Skin bleaching is the use of cosmetic products in an attempt to lighten the skin's colour.
Numerous creams essentially burn off the top layer of the skin.
Many women around the globe believe that success is determined by how light your skin is.
With lighter skin, you are more likely to be successful economically, socially and romantically.
Countless men in parts of the Middle East, South Asia and the Caribbean admit to finding light women more attractive.
Because of these opinions, dark women are resorting to using harmful chemicals on their skin in order to achieve this 'flawless white' look.
Topical bleach creams are manufactured in North America and Europe.
However, Any skin bleaching cream that contains Hydroquinone has been banned in the EU.
Despite the EU being aware of the health risks of this chemical, these creams are still exported into Asian and African countries.
Hydroquinone is a depigmenting agent that can be fatal when used in large quantities. It stops the production of melanin in the skin. Melanin is a substance in your skin that gives it colour. Melanin also protects our skin against cancer-causing UV rays.
Impacts of Hydroquinone include
Nausea
Shortness of breath
Wrinkles
Severe acne
Liver and kidney failure - if absorbed into the blood
In Jamaica, black skin is considered a 'problem' that many women have been trying to 'fix' for years.
But many women in these ghetto communitiesare left with hyperpigmentation after long-term use.
Fair & Lovely is widely available in the Gulf. Although it does not contain Hydroquinone, it still aims at convincing dark women they cannot be considered beautiful until they are light.
'The obstacle to obtaining my dreams was my skin'
The only obstacles to obtaining your dreams are in your head.
Yes, there might still be individuals out there who believe that coloured people don't deserve to have success.
But it doesn't mean you can't prove them wrong.
Whether a woman is black, tanned or white; I believe she should be proud of her beauty.
The slave trade is over ladies, wear that black skin with pride.
Inbreeding, simply put, is the mating of relatives.
Ancient Egyptian Pharaonic dynasties collapsed after several centuries because of this practice.
Pharaohs would often marry their sisters and half sisters in order to keep the wealth and power in the family.
Consequently, the offspring of the following generations were unfit physically and mentally to rule.
Some of the impacts and affects of inbreeding include
Reduced fertility
Increased genetic disorders
Fluctuating facial asymmetry
High infant mortality
Smaller adult size
Loss of immune system function
Many non-Muslims claim that Islam is 'pro incest' because of the high percentage of 1st cousin marriages in the Middle East and South Asia.
64% of all marriages in Jordan are considered 'inbred'. 67% in Saudi and 54% in the UAE.
There are no statistics for Oman, but i presume it is above 50%
Because of these high percentages, outsiders are quick to assume that the next Arab generations are going to be incapable of running the region.
Research shows that IQ levels of an inbred child are 10-16 points lower than that of an average one.
The West Virginia University carried out a study in Damam, KSA, where 39.9% of all unions are of the first cousin nature.
The university examined the number of still births of both consanguineous and non-consanguineous marriages and found no significant difference.
Furthermore, the mean birth weights were compared to also find no convincing difference.
So what's the deal? What happened to inbreeding damaging our offspring?The risks of inbreeding increase with the closeness of the relation.
The risk is calculated using the inbreeding coefficient.
A brother/sister relation has an inbreeding coefficient of 25%, while 1st cousin unions have a coefficient of 6.25%.
In Islam we are not allowed to marry or reproduce with our immediate family.
Islam is not 'pro incest' and neither is the Arab culture.
As a matter of fact, Southerners in the USA have a higher risk of producing deformed offspring. They are more lenient on how close 'close' is.
Don't be too quick to judge who the 'inbred nation' really is.
Child labour is the sustained and regular employment of under aged children.
The children are obliged to work for long hours in hazardous conditions for substantially low wages.
Child Labour is not a new phenomenon. During the Industrial Revolution children as young as the age of 4 were often employed in dangerous, often fatal conditions. We all remember the chimney sweepers singing tunes in Marry Poppins with smiles on their faces.
The reality of child labour isn't as pretty as Disney portrayed..
