Thursday 31 December 2020

Child labor in palm oil industry tied to Girl Scout cookies

 They are two young girls from two very different worlds, linked by a global industry that exploits an army of children.

Olivia Chaffin, a Girl Scout in rural Tennessee, was a top cookie seller in her troop when she first heard rainforests were being destroyed to make way for ever-expanding palm oil plantations. On one of those plantations a continent away, 10-year-old Ima helped harvest the fruit that makes its way into a dizzying array of products sold by leading Western food and cosmetics brands.


Ima is among the estimated tens of thousands of children working alongside their parents in Indonesia and Malaysia, which supply 85% of the world’s most consumed vegetable oil. An Associated Press investigation found most earn little or no pay and are routinely exposed to toxic chemicals and other dangerous conditions. Some never go to school or learn to read and write. 


Others are smuggled across borders and left vulnerable to trafficking or sexual abuse. Many live in limbo with no citizenship and fear being swept up in police raids and thrown into detention.


The AP used U.S. Customs records and the most recently published data from producers, traders and buyers to trace the fruits of their labor from the processing mills where palm kernels were crushed to the supply chains of many popular kids’ cereals, candies and ice creams sold by Nestle, Unilever, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and many other leading food companies, including Ferrero – one of the two makers of Girl Scout cookies.


Ima, a girl who works informally to help her parents in a palm oil plantation, poses for a portrait in Sumatra, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)



Olivia, who earned a badge for selling more than 600 boxes of cookies, had spotted palm oil as an ingredient on the back of one of her packages but was relieved to see a green tree logo next to the words “certified sustainable.” She assumed that meant her Thin Mints and Tagalongs weren’t harming rainforests, orangutans or those harvesting the orange-red palm fruit.


But later, the whip-smart 11-year-old saw the word “mixed” in all caps on the label and turned to the internet, quickly learning that it meant exactly what she feared: Sustainable palm oil had been blended with oil from unsustainable sources. To her, that meant the cookies she was peddling were tainted.


Thousands of miles away in Indonesia, Ima led her class in math and dreamed of becoming a doctor. Then one day her father made her quit school because he needed help meeting the high company targets on the palm oil plantation where she was born. Instead of attending fourth grade, she squatted in the unrelenting heat, snatching up the loose kernels littering the ground and knowing if she missed even one, her family’s pay would be cut.


She sometimes worked 12 hours a day, wearing only flip flops and no gloves, crying when the fruit’s razor-sharp spikes bloodied her hands or when scorpions stung her fingers. The loads she carried, sometimes so heavy she would lose her footing, went to one of the very mills feeding into the supply chain of Olivia’s cookies.


“I am dreaming one day I can go back to school,” she told the AP, tears rolling down her cheeks.


Child labor has long been a dark stain on the $65 billion global palm oil industry. Though often denied or minimized as kids simply helping their families on weekends or after school, it has been identified as a problem by rights groups, the United Nations and the U.S. government.


Olivia Chaffin, 14, stands for a portrait with her Girl Scout sash in Jonesborough, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)



With little or no access to daycare, some young children follow their parents to the fields, where they come into contact with fertilizers and some pesticides that are banned in other countries. As they grow older, they push wheelbarrows heaped with fruit two or three times their weight. Some weed and prune the trees barefoot, while teen boys may harvest bunches large enough to crush them, slicing the fruit from lofty branches with sickle blades attached to long poles.


In some cases, an entire family may earn less in a day than a $5 box of Girl Scout Do-si-dos.


“For 100 years, families have been stuck in a cycle of poverty and they know nothing else than work on a palm oil plantation,” said Kartika Manurung, who has published reports detailing labor issues on Indonesian plantations. “When I … ask the kids what they want to be when they grow up, some of the girls say, ‘I want to be the wife of a palm oil worker.’”


A boy collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)


The AP’s investigation into child labor is part of a broader in-depth look at the industry that also exposed rape, forced labor, trafficking and slavery. Reporters crisscrossed Malaysia and Indonesia, speaking to more than 130 current and former workers – some two dozen of them child laborers – at nearly 25 companies. Their locations are not being disclosed and only partial names or nicknames are being used due to fears of retribution.


The AP found children working on plantations and corroborated accounts of abuse, whenever possible, by reviewing police reports and legal documents. Reporters also interviewed more than 100 activists, teachers, union leaders, government officials, researchers, lawyers and clergy, including some who helped victims of trafficking or sexual assault.


Indonesian government officials said they do not know how many children work in the country’s massive palm oil industry, either full or part time. But the U.N.’s International Labor Organization has estimated 1.5 million children between 10 and 17 years old labor in its agricultural sector. Palm oil is one of the largest crops, employing some 16 million people.


In much smaller neighboring Malaysia, a newly released government report estimated more than 33,000 children work in the industry there, many under hazardous conditions – with nearly half of them between the ages of 5 and 11. The study was conducted in 2018 after the country was slammed by the U.S. government over the use of child labor, and it did not directly address the large number of migrant children without documents hidden on many plantations in its eastern states, some of whom have never seen the inside of a classroom.


