political leadership he told me and mark government is lying when it says he was fired from advisory panel on the relationship crisis i resigned there making it up that they let me go they were begging me to stay the national security adviser you on that last night i was there. what they said was that in public statements that i was pursuing my own agenda yeah my own agenda was basically follow the kofi annan recommendations do something about the refugees stop the human rights atrocities the whole chunk has dismissed as fake news a report suggesting he ordered the sacking of special prosecutor of all but murder in june last year new york times says back time when the top white house lawyer threatened to resign he's leading the probe into allegations of collusion between the chum campaign team and russia in the twenty sixteen election a fire in a hospital in south korea has killed at least thirty seven people including

patients and nurses in the intensive care unit an investigation is now underway turkey's president says his forces will sweep kurdish fighters from the syrian border and could push all the way east to iraq frontier have said those are your current headlines here on al-jazeera stay with us up front coming up next of course you can find out everything we're following on the web site says. some say the harsh tag me to campaign is too white and too privileged so how there's a movement to call out sexual assault being received outside of the west and out front special.

in two thousand and six the slogan me two started as a movement by us activists to write a book as a way to show solidarity with the victims of sexual assault but that slogan went viral overnight in the wake of hollywood's harvey weinstein scandal last october which prompted women around the world to break a lot of the silence around the sexual assault and harassment and begin sharing their stories with more than twelve million posts on facebook in just twenty four hours since then the hash tag has been shared at least eighty five countries around the world so why does this particular campaign prove to be so powerful and how is it being received outside of the west joining me to discuss this are mona eltahawy a journalist based between cairo in new york and author of headscarves and hymens why the middle east needs a sexual revolution run general kumari women's rights activist and director of the

center for social research in new delhi. kwassa chamma a gun and writer and director of communications for the ngo the association for women's rights in development thank you all for joining me on this special edition of outfront i want to start by asking you all how has the harsh tag me to movement been received outside of the u.s. outside of the west rangel you're a long time champion of women's rights in india what's the response to me to be like over there. the little red and the whole campaign started on social media with hash tag mean to the million women also onto the whole you know the kind of speaking out as talking about themselves and around twenty five thousand women joined that campaign in india and also a lot of them really wanted to speak about their own experiences but when we restart the kind of expression they did not really come out with i didn't become

the person and they did not really got regret it happened to them but there's definitely said that they also feel stiction hardest men at work places they've also been victim of the kind of relationship at work place with their bosses with the professors and also the whole media became very very active but i believe boot camp in what really was very critical was involved i can see the destruction the heart of every woman that they could find a space on social media and could see that this is what's happening to me too not a recently the african union ambassador to the u.s. said during a discussion about how to take me to the quote in africa the conversation is not even begun we are nowhere near where we need to be what's your reaction to that. i very much agree with embassador and my country ghana conversation has been extremely muted about me too and the sense that people have not been publicly name

in those who have violated them those who have assaulted them people have actually been speaking about the need for us to have this conversation but no one is really speaking up that's because the consequences for woman who name people who violate them is really still to hash in about a few years ago in twenty fifteen that prominent. public personality quickly changed the chua was allegedly accused of raping a young woman there were people who were witnesses to the fact that she had been abused by this man she went to hospital the doctors verified that she had been sexually assaulted the state of ghana took up a case. but this woman was vilified in the press so much she eventually witchery the case and this is an example of what happens when women speak up and when these happen it just can't just other women from speaking up because they can see that there's no justice for the victim and even aware. of the victim as in

disrepute mona when you're listening to none and speak about gardner and some of the other african countries does that resonate with what you're hearing and what you've experienced in the middle east living in cairo traveling through the region or has be to be embraced in the arab world. has taught me to has been embracing our world under its arabic equivalent which is and i come in and i've seen several activists share their own experiences and say that this happens to every woman i know this has happened to me personally but i think the importance of hashtag me to . is not just about women speaking out and not been able to speak out and as the community blame the woman or not i think what this particular moment in history has done it is it has allowed women around the world to see each other as all being victims of patriarchy that this is an institutionalized form of discrimination that regardless of where you're from will affect every woman and will affect members of the l g q community we also affect men we've seen gay men who've spoken out about

