Gay Sex Decriminalized in India

The supreme court’s decision removed a 150 year old clause created by the British colonial government.

Rainbow flags in Alvula, India. Kandukuru Nagarjun. CC 2.0

Last Thursday the Indian supreme court voted to dismiss section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which made gay sex illegal. The law, labeling gay sex as “against the order of nature” was created in 1860 by the British colonial government and was in existence for 150 years before being struck down last week. While the section was briefly dismissed in 2009, it was reinstated four years later due to appeals filed at the supreme court. It was the supreme court’s decision a few days ago that removed the law once and for all.

The dismissal of the law was due in part to the tireless efforts of many LGBTQ activists who risked reprecutions of up to life imprisonment for publicizing their sexuality in order to petition and protest for the removal of the law. They represent the many gay and trans people who have suffered blackmail, intimidation, and abuse because of the section.

“History owes an apology to members of the community for the delay in ensuring their rights,” Justice Indu Malhotra said in a statement.

The supreme court went further than merely decriminalizing gay sex: as part of the repeal of section 377, gay people in India will finally receive all the protections of their constitution.

The law, called “irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary” but Chief Justice Dipak Misra, was defeated in part because it conflicted with a recent law granting privacy as a constitutional right. It was also largely perceived out of step with modern India. In their decision, the justices referenced the fact that the Indian constitution is not “a collection of mere dead letters”, but a document open to evolving with time and social attitudes.

According to Menaka Guruswamy, one of the main lawyers representing gay petitioners, the court's decision not to discriminate based on sexual orientation has created a “very powerful foundation.” It represents a public acknowledgement that as a gay person, “You are not alone. The court stands with you. The Constitution stands with you. And therefore your country stands with you.”

In excitement over the law it is important to acknowledge that India is not in any way “catching up” to the west in LGBTQ rights. Instead, the removal of this oppressive law is an example of India decolonizing. Many Hindu temples show images of people of the same sex embracing erotically. In the temples of Khajuraho there are depictions of women embracing and men showing their genitals to each other. There are Hindu myths in which men become pregnant and in which transgender people are awarded with special ranks. India Today writes that “In the Valmiki Ramayana, Lord Rama's devotee and companion Hanuman is said to have seen Rakshasa women kissing and embracing other women.”

In response to the law’s framing of homosexuality as unnatural, Anil Bhanot wrote in the Guardian that “the ancient Hindu scriptures describe the homosexual condition to be a biological one, and although the scripture gives guidance to parents on how to avoid procreating a homosexual child, it does not condemn the child as unnatural.”

The removal of the law represents a shift toward a more progressive future while also returning to India’s pre colonial attitudes.




EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her. 



“I Am For Russia”

What you should know about the Pussy Riot World Cup demonstration.

MLADEN ANTONOV/GETTY IMAGES

On July 15 during the middle of the World Cup final between France and Croatia, four protesters dressed as Russian police officers dashed onto the field, briefly halting the progress of the game.

In a statement made on twitter, the punk protest group Pussy Riot claimed responsibility for the disturbance.

Pussy Riot was founded in 2011 as a feminist protest punk rock group and has since become a powerful symbol of Russian resistance to the Putin regime. One of the groups most well known projects was their “punk prayer” protest in which members of the group in colourful balaclavas sang an anti-Putin political prayer in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior during the lead up to Russia’s 2012 election. The song and location of the protest were meant to serve as a commentary on the co-dependent relationship of the church and state in Russia. In response, two of the group's members were jailed for almost two years.

The New Yorker writes that in Pussy Riot’s statement on twitter claiming responsibility for the protest, the group cited Russian Poet Aleksandrovich Prigov’s work contrasting the difference between “heavenly” police officers who care for a utopian society, and “earthly” police officers who maintain corrupt systems. According to a video statement made by the group, “the Heavenly Policeman will protect a baby in her sleep, while the earthly policeman persecutes political prisoners and jails people for sharing and liking posts on social media.” In The New Yorker, Masha Gessen compares the group’s intrusion on the soccer match to the police’s intrusion in the everyday lives of citizens. She writes that “the beautiful world of sport has its bubble punctured by people running and flailing haphazardly, intent on destruction.” According to Pussy Riot’s own statement, “the earthly policeman, who intervenes in the game every day and knows no rules, is destroying our world.”

