Winter/Spring 2016 uusc.org
RightsThe newsletter of the NowUnitarian Universalist Service Committee
A PUKAR researcher talks with a community member about children’s health. Innovation in India UUSC fellowship funds community-driven water research By Jessica L. Atcheson
USC launched the inaugural 2015 Action, and Research (PUKAR), based UHuman Rights Innovation Fellowship in Mumbai, India. With the $25,000 to support projects with the potential to fellowship award, PUKAR will conduct a effect systemic change that advances the rapid water survey in Mandala, a slum in human right to water. Chosen out of 43 Mumbai, and will provide residents with applications, the winning proposal came the necessary data to advocate for their from Partners for Urban Knowledge, human right to water. Continued on page 2 In this edition of
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee advances human rights and social Rights Now justice around the world, partnering with those who Cover confront unjust power structures and mobilizing to challenge Innovation in India oppressive policies. UUSC fellowship funds community-driven water research Rights Now Page 5 Winter/Spring 2016 In Their Own Words: Not Any Less Human Editor An interview with Emina Bužinkić Jessica L. Atcheson Design and Production Page 9 Reid Haithcock Thirty-Year Champions for UUSC UUSC bargaining unit employees are represented by Page 10 Human Rights Workers Local 2661, UNITE HERE! The Old Ship Legacy
We Welcome Letters Page 12 Rights Now is grateful to Planned Giving: For Everyone, Always readers for their interest and support. We invite you to share your questions and comments Page 14 by submitting a letter to the Beyond Just Recovery in Haiti editor: [email protected] Exploring how small farmers are cooling the planet Rights Now Editor, UUSC Page 16 689 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139 Turning Learning into Action New Food Justice Activist Network UUSC is supported by individual members, Unitarian Page 18 Universalist congregations, and foundations that share our No Safe Haven Here commitment to building a more UUSC documents traumas of U.S. immigration detention just world.
© 2016 All Rights Reserved
uusc.org [email protected] 617-868-6600 617-868-7102/fax A message from UUSC’s president his will be the last time I write you in Rights T Now because I will be retiring as UUSC president as of June 30, 2016. This winter the UUSC Board will name my successor. It’s been an enormous privilege to serve this organization as CEO since 2010 (and for six years on its board before that). I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished together since 2010. Here are just a few highlights: • Founding the UU College of Social Justice • Making our building certified by the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) program at the platinum level, the highest possible • Earning four stars (the most you can earn) from Charity Navigator for the past four years for transparency and efficient use of funds • Expanding our capacity to do research, file litigation, mobilize online, and assess our impact • Instituting the new Justice-Building Program to help our congregations be more effective agents of change • Raising more than $22 million in our UUSC Rising special gifts campaign
Most of all, I’m proud of how many people we’ve helped.
If one thing has characterized UUSC throughout these years, it has been our willingness to try new approaches to human rights change. This issue of Rights Now describes some of the most recent examples. It’s not that we gratuitously abandon what’s already working, but rather that we see ourselves as incubators of change who seed new projects. Then, if they are successful, we encourage others to support them. UUSC is not a large organization, but it is highly targeted in its strategies and highly effective in its outcomes.
I’m grateful to have been a part of this remarkable enterprise — and I hope you are too!
Bill Schulz
1 Continued from cover
PUKAR and the right to research people not only can do research — they need to do it.” PUKAR is, in its own words, “an PUKAR’s focus on community-driven independent research collective and an research as a tool for advocacy stood urban knowledge production center.” out to UUSC. Amber Moulton, UUSC’s Founded in 2002 to encourage more own researcher, said, “We are thrilled inclusive conversations about urban to support PUKAR and its Rapid Water issues, PUKAR works to make research Survey project. PUKAR’s innovative accessible to all. Its aim: to expand community-based research model access to the knowledge people need to ensures that rights holders are not only make change and contribute to local, at the table — they are the people who national, and global debates about will be shaping water policy.” the issues that affect their lives and In addition to innovative ideas, futures. PUKAR also has a track record that Arjun Appadurai, founder of bodes well for the success of the PUKAR and now president of its fellowship project. Its accomplishments board of trustees, wrote “The Right to are impressive: Research,” a 2006 article in the journal • Trained 3,000 “barefoot Globalisation, Societies and Education. researchers” Anita Patil-Deshmukh, executive • Published two books director of PUKAR, explains: “In that • Engaged with 300 communities essay, he claims that anyone can be a • Mapped more than 50 researcher. It doesn’t only have to be communities the MDs and the PhDs. . . . Common • Reached out to 10,000 people
PUKAR community researchers distribute material to people living in slum communities.
