Verba Manent

A migrant domestic worker who came to Lebanon when she was a teenager faced extreme abuse at the hands of her employers for over 10 years. From having her salary withheld to being cut-off from having contact with the outside world, Sajita Lama is one of many abused domestic workers in Lebanon that was inhumanely treated and is still currently seeking justice for the atrocities committed against her.

This entire podcast is devoted to raising awareness on human rights abuses happening across the world to people of all origins and nationalities.  We’ve seen abuses in the likes of countries such as Malaysia, Ethiopia, Egypt and the US.  We dream of a future of social and political justice, but who can hold these states accountable, and on what basis?

About 21,000 women and girls from northern Myanmar were forced into marriage in just one province of China from 2013 to 2017. These women and girls are usually tricked by brokers who promise well-paid employment across the border in China where they are sold for around 3000 to 13000 dollars to Chinese families seeking a daughter-in-law for their adult son. Seng Moon became one such trafficked bride when she was 16. She had a son with her ‘husband’ and escaped back to Myanmar 2 years later. The trauma of forced marriage, rape, and separation from their children with their buyer-husbands mark survivers for their lives.

“A man once told me that to be a leader in this country, one needs to carry a coffin at all times.” Such is the current state of dangerosity human rights defenders and social leaders face in Colombia. The once praised 2016 peace accord passed between the government and the biggest armed group of the country proves meaningless as massacres rose, leaving once again the country in chaos and bloodbath, as the state is rendered powerless.

LINK: https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/02/10/left-undefended/killings-rights-defenders-colombias-remote-communities?fbclid=IwAR0-ZVo2klWfbWtBH3CgG00kMjRLSuis7xndKF86ibgv2Xm7CHwMcb7V4KE

You’re scrolling through instagram on a lazy evening and you come across Rania, your classmate, announcing online that she is planning to visit home for a while and asking her followers what medicines they need that she could bring back from France.  She asks you and her friends from university for donations, anything, and you wonder what kind of home she must be flying back to.

This is the reality for Lebanese people worldwide: expats and visitors scrambling to send back resources and medication to their struggling friends and family, and even strangers, back home in Lebanon.  It could seem that the country is running on the charity of its sizable diaspora, which is only growing by the day as masses of Lebanese are emigrating to what they hope is a brighter future. How are the patients in Lebanon coping, and what can be done for them?

The famously proclaimed father of democracy in Hong Kong finds himself behind bars today. Martin Lee is the eighty-two-year-old barrister-politician who has been convicted, just like other prominent faces from the city, for the pro-democracy protests of August 2019. But how did he get here? Why did he come out of political retirement? How did the star of Hong Kong struggle for democratic values end up facing charges?

Criminal justice in the US

Ever since the 2013 coup in Egypt, an increase in the harassment of journalists, bloggers, activists and now TikTok content creators posed the question of discrimination, especially since the targetted people are almost all women. While the government is accused of constantly monitoring the way women are represented in media (cinema, TV, and other arts), TikTok video makers are accused of promoting values contradicting those of the family.

LINK: https://www.change.org/p/free-egypt-s-tiktok-women

He was a cow’s milk trader and father of two. What was initially supposed to be aiding the police at Gombak Police Station into the whereabouts of his brother turned into a 12 day lock up, followed by a sudden admittance into the Intensive Care Unit at Selayang Hospital. Mysteriously, five days later- Ganapathy is pronounced dead. What happened? Who were the perpetrators? Was justice served?

He was a cow’s milk trader and father of two. What was initially supposed to be aiding the police at Gombak Police Station into the whereabouts of his brother turned into a 12 day lock up, followed by a sudden admittance into the Intensive Care Unit at Selayang Hospital. Mysteriously, five days later- Ganapathy is pronounced dead. What happened? Who were the perpetrators? Was justice served?