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Iraqi politician Hanan al-Fatlawi is heading her own list of candidates in parliamentary elections set for May 12. "There must be new parties in order to build the trust between the people and politicians again," she says.

Their car stuck in sweltering Baghdad traffic, the Iraqi men spotted a foreign news photographer on the sidewalk taking pictures of a wall of campaign posters.

“They’re all thieves!” shouted one of the men, about the candidates in Iraq’s May 12 elections. “We won’t vote!”

When polls open Saturday morning, Iraqis will be choosing from some 7,000 candidates for 329 seats in parliament. It’s the first nationwide election since the declaration last year that the Islamic State (ISIS) had been defeated after a devastating three-year war.

This election season, some characteristics of Iraqi politics are new, such as a shift away from divisive, overt sectarian campaign rhetoric – among Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds alike – that has dominated public political discourse since US forces invaded Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. Taking its place are more bread-and-butter issues, such as local services and combating corruption.

But while candidates search for a post-sectarian blend of campaign promises that will convince Iraqis disgruntled with politics to give them their votes, Iraq’s veteran politicians face widespread disillusionment over whether they can be agents for change.

Most have learned that sectarian politics are dangerous, analysts say, and were a key ingredient in the rise of the extremist Sunni ISIS and in its support for a time by many among Iraq’s largely disenfranchised Sunni minority, who ruled Iraq for decades until 2003.

Since the ISIS defeat, quality of life and security have improved markedly in Baghdad and beyond. But many Iraqis, especially first-time would-be voters, say politics have not yet changed enough to earn their engagement, highlighting two key lessons for Iraqi voters and politicians about strengthening democracy: Voter participation drives legitimacy, and corruption undermines trust.

“There is a failure for more than 15 years, and people now are unhappy and desperate from [past results], so there must be new parties in order to build the trust between the people and politicians again,” says Hanan al-Fatlawi, a physician and vocal lawmaker who is contesting this vote as head of her own list of 200-plus candidates in seven of Iraq’s 18 provinces.

Little trust in parties, parliament

Dr. Fatlawi reckons that half of Iraq’s 18.2 million eligible voters may not participate. A late-March survey of 1,066 Iraqis conducted for the 1,001 Iraqi Thoughts organization found that more than 70 percent planned to vote – a figure that would be slightly higher than the 65 percent average in previous elections.

But the same poll found that only 6 percent of Iraqis had trust in political parties – the lowest for any institution in Iraq – and that parliament fared only slightly better, with 8 percent of those polled voicing trust in it.

“[Iraqis] say, ‘For what we are going to vote? There will be no change. All are the same, all are corrupt, most of them are losers, and we don’t want to make the same mistake every four years,’ ” says Fatlawi.

Speaking in English and wearing a maroon headscarf, Fatlawi is no stranger to controversy and is seen by some as an example of the evolution in Iraqi politics.

She is well known and popular for her pointed questioning of ministers in parliament – including demanding from Iraq’s defense chief in 2016 that he publicly disclose secret deals with “mafias” that illegally flew weapons to ISIS. Footage during a fracas in parliament that same year shows her apparently throwing water bottles at Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

And Fatlawi has been accused of sectarianism – a charge she flatly denies – after a portion of a television interview in April 2014, before ISIS invaded, appeared to show her suggesting that if seven Shiites were killed, then seven Sunnis should also be killed. She says her comments were misinterpreted, and that her point was that more Shiites than Sunnis were sacrificing their lives – as members of the Shiite-dominated armed forces at the time – in the fight against militants in Sunni areas, and that the sacrifice should be balanced among sects.

“We need new people, thinking in a different way,” says the lawmaker.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Election posters line the streets in Baghdad, April 17, 2018, for parliamentary elections May 12, what is billed by candidates as Iraq's first post-sectarian vote.

To avoid the taint of previous political failures impeding new achievements, Fatlawi says the party she created in 2015, called Eraada, or Determination, has insisted on presenting candidates for Saturday’s vote with new faces who have never held executive political posts.

Like many Iraqi slates of candidates, Eraada includes contenders from across Iraq’s sectarian divides.

“Now the war is finished, and the oil price is rising,” says Fatlawi. “The situation is now better so there must be a new way of dealing with issues, a new policy and new ideas and new strategy.”

“Nowadays,” she adds, “sectarian language really is not accepted by many of the people – I’m not saying all of the people – in all provinces. They are refusing to hear sectarian language.”

Same old faces

One Iraqi analyst close to the government, explaining the focus on services and nationalist themes in the campaign, says Saturday’s vote “could be the first post-sectarian elections.”

“People don’t have the appetite for it,” he says. “People are absolutely fed up with, ‘this guy is Sunni, this guy is Shiite.’ Nobody cares about that. Shiite boys died in Sunni areas to liberate the country, and people are beyond that.”

