NYU Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights Blog

2016 Fellows

Dreaming Grenada & Awaiting My Sojourn

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Akiera Xavina Charles
Groundation Grenada
St. George’s, Grenada

Greetings! My name is Akiera Xavina Charles, and I am a rising senior at Gallatin concentrating in “Understanding How Visionary Futurism and Spatial Geography Shapes the Afro-diasporic Imaginary.” As an Afro-Caribbean, mango-loving queer woman and creative writer, I take seriously the theory and practice of imagining alternative futures that promote modes of sustainability and communal love and that call on destroying capitalism, white supremacy, and all other “isms.”

Currently, I live my life as an oftentimes-misunderstood Black radical millennial. I have gotten used to some folks categorizing me as insane or mystical given my beliefs and bi-sexuality. I often have to explain myself and explain why I seek futures outside the framework of whiteness and Western linear time.

However, slowly and surely, I am learning how to love myself amidst a world that has had difficulty knowing how to love me. I have learned to trust in my pedagogy of queer Black feminist theory, which enables me to see beyond the future that has been prescribed for us. But it is a radical feat for people of color to imagine that something other than whiteness, capitalism, and colonialism awaits us; this smells of danger, anti-patriotism, and anachronism. As a result, it has been difficult for me to find community around my academic and personal interests.

And then, I found it   .    .     .

Or it found me   .    .     .    others who felt the same, desired the same, envisioned the same: my/our/their queer Grenada!

One day searching online, I came across the Grenadian human rights organization, Groundation Grenada. Their website openly discusses LBGTQ issues, beautifully yelling to the rest of the world that same-loving women and LGBTQ folks in Grenada exist and that our lives matter. I felt immediately in love with this organization once I realized it shares my knack for in-your-face radical advocacy and that it has a radical anti-colonialist Caribbean feminist perspective. I am still in awe of gaining the chance to intern there this summer.

In the meantime, as I mentally prepare myself for my sojourn home, revising my workshop lesson plans and interview questions, I still do not know what to expect. I was born in Grenada but am now a college-educated US citizen; I grapple with my unfamiliarity with Grenada and the many privileges I have. I am also bothered by the silence that exists around Grenadian queer or erotic sexuality; I wonder whether some of the women I plan to work with this summer will feel open and comfortable enough to share their stories and dreams with me.

Though I want to learn more about the cultural history of queer and same-loving women in Grenada, I do acknowledge that I approach this research without a heavy awareness of their experiences and of the silence that marks their lives. Yet, since my project serves as a queer memory project for Grenadian women, girls, and femmes, I intend for it to challenge that silence. And considering that some people tried to discourage me by saying that “that queer stuff ain’t real down in your tropical Bible-loving oasis,” this project is a loud and in-your-face testament to the importance of creating space for “silenced” identities while engaging in social justice work.

Documenting Dalit Stories

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Sudhanshu Kaushik
People’s Union for Civil Liberties/Haryana Human Rights Commission
New Delhi & Haryana, India

I like to be in control of what’s going on in life. Variables like where I’ll be, when I’ll go, how I’ll get there, and what I’ll do there are all things that I want to know and control. But at times it can be difficult to predict and plan what will happen. After receiving the Gallatin Global Human Rights Fellowship, I was certain that I wanted to focus on Dalit rights in India because I felt it was of utmost concern, and I was absolutely sure that the Naxal issue was the main one associated with Dalits.  But I soon realized that I was being way too narrow-minded.

Due to the series of Naxal attacks that have occurred over the last few months and in recent weeks in Chhattisgarh, my plans to work there were interrupted. I decided instead to focus on Dalit rights that are closer to home but more than often ignored: the rehabilitation of Dalits who have faced atrocities throughout their lives. This summer, I started working with the Haryana Human Rights Commission (HHRC) and the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) to do this. My goal is to learn as much as I can, show others around India and the world what Dalits go through, and hopefully work on legislation promoting a more progressive and inclusive state.

In the past few weeks during my work, I have encountered several disheartening stories, and what terrifies me is that this is just a start; I have yet to explore North India (states that I will cover during my internship are Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, and UP). Here is one that stuck with me the first few days of working for the HHRC:

I was on the border of Haryana and Rajasthan documenting Dalit farmers’ plight. The land behind me was completely barren. It used to be fertile but the groundwater has been depleted. It’s sad to hear that farmer suicides are happening because of the high debt farmers face when they don’t have salable crops. But what is even more sickening to hear is that these suicides are being covered up. This means that widows won’t get their pensions, and the issue is not raised in the government because of inaccurate numbers.

