Happy November! As this will be our last newsletter of the school year, we wish you a stress-less finals time and a happy winter break. We can’t wait to come back next semester with new ways for you to get involved with the community around you.

Defending Our Kurdish Allies

By Kasey Pukys
 

Picture Source

On Sunday, October 6, the White House announced President Donald Trump’s endorsement of Turkish military operation in Kurdish-held territory in northern Syria, and the US has since planned to withdraw one thousand troops from the area within weeks. President Trump’s decision goes against the recommendations of top officials within the Pentagon and State Department and is likely to reverse significant progress toward stability in the region. In regard to US foreign policy interests, the removal of US troops from northern Syria allows Russia and Iran to spread great influence in Syria, trampling the impact of the United States. But more importantly, the removal of US troops from Syria permits the slaughter of our Kurdish allies by the Turkish military.

The Kurds are the fourth largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but despite their size, they remain stateless and often marginalized. Kurdish-held territory beside Turkey’s border has been deemed a threat by the Turkish government, and Turkey has considered Kurdish militants, such as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a terrorist organization (because of territorial disputes) for decades. However, the SDF has also been the United States’ most reliable partner in fighting the Islamic State on the ground in northern Syria. Kurdish forces suffered thousands of casualties in the fight against ISIS as the US’s partner force. Even today, Syrian Kurdish forces hold over 10,000 ISIS fighters, including 2,000 foreigners, in separate makeshift prisons. Turkey’s offensive against the Kurds has distracted attention away from these prisons, and several ISIS militants have already escaped. The US removal of troops in Syria will both lead to the deaths of hundreds who have fought for the United States, as well as give ISIS the ability to re-assemble.
 

The abandonment of US allies in northern Syria is a great betrayal that will lead to massive instability as the region strays farther away from peace. President Trump’s decision has already faced bipartisan criticism from individuals including Sen. Lindsey Graham and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Due to this bipartisan condemnation, Congress can still take action, and we must continue to support our allies and calls for peace in Syria.

How can we help?

• Continue donating to war-torn Syria:
  • Islamic Relief USA: Syria
  • UNHCR: Northern Syria
• An easy way to send a letter to your congressmen and congresswomen HERE.

SOURCE 1 SOURCE 2 SOURCE 3

The World’s Worst Man-Made Humanitarian Disaster

By Surita Basu

As of this week, over 100,000 have been killed by the war in Yemen. The conflict began in 2014 when Houthi forces, a Shiite group based in Northern Yemen stormed the capital Sana’a. The next year, they staged a coup d’état and forced the resignation of the incumbent President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. In response, Saudi Arabia led a coalition including Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Senegal, and Sudan and launched an air campaign to prevent the rebels from overrunning the country’s south in 2015. The United States supported the coalition with intelligence and the supplying of weapons. As of now, the United States has withdrawn forces but has continued with drone strikes.

The cost of the war has been felt most heavily by the Yemeni people. Airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals, and weddings. According to Human Rights Watch, “in 2018, the coalition bombed a wedding, killing 22 people, including 8 children, and in another strike bombed a bus filled with children, killing at least 26 children”. Some of these attacks were found to have been perpetrated with US-supplied weapons. The coalition has caused a blockade that led to food, fuel, and medicine shortages with 14 million people nearing starvation. Another tactic of the war has been to attack medical centers which caused vaccination shortages and contributed to 460,000 cases of cholera that were diagnosed in the first half of 2019 alone.

What Can We Do?

• Educate ourselves
• Donate to organizations like Oxfam and UNICEF
• Contact your representatives
  • Here’s how

Sources

The Guardian

Human Rights Watch

United Nations

Ohio Barring Equal Opportunity for Transgender Individuals

By Nicole Palmer

KAREN DESUYO / FLICKR

Ohio is one of only two states to not allow transgender individuals to update their gender on their birth certificates. On March 29, 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Ohio, and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit to challenge Ohio’s refusal to correct the gender marker on birth certificates for transgender people. This is problematic because any time a transgender individual must show their birth certificate, it contradicts what they are showing to the world and outs them. This puts them at risk of violence and discrimination. So far, the original dismissal has been denied, keeping the process going.

To aid with the right to an accurate birth certificate, follow THIS link to Equality Ohio’s page. There, you can provide testimony to show lawmakers that the proposed legislation will have a positive effect on real people. You can also CALL legislators to support the Ohio Fairness Act or EMAIL them, as well as sign a PETITION. If you are interested in getting involved with an organization that works to help LGBTQ+ Ohioans, contact them directly HERE.

SOURCE1. SOURCE2. SOURCE3.

Sub-Saharan Africa Needs Change, Period.

By Shvetali Thatte

Let’s do a thought experiment.

Whatever gender you identify as, imagine yourself in bed, soundly sleeping, when a sudden stab of pain in your lower back wakes you up. The cramp gets progressively worse, and even as you adjust your positioning, it persists. You have to use the restroom, so you get out of bed and go to the bathroom. At the sight of blood, you know it’s your period.

Crap.