One case in point is the campaign of Fatlawi, who, the analyst says, had a reputation in the past for sectarianism, but has focused instead on helping young Iraqis and giving services.

“She’s actually giving me hope that these guys have learned a lesson,” says the analyst, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of his job. “It’s not because they have all of a sudden become good people, it’s because they know what is good for their political career, and if they want to survive, they better stop talking about sectarianism.”

Iraq’s electoral lists are dominated by stalwart veteran politicians, like Mr. Abadi and his Victory Alliance – its name is a direct reference to Abadi’s handling of the anti-ISIS fight, and his overseeing the rebuilding of Iraqi armed forces since ISIS invaded from Syria in June 2014.

His party is the first since 2003 to field candidates in every Iraqi province, with candidates billed as sectarian bridge-builders. Also in the running is former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, at the head of a largely Shiite bloc.

And likely to gain many votes is the Fatah Alliance, the largest grouping of some 500 candidates linked to the mostly Shiite militias called the Popular Mobilization Forces. The PMF played a key roll in the anti-ISIS fight and are led by their commander, Hadi al-Amiri, a former minister of trade who has close ties to Iran.

So while the pitches may be new, the personalities are the same.

Getting out the vote

“For most Iraqis, what they are seeing is another election where about 90 percent or more are the same – the same leadership – and a political process that has not worked since 2003,” says Renad Mansour, a research fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London.

“Everyone is saying the same thing: It’s all anti-corruption, services, employment,” says Mr. Mansour. “So there is a sense that, can you actually get what you want through politics, though these kind of elections?”

The answer is no, for many younger Iraqis, especially.

“Do you trust any of these candidates?” asks a perfume seller in the Baghdad Mall, Tahar Nabil, who says he won’t vote.

“I was optimistic because we heard a lot of promises before the [2014] vote. I voted last time and our country was destroyed,” says Mr. Nabil, a computer network engineer who says he has no choice but to work at a lowly job selling perfume.

“The government doesn’t provide opportunities or jobs for young people,” he says. “I have dreams to have a family and kids. But there is no program by the government to satisfy the young people and their dreams.”

That problem was compounded by the ISIS invasion and war, which “took us decades back,” says Nabil. “If we had any hope or wishes for the future before ISIS, after that our hopes were deleted…. All the government money goes for the wars, they don’t care about young people.”

Among the key variables in Saturday’s election is how many of them will choose to vote.

“You’re going to have over 3 million newly eligible voters, who could potentially participate in this election and turn it upside down,” says the Baghdad analyst. “These guys don’t remember Saddam, they don’t remember what it’s like not to vote … and they don’t know the value of it and the cost of getting it.”

So among the wall-to-wall campaign banners are also get-out-the-vote posters hung by the election commission. One shows a young boy held in the arms of his father waving an Iraqi flag, superimposed on a ballot the shape of Iraq. It reads: “Your voice builds the nation.”

Homelessness has without a doubt become one of California’s most pressing issues, proclaimed by turns an emergency, a crisis, and a national disgrace.

Consider:

• As of December, about a quarter of the nation’s homeless population – about 134,000 people – lived in California, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
• A San Francisco worker had to make $58.04 an hour in 2017 to afford a two-bedroom apartment at local market rate, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) reports. (That works out to roughly $115,000 a year.)
• Between 2016 and 2017, the state also saw the largest increases among unsheltered homeless (more than 13,500 people) and chronically homeless individuals (nearly 6,000), according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH).

The numbers just validate what people already see: It’s become near impossible to walk down a San Francisco block without spotting someone curled up in a corner. Tent encampments have long ago spilled out of Los Angeles’ Skid Row. Orange County officials are mired in a courtroom drama over how and where to provide services for their homeless citizenry.

Similar stories are being told in Fresno and San Diego, Butte County and Imperial County. No wonder housing was a main character Tuesday night in the final debate among the state’s six candidates for governor. 

It’s not that homeless advocates are at a loss: Decades of research show that the best way to reduce homelessness is to put roofs over people’s heads as quickly as possible, then provide the right array of services – such as short-term cash infusions or more intense mental health assistance – to get them on their feet and out of the system. It’s a strategy called “housing first.”

Knowing, however, isn’t the same as doing. Tech companies, nonprofits, and other entities have poured millions, if not billions, of dollars into “fixes” for homelessness over the years, including tiny homes, Kickstarter campaigns, even apps. The City of San Francisco spent $275 million on homelessness and supportive housing in fiscal 2016, up from $241 million the year before. Social service providers, along with government and the private sector, are still catching up to fund and build infrastructure based on best practices, advocates say.

“Everybody loves innovation, and everybody loves the big solution. We invest money based on the shiniest idea or the loudest voice in the room,” says Jeff Kositsky, director of San Francisco’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “But sometimes it’s just hard work.”

