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Argentina: Bulimia and anorexia, the human body under tyranny

By Norma Loto

Buenos Aires.- Worshipping a slim body as the symbol of beauty and perfection has become a tyranny in Argentina. It is putting people farther away from good health standards.

Estimates show that the Argentineans have spent over 20 million pesos (6.4 million dollars) on slim products in the last few years. Among this huge amount of consumers, there are people suffering from bulimia and anorexia.

The Association against Bulimia and Anorexia defines these two diseases as the most commonly seen eating habits disorders. Although the definition has to do with this habit, it is not directly related to food. The cause of these diseases is to be found in fear to live and grow.

The most evident symptoms are connected with a refusal to keep the body weight in line with age and size.

Anorexia sufferers tend to lose many pounds, while bulimia patients usually have the so-called blowouts. This compulsive relation to food does not always lead to slimming, the Association stressed.

World Health Organization data reveal that bulimia and anorexia mortality rates stand at 15 percent, and that women make up 90 percent of overall patients.

One every 10 youngsters is suffering from one of these diseases in the country, while malnutrition is the main cause of death due to these pathologies, the Association indicated.

"Both affect all social classes and races, although privileged classes are more likely to experience cultural pressure and often dream about perfect bodies, Dr. Mabel Bello, the Association director", told WFS.

WFS talked with this specialist about the factors leading to these diseases. "There are multiple causes. One of the most important reasons behind them is family dispersion, which makes young people feel unsafe and uncertain", Bello said.

"Our society and culture give no choice to youth. They face growing difficulties and succumb to social pressure. These pathologies are typical of our times and have to do with excessively individualistic attitudes, no values and consumerism", she added.

The extremely slim body ideal has become a tyranny. The sizes for clothes are shrinking and those who used to wear a 36 should probably wear a 40 today, depending on the trademark. So, wearing the traditional, standardized size clothes requires losing some weight.

Under this tyranny, the major dictators include the mirror and the fashion manager. Some weeks ago, press reports announced a controversial decision by CEOs at Cibeles catwalk in Madrid: they will not accept models with body mass indexes below 18.

Some days later, the audience at the famous Buenos Aires Fashion catwalk was horrified to see skeleton-like women wearing the new season outfit.

Some girls believe that it is easier to stop eating than doing physical exercises, international model Rosana Zarecki told Perfil weekly newspaper.

Last year, the legislative power in the province of Buenos Aires adopted the so-called Size Law establishing that shops selling women clothes must have all sizes in centimeters (anthropometric measurement).

The idea is to leave behind the American marking (small S, medium M and large L) and impose fines on those failing to comply with the legislation, or close their businesses for up to five days.

"I think this law is perfectible. It is good to regulate and provide consumers with appropriate size information. I do not agree, however, with punishing outfitters. The best thing would be to grant some prize to manufacturers complying with it and meeting social commitment", Bello stressed.

Solidarity: Tsunamika arrives in Mexico from India

By Sara Lovera

Mexico City.– Small rag dolls can help change the lives of 5,000 women who became widows due to December 26, 2004 tsunami. You just have to know they exist and buy them.

It is a global solidarity action seeking to build bridges and promote conscious, sustainable and respectful cooperation and respect for women’s dignity and value.

Widowhood has led them to a life and identity crisis that is compounded by economic burden, institutional abandonment, emotional vulnerability and broken balance, all of which holds a sword over their heads. The statement was made by Esther Moncarz, an Argentinean psychologist specialized in mourning.

This initiative changed the life of Evelyn Josafat Molina, a Mexican journalist living in downtown Veracruz, 450 kilometers east of the capital.

She is a member of MUCEI, a gender-conscious press organization related to the Tsunamika Project.

"The rag doll is a symbol of life. As its name indicates, it is the daughter of tsunami, the recollection of it", she told WFS.

"These dolls are hand-made by women who live close to the sea, whose lives changed forever after the disaster. They are exploring a new way of life to further grow and do something new", she added.

An overview

Evelyn went to India in 2003 and met several women. Shortly after the tsunami, she sent a small grant to a family living in Chenai, a southern Indian port across Sri Lanka.

"They sent me 50 small hand-made dolls first, and another 100 later. I distributed them in town. They have kept on sending. I can not imagine how they are able to make so many. Hundreds of women should be working day and night, I guess. I am trying to sell these dolls in an act of solidarity", she told WFS.

Uma Prajapati, a young designer, came up with the idea to help widows in Auroville, a village close to Chenai. She set up a small company for distribution and sale.

"Becoming widow in India means social death, as easy as that. Most of these women are very poor and uneducated. They are exploited", Evelyn stressed.

You can see very wealthy individuals and extremely poor people in India. "Poverty there is different from that in Mexico. Believe me, it is another world", she noted.