158 million children between the ages 5-14 are working in dangerous conditions. That is 1 in every 6 children world wide.
Dangerous circumstances may include operating large machinery withoutprotective wear and working with chemicals and pesticides that are harmful to their health.
These children are putting their lives at risk for as little as $1 a day.
All the conditions involved with child labour have a toll on a child's mental, emotional and physical well being and development.
The employees go unseen and unheard. Working behind walls of houses as domestic help, hidden out of sight on plantations, and behind closed factory doors.
Most incidents occur in rural areas with poor households- most commonly in LEDCs.
Families are left with no choice but to send their children out to work in order to make ends meet.
Children of these households are expected to shoulder responsibilities to help support their families.
When you don't know whether you will be able to feed your children in the morning, your last priority is whether they get an education or not.
There has been an ever rising problem with child labour in Jordan.
There was an estimated 33,000 child workers in 2008 across the Kingdom.
The main cause is because financial issues are so bad within households.
Many fathers fall ill, leaving the responsibility of supporting the family to the children.
All city dwellers have seen the childeren who resort to selling chewing gum and newspapers at the traffic lights, and selling vegetables along the airport road.
The issue in Jordan is rather complex. Government labour officials are trying to enforce the laws of working age, but some of these kids want to be working.
They might confiscate the goods a boy is selling, thinking they are doing it for his own good; but in truth they are putting more and more families into poverty.
The children who operate heavy machinery without safety equipment are the ones cutting and polishingyourdiamonds; yet they only receive a fraction of 1% of the stones they handle.
They have to dip their bare hands into scolding water to palpate the cocoons to produce the silkyou wear.
They sit for hours in damp, dark and cold areas rolling the cigarettes that you smoke.
No one reading this post would ever send their sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, nieces or nephews out to work knowing the conditions these children are facing.
If you wouldn't let it happen to your child,
Why do you let it happen to someone else's?
Breast ironing is the act of pounding the developing breasts of prepubescent girls with hot objects to stop them from growing.
Stones are heated on scorching flames and are massaged rigorously to limp a girl's firm nipples and flatten her breasts.
Other common tools include bananas, coconut shells, spatulas and hammers heated over a blistering fire.
This practice scars the breast tissue so severely that breasts cease to form; leaving the girls with deformations on their chests, and in some cases causes the entire disappearance of the breasts.
The custom is widely carried out within the Western African country of Cameroon. One in every 4 girls have undergone the vicious practice.
Mothers fear and worry that their daughters' breasts will attract attention and leave them vulnerable to sexual harassment and rape.
Therefore this drastic measure is taken to protect the girls from these sex driven men.
Families fear that if their daughter become impregnated by these strangers they will shatter the family's name and honor. Mother's claim to be mutilating their young daughter's for their own good; so they may continuetheir education without carrying the burden of taking care of their illegitimate child.
Over the years diets in Cameroon have improved drastically meaning girls are developing earlier. Breast ironing is carried out on girls as young as the age of 9. The tradition continues to take place until the growing of the breasts terminates.
Girls commonly have to have their breasts ironed twice daily for 2-3 months at a time.
There has not been any research on the health consequences to date, but the obvious immediate issues are
The violently painful burns
Breast infections
Formation of abscesses
Malformed breasts
Complete eradication of one or both breasts
Breast flattening has also been been thought to contribute to breast cancer, cysts and depression.
The lack of sexual education is the root cause of this tragedy.
Parents resort to removing the signs of sexuality on the body instead of educating their children about sexual education and informing them about the cultural consequences they would face if they were to engage in sexual relations prior to marriage.
It's tragic that mother's feel so distressed and helpless over their child's safety and well being that they are pushed into mutilating their own daughters in order to protect them from society. The traumatizing experience will scar both the parent and child emotionally, as well as leave the child with the ever lasting deformation of her chest.
While 8.7 million women get breast implants, 5,000 girls are having theirs burnt flat.
Where is everyone? UN Human Rights Council, National Organization for Women, Association for Women's Rights in Development?
There is NO international coverage on this issue and no campaigns to try and ban it.
