Vol. 8, #7, Sept.
15-28, 2006
To The Premier Of Ontario
To The Premier of Ontario
Honorable Dalton McGuinty
Our Children Need Protection From
The Protectors
By Jesse Wilson And Angel Femia
We are writing this letter in regards to all the
Children’s Aid Society’s and the request from
the ombudsman to be able to investigate com-
plaints against the society.
We find it absurd that the Society would put
up such a fight not to have someone outside
the agency seeing what is going on
when its for the safety of our children con-
sidering what happened in the Jeffrey Baldwin
case and many others. Jeffery was starved to
death over a period of years, and the worker
still has a good pay check, respectability and a
solid position at the society.
Because the Society is putting up such a
fight not to have anyone outside the agency
look in to any of the deadliest cases makes us
wonder how much of what there saying is true.
In Jeffery's case we and many others believe
that the Detective in charge was denied the
full content of information to proceed properly
with the case in of itself. We believe that the
Society workers on Jeffery's and many others
cases should have had to face charges of ne-
glecting their duties as official Society work-
ers.
We believe that the Society should be held
accountable for their part of their responsibil-
ity within the situation regarding Jeffery's and
others whom have died in their care.
It is true that if you have a complaint against
the Society you have to go to your worker,
then the worker and supervisor, then the
branch manager, then the executive director,
then a meeting with the board of directors,
then to the ministry of children and youth ser-
vices These organizations are all under the
Crude Awakening
U.S. Policies in Afghanistan and Iraq Sell
Out Women in Favor of Oil
by Martha Burk
When the Taliban, the most anti-woman
militia in Afghanistan's civil war, took over
the country in 1996, they immediately forced
women to leave their jobs, banned work out-
side the home, prohibited females from at-
tending school and put women under house
arrest, unable to go out in public unless ac-
companied by a close male relative and wear-
ing a head-to-toe burqa. Women who violated
Taliban decrees were beatened, imprisoned,
even killed. Despite this, the U.S. government
was on the fast track to recognize this un-
elected, oppressive regime as Afghanistan’s
official government, and to prop up the mili-
tia with millions of taxpayer dollars.
Why? In a word: oil.
Unocal Corporation of California (now part
of Chevron), in partnership with a Saudi com-
pany, was competing with an Argentine com-
pany to build an oil pipeline through Afghani-
stan to the coast of Pakistan. The U.S. wanted
to secure the project for Unocal.
The Clinton State Department announced it
would establish relations with the Taliban by
sending a diplomat to Kabul, and several en-
voys were dispatched to woo the Taliban for
the pipeline rights. State Department spokes-
person Glyn Davies said the U.S. found
"nothing objectionable in the steps taken by
the Taliban to impose Islamic law. Only a
concentrated effort led by the Feminist Ma-
jority, NOW and allied groups prevented the
Taliban from being recognized as the official
government of Afghanistan, and kept the U.S.
from sanctioning the abolishment of women’s
basic human rights in service of the petro-
leum industry. (But then, once the oil-happy
Bush administration came into power in
2000—both the president and vice president
are former oil executives—it re-established
talks with the Taliban about the pipeline.)
This is perhaps the starkest example of why
the politics of oil is a feminist issue. Whether
supporting gender apartheid abroad, or sacri-
ficing feeding programs for U.S. women and
children so that ExxonMobil can get a tax
break, or simply standing by while the com-
pany reaps record profits at the expense of
women who must drive to work and heat their
houses, U.S. priorities are consistent: Oil
wins over women’s rights hands down.
As official justifications for the war in Iraq
have been exposed as bogus, evidence has
come to light that oil was a major factor in the
invasion. At least one member of the British
Parliament has flatly stated that control of
Iraqi oil—the third largest untapped supply in
the world—was the only reason for the war.
A top-secret 2001 National Security Council
Toronto Street News
same roof all have
different ways on
saying the same
thing, but you’re not allowed to voice your
concern to anyone outside the agency.
When you do voice your opinion they dis-
credit you. They lie on reports
about what people actually
say. The quotes get twisted
enough to allow the worst
impression to be judged by
our lawmakers. (If any of the
people being quoted on the Soci-
ety’s paperwork actually testified to
what was truly said any judge would see
the difference, of course we are never called
to speak). Therefore if a worker does not like
you, you lose your children or parents and in
many cases these Society workers are be-
lieved, not through earning this trust but be-
cause they are Society workers..
Just last week at LoveCry a few of us
walked into a meeting with a new mother and
a Society worker. The Worker was threatening
her and using gossip to do so. There was no
fact at this point, only jealous gossipers angry
and wanting to hurt this girl. (She is no perfect
child but is not anywhere near as rotten as the
society has on their paperwork). This girl got
scared and lied and thus gave the Society a
reason to take the new borne infant. (the Soci-
ety worker terrified this girl and scared them
into lying. Several of us witnessed this inci-
dent).
