~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THE WASH RAG published by Women Against Sexual Harassment ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Available on-line ASAP at http://www.washrag.org/ or http://helenforelle.hypermart.net/WASH/ along with earlier issues ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Subscribe to e-mail version of this newsletter by sending an e-mail to subscribe(bleep)washrag.org with "subscribe" in the subject. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Issue 12, Number 34 December, 2004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Contents ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN RETAIL TRADE SEXUAL HARASSMENT PANAL Hecker car dealership in Minneapolis settles harassment suit Abuse victim charged with assaulting abuser Sexual Harassment/Assault in the US military Sexual Harassment victim needs help Human Trafficking a New Illegal Trade Challenge HOW TO CLEAN AN INFECTED COMPUTER —FREEWARE e-mail Security ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN RETAIL TRADE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My name is Stacy and I am a victim of sexual harassment. My story starts about 2 years ago. I worked for a big discount store for almost 4 years. My boss at the time was very attracted to me. I didn't notice it personally myself, some of my friends noticed how he hung on every word I said and thought they should say something to me. One of my friends even told me to watch myself, to make sure i was never alone with the boss. The first year wasn't too bad but getting into the second year I was assistant manager in the furniture department and that’s when everything started. A bunch of us decided to go out for drinks after work, well the boss went along, against company policy, I was very uncomfortable. Everyone noticed how he just sat there all night and stared at me. They all thought it was kind of creepy. So from that point on until I left he found every opportunity to be alone with me. Every time i turned around he was there. Always touching my shoulders and rubbing them then he would rub my lower back. I learned to quickly get out of those situations fast. How do you tell your boss to stop touching you without some kind of retaliation. Or worse yet losing your job . It was rough. Well I left for a year and came back as assistant manager of the whole store and he was still my boss. I stayed for almost 2 years this time. This time it was way worse. He was rubbing me everywhere and trying to kiss me. He even went as far as to ask me out for drinks. Keep in mind , we are both married and both have kids. I'm happily married i didn't know what his problem was. So i told my husband, he told me if he touches me again to turn him into the human relations department. Well, it wasn't a week later he touches me so I turn him in. That was the biggest mistake I ever made, besides trusting my friends that still work there. I met with the human relations dept. and I have to tell you , they are good. Not at helping employees but covering things up and lying. They told me if I had a problem with my boss to call back, so i did. My boss was being very rude to me making work difficult , I left 3 messages with the human resources guy who never called me back . So I contacted an attorney he advised me to file a complaint with the Public human relation commission and the EEOC. So i did. That week I ended up in the hospital for 2 days with severe anxiety. I thought I was dying. My Dr. told me not to go back until my boss was gone. So i stayed on a medical leave for 8 months before we went for a fact finding conference. All of my friends at work agreed to write me statements, each about different things they witnessed. Well, a week before the conference they all decided , all 7 of them , they couldn't remember!! What good friends i had. So we go to the conference and the lies they told , the nasty things they said about me , I just wanted to crawl under the table and die. And of course my boss denied everything. So we ended up taking the lowest offer they would offer us because I had no witnesses. I wanted to go on but my lawyer advised me not to because of all the dirt they had on me . He said it would only get worse. At the time all this was going on I was having problems with my teen age daughter, they brought that up. They said that’s why i was in the hospital not because of what was going on at work. One of my friends from work even wrote a letter telling them I was in a car accident a year before and I sued, which i didn't. The guy that hit us, his insurance company paid for our car and medical bills, and they said that i was a money hungry greedy person. I will never as long as I live talk to any of those people. Well, its all over and my boss gets to keep his job , Me, I'll never be able to work for that company again. Which I never would. One interesting thing I found out was he never told his wife. Well I'm going to have fun with that as soon as things settle down. I feel like he needs to be in jail , I feel so violated. How could he get away with this? How could that company have such evil people working for them? I tell everyone my story when they ask me why I'm not there anymore. I may not be able to put it in writing who iI worked for and who my boss was but every chance I get I tell people here. I still have an attorney working to get my back pay and vacation pay and I don't want to jeopardize anything. stacy hopkins Anyone wanting to help in a situation like this should sign up for the International list by e-mailing JanetLeih(bleep)washrag.