What could we do as witnesses? Well, we spread the message to the Dalits about their rights. We explained to the farmers that if they do not want to let this continue, we can forward their complaints to the appropriate authorities such as the Ministry of Rural Development and Agriculture so action can be taken.  We are also collecting these stories in hopes that attention will be brought to this area.

Women’s Human Rights: Working on Attaining Justice

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Sadia Alam
Bangladesh National Women Lawyers’ Association
Dhaka, Bangladesh

This summer I will be traveling to a place that I’ve been visiting my entire life: Bangladesh. As a young girl, time spent in Bangladesh always felt like time away from real life, with no school, no worries; just family, food, and fun. Yet, as I got older, my surroundings became more hazy. The situations I was once oblivious toward became too apparent for me to ignore, such as finding out that the young girl who used to play with us just two years ago is now not only married (against her will) but is also expecting a child. Or realizing that the seemingly kind auntie who lives next door is torturing her domestic servant. The bubble that I lived in every time I used to visit Bangladesh has became smaller and smaller as I have become more aware of the many forms of injustice that people are facing there.

As a result, this summer I will be going to Bangladesh with a different mindset. Instead of just offering my empathy toward people who are suffering, I hope to be able to help some of them attain justice. Thus, I will be working with Bangladesh National Woman Lawyers’ Association (BNWLA). BNWLA is an organization that works to create and promote women’s human rights in Bangladesh through policy-level advocacy and free legal aid to women.

I hope to learn how BNWLA’s lawyers are able to empower women to come to them. I find it quite intriguing that the organization is made up of women, who are themselves empowered and brave enough to actively fight for their rights while also protecting the women who come to BNWLA for help. I am not sure if I will be able to help make large-scale policy-level change, but I hope that I can make some difference in the lives of the women who come to the organization. I look forward to seeing how the law can benefit the lives of these women and how laws themselves can be changed as well.

Wandering the City

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Alison Handel
Instituto Pólis
São Paulo, Brazil

I thought I would be prepared to take on São Paulo having lived in New York the past two years and having extended family here. I couldn’t have been more wrong. São Paulo is an entirely different beast. It is the largest city in the Southern Hemisphere and the twelfth largest city in the world, with 11 million inhabitants. Thank goodness for my research partner Anamika, because I would have been in way over my head.

tall buildingThe second half of this week was the Feast of Corpus Christi, which is a national holiday in Brazil, celebrating the tradition and belief in the Eucharist. Consequently, there wasn’t much to do at Instituto Pólis, and Anamika and I had the opportunity to explore our new home. And explore we did. Don’t worry, I am not going to recount all the touristy things we did (although there was some of that) but rather our observations of the city and how it relates to our research on gentrification in the context of a developing country.

In a class we took last semester on gentrification, the first thing our professor asked us was, “What do you think of when you think of gentrification?” People immediately began citing hipster coffee shops, vegan and or fusion restaurants, chic modernist apartment buildings, influxes of young (usually white) professionals, and so on and so forth. Obviously this is a very simplified view—it was the first day of class, after all—but that is not to say that these assertions are false. In fact, we found an abundance of those things.

men working in Coffee ShopThe São Paulo (SP) of today is very different than when my grandmother grew up there. It is much more cosmopolitan. It is the economic center of Brazil and exerts a strong influence on international commerce. Nowhere is this more evident than in SP’s increasingly upscale neighborhoods. I often joke about how coffee shops of a certain aesthetic are the ultimate sign of gentrification/globalization, but I’m realizing more and more how true that is. Most places we go in SP, we see botecos (traditional Brazilian bars/cafes) alongside artisanal coffee and sandwich shops that could easily be in Brooklyn. I was worried about being vegan in Latin America, but my fears were unfounded. I have seen a plethora of vegan eateries that, again, would blend into the fabric of any hip New York neighborhood.

people shopping at Food TrucksWhile this is all fine and good for people like Anamika and me, how does it bode for the average Brazilian? We might not have yet started our nitty-gritty work at Instituto Pólis, but I feel as though some work has already begun.