Olivia Chaffin makes photographs in a wooded area as she works on a Girl Scout photography merit badge in Jonesborough, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)


Many producers, Western buyers and banks belong to the 4,000-member Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, a global association that provides a green stamp of approval to those committed to supplying, sourcing, financing or using palm oil that’s been certified as ethically sourced.


The RSPO has a system in place to address grievances, including labor abuse allegations. But of the nearly 100 complaints listed on its case tracker for the two Southeast Asian countries in the last decade, only a handful have mentioned children.


“It is an issue, and we know it’s an issue,” said Dan Strechay, the RSPO’s global outreach and engagement director, adding that the association has started working with UNICEF and others to educate members about what constitutes child labor.


Strechay said many parents in Indonesia and Malaysia believe it’s the “cultural norm” for their kids to work alongside family members, even if it means pulling them out of school. “And that’s not OK,” he said.


Palm oil is contained in roughly half the products on supermarket shelves and in almost three out of every four cosmetic brands, though that can be hard to discern since it appears on labels under more than 200 different names.


And in a world where more and more consumers are demanding to know the provenance of the raw materials in the products they purchase, many companies are quick to issue assurances that they are committed to “sustainable” sourcing. But supply chains often are murky – especially in the palm oil industry – and developing countries that produce commodities in large volumes cheaply often do so by disregarding the environment and minimizing labor costs.


Most people take words like “organic,” “fair trade” and “sustainable” at face value. But not Olivia. She became increasingly worried about palm oil, rifling through the kitchen cupboards in her family’s century-old farmhouse in Jonesborough, Tennessee, to inspect the ingredients printed on cans and wrappers. Then she began digging through her shampoos and lotions, trying to make sense of the scientific-sounding names she saw there.


Now 14, Olivia has fired letters off to the head of Girl Scouts of the USA, demanding answers about how the palm oil is sourced for the organization’s cookies. She’s started an online petition to get it removed. And she and some other members of Troop 543 have stopped selling them.


The Girl Scouts did not respond to questions from the AP, directing reporters to the two bakers that make the cookies. Those companies and their parent corporations also had no comment on the findings.


“I thought Girl Scouts was supposed to be about making the world a better place,” Olivia said. “But this isn’t at all making the world better.”


A child helps her parents work on a palm oil plantation in Sabah, Malaysia. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)


Many kids are introduced to palm oil soon after they’re born – it’s a primary fat in infant formula. And as they grow, it’s present in many of their favorite foods: It’s in their Pop-Tarts and Cap’n Crunch cereal, Oreo cookies, KitKat candy bars, Magnum ice cream, doughnuts and even bubble gum.


“Let them enjoy it,” said Abang, a skinny 14-year-old who dropped out of the fifth grade to help his father on an Indonesian plantation and has never tasted ice cream. He has accepted his own fate, but still dreams of a better future for his little brother.


“Let me work, just me, helping my father,” Abang said. “I want my brother to go back to school. … I don’t want him in the same difficult situation like me.”


Though many consumers aren’t familiar with it, palm oil became ubiquitous nearly two decades ago after warnings about health risks associated with trans fats. Almost overnight, food manufacturers began shifting to the highly versatile and cheap oil.


Indonesia is the world’s largest palm oil producer and, with a population of 270 million, there is no shortage of strong backs. 


Many laborers migrate from the poorest corners of the country to take jobs that others shun, often bringing their wives and children as helpers in order to meet impossibly high daily quotas.


Others have been living on the same plantations for generations, creating a built-in workforce – when one harvester retires or dies, another in the family takes his place to hold onto company-subsidized housing, which often is a dilapidated shack with no running water and sometimes only limited electricity.


It’s a cycle that 15-year-old Jo was trying to break. Even though he had to help his family in the fields each day, heaving palm fruits high over his head and lobbing them onto trucks, his parents let him keep $6 a month to cover school fees so he could attend morning classes.


“I am determined to finish high school to find a job outside the plantation,” said Jo, who toiled alongside his mother, father and grandfather. “My parents are very poor. Why should I follow my parents?”


Students of a boarding school rest in their dormitory in North Kalimantan, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)


But for many migrant children in neighboring Malaysia – which relies almost entirely on foreign workers to fill constant labor shortages – the hurdles to a brighter life seem insurmountable.


Male harvesters technically are not allowed to bring their families to plantations on Borneo island, which is shared by both countries. So children often follow behind, sometimes traveling alone on illicit smugglers’ routes known as “jalan tikus,” or rat roads. The perilous border crossings to the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak can take place at night, either on foot across winding jungle paths or in packed speed boats racing without lights, sometimes colliding or capsizing in the dark.


An official estimate says 80,000 children of illegal migrants, mostly from Indonesia and the Philippines, are living in Sabah alone, but some rights groups say the true number could be nearly double that. Without birth certificates and with no path to citizenship, they are essentially stateless – denied access to even the most basic rights, and at high risk of exploitation.


