Inspired by Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi’s brave promise last week to represent in court the family of Neda Agha-Soltan, murdered by Iranian militia during last weekend’s demonstrations in a rally in Tehran, the peace group CODEPINK has created a letter addressed to Ebadi for women worldwide to sign, a pledge of solidarity to the courageous women of Iran who have led the revolutionary demonstrations there for the past two weeks despite increasing threat of government retaliation.
Agha-Soltan, Ebadi, a 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner and contributor to CODEPINK’s 2005 book, “Stop The Next War Now,” and Effat Hashemi, the wife of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani who was among the first to call for public protests, represent the incredible strength of Iranian women and their hunger for justice. Demanding reform, regime change, more social freedoms and a fair election, women have sometimes outnumbered men at the demonstrations, and they’ve also fought back police and militia.
“Shirin and all Iranian women taking to the streets inspire us all with their courage and strength in the face of a kind of suppression that many of us will never know,” said Jodie Evans, co-founder of CODEPINK. “This letter to Shirin proves that we stand in solidarity with them and support their work for human rights and a more democratic Iran.”
CODEPINK, founded in 2003, has dedicated much of its work to stop U.S. sanctions on Iran and improve relations between the two countries. Since 2005, it has led a “Peace with Iran” campaign, which included a delegation of women to Iran to establish face-to-face ties between Americans and Iranians as well as a “Mayors for Peace” initiative, an effort to have mayors nationwide sign a resolution to oppose military intervention in Iran. This past September in New York City, CODEPINK women joined other American peace activists in a meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to promote open dialogue, and in November, Evans and retired Col. Ann Wright led a citizen’s diplomacy trip to Iran and met with Iranian parliamentarians and women’s groups.
Iranian women have been longtime leaders in political efforts and have struggled to regain their legal rights for years, explained former first minister of women’s affairs Mahnaz Afkhami in the Nation on June 24. Iran’s mass protests around its recent election have given Iranian women a new platform.
“This battle between women and the government just keeps going on,” Afkhami said. “Right now it shows itself vividly.”
A Message to Our Sisters in Iran
Over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Iranians – led by large numbers of women – have filled the streets in protest of the recent presidential election there. The Iranian government forbid the protests and responded with force. Despite the violence, protesters have continued to take to the streets. On June 20th, a young woman known as Neda – which means “voice” or “calling” in Persian – was shot in the head and died in the street. As video of her horrific death spread across the internet, Neda became the voice of the movement as people cried, “We are All Neda.”
As appalled by the use of force and violence toward people protestors, we are also in awe of the strength and courage of those Iranian women who continue to stand up for freedom, equality, and justice. For decades, Iranian women have been at the forefront of the movement for greater rights.
Today we stand in solidarity with our sisters in Iran who have been speaking out by signing this message to human rights advocate and lawyer Shirin Ebadi, who has agreed to represent Neda’s family. You can also leave a personal message of solidarity that we will pass onto our sisters organizations in Iran.
We are ever inspired by Shirin Ebadi’s words, featured in our 2005 book Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence & Terrorism:
“If one country sincerely wants to support democracy in another country that is under dictatorial rule, the only thing to do is to support the freedom fighters who stand for the democratic institutions of that country. Done this way, the sapling of democracy will bear the flower of freedom.”
Don’t forget to leave a personal message via the link below for CODEPINK to pass onto our sister organizations in Iran.
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/t/8834/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=1994
See also: Iranian Nobel Laureate Urges European Union to Condemn Post-Election Violence
In keeping with increasing instances of sexual misconduct by men in uniform and in positions of authority, the National Commission for Women (NCW) is pushing for a radical overhaul of laws on crimes against women, including the anti-rape law, to make punishment more stringent.
The NCW is seeking higher punishment for policemen, public servants and employers, for not just rape but sexual offences that stop short of forced penile penetration. The maximum punishment for non-rape offences, it proposes, should be increased from five years to 10 years in jail.
It has suggested a broader definition of sexual assault to include “introduction” instead of “penetration” as the defining crime and to include anal and oral sex on an unwilling woman or minor. Towards this end, the Commission has proposed a slew of changes in the Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Indian Evidence Act.
Said NCW chairperson Girija Vjas: “The need for a new law on sexual assault was felt as the present law does not define and reflect various kinds of sexual assault that women are subjected to in our country.” She said the Supreme Court had, in the Sakshi vs Union of India case, recognized the inadequacies in the law relating to rape and suggested that the legislature bring about the necessary changes.
NCW has also suggested changes in the process of reporting, medical examination and the role of police officials. While several of the amendments are already in practice following Supreme Court rulings, the Commission strongly pitched for bringing about changes in the law to dispel any ambiguity.
In its 172nd report, the Law Commission had examined the laws relating to rape and sexual assault and suggested their complete overhaul. In keeping with that, the NCW has sought amendments to sections 375, 376, 354 and 509 of IPC. While NCW has accepted almost all amendments suggested by the Law Commission, it has differed on one: the NCW has asked for deletion of section 376A that invites a two-year prison term and fine if a husband has sexual intercourse with his wife without her consent while the two are living apart.
The NCW has also come down heavily on sexual offences committed under judicial custody. It has proposed that if a police official commits sexual assault within the limits or on the premises of the police station where he is appointed or commits assault on a woman or child under 16 years of age, he should be liable for a minimum punishment of 10 years in jail and a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.
The staff or management of a hospital, remand home or a women’s or children’s institution committing such an act should be liable to punishment from five years to 10 years in jail and a fine, NCW has said.
The commission has suggested the introduction of a new section — 376D — that would make any man who touches, directly or indirectly, any part of a woman’s body with sexual purpose, liable to three years’ imprisonment. In order to discourage incest, NCW has said that if the offender is related to the woman, the prison term should be increased to seven years. Unlawful sexual contact in the case of a minor would invite a five-year term and if the minor is in a relationship of dependency to the offender, the punishment could be increased to seven years.
The number of rape cases reported has been increasing steadily. NCW received 57 complaints in January 2009 which increased to 61 in June this year. “These are cases that have come to us. There are many other women who do not have the courage to complain,” Vyas said.
Accordingly, the commission has redrafted a scheme to rehabilitate victims and give them compensation. The NCW has also suggested repeal of the Section 377 of IPC (dealing with homosexuality) and addition of a new section that is in line with the Delhi High Court’s ruling. The commission on Saturday reiterated its stand that it would hold wide-ranging consultations on the issue of homosexuality.
A court ruled Thursday to decriminalize homosexuality in the Indian capital, a groundbreaking decision that could bring more freedom to gays in this deeply conservative country.
The Delhi High Court ruled that treating consensual gay sex as a crime is a violation of fundamental rights protected by India’s constitution. The ruling, the first of its kind in India, applies only in New Delhi.
“I’m so excited, and I haven’t been able to process the news yet,” Anjali Gopalan, the executive director of the Naz Foundation (India) Trust, a sexual health organization that had filed the petition, told reporters. “We’ve finally entered the 21st century.”
