The Magsaysay awardee heroines of Afghanistan and Nepal

(Part II of Their Courage Set Their People Free – Magsaysay Awardees 2013)

Ramon Magsaysay’s fame has far reaching influence among Asians, to rouse their love for country for half a century now. Each year as the Ramon Magsaysay awardees are announced, the Filipino people cannot help but miss “Monching”. For many he was the greatest president the Philippines ever had, not because he was brilliant or populist, but because he honestly believed in the greatness of the Filipinos.

My late husband Max recalled in his September 1, 2004 column: “One day, I was riding in Matorco, the double-decker bus – with the top deck open to the sun – which used to cruise up and down Roxas Boulevard.

“I heard my name being called from below, “Max, Max!” I looked down, and there was Magsaysay, galloping beside the slow-moving bus on a white horse – all by himself. I was so alarmed that I shouted at him: “Mr. President – Monching – for Chrissakes – where are your presidential guards?”

“He grinned and shouted back: “They’re half a kilometer behind me – I outran them!” (Those were simpler times, when the Presidential Guard Battalion was less motorized and more informal – owing to RM’s own happy-go-lucky example.) I called on the bus driver to stop, and clambered down.

“Mr. President, an entire squadron of HMBS, or even an assassin, could ambush you the way you’re going around without protection!” RM laughed and merrily said: “You know me well. You’ve gone into the field with me so many times. When it’s your time, it’s your time. If it’s not, God will protect you.”

Habiba Sarabi, the only female governor in Afghanistan

There are few places in the world where the challenge of governance is as daunting and dangerous as in Afghanistan, a country ravaged by warlordism, civil war, and vicious fundamentalism under the Taliban. Afghanistan is embarked today on a perilous process of democratic state-building and development, widespread poverty and illiteracy, and the expected decline in foreign aid with the impending withdrawal of international forces. It is a place and time when true examples of hope are urgently needed.

One gleaming example is Habiba Sarabi, a 57-year-old doctor and mother of three, who, in a fiercely patriarchal society, is the only female governor in Afghanistan. Sarabi Attended a university in Kabul and studied hematology in India, when the Taliban took power in 1996 and imposed draconian measures on the population, particularly women. Fleeing to Pakistan, she became a teacher and an activist. Organizing together with other Afghan women the Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), she secretly traveled on foot, back and forth across the mountainous Pakistan-Afghan border, to supervise at great personal risk some 80 underground literacy courses in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

In 2003, Sarabi was appointed to head the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and, in 2005, governor of Bamyan, a poor, agricultural province with a population of half a million. Sarabi vigorously pushed her advocacies for public education and women empowerment. Forty-five percent of the 135,000 school children are female. In 2005, there was only one female police officer; there are now 20, and more women are taking up careers that were forbidden in the Taliban regime.

As governor, Sarabi has effectively worked with various stakeholders in road construction and other infrastructure projects, agricultural development and improvement of health facilities and health workers. Recognizing Bamyan’s unique natural, historical, and archeological assets, and their potential for eco-tourism, she pioneered in establishing the 570-kilometer Band-e-Amir National Park, Afghanistan’s first national park.

Sarabi has consistently been assessed by international donor as among the top performers among her peers in local government. In electing Habiba Sarabi to receive the 2013 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her bold exercise of leadership to build up a functioning local government against great odds.

Shakti Samuha, world’s first anti-trafficking organization created by the survivors themselves

estimates indicate that as many as 10,000 women and children are trafficked annually from Nepal to India for prostitution exploitation. The traffic in persons by means of coercion and deception for commercial sex exploitation, forced labor, or slavery, is an alarming global phenomenon. It plagues a country like Nepal, where poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, and the suppression of women’s rights in law and tradition, have fueled the problem.

In 1996, nearly 300 trafficked Nepali girls were rescued in a police raid and in the brothels of Mumbai, India. For six months, they were kept in harsh semi-detention in Mumbai shelters since they could not be immediately repatriated. Nepal’s government refused to accept them since they were seen as “soiled” female minors, and without citizenship papers. Traumatized, stigmatized and disowned by their families, their prospects of reintegration were difficult and dim. A group of these survivors, however, bravely decided that if society and their own families had abandoned them, then they would have to take control of their lives by themselves. Ages 15 to 18, banded themselves into a group they boldly called Shakti Samuha (“Power Group”) – with the aim of empowering trafficking survivors so that they can lead a dignified life. They could not register their organization, being minors and ‘non-citizens,’ until 2000. Shakti Samuha is the world’s first anti-trafficking NGO created and run by trafficking survivors themselves.

In 2004 the group established Shakti Kendra in Kathmandu, a halfway home that has since provided survivors shelter, medical care, counseling, legal aid, education support, skills training, and start-up loans for income-generating activities. Emergency shelter in Pokhara, offered diverse support services for street children, child laborers, and girls at risk, targeting slums and establishments like dance bars, massage parlors, and carpet factories. Organized community based Child Protection Committees, used such media as street theater in their campaign against trafficking and domestic violence.

Pushing the campaign to the policy level, Shakti Samuha partnered with international organizations to develop protocols for repatriation of trafficked victims, significantly influenced the framing of Nepal’s 2007 Human Trafficking Act and the creation of an anti-trafficking unit in the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare. The 500 trafficked women now constitute its membership. Bonded by a common experience, they are relentless in their drive to help themselves and others like them. As one member declares, “Nowadays, I am ready to fight, to argue and debate against threats and stigmatization. We are trafficking survivors, but no less capable than others in society.” They have shown the world in reclaiming the human dignity that is the birthright of all abused women and children everywhere.

Turning tears into power

Concluding the Magsaysay Award 2013 presentation ceremony, the Honorable Ma. Lourdes P.A. Sereno, Chief Justice of the Philippines was somewhat embarrassed, for these days the whole country is dismayed over the “pork barrel” scandal involving our lawmakers. She noted that the times have called many to higher heroism. How she wished such efforts would be sustainable.

She especially extoled the “Shakti Samuha” founders and members for transforming their lives to serve other human trafficking survivors, instead of looking at themselves as victims they converted themselves into fighters willing to offer their lives to protect others. They are not to be blamed. They have “turned their tears into power.” Their radiant examples have shown the world how to reclaim equality, dignity and self respect.

She addressed them, “Thank you all for being here for us to admire.” Then she turned to address the audience, “Laging umasa tayo. Maganda pa rin ang ating kinabukasan.” (Let’s keep hoping. We can still look forward to a bright future.)

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