Migrant workers without documents are often treated “inhumanely” in Malaysia, said Soes Hindharno, an official from Indonesia’s Manpower Ministry. He said he had not received any complaints about child labor occurring in his own country, but an official from the ministry that oversees women and children’s issues acknowledged it was an area of growing concern in Indonesia.


Malaysia’s Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but Nageeb Wahab, head of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, a government-supported umbrella group, called allegations of child labor very serious and urged complaints to be reported to authorities.


Olivia Chaffin, center, walks in the woods with her parents, Doug, left, and Kim Chaffin, as Olivia works on a Girl Scout photography merit badge. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)



Children of migrant parents grow up living in fear they will be separated from their families. They try to remain invisible to avoid attracting the ever-watchful eyes of police, with some keeping backpacks with supplies ready in case they need to flee their houses and sleep in the jungle to avoid raids.


Many never leave their guarded plantations, some so remote that workers must climb hills to search for a phone signal. And for those who dare to go out, trouble can come quickly.


Alex was 12 when he began working 10 hours a day on a small plantation with his father, hoisting fruits so heavy his aching muscles kept him awake at night. One day, he decided to sneak off to visit his favorite aunt in a nearby village. With no passport, Alex said authorities quickly found him and carted him off to a crowded immigration detention center where he was held for a month.


“There were hundreds of other people there, some my age, and also younger children, mostly with their mothers,” he said. “I was very afraid and kept thinking about how worried my mother and father must be. It made it hard to even eat or drink.”


But the biggest obstacles faced by Alex and other child workers in the two countries are lack of access to adequate, affordable education and medical care.


Some companies in Indonesia provide rudimentary elementary schooling on plantations, but children who want to continue their studies may find they have to travel too far on poor roads or that they can’t afford it. In Malaysia, the problem is even bigger: Without legal documents, tens of thousands of kids are not allowed to go to government schools at all.


It’s such an extensive problem that Indonesia has set up learning centers to help some of its children on plantations in the neighboring country, even sending in its own teachers. But with such heavy workloads on plantations, one instructor said he had to beg parents to let their sons and daughters come for even just a half-day of classes. And many children, especially those living in remote, hard-to-reach areas, still have no access to any type of education.


“Why aren’t companies playing a role in setting up schools in collaboration with the government?” asked Glorene Das, executive director of Tenaganita, a Malaysian nonprofit group concentrating on migrant issues for more than two decades. 


“Why are they encouraging the children to work instead?”


Olivia Chaffin displays a 2017 response she received from the chief executive officer of the Girl Scouts to her concerns with palm oil being used in Girl Scout Cookies. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)


Medical care also is woeful, with experts saying poor nutrition and daily exposure to toxic chemicals are undermining child laborers’ health and development. Many Indonesian plantations have their own basic clinics, but access may be available only to full-time workers. Travel to a private doctor or hospital can take hours, and most families cannot afford outside care. Migrant children without documents in Malaysia have no right to health care and often are too scared to seek medical help in villages or cities – even in life-threatening emergencies.


Many young palm oil workers also have little understanding about reproductive health. Girls working on remote plantations are vulnerable to sexual abuse, and teen pregnancies and marriages are common.


Ana was just 13 when she first arrived in Malaysia, quickly learning, as she put it, that “anything can happen to the female workers there.” She said she was raped and forced to marry her attacker, but eventually managed to break free after years of abuse and return home to start a new life. Now a mother with kids of her own, she abruptly left Indonesia last year again to look for work in Malaysia.


Many children do not have the option to ever leave. They are born on plantations, work there and sometimes die there. Overgrown headstones and crosses marking graves in crude cemeteries are found on some plantations near the towering palm trees.


Others, like 48-year-old Anna’s husband, are buried in community graveyards along the Indonesian and Malaysian border. A month after the palm oil harvester’s death, Anna lovingly tended his plot at the Christian site in Sabah, crammed with the bodies of hundreds of other migrants.


She said her son, whose own newborn baby was buried in the adjacent grave, had inherited his father’s job. He is the family’s main breadwinner now.


The cycle continues.


Olivia Chaffin, 14, displays merit badges that she has been awarded for selling Girl Scout Cookies. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)



Olivia is not the first Girl Scout to raise questions about the way palm oil makes its way into the beloved American cookies.


More than a decade ago, two girls in a Michigan troop stopped selling S’mores and other seasonal favorites because they worried palm oil’s expansion in Indonesia and Malaysia was destroying rainforests and killing endangered animals like orangutans.


After they campaigned for several years, the Girl Scouts of the USA became an affiliate member of the RSPO and agreed to start using sustainable palm oil, adding the green tree logo to its roughly 200 million boxes of cookies, which bring in nearly $800 million annually.