The police uniforms worn by the group carry a powerful symbolic message, but were also instrumental in enabling the group to carry out the protest. "No one stopped us," Pyotr Verzilov, a member of Pussy Riot told the BBC, "I know the Russian psychology: a police uniform is sacred. Nobody will ask for your permit or accreditation. I pretended to be yelling into my phone - 'Nikolayevich, where do you want me to look for them?!' - and I gestured to the steward to let me through the gate. He opened it."

Along with the explanation of the symbolism of their protest, Pussy Riot presented this list of demands:

1. Let all political prisoners free.

2. Not imprison for “likes”.

3. Stop Illegal arrests on rallies.

4. Allow political competition in the country.

5. Not fabricate criminal accusations and not keep people in jails for no reason.

6. Turn the earthly policeman into the heavenly policeman.

Shortly following the match, the Pussy Riot members who participated in the protest were sentenced to 15 days in jail and a 3 year ban from Russian sporting events. A video clip tweeted by anti-Putin activist Alexei Navalny shows the interrogation of two of the group's members. In the clip the police officer accuses them of bringing shame to Russia and says, "sometimes I regret that it's not 1937," referring to the Great Purge under Stalin in which at least a million people were executed. As the interrogation continues Verzilov says what become the most poignant words of the video, "I am for Russia, just like you — if you are for Russia."

The Pussy Riot protest is a reminder of the conditions millions of Russian people live under everyday.

 

EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her. 

 

 

India Scraps Tax on Sanitary Products after Protests

India joins Ireland, Kenya, and Canada as one of the four countries worldwide with tax free menstrual products.

Image Credit: Nick Kendrick. CC BY 2.0

Almost a month ago, in response to widespread protests, India declared sanitary pads tax-free.

"This was a most-awaited and necessary step to help girls and women to stay in school, their jobs, to practise proper menstrual hygiene,” Surbhi Singh, founder of Sachi Saheli, a menstrual health charity, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The decision to tax menstrual products was made over a year ago under the new national goods and services tax that united all India’s states in a single tax system with the same rates for the whole country. Under the new tax tampons were taxed 12% - the same amount as many luxury items. This was despite the fact that many contraceptives as well as condoms were exempt.

The tax sparked widespread protests and inspired the organization She Says to coin the slogan #lahukalagaan - Hindi for tax on blood. One petition by lawmaker Sushmita Dev to revoke the tax received 400,000 signatures. “Clearly the government had put forth frivolous arguments for one year and then delayed it,” Dev tweeted in response to the tax.

After over a year of protests, petitions, and widespread outrage, the tax was finally repealed late this July. Finance minister Piyush Goya told reporters that India’s “sisters and mothers will be happy to hear that sanitary pads have been given a 100% exemption and brought down to a tax rate of zero. Now there will be no [tax] on sanitary pads.”

Despite their new tax exempt status, it is incredibly hard for Indian women in rural areas to acquire sanitary products—according to the BBC four out of five women in India lack proper resources for menstrual care. Sanitary pads cost between five to twelve rupees each, meaning that often rags, ashes, leaves, and even sawdust are the only options for girls and women. The lack of sanitary care is tied to dramatically increased rates of infection, but is also linked to girls missing or dropping out of school.

India’s decision to exempt sanitary pads from taxes is adding the the global conversation surrounding period poverty. The charity Plan International UK released information that 1 in 10 girls and women under 21 can’t afford to purchase sanitary products. Women, as well as transgender and nonbinary people who menstruate, have their period for an average of 2,535 days of their lives. For those without access to sanitary products, that’s almost seven years of struggling to attend school or work without necessary products. Even people who can afford pads or tampons often experience anxiety around setting aside enough money to afford them each month.

