Monthly Archives: February 2021

By Victoria Collins

The work of abolition calls us to imagine something new, but this imagining is not done all at once. To abolish the police as an institution we have to understand, then dismantle, the mechanisms and structures created and used by policing at-large. One of those mechanisms is our public education system, which utilizes policing as a way of being and thinking in and outside of the classroom.

The idea of policing hinges on the notion of safety. More pointedly, it hinges on the notion that we are dangers to ourselves and require overseers to attend to our own well-being. Police are embedded throughout Black and brown communities under the guise of protection and have been for so long that many cannot imagine our communities without them despite their consistent abuses against us. As is true for most Americans, I was taught that the police were agents of good meant to protect and serve us and provide a helping hand when needed. But time would melt away the faade.

Like many millennials, I saw the death of Trayvon Martin and subsequent acquittal of his killer as the last straw, the final piece of proof in this American pudding that proved that it was molded and expired. I watched summer after summer as Black peoples bodies were left to smolder on the pavement after being killed by those who had existed within the embedded claim, to serve and protect. I entertained the thought of reform until reform revealed itself to be an incomplete solutiona solution that still did not solve for the violence policing produces, and this brought me to the almost unfathomable: abolition.

The ubiquity of policing in our communities and schools makes policing seem harmless, and even necessary. The presence of police in school hallways has become a widespread practice since the 90s. School Resource Officer programs became even more prevalent in the aftermath of Sandy Hook. Many young students today often regard officers as friendly and helpful, or as my peers and I did when we were younger, as just part of the ecosystem.

When I was in grade school in rural Mississippi, my classmates and I joked often that our school felt like a prison, with its barred entrances, yellowed lighting, strict schedule, and rigid code of conductwithout even realizing the full implication that a statement like that carried. None of us had ever been to prison, but we held assumptions that were informed by movies, music, and popular culture. As we grew up, our proximity to prisons grew closer. By the time we got to high school, many of us knew, or knew of, at least one person in our lives who had been to prison. It was just one of those things that happened to bad people, we were told. Not thinking ourselves bad people, my peers and I tried like hell to stay out of the way of that reality. Despite how hard we tried, it found some of us and just narrowly escaped othersincluding myself.

With one way in and one way out, vigilant administrators prowled the halls looking for kids who werent where they were supposed to be. Marked by the looming presence of the District police chief, my school experience was characterized by the enforcement of indirect and direct policing measures and procedures that my peers and I followed, more or less, without question. We were told, like most students are told, that these measures were put in place for our safety, and in a world of mass shootings where none of us could yet fend for ourselves, we held tightly to those things that they said made us safe from the world around us.

Policing, as an institution, has transformed and manifested itself in a variety of waysfrom slave catchers to safety security agents, to Amy Coopers and Karens. From entities to individuals, the mantle of safety gets taken up by a variety of hostspublic officials, civilians, teachers, and studentsand is informed by the white, cis-heteropatriarchal standards that inform every other aspect of American social and economic structure. In my current neighborhood in the South Bronx, a precinct looms not even two blocks away.

The violence that is levied against students when police are constantly present is tangibly and viscerally felt. Black and brown students are disproportionately subjected to this violence. Studies have shown, in Texas, that the increase in police officers in public schools led to a six percent increase in suspensions and arrests among Black students.

The students of a youth organizing group in the Bronx, known as Sistas and Brothas United (SBU), are speaking out and bringing attention to the dilemmas they face that are a direct result of having police in their schools. In the wake of uprisings following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, SBU organized to question how police brutality finds its way into their lives. In a series of socially-distanced banner drops, students, public officials, and community members marched to several public schools across the South Bronx to protest in the name of police free schools. But this isnt an issue endemic to the Bronx, and the efforts of Black, brown, and queer student organizers in the Bronx is part of a larger organizing effort for police-free schools nationwide.

Schools should be places of refuge and community for young learners. This is the very principle that undergirds the idea of education: learning in community. It has been the consensus of Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, and many others, that schools need security and that without this security, classrooms will become unsafe, unruly, and unproductive. However, the true impediment to learning is the indirect policing measures that would dictate that the school and the classroom be orderly spaces. For those who are educators, it is up to us to model a more radical pedagogy of liberation for students to feel alleviated from the violent tactics of fear and intimidation that they currently know.

Finding solutions outside of increased policing requires creativity, imagination, the dismantling of carcerality and white supremacy, and an investment in community resources. As Audre Lorde wrote in Sister Outsider, For the masters tools will never dismantle the masters house.

The work of abolition happens on many frontsnot only in prisons, but in communities and in classrooms also. Educators and administrators are called to imagine a world and to imagine their schools and communities without police. Though it is not an easy task, it can be done and has been started by sister-teachers like bell hooks and June Jordan, who said in a 1978 speech that education must be about the truth, or we should forget about it. And I believe that the most important and the most valuable truth on earth is that we are alive, we are the living. That is to say, that we are the truth. Therefore, as [students] enter high school and undertake different courses, I hope that [students] will remember this truth: the truth of your absolute value as a human life. Use this truth in measuring the education offered to you. A responsibility then falls on students to demand more of their teachers and administrators. And this also is the work of abolition, for each of us to demand more of our care, of our humanity, and of one another, in order to build a world and communities of learning where everyone can be free.

Victoria R. Collins (she/they) is a queer, Black writer and teacher born and raised in in the Hub City of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the tradition of generations before them, they made their migration to New York City. Victoria earned their MFA in Creative Writing from The New School, and settled in the South Bronx, where they work as a teacher, tutor, and freelancer. They write primarily about their experience of being southern, queer, and Black in twenty-first century America.

Victorias writing centers stories that focus on the experiences of the working class, gender identity and politics, and family. Their writing has appeared in Bustle, Hippocampus Magazine, Raising Mothers Magazine, and the Unreliable Narrator issue of Fatal Flaw Literary Magazine.

(@vicwritesthings, IG & twitter)

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Abolition Means Removing Policing From Our Teaching and Thinking - Wear Your Voice

But by the time executions are carried out, none of that randomness is visible. Everything appears to be in order. And appearances matter, because execution is theater.

