Photo by Macnolete and used under a Creative Commons license.

Although the influence of climate change on desertification has not been fully understood yet, according to GreenFacts, it is known that higher temperatures resulting from increased carbon dioxide levels can have a negative impact through increased loss of water from soil and reduced rainfall in drylands. At the same time desertification contributes to climate change by releasing to the atmosphere carbon stored in dryland vegetation and soils.

Desertification is taking its toll worldwide. At this moment it’s destroying harvests, driving up the price of remaining food, and in some areas, animals are dying. People are also being driven away from their homes, as blogger Miguel Angel Alvarado from El Salvador explains about the president’s home needing to be moved because of desertification [es]:

El traslado de casa presidencial, del Barrio san Jacinto al local en donde estaba el Ministerio de Relaciones exteriores, según informes extrajudiciales, obedece a la prevención del ejecutivo ante un posible hundimiento del suelo generado por cárcavas en este sector.

The most affected continent is Africa, and this can be seen especially in Kenya, where one of the most susceptible sectors to the effects of desertification and drought are young girls. When the water storage tanks have been used up at Dago Dala Hera orphanage in western Kenya, volunteer mothers and children have to draw unclean water from a nearby river for cooking and drinking. “Going to the river alone late in the evening is making girls more vulnerable to men who can sexually abuse them,” said Edwin Odoyo, whose mother Pamela founded the orphanage.

Even though desertification has its greatest impact in Africa, Latin America’s environmental conditions are also undergoing significant transformations, as discussed recently in the Ninth session of the Conference to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Italian expert Massimo Candelori, representative of the Convention to Combat Desertification, said in an interview with Tierramerica that the situation in Latin America is worrisome considering that there is not enough information about desertification’s scope in the region. “We have no current data. One of the goals discussed during the ninth session was to get indicators that allow us to better understand the situation….the last data we have is from ten years ago” said Candelori.

In Latin American countries where farming and cattle are one of the main sectors of the economy, desertification can be a silent, but dreadful predator. At least 25 percent of the regional territory is already degraded and the population is increasingly becoming concerned about this, as it is reflected in various blogs.

Eco Briefings [pt], a Brazilian blog, points out that Brazilians in the Northeastern region are witnessing an alarming expansion of desertification[pt]:

Mais um alerta está ligado. Temos pouco tempo para corrigir as coisas. (…)

No Brasil a desertificação tem avançado na caatinga, e zonas do polígono da seca no Nordeste e Norte de Minas Gerais, e também em Estados que antes não tinham áreas secas ou desertificadas como o Rio Grande do Sul. O Rio Amazonas viveu já uma grande seca a pouco tempo, grande com mortandade de peixes.

Argentina has several areas affected as well. In the region of Valles Aridos, in the Northeast, where the main economic activity is sheep raising, it is stipulated that during the last 100 years at least 180 thousand people had to emigrate [es] (.pdf format). Southern Argentina has not escaped desertification either. Blogger Ailen Romero, comments on the blog Geoperspectivas [es] that in the Patagonia region, the government actions to combat desertification are not enough:

En la Patagonia, la amplitud del problema es de tal magnitud que ha comenzado a adquirir estado público. Pocos ignoran el tema, pero pocos tienen la posibilidad de actuar de alguna forma o con el conocimiento para hacerlo. El problema de la desertificación en el caso de la Patagonia supera a los planes que se han elaborado para combatirlo. Es por eso que no deben ahorrarse esfuerzos, ni limitar la imaginación de soluciones alternativas.”Si la geografía es la manifestación de la sociedad en el espacio físico, un espacio físico deteriorado refleja una sociedad deteriorada” afirman del Valle y Coronato(investigadores del Centro Nacional Patagónico)

In Chile, where 62% of the national territory is already affected by desertification [es], blogger Alfredo Erlwein expressed concern on the blog El Ciudadano [es] (The Citizen) on how little knowledge citizens have about desertification.