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Human Trafficking a New Illegal Trade Challenge ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Human trafficking is the third largest form of transnational illegal trade after arms and drugs. The commonest purpose of such trafficking of women and girls is for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and even if trafficking occurs for other purposes sexual exploitation is the fate of most such victims. Indeed trafficking involves the worst forms of human rights abuses including emotional, physical and sexual violence with bleak possibilities of rescue or reintegration. Trafficking as a crime involves violation of several laws including immigration, kidnapping/ abduction, fraud, confinement and rape. The global trafficking industry according to a report prepared by the Joint Women’s Programme, New Delhi generates up to Us $7 billion each year, 7, 000, 000 persons primarily women are trafficked within and across international borders, nearly 2 million children are abused and trafficked globally every year, 5000-7000 Nepali girls are trafficked to India every year. It is to be noted that the Report does say that most of these figures are guesstimates as there is a lack of reliable statistics. But it is a fact that globally, trafficking is on the rise. Trafficking is a huge global problem. With higher income and modern transportation facilitating greater mobility of people in search of work and in pursuit of leisure, trafficking has also become technally advanced, trans-nationalized and syndicated. Consequently the number of persons affected has increased alarmingly. Another alarming trend has been the gendered aspect of trafficking. The core issue of trafficking is its dehumanizing effect on women and girl-children whereby they have been oppressed, exploited, degraded, dehumanized and completely objectified. It is a massive human rights crisis. A crisis rendered invisible and silenced by male clients, recruitment agents, the state apparatus along with business interests. With increasing instances of HIV/AIDS, trafficking has today become even more life threatening. Trafficking reflects on the unequal balance of power among men and women, between adults and children and between citizens of the ‘first’ world and the ‘third’ world. The phenomenon of the sale of children is universal. The tragic circumstances leading to the abuse and exploitation of children cuts across the barriers between the developing and developed world. The issue confronts most societies, although the typology and degree vary from country to country. Children are not only sold or exploited at the national level, but they are also trafficked across frontiers far and wide. Sale could be for forced labor and for prostitution, adoption and marriage, pornography, cheap bonded labor, begging, stealing and other criminal actions, even organ transplants. The issues involved in trafficking are manifold, and include not just issues of economics and power but also patriarchy in a big way and highlight the extreme vulnerability of women and children. What should also be focused upon is the complexity of the issue. And the inimical nexus it involves. This network includes factors at a micro as well as macro level. From the sanctified institution of the family, to a larger community, the market and the state. A woman who is trafficked and eventually finds herself involved in exploitative and extremely oppressive commercial sex work often finds her initiation into this trade, thanks to a family member like an uncle, or father or husband. Economics play an important role wherein she is sold off to a buyer for money, sometimes for as princely a sum as Rs. 3000- Rs. 5000. The reasons for this would include extreme poverty, unemployment, patriarchy wherein women become the victims of power play, or just sheer greed and complete objectification of another person. The inability to arrest this gruesome process can be located again at various levels, like the state, the judiciary , legislature, executive, a larger apathetic community, lack of education, support systems for women, poverty as a manifestation of corruption, lack of political will, negligence, economic policies followed by a country, phenomena of globalization, war, political instability in a country and many more. The fact is micro and macro issues are deeply interconnected. For instance structural adjustment policies followed by a country can result in debilitating health and education sectors of a country. Shifting priorities and such a process can result in phenomena like feminization of poverty resulting in further enhancing and perpetuating women and children’s vulnerability and accentuating their exposure to phenomena like trafficking, and prostitution. The purpose of this report is not just to highlight the issues at hand. There is already a huge amount of literature on the phenomena of trafficking itself. Which is very positive , because it reflects on the increase in awareness of the issue, and the need to address it effectively, with consistency and immediacy. A lot of data is now available not just about trafficking, laws preventing it, steps taken by the international community and National Governments about its trajectory, and the responses of local level NGOs, CBOs etc who have done commendable work to combat the issue, but the point of difference lies in the local contexts if at all. Because more often than not the trajectory appears to be the same. This report hopes to focus on individual cases, to highlight local