2 • Conducted 300 research projects “Many of our youth had actually • Supported creation of more than stopped going to school because they 100 pieces of audio-video content didn’t have money to pay for the by barefoot researchers schooling. Once they become barefoot researchers and start working with us, What is a barefoot researcher? we reimburse them for their work. They save the money, and many of them PUKAR’s youth fellowship program end up completing their schooling — trains young people from low- and that is the best byproduct of our resource neighborhoods to become barefoot researchers program.” barefoot researchers — residents who investigate topics rooted in their Water access in India own lives and then use the resulting knowledge to effect change. “I believe For the UUSC fellowship project, a this particular model of barefoot group of PUKAR barefoot researchers researchers as community-based youth will take on the issue of water access in action and research is a very good a Mumbai slum — and for good reason. instrument to bring action to slum As Moulton articulates: “The survey communities,” says Patil-Deshmukh. will collect hard data on Mumbai Once PUKAR identifies youth residents’ lack of access to water, one in a given community — through of the most critical, and often unmet, community focus group discussions factors we need to realize the human and ensuing informal connections rights to water and sanitation.” — fellows receive intensive training. In India, 75% of the population does PUKAR leads activity-based workshops not have access to drinking water on in the fundamentals of research: ethics, premises. Approximately 609,000 interviews, methodology, mapping, children die in India annually because photographing, and more. Participants of diarrhea and pneumonia, conditions are also trained on issues of gender, the closely related to water and sanitation environment, caste, class, and religion. access. In Mumbai, 60% of people live The barefoot researchers then in slums. In one slum, Kaula Bandar, dive into conducting research on PUKAR research found that only 0.1% a topic central to their lives in the of the residents have access to piped slums. As part of data collection, the drinking water. youth are engaging in “door-to-door In Mumbai, the city controls water education” and strengthening vital access in the slums, some of which community connections. Plus, they are off official maps and therefore not are often more effective at gathering properly accounted for in water plans. data because they’re already trusted In Mandala, for example, half of the by their neighbors. Following data community is not on an official map collection, the barefoot researchers act and is thereby unaccounted for in city as organizers for action to address the water distribution. As a result, people needs that their data demonstrates. — often called the “water mafia” — Patil-Deshmukh highlights an added exploit slum residents by selling them bonus of the youth fellowship program: water at inflated and unaffordable 3 prices. And that’s not the only problem: As part of PUKAR’s Healthy Cities, since the responsibility for gathering Wealthy Cities initiative, the Rapid household water often falls to women Water Survey will provide residents and girls, the extra challenges of with the tools and data to advocate obtaining water keep them from for improvements in water service attending school, building livelihoods, and hold the government accountable. and more. PUKAR anticipates the project will affect 50,000 people over three years. Rapid Water Survey Ultimately, PUKAR aims to decouple home ownership from water service PUKAR’s Rapid Water Survey will be and ensure adequate water and conducted in the Mandala slum, which sanitation for all people living in is home to more than 25,000 people. Mumbai’s slums. Moulton says: “I am The survey data collected and excited to see the project unfold over processed by barefoot researchers will the coming year and hope we can help cover the following: PUKAR share its model with other • Location of contaminated taps communities who need research to • Location of nonfunctioning taps create change.” • Areas without any tap water access • Household-to-tap ratios for each Jessica L. Atcheson is UUSC’s writer and functioning tap editor. • Water reliability index mapping low pressure or highly interrupted flow • Water quality and quantity • Cost/affordability
PUKAR community researchers interviewing members of a slum community. 4 In Their Own Words: Not Any Less Human An interview with Emina Bužinkić Conducted by Jessica L. Atcheson
