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What’s Rape Culture Got to Do with the Book of Ruth?

by Deborah Kahn-Harris on

Today’s post is by Rabbi Dr Deborah Kahn-Harris, Principal of Leo Baeck College in London, where she also lectures in Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), with a particular interest in the Megillot (the Scrolls, which comprise the books of Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes and Esther). The book of Ruth is the second of the Megillot and widely celebrated as a women’s book and pastoral idyll. But how apt is this characterisation?

What does the book of Ruth have to do with rape culture? Surely the book of Ruth is little more than a rural idyll, a romantic novella, the slightest of short stories. Everyone in the story seems so kind to each other. It’s the stuff of rather old fashioned Hollywood films. [At least ones from 1961. You can watch the whole film, The Story of Ruth here.]

What could any of that have to do with rape?

Yet Wil Gafney writes about the book of Ruth precisely in the context of rape, where she points to the use of the Hebrew root n.ś.’ in Ruth 1:4. Reading this root in relation to its usage in Judges 21:23, Gafney writes that n.ś.’ should be translated in both of these situations as ‘rape marriage’. She also argues that Ruth’s relationship with Naomi amounts to ‘sexploitation’. Naomi, as a now childless and older widow, exploits Ruth’s youthful, fertile body alongside sexual stereotypes about foreign (Moabite) women in order to ensure fertility for Naomi’s clan and secure Naomi’s own wellbeing. Ruth is suffering from a version of Stockholm Syndrome, so enamored of her mother-in-law and without anywhere else to turn, that she is easy prey for Naomi. Ruth is a sexually exploited, trafficked woman, whose story has been dressed up as a romance by the majority (Israelite) culture, who benefit from her treatment.[1]

The first time I read Gafney’s article, I was stunned. How could this charming little story, which I’ve read for years both as part of my sacred scriptures and of the annual observance of the Jewish festival of Shavuot, be the same story that Gafney was describing? How had I missed these undertones to the story? Like Molly Ringwald recently commenting on watching The Breakfast Club with her daughter, I wondered how I could ever read this text alongside my own nearly teenage daughter again. What messages would I be imparting to her, let alone my students?

For years, I have taught the book of Ruth both as a message about hesed, the traditional way in which the story has been read in Jewish communities, and more excitingly, I thought, as a straight ally to the LGBTQi community, as a story that celebrates a positive role model of love between women in the Hebrew Bible. For years I have given out Rebecca Alpert’s and Celena Duncan’s work on lesbian and bisexual readings (respectively) of Ruth as required reading for my students training for the progressive rabbinate alongside an article by Hugh Pyper, which posits a homosexual Boaz.[2] All three have become firm favourites among my generally liberal-leaning trainee rabbis.

These articles, the stories they uncover in the text, were the ones I wanted to tell, to pass on to my children, my students, and my community. We are not the first humans in history to have found models of family life that fall outside the bounds of the nuclear family; why couldn’t Ruth’s story be one about a polyamorous family or a lesbian couple and their close gay male friend building a family together? In a time when liberal religious communities are working hard to be inclusive, that’s the story I’ve wanted to share.

But Gafney’s article unsettled me and, not only me, but my students as well. One student went so far as to suggest that Gafney should be ashamed of herself for writing her article. Largely my students have been highly resistant to Gafney’s reading, refusing to believe that n.ś.’ might actually mean ‘rape marriage’.

Yet not one of my students has ever turned up for class having done the philological work required to refute Gafney’s argument (which they are all more than capable of doing). They have returned time and again to Ruth’s declaration of commitment to Naomi in Ruth 1:16-17 as proof that the story depicts a relationship of mutual love, without ever asking themselves whether this passage is a dialogue or a monologue. They simply have not wanted to believe the possibilities that Gafney’s reading opens up.

Much of Gafney’s argument centres on questions of consent, beginning with her translation of the root n.ś.’, which has many meanings. But it’s only rarely used in relation to marriage. Aside from Ruth, the only other examples of n.ś.’ relating to marriage in the Hebrew Bible are in Judges, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 & 2 Chronicles.

The passage in Judges describes an act of abduction – the unmarried men of the tribe of Benjamin are instructed to go to a festival in Shiloh and when the women come out dancing, they are told to capture a woman and forcibly carry her off to marry. Rape-marriage seems like an accurate description of what is happening here. In Ezra and Nehemiah the root refers disparagingly to foreign women exclusively, but says nothing about whether the women were forced into marriage. Ezra and Nehemiah use the root pejoratively, but that doesn’t necessarily equal rape marriage. In Chronicles the root neither indicates rape nor does it seem pejorative. The linguistic evidence, therefore, for defining n.ś.’ as ‘rape marriage’ is mixed.

From a narrative perspective, Ruth 1: 4 is such a slight verse that there’s little to glean from it. In v. 3 Naomi’s husband dies and she is left with her two sons. In v. 4 the sons are married to Moabite women and remain in Moab for some ten years. In v. 6 both sons die and we learn only that Naomi is left without either sons or husband. The matter of whether Ruth or, indeed, Orpah consents to marriage with Machlon or Chilion is of no interest whatsoever in the Bible.

So does n.ś.’ mean rape marriage in Ruth 1:4 or not? Can we meaningfully judge whether Ruth is coerced into her marriage with Machlon? From the linguistic and narratalogical viewpoint, I think that at best we can say maybe, but the evidence is slight.

What about other issues of consent in the book of Ruth? Does Ruth have a meaningful choice about staying with Naomi when she returns to Bethlehem? Ruth’s speech in Ruth 1: 16-17 is evocative for many readers, but does it reflect an actual choice on Ruth’s part? For instance, does Ruth actually have a ‘mother’s home’ Ruth 1:8 to which to return? Does Ruth love Naomi and, if so, is that love reciprocated?

Each year I ask my students if the book of Ruth passes the Bechdel Test (originally for films). The rules of the Bechdel Test are as follows: ‘(1) it has to have at least two women in it, who (2) talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.’  This test helps frame our discussion of Ruth and Naomi’s relationship with each other, particularly around the matter of reciprocity.

Looking at Ruth 1: 8-19, in Ruth 1:8-9 Naomi addresses both Ruth and Orpah. In v.10 Ruth and Orpah reply, followed by Naomi’s response in vv.11-13. But Naomi speaks of husbands, sons, and marriage (all in a strictly patriarchal, heteronormative fashion), thus failing to pass the Bechdel test. In v.15 Naomi, experiencing that Ruth continues to cling to her, simply encourages Ruth to return home. In vv.16-17 Ruth commits herself very vocally to remaining with Naomi. In vv.15-17 we find no mention of husbands, sons, or marriage, but can these verses really be seen outside the context of vv.8-14?

