Iana Matei a fost recompensată de o revistă de talie mondială pentru lupta sa împotriva prostituţiei juvenile, dar şi pentru salvarea victimelor traficului de carne vie.
De la o adresă secretă din Piteşti, voluntarii organizaţiei „Reaching Out” salvează vieţile copiilor care cad victime traficanţilor de fiinţe umane. În fruntea lor este Iana Matei de 50 de ani, preşedinta şi fondatoarea organizaţiei, care şi-a dedicat şi chiar riscat viaţa pentru salvarea acestor copii.
The 19-strong jury of the Reader’s Digest magazine, offered the title of ‘European Person of the Year’ to a Romanian, a first in the 15-year history of this award, a hero who has dedicated and risked her life to save the girls who fell victim to traffickers in persons.
It’s been 11 years since Iana Matei, aged 50, founder and executive director of ‘Reaching Out’, has been using her organization as a weapon against this most cruel form of modern slavery.
Over the past several years, feminist women and men throughout Europe came together to meet as part of the European Feminist Forum. In the European Feminist Forum, they exchanged ideas about issues that face women in Europe today, with the goal of creating a new European feminist agenda. The discussions are now collected in the book “A Herstory (2004-208)”. Download the book (PDF)
The new Europe
Women in Europe still often do not enjoy the same opportunities as men. And the newly expanded Europe brings with it entirely new challenges – a new dynamic in the area of economic migration, for example, and also an increase in the trafficking of women from Eastern Europe.
“Reclaiming the lucidity of our hearts” by Sass Rogando Sasot
[…] The root of our oppression is the belief that there is only one and only one way to be male or female. And this starts from our birth. Upon a quick look on our genitals, we are assigned into either male or female. This declaration is more than just a statement of what’s between our legs. It is a prescription of how we should and must live our lives. It is a dictation of what we should think about ourselves, the roles we should play, the clothes we should wear, the way we should move, and the people with whom we should have romantic or erotic relationships. But the existence of people whose identities, bodies, and experiences do not conform to gender norms is a proof that this belief is wrong.
Nonetheless, even though the truth of human diversity is so evident and clear to us, we choose to hang on to our current beliefs about gender, a belief that rejects reality and forces people to live a lie. This is the belief that leads to attacks on our physical and mental integrity, to different forms of discrimination against us, and to our social marginalization. This is the belief that led to Joan of Arc to be burned at stake because she was cross-dressing. This is the belief that motivated the rape and murder of Brandon Teena on December 31, 1993. This is the belief that led to the stabbing to death of Ebru Soykan, a prominent transgender human rights activist in Turkey, on March 10, 2009. This is the belief that led to the arrest of 67 Filipino workers in Saudi Arabia for cross-dressing in June this year. This is the belief that keeps the list of transgender people being harassed, killed, and violated growing year after year. And it is very unfortunate that our legal systems, religions, and cultures are being used to justify, glorify, and sanctify the violent expressions of this belief.
So we question: Is human life less precious than this belief? Is our right to life, to dignified existence, to liberty, and pursuit of happiness subservient to gender norms? This doesn’t need a complicated answer. You want to be born, to live, and die with dignity – so do we! You want the freedom to express the uniqueness of the life force within you – so do we! You want to live with authenticity – so do we!
Now is the time that we realize that diversity does not diminish our humanity; that respecting diversity does not make us less human; that understanding and accepting our differences do not make us cruel. And in fact, history has shown us that denying and rejecting human variability is the one that has lead us to inflict indignity upon indignity towards each other. […]
Listen. The men in your lives will tell you what they do. As long as the R word doesn’t get attached, rapists do self-report. The guy who says he sees a woman too drunk to know where she is as an opportunity is not joking. He’s telling you how he sees it.
The guy who says, “bros before hos”, is asking you to make a pact.
