Flag on my Backpack

Alaina Giordano was diagnosed with breast cancer three and half years ago. That was bad. 

This is worse: On April 25th, a judge in North Carolina used Alaina’s cancer as a key reason to transfer custody of her 5-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter to her ex-husband (a man Alaina describes as “abusive” and who lives more than 700 miles away). 

This is happening even though Alaina says her kids “know that I have cancer, they know that I go for treatment once a month now, they know that it’s stable. They know me as mom, and it doesn’t affect our daily life.”

She has just two weeks to appeal, and her hope is that a huge outcry from the public and local elected officials can help reverse the decision. 

Thankfully, that outcry is growing quickly. A petition started by Alaina’s sister Lauren has more than 7,000 signatures, Alaina was interviewed on Good Morning America and the Today Show, and media throughout North Carolina and the U.S. are now covering the injustice. 

But time is short, and the wrong outcome here sets a dangerous precedent for mothers and fathers with cancer or other serious diseases. Please sign Lauren’s petition asking that Alaina Giordano’s breast cancer not be used as a reason to take away her kids: 

http://www.change.org/petitions/do-not-allow-nc-judge-to-take-alaina-giordanos-children-just-because-she-has-cancer

Hate crime at McDonald’s caught on video: Hold employees and assailants accountable

On Friday, Adrian Leigh Cowan of Baltimore started a petition on Change.org, speaking out in response to a shocking online video of a transgender woman being brutally beaten at a local McDonald’s.

As Adrian told our team of organizers, “I was moved to start this petition because when I first viewed the video, I was brought to tears. How anyone could stand by and allow this to happen is unfathomable to me.” More than 30,000 Change.org members had the same reaction, and joined Adrian in signing the petition.  

If you haven’t watched the horrifying video of this hate crime, please click this link (WARNING: Video contains extremely graphic violence). Then add your name to Adrian’s petition calling on McDonald’s and Maryland authorities to hold those involved accountable.

If you would prefer not to watch the video posted by Adrian, you should know what it documents: A 22-year-old transgender woman is pulled out of a McDonald’s bathroom and viciously beaten by two customers. She is punched, knocked to the ground, dragged across the floor by her hair, and kicked in the face until she appears to experience a seizure.

Instead of coming to this woman’s assistance, one McDonald’s employee filmed the assault while others can be heard cheering the assailants on as they attack the victim. After the brutal incident, the video was posted to the Internet, where an employee bragged that the assault was OK because the victim “was a man dressed like a woman.”

Sadly, this attack is a reminder of the rampant harassment and discrimination that transgender people face every day. Nationwide, more than half of all transgender people experience verbal or physical abuse when trying to access public accommodations like restrooms. Brutal acts of violence are all too common — and authorities often fail to prosecute these crimes to the fullest extent of the law.

Not surprisingly, McDonald’s lacks standard policies for protecting transgender individuals, despite a decent record of workplace discrimination protections for gays and lesbians. And while the company has pledged to “take appropriate action” against all employees involved in this heinous event, just one has been punished.

Please join Adrian Leigh Cowan in demanding that McDonald’s and Maryland authorities hold accountable both the assailants in this beating and the employees who cheered it on — and to make sure that an attack like this never happens again:

http://www.change.org/petitions/demand-that-the-employees-on-duty-at-mcdonalds-be-held-responsible-in-the-beating-of-a-trans-woman

We can’t let this brutal hate crime in Maryland go unpunished. Thank you for taking action today.

- Eden and the Change.org team

Change.org member Evgenia Chirkova is a mom in Khimki, a town on the outskirts of Moscow. The agents showed up at her house without warning. They accused her of beating and starving her children and threatened to take her kids away, even though they later admitted they had no evidence. 

Why? Because Evgenia is a leader of a courageous fight to save the Khimki forest from a league of corrupt forces, including the Russian government. She’s been harassed and threatened. Some of her fellow protesters have been arrested and beaten –– one journalist was brutalized so badly that he now has to use a wheelchair. He can no longer speak.

All because they want to stop the destruction of one of the few protected old-growth forests in all of Russia — a forest critical to the entire ecosystem around Moscow.

It’s an incredible story, one that starts with a corrupt deal to build a $1 billion highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg right through the Khimki forest, even though other routes were easily available.  

Tell Vinci, the French company about to begin construction, not to destroy an old-growth forest and support a corrupt system. Add your name to Evgenia’s petition. 