Migrant Domestic Workers in Jordan

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Layla Quran
Adalah Center for Human Rights Studies
Amman, Jordan

Every summer in Amman, the King Hussein Park amphitheater on the western outskirts of the city holds dozens of music festivals and concerts. Under the cloudless sky, young and old fill the venue as the music drifts into surrounding alleyways, inviting onlookers. Among the musicians who performed at the theater last summer was Iraj, Sri Lanka’s hottest pop singer. The venue was packed with thousands of Sri Lankans, who would leave as quickly as they entered the theater, going back to work at garment factories, agricultural farms, or in private homes as domestic workers.  They are among the 1.5 million migrant workers in the country. This summer, I plan to return to Amman to document their fight for equality and fundamental human rights.

Domestic workers are often overlooked in mainstream media. The image of the disempowered domestic worker is most commonly seen, and sentiments toward them are usually those of pity or disregard. What would happen if these workers could be viewed as powerful, resisting forces in the country? How might this shift the way employers treat them and the way the workers interact with their employers? In the precarious environment of the home, where work is performed in an indeterminate space and time, how can domestic workers demand better treatment from their employers? These are questions I hope to help answer over the summer.

The Adaleh Center for Human Rights Studies is an NGO that advocates for the rights of all marginalized peoples in Jordan. The organization served as a partner along with the Solidarity Center in the launch of the first Domestic Workers Solidarity Network. I will follow the activities of the Network this summer and speak to domestic workers who actively resist the hegemonic narrative of helpless victim. The Network includes women from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines. It is the first of its kind in the country and sets a precedent in the region, as it is difficult for migrant workers to join unions there. For domestic workers in Jordan, the Network can be a way to build strong connections with other workers and further develop a sense of community.

Follow me as I share what I learn from them this summer!

Fear, Violence, and Crime and the LGBTI Community in El Salvador

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Mirtala Sanchez
Entre Amigos
San Salvador, El Salvador

My parents fled El Salvador during the 1980s as a result of the Salvadorian Civil War, in search of a better and prosperous future in the US. I was born in the US, but my parents always ingrained in me a great pride for my Salvi roots and frequently took me on trips to El Salvador.

The El Salvador of today is not the same El Salvador I remembered as a young girl, with people filling the streets at night and loud dance parties occurring during Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. While El Salvador has recuperated from an era of political and armed conflict, it now has a new kind of violence and crime. In a January 2016 article, El Salvador—one of, if not the smallest, country in Latin America by size—was called the “world’s new murder capital.” Everyday violence and crime are embedded, causing fear among citizens. In localities where individuals are ridden with fear, they restrict their movement, go out less frequently at night, and make an effort to avoid “forbidden zones” that are carefully plotted in their mental map(s).

This has become clear to me from my trips in the past years. As my dad has warned me: “No estas en los estados unidos; no sabes como corre el agua aquí” (You’re not in the US; you don’t know how the water runs here). I am constantly warned against entering colonias (colonies) dubbed as “zonas calientes” (“hot zones”), but these places are the norm. This leads one to question the “advances” that have been made in El Salvador. The rampant fear is as much a threat to human rights as are the violence and crime, since these all justify the repression and strict policies that overshadow the implementation of human rights.

Dance party local bus and bullet hole in the window

I took the two pictures above during my previous trips to El Salvador. The first was taken at a town’s street dance party that was watched over by a police officer.  The police—”the protectors of justice”—contribute to the climate of fear with their cloaked faces, menacing attire, ready-to-attack stances, and ready-to-shoot weapons. The second photo was taken on a local bus. The bullethole in the window indicates the normalization of fear, violence, and crime, which casts doubt on the realization of human rights in El Salvador.

LGBTI human rights infringement in El Salvador revolves around violence and HIV, not the outlawing of same-sex marriage and adoption in the LGBTI community. This summer, I will be working with Entre Amigos, a leading organization in LGBTI rights and HIV advocacy. With my personal investment, experience, and academic background as a political science and women, gender, and sexuality major and now a master of public health candidate, I will learn from Entre Amigos and pursue HIV prevention work that acknowledges biological, physical, behavioral, mental, psychological, social, community, individual, and structural factors at the interface of health, human rights, and LGBTI injustices in El Salvador.

By supporting grassroots organizations such as Entre Amigos, El Salvador has the potential to win the confidence of its citizens and protect their human rights and safety. I believe Entre Amigos can motivate LGBTI individuals to become engaged and mobilized and can inspire action that allows communities and individuals to reclaim their cities, communities, and rights, even in the face of violence and crime.

