Category: Human Rights

Is It Duty or Trauma In The Making

July 21, 2025
Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Rules do not always mean safety. In fact, they can cause the very harm we’re trying to prevent. To be told to be dutiful provides boundaries, but do they exist to keep us safe or to lock us in and be more vulnerable to danger? Duty is a heavy word, sometimes a powerful thing that fills our hearts with honor and reinforces a sense of community. It is a parent’s duty to care for their child. Yet, this same word can then be used to imprison a woman to fulfill her wifely duties.

When raised in duty, it is difficult to know if it is the elixir or the poison. People just automatically follow what they’re taught. But somewhere along the way, there’s a separation between what we’re told and what we want. When these two are misaligned but we’re forced to comply, duty is becoming something unhealthy. It’s important to know the difference. Otherwise, we can be pushed into doing things we may not feel are the best for us. We can integrate this forced way of seeing the world and then require that others comply with these same controlling views.

You might sometimes wonder how whole groups of people agree with some scary notion of how things should be. A classic example is Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale. A society of people thought that controlling girls and women should become the norm. This society believed that it is a higher power’s will for females to be stripped of power and be used for whatever their delusions thought necessary.

This is why we must stay vigilant in understanding the difference between duty and trauma. The definition of a word, a concept, a law, how a human being is labeled, should not be taken lightly. Protection of self means protection of others.

The Unseen Stings Most

July 12, 2024

I don’t have to be called a name to feel the sting of hate. It’s in the flow of society. It’s how I feel moving through a space. Space, without gravity. No foothold or anything else to anchor onto. Just the knowing.

Because it’s in the air. I, we, breathe it.

There are more often no names or obvious gestures of being discarded. I hate that way I feel, so unsettled without a way to touch or point at it. That’s it, don’t you see? I scream in my mind, wanting to yell to bystanders who aren’t innocent in their denial. They scoff with, “Oh, you’re just being,” or “Oh, everything’s not about that.” For some, it is though. So then the translucence of it is what makes me then question it. Question myself rather.

And then I pull myself back, toes touching ground, heart reconnecting with soul. This soul that allows intuition to reverberate back into my body, confirming what is real, believing it, if only within myself. To know, to realize this, is what I need to remain grounded, to remain safe, mind and body. 

Amnesia

June 8, 2024


How we understand race or gender or other differences in others,

has a lot to do with recency effects.

We forget things,

especially things that don’t have much to do with us,

and even when forgetting is harmful to

The Others. 

This is self-preservation.

Preservation of others then means stepping outside of forgetfulness.

Please remember.

I am Jane Doe

May 5, 2018

MV5BZjllZGIyNTctODNhYS00MGVhLWEwMTgtYTUwOWUzNWVjMjAzL2ltYWdlL2ltYWdlXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNDQ0MDY1MQ@@._V1_UY268_CR0,0,182,268_AL_.jpgA mother talks about the dread she felt while hoping to hear that her missing daughter was alive. In another account, a mother shares her disgust at seeing nude pictures of her underage daughter on the Internet and pleading with those who published it to take it down. I am Jane Doe (2017) is a documentary that exposes how rampant sex trade crimes are in the United States. It also brings to light that many people in power are aware of it but look the other way because they have a hand in this lucrative “business.” In I am Jane Doe, parents, attorneys and other advocates fight a financially thriving web-based company to try to stop print and online advertising of underaged children for prostitution.

There is an elaborate worldwide system in which people have one goal – to move children and young people around like cargo in order to sell them into prostitution. Children are kidnapped and become yet another name on a missing persons list. Once they are taken and transported far from everything they know, they’re threatened to keep their mouths shut, or else. And yes, this problem is happening in developed countries as well, all the time, which is why it’s important for us to stay informed.

In the book, The White Umbrella: Walking with Survivors of Sex Trafficking, Mary Frances Bowley informs readers about the lives of young people who have been trafficked and ways they can be supported. She has also created The White Umbrella Campaign to support those who have been trafficked throughout the United States.

Although it’s an intricate operation happening under high secrecy, sex trafficking is happening all around us. A survivor of sex trafficking could be anyone around us, quietly seeking help, reaching out in ways we may not understand right away. The more we know, the more we can help.

 

Why She Stays: Behind the Doors of Domestic Abuse

June 13, 2017

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Why do you think she stays? Because she wants to? Because she loves him that much? Maybe. But she may also stay because red is the only color she can identify when she sees him. She may stay because she’s terrified of the thought of her children having to live in a shelter, having no financial resources, having no one to rely on. She may stay because he threatens to take her children if she tries to leave.

In the eyes of others, he’s charming and kind. But no one knows that he’s also someone who pays the children’s school fees if he feels like it, and the light bill or buy groceries some of the time, but there’s usually a catch. He always makes sure she and the kids feel guilty about it, as though they’re strangers depending on his unjustified kindness. He’s someone and he’s no one, all at once. This is where her confusion lies.

There are also other things he is not. He is not someone who can give love, because he cannot receive it. He is not someone who is able to put himself in anyone else’s shoes. He is not someone who will share her burdens. He is not someone who wants to model compassion and integrity for his children. He doesn’t know how to pretend to be these things, nor does he care to.

He is not someone who will protect his family, and in fact, he is the one from who they need protection. He is secretly proud of his cowardly ways.

So you ask, why does she stay? What’s wrong with her? Well, would you leave if you had nowhere to go, no one who could help you, no money to feed your children or no way to get them to school or doctors’ appointments? What about if he took away your family’s medical insurance? And what about if your child had some chronic condition? What if he threatened to call immigration?