If the Society truly believes that what they
are doing are the right procedures to ensure
the safety of our children why would they be
so concerned to have someone outside the
agency investigate parents complaints.
We find this very disconcerting since they
have been proven to stand by their workers
even if a child dies.
They recently made it a law this February
2006 that it is mandatory to do criminal back-
docu-
ment, written before 9/11 and two
years prior to military action in Iraq, in-
structed staff of that agency to comply with
Vice President Cheney’s secretive Energy
Task Force as it explored the “melding” of
two ostensibly disparate fields of policy: “the
review of operational policies toward rogue
states,” including Iraq, and “actions regarding
the capture of new and existing oil and gas
fields.”
The State Department also created
the “Oil and Energy Working
Group,” a consulting group working
under the “Future of Iraq Project.”
The group concluded that Iraq’s oil
“should be opened to international
oil companies as quickly as possible
after the war.” When the invasion
took place, the oil fields were swiftly
captured.
Whether or not this blood-for-oil
scenario is the whole story, the new
Iraqi constitution and laws already
passed there contain far stronger
guarantees for major U.S. oil inter-
ests than they do for the women of
Iraq. Women’s rights deteriorated
rapidly after the first Gulf War, when Saddam
Hussein sold them out to religious fundamen-
talists in order to consolidate power. The U.S.
had the opportunity to restore much of what
was lost after the 2003 invasion. But in the
period leading up to the election of the Na-
tional Assembly, our government ignored
demands by Iraqi women’s organizations to
create a women’s ministry, appoint women to
the drafting committee of Iraq’s interim con-
stitution, pass laws codifying women’s rights
and criminalizing domestic violence, and up-
hold U.N. Security Council Resolution
1325— which mandates that women be in-
cluded at all levels of decision making in
situations of peacemaking and post-war re-
construction.
The constitution now declares Islam as the
official religion of the state and the funda-
mental source of legislation. Even though the
document gives a nod to equal rights for all,
no laws have been passed regarding women’s
rights to work, equal pay, pregnancy leave or
child care—all guaranteed in the previous
constitution. According to Human Rights
Watch, the failure of occupation authorities to
provide public security in Iraq’s capital lies at
the root of a widespread fear of rape and ab-
duction among women and their families,
preventing many women from working and
doing business in public. Yes, there is an
Iraqi State Ministry for Women’s Affairs, but
unlike other ministries it has no budget.
In contrast, Big Oil is well protected in the
constitution and through laws. The constitu-
tion guarantees the reform of the Iraqi econ-
omy in accordance with “modern economic
ground checks so what about all the children
before this date just because they’re not dead
does not mean they don’t need our future help.
It is up to us, the parents to stand up to this
system for our children’s future and our own;
if we don’t speak up now they will continue to
do what they want even if it’s
not for the best interest of the
children as we witnessed in
2004 when Jeffrey died in
the care of convicted child
abusers, (and there were many
others before Jeffery).
The fact that many of the Society
workers do not have psychological
training or personal experience. (many
not even having their own children). Their
Society workers are not required to have a de-
gree in child psychology so how can they
really know what’s best for the children.
Our children need someone outside the
agency to ensure their safety and as parents it
is our responsibility to make sure the needs of
our children are met.
Our children also need people in better states
of mind to help the entire family heal. Most
times when a child is being abused either the
parent is just doing what they have learned in
life and do not know this is abuse or they are
repeating an abuse pattern that goes way back
and was never addressed.
We believe that the best place for any child
is with their families but if the family is in
trouble, the family needs help. Maybe we will
find that the problem lies within the fact that
the family needs help for abuse issues not just
the children. The idea here being work to keep
the families healthy and standing not just take
children away.
Many of our families would welcome the
help from someone who is non-threatening,
non-judgmental and more open minded caring
with this help.
How much longer are we going to allow the
principles” to “ensure... the
development of the private
sector”—essentially abolish-
ing Iraqi state dominion over its
petroleum reserves. Corollary laws guarantee
that foreign companies will have control over
at least 64 % of Iraq’s oil, and possibly as
much as 84%.
The oil-trumps-women policy is not just
practiced overseas. Here, oil companies and
utilities received tax cuts topping $14.5 bil-
lion in the 2005 energy bill. Women got their
cuts in the 2006 budget, too: Domestic vio-
lence prevention was slashed by $35 million,
Medicaid by $17 billion over five years and
child-care programs by $1.03
billion over five years.
Women-owned business aid
was pared down as well.
Meanwhile, the price of
gasoline has doubled since
George W. Bush took office.
According to the National
Community Action Founda-
tion, households below 150
percent of the poverty line
now spend nearly 19 percent
of their income on energy.
That doesn’t count the price
hikes in school supplies,
food and clothing caused by
the increased cost of trans-
porting goods.