But some religious leaders quickly criticized the ruling. “This Western culture cannot be permitted in our country,” said Maulana Khalid Rashid Farangi Mahali, a leading Muslim cleric in the northern city of Lucknow.
The court’s verdict came more than eight years after the New Delhi-based foundation filed its petition — not unusually long in India’s notoriously clogged court system. The verdict can be challenged in India’s Supreme Court.
Sex between people of the same gender has been illegal in India since a British colonial era law that classified it as “against the order of nature.” According to the law, gay sex is punishable by 10 years in prison. While actual criminal prosecutions are few, the law frequently has been used to harass people.
The law itself can only be amended by India’s Parliament and gay rights activists have long campaigned for it to be changed. The government has remained vague about its position on the law, and Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily said he would examine the high court’s order before commenting.
The court’s verdict, however, should protect New Delhi’s gay community from criminal charges and police harassment.
“This legal remnant of British colonialism has been used to deprive people of their basic rights for too long,” Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “This long-awaited decision testifies to the reach of democracy and rights in India.”
While the ruling is not binding on courts in India’s other states, Tripti Tandon, a lawyer for the Naz Foundation, said she hoped the ruling would have a “persuasive” affect.
“This is just the first step in a longer battle,” Gopalan said.
Rights activists say the law, also popularly known as 377, or section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, sanctions discrimination and marginalizes the gay community. Health experts say the law discourages safe sex and has been a hurdle in fighting HIV and AIDS. Roughly 2.5 million Indians have HIV.
Homosexuality is slowly gaining acceptance in some parts of India, especially in its big cities. Many bars have gay nights, and some high-profile Bollywood films have dealt with gay issues.
Still, being gay remains deeply taboo, and a large number of homosexuals hide their sexual orientation from their friends and families.
Religious leaders in the capital and in other parts of India argued that gay sex should remain illegal and that open homosexuality is out of step with India’s deeply held traditions.
“We are totally against such a practice as it is not our tradition or culture,” said Puroshattam Narain Singh, an official of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council.
In New Delhi, Rev. Babu Joseph, a spokesman of the Roman Catholic Church, told New Delhi Television that while homosexuals should not be treated as criminals, “at the same time we cannot afford to endorse homosexual behavior as normal and socially acceptable.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5itW64QhaqClSx7DzR4CL78Kxl8NgD996ARCG0
You can download the text of the judgement High Court of Delhi on 2 July 2009 which finds the Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code ” insofar as it criminalises consensual sexual acts of adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the Constitution” as a pdf file.
Homosexuality: Chronology of eight year-long legal proceedings
Following is the chronology of the eight year-long legal proceedings which ended on Thursday with the Delhi High Court legalising gay sex among consenting adults.
* 2001: An NGO fighting for gay rights, Naz Foundation files PIL seeking legalisation of gay sex among consenting adults.
* Sept 2, 2004 : Delhi High Court dismisses the PIL seeking decriminalisation of gay sex.
* Sept, 2004: The gay right activists file review petition.
* Nov 3, 2004: The HC dismisses the review plea. * Dec, 2004: Gay rights activists approach the apex court against the order of the High Court.
* Apr 3, 2006: The apex court directs the HC to reconsider the matter on merit and remands the case back to High Court.
* Oct 4, 2006: The HC allows senior BJP leader B P Singhal’s plea, opposing decriminalising gay sex, to be impleaded in the case.
* Sept 18, 2008: Centre seeks more time to take stand on the issue after the contradictory stand between the Home and Health ministries over decriminalisation of homosexuality. The Court refuses the plea and final argument in the case begins.
* Sep 25, 2008: The gay rights activists contend that the government cannot infringe upon their fundamental right to equality by decriminalising homosexual acts on the ground of morality.
* Sep 26, 2008: The Court pulls up the Centre for speaking in two voices on the homosexuality law in view of contradictory affidavits filed by Health and Home ministries.
* Sep 26, 2008: Centre says that gay sex is immmoral and a reflection of a perverse mind and its decriminalisation would lead to moral degradation of society.
* Oct 15, 2008: The High Court pulls up the Centre for relying on religious texts to justify ban on gay sex and asks it to come up with scientific reports to justify it.
* Nov, 2008: Government in its written submission before the High Court says judiciary should refrain from interfering in the issue as it is basically for Parliament to decide.
* Nov 7, 2008: High Court reserves its verdict on petitions filed by gay rights activists seeking decriminalisation of homosexual acts.
* July 2, 2009: High Court allows plea of gay rights activists and legalises gay sex among consenting adults.
Bhakti Shah is challenging her dismissal from the Nepal Army for “immoral activities”
Two years ago, 23-year-old Bhakti Shah, a cadet in the Nepal Army, was dismissed because she was seen to spend most of her free time with a fellow female cadet.
“They sacked me and my friend just because they thought we were having an affair but there was nothing like that. More than me, the girl’s life is ruined as she was not a lesbian,” says Shah.
On Jul. 16, 2007, a court of enquiry instituted by the army ordered that she be dismissed from the training academy for “immoral activities”.
According to Nepal Army regulations, action can be taken against those found involved in moral turpitude.
From the remote Achham district, in the far west of Nepal, Shah was a national volleyball player, who grew up quite content to dress in unisex clothes and “hang out” with male friends. “I always felt I was more male than female, and I loved to hang out with male friends,” she told IPS in an interview.
Track Record
U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Nepal has voiced concern over the government’s failure to implement the December 2007 Supreme Court order on equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex (LGBTI) people.
“However, save for a few exceptional cases, the decision has not been implemented. Thus, OHCHR encourages the government to take the steps necessary … so that all third gender people can live with dignity,” spokesman of OHCHR-Nepal Martin Logan told IPS.
An advocacy group, Blue Diamond Society (BDS), estimates there are some two million homosexuals and third genders in Nepal. Roughly 35,000 are registered as third gender in its offices in 35 districts across the country.
“The proper documentation of third genders in the census will determine how many there are, and to make plans to ensure their rights,” says BDS founder president, Sunil Babu Pant. “This way those belonging to the third gender will feel part of society.”
Ruling party CPN-UML advocate-turned-lawmaker Sapana Pradhan Malla feels that since the third gender is more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, it is essential that the government know just how many they are. “This way government programmes to prevent HIV/AIDS will be effective,” she says.
She joined the Nepal Army as a cadet on Jun. 15, 2003. Physically fit, she soon proved her mettle, and was promoted as a trainer for new female recruits. That brought her close to other female cadets. “But I did not have any kind of physical relationship with them,” she hastens to clarify.
Before too long, however, prejudiced male peers began spreading wild rumours about her sexual orientation. “My male colleagues used demeaning language against me,” she says. “I always challenged them to prove it (their unfounded allegations).” Still very hurt, she admits the abusive comments “did affect me psychologically.”