According to Jo Feather, the ActionAid senior policy advisor, the issue is tied to gender inequality. She told the Independent that, “to solve period poverty globally we need to collectively address the issue of gender inequality at its root. We must not allow women and girls to be identified primarily by their biological functions and ensure their periods are celebrated, not ashamed, and can be a positive step in exercising empowerment.”

A significant aspect of period poverty is the stigma in many countries surrounding the topic. Often this taboo silences women, and keeps lawmakers from passing the necessary legislation that could make sanitary pads and tampons available to all women.

 

 

EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her. 

Women Take the Mic on Nsawya FM

Saudi feminists are giving voice to obstacles against women’s rights in their new radio show.

Illustration depicting the impact of restricted women’s rights because of male guardianship.

(Source: Human Rights Watch. Saudi Arabia: ‘Unofficial Guardianship Rules Banned. © 2016 by Human Rights Watch

On July 27th, eleven women gave life to Nsawya FM, or Feminism FM, with a simple tweet stating their aim to be the “voice of the silent majority.” Since then, their radio broadcasts have detailed stories of women’s rights abuse with just a laptop, editing software (to disguise the voices of the women sharing the stories), and a microphone. According to Ashtar, a pseudonym for one of the women involved, “the voice of women is revolution.”

And women have been raising their voices. Of the 6.3 million Saudis on Twitter in 2016, 40% were women as found in a study by the Rutgers’s Center for Women’s Global Leadership Report. The same study supported the importance of Twitter in Saudi society by stating that it was the “most effective and influential social network.” This is in part because political leaders monitor Twitter, making political activity more likely to be seen on the social media platform.

Still the potential to be blocked by the government on Twitter—which Nsawya FM states happened temporarily—is why they have chosen the radio: they do not want to risk losing the “archive of [their] thoughts.”

Nsawya FM’s archive consists of submissions by Saudi women of their stories, opinions, and criticisms on women’s rights, such as domestic abuse. The first stories told were of Hanan Shahri and Sara. Both stories highlight the effects of male guardianship: a system where a women’s crucial decisions—including travel, marriage, and studying abroad—are made by a male figure. These guardians can be fathers, husbands, brothers, or sons.

Shahri’s story was widely reported in 2013 after she killed herself following a beating by her brother and uncle and their refusal to allow her to marry her fiancé. Then there is Sara, a university student whose dream to marry her fiancé from Yemen, following approval from her parents, was ended when her brother shot her.

So it is no surprise that women began turning to Twitter to push back against guardianship. In 2016 they coined #AbolishGuardianship to highlight abuse and rally support against it. Within two months, 14,000 signatures had been collected for an online petition against guardianship. Although gradual changes have occurred for women, most notably the ability to drive, male guardianship is grounded in religion and cuts across all socio-economic classes.

But to these 11 women producers and their 2500 audience members there is hope that civilian law might one day replace the Islamic law. They are bringing the stories traditionally protected under male guardianship to light and public criticism.

“Of course [they] are scared,” as Ashtar has also been quoted saying. But their fear is driven by a determination for equal rights. For them it begins with placing the women’s narrative before the public’s eyes: Nsawya FM is making a statement on behalf of Saudi women to the world that they exist.

 

 

TERESA NOWALK is a student at the University of Virginia studying anthropology and history. In her free time she loves traveling, volunteering in the Charlottesville community, and listening to other people’s stories. She does not know where her studies will take her, but is certain writing will be a part of whatever the future has in store.

Red Light Reflections

Inside Amsterdam’s historic district.

Red Light District 1. By Steve. 3/14/18. CC BY-SA 2.0

All the mythology of Amsterdam seems find its mooring in the red light district, the city’s spiritual center of tolerance and liberalism. Yet as I walk through the district on a late afternoon it doesn’t seem to be the mecca of sexual appetite often pictured in the media. I had envisioned (of course) the scarlet pulsing of the lights, women in lace lingerie lounging against open windows, hordes of beer-smelling smelling people weaving their intoxicated way through the streets, then stumbling into those notorious doorways. And perhaps that is the view at midnight, but now with the light of early evening filtering through the trees to the canal bellow I see only a strangely peaceful street occupied by families, commuters on bikes, and the tourists like myself following their curiosity. It is a moment in which I experience that infamous gap between expectation and reality, being in the place versus experiencing its mythology.