this so i think that as hard as it is to speak out in certain communities it's important to recognize that this doesn't just affect white actors in hollywood and it's not just white men who are supporting them we need to move the conversation outside of of this very very specific white us lens and make it a global one critics say that the voices of women around the world and rajat i want to ask you this question first critics are the voices of women around the world who work in factories are victims of sex trafficking minority women women in rural areas living in poverty are missing from this campaign from this movement is it fair to say that white western women especially white affluent women are still dominating this campaign and if so what do you do about that. as you know very few women are in the. social media space in and yet only about twenty seven percent of women who really are the internet users these are the the men also recruit among

these twenty seven percent who have mostly working in people who are in the organized sector or people who are really in some very or the other have been capacity to raise their voices but majority of the women who are from the informal sector of the grounds are many tribal women should all cause women as you said classes victims prostitutes and profit driven engage in prostitution are forced into prostitution all those women have not found that space the majority of the women say about almost like ninety percent women were not in the apartment ican participate economy who are not organized who do not have access to internet is not are they going to use fear is this kind of harassment but they're not a little use this they're not able to say it in in more form they're not able to even walk through these religiously committees that we have formed with all internal complaints committee so certainly there is a kind of divide that you can feel you see not a do you worry about how quote unquote white me too is

a result of unfair. i mean what i would like to see more of more of a focus on movements of particularly like the most oppressed groups who have actually been workin and violence against women for a long time some of the work that some of my previous administrations have done such as the african women's development fund which is their macon fund which funds particularly small and medium sized women's rights organizations across the continent you know there are numerous small community based groups that have been working to end violence against women and what i tend to see that they focus on me too is focused on yes you know more privileged white woman in hollywood more privileged white women in north america without really acknowledge him the kind of community led efforts that have been going on. and balancing why do women why do you think it is that me too has been so successful high profile in

a way that other previous campaigns against gender based violence haven't been is it because of the hollywood celebrity angle or is it something else. i think absolutely it's because of the hollywood celebrity angle and because the media attention and for me that's not a bad thing that's a good then but let's also use this opportunity to focus on community based organizations that have been working for decades to end violence against well and once and for all about why me too has been so successful i think it is a particular moment where we're seeing white women in hollywood confront white men who have hurt them and i think that that gives it a much more global platform than say all the individual work that we've heard about but i also think it's really important to take it out of this idea that it's only these rich and white powerful men who do that because what i worry about is that ordinary men will just kind of sit back and say you know well you know what i'm not rich i'm not powerful i'm not one of those guys and i think this is really in valuable moment where we have an opportunity as

a global community not just in our individual community spaces to say look this is about patriarchy this is about how it's institutionalised this is about misogyny and this is about discrimination against women so how does that affect every woman and how is every man complicit in this because i hear from a lot of men they say well i don't do any of that so this has nothing to do with me but unless you're doing something to stop that from happening your complicit and you're benefiting from that system of patriarchy so i think this has to be a daily occurrence when we talk about this with our friends with our siblings and also politically because i think that as fantastic as this hollywood moment has been we're also missing is that the president of the united states has been accused of sexual assault himself and we're not talking about that at least twenty women have accused donald trump of sexually assaulting them and if you if you just stop and think about that the president of the most powerful country in the world and we almost had a senator in the united states roy moore i mean we always had

a really right we once had a candidate become a senator in the u.s. has been accused of pedophilia and this is a chance for us now i speak now again. that egyptian muslim woman who covers these issues from my people they say look we have to confront these issues in every community. and every community pick up on that you've written that muslim women are stuck between a rock and a hard place on the one hand you have islamophobia in europe in the united states who whenever a muslim man is accused of any kind of sex from jump on this and say it's the religion is to blame islam is to blame use it to bash the religion on the other hand you have some in muslim communities who don't want to call out mr jonas because they fear that it will give islam a bad rap and they're giving ammunition to people who already hate them they don't want the community to look bad so how do women in communities like that deal with this dilemma if you can call about the answer to that is exactly what will take us out of me to hashtag me to being a white hollywood social media moment the answer to that would be that each community has to recognize that the less we can talk about sex the less we can talk

about these taboos and the less we confront these taboos the most vulnerable people in our communities will be affected and the most vulnerable people are always women children and the eligibility queue so it has to fall on the shoulders of those of us with privilege and to take that even further just also to defang the racism islamophobia when i talk about the middle east and other one of my communities i have to talk about domestic workers i have to talk about migrant laborers because in the gulf you're talking about women who come from different very very disadvantaged countries in communities who are often sexual assaulted by their employers they have no recourse to justice as a racist of a class. so we have to make hash tag need to recognize race gender class able ism and because actual or interesting run general motors talks about the you know the being stuck between a rock and a hard place women of quote unquote elsewhere too it's not just about religion is it for example when women fight for their rights in places like india or pakistan

