Article sur le soutien psychologique en milieu humanitaire

Article super interessant sur la gestion du stress chez les humanitaires... autant dire que sur le terrain on croise le chemin d'etres casses par leurs experiences et qui ont souvent besoin de trouver une "addiction" afin de gerer tout ca... alcolisme, tabagisme excessif, incapacite de parler d'autre chose...Bref, cet article explique de maniere interessante ce probleme...

http://www.resonanceshumanitaires.org/media/questionsdefemmes2.htm

Humanitaires : la générosité a-t-elle un prix?

Ils ont vécu des situations de stress intenses. Perçus comme des héros, ils se sont sentis utiles, mais à leur retour de missions, les humanitaires sont souvent déboussolés. Le soutien psychologique leur fait parfois cruellement défaut.

Article paru dans Questions de femmes - Juillet 2007
Gonzague RAMBAUD

Birmanie : l'incohérence totale de la France

Montreuil, le 30 octobre 2007
www.lesamisdelaterre.org

Birmanie : l'incohérence totale de la France

Alors que Bernard Kouchner, Ministre des Affaires étrangères, vient de prendre ouvertement la défense de Total lors d'une conférence de presse à Bangkok (1), les Amis de la Terre condamnent fermement ce soutien et appellent de nouveau le gouvernement français à prendre rapidement ses responsabilités en dénonçant sans ambiguïté la présence du groupe en Birmanie.

Si l'Union européenne a fait un grand pas en avant le 15 octobre dernier en renforçant les sanctions économiques contre la junte birmane, y incluant notamment le bois, et validant ainsi l'utilité des pressions commerciales, Bernard Kouchner, quant à lui, semble prendre la direction inverse. De façon complètement incohérente, il a exprimé ce matin à Bangkok son soutien explicite au groupe Total, affirmant à tort que son départ nuirait aux populations birmanes et thaïlandaises.

Gwenael Wasse, chargé de la Responsabilité sociale et environnementale des entreprises aux Amis de la Terre, est choqué : « On pensait le temps du soutien à Total enfin révolu et la rupture consommée, mais on a maintenant la confirmation qu'il n'en est rien : la France soutient toujours aveuglément sa première entreprise, privilégiant ses bénéfices par rapport aux droits de l'Homme tout en instrumentalisant les populations locales et des pays voisins ». Il ajoute : « Si Bernard Kouchner est ouvertement favorable à des sanctions dures contre l'Iran, sa position est beaucoup plus incohérente sur la Birmanie. Dans son discours de clotûre du Grenelle de l'Environnement, Nicolas Sarkozy déclarait pourtant que la responsabilité française était de donner l'exemple...».

Les Amis de la Terre rappellent qu'à côté des 14 millions de dollars dépensés par Total depuis 1998 pour son programme socio-économique en Birmanie (2), le groupe verse aussi 500 millions de dollars chaque année dans le cadre de son contrat pétrolier avec la junte pour l'exploitation du gisement gazier de Yadana. Cette somme finance directement la corruption et les gravissimes violations des droits de l'Homme dont souffrent au quotidien plus de 50 millions de birmans. Le 10 octobre dernier, l'opposition démocratique birmane en exil, reçue quelques jours plus tôt par Nicolas Sarkozy, a pourtant condamné fermement la présence du groupe sur place, demandant que « soient gelées ou abandonnées toutes les activités liées au gaz ». Gwenael Wasse conclut : « Apparemment, les intérêts de Total comptent plus que celle des démocrates birmans ; espérons que la France corrigera très vite ce faux pas diplomatique ».