It seems easy to question some other random person. Yet, it’s more often not some other random person, it’s your co-worker, your neighbor, your friend, your sister. Maybe it’s you. Maybe you don’t know it is. Maybe you think someone else’s situation is worse and so you justify to yourself that yours isn’t that bad, so it couldn’t be considered abuse.

He doesn’t punch or slap you like those other men. He only occasionally curses at you or randomly accuses you of cheating when he’s really angry. Sometimes he shoves you but always says he feels terrible afterward. He doesn’t stop you from working. Yet he drops by unannounced from time-to-time, and come to think of it, more frequently lately.

He says he loves you so much he wants to spend all of his time with you, especially when you try to hang out with friends or make plans to see family. He says he wants to take care of the finances. He gives you an allowance because it’s convenient. He feels there is no need for you to have access to the account. Access for what?

No, no, no. None of this is me, you say. Okay. But are you afraid to say the wrong things, to do something that might upset him, go to places he may not approve of, wear clothes he might find inappropriate? Do you have a running reel in the back of your mind of what he might say about this or that, about just about every decision in your life?

But you’re always on his mind because he cares, you say. I get it. It’s all very difficult. It’s insidious. It’s perplexing. Comprehending his intentions can be difficult and even the fleeting idea of leaving is not an easy one to consider.

Let’s now once again reconsider why she stays, why you stay, why we stay, why we’ve considered leaving, why we don’t have to do any of it alone whether we stay or go. Most of us, 1 out of 3 females in fact, has been abused, most often by a loved one. You are not alone.

So again I want you to believe me when I say it, you don’t have to do it alone, no matter what you decide.

Originally published at http://www.girlsglobe.org on June 5, 2017.

What Are You?

April 1, 2017

IMG_5718“What are you?” people sometimes ask. It seems to come from a place of perplexity. There appears to be frustration because when someone’s ethnicity isn’t identifiable, the ability to categorize is suspended.

When people ask with malicious intent, they don’t know exactly how to mistreat those of us who appear more racially ambiguous. Their slurs appear feigned as if they’re practicing being insulting and hurtful. There’s a fake barrier that feels almost protective because they seem silly in their attacks. It’s poetic justice, their buffoonery.

But oh man, when people know exactly how they want to direct their behavior, they’re heinous and ugly. It’s premeditated, exact and ironically sincere. And that’s the purpose the question serves for them. They’re asking, What are you so that I can hate you with a special type of ignorance.

The are is sometimes drawn out and accompanied by a sneer. It’s an inability to judge. Maybe they wish they could call me the N word, or maybe confidently accuse me of being an illegal “alien,” or Muslim, although, if not so ignorant, they’d know that the latter isn’t even an ethnicity.

Yes, it’s happened to me before, on multiple occasions and in various forms. Sometimes it’s blatant, most times covert. On business trips, my white colleague and I were consistently pulled out of the airport security line to be frisked and have the contents of our luggage overturned. “This only happens when I’m with you,” she’d marvel, and we’d shake our heads.

Most often though the high-pitched, “What are you” with furrowed brows and head cocked to one side is asked by well-meaning people who are simply curious. And when I tell them, they usually respond with an, “Oh! I love Indian food” or “Have you seen Lion?” and we dive into intriguing conversations about what we are, far beyond our race. And that’s beautiful because it comes from our ability to wonder and connect.

So what am I? What are any of us? Well, we’re people and being human intrinsically means we’re knitted in many fascinating, complex ways based on how we’re created and the lives we’ve lived. So go ahead, I see the crease in your brows. Ask me what I am.

Why I Write

January 23, 2017

I write because the struggles of immigration grieve me in a personal way, a way that for a long time divided my family to near disrepair. Despite this, I believe my very conservative Christian, Indian parents attempted to understand why this American-born Indian girl had to do things a bit differently than what they had planned. And what I wanted was exactly the opposite of what had been customary for thousands of years. I, a female, wanted to do whatever I felt like doing.

Often, the shame related to making independent, very “American” decisions has led to heartbreaking consequences in some families and particularly for females. These endings are often preceded by children of immigrants desiring to adapt to American society while balancing Indian roots. These endings are also preceded by parents quickly becoming disillusioned as they begin to see the land of milk and honey for what it really is. Sometimes, it doesn’t receive families with open arms or flowing vats of opportunity. It is a place that takes far more than it can ever offer – hopes, time, a longing for family back home, culture and many, many tears. But above all things, it wants their children the most.

Some might believe I write to shame my family, and in essence, the Indian community, as we’re a highly collectivistic society. And in fact, allowing a look into the private lives of a collectivistic society is like waiting to be exiled. However, I write because if I don’t, relationships may be broken forever and families may be destroyed. Lives may potentially be lost.

I was once watching a video of author, Arundhati Roy, advocating for the rights of the most vulnerable of India. After it ended, I scrolled down to read words of praise for her efforts and her work of fiction, God of Small Things, which clings close to the often unspoken truths of India. But as I continued to scroll I saw far more comments addressing Ms. Roy with vile, demeaning adjectives and even death threats written by brutish men raised to despise females, to view us as nothing more than insentient things to be assaulted of body and spirit to their liking.

I don’t doubt opposition. Some might even say I shouldn’t be allowed to share my accounts of Indian culture, maybe that I should be banned. I should know where my place is. I should be silent.

And this is precisely why I write.