More tellingly, we also find no verbal reply from Naomi to Ruth’s speech. Verse 19 simply states that Ruth and Naomi went to Bethlehem together. Naomi’s silence following Ruth’s speech seems to imply that she consents to Ruth accompanying her, but it tells us nothing about whether she reciprocates Ruth’s feelings. The Bechdel Test was designed to assess whether female film characters have an independent life outside of their relationship to male characters. In asking whether Ruth loves Naomi and whether Naomi reciprocates, part of what we are asking is whether Ruth and Naomi are capable of having a relationship of any sort outside of the patriarchal and heteronormative society in which the story is set. Naomi’s silence in v. 19 is a yawning gap in the text, but we must at least consider that Naomi does not reciprocate Ruth’s feelings.

If that is the case, what are Naomi’s motivations in acquiescing to Ruth’s desire to return with her? Does Naomi prey on Ruth’s vulnerabilities to gain access to fertility, and hence, status for herself? Is Naomi trapped, too, by the constraints of a patriarchal society? Can she both genuinely care for Ruth and at the same time be guilty of exploiting Ruth’s fertility? What would that mean for Ruth’s consent? How much of Naomi’s motivations would Ruth know or fully understand? What could consent mean for either Ruth or Naomi in a situation where they are both so potentially restricted in their choices that choice has little meaning?

The text of the book of Ruth is concise. The questions I have asked are not easily answered, because the text provides us precious few clues to determine the motivation of the characters. We must infer much and what we infer will undoubtedly at least in part stem from the perspectives we bring with us as readers.

I have wanted Ruth to be a role model for the acceptance of difference in Jewish communities, because that is a cause close to my heart and my theology. Equally, I have no personal or direct experience of sex trafficking. I am conscious, therefore, that my reading of Ruth has been shaped by my own theological imperatives.

My discomfort with the idea of Ruth being a story of sexploitation and human trafficking is not because these themes are absent from Ruth, but because they do not fit the story that I have wanted to tell. Equally, these themes are not such an obvious or straightforward read from the text. They are present in the questions I have been asking and rely on the answers we give, which depend to some large extent on our own imaginations.

The meaning of n.ś.’ is not as clear cut as Gafney would have us believe, but nor is her reading impossible. The exact nature of the relationship between Ruth and Naomi is not easy to pin down, but instead multi-layered, intersectional, and ambiguous. Rather than either/or, it may and/and – both affection and abuse and both limited by the nature of biblical circumstances.

[1] Gafney, Wil 2009 ‘Mother Knows Best: Messianic Surrogacy and Sexploitation in Ruth’, in Mother Goose, Mother Jones, Mommie Dearest, Cheryl Kirk-Duggan and Tina Pippin (eds), Atlanta: SBL, pp. 23-36.

[2] Alpert, Rebecca 1996 ‘Finding our Past: A Lesbian Interpretation of the Book of Ruth’, in Reading Ruth: Contemporary Women Reclaim a Sacred Story, Judith A. Kates and Gail Twersky Reimer (eds), New York: Ballantine Books, pp. 91-96.

Ducan, Celena M. 2000 ‘The Book of Ruth: On Boundaries, Love, and Truth’, in Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible, Robert E. Goss and Mona West (eds), Cleveland, Ohio: The Pilgrim Press, pp. 92-102.

Pyper, Hugh 2013 ‘Boaz Reawakened: Modelling Masculinity in the Book of Ruth’, in Interested Readers: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honor of David J. A. Clines, James K. Aitken, Jeremy M. S. Clines, and Christl M. Maier (eds), Atlanta: SBL, pp. 445-458.

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The Shiloh Project: An Update

by Johanna Stiebert on

With the highly successful Shiloh Conference not long behind us, now seems a good time to reflect on the Shiloh Project’s activities and to celebrate how much has been achieved.

The Shiloh Project was conceived at a research day hosted by the Centre for Religion and Public Life of the University of Leeds on 13 January 2017. This was a small gathering attended by Emma Nagouse, Valerie Hobbs, Katie Edwards, Johanna Stiebert, Jessica Keady, Caroline Blyth and Nechama Hadari. A few months later the Project was launched officially and since then it has grown and flourished.

One focus of the Project is its lively blog and Twitter activity. With in the range of 80 contributions to date, the blog is a hub for exploring the intersections between rape culture, religion and the Bible. While contributions on the Bible authored by academics predominate, there are also pieces on how lived religion has impact on matters of contemporary concern and relevance (such as on access to women’s health care in the USA, or on the referendum vote in Ireland), as well as on lesser-known NGOs tackling different forms of gender-based violence (such as in the form of human trafficking, or harming women of Asian and Pacific Islander communities, vulnerable children in Honduras or women in forced marriages). Some contributions are in the form of interviews or poems or visual works of art. The blog is a dynamic resource and repository of diverse perspectives and media and we look forward to receiving and profiling many more voices and perspectives and genres.

Another outlet for the Shiloh Project has taken the form of public lectures, which were presented in all of the UK, Botswana, New Zealand and Germany.

Moreover, there have been publications, notably a three-volume series focused on rape culture and religion exploring intersections from all of international, Christian and biblical perspectives. The volumes were edited by Caroline Blyth, Emily Colgan and Katie Edwards. Next, we are hoping to announce a monograph series dedicated to this important topic (look out for announcements here!)

The Shiloh Project is also at the centre of several successful grant applications, which will see projects emerging and doing good work in Botswana and Lesotho (funded by the AHRC), Yorkshire (funded by the White Rose Consortium) and Ghana (funded by the Worldwide Universities Network). More applications are in the pipeline and the Shiloh Project will also be working with Saima Afzal on a project just funded by Lush charities (watch this space for more information!)

If that wasn’t enough The Shiloh Project research has also been profiled in international media this year, including work by David Tombs on #HimToo Jesus, Jayme Reaves and David Tombs on Jesus and sexual violence, Katie Edwards on Jesus, silence and sexual abuse and Emma Nagouse on the Bible and rape culture. We’re in discussions to do more radio and TV work so check the blog if you want to stay updated on our progress!

The Shiloh research day and conference organised by Emma Nagouse in Sheffield on 5–6 July were a tremendous success. The conference venue was filled to capacity and the quality and diversity of presentations was notable. We will be profiling the work of several contributors in the weeks to come (again: watch this space!)

All of this was only possible through collaboration. The Shiloh Project is so vibrant and so dynamic because very many people from all over have shared their energies, expertise, passion, and guidance. Thank you to all who have been and who continue to be a part of this! We couldn’t do this without all of you and we look forward to welcoming more contributors, readers, participants, and facilitators.

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Germaine Greer: from feminist firebrand to professional troll

by Katie Edwards on

Former celebrated feminist turned public polemicist Germaine Greer is no stranger to controversy. In fact, the author seems to court the headlines, especially when promoting a forthcoming book.