In the following interview, Emina Bužinkić are in the camps, in transit through from the Center for Peace Studies, a the territories and borders, and they UUSC partner in Croatia, speaks about are usually in very fast transit in our the center’s work aiding Middle Eastern country, as it is in Serbia and Slovenia. refugees in transit and taking part in But from the refugees we have talked to the Welcome Initiative. This interview, in the camps, we hear about why they conducted via Skype in October, has been are fleeing their countries. Most people edited for length. are very, very tired and very thankful when they receive food and blankets. Can you tell me about the If they need a doctor, we take them to Welcome Initiative? a facility where medical assistance is provided. It’s a platform of solidarity of residents and nongovernmental organizations What are the biggest challenges [NGOs] working in Croatia. These NGOs in this work? have been working in different fields, including sustainable development, In talking about the refugee crisis, education, human rights, peace many people would say that the crisis is building, and gender equality. Everyone happening to us, because many people has recognized the importance of are coming to our territory. There are supporting refugees during this crisis. a lot of myths and prejudice against Our work has been coordinated the refugees, and people are not well every day in a fantastic way with open informed and well educated when it communication and coordination of comes to this. So it a huge challenge to our activities — on the borders and change those attitudes. in the refugee camps, while talking to But the thing is that the crisis is diplomatic staff, and communicating not happening to us, it is happening with the public through roundtables, in Syria, it is happening in Iraq and seminars, webinars, and our public Afghanistan. The refugees are trying to campaign. This initiative is giving us escape from that crisis. Even if all the further energy and further motivation people who are in our country today to respond to this crisis. stayed, it’s not a crisis for Croatia. We can handle it. What has been your interaction with the refugees you’re Where do you find hope as you working with? do this work?
Many people who we meet with — We have been living in Croatian society hundreds and thousands of them — we for 25 years now [Croatia declared are not able to talk to in depth. They independence in June 1991], and we Continued on page 8 5 UUSC Partner Work across the Migration Route UUSC
UUSC addresses human rights violations against refugees and asylum seekers that are fueled by border restrictions, shortsighted immigration controls, and other nationalistic policies. In all contexts, UUSC commits itself to these principles: migration is not a crime, and migrants are not criminals. People who travel across borders — whether by choice or by force — are not threats to the societies they enter; they are benefactors, who are offering to other countries the gifts of themselves as unique human beings possessed of worth and dignity. UUSC continues to affirm this truth as the only antidote to the fearmongering and scapegoating that threaten the rights of refugees worldwide.
6 Greece: Ensuring decent reception conditions UUSC is partnering with PRAKSIS, a Greek nongovernmental organization, to provide immediate transportation assistance and winterization kits to newly arrived refugees and their children on the Greek island of Lesvos, the first point of entry to Europe for many refugees.
Serbia: Providing comprehensive mobile assistance along the transit route The Asylum Protection Center (APC), a UUSC partner, is mobilizing a team of aid workers who will travel along shifting migration routes and provide a comprehensive array of direct services to refugees, including legal support, humanitarian aid, psychosocial counseling, and language interpretation.
Croatia: Offering support for long-term resettlement UUSC is partnering with the Center for Peace Studies (CPS), a Zagreb-based organization that is spearheading the Welcome Initiative, a collaborative effort of 50 organizations to address refugee resettlement and to provide immediate humanitarian support for refugees.
Hungary: Facilitating family reunification In partnership with UUSC, the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (HHC) is working with refugee families who have been torn apart by war and providing them with full financial and legal support to reunite safely in Europe.
7 Continued from page 5 have experienced war. We always say beings, who decided to be activists that we wouldn’t want anyone else to because of injustice in this world. I experience what we have experienced don’t say citizens — not because I don’t here. So always, during the last 20 think we have civic responsibilities, but years or so, civil actions have been because the concept of nation states and run under the slogan: “Enough of post-colonialism tells us that citizens wars; give us peace.” Many of us were are only those who have papers. There refugees. We know what it is to live are many people in this world who do in a foreign society and to not be not have documents confirming their accepted, to be labeled — that’s a identity, but that doesn’t mean they common experience of many activists are any less human, even though some here. So, we act from experiences. people treat them that way. So we are an I think our hope is that we would organization of human beings who are like to see peace building as an act of willing to support other human beings protest. There are refugees living in in their fight for equality. Croatia who we have been working with for many years now through Learn more about UUSC’s work different kinds of projects, such as the advancing justice for refugees in football club that we have established Europe at uusc.org/location/syria. together with refugees or the Taste Read a longer version of this interview of Home culinary collective we have. at uusc.org/emina. This kind of intercultural connection is very important. Jessica L. Atcheson is UUSC’s writer and editor. What do you most want people to know about the work that the Center for Peace Studies is doing?