As bad as it is for women at the bottom in
the U.S., their pain is felt primarily in the
pocketbook. Not so in the Middle East, where
oppressive regimes like Saudi Arabia get a
pass on women’s rights because of the black
gold beneath the ground they traverse in their
black shrouds—on foot, or in a car driven by
someone else, because they are not allowed
behind the wheel. It’s well documented that
the U.S. government has long been cozy, if
not outright deferential, to the Saudis.
Professor Juan Cole sums up the U.S.-Saudi
bargain this way: “Since Saudi Arabia, by far
the largest exporter of petroleum in the world,
enormous amounts of U.S. capital are going
into the Gulf. And the way that this has been
arranged in the past, so as to not bankrupt the
U.S. economy, has been to insure that the
Saudis recycle the funds into U.S. invest-
ments. …
This “sweet deal” to protect light sweet
crude means the U.S. not only turns a blind
eye to the denial of basic rights to Saudi
women by their own government, but has
forced Saudi-style oppression on American
military women watching over oil reserves in
the kingdom. Lt. Col. Martha McSally, a
decorated pilot and commander with the U.S.
Air Force, was compelled by U.S. military
policy to wear restrictive Muslim garb—a
black robe and head scarf called an abaya—
and to sit in the backseat of service vehicles
driven by her male subordinates when off
base. When she sued Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld in 2001 for violating her
rights, the military tried to keep the require-
5
Children’s Aid Societies to tell us our children
are lying or their making up things to get our
attention (when they tell us they are or have
been abused). Then the best answer they can
find is to tell us that our children need to get
away from us or be put on drugs to keep them
in line and under control.
Many of the Society workers have no true
understanding of the child's mind so why are
we allowing them to pass their judgments on
to our family units.
We believe without child psychology and
experience on raising children the society
workers do not have the proper degree to say
whether abuse has happened or not. All they
have is a right to their opinion.
We are also aware that some parents will lie
to protect their pride and egos but that does
not mean they all do. Why does this always
mean that the black paint brush covers us all
and that the honest parents have to also suffer?
If you believe that someone outside the
agency should have access to investigate com-
plaints speak up now because the longer we
wait the more children go unheard.
—————–
http://www.
lovecry.org
416 406 0099
majic-angel3.
tripod.com/
lovecry
Lovecry
@rogers.com
Angel Femia
ments in place by changing the policy’s lan-
guage from “mandatory” to “strongly encour-
aged”—still tantamount to an order. Congress
was forced to intervene, voting unanimously
in both Houses to prohibit the Defense De-
partment from requiring, or even urging, ser-
vicewomen to wear the abaya.
Women—the population segment most eco-
nomically vulnerable to high fuel prices— are
also the majority of U.S. voters, and the ma-
jority of those against a potential war (see
Ms. Poll).
Venezuela, a major oil producer not under
U.S. dominance, has already announced sup-
port for the IOB. Even more threatening for
U.S. hegemony, China and India, looming as
the century’s largest global competitors for
oil that currently goes overwhelmingly to
American consumers, have signed on as well.
William Clark, an American security expert,
says another manufactured war or some type
of covert operation is inevitable under Presi-
dent Bush, and that the neoconservatives are
quietly planning for this second petrodollar
war. Far-fetched? Maybe. But it is interesting
to note that right before Iraq was invaded,
Saddam had refused to accept dollars in the
Oil-for-Food program, insisting on euros in-
stead.
4 years after the U.S.-led war to remove the
Taliban, the group is on the rise again in Af-
ghanistan. Women who criticize local rulers
or who are merely active in public life as po-
litical candidates, journalists, teachers or
NGO workers face increasing threats and vio-
lence. Many women are still in the burqa,
afraid to take it off because of the returning
Taliban and the lack of security, and unable
to travel without a male relative. Violence
against women and girls remains rampant,
including domestic and sexual abuse and
forced marriages. According to the Afghan
Independent Human Rights Commission,
over 300 girls’ schools have been burned or
bombed. In five southern Afghan provinces,
at least 90% of girls do not attend classes.
Men who support an equitable Afghan soci-
ety aren’t safe either: The male editor of
Women’s Rights magazine was convicted on
blasphemy charges last year after a religious
adviser to President Hamid Karzai accused
him of publishing “un-Islamic” articles criti-
cizing the sharia law practice of punishing
adultery with 100 lashes and the punishment
of death by stoning for conversion to a relig-
ion other than Islam. He also contended that
one woman should be equal to one man as a
witness in a case. His arrest and conviction
didn’t draw a public protest from the U.S.
government, but did draw protests from femi-
nists and journalists. He was finally released
after a three-month ordeal; the magazine,
however, is still closed.
And a new pipeline deal has been signed in
Afghanistan, with construction to begin this
year. Of course American companies want
part of the action. The oil drumbeat goes on.