The underlying causes

Another huge issue is inflow. Especially in major metro areas, and especially in California, housing costs are soaring beyond what incomes can sustain. The daily stream of newly homeless people often outpaces providers’ ability to rehouse the existing homeless. Until and unless that equation balances out, better services – already a challenge to administer – won’t be able to move the needle.

SOURCE:

Apartment List

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Karen Norris/Staff

“Way too often we try to solve homelessness by just solving homelessness, as opposed to solving the underlying drivers pushing people into homelessness,” says Adam Murray, executive director of Inner City Law Center, which provides legal services for poor families in Los Angeles. “There’s not nearly enough attention put in place on homelessness prevention and, more generally, on affordability of housing for extremely low-income folks.”

For providers, he says, that means “even if you’re doing an amazing job, you’re just in that hamster wheel.”

Homelessness wasn’t always so visible or seemingly intractable. When the issue in its modern form first began drawing national attention in the 1980s, advocates focused on providing shelters. The idea, says NAEH executive director Nan Roman, was to get people into a safe place for a night or two and offer light assistance around budgeting, employment, and substance abuse. The approach evolved into a kind of merit process: if a person who entered a shelter proved they could abide by the rules – if they could stay off alcohol and drugs and maybe find a job – then they would qualify for permanent housing.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A homeless man sleeps on the sidewalk in the Mission district, on April 17, 2018 in San Francisco, California.

But the problem didn’t go away. Researchers and social service workers began to realize that they were looking at the issue backwards: you couldn’t expect a person to kick their bad habits, find a job, and send the kids to school before you proclaimed them “ready” for housing. How could a mother focus on interviews or enroll her children in school when she doesn’t know where her family is going to spend the night?

“Housing is a basic need; it’s the platform on which everything else happens,” Ms. Roman says. “When you don’t have your own place, you can’t really concentrate on the services.”

The new approach came with an acknowledgment of the larger forces that lead to homelessness.

Policy decisions in the mid-1990s pared down federal welfare programs, following 1980s moves in which HUD had done the same for public housing and rent subsidies. Fewer affordable housing units were built, and millions of those that existed were torn down or repurposed. The mid-20th century also saw a movement to shift treatment for the mentally ill from state hospitals to community, and often private, facilities. Tens of thousands of state hospitals closed, and many of the patients they released, instead of seeking treatment elsewhere, ended up on the streets.

The economy shifted, too, as manufacturing began its long decline. Rust Belt states are often associated with the closing down of US factories, but thousands of aerospace jobs, for instance, left Los Angeles, as well.

Today the US is short about 7.4 million affordable housing units. In California, where zoning regulations and other laws make it even harder to build, more than 500 cities and counties are failing to develop enough affordable and market-rate housing to keep pace with population growth, according to the state housing department. L.A County alone has a gap of about 550,000 units.

‘It is much harder to be poor now’

Meanwhile, wages – especially for the poorest Americans – have not kept up with rising housing costs. The NILCH report found that the average US worker making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would have to put in more than 94 hours a week to afford the monthly market rate of $1,103 for a two-bedroom unit. In California, a worker making the 2017 state minimum of $10.50 an hour would have to work three full-time jobs – 120 hours – to afford a two-bedroom apartment.

And poorer families tend to spend a much larger share of their incomes on housing and other basic needs than their wealthier counterparts, who are more likely to put their money into insurance and retirement.

“It is much harder to be poor now than it was than 1970,” says Paul Tepper, head of the Western Center on Law and Poverty and co-author of a 2007 report that looks at the historical causes of modern homelessness in L.A. “Poor people simply cannot afford housing. So more people are perched on the edge.”

Still, there’s been progress. In 2017, the national rate of homelessness per 10,000 people hit a record low and overall homelessness has dropped more than 14 percent since 2007, when the Great Recession began. States like California have increased their capacity to house and shelter the homeless.

“The homeless system is getting really awesome at rehousing people who become homeless,” says Ms. Roman at NAEH. “But as good as we get at turning it around, more people are coming in the front door.”

Community resistance to new development and lingering stereotypes about the homeless have proven to be persistent challenges, Ms. Roman and others say. And even those who support new housing disagree about how and where to build. Case in point: the speedy demise of California Senate Bill 827, which would have substantially increased housing development at transit stations across the state. Meant to combat rising housing costs and address the affordable housing gap, S.B. 827 saw opposition from NIMBY (“Not in my backyard”) elements as well as low-income tenant activists who said the bill could end up displacing poor and minority families. The measure died in a state legislative panel in April.

Money is another problem. President Trump’s proposed budget includes a slight funding bump for HUD for 2019, but that won’t be enough to make up for the decades of cuts the department has endured. The same goes for the major funding measures that Los Angeles voters passed last year to address homelessness in the region, advocates say: While unprecedented, the state still has a ways to go before it can catch up to need.