I wander towards the edge of the neighborhood where the turrets of an impressively gothic church create an ironic backdrop for the district. On my way I rejoin my tour group in time to hear the guide mention the legends that have arisen around this juxtaposition. She says that according to fable, clients of the nearby district would come to this church in order to receive a kind of fast-pass confession in which they would be forgiven for all they were about to do that night. Another, more colorful legend included priests themselves selling tokens to parishioners that could then be accepted by sex workers in exchange for their services. “So you know what that would make the church,” the tour guide says as my group laughs, filling in the blank.

The actual history of the church, called Oude Kerk, or old church in Dutch, is a bit more drab — most likely it was built early on in Amsterdam's history where it would have been located in the heart of the city — a medieval metaphor for Christianity at the center of daily life.

I walk with my group past Oude Kerk to the front of a small strip of nondescript buildings where the headquarters of the Prostitution Information Center, or PIC, an activist agency working to de-stigmatize sex work in the Netherlands is located. As my group enters the building I take a seat at the back of the small room we have entered. The PIC headquarters are cozy and welcoming — filled with haphazard rows of benches and stacks of nonfiction and memoir. At my back a display window holds a mannequin wearing fishnets, heals, a garter, and a T-shirt reading “sex work is work.” To my left a mural depicts a canal street with pastel coloured buildings around a large red lamp post.

After being seated we are introduced to Jackie and Elsa, members of PIC and sex workers operating in the Amsterdam area. Jackie has light eyes and a kind face. She is celebrating 25 years of work in the prostitution industry — a fairly rare occurrence among sex-workers. When the leaders of our group encourage us to ask her questions about her work she laughs saying, “Ask me anything, I’ve seen it all. You can’t embarrass me, but you might make a fool out of yourself.”

As the conversation begins we learn that Jackie is a registered psychiatric nurse and works with people who experience erectile dysfunction, the disabled, and the elderly among others. She speaks with poise and eloquence, sharing how she likes to have time with her clients to talk and eat. To Jackie, sex work is emotionally validating — she sees it as going hand in hand with her nursing degree; both jobs allowing her to help and connect with people. When sharing how she first entered the sex industry, Jackie described feeling that she had found something incredibly validating, something that allowed her to use her talent for sensitivity and personableness. “I just like to be myself,” she says, matter-of-factly, “clients will ask if I can wear a certain outfit, but I don't like to do that. I usually wear something like this,” she says, motioning towards the floral dress she is wearing over a black t-shirt.

In some respects Jackie considers herself fairly lucky. Her family knows of and accepts her profession, and her brother even worked as her escort at one point in her career. Though she admits that her father wishes she had chosen a different career path, her mother is supportive of her choice, something she says is rare in the prostitution industry.

Elsa, the other PIC sex worker we speak with, works the windows of the red light district. She compares her own and Jackie’s lines of work to different restaurant experiences, saying, “she’s a three star Michelin restaurant and I’m a McDonald's.” Elsa calls window work “Mcpussy” — it’s a fast turnover business with little room for the kind of work Jackie likes to do. She doesn’t use the McDonald's metaphor pejoratively, but as a way to communicate to us the wide variety of services in the prostitution industry. When someone asks if she falls in love with her clients she laughs, almost derisively. “Do you fall in love with the person who serves you at a restaurant? There’s a difference between making a meal for someone you love and slapping together a Big Mac at your job,” she continues, “and there’s a difference between making love and sex.”

As the conversation continues, Jackie talks about the ways in which the industry has shifted over time. The advent of social media has made life difficult for sex workers, who often hide their profession from family and friends. Jackie says that she owns two Facebook accounts, one under Jackie, her sexworker alias, and another under her given name. She had worked hard to keep these two identities separate, keeping her sex worker friends on one platform, and her other acquaintances on the other; that is, until she was outed, presumably by a friend. “I noticed that my dentist and other friends started following my sex work Facebook and I new someone had given me away,” she said, “I don’t want my dentist knowing that about me.”