We would like people to know that, first of all, we are an organization of human
Where Will We Be in 2040? On January 25, UUSC created a time capsule in honor of its 75th anniversary. This snapshot of our work in 2015 was concealed in the lobby of UUSC’s building with a small ceremony. The capsule will be reopened after 25 years in 2040, as a part of UUSC’s 100th anniversary celebration. Find out more at uusc.org/timecapsule.
8 Thirty-Year Champions for UUSC By Maxine Neil
ichard and Judith Ottman, Rmembers of White Bear Unitarian Universalist Church in Minnesota who go by Dick and Judy, have been Unitarian Universalists for over 40 years. And for more than 30 of those years, they have been steadfast UUSC supporters and volunteers. Judy was first introduced to UUSC’s work when Dick Scobie, then president and CEO of UUSC, established social justice units in the region made up of individuals from nearby congregations. At that The Ottmans with statues of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt time, White Bear UU Church had a membership of only 30 people Not only does Judy like UUSC’s — today, there are more than focus on issues affecting women, but 600 members. Judy and Dick are she also knows her support is being strong champions for UUSC in their used wisely. Contributing $5,000 congregation. The highlight of their or more annually, the Ottmans are dedication each year is Judy’s work members of the Stewardship Circle, in managing the Guest at Your Table a core of committed supporters who program. share their insights and ideas to When asked what motivates provide for UUSC. their strong decades-long support of UUSC, the Ottmans’ reply is Would you like to join the Ottmans in extensive: First, only UUSC bears becoming UUSC champions? Contact the UU name. Second, UUSC’s Cassandra Ryan, vice president and chief work correlates with their personal development officer, at617-301-4340 or human rights values. And further, [email protected] to learn more. UUSC is a good steward of their financial support, is independent Maxine Neil is the former vice president of government influence, provides and chief development officer of UUSC. them an opportunity to leverage their contribution through the UU Congregation at Shelter Rock match, and consistently receives Charity Navigator’s highest rating.
9 The Old Ship Legacy By Maxine Neil
undreds of congregations a part of the global world and to help Hgenerously support UUSC each our fellow humans. He explains that, year through Guest at Your Table, though you can’t always respond Justice Sunday, advocacy actions, and to every disaster or human rights more. Among them, First Parish in challenge, it is a moral imperative Hingham (Mass.) — known as Old to yield to the yearning of your Ship Church — stands out. heart to reach out to others and put The oldest U.S. wooden church your values to work. And UUSC is a building in continuous use, Old Ship conduit to global community. is a beauty outside and in. And while Davalene Cooper, the congregational its physical structure is impressive, liaison between Old Ship and UUSC, the dedication of Rev. Kenneth Read- has been instrumental in keeping Brown and more than 200 members her congregation updated on UUSC’s to UUSC’s work really makes Old Ship work. First Parish Hingham also hosts special. coffeehouse folk music concerts, with Old Ship has been an annual net proceeds benefitting UUSC. The supporter of UUSC’s work as far back coffeehouse events provide additional as we have records. “It is wonderful opportunities for people in the to be a part of the hope that UUSC community to learn about UUSC’s work. creates throughout the world,” Read- Brown says. Maxine Neil is the former vice president When asked why he believes his and chief development officer of UUSC. congregation members have been such loyal supporters, Read-Brown responds that it’s spiritual fulfillment — we all have an innate desire to be
10 Say Hello to the
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Good for the earth. Good for workers. thegoodbuy.com 11 Planned Giving: For Everyone, Always An interview with Marie Williams Conducted by Jessica L. Atcheson
In this edited interview, Marie Tell us about some of the Williams, UUSC’s planned giving and most popular giving options. major gifts officer, shares thoughts about planned giving after more than This is on the nerdy side of planned a decade in the field. giving, but someone can set up a gift annuity. They part with a modest What are the benefits of sum of money, but they get a huge planned giving? charitable tax deduction up front and income for the rest of their life. It’s There are so many: flexibility, tax a way to really make an impact while breaks. It can enable people who making it work for your lifestyle. can’t otherwise give a large donation Naming UUSC as a beneficiary in in their lifetime to create a gift your will is by far the most common in the future. I recently received option, and along the same lines, a distribution from a trust that beneficiary designations in IRAs or amounted to more than three retirement plans. times the amount this donor gave during his lifetime. He was a steady, When should people start dedicated donor for 33 years. He let thinking about planned us know about his plans, but not the giving? details. To our delight, the gift was close to $100,000. Always! But particularly when there are huge life events: getting married,