(1) Bernard Kouchner défend la présence de Total en Birmanie, Le Monde, 30/10/2007
(2) source Total (cf. http://birmanie.total.com/fr/contexte/p_1_5.htm)

Stories from Lhokseumawe: The story of a normal young woman in Aceh

My acehnese colleague had just come into my office to talk to me. She has been sick for the last few days, and not coming to my hotel the last two nights as planned (we wanted to watch a movie). She and I are about the same age, and she is a bright and funny young woman.
But her life is not so funny at all.
She had a boyfriend and they were very much in love. So in love that they didn’t want to wait for their wedding (scheduled for a week after the tsunami) before making love. She fell pregnant a few weeks before, but they weren’t worried a bit as nobody would know the child was conceived before the wedding. Her boyfriend died in the Tsunami. She told me she even found his body and all his family also. She spent twenty minutes describing how she walked through the devastated city of Banda Aceh the day after to find him, and also to look for her cousin and his family, that she never found. The details of all of that made me sick to my stomach, and I won’t get into details, as we can all imagine the horrible effect of the aftermath of the tsunami.
On top of her loss, she was left in a totally unacceptable situation for a woman here. Pregnant without being married. After the tsunami, she found a job in Meulaboh (eight hours from Banda Aceh) and she met a tsunami widow who was also working with Ngos. She liked him a lot, and decided she could be happy living her life with him. So they got married, and when the baby was born a few months later, her honor was safe. She was married, and she had a family. Her husband had two children from his previous marriage, but they live in Medan (it is very common here to meet families that have one or two children living in a different city with relatives, often for school or financial reasons).
My friend got pregnant again a few months ago, but lost her baby. It died in her womb. She had to go through the horrible and very painful process of having it “pulled out” in Banda Aceh (where you can imagine the conditions of such an intervention).

A few minutes ago she was in front of me and she just started talking. I could see she was holding back her tears. Her husband has been beating her. She described how he broke one of her ribs a few months ago and another time bruised her face so badly that she was all blue. He also steels her salary from her. She makes a very good income for a woman in Aceh, and twice what her husband makes. He takes all her money and buys things for his children in Medan. My friend needed a washing machine as she did not have the time to hand wash all their clothes after work. He took the money saying he would go buy it and came back with new tires for his motorbike. My friend had also managed to secretly put aside a bit of her salary each month (for future needs and for her child), but he found the bank booklet, and got all the money out and bought a ridiculously big motorbike. Because he is her husband, he had no difficulty at the bank to access her account (she opened it with her name).
Finally, I am staying in a big hotel room all by myself and had asked her if she wanted to come and spend a few nights with me. There are two beds and a TV and she had told me she missed watching TV. Anyways, the night before yesterday she told me she couldn’t because she had to go to the market with the owner of the room she rents here (her husband is in BA. She travels every week down here and goes home on the week ends). Yesterday she called saying she wasn’t coming because she was sick. She admitted to me today that she had lied, because her husband had forbidden her to come. I told her “why do you even ask him?” She said he regularly called the owner of the house she lives in to check if she’s in her room. Why would he not want her to come sleep with a female colleague? “He doesn’t trust me she said”.
She has threatened to divorce him, and he has stopped hitting her, but has transformed his physical abuse into a verbal one. He is always degrading her and insulting her. At least there can be no proof.

Fortunately, her family stands by her. Her parents don’t like him and her dad has even gotten into a fight with him. Both her mother and father (they are divorced) have said they would take care of her and her child and support her. She is lucky in the sense that if she finds the strength to leave him she has a safe place to go to, and love to receive from her family. I doubt this is the case for most of the other women here in Aceh who are in the same situation.

It was heartbreaking to listen to her and I tried to advise her the best I could. Being myself a happy newlywed, I felt very distraught thinking of women for whom marriage is a prison. I tend to forget that marriage is in most places of this world linked to men controlling and owning their wives, feeling they have the right to use and abuse them the way they want. Of course, here in Aceh, I have positive marriages examples around me. But everybody plays their “role” so well in the eyes of society that it’s difficult to really see what’s going on. I told her next time she was hit she should go to the police. She said that really wouldn’t change anything… I hope she finds the strength to get out of that marriage. For now she is too scared, but I told her thinking about all these things and recognizing that he was wrong to treat her so, is already a first step to freedom.

CRAZY BUT TRUE!

WE ARE MARRIED!

For more beautiful pictures of D-Day, go to:

http://emilyandabel.blogspot.com/