On May 18, 2007, Shah was taken into custody, and kept in an army prison for 60 days. Two months later she was dismissed for “immoral activities” from the training academy.
But Shah has not admitted defeat. She has challenged the army’s decision in the Supreme Court, Nepal’s apex court, and asked to be reinstated in her job. Her case, which has the backing of the Blue Diamond Society, a non-governmental organisation of rights activists and lawmakers, is due to come up for hearing on Sep. 13, 2009.
“The army later (after the inquiry) claimed that I was dismissed because of being close to female fellow cadets. If that is the case, then why should I be the only victim, and they should prove that I was involved in such ‘immoral’ activities,” says Shah.
She also intends to claim her right to change her citizenship status to ‘third gender’.
In December 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the government to annul all discriminatory laws against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) and recognise them as third gender. The court also said that they be allowed to claim all state facilities like male and female citizens.
Nepal is the only country in South Asia to recognise the rights of LGBTI. In practice, however, discrimination is widely prevalent. Only one person, Bishnu Adhikary, has been awarded a citizenship certificate that recognises her third gender status.
Sep. 17, 2008 is a date that 19-year-old Adhikary, will never forget. The youth received a new citizenship certificate signed by a section officer from Kaski District Administration Office.
Armed with a Supreme Court order recognising her right to be conferred third gender status, she persuaded her brother, and also the village development committee officer and the section officer at Kaski to reissue her citizenship certificate.
Born as a girl, Adhikary knew about her sexual orientation from a local non-governmental organisation (NGO). “I felt that since I want to have my own identity I should claim my citizenship under the new legal provisions,” Adhikary told IPS. “By denying our right to identity we are deprived of basic rights and should be duly respected and provided our rights.”
Nepal’s national Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) is contemplating including ‘third gender’ in the 2011 census. This Himalayan nation has a population of 23 million.
“We have been receiving demands to include ‘third gender’ in the next census and the discussions are underway at both national and regional levels,” says Dr Rudra Suwal, director of the population section in CBS.
But it is easier said than done. Census-taking is a huge operation and very expensive. According to Suwal, one added question alone costs 500,000 rupees (6,500 dollars).
In addition, can the enumerators who are high school graduates, “understand the concept of third gender and ask the question in a sensitive manner,” Suwal wonders.
CBS is also pondering the option of a survey to count the number of LGBTI in Nepal. Either way, this far is a mammoth achievement for tiny Nepal, which has taken a most progressive step in recognising the sexual rights of citizens. (END/2009)
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=47408
See also:
* Nepal gives formal recognition to third gender (September 2008)
* Third gender may find a place in Nepal’s next census (June 2009)
Growing up in her native Viet Nam, Phan Thi Phuong Loan never gave a second’s thought to the rights her citizenship conferred. Not, that is, until she married abroad, lost her citizenship, came back home and entered the twilight world of the stateless.
Loan, 40, is one of thousands of Vietnamese women who became stateless in the last 15 years when they married foreign men – usually from Taiwan, South Korea or China – almost always for economic reasons. In most cases they were compelled to give up their Vietnamese citizenship, but if the marriages collapsed, they ended up back in the country of their birth without any legal status.
On Wednesday, Viet Nam was set to enact a law that will keep women like Loan from falling into this trap in the future. In addition, Vietnamese authorities have been working hard over the last few years to help the stateless economic brides get their citizenship back.
Taiwan required such brides to renounce their Vietnamese citizenship to be naturalized there, but often the marriages failed before they could acquire the new nationality. The new law does not allow a Vietnamese person to renounce citizenship until the person has acquired another nationality, and also permits dual citizenship.
“I know about the new law,” Loan says, sitting in her aunt’s home over a sewing-machine shop. “I have been reading about it very carefully in the newspapers. It will be very helpful to a lot of women still in Taiwan. Many women there have a much worse life than I did.”
Loan felt the pressure of being an “old maid” when she still hadn’t found a husband at the age of 27, so she married an older Taiwanese man who promised her a ticket out of poverty.
The marriage foundered on economic woes, linguistic confusion, in-law problems and cramped living quarters. The final blow came when Loan gave birth to two daughters, not the sons her husband desperately wanted. As she tells it, he brought her back to Viet Nam to give birth the second time and then deserted her, leaving her stateless and adrift.
Between 1995 and 2007, some 144,000 Vietnamese women married foreigners, according to Vietnamese government statistics. An official survey in 2005 showed that about 10 percent of the women married in Taiwan got divorced within three years, almost all of them ending up stateless.
When Loan came back, she says she was offered several good jobs, including one as a nurse, but they all fell through because she no longer had Vietnamese citizenship. Her older daughter could not attend a free state school.
It took Loan more than two years of running from office to office to get citizenship for all three of them. It also cost her about US$1,000 to pay all the fees – a hefty sum for someone who only makes US$10 a day as a cleaning lady.
But it was well worth it, she says in the crowded bedroom-cum-living room she shares with her daughters, now aged nine and six. “Now we are like other Vietnamese,” she says. “We don’t have any worries about our legal status. My children can go to state schools and we can buy social insurance and health insurance, which was not the case before. Now I can own a motorcycle.”
Vu Anh Son, UNHCR’s chief of mission in Viet Nam, worked closely with the government to make sure the UN refugee agency’s concerns for resolving and preventing statelessness were reflected in the new nationality law. “I’m glad that Vietnamese women who marry abroad will never have to become stateless again,” he says.
“Statelessness is incredibly traumatic and stateless people are at greater risk of exploitation and human rights abuse, so prevention is the best possible response,” says Mark Manly, head of UNHCR’s statelessness unit in Geneva.
“It’s very clear the Vietnamese government has taken a look at unforeseen consequences of its nationality legislation and has taken action to address these gaps,” Manly added. “This demonstrates leadership in Asia.”
Even so, Loan feels that at 40 it may be too late to get her life back on track in a country she says prizes youth. “I wish there had been a law like this when I got married,” she says tearfully. “Then I could have returned to Vietnam without any worries. I could have returned to my company and could be earning a much better income for myself and my children. Now it’s difficult for me to get a job in a company because companies require younger workers with better education. Now I will just devote the rest of my life to my two children.”
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/UNHCR/e9076080ab29945ed4aed112c1b8e717.htm
Online pedophiles are becoming more aggressive in their pursuit of children, often using suggestive photographs or inappropriate online conversations to blackmail their victims into face-to-face meetings.
The head of the Virtual Global Taskforce into online child abuse, Jim Gamble, said police were witnessing an explosion in child pornography, driven by the ready availability of digital media devices.
As a result, child abuse images were increasingly graphic as pedophiles sought to outdo each other by producing ever more serious images of abuse.
Mr Gamble said a pedophile’s credibility within a network increased if he or she could produce fresher, more graphic child images. “Of the images we are recovering, certainly they’re becoming more graphic,” he said. “They’re becoming more contemporary. What we did have for a long time were a lot of historic images that circulated the internet. But as people have become more competent with new digital material, we’re getting newer images.”