Gentrification through a Human Rights Lens

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Anamika Jain
Instituto Pólis
São Paulo, Brazil

Arriving in New York for the first time, fresh from Hong Kong, I was overcome with fascination when people told me what the Village used to be like, or how “robust” and “cultural” one of my favorite neighborhoods, the now über-hipster Williamsburg, used to be. And yet, as much as I loved the neighborhoods they have become today, I couldn’t help but wonder: at what cost have they changed?

Gentrification is one of the most prevalent socioeconomic phenomena of the 21st century, and as with all major urban changes, it does not come without some serious problems. Neighborhoods once known for their unique amalgamation of culture and grit now house some of the most expensive and hottest real estate on the market. This trend is rampant in major cities of the world, from New York in the global North to São Paulo in the global South.

I believe that a human rights approach to gentrification is much needed, as it allows us to compare and asses the changes in different cities on a humanitarian basis, using a common, universal set of rights. It also allows us to both arm our cities with land rights, squatter rights, and the right to community, and challenge eviction methods as well as the racial and gendered underpinnings of displacement.

This semester, my research partner, Alison, and I have been learning a great deal about gentrification theory and doing groundwork in New York’s South Williamsburg neighborhood in the Gallatin seminar, “(Dis)Placed Urban Histories.” Through the seminar, we have been working with a community organization called Los Sures, which protects Hispanic people in Williamsburg from displacement and from skyrocketing rent.

Alison and I hope to carry what we have learned in New York this semester to São Paulo, where we will be working this summer with the organization, Instituto Pólis. Pólis works to build just, sustainable, and democratic cities and works closely with Right to the City, a powerful housing and urban justice movement.

Having learned about many different theories of gentrification and having worked hands-on with a community organization in New York, I am incredibly excited to explore gentrification in the politically tumultuous and rapidly developing São Paulo with an organization that does advocacy work to make real policy changes. If there is one thing I need to actively do, it is to keep my mind open to observing aspects of gentrification not covered in the theories I have studied, which focus largely on urban cities like New York, Chicago, and London.

I hope to come back not just with new advocacy skills up my sleeve, but with a better understanding of gentrification and its intersections with things like race, class, gender, and perhaps even politics.

Walking Into the Mist

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Dejian (Ken) Zeng
China Labor Watch
Shenzhen, China

I am Dejian Zeng, a master’s student studying public administration at NYU Wagner.

I am also from mainland China.

This seems to be a very unusual identify for a young man trying to pursue a career in the human rights field in the United States. I didn’t witness the Cultural Revolution with my own eyes. I never stood alongside those enthusiastic students in Tienanmen Square in 1989. I was born during an era when China’s economy was rapidly developing and when millions of people were getting out of poverty. I belong to a generation that has an indifference to politics.

How did I get here, then?

Let me begin my story with the summer of 2014: sun shone through the beautiful glass roof and was reflected onto the expensive marble floor of the newly built Beijing South Railway Station, the most modernized train station in China. I stood in the middle of it, watching people coming and going through that grand building. And I felt sad. How can life here be so different? I asked myself. What I had seen just outside was a totally different world.

Located a five-minute’s walk from the South Station is the so-called “Happiness Village,” whose other name is the Beijing Petitioner Village. Because of its proximity to the State Bureau of Letters and Calls, the administrative office hearing grievances from petitioners,  there are hundreds living there who suffer from injustice, with the faint hope of one day obtaining what people call justice and human rights. Since 2012, I had been doing research on social unrest and petitioners in China, and visiting the petitioner village was part of that research.

I witnessed fear in the eyes of newly arrived petitioners. I felt the gloom of an old man who had been petitioning for 30 years. These people came to the village and never left, no matter how horrible their living conditions were, and no matter how terribly their lives had been ruined. Some were there because of their destroyed houses and lost lands. Some because of corruption and unjust sentences. And many—hundreds or even thousands—because of unpaid wages and terrible working conditions. They were fighting for the dignity of being human.

From the thousands of cases I collected, I saw a different China—a China I wanted to fix, a China I wanted to make better.

Before I left the petitioner village, a female petitioner grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes. Then she asked the question I have been asking myself since: “You will help us, right?”

Would I? Human rights advocacy is so hard to do in a country like China, which has such extensive economic and political power.