“It’s a wicked problem,” says Brenda Wiewel, executive director of the University of Southern California’s Initiative to Eliminate Homelessness. “It’s so deeply intertwined with norms and values and systemic issues that are all in place. You can reduce and get rid of one barrier, but then several others pop up.”

Back in San Francisco, Mr. Kositsky says the big ask is to get more people viewing homelessness from a systems perspective and build a better, more cost-effective safety net for those fall through the cracks. “You shoot for these ridiculous goals, and you don't end up investing where you need to invest,” he says. “I’m looking at where there are gaps in the system that we can fill inexpensively that can have big impact. How do we make sure that every dollar we have gets used as effectively as possible?”

[Editor’s note: The original version of this story misstated the bill number for S.B. 827.]

Alfredo Zuniga/AP

Anti-government protesters wave Nicaraguan flags in Managua, Nicaragua, on May 9, 2018. Nicaraguans took the the streets Wednesday in one of the largest protest marches so far against President Daniel Ortega's administration.

Andrea, a 20-year-old student, slides her bright pink Sandinista Youth membership card across the table in a crowded café in central Managua on a recent afternoon. It features the face of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and is emblazoned with the word “militant” in bright-yellow capital letters. Her picture, name, and address are on the back.

The card showed up in the mail unsolicited five years ago, but she was happy to claim membership. Growing up, she was taught about President Ortega’s role in the toppling of a dictator and his Sandinista movement's fight for equality and freedom. She was raised “a diehard loyalist” of Ortega, but, these days, she’s not sure what to do with her card.

When an independent youth movement – students angered by a proposed social security reform and Ortega’s increased authoritarianism – took to the streets April 18, she felt a pull to participate.

The Sandinista Youth is a government-funded organization of avid Ortega supporters, sometimes described as a paramilitary force for the government. In recent weeks, as anti-government protests have swept the country, the group has attacked, and even been accused of killing, anti-government protesters.

“I was ecstatic when Ortega won in 2006,” Andrea says of his return to office, after governing the country from 1979 to 1990. “But my frustration has been slowly building. Bit by bit he’s made changes not for the people, but about enriching himself and his wife, staying in power, and hiding the truth,” she says.

“I began to see the difference between being pro-Sandinista, supporting the ideals of the revolution, and being pro-Ortega.”

Like all young Nicaraguans flooding the streets lately, Andrea is a child of the 1979 revolution, which saw Ortega and other socialist guerrillas bring down a US-backed dictator. Her three aunts and mother fought in the revolution, and like most young people her age, she grew up hearing their bloody tales of revolution and the decade-long war that followed. The importance of standing up for democracy and freedom was hammered into her generation.

But today, the children of these revolutionary fighters are deeply divided over what it means to preserve the principles their parents fought for. Some, like Andrea, feel Ortega has traded in his socialist ideals for the type of authoritarian power he fought 40 years ago. Others benefit from his government’s social programs, and praise him for bringing stability and growth when many neighboring countries are struggling. These divides speak to the controversial figure that Ortega has become, as a new generation questions his legitimacy. But the divides may be less about their revolutionary ideals than their economic perspectives. 

'The promised land'?

University students have been the driving force behind the protests that began after Ortega announced changes to the country’s social security system, which would have raised taxes and cut pensions. Frustration had already been mounting over how Ortega has destabilized democratic institutions since becoming president in 2007: appointing his wife as vice president, ushering in the end of presidential term limits, and cracking down on the media.

Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets, calling for Ortega to step down and demanding justice for the nearly 50 people confirmed killed in the unrest and violent crackdown. (Ortega has abandoned the proposed changes to social security.) 

The Catholic Church has agreed to mediate talks, and the National Assembly plans to set up a truth commission to investigate the crackdown. But anti-government activists say they won’t come to the table until an independent commission is established. Meanwhile, Sandinista Youth members are digging in their heels, and have been accused of attacking protesters and the media covering anti-government marches.

On a recent afternoon, down the road from the country’s National Assembly, Ortega supporters stood in front of a hulking memorial for Venezuela’s late leftist President Hugo Chávez, chanting “Nicaragua is the promised land.”

Mario, an analyst for the country’s tax collection agency, says Ortega has done what is necessary to keep the country peaceful and moving ahead economically. In his late 20s, and a member of Sandinista Youth, he sees things differently than Andrea. (Neither wanted to use their full name, given the political tensions and violence.)

“I grew up being taught the Sandinista flag defends the poor,” he says. “I’ve basically been a Sandinista Youth since I was born.”

From a marginalized neighborhood on the outskirts of Managua, Mario is one of many who have been helped by Ortega’s social programs, which until recently benefited from millions of dollars in aid from Venezuela.

For Mario and other members of the Sandinista Youth, the students voicing their opposition to Ortega simply don’t understand the realities of poverty here. A lot of the gains Nicaraguans have seen under Ortega might be imperceptible for wealthier families, he says.