level factors, relating it to larger factors that operate to sustain trafficking. And the steps taken by the organizations to combat the issue and respond to it effectively. The aim is to enable people to live in dignity, have their Rights ensured and ensure that they are in turn protected by these Rights. By and large the aim is to expedite this process. Through the creation of larger support systems that facilitate rescue, repatriation, rehabilitation, including vocational training, employment opportunities etc. The reasons for trafficking and of sexual exploitation and violation of women and children are many. Most of the affected girls are under aged but forced to pose as adults. Consumerism, globalization, discrimination against the girl child, lack of earning members in a family or death of an earning member, lack of opportunities for employment in the rural areas, large scale migration, landlessness, or marginal land holdings, caste factors, insecurity and instability of the labor market, conflict situation, even natural calamities like flood can result in eventual trafficking and prostitution of women and children. (STOP Research Report, Jan. 2002) Other factors as mentioned earlier include patriarchal attitude towards women which include looking upon them in a proprietal fashion, to be seen as property belonging to a male, therefore to be bought and sold as desired by the male members. Often these males lure these young women through false promises of marriage, deception about a job, etc.. It must however be mentioned that traffickers include both men and women. Laws might be in place but there is a huge gap in their enforcement and implementation. Lack of sensitization, corruption, and nexus with the traffickers are some of the reasons for the apathy of the police. Moreover there is a lack of effective support systems like public health care systems, education which will help arrest the problem immensely. Prostitution involves untold violence and brutality and includes hundreds of women living under conditions worse than caged animals. They are living lives of bonded laborers and slaves, in an otherwise free, democratic, sovereign country like India. By Hasina Kharbhih hkharbhih(bleep)yahoo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ HOW TO CLEAN AN INFECTED COMPUTER —FREEWARE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Posted by: rdsok - Moderator (IP Logged) [This is from the grisoft.com AVG Free Forum] Cleaning an infected computer today has become harder than ever. To effectively clean your system you must first learn a little about what you are trying to get rid of and what tools you need to get the job done. I'm going to try to give you some of the background, followed by the basics of getting rid of these pests. Today there are a variety of things that can infect your computer such as viruses, worms, trojans and spyware. I refer to all of them as parasites since that word seems to best describe them. I find it best to use a multi-pronged approach to fighting parasites, so I use several software programs to find and get rid of them. Hopefully, by giving you a little of the background, you will be able to learn what tools to use and when to use them so that you may clean your computer of these parasites. Viruses were the first computer bugs, and anti-virus (AV) software was made specifically to detect and get rid of these. Worms are a little different than viruses, which is one reason why AV software has a harder time catching them. Finally came trojan horses, usually just called trojans. These are very different than both viruses and worms. They actually take advantage of the weaknesses that are inherent in AV software. For one, most trojans actually try to hide from being detected by AV software. They also work "smarter" by creating hidden copies of themselves so that when they do get detected and cleaned, they can re-infect the computer with the hidden copy right after the AV software cleans the original infection. Basically, trojans are AV software's worst nightmare simply because AV software wasn't designed to specifically go after this type of threat. Today, AV software is much better at detecting all types of parasites than before but they will need to be redesigned and start using multiple methods if they are ever going to be effective against all parasites. Spyware isn't a new breed of parasite. It is simply a combination of various computer exploits and they utilize various combinations of scripts, trojans and worms. Currently they take advantage of trojans the most since they are harder to detect and clean properly. Anti-spyware (AS) software was created specifically for detecting and cleaning this type of parasite, so when it comes to trojans and some worms, AS software is much better equipped to fight these than the AV software is. First, you will need to get some software programs to help you. The following programs are what I use personally. Not only do I trust them, but they are also free for personal use. The companies that provide the free software, also provide software that they sell for use in a commercial environment. Usually, the free versions are just as good but simply don't have as many of the extra features which make the commercial versions even more attractive to use. Anti-Spyware Software CWShredder, you can find it at [www.intermute.com] Lavasoft's Ad-Aware, you can find it at [www.lavasoftusa.com] Spybot S&D, you can find it at [www.spybot.info] Anti-Virus Software Grisoft AVG Free, you can find it at [free.grisoft.com] First you will want to download each