Jackie is adamant about the need to change the stigma surrounding sex work. She acknowledges that there are many women who are forced into the industry, but argues that human trafficking represents a small percentage of the prostitution industry and that most sex workers in the Netherlands enter the industry of their own will. “We need to end the view that sex workers are always victims,” she says, “this isn’t accurate.”

While the Netherlands is known for its toleration of the prostitution industry, Jackie explains why this isn’t enough. Dutch toleration of the industry was merely the recognition that prostitution is something that naturally occurs despite any laws made against it, legalizing and therefore taxing it enables the government to better ensure the safety of sex workers and make some money off the industry. This attitude, however, is merely one of tolerance and not acceptance. After all, the meaning of the word merely suggests allowing or refraining from punishing a certain activity — it has no requirement for validating, celebrating, or changing the stigma surrounding the thing being tolerated.

Eventually the conversation ends and my group files slowly out of the PIC into the twilight shadow of Oude Kerk. I know that soon the district will begin to change — the sex workers will arrive at their windows and the red lights will turn on and the ethos of the crowd will shift. But for now I walk with my group out of the district, savoring the new understanding that comes with seeing and engaging something experienced before only at a distance. I know that there are other stories, other sex workers who work in the prostitution industry merely to get by, or who are forced into it, and I acknowledge their experiences. Jackie and Elsa, however, represent a different narrative — one is rarely heard.

I think that maybe this is why we travel, to learn that all of our preconceived notions are rooted in our own cultural experience; that they may exist differently elsewhere.

 

EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her. 

Greece’s Lifejacket Graveyard

High up in the sunburnt hills of Lesvos, Greece lies a black and orange heap of plastic. It is large, about the size of an Olympic swimming pool, but its vastness pales in comparison to the scope of the reasons why it is there—the half a million and growing masses of displaced refugees who have washed up upon the island’s shores.

Lesvos is a major port for refugees fleeing chaos in the middle east, mostly from war-torn Afghanistan and Syria. The journey across the sea can be deadly. Refugees often pay over $5000 to smugglers who will bring them across the Mediterranean to supposedly safe ports in Europe, but there is no guarantee that the smugglers have not been bribed for one reason or another, or that the journey will be successful.

The black and orange heaps rotting in the hills of Lesvos are made up of lifejackets and boats that belonged to those who made it over, but in those quiet mountains one can almost hear the whispering of the hundreds of thousands who were lost on the way. A closer look reveals children’s floaties, some painted with princess decals, some emblazoned with the message, This is not a flotation device.

Once in Lesvos, the owners of these lifejackets were carted into packed camps, where many of them have remained for years. Conditions in the Moria camp in particular have been widely maligned by human rights organizations around the world. The camp was made to hold 2,000 people and now holds over 6,000, according to official reports, though many believe that the number has exceeded 8,000. Refugees live in cramped makeshift tents that flood when it rains, and the camps are overrun by disease, mental illness stemming from severe trauma, and chaos.

Following the Arab Spring in 2011, which catalyzed revolutions across the Middle East, Syria and many other countries experienced a mass exodus, leading to the flood of people seeking asylum in Europe that has come to be known as the modern refugee crisis.

Many refugees are university-educated professionals, fleeing in hopes of finding a better life for themselves and their families. But once in Europe, they are often caught up in bureaucratic tangles that keep them stagnant in the camps for years at a time, despite the fact that many already have family members in other parts of the continent.

Thousands of volunteers have flocked to the island in order to help. Nonprofits like A Drop in the Ocean host lessons and English classes for refugees, and facilitate the safe landings of newly arrived boats. Others work to provide hygienic services, like the organization Showers for Sisters, which provides safe showers and sanitary products to women and children.

Lesvos itself still functions in part as a tourist town, though it is mostly populated by volunteers, refugees, and locals. Not far from the lifejacket graveyard is the pleasant seaside town of Molyvos, which boasts sandy beaches and restaurants serving traditional Greek fare.

