesday to discover they had been laid off.
A top union leader said at least 750 workers at various companies in the manufacturing hub of Ashulia had found notices hanging on factory gates informing them of their dismissal along with photos of their faces.
“This is unjust. The owners are doing it to create a climate of fear so that no one can dare to stage protests or demand fair wages,” the leader said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Police told me not to create trouble. Otherwise I’ll be disappeared.”
Police and a senior factory manager gave a lower total of around 400 workers fired for damaging equipment during the strike - with more than half from one Ashulia plant called Metro Knitting and Dyeing.
Activist Arrests in India Are Part of a Dangerous Global Trend to Stifle Dissent | Alternet
▻https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/activist-arrests-india-are-part-dangerous-global-trend-stifle-dissent
On Tuesday morning, the police from the Indian city of Pune (in the state of Maharashtra) raided the homes of lawyers and social activists across India and arrested five of them. Many of them are not household names around the world, since they are people who work silently on behalf of the poor and oppressed in a country where half the population does not eat sufficiently. Their names are Gautam Navlakha, Sudha Bharadwaj, Vernon Gonsalves, Arun Ferreira and Varavara Rao. What unites these people is their commitment to the working class and peasantry, to those who are treated as marginal to India’s state. They are also united by their opposition, which they share with millions of Indians, to the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The “raw numbers of this terror” are best counted from Turkey. Since the failed coup of July 15, 2016, the government has arrested, detained or dismissed about 160,000 government officials, dismissing 12,000 Kurdish teachers, destroying the livelihood of thousands of people. The editor of Cumhuriyet, Can Dündar, called this the “biggest witch-hunt in Turkey’s history.” In the name of the war on terror and in the name of sedition, the government has arrested and intimidated its political opponents. The normality of this is astounding—leaders of the opposition HDP party remain in prison on the flimsiest of charges, with little international condemnation. They suffer a fate comparable to Brazil’s Lula, also incarcerated with no evidence.
Governments do not typically like dissent. In Bangladesh, the photographer Shahidul Alam remains in detention for his views on the massive protests in Dhaka for traffic reform and against government corruption. Condemnation of the arrest has come from all quarters, including a British Member of Parliament—Tulip Siddiq—who is the niece of Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The avalanche of criticism has not moved the government. Alam is accused of inciting violence, a charge that is equal parts of ridiculous and absurd.
Incitement to violence is a common charge. It is what has taken the Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour to an Israeli prison. Tatour’s poem, “Resist, my people, resist them” (Qawim ya sha’abi, qawimhum), was the reason given by the Israeli government to lock her up. The Egyptian government has taken in the poet Galal El-Behairy for the lyrics he wrote for the song “Balaha”—the name a reference to a character in a 1980s film who sees the world in a topsy-turvy manner, a name now used colloquially in Egypt for President Sisi. The Ugandan government has arrested the radio show host Samuel Kyambadde, who merely allowed his talk show to become a forum for a conversation that included items labeled by the government as seditious—such as the arrest of journalists and the arrest of the opposition MP Robert Kyagulanyi (also known as Bobi Wine).
All of them—photographers, poets, radio show hosts—are treated as voices of sedition, dangerous people who can be locked up under regulations that would make any fair-minded person wince. But there is not even any public debate in most of our societies about such measures, no genuine discussion about the slide into the worst kind of authoritarianism, little public outcry.
▻http://www.jeudepaume.org/?page=article&idArt=3001
Je ne saurais trop recommander l’exposition de Bouchra Khalili que j’ai découverte ce dimanche au Jeu de Paume à Paris, en allant voir l’exposition de Gordon Matta-Clark, par ailleurs somptueuse, mais c’est une autre histoire. Il y a notamment ces vidéos remarquables où l’on voit la main d’une personne réfugiée dessiner sur une carte le parcours souvent remarquable de complexité et de longueur (il peut falloir cinq ans pour aller du Bangladesh à Rome, surtout en passant par le Mali) et les récits des personnes qui commentent leur propre odyssée sont d’une incroyable puissance (surtout dans un Italien parfait quand on est né à Dhaka).
Quant au film Twenty-Two Hours c’est peu dire qu’il est à la fois émouvant et édifiant.
cc @cdb_77
Naturellement l’exposition de Gordon Matta-Clark, elle vaut aussi largement la peine d’être vue
Incidemment, quand on voit les images pour le moins fragiles et pas toutes faciles à regarder tellement elles sont médiocres des performances de Gordon Matta-Clark, on peut se poser la question aujourd’hui du rapport entre le nombre et la fréquence des captations versus la qualité des interventions, il doit être l’exact inverse que pour Matta-Clark. Je ne sais pas si je me fais bien comprendre.
Bangladesh c’est bien aussi (ou encore bang la dêche !).
On trouve écrit en deux mots comme tu l’as fait : c’est le titre de la chanson écrite par George Harrison en soutien aux victimes de la guerre d’indépendance entre le Bangladesh et le Pakistan et qui a donné lieu à un grand concert de charité.
▻http://desordre.net/bloc/ursula/2014/sons/harrison.mp3
Toute mon enfance ! Du coup, oui, je pense qu’entre l’Anglais et le souvenir impérissable de cette chanson (pourtant périssable), je me suis gouré
ah bien, j’avais oublié de mettre le lien vers la chanson :) Et oui, souvenir d’enfance pour moi aussi.
En anglais c’est aussi en un seul mot.
Ah ce Harrison, ha ces bons sentiments, ah ces gigos événements, de quoi devenir punk :)
Sinon, une variation antérieure
« Chaque soir, dans les murs du foyer, deux cartes se rejoignent et se superposent : celle des trajets faits de milliers de kilomètres et celle des parcours quotidiens dans Paris et sa banlieue. Comme s’il s’agissait d’une seule et même carte, décrivant un seul et même « pays ». Celui de tous ceux qui sont un jour partis et ne sont pas vraiment arrivés quelque part. »
de quoi devenir punk :)
Indeed !
#Bouchra_Khalili rules, extraordinaire artiste, merci @philippe_de_jonckheere
The Journal of Peer Production -
Issue # 11: City
▻http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-11-city
Table of contents:
Commoning the City, from Digital Data to Physical Space: Evidence from Two Case Studies
Adrien Labaeye and Harald Mieg
Listening in on Informal Smart Cities: Vernacular Mapping in Mirpur, Dhaka
Liam Magee and Teresa Swist
Design Experiments and Co-governance for City Transitions: Vision Mapping
Darren Sharp and Jose Ramos
Collaborative Online Writing and Techno-Social Communities of Practice Around the Commons: The Case of Teixidora.net in Barcelona
Mònica Garriga Miret, David Gómez Fontanills, Enric Senabre Hidalgo, Mayo Fuster Morell
Spatial Practices, Commoning and the Peer Production of Culture: Struggles and Aspirations of Grassroots Groups in Eastern Milan
Nadia Bertolino and Ioanni Delsante
Seeking other Urban Possibilities: Community Production of Space in a Global South City (Rosario, Argentina)
Diego Roldán and Sebastián Godoy
The Theater as Commons: The Occupation of the INBA Theater in Ciudad Juárez
Carlos Hernán Salamanca
Urban Imaginaries of Co-creating the City: Local Activism Meets Citizen Peer-Production
Carlos Estrada-Grajales, Marcus Foth, Peta Mitchell
Experimental format
Urban DIY Mesh Networks and the Right to the City: An Interview with the Tapullo Collective
Anke Schwarz
Singular Technologies & the Third-TechnoScape
Natacha Roussel and hellekin
Life Skills for Peer Production: Walking Together through a Space of “Not-Knowing”
Vincenzo Mario Bruno Giorgino and Donald A. McCown [html]
Metropolitan Civic Mappers: How Can They Cooperate to Include the Participation of the General Public into the Citizen Platforms They Promote?
