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    2020 Oct 29

    #BlackLivesMatter Across The Americas: Black Youth Organizers and the Struggle for Racial Justice

    4:00pm to 5:00pm

    Location: 

    Virtual Event (Registration Required)

    Join the second event in the What Justice Looks Like series for a conversation with activists from Black youth-led movements from the US and Latin America, leading the struggle against racial injustice, from police violence to structural racism and disparate effects of the COVID pandemic on racialized and low-income communities.

    Speakers:

    • Ana Belique, Reconocido Movement (Santo Domingo)
    • Daniela Rincón, Casa Cultural El Chontaduro (Cali)
    • Marcelle Decothé...
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    #Us Too: Children on the Move and Belated Public Attention
    Jacqueline Bhahba. 4/12/2018. “#Us Too: Children on the Move and Belated Public Attention.” International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 21, 2, Pp. 250-258. Publisher's VersionAbstract
    Children on the move are having their #UsToo moment.

    Over the past months, momentous developments point to a more intense engagement with the needs and rights of refugee and other migration-affected children than has previously been evident. As with #Me too, many of the most central claims – the pervasive presence of abuse, the scale of the problem, the striking power imbalances that have perpetuated the problem’s relative invisibility – are not new or surprising per se. It is the avalanche of evidence, the mobilization of affected constituencies, and the sobering realization of the extent and consequences of previous denial that are disquieting.

    "I Feel Like We Are People Who Have Never Known Each Other Before": The Experiences of Survivors of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation Transitioning From Shelters to Life in the Community
    Laura Cordisco Tsai, Vanntheary Lim, and Channtha Nhanh. 1/2020. “"I Feel Like We Are People Who Have Never Known Each Other Before": The Experiences of Survivors of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation Transitioning From Shelters to Life in the Community.” Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 21, 1. See full text.Abstract
    Journal article by Carr Fellow Laura Cordisco Tsai analyzes how survivors of sexual exploitation transition back to life in their communities.

    In this article, we explore the experiences of survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Cambodia as they transition from living in trafficking-specific shelter facilities to living in the community. We analyzed data from Chab Dai's Butterfly Longitudinal Research (BLR) project, a 10-year longitudinal study with survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Cambodia utilizing a prospective panel design. We present findings from our analysis of 236 interviews and narrative summaries of interviews conducted with survivors between the years 2011 and 2016 (n=79). An interpretive phenomenological approach was used to understand survivors' experiences during this transition. Themes included: conflicted feelings about life in the community; difficulties completing school and securing employment; violence in the community; limited follow-up; unfulfilled expectations; feeling loved like a family member in the shelter, but abandoned in the community; vulnerability in the community due to dramatic differences between shelters and the community; and varied experiences with case closure. We underscore the importance of understanding and listening to the voices of survivors about their experiences in the anti-human trafficking sector and discuss implications for the design and implementation of services for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Southeast Asia.

    (Re)discovering duties: individual responsibilities in the age of rights
    Kathryn Sikkink and Fernando Berdion Del Valle. 2017. “(Re)discovering duties: individual responsibilities in the age of rights.” Minnesota Journal of International Law, 26, 1, Pp. 189-245. See full text.Abstract
    Kathryn Sikkink and Fernando Berdion Del Valle publish new article in Minnesota Journal of International Law: "(Re)discovering Duties: Individual Responsibilities in the Age of Rights."

    “There cannot be ‘innate’ rights in any other sense than that in which there are innate duties, of which, however, much less has been heard.”

    Their article seeks to recover the tradition of individual duties that is integral to the historical origins of international human rights, arguing that increased attention to duties and responsibilities in international politics can be necessary complements to promoting human rights, particularly economic, social, and cultural rights.

     

     

    2017 Mar 06

    *CANCELLED* Laughtivism: Fighting Authoritarian Regimes with the Power of Humor *CANCELLED*

    4:30pm to 6:00pm

    Location: 

    Carr Center Conference Room R-219

    *This event has been cancelled*

    How do you start, build, and complete a peaceful revolution?  How do we fight oppression and violence? Why were the Serbian and Arab Spring revolutionaries able to topple deep-seated autocrats while the American Occupy movement failed to achieve its stated goals? What are the application of rules for 'people power' movements in different environments - from autocracies to democracies?

