Human rights in Vancouver: do injection drug users have a friend in city hall?

In april 2003, the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) initiated a crackdown in the city's Downtown Eastside, an area frequented by drug users and the site of one of the developed world's worst AIDS epidemics. Human Rights Watch (HRW) visited the city and issued a report documenting first-hand accounts of unnecessary use of force by police officers and other human rights abuses. In this article, HRW staffers Joanne Csete and Jonathan Cohen describe how the initial euphoria that greeted the election of Vancouver Mayor Larry Campbell has worn off; how a crackdown that was supposed to be aimed at drug traffickers had the effect of driving drug users away from health and harm-reduction services; and how both the VPD and city tried to discredit the HRW report. Finally, the authors discuss how concerns about the VPD have led to official complaints being filed, and they question whether police forces should be allowed to investigate themselves.     

Retrospective reports of parental partner abuse: Relationships to depression,trauma symptoms and self-esteem among college students

This study tested whether retrospective reports of childhood exposure to parental partner abuse were associated with internalizing aspects of adult adjustment. Participants were 550 men and women college students. Among women, childhood exposure to partner abuse was related to depression, trauma-related symptoms, and low self-esteem; among men, exposure was associated with trauma-related symptoms. These relationships were statistically independent of reported parental alcohol abuse and divorce. Relationships of parental partner abuse to low self-esteem and depression among women were also independent of variation in retrospective reports of child sexual and physical abuse. However, the relationship of partner abuse to trauma-related symptoms depended, in part, on the co-occurrence of child abuse. The discussion addressed implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice.     

Gender and colonialism: Women's organisation under the Raj

The popular media have recently born witness to a renewed interest in India under British rule. This article examines the portrayal of Indian liberation struggles in two of the more serious expositions, The Jewel in the Crown and Gandhi, questioning the political implications of this portrayal. It shows that they both neglect the crucial role played by women in the maintenance and demise of the Raj. We argue that women's contribution was so significant that its omission constitutes a misrepresentation of history that can fairly be termed revisionist. We suggest that the reason for this process of mystification lies in the relevance of India's fight for national liberation and sexual equality in the early twentieth century, to present day struggles against imperialism and male domination, which are two of the most explosive issues affecting the modern Western world.