We don't hear much about women with several husbands. Do they even exist? Can a man really share his wife with someone else?
Polyandry is the practice of having multiple husbands.
Women are allowed to practice polyandry in Southern India, Tibet and Nepal.
In the Middle East it would be unheard of for a woman to have several husbands because it goes against both the teachings of Islam and Christianity.
To make matters even more interesting, In Tibet the husbands are usually brothers. This is known as fraternal polyandry.
Makes a person wonder, How do the men know who's the father of the kids?
Well, they don't. They all consider themselves to be the father.
The wife usually chooses to keep the matter of who the biological father is to herself, to avoid creating tension and conflict between the brothers.
The wife is expected to split her nights equally among the brothers so they all have the same amount of intimacy with her.
A sensitive subject to be spoken about, but many wives admit to sleeping with each brother one after the other.
Although I stand against all forms of polygamy, it's nice to know that there isn't much of a global double standard against women having multiple husbands.
It just gives me comfort to know that us Muslims aren't the only ones out there with exotic and peculiar family arrangements.
Female Genital Mutilation, also known as female circumcision/cutting, is the practice of removing parts or all of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. This procedure is carried out extensively in Northern Africa and parts of the Middle East.
The custom dates back about 4000 years. Campaigners believe that because it is such an ancient tradition it will take years of education to see a change in the attitudes of people who practice this barbarous act.
Most commonly practiced on girls in Africa between infancy and the age of 15, these girls remain with the physical scars and health consequences as well as the emotional mutilation caused by the memory.
It is carried out by untrained practitioners, usually the oldest woman in a village, with the use of unsterilized razors and blades. No anesthetic is used, but many believe that if it is done in warm water the pain subsides.
The act of female mutilation is seen as a celebration. While the child is screaming, crying and restrained, her screams are drowned out by the ululations of women rejoicing over her successful pass into adulthood.
There are 3 different types of mutilation according to the World Health Organization. Type 1
The partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or the clitoris hood. Type 2
The partial or total removal of the clitoris and labia minora. Type 3
The most common, and most harmful, is the removal of all external genitalia including the clitoris, clitoris hood, labia minor and labia majora- and sewing the vaginal opening shut. Drawings of the different types of FGM
It is believed that with the removal of the clitoris libido levels drop. This refrains the girl from developing any sexual desire and thus, she does not feel the need to conform and have sexual relations before marriage.
Also, the fear of the pain that will come if she opens her sewn shut vagina, and the fear of this being found it, is seen to discourage women from behaving 'wrongly'. Lastly, FGM is associated with femininity and modesty, the idea that girls are considered to have 'male' parts that are 'unclean' before cutting is widely known within communities. Only after FGM is carried out a girl can be considered clean and womanly.
Over the years, many religious scholars have argued whether female circumcision was recommended by Islam. Many agree with the fact that it is a brutal act, but some believe that it is an act of cleansing and that it should be done.
I personally believe this is an occasion where people tend to muddle up and mix culture with religion. FGM is carried out for cultural and social reasons, but because these reasons reflect some ideas mentioned in religion it is misinterpreted.
Islam promotes abstinence, but it does not say anywhere in the Quraan that physical measures should be taken against girls to suspend their participation in sexual acts. It is on occasions like this that people label Islam as a 'terrorist brutal religion', but in truth FGM is not relevant to religion
There are no health benefits of FGM. Some of the health risks include
immediate excruciating pain and hemorrhage- can result in death from shock
abscess formation and cysts
urinary tract infections
painful sexual intercourse
increased susceptibility to HIV, hepatitis and other blood borne diseases
reproductive tract infection
infertility
bladder stones
obstructed labour
The following video discusses the different views and opinions of FGM in Ethiopia.
It breaks my heart to hear of the stories of women who have been put through this savage act. I can only imagine the health complications and emotional distress that little girl is going through at this very moment.
I truly hope I live to see the day when FGM is banned worldwide- till then I pray for the girls who have to deal with these traditions.
I pray for you to have the strength to carry on and keep fighting for your rights.