You may remember when Greer made transphobic comments in the run-up to the publication of her 1999 book The Whole Woman. She’s reiterated these opinions many times in the years since. And then in 2003, she claimed she’d be accused of paedophilia while promoting The Beautiful Boy – her lavishly illustrated book about “why boys have always been the world’s pin-ups”.

Now Greer is preparing for the publication of her latest book, On Rape – with a series of troubling observations on #MeToo and sexual (non-)violence.

Professional provocateur?

Greer started her promotional campaign earlier this year when she opined that the rise in representations of sexual violence on TV was due to women’s enjoyment of watching other women being sexually assaulted and that women fantasised about being subjected to sexual violence.

She followed this up with comments on the #MeToo movement, which include her claims that women raped by Harvey Weinstein were “career rapees” who “spread their legs” to get movie roles.

In an interview with Fairfax Media in Australia, Greer said:

What makes it different is when the man has economic power, as Harvey Weinstein has … if you spread your legs because he said ‘be nice to me and I’ll give you a job in a movie’ then I’m afraid that’s tantamount to consent, and it’s too late now to start whingeing about that.

Courting controversy

Greer’s comments to promote the publication of On Rape, then, are merely the latest in a long line of dubious claims from the seemingly publicity hungry academic.

Speaking at the 2018 Hay literary festival, Greer attracted criticism by calling for more lenient sentences for rapists. Despite contemporary movements lobbying for a long overdue overhaul of how survivors of rape can access justice, Greer suggests that 200 hours of community service – or an “R” tattoo on the hand, arm or cheek – may be more appropriate punishment for rapists.

While acknowledging the considerable obstacles rape survivors face in navigating the criminal justice system (the consequences of which are abysmal conviction rates of rapists which, arguably, contribute to more rapes), Greer suggests that accepting a drastically reduced sentence for rape would result in more convictions.

Greer recounts her own experience of rape – but seems to imply that she hasn’t experienced any long-term damage as a consequence of the assault. The leap from her own emotional reaction to sexual violence (to which she is, of course, entitled) to her cavalier response to others’ experience of sexual violence is troubling.

Misunderstanding sexual violence

Greer also draws a bizarre distinction between violent and non-violent rape, which demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of sexual assault. She comments: “We are told that it is a sexually violent crime … Every time a man rolls over on his exhausted wife and insists on enjoying his conjugal rights he is raping her.” She’s right: penetration without consent is always rape – but to suggest that it isn’t “violent” is a mistake and dangerously misrepresents the real experiences of many survivors of sexual assault and rape.

It is surprising, too, that even some of the criticisms of Greer’s position concede that rape isn’t always violent. For instance, in her response to Greer’s comments, Suzanne Moore said: “Greer is correct to say not all rape is violent, but all rape surely involves the threat of violence.” The idea that rape can be a “non-violent” act seems to be a widely held myth in rape culture. The non-consensual penetration of a human body is an inherently violent violation.

With astonishing flippancy and no appeal to evidence, Greer went on to tell the audience at Hay: “Most rapes don’t involve any injury whatsoever. We are told it’s one of the most violent crimes in the world – bull.” As if the lack of visible evidence of external physical violence diminishes the damage caused by rape. While it’s true that other kinds of physical violence may be perpetrated alongside rape, the absence of visible evidence of punches, kicks or bites does not negate the violence of the act of rape.

Greer’s comments echo those of other public figures such as Richard Dawkins, Kenneth Clarke, Judy Finnegan and NYPD officer Peter Rose, who have assumed a “hierarchy of rape” – the idea that some rapes are “worse” than others (although Clarke and Finnegan later apologised) and only victims who display the external marks of physical violence are worthy of serious concern.

Trivialising sexual violence

When trivialisation and disbelief lie at the heart of a rape culture, the impact of comments such as these from those who identify as feminists cannot be underestimated. They provide a platform to the myths that create environments where sex crimes become normalised.

And despite lamenting the role of women in rape trials as little more than “bits of evidence”, Greer locates rapists at the centre of the narrative. By describing rape as “just lazy, just careless, insensitive”, she privileges the experiences of men over women. She presents rape as something men do (exclusively in a heterosexual context), rather than something survivors are forced to endure.

The ConversationGreer’s comments on sexual violence are glib, ill-informed and potentially dangerous. Let’s hope she’s put more thought into the content of her forthcoming book.

Katie Edwards, Director SIIBS, University of Sheffield and Emma Nagouse, PhD Candidate in Interdisciplinary Biblical Studies, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Interview with Samantha Joo, founder of NGO Platform

by Johanna Stiebert on

Today in the third installment of our occasional series profiling lesser-known NGOs we speak with Samantha Joo about Platform, the organization she founded. Platform is directed particularly at mentoring and empowering women in the Asian and Pacific Islander community. This is a new NGO and can use our full support and networks to get much more widely known. Spread the word!

Tell us about your NGO and your own role!

While I was teaching at Seoul Women’s University, I encountered a number of bright young women, mostly Christians, who felt lost. They wanted to serve God but didn’t know how. They did not want to pursue the limited options they had in the Korean churches – pastor’s wife, choir, women’s Bible study, etc. So I initially encouraged them to study abroad at theological schools in the USA but this option was an unobtainable luxury. And also, upon graduation, many of the students were again limited to academia or ministry, both extremely competitive and definitely not for everyone. This is when I began to think about a center for women to explore unique ways in which they can use their talents to serve God. But then I was too busy with teaching, advising, publishing, and working on another NGO in Korea. I did not have the time, resources, and energy to start a new organization. I just didn’t want more responsibilities at that point in my life.

When I quit everything and removed myself from everything familiar, I began subconsciously to re-evaluate my priorities. What is my ultimate life goal? This was and is still not an easy question to answer. However, I remembered the desire to develop a center to mentor passionate women. Yet taking a nebulous vision and making it into an actual organization is not a straightforward path. I experienced a year of major setbacks and another year of organizing headaches – scrambling for directors and volunteers, discussing potential names, formulating and reformulating the vision/mission statements, and doing the paperwork.

It was not until the third year of starting the NGO that I was able to set up concrete plans. Without pay and putting one’s own money into an organization was kind of scary. No one actually knows what will happen. Yet there was a calm center in the midst of the maelstrom. Maybe because I absolutely believed that there is a real need to invest in people, especially women, to become effective leaders for social justice. I guess it didn’t matter whether I succeeded or not, whether I humiliated myself or not. It was a worthy cause.

So what is our organization all about? Platform’s mission is to mentor women in the Asian-Pacific Islander (API) communities (for now) to become leaders for social justice. Whereas the mission statement of the nonprofit organization is directed at the API community, our first event, the Spring workshop (‘Visualize into Reality: Workshop for Emerging Leaders’ – 21–23 March 2018) is actually open to everyone.