In the squat brick building in Terre Haute where the federal government puts people to death, separate chambers surround the gurney where the inmates are put on display so observers can watch the killing. One room is for victims families, one is for lawyers, and one is for the media. When I witnessed in December the execution of Alfred Bourgeois, who killed his 2-year-old daughter, I felt I was meant to feel the grisly affair was sterile, routine, orderly.

And so were you, the audience for whom this performance is staged, the unspoken patrons who fund these killings with your tax dollars.

*

Mr. Biden can end this charade.

Eliminate the death penalty, reads the boldest proposal on his campaign website, filed under the heading of justice. The text goes on to acknowledge death row exonerations as proof of unacceptable risk and states that, as president, Mr. Biden will work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal governments example.

He now has his opportunity. Democratic lawmakers have put forth a bicameral proposal that would turn Mr. Bidens campaign promise into policy and abolish the federal death penalty. Meanwhile, dozens of House members, led by Representative Cori Bush of Missouri and Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, submitted a letter to Mr. Biden asking that he commute the remaining 49 federal death sentences to life in prison.

And he should. Those commutations, if coupled with a decision by Mr. Bidens attorney general to direct federal prosecutors to stop seeking death sentences, withdraw notices of intent to seek death sentences, and terminate federal appeals in capital cases where courts have granted defendants relief, would forfend another rampage like Mr. Trumps for some time.

Only signing an abolition bill like the one gaining momentum in Congress will prevent it for good.

When I asked Michael Gwin, Mr. Bidens rapid response director, what action the president planned to take on the federal death penalty, Mr. Gwin replied: The president made clear his abhorrence of the heinous execution spree we just witnessed under the previous president. He has also noted that the risk of executing the innocent is too high, with over 170 people on death row exonerated since 1973. He believes the application of the death penalty is deeply flawed and will have more to say about this issue in the future.

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Opinion | The Government Has Not Explained How These 13 People Were Selected to Die - The New York Times

In The Swaddles interview series Tell Me More, we discuss crucial cultural topics with people whose work pushes societal boundaries.

Saumya Dadoo is the founding editor of Detention Solidarity Network and an incoming doctoral student at MESAAS, Columbia University. Her work focuses on prisons, colonial history, and gender & sexuality. She has worked at research and advocacy organizations in India, including the Centre for Law and Policy Research and Majlis Legal Centre. The Swaddles Aditi Murti spoke with Saumya about prison reform, abolition and what constitutes a carceral state within India.

The Swaddle: Does India have a unique relationship with punishment, or do ideas around it originate with colonial laws?

Saumya Dadoo: At the core of it, systems of punishment, rest on existing dynamics of power and work in favor of maintaining social inequality. What is specific to the Indian context regarding the harm committed in our communities is that our society is based on Brahminical patriarchy. If we think of punishment as a form of harm, and if we then think of it as a form of harm thats legally justified or not justified For example, harm committed by the state is justified its Brahminical patriarchy thats allowed cisgender upperclassmen to commit harm, get away with it, And, justify the harm that theyve committed with this righteous moral stance. Its difficult to extricate or differentiate between some form of native Indian ideas of punishment from colonial history. Colonialism brought in new dynamics of power and had new objectives shaped by racialized capitalism that converged with Brahminical patriarchy and shaped the modern state, law, and governance. During the colonial period, the British were experimenting with new ideas of punishment in England and in their colonies.

Even though prisons are taken for granted now, prisons, or even the idea to deal with harm by not physically punishing someone (eg. cutting off their arms) but by constructing a space meant for disciplining, towards rehabilitation, was new.In the prison context, very little has changed from when they were set up in the colonial period. In the context of punishment, we can see the impact of colonial laws in modern times. Colonial laws in whole, like sedition, or vestiges of these laws, like we see in anti-terror laws or in the Habitual Offenders Act that was once the Criminal Tribes Act, are present and are actively being used in India today.

TS: If prisons started out as a rehabilitative idea, how did that idea degrade into a more punitive rendering in modern times?

SD: Firstly, there may have been a rehabilitative ideal at the core of prisons, but that doesnt mean that the system itself ever allowed for this ideal to be achieved. Secondly, it can be argued that this idea of rehabilitation is itself paternalistic and doesnt seek to understand or address harm holistically. Our current system of punishment individualizes harm, by keeping to clean categories of victim and offender, measures the impact of the harm-based less on what someone who has been harmed needs but what is pre-decided, and then metes out punishment. The story ends there. Besides just fixing this system or making it work, we need to question the ends of punishment does it really help to remove a person out of their context, isolate them from society, confine them, remove their agency, and believe that this will help them rethink the harm they have done, repent, and that is what we need for rehabilitation?

So I think the rehabilitative ideal at its core is a flawed concept and lends itself and creates punitive culture. We might think that things that happen within prisons, like torture and violence, are an aberration to prisons but they are endemic to the way tthe system functions. And this is all on top of the fact that certain identities are targeted at evvery stage.

TS: What about isolation from communities, in particular, is counterproductive to rehabilitation?

SD: Ill say a little more about isolation and then return to its impact on those in prisons. Crime and punishment itself is individualized and this list of harms often leaves out social harms that groups of people are suffering because of. We live in an extremely unequal society. This means there are already several forms of harm that people are struggling with because of their class and caste position, because of their gender or disability. There is a level of social neglect and state neglect that allows these harms to continue unaddressed. So when someone commits a crime they are already likely to themselves be dealing with certain harms. Now, when you isolate someone, you ignore the harm they have lived with completely. You dont address the social situation that may have shaped their decisions and that still very much needs to be addressed. To me, that is the most egregious part of isolating someone from their communities that it allows the state and society to absolve their responsibility from addressing the social situation that they have created and perpetuated.

As I said earlier, the concept of rehabilitation that is tied to prisons is itself flawed. Very often, what one needs from someone who has committed a crime is some level of acknowledgement and accountability for the harm they have caused. We know in the context of sexual violence for instance that survivors often have several needs and very few of them involve their harm-doer sitting in a jail and repenting. That is not what justice looks like for a lot of people. So what we might need instead of rehabilitation is something far more active and engaged from a harm-doer.