Nicolas Fonty and Barbara Brayshay
Monuments to the work of Bangladeshi migrants
An estimated 9.4m Bangladeshis have left the country to seek employment abroad. Their experiences are being chronicled in poetry and art.
Diana Campbell Betancourt, the artistic director and chief curator of the Dhaka Art Summit, says that “one cannot understand Bangladesh without considering these workers.” All too often, they are abused and overworked, treated as slaves or indentured servants. “These workers give so much with their labour, and they need to be seen as more than just bodies,” she says. The Dhaka summit shows that they are not only more than bodies, fully human, but artists, too.
Kamruzzaman Shadhin, a Bangladeshi artist, collected the abandoned clothes of Bangladeshis who were illegally trafficked into Malaysia and Thailand, tapping an internal migrant community in Thakurgaon to stitch them together into a giant patchwork quilt (pictured, top). Liu Xiaodong, a Chinese artist, paints portraits of migrant workers in a medium often reserved for powerful patrons. In one, a bearded man looks over his shoulder with a wary face and a cigarette in his mouth against a blue background (pictured). In another, a gaunt man with sunken cheeks is a picture of exhaustion, his eyes bloodshot from working long hours. Mr Liu’s work humanises these workers, but does not glamourise their suffering.
https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1280-width/20180303_BKP502.jpg 
https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/1280-width/images/2018/02/blogs/prospero/20180303_bkp503_facebook.jpg Et de la #poésie :
Mr Khokan never strayed from his writing roots, and needed a way to express his experiences in a creative manner. He founded Amrakajona (“We Are” in Bengali) as a group for Bengali migrant workers interested in poetry, as well as another poetry group, Singapore Bengali Literature. The Dhaka Art Summit, which ran from February 2nd-10th in the dusty, congested Bangladeshi capital, showcased poetry from members of Singapore Bengali Literature. Mr Khokon read “Pocket 2”, a lament for his wife and their forced separation:
I remember when I returned this time
my heart dissolved in your tears
The pocket of my shirt was wet
Reaching the end of my memories
I wear that shirt every night
and write love poems to you
MD Sharrif Uddin, another poet, addressed the invisibility of the migrant worker directly:
Though my tears satisfy the thirst of the city,
It will forget me by and by!
But like the waters on the high waves of the river,
I’ll survive and I’ll be there.
The sweat of my tired body has
Become the moisture of the city,
and in this moisture, I’ll survive.
I live forever.
▻https://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2018/02/constructing-identities?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/ed/monumentstotheworkofbangladeshimigrantsconstructingidentities
#migrants_bangladais #migrations #travailleurs_étrangers #monument #art #esclavage_moderne (ping @reka) #exploitation #exil #poésie
cc @isskein
MIGRANT WORKER POETRY COMPETITION
Ici les poètes travailleurs sélectionnés pour le prix 2016 :
▻https://www.singaporeworkerpoetry.com/copy-of-poets-1
En voici une :
#Home
Across the seas, I have a home
Too far to reach, too close to forget
A place where I find genuine comfort
A place far better than the rest of the world
But then I have to bid my farewell
Say my goodbyes without shedding tears
Leave those who are dear to me
For a better life, for the future I see
Now, I am in the land of the lion’s head
Searching for grace, counting the days
Fearing that at the end of my plea
All my struggles will be nothing but history
Yes, I long for that place I call home
Too far to reach, too close to forget
The road back there, I shall once heed
For at the end of my journey, there shall I rest
Towards that home that’s dear to me
The sail of my boat, I shall aim one of these days
Going beyond the horizon that limits my sight
On a plight far treacherous than the Odyssey
Yes, there is a home that’s so dear to me
Too far to reach, too close to forget
A place that bears all of my past
A place I longed for my future to start
And as I close my eyes from the shenanigans of today
All I hope is a tomorrow where I can be
Towards the home I long to see
Towards that dream that seems to be of infinity.
Trottoirs et #bidonvilles de Dhaka
Près d’un demi-million de personnes viennent chaque année chercher refuge à Dhaka, poussées par un ensemble interconnecté de raisons liées au changement climatique, à la pauvreté et à la dégradation de l’environnement. Et beaucoup d’entre elles finissent par vivre sur les trottoirs.
▻http://www.fmreview.org/fr/abris/lebeau-tuckfield.html
#réfugiés #asile #migrations #Dhaka #logement #SDF #sans-abris #hébergement #Bangladesh
Police clash with protesters marching against power plant in Bangladesh
▻https://news.mongabay.com/2017/01/police-clash-with-protesters-marching-against-power-plant-in-banglade
A protest of a planned coal-fired power plant in Bangladesh turned sour on Thursday, when police reportedly confronted marchers with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons in the capital city of Dhaka. Injuries have been reported, varying from five to more than 50.
According to police estimates reported by Reuters, around 200 protesters had gathered to show their opposition to the Rampal power plant, which critics say will disrupt the nearby Sundarbans mangrove and endanger the health of thousands of local residents. Organized by the National Committee to Protect Oil, Gas, Mineral Resources, Power and Ports, the protest was reportedly intended to be an eight-hour event.
But as the rally approached an intersection near Dhaka University Central Mosque, according to local news outlets, protesters were met by police.
Vague de répression dans le secteur #Textile au #Bangladesh
►http://multinationales.org/Vague-de-repression-dans-le-secteur-textile-au-Bangladesh
Plusieurs milliers d’ouvriers et d’ouvrières travaillant dans les ateliers textiles de la banlieue de Dhaka ont été congédiés suite à un #mouvement_social pour réclamer une hausse de leurs #salaires. Les multinationales européennes et nord-américaines qui s’approvisionnent au Bangladesh restent largement silencieuses. Entre 1500 et 3500 ouvriers et ouvrières textiles bangladeshi ont été renvoyés du jour au lendemain des ateliers où ils travaillaient, suite à une semaine de manifestations et de blocages (...)
Actualités
/ #Textile, Bangladesh, #Gap, #Inditex, H&M, #Libertés_syndicales, Textile, salaires, #responsabilité_sociale_des_entreprises, mouvement social, droits des (...)
#H&M #droits_des_travailleurs
« ►http://www.bangladeshworkersafety.org »
Myanmar: Security forces target #Rohingya during vicious Rakhine scorched-earth campaign
The Myanmar security forces are responsible for unlawful killings, multiple rapes and the burning down of houses and entire villages in a campaign of violence against Rohingya people that may amount to crimes against humanity, Amnesty International reveals in a new report today.
▻https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/12/myanmar-security-forces-target-rohingya-viscious-scorched-earth-campaign
#rapport:
▻https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa16/5362/2016/en
#Birmanie #Bangladesh #asile #migrations #réfugiés #destruction #feu #crime_contre_l'humanité #viols
50,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar: Government
DHAKA: Some 50,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to Bangladesh from Myanmar, the foreign ministry in Dhaka said on Thursday (Dec 29), seeking shelter from a bloody crackdown by the army.
Rohingya Refugees in #Bangladesh to Be Relocated to Remote Island
DHAKA, Bangladesh — Bangladesh’s government is moving forward with a plan to relocate Rohingya refugees staying in camps near the country’s largest tourist resort towns to a remote island that is underwater for much of the year.
#Birmanie #réfugiés #asile #migrations #Myanmar #îles #isolement #déplacement #migrerrance #déportation
cc @reka
Rohingya Face ‘Campaign of Terror’ in Myanmar, U.N. Finds
GENEVA — Members of Myanmar’s Army and the police have slaughtered hundreds of men, women and children, gang-raped women and girls, and forced as many as 90,000 Rohingya Muslims from their homes, according to a United Nations report released on Friday.
