Broken Bodies Broken Dreams/ground breaking photo book
Broken bodies Broken dreams Violence Against Women Through the Camera’s Eye by Sandrea-Lee Swaby, 01/24/06 The contemplations of some of the world’s greatest thinkers open Broken Bodies–Broken Dreams: Violence Against Women Exposed, a ground-breaking photo-book that has turned the camera’s eye on the pandemic of violence against women around the world. The short quotes, however, are not enough to prepare you for the stark, black and white images that follow. In these pages, the words and images of women who could be your mother, your sister or your daughter, reach out and implore you to listen to their stories and then choose to do something about their plight. A stirring collection of over 170 photos, testimony, and informed narrative, the book was a labor of love for the Integrated Regional Information Network, a part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that has been actively fighting gender-based violence through various multimedia projects. To that end, the book also includes a training/advocacy CD so that readers who want to take steps to end violence against women have the means with which to do so. “It's really inspiring to recognize the strength women and girls have in facing this discrimination--including in terms of being willing to tell their stories,” says Jeanne Ward, lead writer of Broken Bodies–Broken Dreams. Though she has been working in the field of violence against women for 10 years, Ward says she was reawakened to the scope of gender-based violence. “It’s profoundly moving and upsetting. I kept hoping as I worked on the book that it would have the same effect on the readers.” “I think the use of images really brings home the shocking truth and makes it impossible to ignore the issues at hand,” says photojournalist Mariella Furrer, one of the major photographers for the project. “I think it is very difficult for photographers to get images that shock as editors don’t want to upset their readers, but I think it is the obligation of newspapers, magazines and the media in general to show the horrors that are still going on in the 21st century and expose people to the reality of what millions of women and children have to endure in their lives,” she passionately argues. Running the gamut of violence against women, from son preference in India and China to child marriages and female genital mutilation in Africa, Broken Bodies–Broken Dreams introduces its audience to both women who have endured the worst and lived to tell about it as well as those whose stories are told long after they have gone. With the onset of rapid globalization and increasing instances of corrupt governments and police forces, young women and children are at even greater risk of being sold into prostitution or exploited in child pornography. Gender-based violence touches every corner of the globe and can start as early as birth in countries like China and India where having a son is considered ‘good economics and good politics, and where girls are sacrificed at birth. Affecting girls across Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, the most common form of son preference is neglect, but rates of infanticide are steadily increasing. With the availability of advanced technology in some countries, families are now able to use sex-identification testing to perform sex-selective abortions. Those who aren’t able to access this technology resort to poisoning, suffocating, burning, abandoning or burying their daughters alive. Deeply rooted in male-dominated tradition and culture, gender-based violence is difficult to uncover and almost impossible to prosecute. “The biggest obstacle facing women and girls is that they are denied, in many parts of the world, the most basic rights that are afforded to men and boys,” says Ward. “The limited resources that communities extend towards protection from gender-based violence reflects apathy at best and, at worst, aggressive discrimination.” In many parts of the world, girls who are not sacrificed are subjected to child sexual abuse that can start as early as age 12, sometimes even earlier. This largely hidden practice is hard to quantify because the definition of sexual abuse varies by culture, which makes it all the more difficult to shed light on the problem. Those who are not married off can fall prey to rape by strangers, educators or, more likely, their fathers, grandfathers, uncles and other family members and friends. In regions where divorce is not an option, husbands resort to murder so that they may remarry and acquire a higher bride price. Dowry and honor crimes, which take place in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, often result in the mutilation or burning alive of women who have supposedly committed an act of wrongdoing against their husbands. Though the photos in Broken Bodies–Broken Dreams can be quite disturbing, they cannot be ignored. Ward hopes that readers will go beyond being appalled by the content and be moved to action. “We want people to use the CD that comes with the book to share this information as widely as possible with others in order to stimulate change—in laws, in attitudes, in practices,” says Ward, adding, “Violence against women is not inevitable, and it's not acceptable.” To learn more about Broken Bodies–Broken Dreams or to order a copy, please visit www.irinnews.org or send an E-mail to brokenbodies@irinews.org.