As someone in a developed country, your immediate response is to use a pad or tampon. You may take an Advil or Tylenol to numb the pain, and then you will return to bed. The whole event was a minor disturbance, but your next day will carry on as planned. Perhaps you may have to endure slightly more pain than you were expecting, and you may have to take more pills, use the bathroom more frequently, or lie down to numb the cramps. Fortunately, you will have access to these facilities, and you will continue to be able to partake in your daily events, whether it be school, your job, or a sport.

Now, let us pretend you are not in a developed country. Instead, you are in sub-Saharan Africa. When you see your period has started, you can no longer grab a pad or tampon. You scour for anything that can do the job, whether it be tree leaves, toilet paper, or old rags. You don’t have access to medication to numb the pain, and you can no longer sleep in your bed. Consequently, you retreat to a corner in a designated room in your house; this will be your new home for the next 4-7 days.

The process of menstruation is a natural process that the female body undergoes once a month. While new products and medications have facilitated the lives of females while they are on their period, women in developing countries lack access to these same facilities, committing them to nearly a week-long curse once a month.

When females are on their period in sub-Saharan Africa, they often cannot leave their houses. As a result, school-aged girls will suffer from absenteeism; on average, a girl will be absent for four days a month due to menstruation, meaning two weeks of learning every school term. For context, this translates to losing 156 learning days within four years of high school, which is roughly the same amount needed to constitute a high-school “drop-out” in the United States. Girls cannot attend school due to a lack of sanitary wear, as well as unclean school toilets, water, and dumping facilities for sanitary wear.

While pads and tampons are sold in sub-Saharan Africa, they are costly and stigmatized. As natural as the process of menstruation is, women are seen as inferior and dirty when they are menstruating, resulting in many families refusing to buy sanitary wear. Furthermore, in rural areas, families lack the income for such items. Some households believe it is the woman’s job to purchase her sanitary wear, yet because she is unable to work or learn while menstruating, there is a significant decline in her ability to acquire an income.

Menstruation is a curse in sub-Saharan Africa. Society preaches that it is disgusting; girls will get bullied in school and women are treated as less. Yet, the matter of truth is, menstruation is just as natural as giving birth. It is a necessity for life to be born.

Women deserve to reach the same potential as men. No woman should be denied her education or future for a process that is beyond her control.

So, what can you do to help?

• Start by supporting foreign aid and legislation that will improve female hygiene. This can include U.S. aid for WASHPALS and the Keep Girls in School Act. Email and call your Congress representative to show your support; make sure your representative knows that female hygiene in foreign countries is an important issue for you.
• Next, donate. You can pick from a multitude of different organizations, but even a dollar can make or break a young girl’s education and future.
• Third, advocate. Talk about the issue and let others be aware of it. Spread knowledge and get others involved in the fight.

Menstrual health is not only a “women’s issue.” Everyone, boys, girls, men, and women, need to openly talk about menstrual health so that women no longer feel stigmatized for something that is beyond their control.

Putting female hygiene at the top of a country’s priorities is of uttermost importance; a nation can see immense returns from investing in girls as it would lead to increased education, labor force participation, and ultimately, real GDP growth.
 

Trump’s Action Against the LGBTQ+ Community Through the Health and Human Services

By Scott Wang

On November 1st, Trump announced a new federal rule through the Department of Health and Human Services (also referred to as the HHS) that allows government-funded faith-based organizations to discriminate against multiple minority groups. According to Alphonso David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, this new federal regulation would “...permit discrimination against LGBTQ people, religious minorities, and women in programs related to foster care, adoption, HIV and STI prevention, youth homelessness, refugee resettlement, elder care programs and more.” He elaborates that Trump’s new regulation prioritizes discrimination than anything else. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, explains “Our nation is stronger when everyone has access to health care, education, housing, and other essential services, not when bigots in the White House seek to divide the country and deny basic rights to Americans.”

Trump’s decision was encouraged by religious groups that wanted to overturn Obama’s rule, which essentially prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity when allowing recipients federal grants from health agencies. A number of these health agencies included faith-based adoption agencies that foster care providers. The religious groups that encouraged Trump to make such a move argued that Obama’s rule violated those groups’ religious liberties.

Combatively, organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union argued that religious liberty cannot be used as a license to discriminate, as the needs of children in the foster care system must come first.

This implementation is not the first or unique move that Trump has made against the LGBTQ community. Since Trump assumed the position as president in 2016, he’s sanctioned bans on transgender people serving in the armed forces, altered regulations that once provided protection to transgender youth in schools, and proposed nixing data collection on LGBTQ+ foster youth. The continuous harmful implementations have made institutionalized homophobia dangerously normalized as a result. In addition, research continues to demonstrate that LGBTQ youth are overrepresented in the foster care system; this is a consequence of children having faced rejection by their families for identifying with the LGBTQ community. Trump’s new federal rule would only heighten the challenges that LGBTQ youth face on a daily basis.

While there is unfortunately not a quick solution to an issue that stems from ages of rooted systemic homophobia, the long term goal would be to educate those that intend to assume positions in health care, foster care, and adoption services.

SOURCE1. SOURCE2. SOURCE3.