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-un-report.html?ref=world&_r=1
#terreur
Rohingya Refugee: ‘They Cut the Bodies Into Four Pieces’
In light of a new U.N. report documenting atrocities against Rohingya in Myanmar, photojournalist Allison Joyce profiles Rohingya refugees who recently fled to Bangladesh and have harrowing stories to tell.
▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/02/07/rohingya-refugee-they-cut-the-bodies-into-four-pieces
Rohingya camps in Bangladesh and Thailand, worlds apart
Differences in how the two countries have treated the persecuted Rohingya could not be more stark.
▻http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/asia/2017/01/rohingya-camps-bangladesh-thailand-worlds-170127113046730.html
#Thaïlande #camps_de_réfugiés
Birmanie. Le monde n’a pas encore pris conscience du drame des Rohingyas
Des centaines de morts sont devenus des milliers : “Plus de 1000 musulmans appartenant à la minorité des Rohingyas pourraient avoir été tués par la répression de l’armée birmane dans l’État d’Arakan” à l’ouest du pays, affirment deux officiels de l’ONU à Reuters, repris par The Irrawaddy.
Inside a Rohingya refugee camp
Rohingya refugees plant paddy as they work as daily labor near the #Kutupalang Unregistered Refugee Camp in Cox�s Bazar, Bangladesh. Bangladesh is already host to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees, and says the latest influx has strained its limited resources. REUTERS/Mohammad Ponir Hossain
Hundreds of Rohingya ’return home’ from Bangladesh
DHAKA: Hundreds of Rohingya who fled to Bangladesh to escape persecution in Myanmar have returned home, community leaders said Sunday, adding that most had gone back temporarily to fetch relatives.
▻http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/south-asia/hundreds-of-rohingya-return-home-from-bangladesh/articleshow/57236651.cms
#retour_au_pays
Rohingya Volunteers Help Rape Survivors Find Solace in Women-Only Hubs
In the Rohingya refugee camps of southern Bangladesh, women-only support centers run by volunteers offer a safe space for those who have survived violence during Myanmar’s brutal military campaign.
Nine months on, a race against time to find pregnant Rohingya rape survivors
Nearly nine months after Myanmar’s military was accused of widespread sexual violence in a crackdown against Rohingya communities, aid groups in Bangladesh’s Rohingya refugee camps are scrambling to identify women and girls now pregnant by rape.
▻https://www.irinnews.org/feature/2018/04/16/nine-months-race-against-time-find-pregnant-rohingya-rape-survivors
Nine months after Myanmar assaults, Rohingya camps ready for spate of births
Agencies braced for spike in unwanted children who were conceived as a result of sexual violence by Myanmar soldiers and militiamen
▻https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/01/nine-months-after-myanmar-assaults-rohingya-camps-ready-for-spate-of-bi
Deluge turns to dearth for Bangladesh as age-old water woes take new form | Emma Graham-Harrison and SM Atik | Global development | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jul/06/bangladesh-water-woes-deluge-dearth-rajshahi?CMP=twt_gu
For the first time, the Bangladeshi government is considering declaring some of the country’s smallest districts officially “water stressed”, according to Professor Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, a prominent hydrologist at the University of Rajshahi.
The region has been shaped by struggles with water for centuries, battles focused mostly on holding it back and surviving flooding, cyclones and rising seas. But now shifting weather patterns have brought a new challenge: dealing with scarcity.
In parts of the country, a combination of shifting monsoon patterns, rising temperatures and a surge in the construction of wells that is draining ground water levels has left some villages seriously short of water. Dhaka wants to make the crisis official.
“The government is planning to declare a water stress area for the first time,” says Jahan, who is also a member of the government’s groundwater task force.
He is working on a research project across a number of local councils, known as unions in Bangladesh. He is collecting data and exploring possible solutions, before the government makes the final decision to go ahead with an announcement that he fears will “cause some panic”.
The worst ISIS attack in days is the one the world probably cares least about
►https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/03/the-worst-alleged-isis-attack-in-days-is-the-one-the-world-probably-
Ben alors les Charlie et les Paris ? Vous êtes pas Istanbul ? Vous êtes pas Dhaka ? Vous êtes pas Baghdad ? Vous êtes quoi alors ? — Permalink
@reka a une très belle carte à propos du rapport mort/kilomètre et les régions du monde pour lesquelles on n’en a rien à foutre quand ça pète. @reka ?
Et je présume qu’on ne s’est pas trop ému si d’aventure le petit bouton qui rassure tout le monde et qui absorbe toutes vos données a bien été en place ou pas.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Bangladeshi Slums: An Evaluation of the WaterAid-Bangladesh Urban Programme
This paper describes the WaterAid-supported programme of water, sanitation and hygiene education implemented by local NGOs in the “slums” of Bangladesh’s two largest cities, #Dhaka and #Chittagong. This includes descriptions of the design and management of community-managed water points and sanitation blocks. The paper also summarizes the findings of an external evaluation of their effectiveness and discusses the difficulties of reaching the poorest while also getting full cost-recovery from users (which is required if the millions of urban dwellers in need of improved provision are to be reached with the limited funds available).
▻http://www.alnap.org/node/22988.aspx
#banlieu #urban_matter #Bangladesh #hygiène #eau
In the capital of Bangladesh, climate refugees and a collapsing city
▻http://lacite.website/2015/11/23/in-the-capital-of-bangladesh-climate-refugees-and-a-collapsing-city
With multiplying impacts of climate change - increasing floods, cyclones, and drought - thousands of climate refugees are migrating to Dhaka. And the city, well beyond its carrying capacity, is bursting at the seams. Cet article In the capital of Bangladesh, climate refugees and a collapsing city est apparu en premier sur La Cité.
In the capital of Bangladesh, climate refugees and a collapsing city
▻http://lacite.website/2015/11/23/17915
With multiplying impacts of climate change - increasing floods, cyclones, and drought - thousands of climate refugees are migrating to Dhaka. And the city, well beyond its carrying capacity, is bursting at the seams. Cet article In the capital of Bangladesh, climate refugees and a collapsing city est apparu en premier sur La Cité.
Bangladesh publishers burn books in protest at murder of secularists | World news | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/02/bangladesh-publishers-burn-books-protest-secularist-murders
Demonstrations have continued over fatal attacks by suspected hardline Islamists on secular writers and publishers in Bangladesh as books were burned and businesses closed in protest.
Hundreds of people, including writers, publishers and bookshop owners, took to the streets of the capital, Dhaka, on Monday to protest what they said was government inaction over a string of attacks, including the murder on Saturday of a publisher of secular books.
“This is not an isolated incident. They first started killing authors, then the bloggers and now they’ve targeted the publishers,” Mustafa Selim, head of the Bangladesh Creative Publishers Society, told reporters.
Indian prime minister visits Bangladesh to strengthen ties against China - World Socialist Web Site
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/06/12/indi-j12.html
Indian prime minister visits Bangladesh to strengthen ties against China
By Deepal Jayasekera
12 June 2015
As a part of India’s broader strategic thrust into South East Asia against China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a two-day visit to Bangladesh last weekend to strengthen ties with Dhaka. New Delhi regards Bangladesh as the gateway to South East Asia and crucial to its “Look East,” now “Act East,” strategic orientation.
Modi held talks with his counterpart Sheikh Hasina. Their joint statement declared that bilateral ties had entered a new phase involving a “pragmatic, mature and practical approach.” During the visit, 22 bilateral agreements were signed. Among the most significant was a decision to implement the Land Boundary Agreement (LBA).