After she discovered the proposed plan, Evgenia and others started the “Save Khimki Forest” movement. In a country fed up with rampant corruption, human rights abuses and environmental degradation, their movement struck a nerve. 

Last summer, thousands of people demonstrated in Moscow’s center, leading to President Medvedev’s unprecedented action of holding a public discussion on the proposed highway. The Associated Press has labeled their movement “Russia’s broadest protest movement in years.”

But now President Medvedev has said that the government won’t budge. And while Evgenia and her fellow protesters risk their personal safety to keep on fighting, Vinci’s bulldozers may start taking down the Khimki forest within weeks, or even days.

But Evgenia is not done fighting yet –– and neither are we. Please sign her petition to tell Vinci not to destroy the Khimki forest:

http://www.change.org/petitions/save-khimki-forest-stand-with-russias-human-rights-and-environmental-activists?alert_id=YDSFUqweUn_oSjDasKYLD&me=aa

Ai Weiwei is the most famous artist in China, best known for his iconic “Bird’s Nest” stadium that was the focal point of the Beijing Olympics. 

Ai has always pushed the envelope, both with his internationally-acclaimed art and with his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government. 

But these past weeks have brought Beijing’s harshest crackdown on dissidents in more than a decade. And on April 3rd, government agents arrested Ai at the Beijing airport and seized papers and computers from his studio.

We don’t know where Ai is now. The Chinese government is holding him on flimsy charges of “economic crimes” — an allegation often used to silence dissenters. 

Twelve leading figures in the international arts world, including the directors of the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and Tate Museum, have started a petition on Change.org demanding that the Chinese government free Ai Weiwei.

The regime in Beijing has proven largely resistant to pressure from foreign governments. But they’ve made a huge push to raise China’s profile in the arts — the government just finished building the world’s largest art museum. Widespread condemnation, led by the arts community, may be our best chance to save his life. 

Please sign the petition to free Ai Weiwei as soon as possible:

http://www.change.org/petitions/call-for-the-release-of-ai-weiwei?alert_id=ZntTBqdKpo_khEsYzPNYV&me=aa

In 1994, Hutu state radio played a massive role in the Rwandan genocide, inciting violence and giving direction on how and where to kill Tutsis. 

Right now in Libya, Gaddafi is using state television much the same way. As a weapon. On his three state-run stations, supporters are urged to hunt the opposition “alley by alley, house by house, room by room.” It’s been reported that state programming is used to send coded instructions to loyalists and hired mercenaries.  

It’s not too late to shut down Libyan state television and save the lives of innocent civilians. But we must act quickly.

Here’s how we can help: Libya uses four international satellite providers (ArabSat, EutelSat, AsiaSat, and NileSat) to broadcast. If these companies drop Libyan state television, the propaganda will stop. 

Please sign the petition started by Change.org member Carol Hillson demanding that these satellite companies stop broadcasting Gaddafi’s incitements to violence.

Satellite providers like these four companies aren’t typically involved in the world of activism. It’s possible that they’ve never been petitioned before.

That’s why we believe a global outcry for them to cease their broadcasts in Libya could work. And the faster we can produce such an outcry, the more lives we can potentially save.

Please ask CEOs Amin Basyouni, Michel de Rosen, William Wade, and Khalid Balkheyour — four men who have the power to save countless civilians — to stop broadcasting Libyan state television: 

http://www.change.org/petitions/shut-down-gaddafi-state-tv?alert_id=VGNJeZvfMV_WQZsAAMdTm&me=aa

We’ve won dozens of victories in the past few weeks, but none would save so many lives as this. Please add your name, then forward this email to friends and family. 

- Weldon and the Change.org team

Nearly 70 years ago, in the small town of Abbeville, Alabama, a young woman named Recy Taylor experienced the worst of living under Jim Crow law. In 1944, Recy was gang raped by a group of men –– her neighbors. 

Rosa Parks and the NAACP fought on Recy’s behalf to send her attackers to prison. But because Recy was black and the assailants were white, her rapists never even faced trial, let alone jail time, even though they confessed to raping her.

Yesterday, after emails from over 6,000 Change.org members, Abbeville Mayor Ryan Blalock and Alabama State Rep. Dexter Grimsley made personal apologies to Recy and her family for the failure to prosecute her attackers. Now it’s time for the city of Abbeville and state of Alabama to follow suit.