The Pact. The social structure that allows the predators to hide in plain sight, to sit at the bar at the same table with everyone, take a target home, rape her, and stay in the same social circle because she can’t or won’t tell anyone, or because nobody does anything if she does. The pact to make excuses, to look for mitigation, to patch things over — to believe that what happens to our friends — what our friends do to our friends — is not (using Whoopi Goldberg’s pathetic apologetics) “rape-rape”.
Change the culture… [W]e need to change the environment that the rapist operates in. Choose not to be part of a rape-supportive environment. Rape jokes are not jokes. Woman-hating jokes are not jokes. These guys are telling you what they think. When you laugh along to get their approval, you give them yours. You tell them that the social license to operate is in force; that you’ll go along with the pact to turn your eyes away from the evidence; to make excuses for them; to assume it’s a mistake, of the first time, or a confusing situation. You’re telling them that they’re at low risk.
“LUARE DE POZIȚIE cu privire la evenimentele anti-rome din județul Harghita/ ÁLLÁSFOGLALÁS. A Hargita megyei roma-ellenes események kapcsán”
19/07/2009
destinatar: Prefectura și primării ale județului Harghita, UDMR și alte partide politice, Guvernul României
Fiind martorii evenimentelor anti-rome din județul Harghita din ultimele luni, indiferent de apartenența noastră etnică, luăm atitudine împotriva violenței hrănite din incitarea la ura etnică, precum și împotriva transformării problemelor economice în tensiuni interetnice.
Ne exprimăm dezacordul față de practica care îi pedepsește pe semenii noștri (dorind să-i alunge din sate și orașe) din cauză că ei nu sunt în stare să schimbe condiția lor materială. Și față de etichetarea negativă a identității lor etnice pe această bază. Precum și față de starea în care indivizi și colectivități percepuți prin identitatea lor etnică devin nu doar victime ale oprimării economice, umilirii culturale și manipulării politice, ci și ale violenței fizice.
[…]
Asociaţia social culturală Baraka te invită marţi, 12 mai şi miercuri, 13 mai 2009, la orele 20.00, la două reprezentaţii ale piesei de teatru „O amintire, un monolog, un strigăt şi o rugăciune” la Orange Concept Store, Calea Victoriei 41 din Bucureşti. Reprezentaţiile inaugurează campania Ziua V 2009 la Bucureşti îndreptată împotriva violenței asupra femeilor.
5 mai 2009 – Romania este tara membra a Uniunii Europene cu un trecut dramatic in ceea ce priveste politica avortului. Astazi, din nou, drepturile femeilor, sanatatea sau chiar viata acestora risca sa fie puse in pericol prin adoptarea de catre Parlamentul Romaniei a unor modificari in Codul Penal, respectiv interzicerea avortului terapeutic efectuat dupa varsta de 24 de saptamani de la conceptie şi propunerea de recunoastere a fatului dupa 24 de saptamani ca persoana bucurandu-se de drepturi. Ca efect imediat al acestei initiative, Romania va deveni singurul stat membru al Uniunii Europene care interzice avortul în situatii in care viata femeii insarcinate este pusa in pericol.
Avortul terapeutic se efectueaza in situatii exceptionale, atunci cand viata sau sanatatea fizica sau mintala a femeii insarcinate este pusa in pericol de continuarea sarcinii. Necesitatea efectuarii unui avort terapeutic se stabileste de la caz la caz, in functie de gravitatea situatiei, exclusiv in relatia medic-pacient. Masurile legislative propuse de Parlament vor afecta actul medical bazat pe aceasta relatie cu pacientul, medicul putand fi pus in situatia de a refuza o intrerupere necesara de sarcina. Se incalca astfel etica actului medical prin care personalul medical trebuie sa acorde prioritate sanatatii si vietii femeii insarcinate. Femeia insarcinata este pacientul si prin urmare medicul are obligatia fata de pacienta de a face tot ce ii sta in putere pentru a-i salva viata sau sanatatea. Continue reading →