India and Bangladesh sign historic territory swap deal - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-33033342
Bangladesh and India have signed a historic agreement to simplify their border by exchanging more than 150 enclaves of land.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi ratified the deal with his counterpart Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka.
Thousands of Bangladeshis inhabit more than 50 enclaves in India, while Indians live in around 100 areas within Bangladesh.
The countries will now swap territories and residents can choose where to live.
“We have resolved a question that has lingered since independence. Our two nations now have a settled boundary,” Mr Modi said at a press conference.
“We are not just neighbours, but nations bound by the threads of history, religion, culture, language and kinship - as well as a passion for cricket.”
Bangladesh Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali described the agreement as “a historic milestone in the relationship between the two neighbouring countries”.
#frontières #murs #bangledesh #inde
India and Bangladesh seal border deal, four decades later
Agreement is personal victory for India’s leader Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina, prime minister of Bangladesh
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/06/india-bangladesh-seal-border-territories-deal-mido-hasina
Bangladesh and India to swap eighteenth-century border enclaves
Bangladesh and India will seal an agreement simplifying their 4,000-km (2,500-mile) border at the weekend, over four decades after the neighbors first tried to untangle complex territorial rights set down in 1713.
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/05/us-bangladesh-india-enclaves-idUSKBN0OL1R720150605
Immigration au #Qatar : la #kafala toujours en place malgré les promesses
L’ONG Amnesty International publie ce jeudi un rapport pour rappeler au Qatar qu’il n’a pas tenu ses promesses en matière d’amélioration des droits des ouvriers, et notamment la réforme de la Kafala, ce système qui met tout employé à la merci de son employeur pour changer de travail, sortir du territoire…Une réforme annoncée il y a un an et qui n’a pas eu lieu.
▻http://www.rfi.fr/moyen-orient/20150521-immigration-qatar-kafala-rapport-amnesty-travailleurs-migrants
#migration #travail #exploitation
Qatar lifts exit permit system for migrant workers
Majority of migrant workers in the country will no longer need permission from the employer to leave the country.
▻https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/09/qatar-lifts-exit-permit-system-migrants-workers-180905092910224.html
Will Migrant Domestic Workers in the Gulf Ever Be Safe From Abuse?
Jahanara* had had enough. For a year, the Bangladeshi cook had been working 12 to 16 hours a day, eating only leftovers and sleeping on the kitchen floor of her employer’s Abu Dhabi home – all for half the salary she had been promised. She had to prepare four fresh meals a day for the eight-member family, who gave her little rest. She was tired, she had no phone and she was alone. So, in the summer of 2014, in the middle of the night after a long day’s work, she snuck out into the driveway, scaled the front gate and escaped.
Jahanara ran along the road in the dark. She did not know where she was going. Eventually, a Pakistani taxi driver pulled over, and asked her if she had run away from her employer, and whether she needed help. She admitted she had no money, and no clue where she wanted to go. The driver gave her a ride, dropping her off in the neighboring emirate of Dubai, in the Deira neighborhood. There, he introduced her to Vijaya, an Indian woman in her late fifties who had been working in the Gulf for more than two decades.
“It’s like I found family here in this strange land.”
Vijaya gave the nervous young woman a meal of rice, dal and, as Jahanara still recalls, “a beautiful fish fry.” She arranged for Jahanara to rent half a room in her apartment and, within a week, had found her part-time housekeeping work in the homes of two expat families.
Jahanara is a 31-year-old single woman from north Bangladesh, and Vijaya, 60, is a grandmother of eight from Mumbai, India. Jahanara speaks Bengali, while Vijaya speaks Telugu. Despite the differences in age and background, the two women have become close friends. They communicate in gestures and broken Urdu.
“It’s like I found family here in this strange land,” Jahanara says.
The younger woman now cleans four houses a day, and cooks dinner for a fifth, while the older woman works as a masseuse, giving traditional oil massages to mothers and babies.
Jahanara’s experience in #Abu_Dhabi was not the first time she had been exploited as a domestic worker in the Gulf. She originally left Bangladesh six years ago, and has been home only once since then, when she ran away from abusive employers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the police deported her. She had no choice – under the much-criticized kafala system for legally employing migrant workers, a domestic worker is attached to a particular household that sponsors their visa. Employers often keep the worker’s passport to prevent their leaving, although this is illegal in most Gulf countries today.
Under kafala, quitting a bad boss means losing your passport and vital work visa, and potentially being arrested or deported. This is why, the second time, Jahanara escaped in the dead of night. Now, she works outside official channels.
“You earn at least three times more if you’re ‘khalli walli,’” Vijaya says, using a colloquial Arabic term for undocumented or freelance migrant workers. The name loosely translates as “take it or leave it.”
“You get to sleep in your own house, you get paid on time and if your employer misbehaves, you can find a new one,” she says.
“The Gulf needs us, but like a bad husband, it also exploits us.”
Ever year, driven by poverty, family pressure, conflict or natural disasters back home, millions of women, mainly from developing countries, get on flights to the Gulf with their fingers crossed that they won’t be abused when they get there.
It’s a dangerous trade-off, but one that can work out for some. When Jahanara and Vijaya describe their lives, the two women repeatedly weigh the possibility of financial empowerment against inadequate wages, routine abuse and vulnerability.
By working for 23 years in Dubai and Muscat in Oman, Vijaya has funded the education of her three children, the construction of a house for her son in a Mumbai slum and the weddings of two daughters. She is overworked and underpaid, but she says that’s “normal.” As she sees it, it’s all part of working on the margins of one of the world’s most successful economies.
“The Gulf needs us,” Vijaya says. “But like a bad husband, it also exploits us.”
The International Labour Organization (ILO) reports that there are 11.5 million migrant domestic workers around the world – 73 percent of them are women. In 2016, there were 3.77 million domestic workers in Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
In a single household in these states, it’s common to find several domestic workers employed to do everything from cleaning and cooking, to guarding the home and tutoring the children.
Unlike other sectors, the demand for domestic workers has been resilient to economic downturns. Estimated to be one of the world’s largest employers of domestic workers, Saudi Arabia hosts around 2.42 million. The majority of these workers (733,000) entered the country between 2016 and 2017, during its fiscal deficit. In 2017, domestic workers comprised a full 22 percent of Kuwait’s working age population. Oman has seen a threefold explosion in its domestic work sector since 2008. Overall, the GCC’s migrant domestic work sector has been growing at an annual average of 8.7 percent for the past decade.
That growth is partly fueled by the increasing numbers of women entering the workforce. The percentage of Saudi Arabia’s adult female population in the formal labor force has risen from 18 percent to 22 percent over the past decade. In Qatar, the figure has jumped from 49 percent to 58 percent. And as more women go to work, there’s a growing need for others to take over the child and elderly care in their households. Experts call this transfer of care work from unpaid family members to paid workers from other countries the “global care chain.”
A 2017 report, which examined the effect of changing demographics in the Gulf, found that dramatically decreased fertility – thanks to improved female education and later marriages – and greater numbers of the dependent elderly have resulted in an “increased trend for labour participation of ‘traditional’ informal care givers (usually women).”
The enduring use of migrant domestic workers in the region is also a result of local traditions. For example, while Saudi Arabia was still the only country in the world that banned women from driving, there was a consistent need for male personal drivers, many coming from abroad. The ban was lifted in June 2018, but the demand for drivers is still high because many women don’t yet have licenses.
“Without domestic workers, societies could not function here,” says Mohammed Abu Baker, a lawyer in Abu Dhabi and a UAE national. “I was brought up by many Indian nannies, at a time when Indians were our primary migrants. Now, I have a Pakistani driver, an Indonesian cook, an Indian cleaner, a Filipino home nurse and a Sri Lankan nanny. None of them speak Arabic, and they can hardly speak to each other, but they run my household like a well-oiled machine.”
