Archive for September, 2010
Nine American mothers whose children died fighting in Iraq were embraced last week by dozens of Iraqi women who lost their own children during decades of war and violence in a meeting participants said brought them a measure of peace. The gathering in Iraq’s mostly peaceful northern Kurdish region was far from the sites of [...]
A group of women on delivered to the Nicaraguan government thousands of signatures collected in Europe by Amnesty International to demand the restoration of therapeutic abortion in this Central American country. The signatures were turned over at the offices of the governing Sandinista party by leaders of the Strategic Group for the Decriminalization of Therapeutic [...]
A global campaign that aims to save the lives of 16 million mothers and children over the next five years was being launched by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday with as much as $40 billion in commitments from world governments and private aid groups. The so-called Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health was [...]
A disturbing number of police departments across the country are routinely downgrading or dismissing rape cases, according to testimony at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing. Chaired by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, the subcommittee session focused on what it said was “The chronic failure (of police departments) to report and investigate rape cases.” In his testimony, [...]
The United Nations is launching a campaign to combat the rape of Haitian earthquake victims living in camps for the homeless, the U.N.’s top official in the country has said. Edmund Mulet, who heads the U.N. stabilization mission in the country, told the 15-member Security Council that police and soldiers in the U.N.’s peacekeeping force [...]
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced the appointment of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet to head a new U.N. body that will seek to improve the lives of women and girls around the world. The body will be known officially as the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, but officials say it [...]
The fight against human trafficking in Latin America is ineffective and has led to the emergence of intra-regional markets for the trade, according to experts and activists meeting in the Mexican city Puebla. 450 academics and activists took part in the Second Latin American Conference on Smuggling and Trafficking of Human Beings, under the theme [...]
Heartened by the passage of a same-sex marriage law in Argentina, women’s organisations in this South American country stepped up their demands for the legalisation of abortion, on the Day for the Decriminalisation of Abortion in Latin America and the Caribbean. Some 1,000 members of the Juana Azurduy Women’s Collective, better known as Las Juanas, [...]
Judges and other judicial officers in Argentina have begun to receive training on gender equality and women’s rights, as part of a broad programme that could serve as a model for similar initiatives in the rest of Latin America. The plan, launched last week, will train facilitators to raise awareness on gender questions and promote [...]
More than 70 gay rights activists were detained in the Nepali capital earlier this month in a crackdown on a rally to demand government identification papers for transgender people, police and activists said. Nepali men and women who identify themselves as transgender are seeking citizenship certificates with their gender marked as “third sex” instead of [...]
The Polish minister for equality has been accused of homophobia for outing a gay man on television and saying Catholic schools should have the right to sack gay teachers. Elżbieta Radziszewska made the remarks about gay teachers to Catholic newspaper Gosc Niedzielny. She said that Catholic schools should be allowed to sack or refuse to [...]
Chechen women said the holiday, established by the region’s Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov a year ago, was marred by rules he had previously imposed, restricting their rights by enforcing traditional Muslim customs in the volatile region. Dark-haired women in floor-length satin gowns, their faces framed by white hijabs, were given prizes for motherhood and awarded [...]
A Jewish widow ran into an unexpected snag when she was planning to remarry. A rabbi said that according to ancient law, she would need to marry her brother-in-law unless he freed her in a ceremony known as halitza. In order to marry, the couple, who are not particularly religious, had to register at the [...]
Hamas police ordered a Gaza hotel restaurant closed on Wednesday for allowing a woman to smoke a water pipe on its premises, one of its owners said. It was believed to be the first time that Hamas Islamists who run the Gaza Strip have enforced their ban, announced in July, on women smoking the traditional [...]
Afghanistan’s army got its first female officers in decades last week when 29 women graduated in a class of new recruits who hope to help take the lead role in national security from foreign forces by 2014. President Hamid Karzai, NATO and the United States have been pushing to expand and train Afghanistan’s army, police [...]
A group of women’s rights activists delivered a petition with five thousand signatures to the Iranian parliament urging the legislative body to “bar polygamy.” ILNA reports that the petition was delivered by 40 women who called on the parliament to halt al efforts in “promoting temporary marriages and polygamy.” One of the activists announced that [...]
Libya’s new nationality law granting women married to foreign spouses the right to pass their own nationality to their children is a significant move forward for women’s rights, Human Rights Watch said earlier this month. But the law still contains some contradictory provisions that could be interpreted to perpetuate discrimination, Human Rights Watch said. The [...]
The authors of a new book, Half the Sky, say the slavery and abuse of women is the greatest moral outrage of our century In it, they argue that the world is in the grip of a massive moral outrage no less egregious in scale or in the intensity of despair than the African slave [...]
It is a tragedy, a horror, a crime against humanity. The details of the murders – of the women beheaded, burned to death, stoned to death, stabbed, electrocuted, strangled and buried alive for the “honour” of their families – are as barbaric as they are shameful. Many women’s groups in the Middle East and South-west [...]
Recent postings- Towards a Future without Fundamentalisms: New Report Analyzes Religious Fundamentalist Strategies and Feminist Responses
- Statement on the Murder of Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, women’s human rights defender of Ciudad Juarez
- Sudan police arrest women protesting at flogging video
- UN Chief Leaves Women out of Year-End Summing Up
- Sex education is expelled from Egyptian schools
- Kurdish Parliament Turns Blind Eye to Prostitution
- Sexual harassment cases in Israel’s civil service rose 40% in 2010
- Women in south Sudan have been targeted in a string of abusive attacks by police cracking down on Western clothes
- Women and girls living in Haiti’s makeshift camps face an increasing risk of rape and sexual violence says Amnesty International new report
- Stand up against hatred and threats against LGBT in Malaysia
- new on womensgrid
- Tower Hamlets Residents Solidarity Campaign – Solidarity with women involved in prostitution in east London
- East London Fawcett: Free Gallery Tour ~ 12 May & Pay Gap Talk ~ 23rd May 2012
- The Light Bulb Moment and future of feminism Book launch and panel – Bristol ~ 15th May 2012
- Hollaback! Portsmouth launch event – Tuesday 22nd May 2012
- Run for Congo Women – Deadline extended to 25th May 2012!
- Fast fall in number of male-only FTSE 100 boards
- Why has the UK got so few women scientists?
- The Haven Wolverhampton E Bulletin May 2012
- 2 vacancies – Shakti Women’s Aid (Edinburgh) ~ 28th May 2012
- Volunteering for Dorset Rape Crisis Centre
- new on women in london
- Information added in March 2012
- Information added in February 2012
- Information added in January 2012
- Pro-Choice Public Meeting – Abortion Rights ~16th May 2012
- Fawcett on Queen’s speech: flexible parental leave / red tape challenge
- Policy and Campaigns Internship – Power and Agency campaign – Fawcett ~ 22nd May 2012
- Administration and Finance Worker – Women in Prison ~ 18th May 2012
- A Women’s Agenda for the Local Elections May 2012 – Survey Results
- Friends of the Women’s Library update on the future of the Library
- Women in Black, vigils and Facebook page
US Senate Should Act to Tackle Violence Against Women – Comprehensive Global Strategy Needed to Engage and End Abuses
30 September 2010 in Global, Government, North America, Opinion Comment, Violence Against Women
The US Senate should quickly approve a bipartisan bill that sets out a new strategy for US engagement in the struggle to end violence against women worldwide, Human Rights Watch said today. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled to take up the bill on Wednesday, September 29, 2010. The draft International Violence Against Women [...]