“I grew up poor – but things have gotten better for us” under Ortega, he says. “Those with money don’t need support…. But, with this government, I’ve studied and risen in the ranks in my job.”

Both of Mario’s parents died when he was young. He was raised by his grandparents, who fought in the revolution and after the war held low-level positions in government ministries. Mario is the first in his family to go to college, something he attributes to Ortega’s policies.

A cross-class alliance

Young people who support Ortega tend to directly benefit from government programs, says Félix Maradiaga, director of the Institute of Strategic and Public Policy Studies in Nicaragua, citing his think tank’s recent research. These youths see Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo’s centralization of power – which has come under fire during the current protests – as a second phase of the revolution, he adds.

“These are people whose parents fought in the revolution, [they] grew up hearing the movement was hopeful, and they continue to depend on the government,” Mr. Maradiaga says.

In fact, the mixed socio-economic makeup of the revolution explains some of the divisions among Sandinistas today, and more generally across the political landscape.

The Sandinista Revolution wasn’t “the poor and dispossessed rising and taking up arms and doing it on their own,” says David Close, professor of political science at Memorial University of Newfoundland and author of “Nicaragua: Navigating the Politics of Democracy.” “There really was a cross-class alliance there,” he says. Yes, the Sandinistas always talked about helping the poor and the excluded, but the idea of being the party of the poor didn’t become its “calling card” until the 2006 election, Prof. Close says.

The Sandinista Youth has a stronger presence in poor, urban areas where government spending on social programs is concentrated; the group often delivers food aid or carries out other social projects. Outsiders describe them as Ortega’s “goons,” deployed as enforcers of the government’s will, to repress public protests and report on dissenters.

They believe in the government’s ideology and policies, says Eduardo Enríquez, editor of newspaper La Prensa. “They are building houses, so they think they are helping poor people.”

“Those who still support the government [are given] preference for jobs with the state and other benefits,” Mr. Enriquez says, explaining why he believes many youth have remained loyal to Ortega.

But some say that loyalty is slowly chipping away – even for those who have benefitted from his time in office. When police and pro-government militias started attacking protesters last month, Maradiaga says it was a wake-up call.

“The mask of authoritarianism is off and a big part of the Sandinista Youth, seeing all the killings and repression, are getting tired of being manipulated and called on by the government,” he says.

“Those protesting who believe the revolution has been betrayed,” he says, that “group is growing.”

Whitney Eulich contributed reporting from Mexico City.

In the nearly two decades since she was raped by Serbian forces during the conflict in Kosovo, Drita kept the crime she suffered a closely guarded secret.

Her husband knew, but he never spoke of it. She registered with a center dedicated to helping victims like her recover, but then stopped going for a time for fear her relatives would see her there and learn the truth. Her family settled in another town, trying to leave the painful past behind.

In February, when Kosovo’s government began recognizing victims of wartime rape, entitling them to compensation, Drita hesitated to apply. But the €230 ($275) a month would help with medical bills, and more importantly, it would be recognition of her years of suffering. The government promised she could apply confidentially. So with the help of the Center for the Promotion of Women’s Rights in Drenas, she completed a grueling application that required her to recount the details of the rape.

Soon after she submitted it in March, the commission in charge of the verification process requested she come for an in-person interview. Drita traveled to the capital, Pristina, where the commission’s office is located on a street full of busy cafes. The building is home to a hodgepodge of government offices, and people mill about in the lobby.

As she ascended the stairs to the commission’s office, the past she had worked so long to hide finally caught up with her: She ran into a relative.

That was all it took to dismantle her world.

Valerie Plesch/Special to the Christian Science Monitor

Kadire Tahiraj displays a handmade necklace made by a rape victim who received training at the Center for Promotion of Women’s Rights.

The relative told Drita’s daughter-in-law, who told her younger son. The couple, who had been living with Drita and her husband, moved out of the house. “If you had told me earlier, I never would have married your son,” her daughter-in-law told her. Drita’s husband, who had previously been supportive, became angry and aggressive. “I protected you until now, but now everyone knows,” he told her. He kicked her out of their home. She now stays with her sister, where she’s wearing out her welcome, but she has nowhere else to go.

The commission recently approved Drita’s application, verifying her as a war victim. But that’s little comfort now.

“That day I wanted to commit suicide. She destroyed my family completely,” she said of the relative who spotted her at the commission’s office. Her cheeks flushed as she recalled the encounter. “If I knew this would happen, I would not apply again, even if the commission would give me all of Kosovo.”

Kosovo’s move to begin compensating victims of sexual violence during the 1998-99 conflict is a deeply meaningful victory for the survivors and activists who fought for years for recognition and respect. A wave of applications in the first months of the process demonstrates progress in the battle against the social stigma faced by rape victims.

