Slavery, guilt & sunburn

The door of no return in the Slave Master's House

I've just returned from Senegal where I visited Goré Island - the place where slaves from West Africa were held before being shipped to the Americas.  On the island there is a museum in the slave masters house. This was where the slave families were separated (men, women, children) and their strength assessed. There was even a room where the weaker slaves were fattened up to be strong enough to survive the journey. It was, of course, a deeply unsettling and upsetting place to be.

It brought back the deep seated guilt I feel from being English, a colonial power, and being part of a society that has benefitted so hugely from the slave trade.  

However, a small part of me was also proud of my long association with Anti-Slavery International. The original human rights agency, which 200 years ago, campaigned for the abolition of the slave trade. I was working for Anti-Slavery in Senegal (training local NGOs on children's participation), Jonathan and I met at a job interview at Anti-Slavery (Jonathan worked there for 15 years - I didn't get the job but I figure I got the better deal!) and eventually I worked in the offices of Anti-Slavery for eight years (for another organisation).

Slavery is such an emotive word - most of us officially working on the issue don't like to use it - and we tend to mistrust people who do use it. Let me explain why. In Togo last year I worked with a child domestic worker whom I will call 'Amina'. Anima had been sent to work in the capital by her mother (trafficked - another emotive word) she’s under the control of her employer which means the only time she’s allowed out is to go with her employer to church and she had only recently been reunited with her mother after 10 years; her employer beats her when she breaks things or gets tasks wrong. In short, she is living in modern day slavery. But there are thousands of children in the same position as her and the only way the local NGO can get access to her is to negotiate with her employer. They cannot do this by saying they are working on the issue of slavery as this implies that Amina's employer is a slave master or mistress.  And actually Amina's employer is a good employer - she has allowed Amina to have time off to attend meetings and trainings and counselling from the local NGO (called WAO Afrique).  All the local NGOs Children Unite is working with recognise this tension – that in order to help child domestic workers, you cannot afford to see their employers as the enemy (the slave mistress), you have to work with them and gradually change their mindset about their employment of their ‘domestic’.  Slavery is not just an emotive word, it is a complex concept – on the one hand there is the historical baggage of the transatlantic slave trade, on the other is the modern day complexities which, on the issue of child domestic labour, are deeply rooted in cultural practice.

Sitting on Goré Island (which is actually rather pretty) I was struck by the mix of emotions, the baggage and the complexities of the concept of slavery….I sat there so long, staring out to sea that I got sunburnt!

Serendipity in Senegal

Serendipity  - it’s a lovely sing-song word isn’t it?  I’ve never used it before and this week I’ve had two occasions – I will tell you about the Senegalese serendipity as I’m here and I’m still aglow with it.

I’m in Senegal as in two days I will be running a training workshop (not related to child domestic work).   Last week I started emailing various people I know in Senegal to see if, while I was here, I could meet up with anyone that works with child domestic workers.  It was all a bit last minute and I knew I’d have to squeeze any meetings into my spare time here and I’d also have to get by on my very limited French (tres tres mal) so I didn’t hold out much hope of actually being able to do this. But then serendipity struck.

I discovered that, at the same time as my training workshop and in the same town (I’m in Thies, not Dakar the capital) there happened to be a meeting of the African Movement of Working Children.  A movement that was set up by child domestic workers 7 years ago – although now includes many different kinds of working children.  So, this afternoon I met this extraordinary group of 20 young people from 20 different African countries.  They were deep in discussion about a Memorandum of Understanding they needed to agree on for financial accountability purposes.  It was serious stuff.  It was hot and it was slow (because of the need of translation).  Many of the children were getting frustrated at points or bored or annoyed.  But then something was said with such passion by one of the group that the energy was pumping through them all again.  I sat with the English speaking representatives so that I could hear the translation.  And I was soooooo excited just to be there. 

This morning I’d been with about 40 adults (who I’ll be delivering training to in 2 days – on children’s participation).  It was quite a formal, slow meeting (in French).  This afternoon I was with children in, ironically enough, a very similar discussion.  But to be part of a discussion where the children were the decision-makers calling on the adults (who sat around the outside of the group to explain or support or translate) was just fantastic.  I felt very privileged to be a part of it for an hour or two.  And it was wonderful to speak in English to some of the young people – I very rarely get to do this – in all the participative work I’ve done with young people (outside the UK) I’ve had the added barrier of language.

I’m hoping to sneak away again from my ‘work’ here and speak to the young people’s movement about campaigning together on child domestic work.  I had a chance to introduce myself today but would love to find out if, in the future, they’d be interested in campaigning on this issue.

So, I’m a happy chicken, Senegalese serendipity is intoxicating….even if I’m being eaten alive by mosquitos as I write this!