We have seven facilitators and one consultant who have developed and will be leading the workshops. We are at present marketing the event but since the organization is new, it has been challenging to find funding and to get people to register for the workshops. But, again, I believe we will get over this obstacle just as we have been able to surmount other difficulties. And I should say that I am not by nature an optimist but a realist.

The Shiloh Project explores the intersections between, on the one hand, rape culture, and, on the other, religion. On some of our subsidiary projects we work together with third-sector organizations (including NGOs and FBOs). We also want to raise awareness and address and resist rape culture manifestations and gender-based violence directly. We’re interested to hear your answers to the following:

How do you see religion having impact on the setting where you are working – and how do you perceive that impact? Tell us about some of your encounters.

My religious background, Christianity, has direct impact on my work. My Christian values have informed my vision for social justice and the way I live my life. For me, the incarnation of Christ, being present for the marginalized, ultimately embodies the very essence of what it means to be a Christian.

Initially, I wanted to make Platform into a progressive Christian organization. I had looked at many of the programs at theological schools and seminaries. Based on my analysis of these programs, I thought Platform would be a great complement. It would provide practical steps for non-ministerial students to explore the nonprofit sector. But I wanted people from all religious and non- religious backgrounds, too, to be able to participate in the events. The diversity of the participants is important because it will enrich the workshops. Therefore, I decided to make the organization non-affiliated with any religious organization.

We have marketed our event to nonprofit organizations and universities, but I personally have targeted theological schools/seminaries, churches, and other progressive Christian organizations. Nothing concrete has yet developed out of this marketing strategy. However, I intend to form partnerships with theological schools, especially Iliff School of Theology (Denver, CO). I have purposefully avoided the more conservative/evangelical schools and organizations. From my perspective, it is better to focus on institutions that may potentially be receptive rather than waste energy on places where our mission would possibly be problematic.

How do you understand ‘rape culture’ and do you think it can be resisted or detoxified? How does the term apply to the setting where you are working?

 I think any environment that does not value women equally with men has the potential to condone rape culture in which women are devalued and objectified, making them potential victims of unwanted sexual advances. The reason why I started the NGO was the failure of churches, especially those in Korea and Korean-American communities, to provide equal opportunities for non-straight men. In valuing only certain men, they allow others to be devalued and, in consequence, mistreated and/or violated. Such denigration applies also to women. I have heard male pastors denigrate women from the pulpit and seen them relegate women to menial tasks. I have also experienced firsthand belittling microaggressions. Rather than become a haven for the marginalized in society, churches have often encouraged and actually become perpetuators of rape culture. Unfortunately, I am aware of too many episodes in which churches have tried to ignore, hide, or outright silence the cries of survivors.

Given the prevalence of this rape culture, I believe we need to resist especially within the church. This may be an impossible task since patriarchy has its foothold in most churches, conservative or progressive. But if we empower more women in roles of leadership whether in politics, churches, or nonprofit organizations, we begin to set a different tone. Women cannot be devalued; women should not be objectified. In our organization, women are the directors and facilitators. They are models for other women but also for men who come to value the leadership of women.

 How does your project encounter or address gender-based violence and inequality?

 Interestingly, four out of our eight facilitators for our Spring workshops are at present working for domestic violence organizations. There are probably more domestic violence organizations in API communities than any other type of organization. This is not, I think, because there is more domestic violence in API communities. Rather, the specific needs of API (regarding language, culture, history, tradition, etc) are not being met by more generic domestic violence organizations. There is an urgent need to address the concerns of API domestic violence survivors. By sharing their own experience in API domestic violence organizations, facilitators will give insight into the hidden world of battered women and children, as well as into the male perpetrators who are also in some ways victims of their culture. Not all participants will be interested in serving this community, but they will definitely be exposed to stories that will likely transform the way in which they understand domestic violence. I know I have been transformed through our initial discussions about the workshops. I have tremendous respect for these facilitators who encounter domestic violence on a daily basis but still have the fortitude to return to work. They are our communities’ heroes.

How could those interested find out more about your NGO? How can people contribute and where will their money go?

People can go to our website (www.platform4women.org) or our FaceBook page to learn more about our organization. They can make a donation on the website or through our GoFundMe page. We are actually trying to create ten scholarships for low-income students to attend our Spring workshop (March 21-23, 2018).

What kinds of posts would you like to see on The Shiloh Project blog and what kinds of resources that come into our orbit would be of value to you?

 I ultimately believe that stories transform people. Facts, stats, and data are important but they do not impact or change people. They make people more knowledgeable but they do not give access to the inner world of real people. Stories move people; they affect them on a visceral level. So I think personal stories from all around the world would be very valuable.

Read Samantha’s article ‘Counter-Narratives: Rizpah and the “Comfort Women” Statue’ here.

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The Guardian Comment is Free: Jesus, Silence and the Rotherham Abuse Scandal

by Johanna Stiebert on

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Shiloh co-lead Katie Edwards has a powerful opinion piece in The Guardian of 21 March 2018. A longer version features in her Lent Talk for BBC Radio 4 (8.45pm) on the same day. A shorter version was repeated in Radio’s 4 Pick of the Day on Sunday 25th March 2018.

This piece gets to the heart of some of the topics central to the Shiloh Project: namely, how biblical texts can be used, usually very selectively – in this case highlighting the silent Jesus of Matthew to the exclusion of the vocal Jesus of John – in modern contexts – in this example Rotherham, which was at this time one of many locations throughout the UK where girls and women were being groomed for sexual abuse and exploitation and silenced when they tried again and again to report their abusers – with toxic effect.

The role of religion and the Bible is complex and ambiguous, as this personal account makes painfully clear.

See the advance review from The Times for details:

 

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Booking and CFP for Religion and Rape Culture Conference, 6th July 2018

by Katie Edwards on

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Booking is now open for our Religion and Rape Culture Conference. Places are limited so book your ticket fast!

Please note that we have small travel bursaries to contribute to travel costs for UK students who wish to attend the conference. These bursaries will be awarded on a needs basis, and speakers/those with poster submissions will also be prioritised.

The deadline for submission of proposals for our Religion and Rape Culture Conference is fast approaching! Get your proposals in by 19th March 2018. See the CFP below for more details.

Email [email protected] for more information.

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Interview with Antonia McGrath, Co-founder of NGO educate.

by Johanna Stiebert on

Here is the second in our occasional series profiling lesser known NGOs doing important work that addresses – sometimes directly, sometimes less directly – sexual violence and gender-based inequality. In the first instalment we heard from Carrie Pemberton Ford about her organisation’s work in the area of human trafficking (read about it here).