But the long-awaited success is also marred by problems. The eligibility requirements exclude some victims from applying, including from minority groups. Activists have concerns about applicants’ anonymity, and say the commission overseeing the process is requesting unreasonable levels of documentation to prove two-decade-old war crimes. They also warn that in some cases the commission is rejecting applicants without explanation. And despite steps forward, social scorn is still a powerful force that could put the entire process at risk.

The value of recognition

During the conflict in Kosovo, Serbian forces used sexual violence as a weapon of war, raping thousands of people. After the territory unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, the Kosovo government provided war veterans and civilian war victims with a pension, healthcare, and other benefits. But rape survivors were made invisible, their suffering denied. Families blamed their mothers and daughters for being raped. Society ostracized and shamed them. Most victims hid what happened to them. Male survivors faced even worse stigma.

Activists spent years working to change that, and lobbying the government to recognize survivors of conflict-related sexual violence as civilian war victims. Atifete Jahjaga, Kosovo’s first female president appointed in 2011, made the issue a central part of her work, and her position made her an effective advocate. In 2014, parliament passed a law giving war-victim status to survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. Yet it took nearly four years for the legislation to be implemented.

Since applications opened Feb. 5, 437 people have requested recognition, which may mean the total will eventually rise above the 1,000 that activists had estimated. Of those, 76 have so far been verified, and 60 rejected. Applications can be submitted directly to the commission, in government offices throughout the country, or through four nongovernmental organizations that work with victims. Those organizations report that they are struggling to keep up with demand.

At Medica Kosova in Gjakova, in western Kosovo, director Veprore Shehu says the interest in applications is exceeding her expectations. Women the organization has not worked with before are now coming and asking for help applying. It’s an indication, she says, of the weight that official recognition carries in the battle against social stigma. “Once you recognize publicly somebody’s suffering and wounds, especially if the state does that … somehow this feeling of shame and of blaming the women is reduced in a way.”

Valerie Plesch/Special to the Christian Science Monitor

Vepore Shehu, executive director of Medica Kosova, in Gjakova, Kosovo.

Feride Rushiti, executive director of the Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture (KRCT), says she can also see ripple effects of the public recognition. For the first time, she says, some survivors are accompanied to her office by their husbands. “We never ever saw this before,” she says. “So in that perspective, I think there is progressive change in terms of community and family.”

At the organization’s office, Luljeta, who had just finished filling out her application, was exhausted. Aided by a KRCT psychologist, it had taken her all afternoon to recount the details of how she and her sister were raped by Serbian forces on her 22nd birthday. “It’s so hard because you have to retell the story, and it sends you back to what happened again,” she says. “It’s almost the same as going through it again.”

Luljeta’s husband is the only person who knows she’s applying, and he drove her to the KRCT office from their home about an hour away in eastern Kosovo. “If it wasn’t for his support, I don’t know where I’d be,” she says softly. She doesn’t see recognition as a triumph. But it is meaningful, she says. “The scars will never fade, but it makes it somehow a little easier to know that someone is supporting you.”

Yet advocates worry that problems could derail the progress. One basic issue is with who is eligible to apply. Because the legislation recognizing victims of sexual violence is an amendment to a previous law on war veterans and wounded, only those who were raped during the time period of the war are eligible. But in the conflict’s aftermath, members of the Kosovo Liberation Army engaged in revenge attacks, raping Kosovo Serb and other minority women as well as women from Kosovo's Albanian majority. Those victims cannot apply for recognition or receive compensation.

And though advocates have been encouraged by the number of applications lodged so far, Rushiti says a significant number were submitted directly to the commission without the help of the NGOs and lack the necessary detail. She’s afraid that few victims who apply without the help of organizations will be successful.

Anonymity is another concern. The legislation lays out strict protocols for ensuring confidentiality of applicants, yet for in-person interviews, which are not required but sometimes requested by the commission, there is no protection from being recognized.

‘If you can’t sleep at night, it’s all worthless’

But the most significant problem with the process itself, according to advocates, is that the commission is asking for unrealistic levels of documentation. There are various reasons why survivors may not have these records. Some never sought medical help. Others did receive medical care, but find that hospitals or doctors have no records of visits that took place decades ago amid a conflict. And women whose families aren’t aware of their status might not be able to travel to search for records.

Ms. Shehu says one man who applied submitted evidence of his severe, permanent injuries from his rape by Serbian forces. The commission then requested he provide records from the hospital he said he visited after the violence, even though he cannot find them. “This is ridiculous,” Shehu says.

Valerie Plesch/Special to the Christian Science Monitor

Feride Rushiti, executive director of the Kosovo Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims (KRCT), at her office in Pristina, Kosovo, in April. KRCT works with survivors of wartime sexual violence and is one of the four NGOs in Kosovo authorized by the government in which survivors can apply for a state pension.