of the above programs and then install them. After you install them, you MUST update them so you will have the latest protection. There is one small exception: CWShredder is a stand-alone program that doesn't need to be installed, but you do need to have it check for an update to ensure that you have the latest version. If you don't update these programs and you are infected with the latest parasites, you will not be able to effectively detect and clean them from your computer, so remember to update, update, update. Since spyware is a bigger problem today than viruses, and spyware is typically harder to find and get rid of, I suggest to start looking for spyware first. I also use the different AS software packages in a specific order so that I go after the tougher problems first and the easiest ones last. Turn off System Restore WinME and WinXP have a cool feature called System Restore. It is used to restore your computer to an earlier configuration in case of a problem. The only problem is that it wasn't made with parasites in mind, and often it can't tell the difference between an infected file and a good file, so it might automatically restore an infected file also if it had been in a protected area, effectively re-infecting your computer. Because of this, it is recommended to turn off System Restore before you test, and when you're done, turn it back on so you are still protected from standard computer problems. For WindowsME 1. Click Start, Settings, and then click Control Panel. 2. Double-click the System icon. The System Properties dialog box appears. NOTE: If the System icon is not visible, click "View all Control Panel options" to display it. 3. Click the Performance tab, and then click File System. 4. Click the Troubleshooting tab, and then check Disable System Restore. 5. Click OK. Click Yes, when you are prompted to restart Windows. For WindowsXP NOTE: These instructions assume that you are using the default Windows XP Start Menu and have not changed to the Classic Start menu. To re-enable the default menu, right-click Start, click Properties, click Start menu (not Classic) and then click OK. 1. Click Start. 2. Right-click the My Computer icon, and then click Properties. 3. Click the System Restore tab. 4. Check "Turn off System Restore" or "Turn off System Restore on all drives" 5. Click Apply. 6. When turning off System Restore, the existing restore points will be deleted. Click Yes to do this. 7. Click OK. Run Disk clean-up This actually comes with Windows and has been installed by default since Windows 98. You can find it by clicking the Start Button and then going to Programs / Accessories / System Tools / Disk Clean-up. I recommend selecting all of its options except the ones for Office Setup Files and Compress Old Files if you have them. While you may select those if you wish, they aren't as important. This will clean up all of the temporary files so your testing will go faster, and may also delete any spyware that may hiding there if the spyware isn't already running. Run CWShredder This is made for detecting and cleaning of the infamous CoolWebSearch exploits. Currently there are about 40 types of these, each with up to 4 variants and growing. These are some of the toughest ones to get rid of. Run Ad-Aware Next This handles the next toughest types the best. When it finally presents you with the list of parasites it has found, put a check mark in the box next to the ones you want to get rid of, I suggest checking them all. If you want to select all, just right-click your mouse on the boxes to get the options menu, and left-click on Select All. If it says it can't get rid of a problem right now, it will ask if you want to run it again after you restart your computer, answer yes and restart your computer so it may test again. Run Spybot Next When you run it, it will automatically select all the spyware that it finds, if there is something you don't want to get rid of for some reason, deselect it and then let Spybot fix all of the rest of the problems that it finds. This program also will ask to restart your computer so it can test again if it has problems removing something, so let it. Notice Spybot has a detection error with the DSO Exploit, [this can be ignored.] Now Run The AVG Program Have it scan for the remaining parasites that the others may have missed. If you found any parasites, you need to restart your computer so you can test everything again. There are times that after cleaning certain parasites, you will need to test again because something may have been hidden earlier by the infection. So repeat this process of testing and restarting until you find no more parasites. These procedures should have cleaned most causes of infection that you will find. Yes I said MOST because there are some infections that are very hard to detect and remove. Generally, if you have one of these, you will need the assistance of an expert to help you get rid of it. When you believe you are finished, remember to turn System Restore back on if you had turned it off. I recommend testing for parasites as often as you can, probably at least once a month if not more. The sooner you catch them, the less damage they can do to your computer, and the less chance of a hacker finding your sensitive information such as checking account info, passwords, etc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ e-mail Security ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I knew that someone was hijacking my e-mail for months. In the first place, during the winter of 2003 - 2004, I stopped getting feedback from all of