Asperger's syndrome: The highest functioning end of autism- it is a neurological developmental disorder which impairs the patient from understanding emotions of others.
Imagine being unable to understand how the people around you are feeling.
Imagine not being able to relate to a person on any emotional level.
Reading people's non-verbal signals is a social trait many of us take for granted. Our body language reflects how we are feeling and we assume that individuals around us can pick up on these unspoken vibes.
A person with Asperger's has difficulty understanding these signals. A person might wave their arms in distress and they would not understand what the gesture means. Smiles, tears and hand gestures are all things that are incomprehensible to a person with AS.
This does not mean that persons diagnosed with Aspergers don't feel. They feel the same amount of emotion as any other human being. The only difference is that they cannot feel sympathy or empathy for someone because they do not understand other people's emotional states.
People who have been diagnosed with AS have described it to be somewhat of a social dyslexia.
Eye contact, multitasking and having conversations are some of the few things that would be extremely difficult for a person with AS. This social impairment makes it exceptionally hard to form relationships.
As a child, the person would prefer to play by themselves instead of interacting with other children. In adolescence the person might attempt to socialize but usually finds it exceedingly difficult to understand the reactions and facial expressions of the person being spoken to. The person either resorts to isolation once more or having a one-sided conversation without interpreting the other person's views.
Some people who have been diagnosed are aided with pocket-sized drawings of emotions with notes on how to respond. This helps them deduce the way a person is feeling and eases the challenge of reacting appropriately.
There is a little girl in my school, aged 12, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. She comes across as a little odd to many people who don't understand that she has a developmental disorder.
On most occasions it almost sounds like her speech has been scripted; as if she has spent hours planning out how a conversation should go, and if you catch her off guard with a different response; she walks away.
Bless her little heart though she continues to try to make friends.
To every person who knows a friend, a family member or an acquaintance with AS
And to all those people who don't
Households in the Middle East have become so accustomed to having a maid in the house that it's a little odd to not have hired help.
Women are gaining Independence and are increasingly going out to work, thus an extra hand around the house aids in maintaining the household duties.
These women come from the Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and some parts of Africa, usually through agencies looking for work.
With hopes of making more money abroad to send back to their families most of these women end up in merciless conditions that would be intolerable to any human being.
In the past year two cases of maid abuse have hit international news stands, both happening in Saudi Arabia.
Sri Lankan maid Lahanda Purage Ariyawathie, aged 49, had faced 5 months of barbaric torture. During those 5 months, she only received 2 months salary. Her employers heated nails and needles and penetrated them into her body as a punishment for complaining over her work load.
After putting up with 5 months of savage torment, the distressed woman was sent back to her home town.
A total of 24 needles ranging from 1-2 inches were found in her hands, knees , ankles and one was found in her forehead.
The second case involves an Indonesian domestic helper. Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa , aged 23, had endured beatings by her female employer and was finally admitted into hospital with broken bones and burns to her face and body which were done with an iron. She was also stabbed multiple times with pairs of scissors.
The National Centre for Human Rights here in Amman is currently investigating why hundreds of domestic workers are seeking refuges at their embassies. The main concern is unpaid salaries.
These brave women travel miles away to support their families from overseas. Many of them receive better wages and salaries as maids in the Middle East than they would as teachers and nurses in their home countries.
In 2009, the Philippines received $17 billion in cash remittances from Filipinos registered as overseas workers. Another shocking statistic to go with that is every 1 in 4 children has 1 or both parents working abroad. The Philippines is sacrificing have a motherless generation to benefit it's economy.
I'm very ashamed when I see issues like this on international news sites, because the entire region has to suffer the consequences of one ignorant brute monster in Saudi.
Not everyone in the Middle East treats their help like slaves. I personally know many families who count their maids as a member of the household who sits down and has meals with them.
I cannot comprehend how anyone could torture another human being the way those two maids were, it's beyond my understanding.
All I know is I desperately hope any person who is being abused by their employer gets out before it's too late. Also, I hope these disgusting employers get the sentences they rightfully deserve.