This time we hear from none other than my wonderful niece, Antonia McGrath. Straight out of high school, aged 18, Antonia went to spend a year in Honduras working in an orphanage. The experience influenced her profoundly and moved her to co-found an NGO. She has returned to Honduras regularly and has also given motivational talks. A student of International Studies, she is applying her experiential and academic knowledge for a greater good.

Please read about Antonia and the NGO and please help promote educate! There is a link below for making contact directly, as well as for making financial contributions, which are gratefully received and put to excellent use, directly in Honduras: every single dollar and pound. See if you can watch this short, beautiful and powerful film and not donate.

____________________________________________________________________________

Tell us about your NGO and your own role!

My name is Antonia McGrath and I’m a student in the Netherlands, studying International Studies with a specialization in Latin America. I’m also the co-founder and chair of a small non-profit called educate. that works to empower children and youth in Honduras through education and preventative healthcare.

educate. was started by myself and a close friend of mine called Lisa. We both lived and worked in Honduras for a year after we finished high school, and later both ended up studying in the Netherlands. We were both deeply impacted by our experiences and the people we’d met and we had countless conversations and ideas about possible projects we could organise. Eventually, we looked up how to start a charity, and eight months later educate. got registered in Scotland! We now have a board of five directors, all of us university students who work on a voluntary basis, and a growing group of volunteer members who work in a variety of roles. In Honduras, we also have three Project Leaders and a Cultural Advisor, all of whom also work on a voluntary basis.

As an organisation, we’re driven by the belief that education is what lies at the root of sustainable development, and that by providing young Hondurans with opportunities to continue studying, as well as improving the quality of the education they receive, we can make small but significant changes to the immense levels of poverty and inequality that exist in Honduras.

Our main focus is a scholarship programme to allow excellent but underprivileged students to continue their education to the university level. We’re currently supporting two young women from rural communities at universities in Honduras. Stephanie, whose parents are farmers, is studying to become a doctor, and Tania, whose grandfather’s job as a shoemaker makes up the formal income of the entire family, is studying to become an industrial engineer. For both of these young women, this is an opportunity they would not have had without the scholarship. At the moment, we aim to take on one additional scholarship candidate every year. We also run projects at underfunded schools and orphanages around the country, including funding an animal therapy programme and several libraries.

It’s incredibly hard work, but everyone in our team is so dedicated and driven, and the impact that we’re having, even though on a grand scale it might seem insignificant, is completely life-changing for the individuals it affects, which makes it incredibly rewarding.

The Shiloh Project explores the intersections between, on the one hand, rape culture, and, on the other, religion. On some of our subsidiary projects we work together with third-sector organisations (including NGOs and FBOs). We also want to raise awareness and address and resist rape culture manifestations and gender-based violence directly. We’re interested to hear your answers to the following:

How do you see religion having impact on the setting where you are working – and how do you perceive that impact? Tell us about some of your encounters.

Religion is incredibly important in Honduras and influences almost all aspects of life. As an organisation, we have no religious or political affiliation, but the presence of religion in Honduras definitely impacts our work – helping in some ways, and hindering in others. Like I said, educate. has no religious affiliation, so I speak here solely based on my own personal views (and, perhaps it is important to mention, I too have no religious beliefs. In fact, I consider myself an atheist).

While Catholicism is still the dominant religion, Honduras is now one of the most Protestant countries in Latin America – largely due to the increased presence of evangelical missionaries in the country. In my experience, people extract great value from what you state as your religious persuasion and your stance creates a picture for them of your core beliefs and the specific ideas and stereotypes that are attached to these in Honduras. A friend, when I told him I was atheist, once said to me: “you’re not atheist, you’re a good person!” In such a religious society, labelling myself as an atheist often requires a great deal of backpedalling to take away people’s suspicions towards me and to prove that I do in fact have morals, despite not being religious.

Where I lived on the north coast, near San Pedro Sula, there’s quite a divide between Catholics and “Christians” (by which they mean Evangelicals and other Protestants). This divide creates a lot of animosity in some communities. “Evangelicals think their ideology is superior, and they look down on the Catholics,” says a good friend of mine in Honduras who says he’s agnostic, “but really the Catholics are just as bad, they’re just more discreet about it.” In a conversation I had with several Evangelicals, they blamed Catholics for Honduras’ problems with HIV/AIDS and gang violence.

The religious divide can clearly be seen through small daily interactions with people. A taxi driver once casually spent the taxi ride telling me how “when I was Catholic I used to dance and drink, but I would never do such devilish activities and be around such sinful people now that I have seen God’s true light.” Another time, I was picking up a Western Union money transfer at the local bank and the lady allowed me to collect my money without showing the proper identification, due to the fact that she had seen me at the local Evangelical church once with my boss, meaning I was an upstanding member of the community. These small interactions are telling, and show, with the utmost bluntness, the complete polarisation of these two religious groups.

I have seen both some incredibly impactful and some shockingly harmful work being done by religious groups in Honduras. The Catholic Church in San Pedro Sula does some amazing work with street children and returning migrants, which I spent many hours discussing with the Priest and the Cardinal on various trips into the city. But not all of the religious work in Honduras is positive. Many seemingly-positive religious projects become murkier and darker once you get inside them. There are definitely people that come and use the Bible as a weapon – “believe this, and we’ll help you.” Or people who take in children and force them to conform to their religious beliefs and violently punish them if they don’t – I have personally witnessed things like this and have been deeply disturbed by the irony of the link between religion and this kind of behaviour.

Despite the divisions it created, I also saw religion to be an extremely important uniting force, especially in poor communities. In these areas, religion and faith provided an incredibly powerful sense of community and ideology to help people get through hard times.

educate.’s lack of religious affiliations has not created any problems for us in Honduras, and we have and continue to work successfully with organisations and individuals from many different religious backgrounds and persuasions. Personally, I think our lack of religious affiliation possibly affords us more respect as an international body outside of Honduras, as we do not base our projects or our funding on religious ideas. Nevertheless, we remain aware of and respect the presence and importance of religion in the lives of our beneficiaries and members of our Honduras team.

 

How do you understand ‘rape culture’ and do you think it can be resisted or detoxified? How does the term apply to the setting where you are working?

Rape culture, in my understanding, refers to the culture of normalization of sexual harassment and assault, the stereotypes that surround gender and sexuality, and the pervasiveness of sexual and gender-based violence that ensues from this.

Rape culture is definitely very prevalent in Honduras. As in much of Latin America, there is a strong culture of machismo in Honduras. Men are expected to be strong and “masculine” – tough and chauvinistic, whereas women usually take on a role that is much more submissive and “feminine.” Machismo also has relevance to sexual culture. Men prove their manliness by being sexually dominant, and they have a sexual appetite that they have the “right” to satisfy, while women have a much more passive role and are less in control. Honduran gender roles within the home present the woman as the matriarch: la jefa (“the boss”). However, this philosophy is centred only within family boundaries, and in wider society, it is expected for women to take on a much more submissive role.