Efectivamente la desertificación es el problema ambiental más grave de Chile y muy poco conocido. Existen grandes zonas, como en la costa de la octava región, donde la erosión severa supera el 50% de la superficie: esto es que literalmente más de la mitad de los suelos se ha perdido por completo. En esas zonas se encuentran cárcavas de más de 50 metros de profundidad. Una tasa normal de formación de suelo puede ser de 0.2 cm por año, lo que evidencia la gravedad del asunto.

According to Italian expert Candelori, using soil in the carbon market will help fighting desertification; this can be decided during the Copenhagen conference. The countdown to Copenhagen has begun and the world awaits it.

Do all pregnant women deserve equal human rights, or do pregnant women in prison forfeit those rights?

There are a few questions that come to mind regarding a pregnant woman's right to live and to raise her child when she has been convicted for some sort of crime:

• What is it like for them to be pregnant and have their child behind bars?
• Should they be a priority when there are other women outside of correctional facilities without medical assistance?
• Should maternity overrule any other legal conditions to ensure a pregnant woman's human rights?

USA: women in labor no longer to be shackled.

Could you imagine a woman giving childbirth with her hands in handcuffs and her feet shackled to the bedposts? Malika Saada Saar, founder and executive director of the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, tells us about this practice which still happens in the United States of America, where pregnant women serving time have been routinely shackled during labor and childbirth as a common practice in some correctional facilities, even though it is dangerous for the health of both mother and child. Following is a video interview included in the same article written for RH Reality Check, an online community on sexual and reproductive health and rights which does information and analysis for reproductive health:

What happens to an inmate's baby after childbirth?

Different countries have different regulations regarding children in prisons. For example, in Argentina, according to Ajintem, an information portal for migration information, a law was passed last year specifying that pregnant women, women with children younger than 5 and those with handicapped children would benefit from spending their prison term at home under house arrest. This law would benefit not only the mother, who in prison wouldn't receive suitable health care during her pregnancy, but also the child, who would either be raised in an unsafe environment deprived of freedom with deficient health controls and food, or be raised away from the mother, causing another series of problems. However, the message is for magistrates to follow the spirit of the law and grant this permission to those women not involved in violent crimes, to ensure that the rest of the civilian population doesn't see pregnancy as a get out of jail free card.

In the Canary Islands, according to the Prisiones y Penas blog, which writes about the issues surrounding jails and prisons, women are allowed to keep their children of up to 3 years of age with them in their cells, but in the company of other inmates, which isn't the best environment. Thus, pregnant women or women with children under 3 are told upon entry to the prison that it isn't good for the child to grow up behind bars, and options are given for them to send the child off to family members. This is also the case in Peru and Russia. In the US, there are only two correctional facilities which allow for this, in New York and in Nebraska, as told by renowned photographer Jane Evelyn Atwood in her 3 part photo documentary for Amnesty International, called Too Much Time, where she visited dozens of prisons all over the world to record and document the lives of inmates.

Why does the US correctional system not generally allow women with babies to keep them? Atwood explains that due to the hostage situation, it is not allowed. In the Prison Photography Blog they address this claim:

Children are excluded from all but a couple of US prisons. The security threat is cited as the reason: a child inside a prison is a constant vulnerable life and constant hostage target. The claim seems a little bogus when penal systems of other countries are brought into consideration.

The Atwood documentary in the Amnesty International site features both a section on the process of giving birth in shackless as told in Vanessa's Baby and another on prison systems and motherhood, with fotographs of the women while the photographer reads an essay on her experiences visiting the prisons and taking the pictures.

Pregnancy as a bargaining tool?

Why are rights for pregnant women in prison so controversial? In Russia Today, a Russian broadcasting channel, the subject is mentioned when discussing children born and raised in the Russian correctional system:

Skeptics think some mothers deliberately get pregnant simply to ease life in prison. Hospital leave, then lots of scheduled time with your child – it is all better than sitting in a stone cell, they claim.

