Our Rights We Will Maintain

The United States has laws for mandatory schooling until a child is 16 years old. After then a student can choose to drop out of school, but if not there are still public schools that they can attend for free for a while longer depending on the state. A basic education is something taken for granted in the developed world. The majority of the world does not have these opportunities. Over a billion people in 1999 could not read a book or sign their own name. In many parts of the world the cost of education and school supplies are outside the means of a family living in poverty. In developing countries, adult literacy is as low as 32% of adults in some areas . If a person is not able to read this miss out on many opportunities to help them move out of poverty.

Access to education is not equal. There is a gap between the education that girls and boys receive. Two-thirds of all illiterate people in the world are women. There are many reasons are given for not educating their daughters. In countries where it is difficult to send a child to school, boys are given the priority because women are expected to leave their birth families to join their husband’s family at marriage, but sons stay with their parents and care for them as they age. So, it is seen as more beneficial to the parents to educate their sons. Another reason girls are less likely to continue their education is because they are expected to help at home and to learn from their mothers how to run a household for when they are married. Since, they do the same work as their mothers, girls are seen as more profitable to have at home rather than school.

Though it is not a priority in many nations, there has been shown that education women is beneficial to not only her but to her family and community as well. A women with a higher level of education is less likely to be a child-bride and will have fewer children than women with less education. Not only did they have fewer children, but the ones they had were more likely to survive. A child born to a mother who has had at least a secondary level education is twice as likely to live to age 5 than to a child born to a mother with no education. Being educated opens economic opportunities outside of the home that wouldn’t have been available before. Having the ability to earn more money for themselves helps the family. Women are shown to allocate more money toward her family and their education and medication for the children than their husbands.

With such a plethora of reasons why the education of girls matter, it needs to be made a priority. Many nations still place it at a low concern, but these girls and women have the right to education. In recent years, there has been an increase of activism for women’s education, but there is still a long way to go. A young Pakistani woman and education activist, Malala Yousafzai  explained why everyone  should care about girl’s education, “The best way to empower girls is through education, so we should all speak up for girls’ education”.

A government is meant to protect and organize the people within a nation. But when people hired to protect the people are the ones attacking who holds them responsible? On August 9th, an unarmed black teenager named Mike Brown was shot by a police officer. His town of Ferguson has organized protests against the racism that has been evident in the police force. There has been a history of racial tensions in the town which is 67% African-American and the police force is 94% white.

The murder of Mike Brown is a continuation of a disturbing trend in America of the police shooting unarmed people. Within the month following Mike Brown’s death there were 13 more cases of officers killing the unarmed. Despite differing circumstances, all these cases bring to question how much power is too much power for the police. Police are offered no legal retribution for these killings.

When some of the protests in Ferguson became violent, the police used force against the crowds and this force has not been to the scale expected of a small town police force, but included military grade gear. Officers wore military style uniforms and shot rubber bullets into peaceful crowds. Tear gas has been used against protesters. Tear gas is a chemical weapon banned in war, yet it has been used against civilians in Ferguson some as young as eight years old. The looting reported during the protests were in actuality people attempting to soothe their eyes from the tear gas with milk. One of the most iconic photographs of the protests depicts a man throwing a tear gas canister away from children. 

Many rights have been violated in Ferguson, Missouri in the weeks since Mike Brown’s death. There has been ongoing racism, attacks against the freedom of assembly and violent attacks civilians and children. The freedom of the press has also been severely limited. Multiple journalists have been detained and arrested. They have been among those tear gassed and shot at with rubber bullets. Two journalists were arrested for not leaving a McDonald’s in what police officers considered fast enough.

The scene in Ferguson is not one you would expect in the  “land of free”. The police force in Ferguson, Missouri needs to be held responsible for its actions, in both holding Darren Wilson responsible for shooting Mike Brown and the force for its actions since. The people should not fear those who are meant to protect them.

As a senior visual arts student at Columbia University Emily Sulkowicz has made national news for her senior thesis project. She has vowed to carry a dorm mattress with her until the university takes action to remove the man who raped her in her own bed as a sophomore. Emily’s story is far too common. It is one of rape, victim blaming and a lack of action against the perpetrator.  While her project was not intended to be a protest, it speaks out against problematic rape policies on university campuses. Many have come out to both help Emily carry her mattress and to tell their own stories.

Rape is a violation of a person’s bodily autonomy that has been normalized and trivialized. In the United States alone, the are 237,868 cases of sexual assault and rape each year, yet 97% of rapists will never spend a day in jail. The culture we live in is a rape culture where girls are taught how not to get raped rather than teaching consent and not to rape. It was said best on twitter, “If you’re promoting changes to women’s behaviour to “prevent” rape, you’re really saying “make sure he rapes the other girl”. Still, products continue to be marketed to women to protect themselves such as “rape-preventive” nail polish and underwear and many college students don’t even know the basics of consent.

This tradition of blaming women for being assaulted or not being careful enough is a dangerous one which as lead to low numbers of reporting and rapists being seen as victims in the media. When upcoming football stars raped a girl at a party in Ohio in 2013, the media gave her rapists sympathy and mourned their loss of “bright futures” in football and not her violation, embarrassment, and assault. Never should someone’s football career be prioritized over someone’s right to say what happens to their body.

While this is an important domestic issue, it takes an entirely new light when looked at in war zones. Thought the Geneva Conventions clearly state that rape cannot be used as a tool of war, it is still common. Refugees are particularly vulnerable. In 2012, the UN recorded 1,700 rapes in camps for displaced people in Somalia. In these cases we can see many of the same trends of victim blaming that are present in the United States. The soldiers claim that because they paid the girls, some as young as 12 years old, it is not rape despite these girls clearly not being old enough or in a position to consent.

In Syria, the rape of women was used as a tool to control men. By torturing, beating and raping men’s wives and daughters in front of them. Women in Syria have been quoted that the rape was worse than the chemical weapons used against them. Regimes should not be allowed to torture its people while the international community stays out. Rape is a serious crime that is epidemic levels.