12 having children. Planned giving can be you can designate it and forget it. And spread across all ages, and it’s often a it’s a great way to leave a legacy for bigger priority for people 65 and older. things that you care about. If you are Everyone thinks that planned giving is passionate about social justice and not for them right now, but I think it defending people’s rights, then you applies to everyone always. can make a significant financial impact through a planned gift. And it isn’t as What do you wish more hard as you might think — it doesn’t people knew about planned have to be a long drawn-out process. giving? Want to learn more about your planned It’s not scary! I’m a planner, so I like giving options? Contact Marie Williams at the idea of knowing how things are 617-301-4329 or [email protected]. going to happen in the future. Even if you aren’t a planner, there are Jessica L. Atcheson is UUSC’s writer so many vehicles that can fit your and editor. lifestyle — with a gift in your will,
Service Learning in Nicaragua: Fair Trade and Environmental Justice May 21–29, 2016
Take part in the UU College of Social Justice’s newest program, in partnership with Equal Exchange! Find out why not all fair trade is equally “fair” and why UUSC works with Equal Exchange to source coffee and other goods in a way that truly benefits small farmers. Visit coffee co-ops, women’s rights groups, and an inspiring community defending their land against mining. Join us! Learn more and register: uucsj.org/nicaragua.
13 Beyondan there be Just too many Recovery ways to in Haitihas spent much of her life balancing a Cchampion human rights and social career in manufacturing, marketing, justice?Exploring Not according how small to Holly farmers Kerr. areand coolinggeneral management the planet with A retired part-time professor, Kerr committed efforts to advance social By Hannah Hafter
he 2010 Haiti earthquake left up construct six eco-villages and a school Tto 300,000 people dead and 1.6 — a community where families who million homeless. Since its founding survived the earthquake have rebuilt in 2012, the Unitarian Universalist their lives after relocating from the College of Social Justice (UUCSJ) has camps of Port-au-Prince. brought 24 groups of volunteers to With the eco-village construction Haiti to assist with the recovery. Five complete, UUCSJ and MPP have years after the earthquake, UUCSJ created the Beyond Just Recovery is working with the Papaye Peasant program to explore food sovereignty Movement (MPP) to bring new energy and climate justice — critical issues at and focus to UUCSJ service-learning the core of MPP’s work. Participants journeys to Haiti, unveiling the new will learn firsthand about the effects Beyond Just Recovery program. of climate change on the Global South, The new program builds on the the environmental damage caused strong foundation of its predecessor. by decades of colonial exploitation, The Just Recovery program engaged and the leadership of rural peasant people in learning about effective movements in advancing climate and justice-oriented recovery models, justice and global sustainability. understanding the failures of the In the United States, people international aid response, and most often hear about Haiti in the supporting projects initiated by context of poverty, political turmoil, local communities. With MPP and and foreign aid. UUCSJ’s journeys other partners, volunteers helped challenge these limited views as
Recycled container gardens at an eco-village in Haiti’s Central Plateau. 14 participants hear from community trade policies, this situation has leaders and witness the joy, pride, and been entirely reversed: 83% of the creativity that the Haitian grassroots rice Haitians now consume comes brings to facing the country’s complex from abroad, and Haiti’s own small- challenges. Participants also work scale producers have been rendered side by side with eco-village residents destitute. The food sovereignty on agricultural projects for self- movement aims to change that. sufficiency and income generation. Food sovereignty and the return Daily work includes building raised to local food are also strategies recycled container gardens, planting for dealing with climate change. seedlings, making natural insecticides, Industrial agriculture contributes 22% and constructing goat pens. of greenhouse gas emissions globally, Beyond Just Recovery delves into and another 13% is attributed to long- themes of food sovereignty for the distance transportation of agricultural Global South and in participants’ own goods. Beyond Just Recovery explores communities. “Food sovereignty” refers how agroecology is part of a global to a more democratic way of organizing strategy to cool the planet. the food system, centered in the right to healthy and culturally appropriate To learn more and register for food produced through sustainable Beyond Justice Recovery in Haiti, methods and consumed locally. In this visit uucsj.org/haiti. model, food is a right rather than a market-driven commodity. Hannah Hafter is UUCSJ’s senior Historically, the Haitian people associate for service-learning programs. grew most of their own food. Up until the 1980s, Haitian farmers produced enough rice to feed the country and still have enough left over to export. Now, due to U.S. neoliberal