The application, designed with input of civil society groups to avoid mistakes made in similar processes elsewhere, allows applicants to submit supporting documentation like medical or legal documents, but does not require it. The victim’s testimony was intended to be the most important part of the application, says Rushiti, precisely because of the dearth of proof for crimes that happened so long ago and are subject to such a heavy stigma. “You cannot produce these documents if they are not in place, and you cannot deny the rights of a victim if she does not possess these documents,” she says. 

Minire Begaj, the president of the commission, says that if applicants mention receiving medical care or talking to investigators in their testimony, then they should provide proof. “The victims should provide the facts and in this aspect, we require documents,” she says. But “we consider and use other possibilities for the victim of the documentation is not provided,” she adds.

She also says that victims should include documentation from the time of the crime, and that records of treatment in the years following the crime may not be enough, though advocates say many victims did not seek help or support until years after the rape.

Activists say the commission is also rejecting applications without requesting an in-person interview. Those rejected can appeal, but some refusals – of survivors whom advocates have supported for years – have left them astonished.

Afërdita has been coming to the center in Drenas since 2013. Recounting the violence she suffered for the application was “like dying for a second time,” she says. During the war, she was raped alongside her sister, whose injuries left her unable to have children. She says relating the trauma was so difficult that she didn’t go into extensive detail in the application.

Afërdita found out less than a month after applying that her application had been rejected. “All this suffering, and now look what they do to us,” she says with bitterness. “I suffered enough during the war, and now I am suffering more.” She has appealed the decision, but she is angry at the commission. “Let them do whatever they want, if I receive [the pension] it won’t be a pleasure. If you can’t sleep at night, even if they give you the whole world, it’s all worthless.”

Pressure to get it right

The commission is likely under pressure to avoid what happened when Kosovo verified war veterans: 46,000 claimed the status, a far higher number than is thought to have actually fought in the conflict. Activists suspect the commission is applying stringent standards in an effort to make sure this process is not tainted by fraud.

Yet the heavy stigma against rape victims means there is low incentive for false applications. Activists say the commission should do a better job of balancing the need for proof with the reality of the situation and the sensitivity required in dealing with survivors of sexual violence.

Rushiti is hopeful the situation will improve: participating NGOs recently held a meeting with the commission to express their concerns, and Rushiti says the commission was open to addressing them. She hopes to arrange a workshop in May for all parties to sit down and come up with a better approach.

“I think deep down they have fear ... that the process has to be dedicated to the rape survivors, and they just want to have as much evidence as possible in order to get the right decision,” says Rushiti. “But you have to know that you are dealing with survivors, some of them for 18 years they never ever shared this with anyone, and it's not so easy to go there in the commission and disclose this for the first time.”

• The names of the rape survivors were changed to protect their identities.

In the Brewer family, “Little Women" is so beloved that it became the focus of a special birthday trip.

Thirteen-year-old Sydney had listened to the book on tape and seen the 1994 film version starring Winona Ryder multiple times before she and her mom came all the way from Richmond, Va., to visit Louisa May Alcott's house in Concord, Mass.

“It shows [the sisters’] struggles and it shows how they overcame them and their relationship with each other,” Sydney says, after touring the little brown house with the window desk Alcott's father built for her at a time when a woman having a desk of her own was considered almost renegade. Drawings by her artistic youngest sister still cover one bedroom and the walls of her downstairs art studio, and gentle sister Beth’s piano is in the dining room.

TV viewers will get a new take on Alcott’s classic novel – and Sydney’s generation will get its own “Little Women” – with a new BBC miniseries, which will premiere on PBS on May 13. Katharine Hepburn, June Allyson, and Winona Ryder are among the actresses who have brought the irrepressible Jo March to life, as she and her sisters – Meg, Beth, and Amy – grow up poor in New England during the Civil War. Fans like Sydney talk about the comfort they experience from watching the March sisters make their own way in a world that had strict rules about what girls were supposed to be like.

An instant critical and commercial success when it was published in 1868, “Little Women” has been adapted as everything from a silent film to anime to an opera. The BBC series is its sixth foray into television.

“It’s a very current story," says Daniel Shealy, editor of “Little Women: An Annotated Edition.” “It's about things that have really never changed, or at least have changed little in the 150 years since the work was published…. It's all about growing up and trying to find your way and your niche in this world.”

PBS hopes the new adaptation – and the fact that it’s debuting on Mother’s Day – will cause multiple generations to gather around the television.

“We thought ... it would be an interesting opportunity for that population – you know, the mother-daughter, the mother-granddaughter people – to unite over a show,” “Masterpiece” executive producer Rebecca Eaton says. “That is my fond hope for it, that not just older people who know the book from back then but younger women ... who might know the book but haven’t seen the previous iterations ... [will] want to see it and then talk about it with someone they love," she says. “I hope a couple of guys, too, by the way.”