Recy is now 91 years old, and all she wants is for her story to be recognized. For the state that denied her justice to admit that it did wrong. ”The sheriff never even said he was sorry it happened. I think more people should know about it … but ain’t nobody saying nothing,” Recy said.

Recy’s brother, Robert Corbitt, has spent the last decade of his retirement searching for the facts of the case and seeking justice for Recy. He started a petition on Change.org requesting an apology to his sister from the city of Abbeville and the state of Alabama. 

Rep. Grimsley –– an Abbeville native himself –– has vowed to introduce a resolution in the House calling for Alabama to apologize to Recy and all the black women like her whose stories were hushed and names were slandered. 

Tell the Alabama state legislature to support Rep. Grimsley’s apology resolution — it’s time for us to stand up for Recy and for Alabama to apologize for letting her down.

http://www.change.org/petitions/demand-alabama-publicly-apologize-for-failure-to-address-jim-crow-era-gang-rape?alert_id=PzeXmFhwdH_IRKJMWJcvu&me=aa

A small group of lesbian activists from the poverty-stricken townships of Cape Town walked into South African parliament on Monday and convinced their government to finally start fighting the country’s decades-old scourge of “corrective rape” — where men rape lesbian women to “turn” them straight. You made that moment possible. 

Late last year, these activists called on the world to help them pressure their leaders to take action on corrective rape. We answered their call, and more than 170,000 Change.org members from 163 countries joined with them, making this the largest campaign of all time on Change.org.

Three and a half months later, they succeeded. Teaming up with 23 major South African organizations, they got some of the most powerful officials in the country to agree to bring together various government arms and civil society groups to develop and implement a national action plan to combat corrective rape.

The ministry officials asked for details of specific cases in need of immediate attention, committed to a series of meetings beginning in six weeks, and promised to present concrete proposals to prevent corrective rape by the next meeting.

It’s an astounding victory, far beyond what we ever could have imagined when we set out late last year. Now these activists need your help holding the government accountable for its commitments.

If there was any question about the effect you had, the chief of staff himself confirmed it: At one point in the session he explicitly said, in a pleading voice, “Please don’t petition us again.”

But that’s exactly what we need to do. The government is making a series of urgent decisions on sexual violence legislation in the next few weeks, and South African activists need your help in pressuring them to follow up their words with tangible action:

http://www.change.org/petitions/south-africa-follow-words-with-action-against-rape?alert_id=aDwQnnErnm_HzFbCNmuFS&me=aa

Your work led to overwhelming international press coverage of the campaign, taking corrective rape from an unspoken epidemic to a prominent international issue. In the last two weeks alone, the campaign against corrective rape has been covered by Time Magazine, the Washington Post, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, Seattle Times, ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, Fox News, MSNBC, Dan Rather, Forbes, Yahoo! News, Salon, and dozens of global outlets from Taiwan, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Spain, and even a Finnish tabloid.

An elated Luleki Sizwe Founder Ndumie Funda (pictured to the right, alongside the chief of staff from the Ministry of Justice) called it “an incredible achievement…I humble myself to the 170,000 people from all over the world who made this possible. It was about time this happened.”

There is still much to be done, but every Change.org member should be proud about what has been accomplished here. In just 100 days, a tiny group of township activists have managed to mobilize more than 170,000 people from 163 countries and engaged the highest levels of government to address their demands. That’s incredible.

Last November, an 11-year-old girl was gang raped in an abandoned trailer home on the outskirts of Cleveland, Texas.

A total of eighteen boys and men have been arrested in conjunction with this brutal rape, ranging in age from middle schoolers to a 27-year-old.

Obviously, any attack this vicious is shocking. It leaves us with questions. How could this happen? What made these boys and men think their behavior was acceptable?

But those weren’t the questions asked by James McKinley of the New York Times when he wrote about this attack on March 8th. Instead, he asked some offensive and irrelevant questions.

How did the 11-year-old rape victim dress? According to Mr. McKinley, “Residents in the neighborhood … said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s.”

Did the victim have any seedy friends? Mr. McKinley reminds us, “She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.”

This is a poor excuse for reporting, and the New York Times should apologize for printing this dangerous “blame the victim” rhetoric.