"MUCEI is now helping me sell tsunamikas. We are just starting. Tsunamikas are already here and have left an imprint on our lives", Evelyn concluded.

RECUADRO

Emergency contraceptives: moving forward despite controversy

By Norma Loto

Buenos Aires.– The United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently authorized the free sale of the emergency contraceptive pill to women over 18 years of age.

The decision was adopted after three years of confrontation between conservative groups that say the pill is abortive and other organizations that believe it is contraceptive.

The U.S. has been included on the list of countries where the so-called day-after pill is available, despite Catholic Church opposition.

Developed in the 1970s, the drug is now available in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, the U.S., Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Trinidad & Tobago, and Uruguay.

According to the Pan American Health Organization, this method is not abortive. It can be used in emergency situations, a few days after having unprotected sex, to avoid unwanted pregnancy.

Doctors do not recommend using it on a regular basis.

In Uruguay, the pill is being freely sold under the trademarks Postinor 2 and Secufem. The local Ministry of Public Health has included it on the list of contraceptive methods that are freely supplied at health-care centers in Montevideo and town hall managed hospitals.

In Peru, Valentín Paniagua’s transition government approved the method in July 2001.

Under a ministerial resolution, the pill began to be freely supplied at public health centers.

Alejandro Toledo’s administration later adopted a more conservative stance, blocking its availability at public services, on the pretext that it was abortive.

The sale was not forbidden, however. In late 2001, the General Pharmaceutical and Drug Administration approved the sale of Farmage Laboratory Postinor 2. In December 2003, expert consultations were held and a decision was made to provide for free distribution again.

This move was later supported by Pilar Mazzetti, former Health minister now in charge of the Interior portfolio. She managed to incorporate the drug in the National Guide for Comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health Care, and the Technical Family Planning Standards.

In August 2005, the Peruvian NGO Action against Corruption and Doubtful Compromise took the Health Ministry to court to press it into stopping free pill distribution. The court ruling was against the health Ministry and asked it to refrain from supplying the pill and inform the population of its scope and effects.

The government agency made an appeal and is still awaiting the final verdict. It has continued distributing the pill, however, through its health care facilities, within the established legal framework.

In Argentina, pill use is on the upswing, as is controversy. In Mendoza, La Pampa, Río Negro, Neuquén and Chubut provinces and Buenos Aires and Rosario cities, the pill is being freely supplied under a National Program on Sexual Health and Responsible Procreation.

The pill was introduced in the country in 2002, when the Cordoba-based civil organization Bethlehem Gate was successful in its efforts to make the Ministry of Justice ban the production and sale of Inmediat N by Gador Laboratory. The ruling indicated that it was abortive and, therefore, unconstitutional.

The decree included only this trademark. The pill has thus been sold under the names of Norgestrel Max (Biotenk Laboratory) and Segurite (Raffo Laboratory), upon medical prescription. Many pharmacies are selling it freely.

"I did not know of this method. I knew about it because of Bethlehem Gate’s claim. I asked my gynecologist and she prescribed it to me some days later. I took it two days after having had sex and I had my menstruation as usual", Elizabeth L. told WFS.

"I should say this was the most hoped-for menstruation in my life. Ironically enough, I knew of the product due to a claim", she added.

The Catholic Church sent a San Justo Bishop Carlos Martini’s letter to Vice-president Daniel Scioli expressing indignation because the House of Representatives was reviewing a bill to freely supply the pill.

Also sent to the media, the letter indicated that the manufacturing laboratory had recognized that the product causes endometrial changes and prevents the fetus from staying alive in the mother’s uterus.

WFS interviewed Dr. Analía Tablado, a gynecologist who is the vice-president of the Argentinean Infant and Juvenile Gynecology Society. "The method immobilizes spermatozoids and prevents them from reaching the ovule. Studies showed that it is not abortive because there is no fertilization. It may fail sometimes. In case a woman gets pregnant, the embryo experiences no sequels", she emphasized.

Página 12 daily newspaper announced that 3,788 pills had been sold in Buenos Aires and 712 in Mendoza in 2004. A total of 608 had been sold in the first four months of 2005 only in Mendoza.

The Latin American Health and Women’s Center (CELSAM) issued a declaration last August 3 indicating that the potential impact of emergency contraception depends on sound, widespread knowledge; extensive, straight-forward counseling; and immediate, appropriate access.

"Both governments and institutions promoting sexual and reproductive rights all over Latin America should be better aware of this method", Dr. Diana Galimberti told WFS. She is a gynecologist at CELSAM.

"They are responsible for pill access and availability. If they fail to supply it, they will be seriously violating human rights", she stated.

RECUADRO

Bolivia: The Palliris

By Liliana Aguirre Flores

La Paz.- Mine women work hard for around ten hours a day, non-stop. They collect, grind and wash mineral rock that leveling machines fail to pulverize.