or parts of africa some say oh you're attacking our traditional culture values you're supporting western cultural imperialism you often do hear that kind of backlash argument. well it's always there it's been always there when ever you talked about wilfred somewhere you know everybody who's not agreeing with you or all these kurdish militia forces fundamentalists forces which are really around us always blame us for the not the picking up from this is not what in the end is not what our culture is all about and that silence that has been imposed on women is also because it feel that if they will speak out they will be targeted they will be seen as the people who are responsible for what is happening to victim blaming all the time so so even the muster the courage to speak there already is you know in some sense punished for speaking out and now you know we are all working very hard to change of are certainly the whole thing about you know you are being the rebels

too you are trying to create the kind of in london than our country where women are now becoming very free they just don't want to follow any tradition and you are responsible so we are certainly very very important but let me tell you one thing in india the situation is very very different now because we are far far right to enter the temple we are together as women fall in addition and supporting each other so that is something that is helping us to count towards the flight bag with all the fundamentalist force forces you want to come in earlier. yes i did because i think you know women have have been actually speak an app for ages about the need to end violence and i think that's of the small moment. i don't want people i don't know moment to feel like they have to put themselves out there we have to name the people who have perpetrated violence especially when the repercussions are so syria i think the focus needs to be and how do we change the societal context and the

culture which leads to this harassment which leads to this continuous violence that women face how do we change this rape culture which is really the problem and it's so endemic everywhere so i would love for us to have a bit of a conversation around that give us one of your suggestions and tell us something positive of what can be done because this is a very depressing cover they should give us tell us what community. i mean i feel like a couple of things that need to be done you know the conversation as well but i really feel like we need men to step up we need men to be speaking to each other and we need we need men to be holding themselves responsible you know i feel like too much of the onus is on women and balance we really need men to step up and take responsibility for their own role in this situation and i want to see some of that happen and some of that change interesting that never talks about government stepping up which is obviously important jobs crucial but the backlash against me

too in the west and there has been a backlash hasn't just come from men it's even come from some women to french actress catherine deneuve along with nearly a hundred other french women wrote a letter defending men's quote freedom to pastor response to let alone in this climate it was outrageous maybe i couldn't believe it and it was an important moment to remind everyone with a moment to remind everyone of just how powerful internalized misfortune is these are women who have internalized patriarchy and the power of patriarchy and these are women who are white and privileged and very affluent and very telling to me that they are white privileged affluent women who are basically saying the men who have the right to pester are white and affluent because while catherine deneuve are we saying this we're talking about the rise of a horrendous fascist right wing across europe that wants to prevent migration especially on the basis of this so-called right or freedom to pester because but

they were also just talking about the men they are not talking about these are not working class women these are not poor women these are not women of different abilities it these are not women and they are not talking about men who live in the cities in france who live in various communities in europe who are vilified with this horrendous we haven't but it's also important to recognize that in europe brown. black men are accused of increasing the rates of rape because they want to rape white women so i think this letter was very dangerous and i think that the this kind of position is exactly why hashtag need to has to move out from these absolute white hollywood actresses roger you wanted to come in mona i want to support you in that you know this is what the privilege of women even talk about in our own country is that you know all this never happened to me i've never faced any kind of discrimination what are these very activist talking about these families are really trying to ruin the relationship and family they are breaking the family i think need to campaign is extremely important in one sense that it has at least

given the kind of why you see space that it's not just happening to us middle class we went travelling by buses and walking in small places where people are going to exploit and trying to harass but also it's happening at the at the highest level at the discrimination in terms of age batted the discrimination in terms of you know sexual habits meant all kinds of you know many privileges really that's what is the problem that men are men who are in these positions of power considered that are that entitlement so that has been question and challenge and that has to come down who will go level up a village woman who's working in somebody who farms of the field that has to come down who are labeled women who is trying to walk in the construction that you are building that are old and getting exploited by the contractor so i think this is this is one thing which we have to seen as the strength of this campaign not a jury with i very much want to agree with angela because i think what this moment also calls for increased supports that women's movements and women's rights of the

