Mass. activist Gomez leads fight for rights of wronged advises
lobbies for victims of trafficking (Originally posted on India New England, 2007)
By MEERA RAJAGOPALAN
BOSTON — Mata Hari: Eye of the Day. The name conjures up images of dark places, international crime and a thrill of adventure. For the Boston-based nonprofit that is christened such, their work does indeed involve dark places and crime reaching across nations, but the thrill of adventure is replaced by a spirit to help those that have been exploited and put in those dark places.
MataHari, dedicated to the issue of human trafficking of colored people and immigrants, has dealt with thousands of cases, mostly women and girls. The organization is involved with helping the trafficked, lobbying for their rights, and connecting with groups that provide services to those affected by the problem. Gomez
Just recently, a political asylee in the United States was being abused by her husband. Pregnant at the time, and with a toddler in tow, she broke free to turn to MataHari, and its founder, Carol Gomez.
As the date of the delivery approaches, the organization galvanizes to support and protect the family — staff members spend time with the mother and children, care for her first child in their homes for a few days, and organize drives to get car seats, baby clothes and diapers.
In the days ahead, other women helped by Mata Hari will provide childcare for the baby and the first child, creating a network that supports itself, and offers empathy and advice.
“We try and help them so that they can take care of each other and support themselves,” says Gomez, who says she experienced being at the bottom of the social “totem pole” growing up as the child of Indian immigrants in Malaysia.
Not limited to domestic violence, Mata Hari will deal with cases related to family violence, sexual violence, labor exploitation and human trafficking. Mata Hari helps communities deal with specific cases and the overall picture, providing them with training on how to sensitively handle the situation.
The organization achieves its goals through three of its initiatives — the Trafficking Victims Outreach and Services Network, the South Asian Solidarity Network and the X-Project.
While TVOS is a network of New England based organizations that helps with trafficking victims of any kind, the South Asian Solidarity Network aims to create community solutions for members of the South Asian diaspora affected by trafficking issues, and the X-Project focuses its efforts on improving the lives of the sexually exploited or prostitutes.
What is different about Mata Hari is the fact that the organization is not only focused on providing services to the exploited, says Melindah Sharma, one of the advisors on the board of Mata Hari. “The focus is on human trafficking and within that falls labor, gender violence and immigrant rights,” she says. “We have the space to bring different players to the table, and constitute a more united movement.”
A movement that does tackle the gamut of cases — from exploited laborers to forced prostitution, Mata Hari covers them all.
Ramani Sripada, an advisor for fundraising for Mata Hari, says the organization take a holistic view of the problem, and tries to bring various resources together. For example, cases from Sripada’s day job at the Massachusetts Asian and Pacific Islanders for Health, a nonprofit promoting HIV and sexuality awareness, are routinely referred to Mata Hari, and vice versa.
Gomez also deals with so many varied issues, that no case is cast aside because it does not fit, says Sripada.
“For many immigrant women’s issues, Carol is the go-to person,” says Sripada. “Whether it’s immigrant laborers, sex workers, or trauma cases. If it has to do with exploitation, Carol will touch it.”
Mata Hari was formally launched in 2001, and has started fundraising only recently. Gomez, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts with a degree in women’s studies, jumped right into the field with a job working on family planning in Bangladesh, Nepal and Philippines.
Later, she joined a local district court, working with domestic violence survivors. She found the atmosphere challenging, but racially most violent. After minorities were routinely passed over in favor of whites for interesting cases and projects, Gomez decided it was time to leave. She moved on to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Sexual Assault and Women’s Health Unit.
Gomez also worked as a consulting domestic violence survivor advocate and outreach educator at Haven, Massachusetts General Hospital’s program for victims of intimate partner violence from 1996 to 1997, and with the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
A research project with her advisor from college, Janice Raymond, brought her closer to the problem of human trafficking.