But I was walking in the mist and couldn’t see what was in front of me. There are always possibilities. And, change would happen. In the labor rights arena, the number of strikes have skyrocketed in the past two years. There were over 2,700 strikes and protests in 2015—more than double of those in 2014. This trend has intensified in 2016, with more than 500 protests occurring in January alone. And laborers are taking bolder actions to defend their rights, which leads me to my summer project (which I will talk more about in my next post).

“Yes, I will!” I told that lady, faithfully looking into her eyes.

The sky is blue. The sun is shining.

Finding New Narratives of Gentrification

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Alison Handel
Instituto Pólis
São Paulo, Brazil

Gentrification. Yes, I know it’s a simultaneously loaded and incredibly vague term. It seems to be all anyone is talking about these days, especially in New York. The New York of my father’s generation is a far cry from the New York of now. Hypodermic needles no longer litter the sidewalks of Alphabet City. The Lower East Side is touted as having some of the best nightlife in the country. People are actively choosing to live in boroughs other than Manhattan.

The narratives surrounding gentrification are usually set against the backdrop of huge metropolitan cities in the global North. Think of your New Yorks, your Londons, and so forth. But this phenomenon isn’t isolated to the developed world; it is happening in cities all over the globe.

Where is the narrative of gentrification that is taking place in the global South? This phenomenon is happening there just as fast—if not faster and more insidiously—as in the developed world. Yet, there is no substantial research on this. I saw this to be a gaping hole in the story of gentrification, and I felt a powerful urge to fill it.

That is how I came to Instituto Pólis. Pólis is an NGO dedicated to creating fair, sustainable, and democratic cities in São Paulo, Brazil. Brazil is arguably one of the most unequal societies in the world, so the work that Pólis has done and continues to do is invaluable.

So what’s the point of all this? Well, there are a multitude of factors to consider and investigate. As I stated earlier, the context of the narrative around gentrification is almost exclusively the developed world, and I would like to bring attention to its presence in the developing world. I also hope to compare the process of gentrification in the global North and South.

This past semester, I studied the specifics of gentrification in New York and the organizations that fight against it. I look forward to seeing the parallels between and divergences of these movements in New York and in São Paulo. What challenges do Brazilians face that New Yorkers don’t? What methods do grassroots organizations utilize? The questions are endless, but hopefully by the end of the summer I’ll have a few answers.

Empowering Children Through a Rights-Based Approach in Egypt

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Sabrina Illiano
Egyptian Foundation for the Advancement of the Childhood Condition (EFACC)
Cairo, Egypt

Hello! My name is Sabrina Illiano, and I’m a first-year student in Gallatin concentrating in human rights and its application in politics and law, with a regional focus on the Middle East. I’m also minoring in Arabic.

This summer, I will be living and working in Cairo, Egypt, while I intern with the Egyptian Foundation for the Advancement of the Childhood Condition (EFACC). This organization is dedicated to promoting children’s rights in the Middle East/North Africa region through a combination of legal and media advocacy, lobbying, and reporting. EFACC is concerned with holding Egyptian communities and the Egyptian government accountable for their commitments regarding children’s rights. I will be evaluating children’s justice in Egypt and will write a proposal for improving children’s situations on the state level and for creating new mechanisms to monitor and document violations of children’s rights.

The large presence of youth in recent Egyptian protests is reflective of the proportion of the population they comprise. Thus it is crucial that children’s rights in the country be taken seriously. Issues of primary concern for children in Egypt include access to appropriate judicial procedures, gender-based violence, child marriage, and alternative family care. The work that EFACC does is of particular importance because they don’t simply take a protectionist approach to these issues; they use human rights instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child to empower children—when possible—to become active participants in demanding their rights, and to do so not as the property of their parents or the state but as autonomous individuals. In other words, EFACC works to create the legal framework necessary to help children make decisions that concern themselves and their well-being. And when it is not possible for children to do so, EFACC steps in as a third party representative to ensure that their voices are heard.

Throughout my time in Egypt, I hope to learn how children’s rights are engaged within the particular cultural context of Egypt. I would also like to gain a better understanding of how these rights can be ensured through distinctly Eurocentric human rights instruments, without contributing to cultural erasure. Furthermore, I look forward to learning about how EFACC works to maintain a unique and delicate balance between protectionism and empowerment for children.