genderberg.com

There's a pro-prostitution campaigner who wrote on her website that radical feminists are like rapists because rapists deny women sexual agency and radfems deny women sexual agency. That logical leap came back to me when I read the following article about a Finnish-funded prison for women in Afghanistan reported to have become a brothel two months after its opening on International Women's Day.

Finnish-Funded Prison Turns Brothel?
http://www.yle .fi/uutiset/news/2009/05/finnish-funded_prison_turns_brothel_724554.html

Finnish officials suspect that a new women's prison in northern Afghanistan, built through Finnish money and political will, may have been turned into a brothel.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs suspects that inmates may have been forced to sexually service guards, employees and their guests.

"We suspect that the prison's top managers are involved, but we haven't confirmed this, as inquiries into the matter are still ongoing," says Rauli Suikkanen, a counsellor at the Foreign Ministry's Department of Asian and Oceanic Affairs.

"It's possible that this activity was not entirely forced upon all the women. Drug dealing and the presence of drugs may also be an issue," he says.

The ministry got wind of the abuse when its own staff members were offered the inmates' sexual services.

The prison was supposed to be a kind of haven for disenfranchised women. This may seem strange to Westerners, but many women in Afghanistan are imprisoned for adultery, various forms of 'dishonour', and for being the victims of rape. Children are often imprisoned with their mothers in squalid conditions.

The prison, which Finland paid for, was a way for aid workers to reach these women in order to provide security, health care and education for them and their children.

The prison's grand opening was celebrated just two months ago - on International Women's Day.

Model Prison “Missed Key Lessons”

The prison was intended to be a model to the rest of the country's prison system. It was also an important goal for Finland's development workers in Afghanistan, for whom women's rights and welfare has been a key issue. The prison was not only a drastic improvement in infrastructure from the old, crumbling women's prison, but it housed a day care centre for the children, and a sewing workshop where the women could make and sell handicrafts.

"Here you have the military doing work that primarily belongs in the civilian realm," says Päivi Mattila, the deputy chair of Finland's branch of the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

"They missed key lessons that the development community has learned the hard way over the past decades -- that you can't just set up one-time projects like putting up some infrastructure without committing to it long-term."

The construction of the women's prison was a small part of Finland's overall development programme in Afghanistan, but the revelation that the model facility could have turned into a centre of such abuse is deeply embarrassing. Plans to build a new men's prison in the area are now on hold as officials investigate why there was not adequate supervision of the prison's operations.

Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb told YLE that funding the prison was a mistake and that financing has been cut off.

Do you have a link to the blog, Sam?

Nauseating news article

It's not a blog but a website, and I'll private message it to you.

WTF were they thinking building a women's prison in a place like Afghanistan in the first place?

Stupid Finns.

The prison was supposed to be a kind of haven for disenfranchised women. This may seem strange to Westerners, but many women in Afghanistan are imprisoned for adultery, various forms of 'dishonour', and for being the victims of rape. Children are often imprisoned with their mothers in squalid conditions.

That was the main reason as I understand it.

There's a pro-prostitution campaigner who wrote on her website that radical feminists are like rapists because rapists deny women sexual agency and radfems deny women sexual agency.

Is that "similarity as sameness" logic stretch a mostly ignorant American conceit, an interwebs phenomenon, or are people everywhere that far gone? Anyone know?

It was a rhetorical question.

They had no business supporting Afghani men imprisoning women. They've built a rape camp for them. What exactly did they think would happen?

What they should have been spending their money on was giving women in the community power and a voice so in the long term women are no longer imprisoned in those circumstances. By building a prison for women, the Finns are saying that it is OK to imprison Afghan women for being out of the control of men. They aren't arguing with the imprisonment, they just want them to be a bit "nicer" about locking up women for adultery or being rape victims.

The men's prison sounds like a good idea though.

rapists deny women sexual agency

Naa rapists deny women's humanity - not so with radical feminists. Silly person thinks it's all about sex.

Sorry Delphyne. It went right by me.

No probs TBW.

Rapists violently attack women and physically violate our bodies. People who live in their heads like to think the body doesn't exist or doesn't really matter, thus a radical feminist can be compared to a rapist.

Of course in postmodern world real things that are done by real men to real women don't count. Instead denying someone their "agency" is the worst thing you can do to them.

It's the same patriarchy-protecting lie that posits women hurting men's feelings is the flip side of men raping women.

One man told me the male version of Thelma & Louise would be a man driving around and seeing billboards of gorgeous women he can never have sex with, because that's equivalent to what women suffer when men rape them. Another man thought it would be a good idea to counter my statistics on male violence against women by suggesting women hurt men just as much with words so it evens out. I don't have enough fingers and toes to count every woman who has said some version of, "Actually, women hurt women more than men hurt women because women are so mean to each other."