LAVAL, France — “When the rights of some women progress, the rights of others take on a new light and then all of humanity starts to move.”

These words hung in the center of an exhibit entitled Rendons nos droits universels, or Let’s Make Our Rights Universal, which was on display this month in Laval.

It was organized by Femmes Solidaires, a national women’s organization in France, as part of a month of human rights events organized by the many international solidarity associations in Laval.

The exhibit advocated for equal treatment of women around the world and in France, with panels detailing injustices that occur against women in many realms, including political, personal and professional life.

Femmes Solidaires, founded during the French resistance during World War II and specially recognized by the United Nations, aims to inform the public about the injustices and inequalities that women face.

Their goal is to defend “the fundamental values of secularism, diversity, equality for the rights of women, peace and liberty,” according to their annual report.

Michèle Huard, 67, an active member of Femmes Solidaires, expanded on the subject of feminism, and explained her own views on the subject.

“For me, the two most important things are secularism and equality before the law,” she said.

Huard, a retired nurse who has traveled widely, said she has experienced the condition of women in China, Turkey, Northern Africa Canada and elsewhere in Europe.

“I find that in France, even if it’s not perfect, it’s a type of model, even if it’s far from being perfect,” she said.

For her, the key to ameliorating French women’s condition is to have equal legal rights.

She said she believes fundamental differences separate men and women, thus legal equality is the sole playing field on which equality can be achieved.

“The only thing necessary to improve in France is that women have the same rights as men, which is to say, the right to vote, work, etc. After that, everything else is a nuance.”

To elaborate, Huard explained the concept of laïcité.

“It’s the separation of the intimate realm from that of the exterior, in particular for us, the religion. That is part of the intimate realm,” Huard said.

While laïcité can be strictly defined as secularism, the French employ the concept more broadly to distinguish between what they consider appropriate for public versus private life.

“A laïc person can have a religion, but that religion should not interfere with the public realm,” Huard said.

For her, problems arise when religion enters the public sphere.

Huard said religion’s interference with legal rights is what has prohibited women’s rights from advancing, in France and around the world.

“For us, the separation of church and state is what has evolved things for us as women.”

Huard said she vividly remembers participating in the feminist movement in France during the 1970’s, a movement whose roots she attributes to the more secular culture of England and the United States.

Concerning religion, Huard offered the example of Islam in France, which she said poses an imminent threat to equality.

Huard, describing herself as agnostic but from a Catholic tradition, said she believes all religions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam, teach that women are in need of male supervision.

“For me, all religions have commanded that women are in need of a guardian,” she said.

For this reason, Huard said she supports the recently-passed French law which bans the Islamic veil in public.

“I believe that Islam is a very strong religion, and Muslims are very religious, even those who do not practice, who call themselves laic. And I believe that if we let this continue, the more moderate Muslims will find themselves dominated by the extremists, and that becomes dangerous,” she said.

Huard said in making this decision, she was torn between a woman’s right to dress how she chooses, and what she sees as the stifling restrictions of religion on women.

At the same time, she insisted that in their private lives, women should be allowed to behave as they choose.

Huard, the mother of three children and wife of a retired postal worker, said taking care of her children or serving coffee to her husband does not belittle her stature as a woman, as long as she has the freedom to choose.

She chose to continue her career while raising her children, and though she supports working mothers, Huard said she understands mothers who put their professional lives on hold for the sake of their family.

“I always have a sense of guilt that I did not devote enough time to my children because of my education and career. I have that in the depths of me,” she said.

Huard said since women and men are created differently, they will always have separate roles.

“A man is not disrupted by his period each month. It’s not the same thing. We are more subject to our hormones,” she said.

At the same time, she said this should not inhibit men and women from having equal, albeit different, rights.

In France, women have the right to at least 14 weeks of maternity leave. In 2002, a law was passed giving men the right to time off when their child is born: 14 days.

Huard said this example is an anomaly, and most other laws favor men.

In the 1950’s, women and men did not have equal rights after a divorce, and as a result, women were often sent to jail for adultery.

Other reforms instituted in the second half of the twentieth century include shared responsibility between husband and wife as head of the household, and more equivalent salaries. Women gained the right to the same educational opportunities, and could have bank accounts and jobs without the consent of their husband.

French women gained the right to vote in 1944, and birth control and abortion was legalized in the 1970’s.

“In France, when you think just about the laws, we say to ourselves, good, we have the right to abortion, to take care of our own bodies, we say to ourselves there have been a enormous advancements. [But] in what is actually going on, it’s not necessarily true,” said Huard.

In addition to the exhibit, Femmes Solidaires participated in a silent march against domestic violence towards women.

At the march of silence, men and women of all ages protested against all types of violence against women.