Finally, the isolation of prisons is actually itself harmful. There is a reason prisons are dreaded. We know there is horrendous mistreatment within the system. We know the impact of power dynamics between prison guards and prisoners, between prisoners themselves affects peoples everyday llives. We know that there is immense psychological trauma from being isolated in society. So youre essentially sending those who commit violence to a violent place. This should not be a justifiable form of harm.

TS: The term carceral state is often used in relation to talking about prison reform. What exactly comes under the ambit of a carceral state?

SD: The word carceral, we know comes from its relationship to prison. But the carceral state expands that to help us think beyond the criminal justice system or institutions of confinement to other practices and structures of the state that are shaped by a similar punitive culture.So one thing that the carceral state allows us to do is look at other institutions of confinement or detention, like immigration detention camps, psychiatric institutions, or even shelter homes but the value of the term comes from how it helps us think about things that we earlier may have thought are not related, like poverty, gender, ethnic difference, the construction of borders, our everyday culture and thinking around punishment that resemble state forms of policing and surveillance. So the carceral state is a useful analytical framework to understand and think critically about all of these different kinds of relationships that are related to confinement.

TS: And how does detention work in systems that dont involve punishment like say, a psychiatric asylum or a shelter? Common understanding is that these spaces are created by the state as means of aid, right?

SD: Formal institutions for protection are worth thinking about together not because they are completely identical to prisons in the form of harm they are causing but because there are other similarities that really shouldnt be there at all in the way we care for people. Some similarities of these are that these institutions have dismal facilities, being institutionalized often results in intense stigma, and the social identities of the people who tend to be institutionalized in shelter homes or psychiatric institutions are often similar to that of prison. Finally, these spaces of confinement in society and, as a result, the people in these spaces, are at the margins of society so there is little oversight or accountability for the harms that may be committed in these spaces. So Im not saying that prisons and these institutions are identical and need to be treated exactly the same way but we need to question the construction and practices at these institutions within the larger framework of the carceral state.

TS: One thing thats common across all forms of such institutions is the frequent violation of human rights. How does that end up happening? How much the confined individuals identity depends on the abuse they suffer?

SD: Theres no clear way to answer this actually, but these spaces have a lot of impunity and a lack of accountability built into them. For one, being a space of confinement, we dont know what is happening within these spaces a lot of the time. And because of the stigma associated with these spaces, people are also not paying attention to this. Secondly, the power dynamic between those who hold people in confinement and the confined is a breeding ground for human rights violations.

With respect to prisons, we have this idea that people in jail are bad people and theres no reason to treat bad people well. The use of various methods of torture is also because it seems like a straightforward form of getting what you want you want to hold someone responsible, you know that the process of investigation is tedious and messy, and you know that you will not face any consequences at all for such actions then why not use this method to get the job done? Thirdly, its important to note that prisons are also patriarchal institutions this is not to say that it is only men who abuse their power it means that prison spaces embody aggressive masculinity which leads to violent behavior.

It can also be difficult to distinguish between abuse that happens due to the system itself and the abuse that happens due to the confined individuals identity. Like I said, the criminal justice system targeted towards certain communities namely poor people, people who are Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi, and like all of society, is also disproportionately violent towards women, gender minorities, and people with disabilities. In other words, prisons reproduce many of the forms of oppression and dehumanization of certain groups that we see in society that would be understood as human rights violations and because of the lack of impunity endemic to such spaces, these violations are part of the culture of these spaces.

TS: Over the past year,weve seen a lot of discourse around abolition due to the Black Lives Matter movement and the custodial deaths of Jayaraj and Bennix. What made you optimistic, and what nuances did you feel were lost in these conversations?

SD: I think my worry always is about things like abolition becoming a buzzword. Im not even against buzzwords if it helps makes people genuinely curious about what it signifies it can be quite valuable. I think feminism becoming a buzzword, thanks to genuine global advocacy, is part of the reason Im a feminist. So Im very excited that this conversation has gained some traction in India. But the difficulty with buzzwords is not only that there may not actually be this genuine curiosity about what it means and it may only help people gain woke points but also because many people think we should do this here too like there isnt a long history of essential anti-caste, anti-capitalist, feminist grassroots activism that has been ongoing. Just because something has become a buzz now doesnt mean that there arent people who have been talking about the oppression they have faced or thinking about it radically, or working on mitigating it. We should have already been listening and learning from this. I think that is at the core of what we want people newly interested in abolition to see with the work that we do at Detention Solidarity Network. So I really hope that Indian people engaging with abolition are thinking about the specific context and seeing abolition work in India within our context.

Theres quite a bit of abolition discourse thats US-specific. This is absolutely essential work but we do need to be attentive to how the Indian justice system is different from the US. For example, the prison industrial complex in America is quite different from how prison industries function in India. There are also quite a few parallels drawn between the racialized nature of the American justice system, and caste in India these are important because there are similar hierarchies and dehumanization but we need to pay attention to how exactly they are happening and what they are rooted in. Many abolitionists in the U.S. like Angela Davis, Ruthie Gilmore, and Mariame Kaba talk about the contemporary criminal justice systems direct links to a history of slavery the criminal justice system in India is also shaped by a history of racial capitalism but one that has its roots in British colonialism. Another nuance to think about is that we are not exactly the type of capitalist state the U.S. is we have had a welfare orientation built into our Constitution and evident in laws like the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities Act). Lastly, there are severely militarized zones in our country, like Chhattisgarh and Kashmir, where state violence has occurred with impunity for decades. These are all factors we need to think critically about when we talk about the abolition of the carceral state in the Indian context.

What we can learn from the US Abolitionists who have done the significant work of articulating this stance is that abolition is not a one-time act. Were not razing all the prisons to the ground tomorrow. We have to think about the alternative forms of justice that were putting in place so that these systems that were relying on now become obsolete. We have to think about how, systems of oppression are interconnected and replicated in prisons so we cannot have a conversation about abolition without talking about annihilating caste or ending the patriarchy. Abolition may seem like a new framework, but its quite old in a lot of ways.