And there are women for whom it seems that pregnancy is the only way to escape a sentence, as was the case back in June, when a British woman incarcerated and sentenced to death in Laos due to drug smuggling got pregnant in prison and escaped being executed, since the Laos government would not execute a pregnant woman. The claims made according to the Daily Express, a British newspaper, are that she got artificially inseminated “to secure a more lenient term”.

In their words: Women tell of their children and prison life

Geraldin Rodríguez, an Argentinean spending time in an Ecuadorian jail due to drug trafficking tells Marcos Brugiati, a writer who contributes with the art related online publication Plastica-Argentina, the story about acting and performing in jail, getting pregnant in prison and having her child. She was allowed to keep her baby with her, but decided that the child needed to grow up free:

“Decidí que salga para vivir, tenía miedo que sufra de grande los traumas que hoy tengo. Se lo llevó al año mi hermano quien se hice cargo con su esposa”.

Juvinete is in a Spanish prison, and was pregnant when she was incarcerated for drug trafficking. She tells her story to regional Spanish newspaper NorteCastilla. Three years after giving birth to her baby in prison, her child had to leave her side, and was sent to a foster family. Juvinete sees her daughter every 15 days and every two months she gets a 2 week leave to spend time with her. However, things don't seem to be looking up: there is a chance Juvinete will be deported to her natal Brazil, and she fears for the consequences this change would have on her child. She does have advice for any woman who decide to get pregnant while in jail:

-Intento convencerlas para que no se queden en estado dentro porque ver a un niño privado de libertad es muy duro, es irresponsable. Ellos no tienen que pagar nuestros errores.

In Woman and Prison, a website dedicated to visibilizing women's experiences in the correctional system, inmate Kebby Warner speaks of her own pregnancy while doing time in a US prison, and how she was treated during her pregnancy, labor and afterwards, when her child was taken away from her. Here is an excerpt where she writes about the birthing process:

During the labor, no one is allowed in the delivery room. My family didn't even know I was in labor or had her until after I left the hospital. During the three days some of the guards stayed in the room, but most of the time, when the nurses asked them to sit outside the door, they complied. I have heard horror stories of women being chained to the delivery bed. I am so grateful as to have not experienced this. Most of the nurses treated me as a human instead of a prisoner.

You can read more testimonies about growing up with a parent in prison and the different effects incarcerating women may have on their children in Women and Prison.

So what do you think? With pregnant women around the world not receiving health care of any sort, should additional efforts be made to benefit women who are in prison? Is there a difference between mothers serving terms in correctional facilities and those outside? Should they be treated differently?

Image used to illustrate post is “17 de noviembre” by daquella manera.

Babygate: trafficking children to cover demand

Malinda, an adoptive mother of two Chinese girls,  writes in her blog Adoption Talk about the lengths some corrupt individuals are going to ensure the steady flow of adoptable babies to people able to pay the pricey adoption fees. In her post Adoption Corruption: Trafficking in the news she highlights recent cases in Cameroon, where children are kidnapped in order to be placed for adoption; Korea, where young parents put their baby on sale on the Internet; Guatemala, where the army abducted and sold more than 333 children for adoption and where recently babies and children were put up for adoption without parental consent; and Ethiopia, where unregulated agencies are convincing families to give their children up for adoption, promising them the children will later return to them or that the agency will help support the remainder of the family. Similar cases have been seen in numerous other countries.

Mothers coming together to secure their human rights

Some adoptive mothers do what they can to ensure one woman's right to motherhood doesn't go against the reproductive rights of another mother.

One such option is open adoptions, a sometimes controversial decision where the child remains in contact with the birth mother and is aware that due to other circumstances, she wasn't able to take care of them.

One woman in the United States, Leigh, writes a blog called Open Adoption Round Table about the challenges of giving her child up for adoption in a semi-open arrangement.

Another blogger and writer Dawn Friedman tells a story in her blog from the opposite perspective of adopting her daughter, Madison, while keeping an open line of communication with the birth mother. Friedman is also an activist for adoption reform in the United States. She believes pregnancy counseling in unplanned pregnancies too easily pushes women towards giving up their babies for adoption without informing them adequately of how difficult it is. Friedman also recommends that the process of adoption counseling should include a post-labor session where women are accompanied through the decision making process and advised of their rights and possibilities after giving birth, in case they are having second thoughts or have additional concerns.