Much of the island is made up of open space, populated only by olive groves and forests, open plains, and abandoned buildings. The lifejacket graveyard is located in one such empty plain, and except for scavenging seagulls and goats, the area is empty, making the presence of the rotting heaps of plastic even more unnerving.

The only other proof of human presence to be found lies on a wall of graffiti nearby a garbage dump, marked by the sentiment Shame on you, Europe.

The combination of the Greek financial crisis and rising tides of nationalism occurring at the same time as the height of the refugee crisis have caused xenophobic sentiments to allow these horrifically overcrowded camps to mar this beautiful tropical island, which once inspired the Greek poet Sappho to write her legendary love poems.

The lifejacket graveyard has been left standing partly because of island officials’ lack of motivation to clean it up, and partly as a statement, a tribute to the thousands who still wait in limbo on the island.

If you are interested in helping out, organizations mostly need financial contributions, legal aid, medical aid, translators, and publicity. It is also possible to volunteer, and opportunities and detailed information can be found at sites like greecevol.info.

Eden Arielle Gordon

Eden Arielle Gordon is a writer, musician, and avid traveler. She attends Barnard College in New York.

Cocoa Industry: For Children by Children?

The cocoa industry continues to rely on child labor, but some companies are trying to change that.

A cocoa worker processes cocoa beans.

From little kids to adults, chocolate evokes an essence of simplistic indulgence most cannot refuse. It is no wonder then that the average American will eat over 11 pounds of chocolate a year. However neither simplicity nor delight are terms found in criticisms of the cocoa industry. More likely one will read statements such as “it will be decades – if ever – before human rights will be respected…”— as concluded in the 2018 Cocoa Barometer’s 2018 report, produced by 15 NGOs including Oxfam and Stop the Traffik.

So who produces chocolate? Most are children who haul heavy bags of cocoa beans or harvest with machetes. Indeed, in West Africa where 70% of cocoa comes from, 2.1 million of laborers are children. The labor is often times dangerous and in a Tulane University study of the 2013-2014 growing season, 96% of child labor was labeled hazardous.

Also critical is that child labor interferes with schooling. Education is essential as it equips future workers with skills that nurture a competitive job market. Considering most of the cocoa growing areas are impoverished areas, the lack of education is a deterrent to ending systemic poverty. Further, many of the children’s parents also worked on cocoa farms and do not understand the risks of child labor or the benefits of education.

Still children are cheaper to employ for cocoa farmers than adult laborers as most cocoa farmers only make $0.78 a day. And even that meager wage is vulnerable to fluctuations in cocoa price on the global market. Goals to reduce use of child laborers by 70% by 2020 have notably failed in part because of the poor wages—in Côte d’Ivôire $0.78 is only 37% of a living wage.

Another factor in the continued use of child laborers is the absence of effective legislative action. Cocoa Barometer described the current political will as lacking “sense of urgency, or ambition to tackle the sector’s challenges.”

One area that legislation has been particularly negligent is trafficking of children. The International Labor Organization in 2002 conducted a study that concluded 12,000 child laborers were trafficked in West Africa. And while 16 years have passed since, it is still common knowledge that child laborers exist in the industry. Efforts to stop it have been ineffective: the Ivory Coast made trafficking illegal, but has yet to educate the prosecutors and police officers who can enforce the ruling.

Rather, companies are taking their own steps to confront child labor. Since 2012, Nestlé has implemented a Child Labor Monitoring Remediation System (CLMRS). CLMRS work directly in local communities and notes instances of child labor, whether self-declared or not. They respond with various forms of remediation, such as tracking school attendance.

Mondelēz International, owners of the Cadbury brand, invested $400 million in 2012 with the explicit goal to “empower at least 200,000 cocoa farmers and reach one million community members.” By 2016, Mondelēz had worked with 92,000 farmers in 861 communities.

Advertisement embodying Cocoa Life’s commitment to empowering cocoa farmers (Source: Cocoa Life).

Mondelēz’s success is because of Cocoa Life, a third-party cocoa sustainability program that is overseeing Mondelēz’s gradual shift to sustainable cocoa. Focusing on child labor, Cocoa Life emphasizes education of both children about their rights as well as educating parents about the negative effects of child labor. And at the end of 2017 116 CLMRS were monitoring the supply in Ghana out of the 447 communities it was active in.