Mr Gamble is chief executive of the UK’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and chair of the virtual taskforce, a global coalition of police agencies charged with cracking down on online child abuse material.
The Australian Federal Police, which Mr Gamble said was at “the cutting edge” of law enforcement’s crackdown on online child abuse, is a member of the taskforce.
He said that under the leadership of outgoing chief Mick Keelty, the AFP had done an “outstanding” job cracking down on online child abuse.
When asked about the most alarming new trend, Mr Gamble cited the increasingly aggressive modus operandi of online pedophiles. He said offenders were increasingly quick to blackmail victims into meetings.
He said pedophiles often entrapped their victims by posing as teenagers in online chat rooms and encouraging them to send lewd pictures of themselves, or to engage in sexually themed conversations.
Once a picture or a record of a conversation existed, victims were easily blackmailed, with pedophiles trawling through chat-room conversation logs in order to identify the most vulnerable children.
Mr Gamble said offenders would threaten to post sensitive material to a victim’s school or tell their parents.
“So suddenly you’re into a blackmail scenario whereby the child is forced to comply, or (they) believe they’re forced to comply,” Mr Gamble said.
“So it’s very, very difficult. Once you create those pictures, once you engage in that recorded conversation, the pedophile will become much more hostile.”
Mr Gamble said there was no “stereotypical pedophile”, nor were there stereotypical victims.
He said the widespread view that most victims were confined to poor parts of the world, such as Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe, was wrong.
Rather, he said, most appeared to be white, westernised children.
To give some idea of the scale of the problem, Mr Gamble said his centre had 860,000 unique images of child abuse.
“They’re not the Southeast Asian children that we know are victimised by travelling sex offenders. That’s not the greatest majority; it’s not even a significant minority. They are generally white, westernised children.”
He said police were also seeing more video online, much of which is dissected and disseminated as still images.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25710535-601,00.html
Employees of abortion clinics in the Netherlands held a minute of silence on July 1 to raise awareness about violence against women seeking abortions and against the doctors and clinics conducting them.
‘This is a silent protest against those who are violent against women who want to undergo an abortion and their physicians,’ Thea Schipper, director of the Bea Huis en Bloemenkliniek which performs abortions, told the German Press Agency dpa on Tuesday.
The Dutch minute of silence is part of a series of protests being planned by other abortion clinics in France, Belgium, Spain, among others.
The staff of Belgian abortion clinics are due to dress in black, while French abortion clinics will hold a strike soon.
The international initiative was launched to protest the murder of US abortion physician George Tiller who was killed on May 31.
‘Violence and aggression against aid workers is an increasing problem,’ Schipper said.
‘In the Netherlands, we fortunately do not see the kind of violence like in the US against abortion clinics and physicians. However, general aggression against aid workers is a growing problem here too,’ she added.
Abortion clinics have existed in the Netherlands since 1971, but it was not until 1981 that it was legalized.
The number of abortions performed in the Netherlands each year remains relatively stable with 33,000 procedures, according to the 2007 Dutch health inspection year report.
Nearly 14 per cent of all abortions in this country are performed on foreign women who cannot undergo the procedure in their home countries.
Rights groups in Slovakia have attacked new abortion legislation they say not only breaches women’s rights to privacy and regulations on medical confidentiality but could force some women into undergoing risky, illegal abortions.
Under the legislation, approved last week, women who want abortions will only be able to undergo the procedure two days after they have been given official advice on the ‘risks and alternatives’ by their doctor. Information about them, including an identity number given to every Slovak at birth, will also be sent to a state health information institute.
The age at which adolescents have to gain their parents’ informed consent for an abortion has also been raised from 16 to 18.
But the legislation continues to allow abortion on request up until 12 weeks of pregnancy and until 24 weeks if the foetus has a genetic defect or the woman’s life or health is in danger.
Christina Zampas, senior legal advisor for Europe at the Centre for Reproductive Rights, told IPS: “This is the first time that an EU member state has managed to create significant barriers to women accessing abortion.
“This runs against a worldwide trend of liberalisation of abortion laws which reflect the fact that creating barriers to abortion does not reduce abortion numbers, it merely endangers women’s health and rights.”
MPs from the ruling coalition Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) party and far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) who proposed the laws have dismissed the concerns from women’s rights groups.
Stefan Zelnik of the SNS told Slovak media after the law was passed by parliament: “I am convinced that after (women receive) this qualified counselling the number of terminations will fall, which is what we want – to allow life for everything that has a chance of life.”
The number of abortions in Slovakia in 2007 – the latest year for which figures are available – was 336 per 1,000 live births, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The country’s maternal mortality rate for 2002 – the most recent year in which the figures were available – was 1.97 per 100,000 live births, according to the WHO.
Pro life groups welcomed the legislation, which has yet to be signed into law by the president, saying it would, among other things, help stop sexual abuse as girls would have to inform their parents before they could terminate their pregnancies.
But women’s rights groups have said passages in the law, especially the raising of the age at which parental consent must be given for the procedure, will make many women and young girls scared of being open about their plans for abortion and lead them to opting for risky operations.
Jana Debrecienova from the Citizen and Democracy Foundation in Bratislava told IPS: “This legislation puts obstacles in the path of women having an abortion which could lead them to having either dangerous underground abortions or going ahead with risky pregnancies.
“The law says that women must be given counselling on the risks of abortion as well as ‘alternatives’ such as anonymous birth and adoption. But that counselling will be biased and will include non-medical advice. Part of it will see doctors giving women contacts to NGOs dealing with abortion issues, and these must by law include religious groups. This breaks constitutional law on the separation of state and religion.
Zampas from the Centre for Reproductive Rights told IPS: “The passage in the law on adolescents and informed consent is very troubling. It raises questions of the legal rights of adolescents and women to medical confidentiality.”
Debrecienova added: “The law creates a number of barriers to women’s right to freely decide on abortion and limit women’s access to this health care service. It conflicts with the Slovak Constitution, international agreements Slovakia has signed, and the recommendations of the WHO.”
The controversial law comes as women’s rights groups warn that a combination of a societal shift to the right on the back of worsening economic conditions and the historical strong influence of the Catholic Church in some of the former eastern bloc states has seen a rise in strength and support for pro-life organisations in the region.
“Part of the reason behind this move is the strength of the Catholic Church in Slovakia. In other countries in Eastern Europe where the Catholic Church is strong, pro-life groups have been gaining strength as well,” Zampas told IPS.
Under communism women’s access to abortion in many eastern bloc countries was relatively free. Some of the current abortion legislation in states in the region dates back to the communist regimes.
In staunchly Catholic neighbouring Poland the abortion laws are among the most restrictive in the world. The procedure is only allowed in the event of rape, incest or if the mother’s health is at risk.