Birth mothers

Lorraine Dusky in the United States, who runs the Birth Mother, First Mother Forum had medical history that made her think that birth control pills she took during pregnancy could have affected the child she placed in adoption, but when she tried to contact the adoptive family through the agency to let them know, they refused to send over the information.

She relinquished her child with no particular coercion, but the laws for “closed records” in adoptions may have cost her daughter's life.

But what about natural mothers in developing countries? Where are their voices? Some of them have written letters to the children they've placed for adoption, as Pam Conell of families.com tells us in her book review of I Wish for You a Beautiful Life: Letters from the Korean birthmothers of Ae Ran Won.

Others are telling their stories through documentaries, or after being reunited with their natural children. And there are some others who tell of women who don't regret giving their children up for adoption, considering it was the best alternative. However some women, like  Malinda in the USA,  adoptive parent of Chinese Girls who writes AdoptionTalk believes that these last representations have to be taken with a grain of salt:

These representations of foreign birth mothers allow us to divorce ourselves from the experience of these birth mothers, to minimize their pain, and to justify how much better off our children are with us than with them.

The Voices of the Adopted:

Mary Grace in China by endbradley

The voices of the adoptees are as varied as any of the other parts of the adoption triad. But in general they share some points of view in common: The desire to know about their origins and the reason for their adoption and the hope that their birth mothers made an informed decision to part with them.  They also believe in the right to know their history if they choose, to know about their adoptee status from early on and have it acknowledged as part of their identity.

For example Susan from ReadingWritingLiving, an adult adoptee born in the 1960's, identified with TV drama Mad Men, particularly in their portrayal of adoptions in that time period, where women hid their shameful unwanted pregnancies until giving birth and how adopted children where seen as discards. She sums it up in her post Mad Men: A Window into my Own Past

Yes, it was painful to hear this but also WILDLY refreshing to have someone just come out and SAY it.

In the I am adopted [es]blog in Spanish, David Azcona writes about his difficult childhood, adoption at the age of 6 and the instability and inability to bond with people [es] he's felt since. It is also a place for other adoptees to post their adoption stories, and to share their experiences. In the comment threads of his about page, stories about apropriated babies [es] with no knowledge of their birth parents, twins separated at birth[es] by nurses who told parents one of the babies had died[es] and requests from birth mothers trying to contact their children as well as the other way around.

An adoptee answers a question asked on a website regarding love between adoptees and adoptive parents:

I was adopted as a baby by the two most loving, caring and supportive parents a child and young adult could ever wish for. I also have a younger adopted brother.

I don't think my biological parents could have loved me more than my adoptive ones.

Other adoptees with similar experiences chime in, some with relationships with both natural parents and adoptive parents and others who have only known their adoptive families. In this particular thread, the experiences are overwhelmingly positive towards adoption.

Some adoptees advocate against adoption. Lost Letters, an adoptee herself who writes in the Anti-Adoption livejournal community believes that instead of using so much money to aid in adoption processes and fees, it should be spent in improving the conditions of the birth parents so they can take care of their family. She adds:

I understand that my actual position on adoption is going to piss people off because people want to believe that adoption is a win/win/win situation for everyone, because people think that middle class white women deserve children no matter what, because people think that our western society is so wonderful that all children should be bought up here.

AmyAdoptee who posts in the Adult Adoptees Advocating for Change forum writes:

The adoption industry intentionally pits us against each other.  We are letting them do it.  In fact, the adoption industry gets a wonderful kick out of this.  Here is an article that supports generally our point of view but they ask that we refrain from attacking adoptive parents.  There is nothing wrong with a healthy discourse.