Raymond, a director of the Coalition Against Trafficking of Women, invited Gomez to co-author a study of trafficking in the United States. The study, entitled, “Sex Trafficking in the United States: Links Between International and Domestic Sex Industries,” researched the sex trade in New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis and Boston. The project, funded by the U.S. National Institute of Justice, opened Gomez’s eyes to the problems faced by these women, as well as those faced by others brought into the country to be exploited.
For the study, Gomez traveled the country, studying 178 people. After extensive interviews with law enforcement, the sex workers, and online research, Gomez found an interesting phenomenon in many of the cases — most of the women were not brought in to be prostituted. In fact, they were brought in to work in jobs such as grocery store clerks, with no apparent sexual exploitation.
The debt they owe to the broker who brings them to the United States, however, increases with every passing month, says Gomez, slowly forcing them to turn to prostitution to settle their debt.
These cases were not documented anywhere, and it was difficult for Gomez to talk to these women, some of who still maintained their jobs.
Issues like these made Gomez think about starting her own organization to fight trafficking, with special attention to minorities and immigrants.
Lilly Marcelin, associate director of Mata Hari explains how the organization is different from mainstream nonprofits. “[With us], a client is seen as a person, and a good friend who is going through a difficult period in their life,” says Marcelin, who has known Gomez since 1994. “We are in a position to treat them as a person, not as a file.”
One of the other ways Mata Hari is different, says Marcelin, is that the organization respects the boundaries between them and their clients, but does not enforce those.
“Sometimes those boundaries become walls,” says Marcelin, “We don’t want to create walls.”
Gomez agrees. She says a mainstream organization might not approve of having tea or coffee at a client’s house, but Mata Hari will do so, if required. “It may be okay for us to do that, depending on the cultural context,” says Gomez.
The cultural context is what seems to be holding back South Asians from accepting trafficking and domestic violence as a problem that exists within the community, says Gomez.
“Deep down, South Asians don’t know how to speak up,” says Gomez, and Sharma agrees. “There is a safe route mentality among South Asians,” she says. “We need to address an issue instead of saying it does not exist.”
Sometimes, says Gomez, the concept is so deeply ingrained in the culture that it does not even seem like exploitation.
“The concept of having servants is fairly widespread in South Asia,” says Gomez, “but the conversations about how we treat these domestic helpers is much more taboo.”
South Asians are not alone in this, says Gomez, as different communities deal with varied problems while battling issues such as trafficking and domestic violence.
Similarly, women are often so accustomed to poor treatment that they are not aware of their wages or human rights, says Gomez.
Such a cultural viewpoint was what prevented Naseem Mohammed Siraj, an Indian woman working for an Omani couple in Brookline, Mass., from running away. Siraj, a client of Mata Hari, was held under exploitative conditions, and it took all of the resources of TVOS to extract her from the situation.
Siraj took care of the couple’s children, and was being paid the minimum wage, but also being charged money for boarding and food, which she prepared for the family.
It took Gomez and the team of attorneys and concerned community members several tries before Siraj would agree to flee the couple. Several tries, says Gomez, because Siraj’s main concern was not just escape. She was also concerned about housing and food, something TVOS could not provide right away.
That is typical of immigrant victims of abuse, says Gomez, adding that their primary concern is sometimes their legal status, and not their abuse.
“We understand the plight of our clients, and respect their decisions, and do not impose our views,” says Marcelin.
But, says Gomez, the need is for a paradigm shift in the attitudes of people, something that does not happen in 24 hours.
Gomez tries to steer clear of academic debate on the issue of legalization of prostitution, and says she understands both sides of the issue. At a 1998 conference on the status of women at the United Nations, Gomez saw that experts debated the issue, but there was no representation from the side of the victim.
“I found it difficult to take a hard stance,” Gomez says. “The discussion was so far removed from their lives.” It may work in some cases, but not all, she says.
Which is where Gomez steps in. Suggesting, and fighting for, what works is, after all, what she does.
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