TS: A very common counter-criticism I see online regarding abolition discourse is what is the point of defunding an already underfunded policing system. Does this argument have legs, or is it flawed?

SD: I definitely think that its quite flawed because the critical thing that this way of thinking misses is asking you want the police to be more effective, but effective towards what end? If the ends are the same, that the policing will continue to perpetuate systemic oppression and dehumanization then empowering the police force is going to help them continue to work like they work right now. Thats more torture, extra-judicial killings, and police brutality. work right now, thats more extra-judicial killings and police brutality.

Another thing this line of thinking leaves out is, what if this money was to go elsewhere? How are we measuring underfunding? If this money was to actually go into addressing unemployment, establishing a minimum wage, providing more robust health care so the needs that communities have -, it could actually be preventive in controlling the kinds of harms we talk about when we talk about crime. That is not something we are able to consider alongside at the moment.

TS: I believe everyone skeptical of prison abolition always asks this is abolition actually possible or more of an idealistic framework?

SD: So we know that the prison system as it exists has not been able to achieve what it set out to achieve rehabilitation. We know that prisons frequently target the marginalized and perpetuate systemic oppression. So perhaps we need to think about how idealistic or utopian prison reform as an ideal has been considering we seem to have never been able to achieve it. Our criminal justice system has been broken and is broken but we are still holding on to some utopian ideal in our current efforts of reforming it.

So in many ways, the idea of prison reform is far more idealistic than abolition. Prison abolition urges us to create strong systems of caring for each other as communities, addressing systemic harm perpetuated by the state, creating alternative forms of responding to harm which eventually can make prisons something we dont really need. It makes us think about what might be possible if we were to seriously redistribute the amount of effort and resources that are going into holding up a farce of justice to a more meaningful form of care. The second thing that I would say is that this does not mean that we dont engage with the criminal justice system. We very much need to change the material conditions for prisoners and address the harm that people are facing in confinement. And we need to do that by questioning our assumption that all people in detention are bad, destigmatizing confinement, and genuinely thinking of people in confinement as key stakeholders who know best what they are facing and what they need.

See the article here:

Tell Me More: Talking Prison Reform and Alternative Forms of Justice With Saumya Dadoo - The Swaddle

Lloyds of London is seeking a slave trade historian to examine its artefacts in the wakes of a Telegraph investigation.

The insurance market has posted an advert for an expert to investigate its collection of more than 3,000 items including paintings, swords and furniture.

The company, which was founded in 1688, previously insured slave ships, later apologising last year for its shameful role in the slave trade.

According to the job advert, the new staff member will carry out investigations to find out what artefacts and objects link to African and Caribbean history (specifically slavery and abolition).

Last year a Telegraph investigation found that swathes of corporate Britain benefited directly or indirectly from the slave trade and its abolition.

University College London (UCL) last year collected these names into a major database to find out how British companies profited form slavery.

A spokeswoman for Lloyd's of London said: "As society evolves, it is right and proper for us to take a look at those symbols and artefacts and make a decision as to whether or not what they stand for reflects where we are.

"Of course, it is important to fully understand history, but we must do so in a way that reflects changing sentiments and societal views as we more fully understand that history - the good, and the bad."

When slavery was abolished in 1833, Lloyds of London was one company which benefited from the Governments decision to compensate Britons who had lost property as a result.

Insurer Lloyd's of London, with founder subscriber Simon Fraser, was the former owner of the Castle Bruce estate in Dominica, which was handed compensation totalling the equivalent of 397,451.

At the time a Lloyd's spokesman said: "We are sorry for the role played by the Lloyd's market in the 18th and 19th century slave trade. This was an appalling and shameful period of English history, as well as our own, and we condemn the indefensible wrongdoing that occurred during this period.

"We will provide financial support to charities and organisations promoting opportunity and inclusion for black and minority ethnic groups."

Dr Katie Donington, a senior lecturer in history at the London South Bank University told the BBC that the move by Lloyd's was "very welcome".

"The work of analysing the historical relationship between commercial organisations and the business of slavery must take place within the context of evidence-based research. That process begins with examining the archive as well as relevant material culture held by Lloyds," she said.

She also said that she hoped that information that comes from the research will be made available to slavery historians, community grounds and the public so that they can understand the ways in which slavery and its legacies shaped both Lloyd's and the wider City of London during this period."

The insurance market was many of several companies identified by the Telegraph to have historical links to the slave trade.

The pub chain Greene King apologised after links were revealed that one of its founders owned a number of plantations in the Carribean.

Nick Mackenzie, Greene King's chief executive, said: "It is inexcusable that one of our founders profited from slavery and argued against its abolition in the 1800s.

"We don't have all the answers, so that is why we are taking time to listen and learn from all the voices, including our team members and charity partners, as we strengthen our diversity and inclusion work."

See more here:

Historian sought by Lloyds of London to examine its artefacts for slave trade links - Telegraph.co.uk

In December 2003, after 30 years spent labouring on an abaca plantation, Susana Quionez finally summoned the courage to demand better working conditions from her employer, the Japanese-owned Ecuadorian company Furukawa. The companys reaction was harsh: far from simply ignoring her request, it went so far as to send the police to evict her from the plantation where she and her family were living. Susanas daughter Maria-Guadalupe Preciado was pregnant with her third child at the time. She vividly recalls the insults, the gunshots and the tear gas like it was yesterday. Her brothers, still in their teens, were thrown into prison. Her husband was shot in the leg and, without the means to seek treatment, later died from his injury.

In 2003 I demanded my rights for the first time, Susana, 60, tells Equal Times. As she explains, it took her some time to realise that what was happening on the companys plantations wasnt normal. We used to think that this was just how life was, that you had to work to survive, that enduring this kind of brutality was normal. Susana recalls that it was thanks to reports she watched on her small black and white battery-powered television that she began to realise that she too had rights, and that all of them were being violated.