“Politicians do almost nothing to deal with long-term problems faced by women like public and private discrimination or violence against them. So it is absurd that they are forcing something on us which is supposed to be good for us despite the fact that we do not think it is,” Debrecienova told IPS.
President Sarkozy of France has reignited the debate about how Muslim women in Europe should dress by calling for a ban on clothing that, as he puts it, imprisons women and undermines their dignity. But in this burqa debate the voices of Muslim women are strangely absent.
For many men and women, the burqa, the niqab, or any clothing that covers the whole female body including the face, is a powerful symbol of the oppression and subjugation of Muslim women. It is an obvious reminder of how the Taliban, who required women to wear the burqa, systematically abused the fundamental rights and freedoms of Afghan women, leaving them with the lowest life expectancy in the region and highest rates of maternal death.
To its critics, the burqa has also become a symbol of Islamist radicalism and even terrorism and is increasingly being seen as a threat to efforts to integrate Muslim migrants into British and European society. Video footage apparently showing one of the failed July 21 2005 London bombers wearing a niqab as a disguise has reinforced the notion that the veiling of the face is inherently suspicious and implanted the fear that it may even be a threat to national security.
There’s no doubt that religion and tradition can and do have a negative impact on women’s rights across the board. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 68,000 women around the world die from unsafe abortions every year. Yet the Catholic church continues to oppose the legalization that would reduce the number such abortions.
Violence against women is tolerated in the name of tradition all over the world. Women’s oppression is universal. Those who want to help address this sorry state of affairs should start not by telling Muslim women how to dress, but by tackling the root causes of this oppression both at home and abroad: discrimination, lack of access to services, and unequal economic opportunities.
A legal ban in Europe on the wearing of the burqa in public life would be just as much a violation of the rights of those women who wish to wear it as is the forcing of the veil on those women who do not wish to wear it in, for example, Iran or Saudi Arabia. Muslim women should have the right to move around dressed as they choose, to make decisions about their lives and religion, whether we understand or support those choices or not.
The argument that “the burqa oppresses all women” and therefore should be banned by the state implies that it is up to the state to regulate and limit a woman’s choices about how she expresses her religious belief through her outward appearance. This is an outrageous interference that so far from protecting Muslim women, which is presumably the intention, actually further undermines their ability and their right to choose how to lead their lives and how to present themselves in public.
Human Rights Watch recently conducted research in Germany, where a number of states have banned the wearing of the headscarf, a far less severe form of covering the body, for women teachers.
Fathima, a young teacher, described her choice to wear a headscarf to school: “They should ask our colleagues, directors, school inspectors, the parents, the pupils what kind of person we are. All of them have experienced me and know me so well, that they can attest for sure that I am not oppressed and that I do not wear the headscarf because of oppression.”
She argues powerfully that the scarf cannot simply be written off as a symbol of oppression, and that for her wearing the headscarf represents her choice to practice her religion while still participating actively in Germany society.
There is no doubt that many Muslim women are forced to wear the burqa or other forms of veil and are unable to make decisions about the most fundamental aspects of their lives. But there is equally little doubt that many other Muslim women have made a free and informed decision to wear such coverings, and value the space to practice their religion in public. Banning the burqa fundamentally undermines their rights and perhaps most importantly does not provide any meaningful assistance to those women who are coerced and forced to cover their bodies and faces.
Politicians like Sarkozy who claim to stand up for women’s rights must look beyond what women wear. Banning the burqa will not make go it away; it will only force the women who wear it, whether by choice or under coercion, to drop out of sight.
The heads of women’s organizations across the political spectrum joined forces in a letter to Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, protesting her appointment of outgoing MK Haim Ramon as chairman of the party’s governing council.
Ramon submitted his resignation from the parliament, after 26 years of service, to Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin. His resignation takes effect 48 hours later, and he will make his farewell speech to the Knesset on Wednesday.
The women’s groups said it was improper of Livni to appoint Ramon to such a prestigious post after he was convicted of sexual harassment for a July 12, 2006, incident, in which he gave an unwanted kiss on the lips to a female soldier at the Prime Minister’s Office.
“Ramon is a convicted sex offender and Tzipi Livni should be ashamed of herself for appointing him,” said Hannah Kehat, head of the religious women’s organization Kolech. “Ramon is not a man who should have a public role. A party that claims to fight corruption is putting a convicted felon at the top.
“Any woman who respects herself wouldn’t vote for such a party. Tzipi became a feminist for her campaign, but now it’s been proven a lie.”
Livni’s spokesman responded that Ramon had “paid a personal and public price and was allowed by the courts to return to full political activity.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246296540796&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
More women judges in the subordinate judiciary and women magistrates will be recruited under Access to Justice Programme (AJP) as a step to control domestic violence in the country. According to sources, the government has also decided to recruit more women police officials and women prosecutors besides women judges and women magistrates aimed at achieving results in controlling domestic violence in the country.
The government is also introducing gender sensitive syllabus and curriculum revision in police training schools, colleges and the National Police Academy.
According to a data regarding incidents of domestic violence, during the year 2008, total number of Acid Burning cases stood at 21 with 10 cases of stove burning.
Nine cases of Wanni were registered and the total number of domestic violence 2182 cases were registered which includes three categories of murder, beating and others.
A number of steps have been taken to curb crime of domestic violence including enactment of Anti Harassment Law which will go along way to eliminate discriminate on workplace for women.
The government has also taken several other steps including mandatory judicial enquiries by District and Sessions Judges into cases of rape.
It may be mentioned here that a huge allocation has been made in the budget-2009-10 for women in development, education, health, social and welfare sectors, etc.
http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80546&Itemid=2
Hoping for the early passage of the long-pending Women’s Reservation Bill, women’s groups have expressed concern over the delay in submitting recommendations by the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
“It is necessary to overcome all possible impediments that may arise to sabotage the Bill, a joint press statement issued by women’s organisations said here on Thursday while asking the United Progressive Alliance government to display the political will to ensure passage of this Bill — stipulating 33 per cent reservation for women in legislative bodies — without further delay.
Pointing out that the women had welcomed the assurance given by President Pratibha Patil during the joint session of Parliament regarding the passage of the Bill within 100 days of assuming office, these organisations said: “We note with disappointment that the business items listed for the Budget session carries no mention of the Bill.”
The assurance given by the President on the floor of the House had already been belied, they said.
The signatories to the statement are the All India Democratic Women’s Association, the All India Women’s Conference, the Centre for Women’s Development Studies, the Joint Women’s Programme, the Guild of Service, the All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, the National Federation of Indian Women, the Muslim Women’s Forum and the Young Women’s Christian Association.
Meanwhile, the All-India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA) has also condemned the steep rise in prices of petrol and diesel announced by the government on the eve of the budget session.
“It is a mockery of democracy and an insult to the highest elected body of people’s representatives. This has come as a blow to the common people who are already reeling under the severity of sky-rocketing prices of food grains, dals, oil, milk and vegetables. This measure is bound to further trigger escalation in prices of essential commodities,” a statement by the Association said here.