An obvious symptom of machismo culture is the ever-popular music genre of reggaeton, which is played everywhere from the public buses to city streets, bars, salons, supermarkets and on the radio. It’s a genre that is notoriously derogatory and objectifying towards women, with a high degree of focus on male entitlement and disregard for women’s autonomy over their bodies. While reggaeton is certainly not unique as a music genre in its degradation of women, the level of this is extreme, and the popularity of this music normalizes this attitude of male dominance over women in wider society. The fact that young children grow up seeing music videos on buses with women portrayed in a blatantly sexual manner while men clearly show their dominance over these women, makes this attitude of male dominance truly a part of their upbringing. Of course, this is just one example of machista culture at work in Honduras.

A key aspect of rape culture in Honduras, and one that is truly shocking, is the extraordinarily high rate of femicide, with one femicide every 16 hours. Since 2014, the United Nations has reported that 95% of cases of sexual violence and femicide in Honduras were never investigated, and only 2.5% of cases of domestic violence were settled. The threat of violence towards Honduran women is very real and constant.

Forced child marriage is also still common in rural areas in Honduras, having been legally banned only last year, and young girls are often married to much older men without their consent. The consequences of this are huge, with these girls dropping out of school and being forced into non-consensual relationships that often result in early pregnancy, which not only impacts their future but can also cause medical problems as young girls’ bodies are often not physically ready for the demands of pregnancy and childbirth.

The sex industry in Honduras is also a huge problem. At a children’s home in Honduras where I used to work, a young girl told me about how she had provided sexual services for much older men to make money for her family. She was nine when she told me this, but the incidents she described had happened four years earlier. Another time, when I was interviewing various individuals as part of a documentary about Honduras’ migration crisis, numerous teenage girls opened up about horrific stories of rape, often at the hands of their own family members – fathers, uncles, brothers. This is not uncommon.

I think the main ways that rape culture can be combated are through educating people, particularly children and youth, about consent and what that means, teaching individuals about their rights and highlighting that these are not drawn along gender lines, challenging concepts of masculinity and femininity, recognizing problems in the media, churches and communities and working to challenge and change them, and creating policies and programmes that support survivors and victims of rape culture instead of blaming them.

Discussions must take place to highlight to children and youth, and the wider community, that sexual and emotional violence and abuse needs to be reported. Adult men/women referring to an underaged child as sexually desirable due to the fact she/he looks older than their biological age is currently socially acceptable, but this must change. The same is true of expressing that daughters/sons are bringing shame to their families by “tempting people,” when in fact the people they are “tempting” are the problem. Or the pervasive notion that it is a woman’s duty to respond to a catcaller. Or the fact it is unheard of for a Honduran woman to walk alone at night without fearing or facing sexual assault. That to put yourself on the streets or in a situation or area after dark is putting your body on a plate. Accusing the prostitutes on the street of being whores and without morals, yet not breathing a word about the married men who use their services, with one hundred words for a prostitute and barely one for the client. The motel and brothel owners can walk without shame in their communities while the prostitutes are ostracized. These ideas and cultural norms must be discussed and fought against in order to combat and detoxify rape culture in Honduras.

As a white woman who is not from Honduras, I recognize that my perspective is different from that of a Honduran woman and that I cannot truly know how rape culture in Honduras affects Hondurans. Certainly, when I was living in Honduras, and on the occasions that I have gone back to visit, I experienced harassment on the streets and saw, as an outsider, the ways in which men and women relate to one another and what the societal expectations were for each of them. But I cannot claim to have been truly a part of that world. As a white woman, my skin colour affords me some protection (kill a Honduran and no one will ask questions, but kill a tourist and it’ll be on international news), but I still felt unsafe walking at night without being accompanied by a man. It is impossible, on such an intricately complex topic, to claim to understand the lived experiences of Honduran women, because I have never, and will never, experience these first hand.

Speaking to a close friend in Honduras about this topic, he told me that he is worried about raising his daughter in such machista culture. “Women face a lot of physical threats,” he says, “but I think it’s the psychological damage that this culture has that is most detrimental. I want my daughter to believe that she is important, and that she can do anything. I don’t want her to be scared to live her life the way she wants to.”

 

Does your project encounter or address gender-based violence and inequality? Tell us how.

Gender-based violence and inequality are not explicitly part of our mission, but they definitely play a role in our work. While we don’t support only girls, both our current university scholarship recipients are young women studying to become an engineer and a doctor. Simply by supporting them, we are facilitating the process for them to become role models in their communities to younger girls, and this naturally contributes to breaking down norms and expectations in society and creates a platform to change gender-based inequalities. With a university degree, the young women we support gain not only an education that changes their life and the opportunities available to them, it also impacts their families and communities.

 

How could those interested find out more about your NGO? How can people contribute and where will their money go?

We have a website (educate-ngo.com) where there’s lots more information about us and our work, so that’s the main place where people can find out more about us. There’s a blog on the website where we post updates every month or so, but for more immediate updates, there’s our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/educatengo).

On our website there is a link to a donation page. We really appreciate every single donation we receive, and all of them go to making real, tangible impact in individuals’ lives, either through scholarships or through projects at schools and orphanages. Because we’re such a small organization, you can see exactly where your money is going. We all work on a voluntary basis and strive to keep you regularly updated with photos, videos and articles on all of our projects.

We also have a contact page on our website, so for anyone who has questions or who is interested in getting involved, send us a message!

 

What kinds of posts would you like to see on The Shiloh Project blog and what kinds of resources that come into our orbit would be of value to you?

  • How small NGOs can have great impact and the different ways in which they do this.
  • Strategies and methods to combat problems like gender-based inequality and violence.
  • How different organisations combat rape culture and gender-based violence and inequality differently.
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#MeToo Jesus: is Christ really a good model for victims of abuse?

by Meredith Warren on

Katie Edwards, University of Sheffield and M J C Warren, University of Sheffield

It is the start of Lent, a time when Christians reflect on the upcoming Passion of Jesus. Jesus is held up as an example of steadfastness in the face of oppression by malevolent forces. He shows strength through his silence, approaching his suffering willingly.

Throughout the ongoing #MeToo movement Jesus has been invoked by Christian communities as a co-sufferer and promoted as a model for redemptive suffering, particularly in the face of abuse. But is Jesus’s silence a troubling model for victims of sexual assault?

One of the hallmarks of Jesus’s portrayal in popular culture is his silence in the face of Pontius Pilate’s interrogation. This image of silence comes from the three Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke’s versions of Jesus’s trial.

When Jesus does speak, his words are brief, cryptic, and taken from the Gospel of John rather than the other three, where Jesus’s silence is emphasised.