But even after the brutal eviction of her family, knowing nothing other than the abaca plantations for generations, Susanna had no other choice but to ask to be reinstated at the company under the promise that she would no longer make demands.

Furukawa came to Ecuador in 1963 to produce abaca fibre for international markets. A species of banana tree native to the Philippines, abaca was introduced to the small South American country after studies conducted by the company determined that the area of Santo Domingo in the countrys north-east had the right climatic conditions for cultivating the plant. This extremely resistant fibre is used in products such as tea bags, machine filters, banknotes and high-quality paper, as well as in the automotive and textile industries. It is also used to produce facemasks, causing demand to soar since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Abacas versatility of use has made it one of Ecuadors most exported products, and Furukawa its main producer.

But the hundreds of families including Susanas, who for decades have harvested and processed abaca fibre for Furukawa, do so under conditions from a previous century. The company rents out its land to intermediaries who pay workers according to how much they produce. Known as intermediacin laboral (work through intermediaries), this form of labour is common in Latin America and allows landowners to take ownership of farmers work while evading their responsibilities as employers. The farmers have neither contracts nor social security, and their wages, when paid, do not allow them to live with dignity. The result is indebtedness and extreme poverty.

In Ecuador, the Labour Ministry is obliged to carry out field visits every year to verify the working conditions in companies, says Patricia Carrin, a lawyer with the Comisin Ecumnica de Derechos Humanos (CEDHU, Ecumenical Commission for Human Rights), an organisation that provides assistance to victims of human rights violations. So these inspections were carried out without anyone noticing that anything was wrong? According to Carrin, there are two possible explanations for this: Either the authorities saw what was happening and decided not to act, or the company took steps to ensure that inspectors only visited the one out of 32 plantations where conditions were more or less good. The Labour Ministry claims that it carried out inspections from 2017 to 2020 and handed down fines, including for child labour.

It is indeed hard to believe that the unhealthy and degrading living conditions of Furukawas 1,200 plantation workers, mostly Afro-Ecuadorians, could have escaped inspectors attention. Equal Times visited the camps, which consist of old concrete huts whose small rooms are without light or ventilation. They have no electricity or drinking water, let alone sanitary systems or toilet facilities. The wells are unusable and the workers are forced to drink water from a nearby stream which is contaminated by abaca waste.

According to a 2019 report by the Peoples Defender, Ecuadors equivalent of the Ombudsman, these conditions are not an isolated case of one camp but are typical of Furukawas practice on all of its plantations.

In addition to their deplorable living conditions, workers are typically not provided with protective gloves, masks or trousers for dangerous activities that have resulted in serious injuries and even amputations. Abaca filaments can be as sharp as blades, capable of lacerating the flesh. Most accidents occur while the plant is being stripped for its fibre using diesel machines that have not been replaced in over 50 years. The workers twist the plant into the machine to crush it and remove its sap to obtain the fibre. One moment of inattention can quickly result in an accident.

In 2018, 123 workers finally decided to organise and take their case to court. With no trade union representation, they sought the help of human rights organisations who, appalled by the conditions of bondage detailed in the Ombudsmans report, agreed to support their lawsuit against the state for negligence and against the company for modern-day slavery.

The Centro de Derechos Econmicos y Sociales (CDES, Centre for Economic and Social Rights), which provided support to the victims, cites the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, which defines serfdom as the condition or status of a tenant who is by law, custom or agreement bound to live and labour on land belonging to another person and to render some determinate service to such other person, whether for reward or not, and is not free to change his status.

Carrin argues that it is the workers inability to break free from their status as serfs that constitutes modern-day slavery in this case: These people depend on a third party, in this case the company, for their livelihood. They are not free to change their status.

On Furukawas plantations, workers get up at 3am every day and work until 8pm to earn an average of between US$80 and US$100 a month. Entire families, both adults and children, participate in production activities. All of the families, who live on less than a dollar a day, are forced to buy food on credit and then ask the company to pay for it, which means producing more and more to pay back their debt. The company also strictly forbids workers from planting anything other than abaca, depriving them of a minimum of food autonomy.

They [the managers] tell us this land does not belong to you. You are here to work, not to farm. If you want fruit, buy it, says Leones Ramn, a worker.

In a 2019 interview with local media outlet Revista Plan, then head of Furukawa in Ecuador Marcelo Almeida denies any obligation to the workers, claiming that the intermediary is responsible. While acknowledging that the company may have made some mistakes, Almeida rejects accusations of human rights violations: according to him, the conditions of the [Furukawa] workers are much better than those of many others in Santo Domingo. When asked about the violent eviction that took place in 2003, he claims to not really remember, before declaring that it occurred because there were dangerous people in the camp, though he is unable to say why they were dangerous.

While preparing her files on the eve of the third and final court hearing on 14 January, Carrin was nervous. For her, this was also a complex political trial involving several high-ranking officials with interests in agribusiness companies. We have a revolving door problem: public officials with interests in private companies and vice versa. Economic power, in collusion with political power, over human rights, she says, adding that if the case had involved white or mixed-race people, it would have been much more likely to be taken up by the press and dealt with more quickly by the courts.

The problem of landowners exploiting workers in Latin America is closely linked to the racialisation of bodies.

According to Rossana Torres, a researcher in environmental social sciences at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLASCO), the colonial invention of the concept of race continues to have tangible effects on the lives of the people in this region.

In a statement before to the court, she accuses the Ecuadorian state of being guilty of stigmatising discourse towards people of African descent. She gave the example of a delegation from the National Assembly who attempted to visit one of the plantations and was warned of dangerous inhabitants by officials from the Ministry of the Interior. According to Torres, such characterisations have legitimised the companys racist oppression of its workers.

In the minutes before the verdict was handed down at the court of first instance of Santo Domingo on 15 January 2021, the suspense in the air was palpable. When the judge decided in favour of the plaintiffs, the applause was deafening. It was indeed a historic decision: it is the countrys first recognised case of modern-day slavery in agriculture and marks the first time that workers have won a lawsuit against a powerful agro-industrial company for discrimination and human rights violations.