The RSPO was created with the best of intentions and it attempts to factor in the interests of a wide array of groups, including environmental organizations, industry leaders and banks. Its mission was not to flip a switch overnight, but to encourage the mammoth palm oil industry to evolve after years of breakneck growth and little outside oversight.


Still, for many food and cosmetic companies facing increased pressure from conscientious consumers, the association’s stamp of approval has become the go-to answer when questions are raised about their commitments to sustainability.


Monitoring the millions of workers hidden beneath palms covering an area equal to roughly the size of New Zealand, however, is next to impossible.


Some women and children on remote, sprawling plantations told the AP and labor rights groups that they are ordered to hide or stay home when sustainability auditors visit. They said only the optimal, easiest-to-reach parts of a plantation are typically showcased, with poor living and working conditions in distant areas hidden from outside eyes.


“The RSPO promises sustainable palm oil. But it doesn’t mean that that palm oil is free of child labor or other abuses,” said Robin Averbeck of the Rainforest Action Network, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that has found pervasive problems on plantations, including those certified as sustainable. “It has simply become a tool for greenwashing.”


When contacted by the AP, companies reaffirmed their support of human rights for all workers, with some noting they rely on their suppliers to meet industry standards and abide by local laws. If evidence of wrongdoing is found, some said they would immediately cut ties with producers.


“We aim to prevent and address the issue of child labor wherever it occurs in our supply chain,” said Nestle, maker of KitKat candy bars. Unilever – the world’s biggest ice-cream maker, including Magnum – noted that its suppliers “must not, under any circumstance, employ individuals under the age of 15 or under the local legal minimum age for work or mandatory schooling.”


There was no response from Mondelez, which owns Oreo cookies, or Cap’n Crunch parent company PepsiCo.


Consumers have their own challenges in trying to buy responsibly. Those, like Olivia, who want to make sense of where their palm oil really comes from often find themselves confused, since the dense terms used to explain what makes palm oil sustainable can sometimes raise even more questions.


Take Girls Scout cookies, for instance, which are made by two different U.S. bakers


Boxes from both are stamped with green palm logos. The maker of Olivia’s cookies, Little Brownie Bakers in Kentucky, has the word “mixed” beside the tree, meaning as little as 1 percent of the palm oil might be certified sustainable. ABC Bakers in Virginia says “credits,” which means money is going toward promoting sustainable production.


The bakers’ parent companies – Italian confectionary brand Ferrero and Canadian-based Weston Foods – would not comment on the issue of child labor, but both said they were committed to sourcing only certified sustainable palm oil.


A child collects palm kernels from the ground at a palm oil plantation in Sumatra, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)


Weston Foods, which owns ABC Bakers, would not provide any information about its palm oil suppliers, citing proprietary reasons, so the AP could not determine if its supply chain was tainted.


Palm oil, the highest-yielding vegetable oil, is an important part of the two Southeast Asian countries’ economies and the governments bristle at any form of criticism, saying the industry plays an important role in alleviating poverty.


They have banned products touted as “palm oil-free” from supermarket shelves and created slogans calling the crop “God’s gift.” And when students at an international school in Malaysia were criticized last year for staging a play questioning the industry’s effect on the environment, school administrators responded with an apology.


Back in Indonesia, Ima could give a very different classroom presentation about palm oil, but she has no chance. She continues to toil full time on the plantation alongside her family, even though her mother had promised she eventually could resume her studies.


“Sometimes my friends ask me, ‘Why did you drop out? Why are you not at school?’” Ima said, her resentment readily apparent. “‘Because I have to help my father. If you want to replace me and help my father, then I will go to school. How about that?’”


After learning about Ima, Olivia is even more determined to fight on. She sent letters to her customers explaining her reasons for no longer selling Girl Scout cookies, and many responded by donating money to her Southern Appalachian troop to show support.


Now, Olivia is asking Girl Scouts across the country to band with her, saying, “The cookies deceive a lot of people. They think it’s sustainable, but it isn’t.


“I’m not just some little girl who can’t do anything about this,” she says. “Children can make change in the world. And we’re going to.”


(Source: AP)

Wednesday 30 December 2020

How an all-girl music band went a note ahead of times in 1980s Assam

 In 1979, five teenagers from Nagaon formed a music band. Four decades later, a documentary tells the story of their quiet rebellion, one that led to the making of Assam’s first all-girl band.

The year was 1979 and Assam was on the brink of a movement that would come to change the course of its contemporary history. In this season of protest, five teenage girls met in a room in Nagaon, their mandolin, guitar and a pair of bongos in tow. 


They locked the doors, bolted the windows and drew the blinds to keep the music they made a secret from the world outside.


A few months after their first practice session, the girls — all between the ages of 15 and 16 — found themselves on stage in front of a boisterous crowd at a Puja pandal. “Girls are playing”, an incredulous member of the audience said. In the cacophony that ensued, the band members were certain no one heard their music. But it gave them enough confidence to give themselves an identity and a name: Sur Samalaya, or a medley of melodies.