There is also demand from expatriate families, with dual wage earners looking for professional cleaning services, part-time cooks and full-time childcare workers.
“When I came from Seattle with my husband, we were determined not to hire servants,” says Laura, a 35-year-old teacher in an American primary school in Abu Dhabi. “But after we got pregnant, and I got my teaching job, we had to get full-time help.”
“My American guilt about hiring house help disappeared in months!” she says, as her Sri Lankan cook Frida quietly passes around home-baked cookies. “It is impossible to imagine these conveniences back home, at this price.”
Laura says she pays minimum wage, and funds Frida’s medical insurance – “all as per law.” But she also knows that conveniences for women like her often come at a cost paid by women like Frida. As part of her local church’s “good Samaritan group” – as social workers must call themselves to avoid government scrutiny – Laura has helped fundraise medical and legal expenses for at least 40 abused migrant workers over the past two years.
Living isolated in a house with limited mobility and no community, many domestic workers, especially women, are vulnerable to abuse. Afraid to lose their right to work, employees can endure a lot before running away, including serious sexual assault. Legal provisions do exist – in many countries, workers can file a criminal complaint against their employers, or approach labor courts for help. But often they are unaware of, or unable to access, the existing labor protections and resources.
“I never believed the horror stories before, but when you meet woman after woman with bruises or unpaid wages, you start understanding that the same system that makes my life easier is actually broken,” Laura says.
In 2007, Jayatri* made one of the hardest decisions of her life. She left her two young children at home in Sri Lanka, while the country was at war, to be with another family in Saudi Arabia.
It was near the end of Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war and 22-year-old Jayatri had been struggling to support her family since her husband’s death in the war two years earlier. The 26-year conflict claimed the lives of tens of thousands of fathers, husbands, sons and brothers, forcing many Tamil women to take on the role of sole breadwinner for their families. But there are few job opportunities for women in a culture that still largely believes their place is in the home. Women who are single or widowed already face stigma, which only gets worse if they also try to find paying work in Sri Lanka.
S. Senthurajah, executive director of SOND, an organization that raises awareness about safe migration, says that as a result, an increasing number of women are migrating from Sri Lanka to the Gulf. More than 160,000 Sri Lankan women leave home annually to work in other countries, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Malaysia, according to the International Organization for Migration.
Senthurajah says recruitment agencies specifically target vulnerable female heads of households: widows, single and divorced women and women whose husbands are disabled or otherwise unable to work to support the family. Women like Jayatri.
When a local recruitment agency approached her and offered her a job as a domestic worker in the Gulf, it was an opportunity she felt she couldn’t turn down. She traveled from Vavuniya, a town in the island’s north – which was then under the control of Tamil Tiger rebels – to Colombo, to undergo a few weeks of housekeeping training.
She left her young children, a boy and a girl, with her mother. When she eventually arrived in Saudi Arabia, her passport was taken by the local recruitment agency and she was driven to her new home where there were 15 children to look after. From the start, she was abused.
“I spent five months in that house being tortured, hit and with no proper food and no salary. I worked from 5 a.m. to midnight every day,” she says, not wanting to divulge any more details about how she was treated.
“I just wanted to go home.”
Jayatri complained repeatedly to the recruitment agency, who insisted that she’d signed a contract for two years and that there was no way out. She was eventually transferred to another home, but the situation there was just as bad: She worked 18 hours a day and was abused, again.
“It was like jail,” she says.
“I spent five months in that house being tortured, hit and with no proper food and no salary. I worked from 5 a.m. to midnight every day.”
In 2009, Jayatri arrived back in northern Sri Lanka with nothing to show for what she had endured in Saudi Arabia. She was never paid for either job. She now works as a housemaid in Vavuniya earning $60 per month. It’s not enough.
“This is the only opportunity I have,” she says. “There’s no support. There are so many difficulties here.”
Jayatri’s traumatic time in Saudi Arabia is one of many stories of abuse that have come out of the country in recent years. While there are no reliable statistics on the number of migrant domestic workers who suffer abuse at the hands of their employers, Human Rights Watch says that each year the Saudi Ministry of Social Affairs and the embassies of source countries shelter thousands of domestic workers with complaints against their employers or recruiters.
Excessive workload and unpaid wages are the most common complaints. But employers largely act with impunity, Senthurajah says.
“It’s like a human slave sale,” Ravindra De Silva, cofounder of AFRIEL, an organization that works with returnee migrant workers in northern Sri Lanka, tells News Deeply.
“Recruitment agencies have agents in different regions of the country and through those agents, they collect women as a group and send them. The agents know which families [to] pick easily – widows and those with financial difficulties,” he says.
In 2016, a man turned up at Meera’s* mud-brick home on the outskirts of Jaffna, the capital of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, offering her a job in the Gulf.
“They told me I could earn well if I went abroad and that they could help me to look after my family,” she says.
Within a few months of arriving in Saudi Arabia, Meera, 42, couldn’t keep up with the long hours and strenuous housework. She cooked and cleaned for 12 family members and rarely got a break.
Her employer then became abusive.
“He started beating me and put acid in my eyes,” she says. He also sexually assaulted her.
But she endured the attacks and mistreatment, holding on to the hope of making enough money to secure her family’s future. After eight months, she went back home. She was never paid.
Now Meera makes ends meet by working as a day laborer. “The agency keeps coming back, telling me how poor we are and that I should go back [to Saudi Arabia] for my children,” she says.
“I’ll never go back again. I got nothing from it, [except] now I can’t see properly because of the acid in my eyes.”
While thousands of women travel to a foreign country for work and end up exploited and abused, there are also those who make the journey and find what they were looking for: opportunity and self-reliance. Every day, more than 1,500 Nepalis leave the country for employment abroad, primarily in Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, India and Malaysia. Of the estimated 2.5 million Nepalis working overseas, about 11 percent are female.
Many women from South Asian countries who work in the Gulf send remittances home that are used to improve their family’s socio-economic status, covering the cost of education, health care, food and housing. In addition to financial remittances, the social remittances of female migrants in terms of skills, attitudes, ideas and knowledge can also have wide-ranging benefits, including contributing to economic development and gender equality back home.
Kunan Gurung, project coordinator at Pourakhi Nepal, an organization focused on supporting female returnee migrants, says those who have “successful” migration journeys are often able to use their experiences abroad to challenge gender norms.
“Our society is patriarchal and male-dominated, but the boundaries expand for women who return from the Gulf successfully because they have money and thus some power,” he says.
“The women have left their village, taken a plane and have lived in the developed world. Such experiences leave them feeling empowered.”
Gurung says many returning migrant workers invest their savings in their own businesses, from tailoring to chicken farms. But it can be difficult, because women often find that the skills they earned while working abroad can’t help them make money back home. To counter this, Pourakhi trains women in entrepreneurship to not only try to limit re-migration and keep families together but also to ensure women are equipped with tangible skills in the context of life in Nepal.
But for the women in Nepal who, like Jayatri in Sri Lanka, return without having earned any money, deep-rooted stigma can block their chances to work and separate them from their families. Women who come home with nothing are looked at with suspicion and accused of being sexually active, Gurung says.
“The reality is that women are not looked after in the Gulf, in most cases,” he says.
In Kathmandu, Pourakhi runs an emergency shelter for returning female migrants. Every evening, staff wait at Kathmandu airport for flights landing from the Gulf. They approach returning migrants – women who stand out because of their conservative clothes and “the look on their faces” – and offer shelter, food and support.
Of the 2,000 women they have housed over the last nine years, 42 have returned pregnant and 21 with children.
