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RaveComplaining works! Amnesty removed the ludicrous suggestion that Afghan women and girls are oppressed on the grounds of their gender identity!
Hi, Ovarittes! Two days ago, someone posted a piece of information about Amnesty International stating that women and girls are oppressed in Afghanistan for identifying as female.
As a result, I encouraged many of you in my yesterday's post to write a complaint and send it to Amnesty.
It managed to become the most popular post on Ovarit that day, with 89+ upvotes and 20+ users, including me, openly acknowledging their decision to contribute to complaining (I bet there are also many individuals who did the same without grabbing about the action in the comment section).
Thankfully, Amnesty International fixed the problem. Prior to TRAs' intervention, the article stated 'women and girls are oppressed just for having been born female'. Then, its more offensive version described the problem as 'women and girls are oppressed just for identifying as female'. However, the most recent version that appeared within the last hours is this:
Under the Taliban, women and girls were discriminated against in many ways just for being women and girls. The Taliban enforced their version of Islamic Sharia law. Women and girls were banned from:
I know that it's circular but at least Amnesty heard us out! Afghan women and girls don't identify into their oppression and this organization acknowledged that! The moral of this story is: complaining works. Even big NGOs, afraid of TRAs, can sometimes start listening to female people when we state our needs! And we WIN, despite being much less powerful than TRAs.
Text from the judgement summary (emphasis original):
"2200909/2019 Maya Forstater v (1) CGD Europe (2) Center for Global Development (3) Masood Ahmed
JUDGMENT SUMMARY
Important notice for press and public: this summary forms no part of the Tribunal’s decision. It I provided so as to assist the press and the public to understand what the Tribunal has decided.
This case was decided against the background of the previous decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal that Ms Forstater’s belief (described in shorthand terms as “gender critical belief”) is protected under the Equality Act 2010. The present decision does not therefore involve any assessment of that belief. It is concerned with the complaints of discrimination and victimisation based on that belief.
The Employment Tribunal has decided that the following of Ms Forstater’s complaints under the Equality Act are well-founded:
Direct discrimination because of belief by a decision not to offer her a contract of employment.
Direct discrimination because of belief by a decision not to renew her Visiting Fellowship.
Victimisation by the removal of her profile from the Respondents’ website.
Three other complaints, two of direct discrimination and one of victimisation, were unsuccessful.
The Tribunal’s decision in relation to the successful complaints involves a finding that Ms Forstater was at the relevant time employed in the limited Equality Act sense (similar to being a “worker” under other legislation) by CGD Europe (“CGD(E)”) and Center for Global Development (“CGD”). She was employed under a contract to provide services under the terms of which CGD(E) and CGD were not clients or customers of a business or profession of hers.
The Tribunal found that the decisions not to offer Ms Forstater a full contract of employment and not to renew her Visiting Fellowship were taken at least in part because of her belief, and therefore amounted to direct discrimination. The reasons for deciding this include a finding that the way in which Ms Forstater expressed her belief, in particular in tweets, was not such that objection could reasonably be taken to it, when considered in the context of the ongoing debate.
On the complaint of victimisation, the Tribunal found that CGD(E) and CGD had failed to provide an adequate explanation for the removal of Ms Forstater’s profile from their website, against the background of her recent previous allegations that she had been discriminated against. The Tribunal applied the provisions in the Equality Act about the burden of proof, and found that Ms Forstater had been victimised because of her previous allegations.
Remedies are to be determined at a future hearing."