Jacques Marie, 59, of Laval, said he knows both men and women who choose to ignore the topic of domestic violence.

“It’s useful to show that this exists,” he said, speaking of the march.

“I am concerned, and I am trying to plant my little seed, to try to advance things,” he said.

Claudine Roche, another member of Femmes Solidaires who attended the march, said in order for the condition of women to improve, women need to take an active role in the political arena.

“It’s necessary for women to be present in political organizations and hold political office,” she said, so they can prove their capability in the public sphere.

Julie Geslot, 22, of Laval, was one of the few young women present at the march.

She said she participated because she thinks it is important to unify with others to defend the rights of women around the world.

The goal, she said, is equality between women and men.

“The same rights and the same consideration, no matter our habits, religion or age,” she said.

Huard expressed a similar opinion, but said because of innate biological differences, women’s situation will always be more difficult.

Still, she said laïcité is the key to legal equality, and the only way to give women an equal chance in society is to separate their private lives from what they are capable of in the public sphere.

For this reason, she said, she will continue to work with Femmes Solidaires for the rights of women in France and around the world.

“I always come back to laïcité,” she said, “but maybe that’s just a utopia. But I come back to it because I say to myself, there’s not a reason to stop trying.”

(Grace Ko/Not for Sale)

The year is 1829. Abolitionists walk through the Boston Common toward Park Street Church to hear William Lloyd Garrison’s first public address. The 23-year-old newspaper editor declares boldly that slavery is not an issue that should be debated by each individual state; it is a “national sin” that every decent human being must fight against.

The year is 2010. Abolitionists walk through the Boston Common once again; Garrison’s fight has not yet been won. In fact, the anti-slavery nonprofit Not For Sale estimates that 27 million people are enslaved today, more than at any other time in history. People all over the world are being bought and sold for cheap labor and sex. According to the U.S. Department of Education, even children born in America are sold into sexual servitude every year.

To combat this widespread nightmare, people must first of all come to the shocking realization that slavery still exists today. To this end, the Massachusetts chapter of Not For Sale hosts its first annual walk to end human trafficking. Wearing a sea of orange T-shirts and bandannas, 145 individuals gather on the Common to walk the Freedom Trail and to discover how Boston’s grand tradition of fighting for freedom and human rights lives on today and how they can join the movement as modern-day abolitionists.

(Grace Ko/Not for Sale)

Timelines collapse as the walkers view historic sites of past centuries’ struggles for freedom. They hear echoes of the very first reading of the Declaration of Independence as they pause at the Old State House, and they can almost see the colonists protesting the British sugar tax on the courtyard at Faneuil Hall.

They pass by The Old Corner Bookstore building, where William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator and other anti-slavery literature were published, and the African-American Meeting House on Joy Street, where famous abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth delivered fiery speeches condemning the injustice of slavery.

Reverently, they walk through the six towers of the Holocaust Memorial; each tower represents a large concentration camp and is covered with the numbers that had been inscribed on the arms of the prisoners who died within its walls. The weight of these numbers is overwhelming, but a few stories of hope can also be found within the towers. Of the many statements chiseled into the walkway, one is particularly applicable to the Not For Sale abolitionists: “After the German army invaded Denmark, the Danish people mobilized to ferry 7,800 Jews to safety in neutral Sweden. At the end of the War, 99% of Denmark’s Jews were still alive.” Even in the face of a seemingly unstoppable evil, people can band together and the sum total of their individual actions can equal an effective resistance.

So the horrible tech nazis at Apple continue to hold my MacBook hostage. Same day repair quickly became two business days, which quickly became three to five. Anything less than a week I’m fine with. But I need that white miracle back.

So again, excuse how sparingly I write here. When the computer comes back, you won’t be able to get rid of me. I promise.

The world is, as it should be, currently obsessed with the Indonesian earthquakes (plural, yes) and the nuclear talks with Iran. If you’re not following either, start following both. Yesterday I realized, for a blog that touts itself as one that reports on the lesser known international issues, I haven’t in a long, long while.

So, back to business. A couple of months ago I watched a short doc on Al-Jazeera English which, during its last few minutes, talked a bit about organ trafficking. Now organs, just like any other product, have a market. A particularly large and needy marke, in fact.

Those who need organs usually need tham as quick as possible and are willing to throw big sums of money at the vendor in return for extending the life of a family member or friend. The way in which trafficked organs are acquired varies from case to case and from vendor to vendor. Often, the means violate human rights.

In some extreme instances, the organs are forcibly removed from a human being. Some are forced to comply with surgery by penalty of death. Some are paid sums of money (small sums) to donate organs while still alive. Some are murdered and their organs harvested.