In Matthew and in Mark, the entire trial scene takes place in four verses; in Luke, where there is slightly more input from “the multitudes” as well as a second trial in front of Herod, we are done in eight verses. Even so, in these gospels, Jesus makes no answer to the charges laid against him.

It’s likely that Matthew, Mark and Luke’s versions depict Jesus’s silence as a way of characterising him as the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah 53:7. In each case, whether in these gospels or in Isaiah, the image portrayed is one of virtue in silence, and of a pious sacrifice in the face of an unjust world. It is that silence that ultimately kills him.

This contrasts with John’s depiction of the same scene, which takes place over ten verses, more than double the amount of text devoted to the trial in Mark and Matthew’s versions. In John, Jesus is clear about who he is and makes a direct response to accusations; he also corrects Pilate’s misunderstanding about his true identity. This is part of Jesus’ plan – he is clear about his death being the will of God his Father.

But whether he is silent as in Mark or whether he speaks in his own defence as in John, Jesus is sentenced to death and crucified. The end result – suffering, pain, and death – is the same.

#MeToo Jesus

Parallels have been drawn between Jesus’s response to his abuse during the Passion and the #MeToo movement. Not least because, like Jesus, the victims of Harvey Weinstein’s alleged abuse have been condemned whether they’ve spoken out or remained silent.

While the torture and crucifixion of Jesus in the Bible is widely accepted, the idea that his abuse included sexual assault is a less established aspect of the Passion narrative.

The work of David Tombs at the University of Otago shows that Jesus’s torture included a sexual element. According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is stripped three times and his nakedness is part of his humiliation. Similarly, biblical scholar Wil Gafney has suggested that the crucifixion of Jesus is a form of sexual assault:

I consider … the full range of torture and humiliation to which Jesus of Nazareth was subjected, physical and sexual. The latter is so traumatising for the Church that we have covered it up – literally – covering Jesus’ genitals on our crucifixes … The mocking, taunting, forced stripping of Jesus was a sexual assault. He was, as so many of us are – women and men, children and adult – vulnerable to those who used physical force against him in whatever way they chose.

A troubling model of suffering

Throughout the ages, Jesus has been presented as a model of suffering. For instance, in the 18th century, St Paul of the Cross declared that:

The more deeply the cross penetrates, the better; the more deprived of consolation that your suffering is, the purer it will be; the more creatures oppose us, the more closely shall we be united to God.

Silence in the face of abuse, sexual assault and violence, then, becomes glorified and dignified. Some Christian communities have recognised the problems in constructing silence in the face of abuse as virtuous and have taken steps to challenge it.

For example, the hashtags #SilenceisNotSpiritual and #ChurchToo have been developed to offer a counter-narrative to the idea that silent suffering is an emulation of Jesus.

But the backlash to these hashtags, which promote the voices of those who’ve experienced sexual abuse and violence, has included some more troubling connections between Jesus and the #MeToo movement. Some social media commentators have presented Jesus as the perpetrator of sexual assault rather than as the victim.

By using sexual assault as a metaphor for Christ taking Christians by force, penetrating their sin with his righteousness, this view presents Jesus as a perpetrator of sexual assault, undermining the experience of survivors and victims of sexual violence and suggesting that sexual assault might be a potentially positive (or even necessary) experience.

The virtue of speaking out

The reaction to Jesus’s silence as well as his self-advocacy presents a troubling model for those who view Jesus as an exemplary victim of abuse, since both silence and speaking out lead to further pain and violence.

The ConversationThis should lead to an interrogation of how we as a society value suffering and especially silent suffering in the wake of #MeToo, but also challenges the notion that victims are obligated to speak out in order to be vindicated. In the end, the blame should still fall firmly on the abusers.

Katie Edwards, Director SIIBS, University of Sheffield and M J C Warren, Lecturer in Biblical and Religious Studies, University of Sheffield

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week 2018: Interview with Carrie Pemberton Ford (CCARHT)

by Johanna Stiebert on

It’s Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week! This will be followed from 14. February by the One Billion Rising Campaign. Between 14 February and International Women’s Day, on 8 March: look out for regular Shiloh Project updates!

 Today, during Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week is a good time for The Shiloh Project to launch the first post of an occasional series profiling NGOs working actively against rape culture in its myriad forms.

 Organizations such as Women’s Shelter and Rape Crisis are very well known and do fantastic and important work. The NGOs we’ll be profiling here are less well known and also important to support, promote and celebrate. First up today is The Cambridge Centre for Applied Research in Human Trafficking, introduced by its Development Director, Rev. Carrie Pemberton Ford …

 

 

Tell us about your NGO and your own role.

My name is Carrie Pemberton Ford. I am an Anglican priest and academic, as well as Development Director of the Cambridge Centre for Applied Research in Human Trafficking (CCARHT). The Centre is based in Cambridge (UK). CCARHT is a nonprofit (or not-for-profit) Community Interest Company (CIC), which has Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) recognition from the United Nations office working on counter trafficking.

CCARHT’s vision is to foster applied research that addresses the contemporary global scourge of Human Trafficking, as well as to set this scourge in the wider context of social justice, gender equity, international economic and political power distribution, safer migration and asylum corridors, voice and victim empowerment, and multi-partner co-operation. Human trafficking, as defined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is the ‘hydra-headed monster’ manifesting in multiple forms that we seek to defeat. This is in line with the Palermo Protocols: three protocols adopted by the United Nations to supplement the 2000 Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime. Two of these protocols address human trafficking: one is aimed at suppressing and punishing the trafficking of persons, especially women and children; the second addresses the smuggling of migrants by land, sea and air.

The Shiloh Project explores the intersections between, on the one hand, rape culture, and, on the other, religion. On some of our subsidiary projects we work together with third-sector organizations (including NGOs and FBOs). We also want to raise awareness about and address and resist rape culture manifestations and gender-based violence directly. We’re interested to hear your answers to the following:

 How did you get involved in the work you are doing? Do you see religion having impact on the setting where you are working – and how do you perceive that impact?

I was involved in developing victim care responses to human trafficking before the Palermo Protocols became ratified by the UK Government (in 2003). I was the founder of the UK Charity Churches Alert to Sex Trafficking across Europe (CHASTE), and the instigator of the NOT FOR SALE campaign, which raises the issue of the commodification of female lives, along with a minority culture of male lives, within the sex industry. This was my entry into the last fifteen years of working in resistance to human trafficking – in its widest interpretation, which involves labour trafficking (or, slavery), child exploitation, organ trafficking, gamete trafficking and surrogacy, alongside trafficking for sexual exploitation and child abuse within the pornography ‘industry’.