It’s hard to imagine living in a world where eighteen boys and men could gang rape an 11-year-old girl, then pass around videos they shot of the attack. Maybe it’s easier for some to assume this little girl somehow brought this savagery on herself. But she didn’t.

And the New York Times has no business perpetuating the myth that she did. Add your name to the petition demanding a public apology: 

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-new-york-times-to-apologize-for-blaming-a-child-for-her-gang-rape?alert_id=EQXghPHLfm_mIPPgkuYFv&me=aa

Thanks for taking action,

- Shelby and the Change.org team

P.S. I’m Shelby, writing to you from the virtual front lines of the fight for gender equality. I just started as the Director of Organizing for Women’s Rights to help Change.org members win important campaigns like this one. I look forward to working together with you to change the world for women and therefore for all people. If you’d like to reach me, send me an email at: Shelby.Knox@change.org

Valentine’s Day, which accounts for 40% of fresh flower sales annually, is fast approaching.

If you’re planning to order a bouquet from 1-800-Flowers — the world’s largest florist — you should know where most of those flowers really come from. 

At flower farms in Ecuador and Colombia — the countries that export the most to the U.S. — two-thirds of the workers are women. These women are routinely subjected to harassment and even rape from their male supervisors. They suffer eye infections and miscarriages from consistent contact with dangerous pesticides.

In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, they’re routinely forced to work 80-hour weeks with no overtime pay. Attempts to form a union are met with opposition by police and armed forces. 

Many retailers — such as Whole Foods and Stop & Shop — have taken the important first step of offering Fair Trade flowers to consumers who want no part of these abuses. Fair Trade certified farms must adhere to strict standards for workers’ rights, which prevents the abuses described above. 

1-800-Flowers is the largest florist in the world. Yet they offer no Fair Trade flowers at all.

Tell 1-800-Flowers to join other major retailers in offering Fair Trade flowers.

1-800-Flowers uses a certifying agency called Florverde, which ensures that its flower farms measure up to certain environmental standards — this is a good thing. But Florverde has almost no labor standards: A farm can be certified even if it uses forced labor.Indeed, Florverde is owned by the Association of Colombian Flower Exporters, so it has a financial incentive to keep wages low and suppress workers’ rights.

This is the week before Valentine’s Day — more people will purchase flowers during the next seven days than any other week this year. This is our best opportunity to demand a promise from 1-800-Flowers to join its competitors in offering Fair Trade flowers. So after you sign the petition, please share this email widely and post on Facebook — do everything you can topressure 1-800-Flowers to show a little respect for the women who toil in unbearable circumstances. The women without whom they’d have no flowers to sell.

Click the link below to tell 1-800-Flowers to make a promise this Valentine’s Day to sell Fair Trade flowers:

http://www.change.org/petitions/ask-1-800-flowers-to-offer-fair-trade-flowers-that-arent-picked-by-exploited-workers?alert_id=IiStMzHsCg_TutlvBqRPD&me=aa

Since this campaign began, the company has emailed to tell us that it will post more information on its website about the farms that supply their flowers. But this is a far cry from selling fair trade products — and we have much more to do to make sure workers are protected. This is the week to do it.

During and after the State of the Union last Tuesday, President Obama and Congressional Republicans waxed poetic about the need to cut wasteful spending in Washington. Here’s an easy place to start:

According to Corporate Accountability International, Congress spent nearly $200,000 on bottled water in just three months last year. Recent studies estimate that bottled water costs almost 2,000 times more than tap water – even though the two types of water often come from the same sources.

Besides being a waste of money, bottled water is terrible for the environment: The energy needed to produce the plastic consumption is enough to fuel three million cars for a year. Nearly one million tons of plastic bottles are discarded as litter each year, ending up in landfills, lakes and streams. What’s more, public water infrastructure in DC and around the whole country needs all the support it can get— especially from Congress.

Tell Congress to stop wasting our money and end its use of bottled water.

To sweeten the deal, DC Water (a local utility) has even offered to provide every member of Congress with a reusable water bottle as well as free water quality testing systems for Congressional office buildings.

When members of Congress complain about wasteful spending, they should curb their own bad habits first.

Sign this petition today to tell Congress to end its use of bottled water:

http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-house-of-representatives-to-ditch-bottled-water-and-save-taxpayer-dollars?alert_id=FGYBItSTxs_WxuSzhIKIM&me=aa

Thanks for taking action,

Judith and the Change.org team