The judge recognised the farmers right to land access and ordered Furukawa to compensate them and to issue a public apology. The judge also concluded that the Labour Ministry had failed to act responsibly and allowed such violations to take place for 60 years.

It was ordered to compensate each worker by providing access to services such as housing, healthcare and education, as well as to psychological counselling. The details of the decision are not yet known as the judge has yet to issue a written ruling.

Both Furukawa and the Labour Ministry have already appealed the decision, and while Susana and her daughter are happy with the initial outcome, they are waiting for the victory to become official before they celebrate. As one of the plaintiffs told Equal Times, the workers ultimately hope to gain access to land in order to set up their own cooperative to directly export our abaca to international markets.

But with the influential company unlikely to give up its land without a fight, the struggle of the Ecuadors abaca workers is far from over. We dont want to be exploited any more. We want a different future, says Susana.

Read the rest here:

In Ecuador, abaca workers are demanding justice and an end to 60 years of modern-day slavery - Equal Times

It was recently revealed by DAERA that officials are working to bring forward legislation to progress with plans to do away with the AWB.

UFU deputy president David Brown said: The AWB was introduced in Northern Ireland (NI) when trade boards were common and it was established to set a minimum wage for agri workers. However, in recent times it has been overtaken by the duplication of legislation between the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and the National Living Wage (NLW).

The NLW has rapidly increased since its introduction in 2016, rising to 9.21 per hour in 2021. Combined with the age from which workers will become eligible for the NLW being dropped from 25 to 23 in April 2021, it has decimated the grading structure that underpins the AWB. As a result, the pay of agri workers is no longer calculated by experience and levels of responsibility. These bands are essential to allow employers to pay workers based upon their qualifications and experience - both crucial to agricultural work especially in animal husbandry. This brings into question the existence and relevance of the AWB in NI. Farm businesses rely upon skilled and competent workers and our membership have always paid their farm workers a rate that guarantees this. Following abolition of the AWB, agricultural workers in NI would receive the protections afforded by wider employment law and UK minimum and national living wage rates.

See the article here:

Agricultural Wages Board abolition - Farming Life

President Joe Biden holds a face mask as he participates in a CNN town hall at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 16, 2021.

Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

President Joe Biden is facing increasing pressure from civil rights groups and liberal members of Congress to fulfill his pledge to end the death penalty.

While total abolition of the death penalty would require an act of Congress, activists say there are immediate steps that Biden can take to roll back the practice, which was restarted at the federal level under former President Donald Trump. Nearly a month into Biden's term, they are pushing him to take action.

"He has the authority to do a lot to limit this punishment and make it much harder for a future administration," said Kristina Roth, an advocate at Amnesty International USA. "We think it's important during this early period of his administration to remind him what authority he has."

Biden is the first president to openly oppose the death penalty and has repeatedly said that criminal justice reform is a top priority of his administration.

One of the steps Biden could take unilaterally would be to commute the sentences of the 49 people on federal death row. In a letter sent earlier this month, 82 organizations, including many rights groups, pressed Biden to do just that.

"As a candidate, you campaigned on a platform centered on strengthening 'America's commitment to justice,' based on the core beliefs that we must eliminate racial, income-based, and other disparities, and create a criminal legal system focused not on cruelty and punishment, but on 'redemption and rehabilitation,'" the organizations, led by The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, wrote in the Feb. 9 letter.

"Now, as president, you have the unique ability to begin effectuating these policy goals immediately by using your executive clemency powers to commute the sentences of the individuals on federal death row today," they wrote.

Michael Gwin, a White House spokesman, said in an email on Wednesday that there was "nothing new for us to add at the moment." Gwin pointed to a portion of Biden's campaign platform, still available online, in which he pledged to "work to pass legislation to eliminate the death penalty at the federal level, and incentivize states to follow the federal government's example."

Roth said that civil rights groups and the White House are engaged in "ongoing communication to ensure our calls are being heard."

If Biden fulfills his pledge to roll back the death penalty it will represent a remarkable evolution from his days in the Senate, where he pushed hard and successfully for tougher penalties on crime, including strengthening capital punishment.

Biden expanded the number of crimes for which the death penalty could be used via his 1994 crime bill, a legacy that drew sharp criticism from the left during the Democratic primaries. As president, he has pledged to push for greater racial equity in the justice system.

The campaign to eliminate the death penalty has spanned decades and presidencies. Former President Barack Obama at times seemed on the cusp of calling for the end of the death penalty he ordered the Justice Department to review the matter but ultimately disappointed activists.

Under Trump, the matter came to a head. In July 2019, the Republican restarted the federal death penalty program, which had lain dormant for nearly two decades. The administration executed 13 people who had been sentenced to death, including some just days before Biden took office.

In addition to asking Biden to immediately commute federal death sentences, activists have pressed the Biden administration to completely dismantle the execution chamber used to kill those on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana. They also want Biden to rescind the Trump-era lethal injection protocol and prohibit federal prosecutors from seeking the death penalty.

Cassandra Stubbs, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's capital punishment project, said that when the federal death penalty was restarted under Trump it showed the "same problems that we've seen in states."

"It's racist, applied to people who have suffered unspeakable trauma and mental illness and who were tried before juries who never heard the full story," she said.

Stubbs noted that the Trump administration's use of the death penalty during the era of Covid-19 also inflicted further harm, spreading disease to those involved in the execution as well as observers and journalists.

"Our government was willing to spread illness and death in order to carry out these executions," Stubbs said.

The Associated Press found that the Trump administration's execution spree likely qualified as a coronavirus superspreader event.

A number of bills have already been produced by Democrats that would end the federal death penalty. Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., have each unveiled bills that would end the practice. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has said he plans to introduce compatible legislation in the Senate.

It's not clear if those bills will gain traction among Republicans, though. Espaillat, speaking with reporters on Wednesday, said he believed his legislation "could also be a bipartisan bill."

"I know that a lot of my Republican colleagues recognize that this is wrong," he said.

Some state-level Republican elected officials have moved away from the party's embrace of the death penalty, though for reasons that often diverge from those of activists on the left.