For Beth Santaella, love for the novel was the basis for a bonding experience for her and her mother-in-law when they went to visit Orchard House, Alcott’s home. She finds the story to be “timeless.” “It’s good when you’re 10 and it’s good when you’re 43,” the Bedford, Mass., resident says.

Kelsey Redding, a 20-something living in Portland, Ore., read “Little Women” multiple times when she was growing up and watches director Gillian Anderson’s 1994 movie version two or three times a year.

Ms. Redding sees modern thinking in the story. “Even when I rewatch it today, I’m surprised the way that they talk about antiviolence,” she says. Take a scene in which the family is aghast when daughter Amy experiences corporal punishment at school. Also, it’s a narrative that, refreshingly to her, puts women in the spotlight.

“I tried to put my finger on it for a long time – that particular movie, why it stood out so much to me. And I think that part of it has to do with it being such a female-led and strong female plot and everything about it just feels uniquely female,” she says. “Like the relationships in it don’t feel like they’re written by a man. They feel like they are real, like they’re real sisters who fight and who support each other and are jealous of each other.”

All four March girls were educated beyond Victorian mores, with three of the girls and their mom seeking employment outside the home. Alcott herself supported her family with her writing, and her mother was one of Massachusetts’ first social workers. The character who looms largest is Jo, the second-oldest in the family and the one that Alcott modeled after herself. Jo is athletic, scorns ladylike behavior, has trouble controlling her temper, and dreams of being a novelist. A female character who defined her happy ending through work – not by marrying the handsome boy next door – was revelatory at the time (and inspired many heartbroken letters to Alcott from young readers).

“Jo, because she is trying to make her own way in the world and is less concerned with what society has to say about normal customs or who she should marry and what she should do, had to be in a sense very liberating for a number of, especially, girls reading the book,” says Dr. Shealy, a professor in the English department at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

Elaine Showalter, editor of the Library of America’s “Louisa May Alcott: Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys,” calls Jo “a magnificent original.”

“Jo has a way to go, but she never doubts her ambitions or her right to have them or her right to decide how she’s going to marry and under what conditions,” says Dr. Showalter, who is professor emerita at Princeton University. “And all of this is just so lovable and compelling.”

But Showalter says that while she thinks it had a seismic effect on previous generations, she has seen some lack of interest from young readers today. Her own granddaughter, for instance, wasn't inclined to pick up the book.

Shealy, however, believes that for those who do find it, it stays a part of their lives.

“For many readers, especially readers who read it at a significant time in their life, ... it’s a book that resonates with them and one that they keep going back to through the years,” he says.

And like Shealy, Showalter believes “Little Women” has plenty to say to young readers today. “I think character above all is what you go to fiction to discover,” she says. “And the characters in ‘Little Women’ are so tremendous and so, so winning and so timeless.”

AP Photo

Malaysians at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur react as they watch TV showing former strongman Mahathir Mohamad being sworn in as the new prime minister May 10. Official results from Malaysia's national election show the opposition alliance won a majority in parliament.

Long lying low in a quiet corner of Asia with a humdrum democracy, Malaysia and its 31 million people sent shock waves across the region on May 9 with an election that has been dubbed a “people’s tsunami.” Voters rose up and threw out a party that had ruled the former British colony since it gained independence in 1957.

For democracies and autocracies everywhere, Malaysia’s election offers an insight on how citizens eventually know when entrenched and corrupt leaders must go.

The main charge against the incumbent prime minister, Najib Razak, and his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) was that he led a “government of thieves.” For the winning coalition of parties, known as the Alliance of Hope, that was not a difficult claim to make. Mr. Razak is being investigated by the United States, Switzerland, and other countries on allegations that as much as $4 billion has gone missing from the state development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

The US Justice Department claims the prime minister pocketed $681 million for himself. Some of the 1MDB money was spent in the US, such as in the making of the Hollywood movie “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The scandal is the largest investigation in the history of the Justice Department’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative.

Voters were able to set aside the old reasons that were used to keep UMNO in power, such as the identity politics of the country’s dominant Malay people and the official favoritism given to them. They also saw through Razak’s media controls, gerrymandering, favors to state workers, sedition charges against opponents, and other moves aimed at winning the election. Young people, according to election-watchers, sought honest and transparent government that would treat all citizens as equal.

It is still unclear how much the new government will fulfill such hopes by institutional reform. The head of the winning coalition, the former long-term ruler Mahathir Mohamad, has his own checkered record. But he came out of retirement at the age of 92 to challenge his former party and, according to associates, to make amends. He has designated one of his former party foes, Anwar Ibrahim, as his eventual replacement. And he says he wants to restore “rule of law.”

Just the fact that Malaysia has experienced its first transfer of power between opposing parties – and by democratic means – is a sign of hope for its people. It can also send a message to the many others in Asia ready to challenge rulers who have clung to power and privilege too long.