WORLD NATION
OIL ROlE
P idnetF.W.deKle
I to
in the
all over the orld who arc tru­
glin to boll h partheid and end
whi domination in South Afri .
What is behind de Kler ' vi i
to t two nd other countrie ?
Certainly, It cannot be to the
vantage of the African people who
have long uffered from opp ion
and discrimination from u ive
rae t be for some inis ter reasons
like foiling ANC' long- tanding
relatio with those countri ; to
ave face from South Africa'
i 01 tion among economy. It goes
without ying, and tands to
rea on, that both Ru ia nd
Nigeria have, for many years, been
the pinnacles of the marathon trug­
gle against apartheid and Afrikaner
racism and bigotry. And South
Africa knows this.
ono IS.
nMBUBU, t: - Tbc
World ealtb Organization
predicted that by the year
2000 more than 5 million
African dults '11 become
sic or die from AIDS -
about five times the number
ba've developed the disease
o far in sub-Saharan Africa,
region of bout 500 million
people.
More than SOO,OOO Tan­
zaniam, bout 3 percent of the
popul tion, are infected with
the virus, aca>rding to govern­
ment e timates. More than
100,000 are thought to have
developed AIDS so far, strain­
ing a health care system in
which per-capita pending has
amounted to less than $4 an­
nually.
o ALL pmctical pwpoeea
partbeid dead. But De Klerk
must not keep on running the
country with former racist
Ideologies .....
-&:Jamal cicumci ion
in Africa challenged.
PITI'SBUROH - The United
Church Board for World Mint-
tries seriously challenged the
practice of female circumcision
and expressed concern for tbe
health and well being of those on
whom it is practiced.
The World Board's 52 direc­
tors, who are United Church of
Christ ministers and lay members
from throughout the United
States and Puerto Rico, passed a
resOlution on the subject July 1"
"�"'Jl�flllf8llll-M1i�Uf�J1Uting
� .� ln' It bur. � �veland-
" based w :aoaRr the fntetitA- .
tional ministries arm of the 1.6
million member Church of
. Christ.
As far as is known, the state­
ment is the first by a U.S. church
body against female circum-
cision. .
The practice i most common
in Africa, where it affect an es­
timated 80 million women, ac­
cording to a 1991 Ynited Nations
publications. 1be Rev. Andrea I.
Young, the World Board's as­
sociate for policy advocacy in
Washington, D.C., told the direc­
tors it is especially common in
northern and central Africa, as far
south as northern Zaire.
"IT IS genital mutilation,"
d the Rev. Arthur L. Cribbs of .
Cleveland, the World Board'
ICCreWy for racial and ethnic
development nd recruitment.
The procedure removes or scars
part or all of � e�mal female
sex organs, resulting in extreme
pain and often in subsequent in­
fection.
The procedure Is intended to
ensure chastity and fidelity; sa�
the U.N. ubllcation Women:
C �­
tho Sh it. illQ&al in some .
Africalr, eoutltri r "the lOCial t
I pressure for female cicumcision
is enormo "in cenaln pal1S of
Africa because uncircumcised
women are not considered
eligible for marriage, the pubUca-
tionsays. .
"Our coiicem for the health
and well being of children over­
rides our reluctance to interfere
with local customs, " said the Rev.
YVODDe Beasley, a World Board
director who works on the
church's Southern Conference
staff in Graham, N.C .
The World Board directors
called for education and ad­
vocacy in the church and through
Se regatlon In
public hou Ing to
nd
NB" rou - The New
York Housing Authorlty
Signed a consent decree
designed to end more than two
decades of ys tlc
desegregatioii" <> \$' pu he .. ·' �
r housing. ���t�tU �
suit brought against the city
authority in 1990 by the Legal
Aid Society.
STUDENT AFmSlS HONORED - More th n 250 young artl from acrou the United tIIt_ ,.
honored by le.d a from bualn , government and the ent rtainment world when the 1892 .
Congre lonal high achool art xhlblt opened recently In Waahlngton, D.C. Th •• xhlblt, aponeored
.,nu I, by ON, I the r ult of art competition. conducted In Congre_lonal Dlatrlcta throughout
th country by,. .mbe ... of the U.S. Hou .. of Repr .. entattv The winning art entrl are d"pl�'ed
In a corridor I ding to the U.S. Capitol until May 1883. ShoWn h re, from I.,: GM Group VP M Ina
Whitman, winning atudent artlat Ervin Goodman, Jr. of Detroit, acfor Tom Crul and Congr...." n
John Cony .....
MICHIGAN
CITIZEN
pubnahed Each
SundayBy .
New Day Enterprise
12541 Second Street
P.O. Box 03560
Highland Park. MI 48203
(313) M8-OO33
FAX (313) 88t-043O
s. AFRICA, A10
d?·
.�plol
Detroit area residents· qffered Kuwait jobs
Benton Harbor Bureau
175 MaIn Street
Benton Harbor, MI 49022
(818) 827·1527
FAX (313) 827·2023
do P'lorida, said their company ·did
not deal with private Kuwait
employers, but offered a directory of
American and international com­
panies, involved in "Rebuilding
Kuwalt," working in uch jobs as
construction, manufacturing, design,
engineering, �les, administration,
and health care.