Four decades later — Anjali Mahanta, the one who had got them together — chuckles at the memory. “We were young, rebellious and we wanted to do something different, something no one else was doing,” she says.


Sur Samalaya, an all-girl band, at one of their performances in the 1980s. (Photo courtesy: Anjali Mahanta)



And they did. Today, Mahanta, her sister Arati, and their three friends, Kabita Nath, Sewali Lekharu and Nazma Ahmed, are the subject of Breaking The Silence, a 30-minute documentary on Assam’s first all-women modern music band.


A musical evening

Like many small-town stories, Sur Samalaya’s too would have gone untold –– if it were not for an invite Parthajit Baruah, a Nagaon-based filmmaker, received in 2019. “It was for a musical evening at the town’s local auditorium,” he says, “I went not knowing what to expect, but what I saw astonished me.”


On stage was a group of five Mekhela sador-clad women, in their fifties, each holding a different instrument: a guitar, a mandolin, a tabla and a congo. The sight wasn’t all, Baruah remembered being amazed at the energy. “Each member had a signature move on introduction — not a bow or a namaskar, but a drum roll, or a guitar strum, with a flourish,” he recalls.


The following week, Baruah approached Mahanta. “I did a little digging and realised that they were possibly Assam’s first organised all-women band,” he says. “While it is true that women were part of orchestras in the 1940s and 50s, none were organised efforts.”


Intrigued, he requested time with the other band members. “The more I learned about them, the more I wanted to make a film. I realised that this was not just a story about music, or the fact that they could have been the first band— it was a story about five young girls fighting odds to do something they wanted to,” he says.


The five women, each playing a different instrument. (Photo courtesy: Parthajit Baruah)


The film, produced by Sunlit Studio, features a series of interviews in Assamese, with the women speaking about the challenges of forming a band in the 1980s, as well as a glimpse into their daily domestic lives today. You see Ahmed, now a 56-year-old living in Guwahati, practising the drums after a day at work, and talking about the trouble she faced from orthodox members of her community when she joined the band. “But I did not care,” says Ahmed, who now works in the Assam Secretariat, “I would put on my bell-bottoms, get on stage and sing Dum Maaro Dum — the crowd would go crazy. That made up for every negative comment I received.” Then there is Nath, who proclaims she is “married to the guitar” and lives in a home adorned with The Beatles posters.


“I made it a point to bring in their domestic lives — none of them have broken out of the social system, they have families, jobs, lives and yet managed to hold on to their passion,” says Baruah, who is a graduate of Film and Television Institute of India, Pune.


A reunion

In the early 80s, Sur Samalaya became a favourite amidst the Assam Agitation, the anti-“foreigner” mass movement that brought life to a standstill in the state for six years. “People came to know that there was a ‘girl’s band’ from Nagaon, and they would invite us to perform at protest meets, where we would sing Bhupen Hazarika’s songs,” says Ahmed. 


Adds Mahanta: “This was our way of contributing to the movement of our times.”


The band — arguably Assam’s first all-girl group — was formed in 1979. (Photo courtesy: Anjali Mahanta)



While the band played regularly for a decade, the early 1990s saw the members go their separate ways. “Some of us got married, some moved towns, some got jobs,” says Mahanta, “And that was the end of our band.”


But, in 2010, she learnt of Hurricane Gals, an all-girl rock band from Assam. “It made me think of our own band, and on a sudden burst of inspiration, I tracked down my bandmates whom I had lost touch with,” she says. Would they like to regroup again?


“Of course, we did,” says Lekharu, the band’s guitarist, who runs a business in Guwahati “Just because I was married and a mother of two, that wasn’t going to stop me.” Ahmed, too, remembers almost shouting in delight when she received Mahanta’s call. “I told her — Anjali, what a blessing this phone call is. When can we start practising?”


In the last decade, the women have shuttled between Nagaon and Guwahati for weekend practice sessions, and performed locally in events, where only the neighbourhood would show up. “That’s where Partha da saw us — and now, there is actually a film on us. Who would have thought?” asks Ahmed.


(Source: The Indian Express)

Tuesday 29 December 2020

2020 Year in Review | ‘ಓದಿನಂಗಳ’ದಲ್ಲಿ ಲೇಖಕಿ ಚೈತ್ರಾ ಅರ್ಜುನಪುರಿ

ವಿಚ್ಛೇದಿತ ಮಹಿಳೆಯನ್ನು ಸಮಾಜ ನೋಡುವ, ನಡೆಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ರೀತಿ, ಬಹುಪತ್ನಿತ್ವ ಹೊಂದಿರುವ ಪುರುಷರು, ಮಂಗಳಮುಖಿ ಎನ್ನುವ ಲಿಂಗಕ್ಕೆ ಅವಕಾಶವೇ ಕೊಡದ ಸಮಾಜ, ಶಿಯಾ ಮತ್ತು ಸುನ್ನಿಗಳ ನಡುವಿನ ಕಲಹಗಳು, ಹೀಗೆ ಹತ್ತು ಹಲವು ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊರ ಜಗತ್ತಿಗೆ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಪರಿಚಯ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಡುತ್ತದೆ.' ಸ್ಥೂಲ ನೋಟ ಕಟ್ಟಿಕೊಡುತ್ತಾರೆ ಲೇಖಕಿ ಚೈತ್ರಾ ಅರ್ಜುನಪುರಿ.

