teenagers Archives - Womens Post

News December 12, 2017

26 African girls were found floating in the Mediterranean

The bodies of 26 teenage African girls were found floating in the Mediterranean sea on Nov. 7. It’s been more than a month since and very few details have been released about their deaths. Who were these girls? How did they get there? And why isn’t this story in the headlines? It is believed the victims were part of a sex trafficking trade from African to Europe and that the girls met their untimely death along the perilous refugee sea path to Italy that has already claimed many lives. The victims were between 14 and 18 years old.

Over the years, we have seen many headlines that flash briefly about the bodies of refugees found at sea, mostly those from Yemen and Syria, as they try to make their way to Europe. So far only two men in Italy have been arrested and charged in the deaths of the girls. Many of the girls as young of 14 suffered visible abuse. It is alleged the girls were picked up in southern Nigeria, held in Libya and then sent to Italy.

These girls were only a few of the many that may have been trafficked over the years — girls who have been tortured and raped. And we know very little about them.

These girls are nameless. They are forgotten victims. Their bodies, which were fished from the sea and placed in body bags, have not been identified or claimed. Since the early 1990s, girls have been taken from Nigeria and sent to Italy where they are forced into prostitution. According to the United Nations, there has been an increase in the amount of potential victims arriving in Italy by sea. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says that in 2016, nearly 11,000 girls made the trip.

The IOM conducted a study that found since 2014. over 22,000 migrants disappeared globally while attempting to cross the Mediterranean. These are, of course, simply statistics. There is barely any background information on most of the refugees or those being forced into prostitution. Libya is serving as a modern day port for slavery and sex trafficking. It’s a topic that is being ignored by mainstream media, as many sub-Saharan migrants face bigotry in Libya. The darker your skin, the fiercer the abuse. Men are being forced into construction jobs with almost no pay and migrants are even auctioned off.

For the girls that do survive migration trips, they are greeted with intense racism and degradation of the body once forced into prostitution.

Situations like this are heartbreaking and are spinning out of control. That 26 African girls can disappear and nobody will notice is a debilitating thought. I can only imagine what their family and friends are feeling back home. These girls deserved much more — they deserve the headlines, to be remembered instead of being left floating in the sea.

What's Hot December 7, 2016

Woman of the Week: Miriam Verburg

Do you remember those teenage years — all of the confusion, the expectations, and the social awkwardness?

That’s one of the reasons why Miriam Verburg helped to create the LongStory Game, a dating sim, choose-your-own-adventure type game that helps pre-teens and teenagers learn the ins-and-outs of dating. Users get to pick a character —boy, girl, or trans — and must solve a mystery while navigating social scenarios. Some examples include, bullying, backstabbing friends, alienation and immigration, and experimentation with their own sexuality.

“I made it as a response to other dating sims, which follow boring storylines – you buy enough nice clothing and people will like you,” Verburg said. “LongStory is less appearance based and more ‘if I was 13 playing a game about relationships, what would I want to practice doing’.”

Verburg is modest to a fault. She is a self-affirmed feminist who wants to be a force of change and social good, but would rather work behind the scenes than in front of a camera. She considers some aspects of business like advertising and monetization a challenge, as she wants her work to retain it’s authenticity and accessibility — something many other businesses can’t claim.

Verburg became interested in technology at a young age. Her father worked for the Bloorview Macmillan Centre in Toronto as a researcher, developing rehabilitation programs for kids. He often brought home weird-looking laptops and would let the kids play with them. Verburg caught the creative bug, and studied art in school, primarily print-making and digitization.

After graduating, she worked at Studio XX, an “explicitly feminist art studio” in Montreal, where self-taught women in technology could teach others. After a while, her interests changed to web development. She completed her Master’s in Communications and Media Studies at Concordia and got a job teaching kids digital literacy at a library in Montreal, something that inspired her to continue to work with kids and technology.

While doing all of this, Verburg started her own website development company with some friends called 3scoDesign, which focused on helping non-profits design and integrate their digital footprints. Verburg has maintained that entrepreneurial spirit and is now the founder and CEO of Bloom Digital Media, a “boutique gaming company” that specializes in user experience and project management.

LongStory launched two years ago through Bloom Digital Media and it’s quite the success. Verburg’s target audience at the beginning was young girls; she wanted to create a game that taught consent and allowed girls to experiment with their desires.

“It was 2012 — Rehtaeh Parsons and Amanda Todd — I found those stories sad and surprising,” she said. “It seemed to me, as a teenager, I was pretty convinced that the dating world was not constructed in a way girls can experience themselves fully with power and freedom.”