The role of religion is extremely compromised and complex in the challenge of human trafficking. On the one hand, those of us whose faith discourse developed within a culture that values human liberation, gender equality and human rights, recognize religious communities as having powerful potential to interrupt and begin to dismantle cultures of commodification, devaluation of the ‘divine image’ imprint of humanity, and gender-based and racial hierarchies, alongside also age-related abuse, which runs as a major vein across human trafficking and modern slavery. On the other hand, many of these discourses have had long and embarrassing support from patriarchal and systematized ‘canonical’ teachings and their organizational realization.

Consequently, the role of religion is profoundly ambiguous, but offers some dynamic opportunities to address the diverse challenges around human trafficking – from the articulations of state interests, as well as some global conversations around international distribution of resources, value chains, and ensuring safe corridors for the movement of people – all of which address international trafficking – whilst also exploring community accountability, social justice and rape cultures within the domestic and national space.

Whether positive or negative, the role and impact of religion cannot and should not be ignored – including in terms of understanding the full picture of human trafficking.

 How do you understand ‘rape culture’ and do you think it can be resisted or detoxified?

 Rape culture is about the failure of interpersonal respect and the dereliction of an understanding of gendered difference founded on radical human equality. Rape culture underpins or is underpinned by political and economic hierarchies where the active consent of the other becomes void. Though its etymological background lies in the 1970s feminist movement, with a specific focus on ‘outing’ the ways in which society blames victims of sexual assault and normalizes male sexual violence, rape culture exists up until today and is fed by every societal message where one gender, ethnicity, class, ability, or sexuality becomes dominant and ‘entitled’ to transgress the embodied boundaries of the other.

Rape culture is resisted and detoxified through the raising up of equality, equity, and personal autonomy as rights protected by the State for all its citizens, by the enactment of the United Nations’ inalienable rights (as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948), and wherever religious discourse privileges this way of viewing humanity over and against the hierarchical forms which have so often dominated western and other cultures.

Sex trafficking is one form of human trafficking and directly indicative of rape culture. It violates fundamental human rights and human dignity and generates illicit finance for the pimps and traffickers complicit in each and every delivery of a female, male or transgender person into the regional, national or international ‘sex market’. It feeds off the normalization of rape culture whereby the ‘consumer’ does not perceive their transaction as anything other than a ‘purchase’, consent having allegedly been delivered by the agreement to ‘exchange’ a body or bodily service for money.

The relationship between sex trafficking and prostitution more generally is important to disentangle. Important here is the recent and incisive work of Julie Bindel. Her book The Pimping of Prostitution offers some clear insights into the multiple tiers implicit in the notion of ‘consent’ within the context of the global sex industry. She also highlights how the dominant culture refuses to explore the profound power asymmetries present in the embodied politics of this ‘market’ exchange, where the golden mean of the market is rigged by profound systemic inequalities in terms of gender, ethnicity and class.

These matters inform some of the challenges religious discourse needs to address going forward. CCARHT has already developed a theological wing to our work to explore such challenges.

How could those who are interested find out more about your NGO? How can people contribute and where will their money go?

For information and resources, please see the CCARHT website.

We host an annual symposium, which this year is held at Cambridge University from 2nd – 6th July 2018. Our focus will be ‘Terror, Trauma and Transport’. We are hoping to spend the final day of the conference on the theological explorations underpinning the Shiloh Project. (It would be wonderful to attend your conference on 6th July – but that might be difficult, logistically!)

We are also co-curating a summer school on ‘Migrants, Human Rights and Democracy’, to be held in Palermo (Sicily) from June 11th –15th June 2018.

Another upcoming event is a mini conference to be held in London on 13th April. The focus of this is very relevant to the Shiloh Project: namely, the multi-faceted issues and dimensions surrounding the safeguarding and protection of spouses and children in the context of domestic abuse, with particular focus on the roles played by coercive control or institutional inertia of clergy and religious institutions. (Please see: #Hometruths and #Badfaithed or contact me: [email protected])

CCARHT is a not-for-profit organization, and all donations go towards financing publications, mini symposia, research and at-risk-community interventions. These currently involve work in all of Sicily, Catalonia, Macedonia, Ukraine, and the UK.

All our work is focused on developing effective and more sustainable counter-human-trafficking interventions. In the course of this, we look, for example, at international and inter-regional economic fractures, the nexus with migration, creating asylum delivery, victim protection and survivor care, entrepreneurial empowerment for survivors, averting risky behaviours and situations for communities working with unaccompanied minors, supply chain transparency and value chain transformation.

We rely on fee-paying participation of our training symposia, on commissioned reports and donations for the business intervention and training work we are currently undertaking in Sicily, and on co-sponsored arts interventions – the most recent being #Justsex. We are currently seeking £8,000 to develop #Justsex materials to support the ‘Physical Theatre’ work which is currently beginning to find access into School PSHE (Personal and Social Health Education) programmes. (Please contact me directly for more details!)

Please see our library page on www.ccarht.org for our latest reports including our recent submission on ‘Behind Closed Doors: Addressing Human Trafficking, Servitude and Domestic Abuse Through the Black African Churches in London’, which has resulted in the development of a new charity from the cluster working on precisely these issues – namely, ‘Seraphs Tackling Social Injustice’.

 What kinds of posts would you like to see on The Shiloh Project blog and what kinds of resources that come into our orbit would be of value to you?

 Anything around the way in which rape culture, or patriarchal thinking, or pre-emptive demolition of consent, or gang formation and criminality, works internationally, and cross-culturally, as well as how rape culture is implicitly supported through some religious structures and discourses – and also how rape culture can start to be dismantled through a liberation theology or through a breach in rape culture-supportive theological praxis.

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16 Days of Activism – Day 8: Claire Cunnington

by Claire Cunnington on
To mark Day 8 of the 16 Days of Activism our interview is from Claire Cunnington, PhD student at the University of Sheffield.
Tell us about yourself…who are you and what do you do?
I’m a Wellcome Trust funded PhD student at the University of Sheffield, researching what helps or hinders adults recovering from childhood sexual abuse.
What’s your involvement with The Shiloh Project?
I’m a member of The Shiloh Project.
How does The Shiloh Project relate to your work?
I’m researching the way in which the dominant discourse around rape and abuse affects a victim’s ability to recover. Religion, particularly Christianity in the UK, has influenced this discourse. The Shiloh Project’s discussion of rape culture and the Bible is examining the wider context and my research is, in part, examining the impact.
How do you think The Shiloh Project’s work on religion and rape culture can add to discussion about gender activism today? 
By highlighting and questioning the origins of victim-blaming.
What’s next for your work with The Shiloh Project?
I am currently running a qualitative survey on recovery for adult survivors, which looks at what helps and hinders recovery. The survey can be found here: http://bit.ly/recoveringcsa. This includes a question about religion and spirituality. I aim to produce a paper discussing the influence of religion on recovery for adults who have experienced childhood sexual abuse.
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