legislations have been calling for you know women know themselves the solutions to the challenges they say and they're very often able to work on those solutions but women's rights organizations and women's rights movements. so under-funded this is part of the work that my organization has been leading in some ways. that we did the fabric of the most women's rights organizations a thirst on twenty thousand us dollars or less a year these are their movements and these are going on as they since they're actually working to end violence and small communities from village levels to communities to the regional level and this is really where we need to place the efforts this is really where the change needs to happen and now you've written about the difficulty in defining issues like sexual consent getting agreement on those issues when things are sometimes not clear how does

a movement like hash tag need to empower women in particular but to feel more comfortable about setting boundaries about being clear about consent about saying no how can it teach men to respect women's choices and women's communications on this issue because it's now broadened out beyond workplace harassment and sexual assault. absolutely and actually i think right now is also the moments where men really need to take time to learn what consent really means and to know that consent should always be enthusiastic consent should be given them all to pull ways confirm consent should be a fair several times you know i feel like the way men have been socialized traditionally have especially in my context especially in ghana you know we often speak of men chase and woman rights like women have to be pursued and men always assume that women are being core or they need to be persuaded no i don't think that

should be the case and men need to recognize that women have agency women can speak up and say when they want to take part in a sexual activity or when they do not want to take part in a sexual activity and men and women you know packing this should always get consent a very believe and none variable from their pack and you have to confirm that several times in the united states in the wake of the recent controversial allegations around the u.s. act as these i'm sorry and quote unquote sexual misconduct is a phrase used among many others there's been much debate about what belongs in the me to debate you know where does the spectrum of rape assault harassment misconduct begin and end to my question to you is how does a movement like me to move forward when there are already these accusations oh it's going too far and certain things don't belong in it whenever we have this historic moment where we're going through incredible change and where you're hearing voices that you haven't heard before there will always be people who are pulling this back and saying you've gone too far stop stop and we have to ignore those voices because

they say that because this is an uncomfortable moment and discomfort is important for social change revolution is uncomfortable and i consider this a revolutionary moment one of many not the only obvious thing and i think that that this spectrum is exactly the best way to describe it this isn't. asked about your boss exposing himself to you or your boss demanding that you have sex with him or her so that you could continue to work this is also about very intimate conversations and relationships and i think in order for that for that spectrum to be fully explored and deconstructed we have to be able to talk about sex comfortably and i think that here in united states too we don't talk about sex comfortably definitely in egypt where i come from and in the middle east and north africa they're very conservative societies and as a muslim i know how difficult it is for muslims to speak about sex inside and outside of marriage and the same and i think what made me toos done is it's created

this leveling off moment where people even in the united states where they thought they had had a sexual revolution where they thought they were sexually liberated they are now confronted with the reality that they are not that this so-called sexual revolution of the one nine hundred sixty s. has not dismantled patriarchy and women are still being pursued as nana said and men still think that they will score so i think what we need to do is we need to have a very very honest conversation about sex my question is how long do you have to make to get those conversations off the ground how long as me to have you call a revolutionary moment but a lot of revolutions other peter out or there's a counter revolution the counter revolution has begun you're seeing with the catherine deneuve than the christian summers and so many other people the counter revolution is definitely here but how long do we have we have forever we are dismantling a system called patriarchy that has existed forever i think when nona talks about men and how they have to step up i think men must understand that this is patriarchy hurts them to patriarchy places the burden of what we now call toxic

masculinity on men surely there are men that are around and i believe this because i know them who don't want to score who don't want to pursue women who want to have sex whether it's inside marriage whether it's outside of marriage whether it's with another man or another woman in a way that both partners or all partners involved are enjoying it and no one takes the next day as grace tech citizens and sorry to tell them that she felt violated and very exposed to let me ask you that question about the revolutionary moment moment of the revolution or do you believe this is a revolution a moment if so how long does the house. i think it's a particular moment but i actually think the revolution has been going on for a long time woman speak up about sexual violence is not new woman have been pressing for laws against sexual violence for laws against domestic violence for laws against marital rape in many countries around the world for a long time so it's just that me too as a campaign to have hits the global limelight at this particular moment in time but it's part of ongoing work to dismantle the system that oppresses women and it's

work that it's going on and will need to continue to go on and needs to be funded and needs to be supported down or run mono we'll have to leave it there thank you very much for having this is gushing i know we need many more discussions like this appreciate you taking time out that's our show up front we're back next week. on counting the cost the problem with dallas every day is the rich and famous discussed making the world a better place but for who moves are afoot to open up travel across the african

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