The poor women would be the worst hit, it said.
http://www.hindu.com/2009/07/03/stories/2009070357161800.htm
About 1,000 Afghan Shi’ite Muslims rallied in Kabul last week to demand the ratification of a controversial law which contains harsh provisions on women some critics have called a step back towards Taliban-era rules.
The Shi’ite Personal Status Law applies to Shi’ites who make up about 15 percent of Afghanistan’s roughly 30 million people. It requires women to satisfy their husband’s sexual appetites, which critics have said could be used to justify marital rape.
U.S. President Barack Obama has called the law “abhorrent” and the United Nations and other rights groups have called for it be scrapped or changed. It has been under review by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Justice since May.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who approved the law earlier this year, was forced to review the decision after Western leaders and Afghan women’s rights groups expressed dismay.
“The law was approved by the president. But because of criticisms by some people, it’s been delayed … these people are here to show how much support there is for the law,” Shi’ite cleric Sayed Hossein Alemi Balkhi told Reuters on the sidelines of the rally, which was attended by about 300 women.
Other provisions of the law require wives to get permission when leaving the home unless for employment, education or medical reasons, and to allow a man to order his wife to wear make-up.
Balkhi dismissed concerns from rights groups and female Afghan politicians that the law could be used to justify marital rape, saying their claims were incorrect.
“We are prepared to sit down with Western lawmakers and discuss the law, theological issues aside … our point is that this law actually goes beyond Western laws in terms of protecting women’s rights,” Balkhi said.
“Western law says that women do not need to obey men and men do not have to determine women’s expenses … but here the principle is that the wife’s expenses should be met by the husband … he needs to buy his wife’s food, clothes, even her make-up, and when she is ill he must look after her,” he said.
The rally was staged at the turquoise-domed Khatam-ul-Nabiin mosque being built by the law’s main backer, Ayatollah Mohammad Asef Mohseni.
“Let them sort out the problems of their own women before they start telling us how to solve ours,” said Zeinab Nabavi, a 22-year old student and one of the rally organisers.
“These problems … these are a matter of theology and faith, the West has no right to interfere,” she said.
Like most women sitting in a female-only section under a makeshift canopy, Nabavi wore a long, black chador, the billowing Islamic covering popular in neighbouring majority-Shi’ite Iran.
Balkhi dismissed suggestions the law was an attempt to impose Iranian-style rules on Afghanistan’s Shi’ite minority, who were persecuted under the Taliban’s strict Sunni Muslim regime.
“Iran is one country, Afghanistan is another. This is not just a law for Iran or Afghanistan,” he said.
Nabavi said women would continue to obey the law even if it was not ratified again. ” … practically speaking, from a social point of view, it’s happening anyway,” she said.
Months after the Conservatives announced new money for the Women’s Community Fund, women’s groups across the country still can’t access this funding because of the Harper government’s ongoing inability to keep its promises, Liberal Status of Women Critic Anita Neville said today.
“Nearly a month ago, Status of Women Minister Helena Guergis told the Parliamentary Status of Women Committee that a call for proposals would be coming out shortly that would allow women’s groups to apply for funding,” said Ms. Neville. “We’re still waiting for action three months into the fiscal year, leaving groups without access to promised funding.”
The Women’s Community Fund was intended to provide grants and contributions to projects that aim to increase awareness among women in identifying and removing barriers to their participation in their communities. Ms. Neville indicated that first the Conservatives eliminated funding to equality-seeking organizations and now they appear to still be processing 2008 funding allocations with no call for proposals for 2009.
“The Harper government continues to fail the needs of Canadian women,” she said.
Ms. Neville said this is the same government that has been promising a so-called ‘Action Plan’ since Budget 2008 to advance equality for women by improving their economic and social conditions and their participation in democratic life.
“We have been advised by a number of groups that they have not been consulted by this Conservative government, and where there have been consultations, they have been minimal at best,” she said.
“The Minister and her department have no plan and no vision for women in this country. There are still too many Canadian women living in poverty, earning less than their male counterparts and unable to participate in their communities due to their circumstances. We need real action – and we need it now.”
Her mother and grandmother were prostitutes. From a young age, Dettrea had little doubt about the path her life would follow.
She started selling herself for sex at age 12. A year later she worked for a pimp. Before she would finally break free, Dettrea was arrested four times and became a heroin junkie.
Now 18 and drug-free, Dettrea, who declined to give her last name, works with law enforcement agencies and Hookers for Jesus, a faith-based organization that addresses human trafficking and exploitation. She wants to help other girls like her leave the abusive and illegal world of child prostitution.
“No 12-year-old girl wakes up and says ‘I want to be a prostitute today,’” she said. “There is a way out.”
And now there is a new state law that levies the harshest punishments in the country against those who pander or prostitute children.
Last month in Las Vegas, Gov. Jim Gibbons re-signed Assembly Bill 380, which allows for fines of $500,000 for those convicted of trafficking prostitutes younger than 14 and $100,000 for trafficking prostitutes ages 14 to 17.
Both houses of the Legislature unanimously approved the bill, which Gibbons initially signed May 22.
The law, which becomes effective Oct. 1, also allows Nevada district attorneys to seize the property and assets of those convicted and use those funds for the care and treatment of rescued children.
“A word of caution to those who exploit children: We’re after you. This will make you pay,” Gibbons said during today’s ceremony at the Grant Sawyer Federal Building.
Last October, the FBI made 642 arrests and rescued 47 children in a nationwide crackdown on child prostitution. Of those, 49 were arrested in the Las Vegas Valley, according to FBI statistics. Records show Metro Police handled 150 child prostitution cases in 2008.
In Clark County, seized funds could be used to establish a residential safe house to get teens out of the life of sex for money, said William Voy, a family court judge. At the safe house, teens would receive counseling in an attempt to break the bond with their abusers and join in the prosecution of their pimps.
Although the children are considered victims and the pimps are the real targets, the young prostitutes are often arrested and jailed because that’s the only way to keep them away from the pimps long enough to begin to break the cycle, Voy said.
“The hardest thing to do is to get a victim to testify,” said Voy, who leads a special court formed in 2005 to address the issue. “They’ll say anything to get out of the detention center. Our biggest hurdle is to keep them in one place long enough just to get them to a preliminary hearing.”
Voy has worked on creating a safe house for child prostitutes for two years. He said the last hurdle is finding a steady stream of revenue to support eight probation officers.
This bill won’t be able to provide officers’ salaries because the seized assets would be inconsistent, Voy said. Instead, the county or state would need to dedicate fees from a reliable revenue source to pay for the officers.
The safe house is just the start of services the victims of child prostitution need, said Stephanie Parker, executive director of Nevada Child Seekers. The new law is a positive first step, she said.
“I don’t know that you can put a price on the life of a child but it’s a step in the right direction,” she said.