“There are so many problems returnee migrants face. Most women don’t have contact with their families because their employer didn’t pay, or they have health issues or they’re pregnant,” says Krishna Gurung (no relation to Kunan), Pourakhi’s shelter manager.
“They don’t reintegrate with their families. Their families don’t accept them.” Which could be the biggest tragedy of all. Because the chance to make life better for their families is what drives so many women to leave home in the first place.
Realizing how crucial their workers are to the Gulf economies, major labor-sending countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, India and the Philippines have been using both pressure and dialogue to improve conditions for their citizens.
Over recent years, they have instituted a wide array of bans and restrictions, often linked to particularly horrifying cases of abuse. Nepal has banned women from working in the Gulf in 2016; the same year, India disallowed women under 30 from migrating to the Gulf. In 2013, Sri Lanka temporarily banned women from leaving the country for domestic work, citing abuse abroad and neglected families at home, and now requires a family background report before women can travel.
The most high-profile diplomatic dispute over domestic workers unfolded between the Philippines and Kuwait this year. In January, the Philippines banned workers from going to Kuwait, and made the ban “permanent” in February after a 29-year-old Filipino maid, Joanna Demafelis, was found dead in a freezer in her employers’ abandoned apartment in Kuwait City.
“Bans provide some political leverage for the sending country.”
At the time, the Philippines’ firebrand president, Rodrigo Duterte, said he would “sell my soul to the devil” to get his citizens home from Kuwait to live comfortably back home. Thousands of Filipino citizens were repatriated through a voluntary return scheme in the first half of 2018, while Kuwait made overtures to Ethiopia to recruit more maids to replace the lost labor force. Duterte’s ban was eventually lifted in May, after Kuwait agreed to reform its migrant work sector, ending the seizure of passports and phones, and instituting a 24-hour hotline for abused workers.
It’s well established that bans do not stop women from traveling to the Gulf to become domestic workers. Bandana Pattanaik, the international coordinator of the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women, has criticized bans as being “patriarchal, limiting to female agency and also ending up encouraging illegal human smuggling.”
But others point out that the international pressure generated by travel bans has had some effect, as in the case with the Philippines and Kuwait. “Bans provide some political leverage for the sending country,” says Kathmandu-based researcher Upasana Khadka. “But bans do not work as permanent solutions.”
ATTEMPTS AT REFORM
Today, after decades of criticism and campaigning around labor rights violations, the Gulf is seeing a slow shift toward building better policies for domestic workers.
“In the past five years, five of the six GCC countries have started to adopt laws for the protection of migrant domestic workers for the very first time,” says Rothna Begum, women’s rights researcher for Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch.
“The GCC countries have long cultivated the image of being luxurious economies meant for the good life,” Begum says. “This image is hard to maintain as labor exploitation comes to light. So, while they try to shut the reporting down, they have also been forced to address some of the issues raised by their critics.”
Legal and institutional reforms have been announced in the domestic work sector in all GCC countries except Oman. These regulate and standardize contracts, mandate better living conditions, formalize recruitment, and plan rehabilitation and legal redress for abused workers.
This gradual reform is due to international pressure and monitoring by human rights groups and international worker unions. After the 2014 crash in the oil economy, the sudden need for foreign investment exposed the GCC and the multinational companies doing business there to more global scrutiny.
Countries in the Gulf are also hoping that the new national policies will attract more professional and skilled home workers. “Domestic work is a corrupt, messy sector. The host countries are trying to make it more professional,” says M. Bheem Reddy, vice president of the Hyderabad-based Migrant Rights Council, which engages with women workers from the southern districts of India.
Many of the Gulf states are moving toward nationalization – creating more space for their own citizens in the private sector – this means they also want to regulate one of the fastest growing job sectors in the region. “This starts with dignity and proper pay for the existing migrant workers,” Reddy says.
There have been attempts to develop a regional standard for domestic labor rights, with little success. In 2011, the ILO set standards on decent work and minimum protection through the landmark Domestic Workers Convention. All the GCC countries adopted the Convention, but none have ratified it, which means the rules are not binding.
Instead, each Gulf country has taken its own steps to try to protect household workers who come from abroad.
After reports of forced labor in the lead-up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar faced a formal inquiry by the ILO if it didn’t put in place migrant labor protections. Under that pressure, in 2017, the country passed a law on domestic work. The law stipulates free health care, a regular monthly salary, maximum 10-hour work days, and three weeks’ severance pay. Later, it set a temporary minimum wage for migrant workers, at $200 a month.
The UAE’s new reforms are motivated by the Gulf crisis – which has seen Qatar blockaded by its neighbors – as well as a desire to be seen as one of the more progressive GCC countries. The UAE had a draft law on domestic work since 2012, but only passed it in 2017, after Kuwait published its own law. The royal decree gives household workers a regular weekly day off, daily rest of at least 12 hours, access to a mobile phone, 30 days paid annual leave and the right to retain personal documents like passports. Most importantly, it has moved domestic work from the purview of the interior ministry to the labor ministry – a long-standing demand from rights advocates.
The UAE has also become the first Gulf country to allow inspectors access to a household after securing a warrant from the prosecutor. This process would be triggered by a worker’s distress call or complaint, but it’s unclear if regular state inspections will also occur. Before this law, says Begum, the biggest obstacle to enforcing labor protection in domestic work was the inability for authorities to monitor the workspace of a cleaner or cook, because it is a private home, unlike a hotel or a construction site.
The UAE has not followed Kuwait, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in stipulating a minimum wage for domestic workers. But it has issued licenses for 40 Tadbeer Service Centers, which will replace recruitment agencies by the end of the year. Employers in the UAE will have to submit their requests for workers through these centers, which are run by private licensed agents but supervised by the Ministry of Human Resources. Each of the centers has accommodation for workers and can also sponsor their visas, freeing them up to take on part-time jobs while also catering to growing demand from UAE nationals and expats for legal part-timers.
“You focus on the success stories you hear, and hope you’ll have that luck.”
B. L. Surendranath, general secretary of the Immigration Protection Center in Hyderabad, India, visited some of these centers in Dubai earlier this year, on the invitation of the UAE human resources ministry. “I was pleasantly surprised at the well-thought-out ideas at the model Tadbeer Center,” he says. “Half the conflicts [between employer and worker] are because of miscommunication, which the center will sort out through conflict resolution counselors.”
Saudi Arabia passed a labor law in 2015, but it didn’t extend to domestic work. Now, as unemployment among its nationals touches a high of 12.8 percent, its efforts to create more jobs include regulating the migrant workforce. The Saudi government has launched an electronic platform called Musaned to directly hire migrant domestic workers, cutting out recruitment agencies altogether. Women migrant workers will soon live in dormitories and hostels run by labor supply agencies, not the homes of their employers. The labor ministry has also launched a multi-language hotline for domestic workers to lodge complaints.
Dhaka-based migrant rights activist Shakirul Islam, from Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme, welcomes these changes, but remains circumspect. “Most women who return to Bangladesh from Saudi [Arabia] say that the revised laws have no impact on their lives,” he says. “My understanding is that the employers are not aware of the law on the one hand, and on the other, do not care about it.”
Migrant rights activists, ILO officials, the governments of source countries and workers themselves are cautiously optimistic about the progressive direction of reforms in the Gulf. “But it is clear that none of the laws penalize employers of domestic workers for labor rights violations,” says Islam.
Rights activists and reports from the ILO, U.N. and migrants’ rights forums have for decades repeated that full protection of domestic workers is impossible as long as GCC countries continue to have some form of the kafala sponsorship system.