ನಮ್ಮ ಮಾತಿಗೆ, ಮೌನಕ್ಕೆ, ಆಲಿಸುವಿಕೆಗೆ, ನೋಟಕ್ಕೆ, ಸ್ಪರ್ಶಕ್ಕೆ ಮಿಗಿಲಾದುದರ ಹುಡುಕಾಟ ಮತ್ತು ತಣಿಕೆಗಾಗಿಯೇ ನಾವು ಮತ್ತೆ ಮತ್ತೆ ಅಕ್ಷರಲೋಕದ ಸಾಂಗತ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಬೀಳುವುದು. ಅದು ಉಸಿರಿನಷ್ಟೇ ಸಹಜ. ಭಾವಕ್ಕೂ ಬುದ್ಧಿಗೂ ಬೇಕಾದ ಆಮ್ಲಜನಕಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ನಾವು ಜಂಜಡಗಳ ಮಧ್ಯೆಯೇ ಹೆಚ್ಚೆಚ್ಚು ಆತುಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಲು ನೋಡುತ್ತಿರುತ್ತೇವೆ. ವರ್ಷ ಆವರಿಸಿದ ಮಹಾಶೂನ್ಯದೊಂದಿಗೇ ನಾವು ಏನು ಓದಿದೆವು?


‘tv9 ಕನ್ನಡ ಡಿಜಿಟಲ್ ವರ್ಷಾಂತ್ಯ ವಿಶೇಷ 2020: ಓದಿನಂಗಳಸರಣಿಗಾಗಿ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಹಿರಿ-ಕಿರಿಯ ಕಥೆಗಾರರು, ಕಾದಂಬರಿಕಾರರು, ಕವಿಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಗಂಭೀರ ಓದುಗರು ವರ್ಷ ತಾವು ಓದಿ ಮೆಚ್ಚಿದ ಎರಡು ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪುಟ್ಟ ಟಿಪ್ಪಣಿ ನೀಡಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತೆ, ಲೇಖಕಿ ಚೈತ್ರಾ ಅರ್ಜುನಪುರಿ ಆಯ್ಕೆಗಳು ಹೀಗಿವೆ.


ಕೃ: Girls of Riyadh (ಕಾದಂಬರಿ)

ಲೇ : ರಾಜಾ ಅಲ್ -ಸನೆ

ಪ್ರ: ಫಿಗ್ ಟ್ರೀ 

ಸೌದಿ ಅರೇಬಿಯಾದಸೆಕ್ಸ್ ಅಂಡ್ ದಿ ಸಿಟಿಆವೃತ್ತಿ ಎನಿಸುವ ರಾಜಾ ಅಲ್-ಸನೆಯ ಅವರಗರ್ಲ್ಸ್ ಆಫ್ ರಿಯಾದ್’ (2005) ಅರೇಬಿಕ್ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಕಟವಾದಾಗ ಸೌದಿ ಅರೇಬಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಷ್ಟರ ಮಟ್ಟಿಗೆ ಕೋಲಾಹಲಕ್ಕೆ ಕಾರಣವಾಗಿತ್ತೆಂದರೆ ದೇಶದಲ್ಲಿ ಪುಸ್ತಕವನ್ನು ನಿಷೇಧಿಸಲಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಗಮ್ರಾಹ್, ಸದೀಮ್, ಮಾಶೇಲ್ ಅಕಾ ಮಿಷೆಲ್ ಮತ್ತು ಲಮೀಸ್ ಎನ್ನುವ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಮೇಲ್ವರ್ಗದ ಗೆಳತಿಯರು ತಮ್ಮ ವೈಯಕ್ತಿಕ ಹೋರಾಟಗಳ ಮೂಲಕ ಹೊರ ಪ್ರಪಂಚದಿಂದ ಮರೆಮಾಚಲ್ಪಟ್ಟ ಅರಬ್ ಸಮಾಜದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಅಭೂತಪೂರ್ವ ಒಳನೋಟ ನೀಡುತ್ತಾರೆ.