Republican Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon, for instance, told the state legislature last year that he was considering a moratorium on capital punishment as a result of its costliness.

"It costs us around a million dollars every time that is brought up. These are just luxuries, luxuries, that we will no longer be able to afford," Gordon said, according to the Associated Press.

Another Republican governor, Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio, resisted when local reporters sought to characterize him as a death penalty supporter last year. His administration has declared an "unofficial moratorium" on executions, he told the Associated Press in December.

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Originally posted here:

Civil rights groups are pushing Biden to fulfill promise of ending the death penalty - CNBC

In January 2021, the Bar Council of India (BCI) announced that it would be abolishing the one-year LLM (Master of Laws) courses across institutes in India. This meant that the course would be scrapped for all legal aspirants.

Following this, a case was filed by the consortium of National Law Universities in the Supreme Court against the BCIs decision. At the hearing, the BCI said the decision to abolish the one-year LLM degree would be implemented from the 2022-23 academic year.

This gives LLM aspirants a one-year breather, but the legal tangle is likely to resurface in 2022.

India currently has around 1 million lawyers. Industry estimates suggest that there is a demand for 50,000 lawyers every year across corporate, civiland criminal branches of law.

While an LLB degree would be sufficient to practice in the courts, an LLM degree expands the legal knowledge base and also opens up opportunities in global consulting firms.

Why a one-yearLLM?

In 2013, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the apex body for all degree programmes in universities, allowed a one-year masters programme in law (LLM). This was a part of a plan to revamp legal education and bring it on par with international standards.

The National Knowledge Commission while examining the quality of legal education and research in the country recommended several steps to revamp the system towards achieving academic and professional excellence.

Following this, a Round Table on Legal Education set up by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (now the education ministry)asked the UGC to examine the reform of the LLM degree programme and consider making it a one-year course like in all developed countries.

An Expert Committee appointed by the UGC in 2010 submitted a report proposing a one-year LLM, and this was later framed as guidelines by the UGC.

TheHRD ministry wanted students to get the flexibility to complete thepostgraduate programme in law. Developed countries like the US allow one-year LLM programmes in addition to two-year programmes.

Following the UGC guidelines, in India, too, both one-year and two-year LLM degree programmes were introduced in 2013.

What is the one-year LLM?

Here, UGC had said that the admissions to the one-year LLM will be through an all-India admission test. Only students who have completed an undergraduate law degree or LLB are eligible for the one-year LLM programme.

Within the one-year programme, there are specialisations related to corporate and commercial law, international law, constitutional law, criminal and security law, legal pedagogy and family and social justice law.

The one-year programme comprises three trimesters, with a minimum of 30 hours each week and twelve weeks for each of the three terms including classroom teaching, library work, seminars and research.

Across India, there are close to 750 seats for postgraduate LLM programmes.

Why did the BCI decide to abolish it?

According to the BCI, only a two-year postgraduate degree in law is recognisable and a one-year LLM is not adequate.

The Council also said that any one-year LLM obtained from a foreign university will not be recognised in India. The education ministry, which originally allowed the one-year LLM, is yet to give its view on the matter.

However, law universities contested this move saying that BCI does not have powers to regulate their programmes. These universities also added that admissions to the one-year LLM programmes had already started prior to this notification and hence changes cannot be made.

On the other hand, the BCI said it has the right to regulate legal education in India since this area has been kept out of the of Higher Education Commission of India. While the UGC decides on university programmes, under theAdvocates Act 1961 the BCI has rights to lay down standards for legal educational programmes in India.

How will the two-year LLM programme work?

If implemented in 2022, the two-year LLM programme will be open to all students who have completed an LLB degree.

Instead of the CLAT exam that is conducted for the one-year LLM programme, BCI will conduct a Post Graduate Common Entrance Test in Law (PGCETL) for admission.

Read the original post:

Explained: What is the conflict around abolition of the one-year LLM course? - Moneycontrol

The Daily Orange is a nonprofit newsroom that receives no funding from Syracuse University. Considerdonatingtoday to support our mission.

Today, Feb. 17, marks a year since the start of our occupation of Crouse-Hinds Hall, which lasted 32 days. Following our Barnes Center occupation, we chose to occupy Crouse-Hinds as a way to continue to apply pressure on the administration, as they were not taking our group and/or our demands seriously. As many students on campus witnessed, we endured a tremendous amount of violence due to the administrations extreme intimidation tactics. The Syracuse University administration starved, suspended and withheld basic necessities from everyone occupying Crouse-Hinds Hall.

Our occupation came to an end in March due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Since then, we decided to take a step back in order to process everything that occurred in the Crouse-Hinds space, as well as deal with our personal experience with COVID-19. Nonetheless, we would like to thank everyone for their continuous support. We hope that everyone has remained safe and healthy.

At the beginning of our last negotiation session on March 6, representatives for the administration stated they would not continue negotiating beyond 7 p.m. and any concessions even those already agreed to were contingent on ending negotiations that day. This tactic was to pressure student negotiators to give up on demands. It was not an environment of good faith, as they had promised to commit to.

Following the last negotiation session, there were many failed attempts at getting administrators back to the negotiating table. They agreed to a one-hour phone call reviewing everything that they already promised in the negotiation sessions. They ignored the many other demands that we did not get to discuss at all. The call ended abruptly when they hung up on us.

Last semester, we were dealing with the switch to an online learning experience during a pandemic, while simultaneously dealing with the reality that many of us have not recovered from the trauma that the SU administration inflicted upon us. We decided to take a break in order for us to heal and figure out our own situations. However, this semester, we will be continuing to push for the administration to meet all of our demands (i.e. disarming the Department of Public Safety, freezing tuition, acknowledging white supremacy is upheld by SU) that we have been asking for for months. We will also continue to work to find ways to support Black, Indigenous, and other students of color in ways that this predominantly white institution will not.