Saudi Arabia continues to require workers to secure an exit permit from their employers if they want to leave the country, while Qatar’s 2015 law to replace the kafala sponsorship system does not extend to domestic workers. Reddy of the Migrant Rights Council says the UAE’s attempt to tackle kafala by allowing Tadbeer Center agents to sponsor visas does not make agents accountable if they repeatedly send different workers to the same abusive employer.
For now, it seems the women working on the margins of some of the richest economies in the world will remain vulnerable to abuse and exploitation from their employers. And as long as opportunities exist for them in the Gulf that they can’t find at home, thousands will come to fulfil the demand for domestic and care work, knowing they could be risking everything for little or no return.
Jahanara says the only thing for women in her position to do is to take the chance and hope for the best.
“You focus on the success stories you hear, and hope you’ll have that luck.”
Alors que les États-Unis envoient 3000 militaires en Afrique de l’Ouest, une compilation d’articles sur #Ebola et la réponse internationale
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What We’re Afraid to Say About Ebola - NYTimes.com
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/opinion/what-were-afraid-to-say-about-ebola.html
The Ebola epidemic in West Africa has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done. (...)
There are two possible future chapters to this story that should keep us up at night.
The first possibility is that the Ebola virus spreads from West Africa to megacities in other regions of the developing world. (...) What happens when an infected person yet to become ill travels by plane to Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa or Mogadishu — or even Karachi, Jakarta, Mexico City or Dhaka?
The second possibility is one that virologists are loath to discuss openly but are definitely considering in private: that an Ebola virus could mutate to become transmissible through the air.
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The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It | WIRED
▻http://www.wired.com/2014/09/r0-ebola
I’ve spent enough time around public health people, in the US and in the field, to understand that they prefer to express themselves conservatively. So when they indulge in apocalyptic language, it is unusual, and notable.
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BBC News - Ebola outbreak ’threatens Liberia’s national existence’
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-29136594
[Defence minister] Brownie Samukai Samukai warned on Tuesday that the disease was “devouring everything in its path” in Liberia.
The country’s weak health system was already overwhelmed by the number of cases, he said.
Mr Samukai told UN Security Council members that Liberia lacked “infrastructure, logistical capacity, professional expertise and financial resources to effectively address this disease”.
“Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence. The deadly Ebola virus has caused a disruption of the normal functioning of our state,” he said.
Separately on Tuesday, the UN’s envoy in Liberia said that at least 160 Liberian health workers had contracted the disease and half of them had died.❞
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‘Ebola’ Draining Economy - Min. Konneh - The New Dawn Liberia | Truly Independent
▻http://www.thenewdawnliberia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=12673:ebola-draining
According to him, some concession companies have already scaled down operations, as expatriates depart the country for fear of contracting the Ebola virus. He said productivity in the various sectors of the economy was adversely affected, resulting in lower revenue performance, and increased expenditure demands, threatening the post- conflict recovery process of sustainable, inclusive and proper growth.
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Poor will die of hunger, not just Ebola, say Sierra Leoneans
▻http://www.trust.org/item/20140915104032-w7rs4?
FREETOWN: Supplies of food are running so low in Sierra Leone that residents fear many could die of hunger if the Ebola virus is not contained soon, reports humanitarian organisation Plan International.
Freetown residents say food prices are soaring out of control due to the lack of cross-border trade.
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Ebola’s Hard Lessons | The CSIS Global Health Policy Center
▻http://www.smartglobalhealth.org/blog/entry/Ebolas-Hard-Lessons
In the acid words of one observer, Ebola is to WHO what Katrina was to FEMA in 2005. MSF is at its limits and cannot possibly continue to shoulder the lion’s share of responsibilities. In the meantime, staff on the ground are becoming steadily more vulnerable – to infection and to violence – requiring greater investments to ensure their protection.
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The Ebola War
▻http://haicontroversies.blogspot.ca/2014/09/the-ebola-war.html
Although there are clearly downsides, experts from Peter Piot to MSF leaders to Mike Osterholm are calling for military involvement.
The need for such involvement is based simply on the scale of this disaster—WHO, CDC, non-governmental groups like MSF, no group has anything close to the logistical capability of the military to quickly deploy personnel and supplies almost anywhere in the world. If, as MSF suggests, military assets are “not…used for quarantine, containment, or crowd control measures”, which have backfired (particularly in Liberia), such a response could help bring essential capacity where it is needed most. The chart below provides a comparison of the total budgets for the US military, CDC, WHO and MSF.
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Ebola outbreak an avoidable tragedy, say UK MPs | Global development | theguardian.com
▻http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/sep/12/ebola-outbreak-avoidable-tragedy-uk-ministers-mps
“The devastating ongoing Ebola epidemic in west Africa has served to emphasise the importance of establishing strong health systems,” it said. “The apparent hesitancy and lack of coordination in the international response suggest that the global health system and emergency plans have failed.”
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Ebola – the World’s Katrina | Molecules to Medicine, Scientific American Blog Network
▻http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/molecules-to-medicine/2014/09/09/ebola-the-worlds-katrina
the world’s response has been incomprehensibly and seemingly irresponsibly slow. Why is this the case? Likely because of disparities in the power and wealth of people affected by the epidemic.
The Washington Post has a good backgrounder, “The long and ugly tradition of treating Africa as a dirty, diseased place,” by professors Laura Seay and Kim Yi Dionne. They note the racism of the European colonizers, and how that led to “othering” of Africans, attributing inherent flaws to the people and their societies rather than to cultural differences, without any true basis or understanding. And they cite the “persistent association of immigrants and disease in American society.”
The impact of such “othering” was first really brought home to me in a provocative lecture by Eileen Stillwaggon in 2006, at a Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases conference. She spoke of the perception that AIDS was more prevalent in Africa because of different sexual mores—hypersexuality and promiscuity. Then she ripped this apart with eye-opening evidence of the links between helminth (worm) infections, schistosomiasis, malaria, and AIDS, effectively demonstrating that the parasitic infections strongly increase the susceptibility to HIV, explaining the difference in HIV rates between Africa and industrialized countries.
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Ebola highlights slow progress in war on tropical diseases | Reuters
▻http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/11/us-health-ebola-neglected-analysis-idUSKBN0H60TA20140911
[until this crisis] the absence of economic incentives for drugmakers to develop and supply medicines for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) has long been highlighted by health campaigners, but it rarely gets on to the political radar in the West. (...)
It is not that scientists don’t have ideas for new drugs and vaccines but, until now, they have lacked the industry buy-in needed to take experimental products through the costly late stages of clinical development.
BIOWEAPON FEARS IN WEST
Significantly, much of the funding for Ebola has been driven not by concerns about sporadic outbreaks in Africa but by a biodefence strategy in the United States and other countries fearful of the potential to weaponize the virus.
Terrible compilation, mais qui recoupe bien ce que je voyais émerger de ce merdier. Merci @fil
H5N1: Ebola: Richard Horton tweets the future
▻http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2014/09/ebola-richard-horton-tweets-the-future.html
the outbreak appears to have been a kind of Sputnik moment, with the Americans realizing that we all face a threat greater than we’d imagined. After a Sputnik moment, nothing can stand in the Americans’ way. For once, they may be stampeding in the right direction.
M’enfin, si les États-Unis envoient des militaires quand Cuba envoie des médecins, c’est qu’ils y ont des intérêts précis à défendre ! Comme la présence de firmes américaines par exemple. Pétrole, plantations commerciales... faudrait voir à ne pas faire obstacle au business. C’est du #pur_cynisme
réponse à l’article d’Osterholm par Vincent Racaniello (qui au passage cite l’intérêt des expériences de Ron Fouchier) :
What we are not afraid to say about Ebola virus
▻http://www.virology.ws/2014/09/18/what-we-are-not-afraid-to-say-about-ebola-virus
More problematic is Osterholm’s assumption that mutation of Ebola virus will give rise to viruses that can transmit via the airborne route:
If certain mutations occurred, it would mean that just breathing would put one at risk of contracting Ebola. Infections could spread quickly to every part of the globe, as the H1N1 influenza virus did in 2009, after its birth in Mexico.