my web sites. It was quite sudden. Unfortunately, I have previously been criticized and even regarded as nuts because I thought someone was "out to get me," so I was hesitant to address the problem. But I discovered that my registrar had an option to re-route my e-mail for my web sites to alternative e-mail addresses, so on a whim, I did re-route it to my msn e-mail. For several days, I got normal e-mail feedback, then it vanished again. I had the experience of msn notifying me when I was browsing the web that I had new mail, and when I got to my msn in-box, there was nothing there. I even had the experience of reading an e-mail in my msn in-box and seeing new mail arrive in the bulk folder (where forwarded mail was sent) and seeing it disappear WHILE I WAS WATCHING. I tried an e-mail address at go.com with the same results, I got normal feedback for a few days, then nothing. I switched back to my msn account for a few days and got the same results there. I knew that the server for one of my web sites offered e-mail, and I got the idea that if I opened that up, my e-mail would not be as vulnerable, as it would not be moving around as much, so I went to open it. It took me a lot of effort to get it open, but once I did, I found that the server had a log of when you log on your e-mail. Twice I found IPs in this area who had no business logging into my account, they should not even have known my password. Hypermart, the server, said they had found out how they were getting my password, "sniffing" I think they called it, and said they fixed it. If your e-mail server does not have a log to tell who and when people log into your account, you should make that suggestion to them. This was the first proof that I ever had that anyone was actually manipulating my e-mail. In addition, there is another option you might want to use should you ever find out the IP address of someone accessing your e-mail (this is four numbers separated by a "."), and that is "whois". If you are not familiar with this, you can look at it by going to http://www.geektools.com/whois.php. You can use it with both e-mail addresses and with web sites. In both cases, an IP address is used to identify you. The huge problem is that while IP addresses for e-mail used to be given to you when you got an e-mail address, now they are assigned dynamically, so the best you can find out now is what server they are using. Since the log on hypermart also gives you the time and day you were on, any ISP that is serious about getting rid of hackers can easily find out who had that IP address at that time. Unfortunately, msn is apparently not very serious about that problem. The first IP address on my e-mail log was 12.45.243.150, an e-mail address for a Massachusetts company, the second IP address on my log was: 142.165.11.2, it was for a Canadian company, Aliant. Complaints went unanswered. Hoping for better service, I switched from msn to earthlink. I installed their accelerator for faster response time, and after I did, the IP address logged on my hypermart e-mail changed from 67.1.177.N4 to 207.69.139.N4. I thought this was because of the accelerator, so I didn’t make any complaints until one day when I logged on when I saw a window in the upper left hand corner of my screen that gave my IP address as 67.1.177.N4. I was very concerned about this an contacted earthlink abuse. They responded that because I was using their accelerator their system was using a “proxy server” which changed my IP address. Because I have limited knowledge about system internals, I let it go at that until I was approving the transfer of 3 of my domains to hypermart. I logged in to my hypermart e-mail as 207.69.139.162 on that day, but tucows, the registrar, gave my IP address as 67.1.177.202 WHILE i WAS STILL LOGGED IN TO MY HYPERMART E-MAIL AS 207.69.139.162 At this point, we are not only pursuing complaints with the various servers, hypermart, earthlink and tucows, but also with the Attorney Generals of the states involved, South Dakota, Massachusetts, and Georgia, as well as the FCC. It seems incomprehensible to me that my web sites for my books at tesseractpublications.com, janetleih.com, helenforelle.com, and marioedlosi.com, as well as my WASH web site at washrag.org, should arouse so much interest from hackers. It is a sort of backhanded compliment. I certainly never expected to be tracking down hackers using IP addresses, zone files and DNS information, I never wanted or expected to know as much about the internet as I do, but it seems a necessary evil. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WE’RE ON THE WEB http://www.washrag.org/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This on-line version of THE WASHRAG is being sent to you free. A print version can be obtained by subscribing. In the US, send $10.00 to Women Against Sexual Harassment, P. O. Box 164, Canton, SD 57013-0164. Outside the US, send $20.00 to join. For a sample issue, send a #10 sized SASE. For a Publisher98 print module, e-mail backissues(bleep)washrag.org with issue number in subject. E-mail comments can be sent to JanetLeih(bleep)washrag.org. To sign up for a free e-mail subscription to the W.A.S.H. Rag send e-mail to subscribe(bleep)washrag.org with "subscribe" in the subject If you do not wish to receive further copies of this newsletter, unsubscribe by sending an e-mail to unsubscribe(bleep)washrag.org with "unsubscribe" in the subject ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ copyright 2003 Tesseract Publications, P. O. Box 164 Canton, SD 57013-0164 (605) 987-5070. ISSN: 1068-2449