By RON SEIGEL
Co"".pondent
time off, tardy payment or not pay­
ment of salaries at all, isolation, and
sexual abuse.
Hedges said Edita Castro left her
home in a Manila slwn for Kuwait,
hearing a radio commercial promise
a good job overseas as a nanny.
When she showed up at the airport,
however, Hedges says, she was
"spirited away in a van" and given a
job as a maid-instead.
He quotes her as saying she was
refused permission to leave the home
even for a few minutes or receive
letters and phone calls from anyone,
even her family, and forced to work
long hours before dawn until mid-
night. .
If she failed to respond fast
enough, he said, she was beaten and
Kuwait job offers - Do they repre­
sent slavery? She was never paid her
salary.
While many Kuwaitis suffered
mistreatment by Iraq during the in­
v ion, Hedges aid they "failed to
translate that experience into com­
passion for the 500,000 manual
laborers ... who do everything from
sweep streets to cook foods."
ONE AGENT, who identified
,himself as an agent in the Gatan
Trading company, an agency in
Kuwait City, was quoted by Hedges
as saying, "You don't have to give
tbem (foreign laborers) a schedule or
• day off. If you do, you will poil
tbem. Treat them like children. " .
However, USA Today has noted
tbatsome native Kuwm are protest­
ing conditions of foreign workers,
inspired in part by the memory of
their own country's oppression
during the Iraqi occupation.
When asked about these allega­
tions concerning conditions in
Kuwait, an employee of The
Bmployment Guide, JUMing the job
ads for Kuwait here, said the paper
had no knowledge of whether such
charges was true or not. •
"We are just a new paper," he
ide "We just run ads for these
people." .
A representative of the company
ponsoring the ad, Rainbow Pubuih­
ing International, operating in Orlan-
their employers for the travel and
agency fee if they want to break the
contract, a fee of $1,500.".
Most, he added, "have pawned
their jewelry or taken out loans to
pay the agencies' $300 fee to get
there In the first place."
He also stated, "the Kuwaiti
government will not issue exit visas
to workers without the employers'
consent, even if they can get emer­
gency travel documents from their
embassies.
Publlaher: .
Chart D. Kelly
Editor:
Teresa Kelly
M'anaglng Editor:
Wanda F. Roquemote
Contrlbutora:
Bemice Brown
Patrtcta Colbert
Isola Graham
Mary Golliday
Allison Jones
Leah Samuel
Ron SeIgel
Shock Rock
Caft)Iyn Warfield
. Vera White .
Production Manager:
Kascene Barks
Production:
Antialroha
Catherine Kelly
Thurman Powell
Account Exec
AMnClemons
Eartene Tolliver
In the Employment Guide, a
newsletter passed iIi Detroit, High­
land Park and other counties, there
have been frequent advertisements.
for jobs in Kuwait.
In the June 6-13, 1992 edition, the
ad shows a picture of 8 man standing
on a camel picking money from palm
trees, with the words, "Jobs in
Kuwait. .. excellent pay ... transporta­
tion benefits."
. However, reports from some
journalists have charged that behind
such promised may be wretched con­
ditions close to slavery.
Chris Hedges of � New York
Times, quoted Mir Abdel Hossain,
the first ecretary of the Bangladesh
.Embassy as charging that foreign
workers who take job in Kuwait
"are exploited by unscrupulous
. agents in their own country."
THE DIRECTORY WAS
available for fee of $159.95.
She said the money hould be seni
by a major credit carel.
She acclaimed that contracts with
uch comPanies exited for a mini­
mum or one year, and if the
employee did not want renewal, the
company would pay transportation
back.
She said she kneW of no govern­
ment law in Kuwait preventing
employers from leaving.
A representatove of the Detroit
consumer affaill departmelit said
there was DO existence that the ex­
ploltatlon and near slavery condi­
tio s affected any Ametfcan
emp oyees in Kuwait But there WIS
rea on to be skeptical of such
employment chem .
Jac Chase Department Researdl
Director, information revealed
SOME EMBASIES tried to find
new Kuwaiti job for tbose who do
not have the money for their own
release, but a labor atache said, they
come back "the next week" with
stories of similar anrocities. .
"It is becoming an enormous
problem for us," he i quoted as
saying.
In 1988, Hedges said, the
Philipine goverDJDtnt banned agen­
cies from recruiting maids for
Kuwaite, chargtng many were
abused. India, Bangladesh and Sir
Lanka discouraged women from
taking jobs in the Per ian Gulf
countries, pecially Kuwait.
He adds that after many decades
of living off huge oil revenues, many
Kuwalts do not know how to cook or
do lmple ho ehold chores,
HE QUOTES her ayingshewas
raped. .
Hedges said she fled to the
Philipine Embassy and was given
space on a floor of two rooms
together with 130 women, who also
sought refuge.
Hedge aid, "The workers tuive
little recourse if they are abused,
most being denied protection under
labor laws. They must reimburse
"THEY LEAD a miserable life,"
he is quoted as saying. "There are
many reports of human rights viola­
tions. The job of a house boy or a
maid in Kuwait i almost like
slavery."
Hedges aid that foreign workers,
es�ially domestic servants com­
plain ofbeatiDgs, long hours with not
DeodliM lor all newspaper and
tUlvertui1l, copy is 12 110011
WedM.tday prior to. publication.
Se. KUWAIT, A10
.J