When a plan comes together

It has hit me this weekend that things are finally happening! I've had that slightly nervous feeling that you get in your stomach when you think oh my God (or 'OMG' as my two girls say regularly) I've got a lot to get done!  And in moments of mild hysteria such as these I resort to list writing.  So, here's a list of all the things I've got to do:

• learn French by Wednesday (see next item)
• prepare for a week's work in Senegal (training 40 NGO personnel on children's participation) 
• worry about the flight, visa, getting a window seat (claustrrophobia), packing appropriate clothing for a Muslim country, buying 'good' presents for the girls
• write a concept note and budget for a funding bid worth $25,000
• write my blog
• investigate organising a charity trek in Nepal for Children Unite that I drag all my family on
• research suitable venues for a launch event 

As you can see, writing the blog is the least of it...but this blog is supposed to give me space to reflect on my week and, if I force myself to do this...give me a moment....

OK....I can see that although things have been gradually building up - over the past year in some cases - this week is the week it is all kicking off.  And, as list writing is my coping mechanism, here's another list of what happened this week:

• The funding for a new project was approved and I started working on it.  The proposal for this project was submitted in September last year. 
• I met with a group of former child domestic workers who were trafficked to the UK and will be helping them to launch a film they've made on child domestic work - I've been trying to set this meeting up for a year.
• I will be going to Nepal in March, along with Jonathan to discuss a future project with our Nepalese partner organisation - although this was a very recent opportunity, it was one of those things that we didn't think we'd actually pull off!  Tickets are booked now though.
• I had my brainwave (see last week's blog) and need to turn it into a proper proposal.

When things are HAPPENING, I have an energy, a buzz that tends to mean that more things happen, I find that ideas come through thick and fast and I have to stop myself from going off in a million different directions.  Figure out which ideas to follow through and which ideas are ridiculous and deluded (sounds familiar?!).  For example, the Nepal trip - in investigating what  Jonathan and I could do on our day off in Kathmandu I found an advert for a charity trek to the Everest base camp and thought that my dad would love that (for Children Unite obviously), then thought that actually my brother would also like that, and his fiance and my two uncles and an aunt and my sister....and, of course, that I would like to do that too.  (We're a bit of a mountain loving family).  So, I'm now investigating how I could organise a family charity trek (with half of the group in their 40s and the other half in their 60s) in the Himalayas.

I love this feeling though!  I love it when a plan comes together - to coin a phrase from a much loved childhood TV show; and it feels like this is the week when some quite long held plans/dreams have come together!

A la semaine prochaine mes amis (had to google translate this though just to check!)

News report on child domestic workers in Pakistan

IRIN Asia | PAKISTAN: Child domestic workers at risk of violence | Pakistan | Children | Food Security | Human Rights

This brainwave is deluded, ridiculous, good?

I had one of those in-the-middle-of-the-night-brainwaves this week...it was exhausting! The brainwave struck me at 2.16 am and I was still amending it's minor details at 4.46 am. I had to write it down as soon as possible and, over the course of the week, have explained it to neighbours, trustees, work colleagues, my sister-in-law, my kids - even the cats have probably overheard me banging on about it. You see, I have to check it was a good brainwave and not a deluded one. (I've had previous brainwaves that, in the cold light of day, have proved to be deluded and ridiculous!)...shall I tell it to you?

Oh alright then you've twisted my arm...the thing that is missing from Children Unite at the moment is a 'campaign' - a social action campaign. And the obvious thing to campaign about is a new international convention on domestic work that the International Labour Organisation is introducing. Children Unite together with Anti-Slavery International are bringing six child domestic workers to the International Labour Organization's annual conference in Geneva this June. These six children will lobbying like mad for this new convention to include measures that will protect children in domestic work from exploitation. In the middle of the night I was struggling with how the wider public could connect to the six child domestic workers and their lobbying efforts. I needed to find a way of explaining the legislation that is not too technical, not too complicated and relates somehow to child domestic workers' realities.

And the answer was....rubber gloves! All the tasks that child domestic workers undertake are with their hands - cleaning, cooking even looking after children. Children's hands are more sensitive than adults - they have much more need for protective gloves (and I remember some of the girls in Peru showing me their hands, which had sores and rashes from the harsh chemicals they had to use). This convention can protect child domestic workers from exploitation in the same way that rubber gloves protect your hands from harsh chemicals. I had visions of writing messages on gloves or on hands, drawing on hands, children telling the story of their hands to explain their life as a domestic worker, clapping hands, soothing hands, waving, shaking and caring hands! (that was the stuff that was keeping me awake at 4.46!) There's obviously a bit more to the campaign idea than this but the glove-hand idea is the foundation of it.

I want to connect this vision of gloves and child domestic work to the wider public through the internet - Facebook, Twitter, blogging and am still working on this bit of the brainwave so let me know if you have any brainwaves yourselves and please answer the questionnaire:

This brainwave is:

c Deluded

c Ridiculous

c Good