I hadn’t really thought about the story until today, when I noticed a piece in the Jordan Times about 11 locals who were charged with illegally trafficking human organs in Egypt, according to police there.

Ten others are thought to be connected to the trafficking ring, in a case that’s been under investigation for the past several months, according to the AFP.

In this particular case, the organs were obtained by paying humans to donate and by harvesting the bodies of the previously deceased.

The organs were then marked up by a significant margin. The kidneys, for example, sold at a price of $30,000 each to rich Arabs.

Organ trafficking has long been a problem in Jordan, so much so that they created a National Commission to Promote Organ Donation to encourage lawful donations and decrease unlawful trafficking.

If convicted, the eleven accused face 10 years in jail with hard labour. Tough break.

Imagine being detained by government authorities without charge, without access to a lawyer, your whereabouts hidden from all of society. Imagine now that so much is going on in the world that mainstream media don’t have the time to tell your story, or the story of your four companions, all of which are going through the exact same thing.

How can you get help? How can you be freed or given access to your lawyer or your family to tell them you’re OK?

This exact story is currently unfolding in Uganda. The Human Rights Watch is demanding the Ugandan government charge or release the five detainees.

The physical location of the four men and one woman is unknown, which, according to the HRW, make it a case of enforced disappearance, illegal under international law and in violation of the Ugandan Constitution. Some former detainees say the five missing may be being held at Joint anti-Terrorism Task Force (JATT) headquarters in Kololo, a rich suburb of capital city Kampala.The former detainees also said the five missing were tortured and may now be in poor health, the HRW reports.

According to a report released by the HRW, the task force has heavily abused its power on many occasions resulting in multiple killings, enforced disappearances and allegations of torturing terrorism suspects.

Recently, the chief of military intelligence in Uganda wrote a report to the HRW outlining the reason for the five arrests in an attempt to justify the imprisonment of the missing. According to the report, Abdulrahman Kijjambu and Ismail Kambaale, two of the five, were arrested in July 2008 on suspicions of planning terrorism acts.

The third detainee, Abdul Hamid Lugemwa, was arrested in March 2008 for being involved in an “urban hit squad.” The letter also claims the military task force has no knowledge of the whereabouts of the fourth prisoner, Mohamed Sekulima.

HRW reports however that four former detainees say they say Sekulima in JATT custody on several separate occasions. The circumstances of the arrest of fifth detainee, Fatuma Nantongo, are unclear. Witnesses told the HRW that she was arrested in December of 2008 and was seen in JATT custody in Kololo in January 2009.

The letter from military intelligence unfortunately provided no insight into the exact whereabouts of the five missing. All five detainees are being denied the right to habeas corpus, which is mandatory under both international and Ugandan law.

Still, no charges have officially been filed.

Stick with Blast for updates on the story.

I’ve been looking at human rights issues that plague South America recently, here are two rather prominent ones:

In the 1960′s, the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, was known as FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia.

Since then they have been advocating, through a cocaine-funded guerrilla revolution, for a Marxist government. Well, not so much advocating for it – just wreaking havoc, really.

In recent years, the group has gained some more attention, especially early this year, when Colombian President Hugo Chavez made the controversial plea that people stop branding the group as terrorists.

It’s hard to brand a group responsible for the kidnap and execution of 11 provincial deputies, as anything else. Chavez’s government, by the way, made no attempt at rescuing the deputies.

In early December, the also group ambushed a group of police officers at the Colombia-Venezuela border, killing eight of them. The Colombian Defense Minister, who obviously didn’t listen to Chavez’s plea, called the murders a €œcowardly terrorist attack.

The group is not above risking the lives of innocent civilians, in 2006, their gas cylinder bombs, a weapon that is very difficult to aim, caused several civilian casualties, including a 10-year-old boy.

They also frequently kidnap foreign tourists, so watch it.

Now, on to Argentina.

In the late 1970′s and throughout the 1980′s, a horrible dictatorship existed in Argentina. The streets were governed by military rule and the people feared for their lives, rightfully so, since rape, murder, kidnappings, torture and even the sale of infants was so common in several regions.

Now, 30 years later, anthropologists have discovered a secret detention centre, which they believe was used to torture and kill political dissidents.

More than 10,000 charred human bone fragments were also discovered, confirming what was long known, that the dictatorship committed mass murder on innocent civilians. Human rights groups say that all of the nearly 30,000 that went missing were killed during the dictatorship.

To this day, no real action has been taken. For several years, judges have found loopholes in amnesty laws that have allowed the accused to walk free. In 2006 however, the Supreme court finally put many of the accused on trial, but, since then, not much has happened.

Every year, on International Human Rights Day, Argentines march, commanding suitable action be taken against these men and women.

Hopefully it happens soon.