ಸಂಪ್ರದಾಯವಾದಿ ಸಮಾಜದಲ್ಲಿ ಪುರಷರ ಪ್ರಾಬಲ್ಯದಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ವಾಸಿಸುವ ಮಹಿಳೆಯರಿಗೂ ಬದುಕು ಹೀಗೆಯೇ ಇರಬೇಕೆನ್ನುವ ನೂರಾರು ಆಸೆ-ಕನಸುಗಳಿವೆ, ಯೋಜನೆಗಳಿವೆ. ಇತರರ ಹಾಗೆ ಅವರೂ ಪ್ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬೀಳುತ್ತಾರೆ, ಏಳುತ್ತಾರೆ. ನಿಟ್ಟಿನಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಶ್ವಾದ್ಯಂತ ಪ್ರಯಾಣಿಸುವ ಇವರು ಪಾಶ್ಚಾತ್ಯ ಸಮಾಜ ಮತ್ತು ತಮ್ಮ ದೇಶದ ನಡುವೆ ತಮ್ಮದೇ ಸ್ಥಾನ ಕಂಡುಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಾರೆ.


ಇದೊಂದು ರೊಮ್ಯಾಂಟಿಕ್ ಕಾದಂಬರಿಯಾದರೂ, ಬೇರೆ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಕಥೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಬರುವ ಗಂಡು-ಹೆಣ್ಣಿನ ಪ್ರಣಯ ಕಥೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ . ಎಷ್ಟೇ ಓದಿರಲಿ ಮದುವೆ ನಿರ್ಧಾರ ಮಾಡುವುದು ತಾಯಂದಿರೇ. ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಹುಡುಗನ ಅಥವಾ ಹುಡುಗಿಯ ಒಪ್ಪಿಗೆಯನ್ನಾಗಲಿ, ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯವನ್ನಾಗಲಿ ಕೇಳುವುದಿಲ್ಲ


ಮಹಿಳೆಯರ ಜೀವನ ಸುತ್ತುವುದೇ ಮದುವೆ, ಗಂಡನ ಸುತ್ತ, ಅದು ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ ಬೇರೆ ಆಯ್ಕೆಗಳಿಲ್ಲ. ಪುರಷರೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮಾತುಕತೆಯಾಡಲೂ ಮಹಿಳೆಯರು ತಮ್ಮ ಕಂಪ್ಯೂಟರ್ ಮತ್ತು ಸ್ಮಾರ್ಟ್ ಫೋನ್ ಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆ ಅಡಗಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು. ಪುರುಷರ ನಿರೀಕ್ಷೆಗಳ ಚಕ್ರವ್ಯೂಹವನ್ನು ಬೇಧಿಸುತ್ತಲೇ ಸಾಮಾಜಿಕ ಮತ್ತು ಕೌಟುಂಬಿಕ ನಿರೀಕ್ಷೆಗಳನ್ನೂ ಕಾಪಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು.


ವಿಚ್ಛೇದಿತ ಮಹಿಳೆಯನ್ನು ಸಮಾಜ ನೋಡುವ, ನಡೆಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ರೀತಿ, ಬಹುಪತ್ನಿತ್ವ ಹೊಂದಿರುವ ಪುರುಷರು, ಮಂಗಳಮುಖಿ ಎನ್ನುವ ಲಿಂಗಕ್ಕೆ ಅವಕಾಶವೇ ಕೊಡದ ಸಮಾಜ, ಶಿಯಾ ಮತ್ತು ಸುನ್ನಿಗಳ ನಡುವಿನ ಕಲಹಗಳು, ಹೀಗೆ ಹತ್ತು ಹಲವು ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊರ ಜಗತ್ತಿಗೆ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಪರಿಚಯ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಡುತ್ತದೆ.


ಕೃ:  The Girl Who Fell to Earth  (ಆತ್ಮಚರಿತ್ರೆ)

ಲೇ: ಸೋಫಿಯಾ ಅಲ್ ಮರಿಯಾ

ಪ್ರ: ಹಾರ್ಪರ್ ಕೊಲಿನ್ಸ್

ಸೋಫಿಯಾ ಅಲ್-ಮರಿಯಾ ಬರೆದ ಆತ್ಮಚರಿತ್ರೆದಿ ಗರ್ಲ್ ಹೂ ಫೆಲ್ ಟು ಅರ್ಥ್: ಮೆಮೊಯಿರ್’ (2012)ನಲ್ಲಿ ಸಫಿಯಾ ಅಕಾ ಸೋಫಿಯಾ ಕತಾರಿನಲ್ಲಿರುವ ತನ್ನ ಬೆದೋಯಿನ್ ತಂದೆ ಮತ್ತು ಅಮೆರಿಕಾದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಅಮೆರಿಕನ್ ತಾಯಿಯ ಕುಟುಂಬಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಬೆಳಕು ಚೆಲ್ಲುತ್ತಾಳೆ


ಅಮೆರಿಕಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಸೋಫಿಯಾ ಆಗಿ, ಕತಾರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸಫಿಯಾ ಆಗಿ ಎರಡು ಖಂಡಗಳು, ಎರಡು ದೇಶಗಳು, ಎರಡು ಕುಟುಂಬಗಳು, ಎರಡು ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿಗಳು ಮತ್ತು ಎರಡು ಪ್ರಪಂಚಗಳ ನಡುವೆ ತನ್ನ ಅಲೆಮಾರಿ ಜೀವನಶೈಲಿಗೆ ಹೊಂದಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಹೆಣಗಾಡುತ್ತಲೇ ಸೋಫಿಯಾ ಎಲ್ಲೋ ಕಳೆದು ಹೋಗುತ್ತಾಳೆ. ಕೊನೆಗೆ ಎರಡೂ ಪ್ರಪಂಚಗಳು ತನಗೆ ಸರಿ ಹೊಂದುವುದಿಲ್ಲವೆನ್ನುವ ಸತ್ಯವನ್ನು ಕಂಡುಕೊಂಡು, ತನ್ನ ಹೆಸರು ಸಫಿಯಾ ಮತ್ತು ಸೋಫಿಯಾ, ಅಥವಾ ಎರಡರಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾವುದೋ ಒಂದು ಎನ್ನುವುದನ್ನು ಒಪ್ಪಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಾಳೆ.


ಹನ್ನೆರೆಡು ವರ್ಷದ ಅಮೇರಿಕನ್-ಬೆದೋಯಿನ್ ಹುಡುಗಿ ಒಳಗಿದ್ದೂ ಹೊರಗಿನವಳ ಹಾಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲವನ್ನೂ ಸೂಕ್ಷ್ಮವಾಗಿ ಗಮನಿಸಿ ವಿವರಿಸಿರುವುದರಿಂದ ಆತ್ಮಚರಿತ್ರೆ ಅನನ್ಯವೆನಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತದೆ. ಎರಡು ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣ ವಿಭಿನ್ನ ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿಗಳ ಅಡಕತ್ತರಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಲುಕಿದಾಗ ನಲುಗುವ ಮಕ್ಕಳ ಮನಸ್ಥಿತಿ, ಪೂರ್ವ ಮತ್ತು ಪಶ್ಚಿಮದ ಬದುಕಿನ ನಡುವಿರುವ ಕಂದರ ಎಷ್ಟು ಆಳವೆನ್ನುವುದು ಅರಿವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.


ಅರಬರ ಜೀವನಶೈಲಿಗೆ ಹೊಂದಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಸೋಫಿಯಾಳ ತಾಯಿ ಗೇಲ್ ಕಷ್ಟ ಪಡುತ್ತಿರುವಾಗಲೇ, ಅವಳ ತಂದೆ ಮತರ್ ತನ್ನ ಎರಡನೇ ಹೆಂಡತಿ ಮತ್ತು ಮಗನೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮನೆಗೆ ಬರುವುದನ್ನು ಕಂಡಾಗ, ಅಮೇರಿಕನ್ ತಾಯಿಯನ್ನು ಧಿಕ್ಕರಿಸಿ ಬೆದೋಯಿನ್ ಅಜ್ಜಿಯ ಮನೆಗೆಬರುವ, ಅರಬ್ ಮಲತಾಯಿಯನ್ನು ಒಪ್ಪಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಬಾಲಕಿ ಸೋಫಿಯಾಳ ಗೊಂದಲ ಅರ್ಥವಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಪತಿಯನ್ನು, ಅವನಿದ್ದ ದೇಶವನ್ನು ತೊರೆದರೂ, ಅಮೆರಿಕಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಅವನ ಧರ್ಮ, ಆಚಾರ-ವಿಚಾರಗಳನ್ನು ಕಟ್ಟುನಿಟ್ಟಾಗಿ ತನ್ನ ಹೆಣ್ಣು ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೂ ಕಲಿಸುವ ಗೇಲ್ ನಿಲುವು ಕಸಿವಿಸಿಯನ್ನುಂಟು ಮಾಡುತ್ತದೆ.


ಕತಾರ್ ಬೆದೋಯಿನ್ ಜನರ ಅಲೆಮಾರಿ ಜೀವನಶೈಲಿ, ಅವರ ವೈವಾಹಿಕ ಬದುಕು, ಬಹುಪತ್ನಿತ್ವ, ಹುಡುಗಿಯರ ವಿದ್ಯಾಭ್ಯಾಸ, ಮದುವೆ, ಪ್ರೀತಿ-ಪ್ರೇಮ, ಬಡತನ, ಅರಬರ ಸಂಸ್ಕೃತಿ, ಆಚಾರ-ವಿಚಾರಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ಹೊಸದಾಗಿ ತೈಲ ಆವಿಷ್ಕಾರವಾದಾಗ ಅದೇ ತಾನೆ ಬೆಳೆಯಲು ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಿದ ಕತಾರ್ ರಾಜಧಾನಿ ದೋಹಾ, ಅದರ ಸುತ್ತ ಮುತ್ತಲಿನ ಪ್ರದೇಶಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಆತ್ಮಚರಿತ್ರೆ ಸಾಕಷ್ಟು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ನೀಡುತ್ತದೆ.


(Source: TV9 Kannada)