The key phrase here is ‘certain mutations’. We simply don’t know how many mutations, in which viral genes, would be necessary to enable airborne transmission of Ebola virus, or if such mutations would even be compatible with the ability of the virus to propagate. (...)
The other important message from the Fouchier-Kawaoka ferret experiments is that the H5N1 virus that could transmit through the air had lost its ability to kill. The message is clear: gain of function (airborne transmission) is accompanied by loss of function (virulence).
édito du Guardian :
The Guardian view on using the American military to contain the Ebola epidemic in Liberia | Editorial | Comment is free | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/17/guardian-view-american-military-ebola-epidemic-liberia
President Barack Obama’s decision to despatch a force with a strong military component to contain the Ebola epidemic in Liberia is to be welcomed. This is one of those cases where American boots on the ground will be an unalloyed good.
(...) But there are lessons – about readiness, about the proper funding and staffing of the World Health Organisation, and about the need to work on cures for diseases ignored in the past because there were no easy profits to be made by the pharmaceutical industry – and they must be learned.
The shirt on your back
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2014/apr/bangladesh-shirt-on-your-back
Guardian journalists trace the lifecycle of the shirt on your back via the teeming workshops of Dhaka, where labour is cheap and factories are cheaper
#Fashion ethics after the #Rana_Plaza factory collapse
The challenge
2013 saw the deadliest garment factory accident in history, with 1,299 workers being crushed to death in an 8 story building in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. Benetton, Matalan, Bon Marche and Primark branded clothing were found in the rubble. Dozens of brands quickly signed a binding agreement to improve factory safety in Bangladesh, and a small number offered compensation to the victims and their families. Some fashion commentators see this factory collapse as an important turning-point in the development of ethical fashion.
By examining this collapse and its aftermaths, this challenge will encourage students to consider what it takes for an industry to become more ‘ethical’, who the stakeholders need to be, how they can and should work together, how their ethics are defined and monitored, how differences can be overcome, and how geographically widespread ethical fashion can become.
Soon we will announce the line-up of key actors who will be visiting us in June, to tell us about their work, and answer our questions about the future of ethical fashion.
Pour une poignée de cacahuètes
▻http://cqfd-journal.org/Pour-une-poignee-de-cacahuetes
Depuis début novembre, la machine à coudre de la planète se heurte à une contestation sociale explosive. Des dizaines de milliers d’ouvriers pourtant interdits de vie syndicale ont cessé le travail à plusieurs reprises et battu les pavés de Dhaka. Du jamais-vu dans l’histoire du pays. Bravant les menaces de rétorsion et les flash-balls de la police anti-émeute, les manifestants ont réussi à bloquer des centaines d’usines, à chahuter l’ordre politique et à ébranler le bizness des marques de sape occidentales, choquées par l’extravagance de leur revendication : un salaire minimum de 100 dollars par mois. « Pour ne pas crever de faim après qu’on s’est tué à la tâche », expliquait un gréviste. Suite au massacre du Rana Plaza en juin dernier (1 200 ouvriers morts écrasés dans l’effondrement de leur usine), gouvernement et patronat avaient promis d’améliorer généreusement les queues de cerises versées aux quatre millions de travailleurs du textile bangladais. S’ensuivirent de longs conciliabules, au terme desquels on décida, le 13 novembre dernier, de porter le salaire minimum de 40 dollars aujourd’hui à 68 dollars à partir de janvier prochain. Une hausse appréciable en apparence mais dérisoire dans les faits, qui rattrape à peine la courbe grimpante de l’inflation.
How low-paid workers at ’click farms’ create appearance of online popularity | Technology | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/02/click-farms-appearance-online-popularity
How much do you like courgettes? According to one Facebook page devoted to them, hundreds of people find them delightful enough to click the “like” button – even with dozens of other pages about courgettes to choose from.
There’s just one problem: the liking was fake, done by a team of low-paid workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, whose boss demanded just $15 per thousand “likes” at his “click farm”. Workers punching the keys might be on a three-shift system, and be paid as little as $120 a year.
The importance of likes is considerable with consumers: 31% will check ratings and reviews, including likes and Twitter followers, before they choose to buy something, research suggests. That means click farms could play a significant role in potentially misleading consumers.
je dirais même plus #travail&tic #digital_labor #exploitation #marketing #facebook #twitter et le documentaire de Channel 4 que j’ai fini par voir en me servant d’un UK proxy : « Celebs, Brands and Fake Fans »
▻http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od#3558820
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32121091/seeding%20agency.png 
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/32121091/Dakha%20c%C3%A2bles.png Autre service proposé par cette boîte. Des marques distribuent gratuitement des produits à des « célébrités » ("freebies") ; en échange, celles-ci twittent, une fois rentrées à la maison les paquets sous le bras. Les journalistes ont créé une boîte pour l’occasion « Puttana Aziendale » ("corporate whore"), qui distribuent des bracelets sertis de pierres censées faire du bien à la peau.
Autrement, pour ce qui est de Dhaka, capitale des fermes de clic, on voit que les #algorithmes servent bien à créer des comptes facebook à la pelle (de fausses identités), mais qu’on a quand même besoin d’humains pour passer d’un compte à l’autre et « liker » les pages-clientes. 24h/24 trois équipes se relaient en continu pour login > like > disconnect > login etc.
Occupons la géographie scolaire ! Pour un enseignement géographique de l’actualité (l’exemple des manifestations en Turquie) | aggiornamento hist-geo
►http://aggiornamento.hypotheses.org/1409
Le drame de l’usine Dhaka, la guerre civile syrienne, les mouvements urbains stambouliotes…. Autant d’événements que la géographie scolaire éclaire et permet de faire appréhender à nos élèves. Puisqu’il s’agit de former des citoyens, pourquoi se priver de cette possibilité ? Or, on doit le constater, les programmes (leur lourdeur surtout) laissent de moins en moins le temps et la liberté aux enseignants de s’emparer de cette géographie de l’actualité. Dans certaines classes, comme les STG, le choix de l’illustration d’un chapitre se limite à deux études de cas. Pourtant, tout le nouveau programme de Terminale focalisé sur les enjeux et débats autour de la mondialisation permet la mise en abyme d’évènements brûlants de l’actualité, comme les actuelles révoltes (révolutions ?) en Turquie.
Le diaporama qui suit est un exemple d’une étude de cas réalisée « à chaud » sur les manifestations de Taksim. Il s’agit d’ailleurs davantage d’une ressource documentaire que d’une étude de cas. Géographie des projets urbains, géographie et généalogie de la contestation urbaine, géographie politique d’un autoritarisme, géographie de la police…..autant de pistes abordées et à approfondir. Dans tous les cas, l’approche est celle d’une géographie critique, qui s’engage –modestement – dans la lutte qu’elle décrit, notamment en relayant les informations des militants. Car le parc Gezi est devenu le symbole d’une double contestation : celle de l’urbanisme néolibéral et celle (surtout) d’un pouvoir sécuritaire et autoritaire. L’un n’empêche pas l’autre comme Mike Davis l’a si bien montré dans le Stade Dubaï du capitalisme (2007, les Prairies Ordinaires). Des chercheurs turcs, comme Pelin Tan (cf supra), se revendiquent des études urbaines critiques…Pourquoi ne pas les relayer, pourquoi ne pas occuper le terrain de la géographie scolaire ?