Freshman Assemblyman John Hambrick (R-Las Vegas) sponsored AB380. Child prostitution has been a topic that no one likes to talk about, he said.
But Hambrick said he found support for the bill across party lines at every level of government and from many community organizations.
“I think people realized it was going on, but that’s the underbelly of the city that no one really likes to talk about,” he said. “One way to address a problem is open the window, pull back the shades and let some light in. Hopefully the bill will help that.”
Hambrick, who is chairman of the Nevada Juvenile Justice Commission, said he will introduce legislation before the next session that targets the clients of child prostitution and trafficking networks.
“Nevada is starting down a road we’ll never back away from,” he said. “This issue is not going away. We have to address it squarely and definitively.”
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/jun/22/new-law-levies-harsh-punishments-child-prostitutio/
The U.S. government should reform immigration enforcement policies that inflict needless suffering on immigrant women and their families, a former immigration detention center nurse, a former detainee, and a group of leading human rights advocacy and research groups said at a Capitol Hill briefing.
Immigration detention is the fastest growing form of incarceration in the United States. On any given day, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds 33,000 immigrants in detention, about 10 percent of them women. Detainees include asylum seekers, victims of trafficking, survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, pregnant women, and mothers of children who are U.S. citizens.
“The vast majority of women I interviewed posed no security threat or flight risk,” said Nina Rabin, director of border research at the Southwest Institute for Research on Women and director of the Bacon Immigration Law and Policy Program at Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona. “One of the most effective ways to deal with immigration enforcement is simply not to detain so many people and instead use a wide range of alternatives.”
The hosts for today’s briefing are the National Coalition for Immigrant Women’s Rights; American Civil Liberties Union; Human Rights Watch; Legal Momentum; National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum; National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health; and the Women’s Refugee Commission.
The briefing will be held in cooperation with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus; and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Kathleen Baldoni, who worked as a nurse at Willacy Detention Center, the largest immigration detention center in the country, said that women there often are subjected to extreme temperatures, inadequate nutrition, medical staffing shortages and long delays for critically needed health care.
“I was prevented from providing the level of care ethically required of me as a health care provider,” said Baldoni. “Nursing and medical staff are genuinely caring people who want to do the best for their patients but we are often hampered by the system. Not only are the detainees in danger but the medical staff, who face liability issues are as well.”
A March 2009 report by Human Rights Watch found that while current standards allow for emergency medical care and treatment for detained immigrants, they are insufficient to cover women’s unique physical, social, emotional, and health care needs. These include gynecological exams, pre- and post-natal care, and treatment for those who have been victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.
“It is appalling that ICE does not provide women in its custody with enough sanitary pads to keep from bleeding through their clothes, to say nothing of sufficient Pap smears, mammograms, and the other most basic elements of women’s health care,” said Meghan Rhoad, researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. “It is bad enough that these women are locked up. The least the government can do is to give them decent care.”
Emily Butera, program officer at the Women’s Refugee Commission, said that ICE’s focus on emergency care and keeping detainees medically ready for deportation is misplaced. “ICE needs to take into account the pressing humanitarian needs of individuals not held on criminal charges,” she said. “In addition to poor conditions in detention facilities, our immigration and enforcement policies are needlessly endangering the well-being of vulnerable people and tearing apart families.”
In fact, the advocates point out, women are being separated from their children, permanently in many cases, at great cost to society. In some cases, mothers are detained and taken to detention facilities hundreds of miles away without being given the opportunity to make the most basic arrangements for the care of their children. While in detention they are denied access to telephones and the legal materials necessary to locate their children and communicate with family courts to preserve their parental rights.
“ICE took me from my home while my children watched in fear,” said Marlene Jaggernauth, a single parent who was separated from her four children, all of them U.S. citizens, and who will speak at today’s event. “Had I not experienced a year in immigration detention, I would never have believed that such inhumanity existed.”
To read the January 2009 University of Arizona Southwest Institute for Research on Women report, “Unseen Prisoners: A Report on Women in Immigration Detention Facilities in Arizona,” please visit: http://sirow.arizona.edu/files/UnseenPrisoners.pdf
To read the March 2009 Human Rights Watch report, “Detained and Dismissed: Women’s Struggles to Obtain Health Care in United States Immigration Detention,” please visit: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/03/16/detained-and-dismissed
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/fromthefield/womcom/124586560082.htm
Governments need to provide social protection and promote green jobs for women through alternative investments that provide decent employment, such as public-private and community-related partnerships, according to representatives from governments, the United Nations, civil society and academia, who met in New York today to discuss how to respond to the impacts of the economic crisis addressing gender issues.
The panel Economic Recovery and Sustainable Development with Gender Equality was organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and the Permanent Missions of Australia, Finland and Nicaragua to the UN. It addressed strategies to soften the impact of the economic crisis on women, who are at risk of being hit harder than men. In developing countries, when families can only send one child to school, girls are generally kept home; when families have only limited money and food, girls tend to be fed fewer meals, panelists said.
“There cannot be economic recovery or sustainable development without the full empowerment and integration of women in all levels of economic, social and cultural activities,” said Alberto José Guevara Obregón, Nicaragua’s Minister of Finance and Public Credit.
Panelists also raised concerns about an increased number of girls dropping out of school, higher levels of violence against women and girls, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, and HIV and AIDS prevalence rates.
“Violence against women is a serious global problem, and severely limits women’s contribution to social and economic development,” said Gary Quinlan, Permanent Representative of Australia to the UN. “We fear the economic crisis will worsen the problem of violence against women — so tackling violence and investing in women need to be given priority in our response to the crisis.”
Participants also encouraged governments to provide job training and access to finance to women, in addition to promoting green jobs as a means of enabling women to enter male-dominated sectors that offer decent employment. Such jobs relate to women working on climate change adaptation: new and renewable energy sources, energy conservation, disaster prevention and reforestation.
“Women’s contribution and participation are needed in tackling the economic and financial crises. We need to ensure that actions related to economic recovery are inclusive and geared towards more equal societies,” said Jarmo Viinanen, Permanent Representative of Finland to the UN.
As more people lose their jobs, salaries and remittances slump, and as the cost of living increases, poor families are at risk of falling deeper into poverty.
“Women are watching. The challenge is to make sure they do not bear the brunt of this crisis, making up for lost income and public services by taking on a greater burden of unpaid care work,” said Ines Alberdi, UNIFEM Executive Director.
“It is always poor women and men who are paying the heaviest price of the bad governance and greed that has led to the ongoing economic and financial crisis,” said Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, Director of UNDP’s Democratic Governance Group. “This crisis presents an opportunity that we cannot fail to seize in creating decent jobs, social safety nets, and a space where poor women and men can become victors and agents of change in the transformation of the current financial architecture.”
