> A WOMAN SHAPED BY HER TRAVELS
India:
Both of my parents grew up in India and we visited often throughout my childhood. Some of my fondest memories are of conversations with my cousins about our lives, schools, friends, families, and future plans; as well as eating incredible food, exotic fruit, and exhilarating scooter rides. But I was also struck by the poverty, the unfairness of the caste system, and the often patriarchal attitudes to women. In many ways, my experiences in India planted the seeds of my interest in equality rights.
South Africa:
I visited South Africa in 1999 and it was an amazing time because apartheid had just ended in 1994 but its legacy was apparent in the shantytowns and deep divisions that still existed in society. I remember my mother speaking to a shopkeeper who was of South Asian descent who took great offence to my mother’s efforts to make conversation by asking her if she was originally from India. “No. I am a South African!” the shopkeeper hissed. Racial identities remain difficult terrain in many parts of the world.
Nigeria:
My parents lived in Nigeria for 10 years. Once, while en route from Lagos to Port Harcourt, we were pulled over by gunmen carrying machine guns who sought a bribe. They laid down a spike strip to stop our car from proceeding. I remember being so scared and relieved when they let us go.
Singapore:
I did an exchange at the National University of Singapore in 2001, and backpacked extensively in Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. In many ways, Singapore positions itself as a utopia: tropical, cosmopolitan, modern and crime-free. On the other hand, migrants are forced to cross into Singapore from Malaysia every day to toil away as cleaners, cooks and maids, while Singapore refuses to grant them permanent status. I also learned that the Singaporean “solution” to homelessness was to jail street-affected persons by charging them with vagrancy. Both these facts cast a different light on their claims that there was no poverty in Singapore.
Mexico:
I have been to Mexico a number of times. In 2002, I went to Guadalajara for a global meeting of women’s rights activists. I remember participating in a candlelight vigil to commemorate victims of gender-based violence despite the fact that protest was criminalized. In 2012, I was in Mexico again, this time with PEN International, grilling Mexican government officials on their complicity in violence against journalists.
Switzerland:
This past summer, I was in Geneva presenting to the UN Human Rights Committee on its review of Canada. Based on my submissions, the Committee called on Canada to set a reasonable time limit on immigration detention, to ensure that immigration detention is used as a “last resort,” and to develop non-custodial alternatives to detention. Reflecting the urgency of the situation, the Committee has asked Canada to provide information on the implementation of its recommendations related to immigration detention within one year. This was definitely a career highlight, but the fight continues.