Residents of an eco-village in Haiti’s Central Plateau. 15 TurningTurning Learning Learning into Action into Actionefforts to advance social justice. With much of her life balancing a career her late husband, Roy, she established inNew manufacturing, Food Justice marketing, Activist and Networkthe Kerr Foundation, which provides general management with committed education and leadership development By Jessica L. Atcheson
he food chain in the United justice, economic, and environmental TStates — which employs more justice, just to name a few. Food justice than 20 million workers — is riddled is a natural and important focus for the with injustice. Making change first of UUSC’s new activist networks.” throughout the food industry will take commitment, coordination, and About the activist network collective action. UUSC’s Justice- Building Program has launched the The initial members of the Food Justice UUSC Food Justice Activist Network Activist Network were participants to provide people with the resources in a recent training — Justice in the and support to embark on effective Food Chain — that was collaboratively organizing campaigns designed to produced by the UU College of Social transform the food industry. Justice and the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) in Chicago. The Why the food chain? training brought together food chain workers with activist allies who care Farmworkers, poultry processors, about sourcing food in a way that is restaurant servers, and others in the both environmentally conscious and food industry face a host of challenges fair to workers. Now the UUSC Food every day as they try to make a living Justice Activist Network will support and support their families. Just a taste the congregration-based participants in of what they are up against: leveraging their learning into action. • Low pay with few or no benefits The hallmarks of the network: • Wage theft • Welcomes people of all faith • Discrimination traditions as well as those who feel • Harassment called from a place of spirituality • Hazardous working conditions or conscience without a particular religious identity Pamela Sparr, who heads UUSC’s • Offers problem solving, coaching, Justice-Building Program and created supportive listening, and the Food Justice Activist Network, strategizing explains, “Ensuring access to safe, • Provides valuable tools and healthy, affordable food and safe, fairly resources paid jobs throughout the chain of food production connects with multiple movements: racial justice, immigrant
16 Supporting the Good Food Los Angeles via the city and school Purchasing Policy district. The Food Justice Activist Network aims to expand the program The first organizing effort that network to other cities and states. UUSC and activists are tackling is promoting the FCWA recently called on Food the Good Food Purchasing Policy Justice Activist Network members (GFPP), which deals with public food and other supporters to urge the procurement in various cities. With Darden corporation — which has more support from UUSC and the Food than 1,500 restaurants with 150,000 Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA), employees and serves 320 million network members will rally community meals a year — to abide by GFPP energy for implementing the GFPP in principles. More than 3,600 people their own areas. had signed the online petition as of Accordng to FCWA, GFPP provides November 2015. a metric-based policy that enables This work will have additional institutions to “work with food service support, too: “I am very pleased to providers, distributors, processors announce that the board of UU Food and growers to create a transparent Justice Ministries (formerly the UUA ‘farm-to-fork’ food supply.” The policy President’s Advisory Committee on standards are based on five factors: Ethical Eating) is enthusiastically • Local economies partnering with us on this campaign,” • Environmental sustainability says Sparr. • Fair labor • Animal welfare For more information on opportunities • Nutrition with UUSC’s Justice-Building Program, visit uusc.org/justicebuilding. First developed by the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, the GFPP governs Jessica L. Atcheson is UUSC’s writer an estimated 750,000 meals a day in and editor.
José Oliva, codirector of the Food Chain Workers Alliance, leads the Justice in the Food Chain training in a problem tree exercise.