Nestle and Mondelēz are setting examples of what many critics hope other multinational cocoa companies will replicate: reporting their successes and failures so the industry can learn from one another. Increased transparency is only one step though. Another is the hope for legislation in consuming countries that legally hold companies to the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights— which is currently only a voluntary framework.

For now cocoa is still a complicated industry driven by the simplistic need to get a fix. But if consumers know the faces behind the candy bar, then awareness will encourage progress. And progress is critical to making cocoa sustainable for future generations as well as viable living for its workers.

 

 

TERESA NOWALK is a student at the University of Virginia studying anthropology and history. In her free time she loves traveling, volunteering in the Charlottesville community, and listening to other people’s stories. She does not know where her studies will take her, but is certain writing will be a part of whatever the future has in store.

10 Ways to Travel More Sustainably

Taking your sustainable living habits on the road.

Traveling by train is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint and see more of the place you are traveling through. Image Credit: Jonathan Combe. CC BY 2.0

It is easy to get caught up in the beauty and newness of the places we travel through. While this element of escapism is part of the magic of travel, it often means forgetting to treat the place we are in as what it is: someone else’s home. Sustainable travel is important—not only because we need to protect the world that is our collective home, but because we need to respect the places that are someone else’s environment, their home. These ten ways to travel more sustainably explore actions we can all take to be greener travelers and to show respect to the places we are traveling through.

1. Avoid flights.

Sometimes this can be difficult to do. However, whenever possible try to opt for slower forms of travel like trains, buses, or boats. It may take you a bit longer to get to your final destination, but you will significantly reduce your carbon footprint and enjoy a richer sense of place. If you absolutely must fly, try to book a nonstop flight — taking off and landing only once uses less fuel. There’s one exception: if you’re traveling alone, driving has more of a negative impact on the environment than flying.

2. Stay in hostels.

There may be fewer amenities, but that means less waste. Many hostels even use renewable energy and recycle. Hostels are also cheaper, and the connections you’ll end up making with your roomates will be priceless.

3. Stay in green hotels.

If hostels are simply not available (or not for you), try to stay in a green hotel. When traveling in the US look for a hotels with a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. The certification means that the building is green and energy efficient.

4. Bring your reusable water bottle.

This one is just common sense, but we could all use a reminder. Single use plastics (water bottles and other packaging) are harmful to the environment because they are difficult to recycle and don’t decompose naturally. To learn more, check out 5 everyday products that hurt the environment, or this video, following travel producer Marie McGrory as she attempts to spend a week in Belize without using any single use plastics.

5. Hang up your towels.

Hanging up towels in a hotel is pretty much a universally accepted sign that you’d like to re-use them. Chances are, you probably don’t use a fresh towel every time you shower at home, and it takes a lot of energy, water, and other resources for the hotel to launder everyone's towels, every day.

6. Support the local economy.

According to the World Tourism Organization, out of every $100 spent on a trip, only $5 will have a positive impact on the destination. This is partly due to the uber cheap, made in China merchandise available at almost every popular destination. Instead of buying a cheap sweatshirt, support your destinations “real” economy by purchasing souvenirs from local shops, created by local artisans.

7. Partner with nonprofits.

If you have extra space in your luggage, try to give back to the communities you visit. Partner with organizations like Pack for a Purpose that give the school supplies and other items you pack to local communities. Partnering with a non-profit means knowing what people need, and where they need it, bypassing the negative effects of well-intentioned but harmful gifts.

8. Go on tours run by local guides.

Do your research to make sure you are supporting the local economy and not something that is endangering local communities or their environment.

9. Don’t buy wildlife products.

Again, this one is common sense. When you purchase wildlife products you’re supporting (consciously or not) an industry that trafficks rare and endangered wildlife.

10. Remember: sustainable travel isn’t just about the environment.

Kelley Louise, executive director of the Impact Travel Alliance put it best when she wrote in the New York Times that, “Sustainability has a positive impact not only on the environment, but the culture and the economy of the destination you’re visiting.” While excessive tourism does much to hurt the environment and culture of a place, sustainable travel can begin to reverse that damage.