    Join us on Monday, March 6th, as Srdja Popovic looks at how past youth movements have successfully toppled...

    Read more about *CANCELLED* Laughtivism: Fighting Authoritarian Regimes with the Power of Humor *CANCELLED*
    2020 Oct 08

    10 Years On: Lessons from the Cholera Epidemic in Haiti

    2:00pm to 3:30pm

    Location: 

    Virtual Event (Registration Required)

    October 2020 marks the 10-year anniversary of UN peacekeepers’ introduction of cholera to Haiti. The resulting epidemic has killed over 10,000 people and caused immeasurable losses in Haiti. The UN’s reluctance to accept responsibility and to remedy affected communities has also tested the organization’s commitment to human rights and spurred strong criticisms from inside and outside of the organization.  This event brings together UN officials and Haiti advocates to examine what lessons the UN should draw from the cholera epidemic. Panelists will discuss how the cholera...

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    170 Years Ago in Seneca Falls New York, Voting Was a Radical Idea
    Kathryn Sikkink. 7/31/2018. “170 Years Ago in Seneca Falls New York, Voting Was a Radical Idea.” Medium. See full text.Abstract

    Original publication via Harvard's Ash Center.

    On July 19th, we celebrated the 170th anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, a gathering that launched a global movement to secure the right to vote for women. As people in the US and around the world lament the state of our democracy, now is a good time to reflect on an anniversary that reminds us of how democratic change occurs.

    Women’s suffrage was the most radical demand that Elizabeth Cady Stanton included in the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments in 1848. When Stanton first suggested a suffrage resolution at the Seneca Falls Convention, even her most resolute supporters were afraid that it might make the women’s movement look ridiculous and compromise their other goals. Voting was considered the quintessential male domain of action. Resolutions on other issues at Seneca Falls, such as equal access to jobs and education for women, passed unanimously, while the suffrage resolution carried by a small majority and only after eloquent speeches by Stanton and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. It would take decades of struggle, including parades, protests, arrests, hunger strikes, and force feeding, before the US acknowledged women’s right to vote in 1920. The struggle to secure the vote for African Americans is an even longer story that can be traced from the Civil War to current voter suppression in states like North Carolina.

    Our appreciation of voting as a radical demand secured through decades of struggle has been lost in US politics today, as reflected in low voter registration and turnout. At Harvard, where I teach, 59% of eligible students voted in the 2016 presidential election and only 24% in the 2014 midterm elections. This spring, I did a small set of focus groups with Harvard undergraduates to gauge their attitudes toward voting in an attempt to understand these low numbers. In every group, at least one person clearly articulated the belief that voting is a privilege and duty of citizenship. A small number argued that there was no duty whatsoever to vote and that there might be good reasons not to vote. Most students, however, fell in between these two positions. They argued that voting is the right thing to do, but that it is optional and that there are many reasons why it is acceptable not to vote. These reasons include lack of compelling candidates, lack of information, lack of interest, and lack of a personal stake in the matter.

    “All of us have to collaborate in helping people exercise their legal right and their civic duty to vote”

    These students revealed disillusionment with the political system, saying their vote would not make a difference. Voting was one option for participation in a democratic society, but for many of the students it held little meaning or impact. The passion of Seneca Falls was missing. One student mused, “I wish that there was a way … to make people more enthusiastic about voting. … apathy is a huge problem…”

    People often assume college students don’t need advice or help to vote, especially Ivy League students. But many of the students found the US voting system genuinely complicated, and antiquated, especially in the case of absentee voting. At times, what the students described reached the level of voter suppression.

    We need to continue the struggles launched by the activists in Seneca Falls to expand voting. If some of the smartest and most motivated young people in America today find voting difficult, we have a responsibility to help them and many others as they navigate the often complicated and sometimes hostile terrain of the US voting system. Voter suppression has been a conscious and well-orchestrated set of policies in many states; voter encouragement must be no less conscious or collective. Ensuring that US citizens enjoy the right to vote is very much the work of our government and political parties, but should not be left only to them. All of us have to collaborate in helping people exercise their legal right and their civic duty to vote.

    Kathryn Sikkink is the Ryan Family Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Radcliffe

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