LongStory has since grown into a phenomenon that transcends gender, a game that appeals to young people across the board. Users can choose a character that accurately represents how they choose to be identified — “he”, “she”, or “they” — and can try things they may be embarrassed to try in public. The challenge, Verburg says, is to keep the game authentic and available, so that teenagers are comfortable using it and parents don’t mind them doing so.

“There has been lots of pressure to make this educational and put it in schools, which is something I’ve resisted,” she said. Teenagers see devices as a place where they can be free to be themselves, and if you introduce it into classrooms, that whole idea changes.

Her team is also made up of an equal number of men and women — something Verburg says should be the norm no matter the company.

“The team is fairly evenly split and we also try to have a lot of LGBTQ members to represent that idea authentically,” she says. “People say it’s hard to have diversity in a company, but it’s not.”

One of the things Verburg hopes will change is the perception issue regarding male-dominated industries like hers. People say that more women should be involved in gaming or web development, but they don’t actually speak with women to find out what kind of games they would be interested in. That’s something Verburg has actively been trying to change.

“We spoke with a lot of girls during market research,” she said. “I want to explore how to create a community around that idea of gaming – how to help [girls] find better games and enjoy the experience more. There is such a strong community around building games and it makes me sad to see that if you ask girls if they want to get involved, they say ‘it’s still not meant for me’.”

Verburg was also involved with Dames Making Games, a not-for-profit feminist organization that runs events and programs for “women, non-binary, gender nonconforming, trans and queer folks interested in games.” When she isn’t working or involved in the gaming community, Verburg enjoys doing circuit training, going for a walk outdoors, or playing a board game — anything that doesn’t involve analytical thinking.

Season two of LongStory was released a few months ago, and Verburg is excited to see where it will lead. “It’s like an Archie comic,” she said. “It can only go on.”

Feminism October 31, 2016

Dear Halloween: stop being so sexist

Dear Halloween,

I think you are a lot of fun. When I was a young girl, I relished the opportunity to dress up in a scary costume and go out with my friends at night. The candy — a big plus!

As I grew older, I started to go to parties. My friends and I would watch scary movies, gorge on candy and chocolate, and hit as many haunted houses as possible. Even now, at 26, I enjoy dressing up and going to Halloween-themed parties. It’s just an excuse to be a child again, right?! And there is nothing wrong with that!

But, I have to say: the older I get, the more disappointed I become. You’ve become very sexist, my dearest Halloween, and it’s becoming really hard to love you.

I was having a hard time coming up with a costume idea this year, and decided to go to a party store for inspiration. I wandered up and down the aisles, looking at all of the outfits labelled for women. It was disgraceful. Everything was “sexy”: sexy cat, sexy devil, sexy milkmaid, and sexy foods (you think I’m joking, but I’m not). Anything not labelled “sexy” was revealing in nature. All the dresses were really short and the tops were a little more boobilicious than I would like.

Of course, the male costumes are all weather-appropriate for the month of October in Canada.

Then, I made the mistake of googling “halloween costumes – ideas for women”. Oh dear, Halloween, what have you transformed into?!

You used to be a day of innocence. The day was about the scary stories, the history, and of course, the candy. People honoured the dead in your name! There would be street festivals, family dinners, and cemetery rituals. Now, even the candy is too expensive for people to care. It’s all about what people wear and who takes notice of those legs.

My biggest concern is that kids are growing up thinking this is the norm. Teenage girls are putting on plaid skirts and letting their bras show through their blouses. Girls are plastering their face with glitter and lipstick, going to parties in bikinis, dressed as pop stars or scantily-clad video game characters. The number of people I see on the subway dressed up in outfits that cover very little of their body is startling. And, it increases every year.

To be clear, if a woman wants to dress up like a sexy kitten, that is her prerogative. A woman should feel safe during this holiday to be whoever she wants to be! I’m just arguing for options!

Halloween, I know you don’t have a lot of control over people’s decision-making, but please tell me this is not what you had in mind! Please tell me you didn’t want people to objectify themselves or parade around in skimpy lingerie. Please tell me that this is all a big mistake!

Of course, you can’t tell me anything. You’ve become too commercialized, too selfish, too self-involved to care what you are doing to today’s youth. I never thought the day would come when I would be disappointed in you, Halloween. I never thought you would give up on your roots.

At the end of the day, I stayed true to myself. I decided against buying one of those horrendous and sexist costumes, and instead purchased some makeup and went as a scary, sewn-together monster.

Because, Halloween, I will never give up on you. Even when you are at your worst.

Sincerely,

Katherine DeClerq