Known as palliris, which means collectors in Quechua language, they begin working early in the morning, long before the Andean sun rises, and finish very late at night, when low temperatures prevail all over western Bolivia, the area of Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), which has always been said to be rich in mineral ore.

Mining is one of the main income generating sources in the country. Three every five dollars in export earnings come from this business activity.

Most palliris are single women and women supporting their families because their husbands have passed away. Those working inside the mines are never over 40 years of age because they usually get silicosis (mine disease).

This disease is contracted due to exposure to silica-contaminated air, causes nodule growth in lymphatic ganglions and the thorax, and makes breathing difficult. It usually comes along with TB.

As they become widows, the palliris provide the only household support. They have four to seven children each and no formal education or training. They, therefore, have no choice other than doing this work and making some money to buy food every day.

A time bomb

As the palliris have no social security, fixed income or state benefit, they are relegated to marginalization. Before Decree Law No. 21060 was enacted by Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s government in 1997, they had been able to collect the mineral and freely sell it to cooperatives.

The legislation introduced the neoliberal model in Bolivia and has had a negative social and economic impact on palliris. The new laws and system seek to protect the interests of transnational corporations, and exclude and further marginalize the palliris.

They provide cheap labor for mines. They wash the rock with antimony to extract the mineral faster and more effectively.

Antimony is a chemical substance very harmful to human health. Mere contact can cause irreversible damage on sight and skin, respiratory and kidney problems, and even cancer. If dumped in rivers and soils, contaminated water can affect residents in the area and make children lose sight when they are very young.

Cerro Rico in Potosí is still under exploitation. Estimates indicate that opencast mining operations will be undertaken in the next 20 years to extract the mineral ore left.

Those who live and work in this area will in the future have no income generating source available.

This situation will increase poverty, especially among the palliris.

Socially forgotten

When the so-called gas war took place in October 2003, many mine women, including palliris, came to La Paz and faced the government, which had led the country to a crisis situation and sought to hand over national gas resources to transnational corporations without any benefit for the local population.

Demonstrators found repression and violence. Palliri Filomena León was seriously wounded and died of septicemia ten days later.

As many other anonymous heroines, León fought for her country at a critical time.

RECUADRO

Violence: Child prostitution, an aberrant problem

By Norma Loto

Buenos Aires.- Child prostitution poses a problem that many people do not want to see and just a few investigate in depth. Mafia groups, false promises, poverty and sexual tourism are all part and parcel of an aberrant world.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines the use, recruitment and supply of children for prostitution and/or pornography as the worst form of child labor. Mentioning the word labor in this context, however, generates stupor.

ILO estimates show that children and teenagers are the main victims of sexual and labor exploitation. This is a business generating around 12 million dollars a year in profits.

Argentina is being affected by this phenomenon. The International Migration Organization announced last year the existence of an organization supplying children and women from the northwestern and northeastern provinces (Tucumán, Entre Ríos and Jujuy) to the southern cities (Buenos Aires, Rosario and Necochea).

The route is, by no means, accidental. The northern part of the country is being seriously hit by poverty, while southern cities are usually wealthy and have seaports.

According to ILO, the problem is partly created in Misiones, a northeastern province on the Brazil- Paraguay-Argentina border.

Most children forced to engage in prostitution, including sexual tourism, or sent to neighboring countries come from this province.

ILO reports indicated that there are around 3,500 children under sexual exploitation on this border. Many of them are obliged by their own parents or subjected by mafia organizations.

Social groups and state agencies should take legal actions to prevent this type of tourism, Carmen Frías told WFS. She is a specialist in children affairs and the current general director of the victim care and assistance program put together by the local government of Buenos Aires.

Many people think child prostitution occurs only in foreign countries and ignore what is taking place around them, in brothels next door, in neighboring provinces.

On the other hand, the State has adopted a number of measures to prevent and/or eradicate the problem. It has enacted and enforced a law supporting the Protocol on Children Trafficking, Prostitution and Use in Pornography. This legislation complements the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Under the umbrella of the local government of Buenos Aires, the Council on Children and Teenagers’ Rights, the United Nations International Children’s Fund and civil-society organizations launched a comprehensive campaign last year to combat child sexual exploitation.

Under the theme If there are no clients, there is no child prostitution, the campaign sought to prevent, care for and treat victims of this crime.

"There is still a long way to go, however. There are things pending, but women and feminist movements have already made a major contribution: they have reported cases of child sexual exploitation and abuse", Frías added.

"I think there is a legal gap. The State should play a more active role in coping with this problem", she indicated.

The Women's News Service from Latin America and the Caribbean, International News Agency, offers this weekly service. No reproduction without authorization. Any comment o suggestion please contact us: semlac@redsemlac.net