 

 

EMMA BRUCE is an undergraduate student studying English and marketing at Emerson College in Boston. While not writing she explores the nearest museums, reads poetry, and takes classes at her local dance studio. She is passionate about sustainable travel and can't wait to see where life will take her. 

SOUTH AFRICA: Dinner in Khayelitsha

South African apartheid is frequently written off as a memory, something that ended decades ago. But from the start of my visit to South Africa, it became clear that the violence of that period has continued to bleed into the present, manifesting itself in clear racial and economic divides.

I visited Cape Town in the summer of 2016. Cape Town is a city of contrasts—tall, imposing mountains cast shadows over clear blue seas, and seaside villas luxuriate only a few miles away from derelict townships.

These townships are the subject of this piece. Townships in South Africa are villages that remain from apartheid-era forced exoduses of non-white people, cast out of their homes and crammed into segregated areas.

These townships still stand today. They are mostly collections of mottled tin-roof shacks and cramped streets, and they are home to 38% of South Africa’s population of 18.7 million.

From the beginning of my arrival in South Africa, I was told by locals that the townships were unsafe, especially for outsiders. But one day, I returned to my flat in the town of Observatory and one of my roommates asked me if I wanted to visit one.

The visit would be hosted, she told me, by Dine With Khayelitsha, a program founded by four young township residents designed to foster communication between their communities and those outside. Dine With Khayelitsha started in March 2015, as part of a partnership with Denmark and Switerland intended on working as a fundraiser. It then grew and has now hosted over 100 dinners. Each dinner is attended by at least one of the founders, who assures the safe transportation of every participant.

Thanks to this organization, I found myself on a bus driving into one of the townships, and then I was suddenly in a house with a bunch of strangers, eating authentic South African beans and meat.

We arrived at the township’s president’s home, though she was not there—she was outside campaigning, and instead several locals were cooking the meal for the night.

I had come with my new friend, and among the other attendees were two Dutch women, an artist from Germany, a couple from France and Morocco, and a South African black woman. Noticeably absent were white native South Africans, a fact that we asked the hosts about. Apparently, South Africans themselves still persistently ostracize the townships, creating divisions between themselves and the poorer underside of their country.

Our hosts were a few young men from the townships. They had all attended college and one worked in IT and another in software engineering, and most of them also ran after school programs such as leadership and self-esteem workshops for township kids. They had started this organization in an effort to generate more dialogue among South Africans and to raise awareness and reduce stigma concerning the townships.

First, they asked us to discuss one act of kindness we’d performed recently. As night fell, the talk began to flow more easily.  We discussed the fact that so many kids from townships are forced to go through school and university, if they can make it that far, in order to get menial jobs that can support their families. For these kids, following their dreams is not an option, but it is rather an inconceivable luxury. One of the hosts said that he would love to run education programs for kids, but instead he had to become an engineer to support his family.

After dinner, as we were waiting for a bus to come pick us up, I asked one of the men if most people born into townships grow up wanting to escape, to find better lives. He told me that some did, but in his opinion, it is far more important to stay in the townships and to try to create a better life there. That’s what he had done; he’d gotten an education and a job and still lives in the townships, trying to create programs and to help uplift the state of the community.

I talked to another local who was a writer, and his eyes shone as he talked about how he can capture strange and vivid moments with words—and another who spoke passionately about his desire to hear stories from people all around the world. There was an undercurrent of kindness that seemed to link these people together that I have rarely seen; a desire to include others, to tell stories and to share parts of their lives, to not build walls but to rather create open streams of connection. To create rather than to destroy.

Conversations like this one cannot heal or make up for old wounds inflicted upon non-white people in South Africa—only physical reparations and policy changes can truly begin that process. But they are a step in the right direction—a step towards understanding that we are all part of the same global community, and the walls between us are really made of dust.

EDEN ARIELLE GORDON is a writer, musician, and avid traveler. She attends Barnard College in New York.