17 No Safe Haven Here UUSC documents traumas of U.S. immigration detention By Amber Moulton
n the summer of 2014, the Obama (PTSD). In addition, the research Iadministration reintroduced the team identified symptoms of complex retrograde practice of detaining trauma disorder, often the result of asylum-seeking mothers and children repeated traumas. in “family detention” facilities. In 2015, These families are survivors of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for trauma who have come to the United Education and Legal Services (RAICES), States seeking refuge. Yet, they a UUSC partner, identified a need remain in a state of flux, or worse, for research on the mental health of face additional traumas in the U.S. families at two of these facilities, in immigration process. One mother who Karnes City and Dilley, Texas. UUSC had fled Honduras with her children identified mental and behavioral told the research team, “I feel it is health experts with extensive harder as a mother. I feel bad because experience working with Central I brought my kids here so [gang American refugees to investigate — members] wouldn’t torture them and and the research team uncovered in some way I have been torturing disturbing findings. them all the way. We have suffered a Over half of the participants in lot, a lot, in Mexico, in the prison we the study exhibited high levels of ended going to. . . . I feel I am running anxiety and depression symptoms and away from torture and I am torturing nearly half appeared to be suffering them myself.” from post-traumatic stress disorder
The detention center in Karnes City, Texas, where families seeking asylum are being held in jail-like conditions. 18 Detention can cause added Some mothers also reported trauma that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials threatened Every participant in this study identified that Child Protective Services would traumatic events as the reason they fled take their children if they complained Central America. They commonly had about their treatment. Separation of seen family members killed, often by parents from children is traumatic members of international gangs. In many in any instance, but for families who cases, the gangs had extorted the families have experienced the very real threat and threatened to kidnap their children. of children being kidnapped or killed, The mothers expressed a sense that their these practices can cause survivors to children’s very lives depended on making reexperience or revisit past traumas. the treacherous journey to seek asylum in the United States. Recommendations In some cases, the participants’ experiences with U.S. Border Patrol and UUSC recommends three overarching in detention may have actually made changes based on this study: their negative mental health outcomes • Cease family detention. worse. For instance, the families reported • Decriminalize the asylum being separated by U.S. Border Patrol. process. Treating asylum seekers A Honduran mother reported that her as criminals and placing them in teenaged children and husband were all jails represents a stark violation housed in different rooms at the hieleras“ ” of their most basic human rights. (“ice boxes”) used by the U.S. Border • Change Department of Patrol. She said, “I wouldn’t sleep because I Homeland Security policies was always keeping an eye on them. to require that all officials . . . I got really scared that they would take interacting with trauma them away from me.” survivors in the immigration process receive trauma training.
19 At the very least, U.S. immigration The report’s release coincided with officials should not make survivors’ news that Texas might loosen its situations worse. But truly honoring restrictions to allow Karnes and Dilley asylum seekers’ human rights means to be certified as child-care centers, they should be provided with the in an attempt to justify the continued trauma-informed care they need. detention of children. UUSC mobilized to deliver a letter — signed by 30 Advocacy mental health professionals from across the nation — to Texas Governor In October, UUSC issued No Safe Greg Abbott detailing the troubling Haven Here: Mental Health Assessment findings of this study. of Women and Children Held in U.S. UUSC will continue to pursue policy Immigration Detention, a report change by publicizing and sharing the detailing these findings. (Read the findings of the report. Refugee families report at uusc.org/nosafehavenreport deserve safety and support — not [PDF] or on Medium at medium.com/ imprisonment and trauma. no-safe-haven-here.) UUSC staff shared it with members of Congress and the Amber Moulton is UUSC’s researcher. Obama administration. For more information about the study, contact her at [email protected].
A child waits in a bus station with her family after they were released from detention in Texas. 20 Justice Sunday: Economic Justice
For many people in the Global North, economic justice is a phrase without any personal connection. But for millions of people around the world, it is the difference between living and dying.
This Justice Sunday — kicking off April 3 — explore economic justice and be a part of the movement to help people all around the world realize their rights. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.”
Visit uusc.org/justicesunday to learn how you, your congregation, or your community group can participate.
21 Nonprofit Org. Rights Now U.S. Postage Unitarian Universalist Service Committee PAID 689 Massachusetts Avenue Providence, RI More from Cambridge, MA 02139-3302 Permit No. 1367
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