The time is now for all partners in human development to live up to their commitments to the poorest and most vulnerable in order to ensure that the global crisis of today does not hamper the development prospects of tomorrow.
http://www.unifem.org/news_events/story_detail.php?StoryID=896
On 18 June 2009, the Human Rights Council appointed Rashida Manjoo Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences. In her capacity as Special Rapporteur, Manjoo will investigate claims of violence against women, file reports on the status of women’s human rights in nations around the world, and call attention to nations that do not comply with international standards on women’s human rights.
Manjoo has long been an activist for women’s human rights. Before her appointment as Special Rapporteur of Violence Against Women, Its Causes and Consequences, Manjoo served as an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa and as a member of the Commission on Gender Equality (CGE), a body created by South Africa’s Constitution to promote gender equality in that nation. She founded the Gender Unit at the Law Clinic at the University of Natal and the Domestic Violence Assistance Programme at the Durban Magistrates Court, and has also served as an Advisory Board member of the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice in the International Criminal Court.
Female internally displaced persons (IDPs) will again be able to learn job skills, take literacy classes and receive awareness programmes on reproductive health after the joint African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) helped reactivate women’s centres at an IDP camp in the Sudanese region.
UNAMID’s Gender Advisory Unit has worked with the North Darfur state Ministry of Social Affairs to relaunch the centres at the Abu Shouk IDP camp on the outskirts of the state capital, El Fasher. The centres, which will be run by a local non-governmental organization (NGO), had closed last year.
The Abu Shouk centres are expected to carry out several activities aimed at helping women gain livelihoods, including tailoring, candle-making and handcrafts. There will also be adult literacy classes, and awareness programmes on women’s reproductive health, and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=31359&Cr=darfur&Cr1=
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Stabbing of local officials triggers massive outpouring over women’s rights in China — Deng Yujiao’s case highlights official corruption and violence against women
6 July 2009 in Asia, Opinion Comment, Violence Against Women with Leave a Comment
The legal drama in Hubei province after a young pedicurist stabbed two government officials, killing one, has generated an unprecedented groundswell of sympathy for the arrested woman among netizens and Chinese youth. Deng Yujiao, 21, was arrested after she stabbed the two men with a fruit knife on May 10 in a hotel in Badong, central Hubei province. The two officials had demanded “special services” – a euphemism for sex – and reportedly threw a wad of money at the young woman. Now Deng is the centre of an unprecedented campaign of internet activism demanding leniancy for her and targeting this as a typical example of the arrogance of power-crazed local officials, but also an exposure of the lack of protection of women’s rights in China.
Internet comment on web forums and blogs is usually negative towards corrupt officialdom, but has broken all records in this case. Coinciding as it does with the anniversary – invisible inside China – of the Tiananmen anti-autocracy and anti-corruption protests of 20 years ago, this case is causing a serious headache for the ruling ‘communist’ party. On Wednesday 27 May, Deng Yujiao was released on bail, reflecting official nervousness. Her lawyers say they have proof that Deng acted in self defence in the face of an attempted rape, and accuse the police of trying to conceal evidence, including her torn bra.
According to police, Deng got in a quarrel with one official, Huang Dezhi, when he “mistook” her for a bathhouse attendant and asked her for “cross gender” services. A second official visiting the hotel, Deng Guida, intervened and in the course of the ensuing argument pushed Deng onto a couch twice. Deng Guida, who died of his stab wounds, worked for an office overseeing investment projects in Badong. According to the Southern Metropolis Daily, prostitution was common at the hotel. When Deng Yujiao told the men she was not selling sex, Deng Guida responded: “Aren’t you all the same? You are a prostitute but you still want to have a good reputation.” Hitting her repeatedly with a wad of banknotes, he said: “Don’t you want money? Would you believe if I am going to beat you to death with money today?”
As well as official corruption, the case has highlighted the issue of men’s violence against women and led to an upsurge in women’s rights activism. Comments on an internet forum run by the People’s Daily newspaper, for example, call the stabbing a “heroic act” and a milestone for women’s liberation. May 10, the date of the attack, “will forever be remembered as the day on which a [girl] bravely defended herself and fought against the corrupt official when her life was threatened,” said one contributor.
Women’s rights activists, mostly students, have staged small but well-publicised demonstrations in support of Deng Yujiao in Beijing, but have also travelled to Badong to show their support. In one such protest action, a young woman wrapped in white cloth and wearing a face mask, lay on the floor next to sheets of paper that read “Anyone may become Deng Yujiao.” Alarmed at this trend, the regime’s propaganda department instructed media groups to stop covering the case, and for provincial newspapers – some with a tradition of greater openness – to recall their correspondents from Hubei.
The Deng Yujiao case underlines the seething discontent that exists in China as the gap between rich and poor, the second widest in Asia, continues to grow. Women are among those, along with migrants, factory workers, farmers and national minorities, who have lost most from the government’s pro-rich policies. Rural women face the reassertion of feudal family structures and, for example, in many localities are not allowed to lease farmland, only men can do this. Women make up the vast majority of the migrant workforce in the manufacturing and service sectors (the exception is construction and mining which are male-dominated), which places them at the bottom of China’s social ladder: the worst pay and working hours, and almost no job protection. The one-child policy also disadvantages women as the punitive measures imposed to enforce this policy are almost always directed against women, with involuntary abortion and sterilisation among the consequences. Women are the clear majority among the nearly 2 million attempted suicides every year in China. There is a crying need for a new fighting women’s movement in China, independent of the state and ruling Communist Party.
The case shows the widespread hatred of the abuses committed by the rich and powerful. Students in Hangzhou took the streets in early May after the son of a wealthy businessman killed a student due to reckless driving, but escaped immediate prosecution. Xinhua News Agency reported that the driver’s family have since agreed to pay 1.1 million yuan ($165,000) to the victim’s family. But it also shows the political vacuum that exists in China in the absence of any formal or organised opposition to the one-party state. One of the themes in the net debate of recent days is an idealisation of the individual ‘heroine’ who avenges the injustices suffered by the multimillion-strong masses. This is a trend we have seen before, in the outpouring of sympathy last year for Yang Jia, for example, the Beijing youth who was executed for killing six policemen in Shanghai. There is more than a germ of the idea of what Marxists call ‘individual terrorism’ in these moods, which are a product of the frustration of the masses over their seeming powerlessness in the face of the ruling party’s money-grabbing machine. The longer the masses are deprived of organisations of struggle – real trade unions, women’s struggle organisations, political parties that stand on the workers’ side – the more such moods can develop. This is not something that can advance the struggle against dictatorship and injustice.
Socialists solidarise with the outpouring of sympathy and support for Deng Yujiao. From the reports that have so far emerged it seems she was the victim of a horrific attack. Self defence is not a crime, and her actions have been instantly comprehensible to millions of other victims of official abuse. To end the system of bureaucratic terror however a mass movement is needed: open and democratic organisations based on the oppressed layers of workers like Deng Yujiao. By welding together a mass force with a programme to abolish all inequality, sexism and discrimination, in other words a programme for genuine socialism, the working class can insure such injustices are ended once and for all.
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