PhilM, in the same forum thread discussing how adoptive parents perceive them, clarifies:

I’m angry at a society that ignores the problems of adoption, and the harm it causes. I’m angry that when I try to talk about these things, I am marginalized and dismissed with comments along the lines of “well, everyone experiences it differently” and “most adoptees I know love their adoptive parents” and others. I am angry that, because I speak out about adoption, people question my love for my adoptive family. And, I admit, I get angry when individuals parrot these messages.

I don’t need a lecture for how to behave in dialogue. I need people willing to engage in it.

The way forward

As with any delicate issue, it touches a sensitive chord for all those involved: adoptive mothers, birth mothers and adopted children. However, it seems they all meet and agree on one important point: Transparency in the adoption process is vital to safeguard the human rights for the mothers and the children, and discussing adoption openly encourages transparency.

EDITED TO ADD:

We have removed a reference to a blogger who didn't wish to be quoted or mentioned in this post. To her, our apologies, it was in no way our intention to infringe on her or offend, but to provide a multiplicity of visions regarding a sensible subject.

Photo of gathering of those that support the new media law by Beatrice Murch and used under a Creative Commons license.

During the debate of the law, there was a lot of controversy going on at the radio and television stations. The main media group in the country, Clarin, which must let go a number of television channels, radio and a percentage of cable subscribers, provided completely negative coverage of the law and other media did the same. However, despite the discussions in the media, there were no massive protests in the streets, which was the scenario that took place during the debate for the raise of agricultural taxes in 2008. In the end, the government achieved an easy victory in the Senate. After December 10, the Congress will be renewed and the current Executive Branch will lose majority in both chambers of Congress.

At the blog Aristotelizar [es], they focus on the proccess of approval of the law in the Congress:

El tratamiento de la ley de medios arroja nuevas luces sobre el modo de gobernar del matrimonio presidencial que continúa erosionando la ya escasa credibilidad de las instituciones. Esta es una ley arcaica que se nutre del ideario del primer peronismo, a pesar de que el mundo ha cambiado y mucho, desde entonces.

At Nanopoder [es] blog, they forecast an extensive series of consequences, all bad, of the application of the law. There are also negative views of the new media law (or its treatment in the Congress, at least) at Un Alumno Diferente [es], El Atrilero [es], and El Observatorio Político [es].

On the side of those who see the approval of this law as something positive, Al Centro y Adentro [es] states:

La instalación del debate sobre una nueva ley de medios audiovisuales en el parlamento tuvo otro efecto en la población. Las franjas más progresistas de la población acompañaron, militándolo, el proyecto de ley que envió el Poder Ejecutivo al Legislativo. Esta vez la centroizquierda y casi todo el campo popular apoyaron la iniciativa del Gobierno (…). Las élites dominantes no pudieron imponer sus intereses particulares (…) en contra de la voluntad general.

More positive texts about this law can be found at Francisco José Bessone's blog [es], Arte y Brujería [es], Sin Zonceras [es], and Fin del Capitalismo ¿Salvaje? [es].

There was a long exchange of opinions at Twitter, which could be followed through the hashtags #leydemedios [es] and #leymedios [es] (media law).

Photo by Basilievich and used under a Creative Commons license.

As expected, many blogs wrote about the singer's death. The large majority published videos or songs, as a way to pay homage. Other wrote short descriptions about the sadness of the day. For example, in the blog La Cocina Plural [es], Tomy writes:

Tus acciones, tus palabras, tus canciones y tu voz despertaron alguna conciencia social…( algunas siguen dormidas), te echaremos de menos para siempre, que descanses allí donde estés

Mourning waiting in line to pay their respects to Mercedes Sosa. Photo by blmurch and used under a Creative Commons license.

Other blogs wrote short summaries of what happened on the day of her death. The blog La Carabina [es] writes that:

desde que se conoció su muerte (producida en la madrugada del domingo), sus admiradores han guardado pacientemente horas de fila para acceder al velatorio organizado en el salón de los Pasos Perdidos del Congreso, un honor sólo reservado para las más importantes personalidades políticas y culturales.