Emily Steinberger | Photo Editor

Over the past couple of months, we have all witnessed massive Black-and Indigenous-led movements for abolition, defunding the police, land back, tearing down statues, along with movements outside the United States that are actively fighting against global white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism and the U.S. empire. We recognize that our fights are interconnected and all the work that we, alongside countless other collectives, are doing is important for the continued struggle for liberation of all oppressed people both here in the illegitimate settler colony of the U.S. and abroad. #NotAgainSU stands in solidarity with anyone who has been a part of or involved with action focused on dismantling oppressive systems and institutions in this country and around the world.

Due to the administrations violent treatment of #NotAgainSU, and their complete unwillingness to care for and listen to Black students, we unanimously decided to not work with the administration in any capacity moving forward.

It is crucial to note that simply because we have decided to not work with administration does not mean that we will not be working to ensure that the demands are met amongst other important and necessary work that needs to be done on campus. The administration has never intended to work with students in a meaningful way. They only claim to work with students for the purposes of PR and co-optation.

This year, much like years in the past, student organizers have been funneled into joining the committees and working groups that the university has offered as solutions. As active participants of these groups, we can confirm that progress is not being made on the demands and real work is not being done.

The administrators wont ever work with us for the betterment of our experiences because this institution is meant to uphold white supremacy, which imposes violence on Black and Indigenous students. With this in mind, we will no longer be wasting our efforts collaborating with the administration for futile results, and instead will be organizing around creating pressure on those whose job it is to carry out the will of the students.

More coverage on #NotAgainSUs Crouse-Hinds occupation:

The SU campus commitments team sent us a signed document that included their responses to each one of our demands. Their response to each demand included whether or not they were willing to meet the demand and to what extent. We must make it abundantly clear that this is not a win for us, at all. The administrators did not sign off on many of the demands we made in their entirety. They are labeling our demands off as completed and in progress on their website, even when they are far from being done. The only people who are able to confirm whether or not a demand has been completed to its full extent are the ones who created them. Even demands as simple as an increase in laundry funds that were promised were not followed through on.

As student activists, many of us have previously participated in committees, working groups and forums that the university sets up only to find that our ideas were never listened to, our time was wasted and we were distracted from more impactful forms of organizing and direct action. While working in these committees, there are constant microaggressions thrown at us. Students often do the exhaustive and repetitive labor of providing recommendations that the administration chooses to ignore time and time again. This dynamic highlights a power imbalance: students on committees created by the administration do not have any real power or influence. The purpose of committees, working groups and forums is to wait out student organizers until they graduate. This results in no productive action and commitment to the necessary work that needs to be done surrounding student protests and their demands. Initiatives created by the admin are formed to create an illusion and a good public image that the school is taking these issues seriously; real tangible change comes from the direct action of students and social movement organizing.

All #NotAgainSU organizers currently identify as abolitionists.

Abolitionists differ from reformist/liberal groups because reformists/liberals believe that reform work is merely making changes that are at a surface level (i.e. body cameras, diversity training, creating more committees, etc). These reforms are ineffective because they are designed to not address the root causes of racism and systemic oppression.

These reforms are ineffective because they will never solve any problems that deal with systemic issues. It does not begin to identify the root problems of racism and oppression.

We, as abolitionists, are pushing for the necessary demands that will eventually lead to radical change at SU. An example of radical reform would be our demand to disarm DPS, with the intention and hope of one day disbanding DPS on the SU campus and abolishing the Syracuse Police Department in the city of Syracuse. While we continue to work toward this and our many other unfulfilled demands, we will also be focusing on building and maintaining community through engaging with the Syracuse community and prioritizing collective work. This is an intentional decision on behalf of our group.

Elizabeth Billman | Senior Staff Photographer

#NotAgainSU continues to stand in solidarity with all Black and Brown city residents, Indigenous nations and all colonized people in the U.S. and around the world. We stand with all of our siblings fighting their institutions and challenging the countless administrations that profit off the violence they perpetuate onto us.

Take care of yourself and each other. In these trying times, we must do our best to practice radical self-love and community love.

In love and struggle,

#NotAgainSU

Published on February 17, 2021 at 7:55 pm

More here:

#NotAgainSU reflects on 1-year anniversary of 31-day Crouse-Hinds occupation - The Daily Orange

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, February 18

The national president of BJP JP Nadda today virtually launched the election campaign for Assembly elections scheduled in Himachal at the end of 2022 by giving party workers Gram Sabha to Vidhan Sabha (from village panchayat to assembly) call.

While addressing the state executive meeting of the BJP, Nadda said the party did well by winning the panchayat elections in the state and capturing nine out of 12 zila parishads. It should now aim for Mission Repeat in 2022 Assembly elections, he said.

He praised Panna Pramukh system adopted by the Himachal BJP. Under Panna Pramukh model, a party worker oversees voters on a single page of voter list (Panna) in their respective areas. Nadda said the Panna Pramukh model has been so successful in Himachal that it was being adopted by the BJP in the entire country now. He urged the party workers to now create panna committees at each polling booth level. He said the BJP was winning elections due to its mass following and scientific working at the booth level.

Nadda said all political parties in country were family centric. The BJP was the only party in the country that was worker centric and it makes it unique. The BJP had 18 crore active members in the country, he claimed.

Nadda said the BJP aims at opening party office in each district of the country. He urged the state president of Himachal BJP, Suresh Kayshap, to expedite buying of land in all districts of Himachal so that party offices could be established there.

Nadda claimed Modi provided leadership to entire world during Covid pandemic and today 16 countries were looking towards India for getting Covid vaccine.

The national president of the BJP claimed that the work for the construction of the Atal Tunnel linking Lahaul and Spiti district with all-weather road was expedited by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister had also restored special category status for Himachal that was terminated by the Congress government, he said.

The state president of party Suresh Kashyap while speaking on the occasion said the BJP government had taken landmark decisions such as abolition of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, construction of Ram Temple and abolition of Triple Talak.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, former CM Prem Kumar Dhumal, Minister of State for Finance and Corporate Affairs Anurag Thakur, state BJP incharge Avinash Rai Khanna and co-incharge Sanjay Tandon were among other prominent leaders present at the meeting.

Sidelights

See the original post:

Work for Mission Repeat in 22, Nadda tells party activists - The Tribune India