‘Vagina Monologues’ Author to Widodo: Treat Mary Jane NOT as a Criminal But a Victim
File photograph of Eve Ensler from Agence France-Presse.
MANILA – In the United States, The Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler on Sunday (Monday Philippine time) asked Indonesian President Joko Widodo to spare the life of overseas Filipino worker Mary Jane Veloso, who is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday for allegedly trying to smuggle 2.6 kilos of heroin into Indonesia in 2010.
Also the founder of One Billion Rising, a campaign to end violence against women, Ensler said in a statement that Veloso should be treated “not as a criminal, but as a victim of successive and incessant exploitation.”
“On behalf of One Billion Rising activists, we would like to appeal to the Indonesian government for clemency for Filipina migrant worker Mary Jane Veloso, who is awaiting execution in Indonesia. We are asking Indonesian President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) to spare Mary Jane’s life as she is clearly a victim of both trafficking and economic violence,” Ensler said.
Her sentiments were echoed by Rafendi Djamin, the Indonesian representative to the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, last week, as he called Veloso more than anything “a victim of trafficking in persons who was dragged into drug trafficking.”
First, Ensler said, Veloso was driven out of the Philippines by “grave economic need … and into the worst forms of economic enslavement, exploitation and abuse in other countries.”
As a “victim of forced labor migration,” Veloso had to seek employment away from home and her two sons so that she could provide food and education for them.
“As a single mother, it must have been harrowing to leave her infant children behind. And even more harrowing is the fact that she has sat in an Indonesian jail for five years where, today, her two young sons are saying goodbye. Saying good-bye to their mother they barely knew, pulled away from them so early, only to be executed by firing squad for simply having the desire to give them a better future,” Ensler said.
Not only was Veloso “tricked into a false job in Malaysia,” where the drugs were supposedly sewn into her luggage before she was sent to Indonesia, but upon her arrest, she “lacked access to justice” due to “faulty legal procedures and court-provided interpreters.”
“People like Mary Jane should not be the ones punished for wanting only what is humanely due to people – a dignified life where aspirations for their children are cradled and nurtured in possibility and hope,” Ensler said.
Rather, those who should be made accountable to their actions were “the people who tricked her, who used her, and her government that is mandated to protect and respect her basic human rights for a dignified life.”
“We urge President Joko Widodo to save Mary Jane – and to treat her not as a criminal, but as a victim of successive and incessant exploitation. It is all our responsibility to understand the contexts of economic deprivation and exploitation and its connection to the escalating violence being experienced by women all over the world – and do everything in our power to challenge and change the system that perpetuates this violence,” Ensler said.