The singer's official website received a large number of messages before and after her death, due to the progressively worsening in her health condition. Fans also shared their condolences through Mercedes Sosa's Facebook page [es].

According to the sponsors of the measure, they want to create more jobs in Tierra del Fuego and to encourage the local manufacturing of a wide range of products. However, the reaction in the blogs was quick, and in general, the reactions condemn the preliminary approval. In the blog Denken Uber [es], Mariano Amartino wonders:

¿No es este otro más de los impuestos regresivos que existen en este país? Una persona de clase media o alta accede a una notebook de u$s2000 sin pagar tasas extras pero alguien que apenas puede pagar un clon de u$s500 para tener su primer PC debe pagar un 30% más. Si buscamos crear una “economía de la información”… gravar con un 30% además del casi 50% de impuestos que ya tienen y encima con un peso argentino débil ¿no es evitar que la base de la pirámide social acceda a las herramientas que tienen más posibilidades de sacarlos de la pobreza?

Another blog that was created to oppose the proposed measure, No al impuestazo! [es] (No to the Tax Hike!) and it also encourages the use of the hashtag #noalimpuestazo on Twitter. In addition, Fabio Baccaglioni of Fabio.com.ar [es] writes:

lo preocupante del caso es que la urgencia por generar ingresos para las arcas estatales nos va a jugar gravemente en contra como país

This is something that Roger Schultz of eLaws [es] adds:

en un país donde la barrera cambiaria (3.80 a 1) mas el arancel impositivo vigente cercano al 50% IVA e ingresos brutos, antes de este aumento Argentina ya era el país de Sudamérica más caro para comprar tecnología

The negative opinions went further than the blogs and there have now been campaigns on YouTube, such as the one started by journalist Federico Aikawa [es]:

There are also campaigns on Facebook, such as the Cause: No to the Technological Tax Hike [es] and the group “My Mobile Phone is not a Luxury Object [es]“

On the other hand, Gabriel Carol of the blog Patria Sí, Colonia No [es], there is support for the preliminary approval and he writes:

Por 136 votos contra 61, la Cámara de Diputados aprobó el proyecto de ley que aplica gravámenes impositivos a los productos electrónicos importados y establece una reducción tributaria a los fabricados en Tierra del Fuego, y que posibilitará el desarrollo de un polo tecnológico en la provincia y la preservación de los puestos de trabajo en el sector.

The legal actions has forced the blog to close claiming that the blog had been infringing on a registered trademark. The blog is now closed, at least temporarily, due to the possibility of facing a fine or other economic sanction handed down by the Argentine justice system. However, many Argentine bloggers think that there is another reason for the legal actions.

According to the creators of the blog What's the Matter Clarín? [es], they main page states, because the rest of the content is offline “because of the legal actions started against the blog by one of the companies that make up the Clarín Group and they are forced to limit access to all of the content produced over the past three months.”

According to the blog ALT1040 [es], “The (Clarín) Group argues for the closing of the blog because the word Clarín is a registered trademark and one cannot use it as a domain by third parties. The underlying reason is to silence a journalist critical of them.” In the blog Mundo Perverso [es], Diego F. writes:

La cuestión es que la gente del pequeño y mediano monopolio ha decidido llevar un paso más allá el embate contra los blogs y ahora luego de aprietes e intimaciones judiciales obligaron a dar de baja el sitio. Así como lo leen: un hecho de censura consumado. Utilizando su poder económico y sus equipos de abogados se la agarraron contra los que denunciamos sus tropelías.

Those who were behind the Qué Te Pasa Clarín? site opened a new blog called Guotpasshornet [es] that has been collecting the repercussions from the case, as well as links to other sites that have been writing about the topic. A long list has already been compiled and more being added each day.

The blog's name comes from a reference to the poor relationship between the Argentine government and the Clarín Group. The phrase, “What's the Matter Clarín, Are You Nervous?” was said by ex-President Néstor Kirchner during a speech in which he voiced his displeasure with the coverage provided by the Clarín newspaper of the government of his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.