Women News Network

At her Thai border clinic, Cynthia Maung treats victims of war from her native Burma

Tibor Krausz – Christian Science Monitor – Tuesday, 9 February, 2010 (originally published 8 Feb)

Dr. Cynthia Maung escaped from Burma two decades ago and now trains others at her clinic in Thailand to help refugees from the violence in her homeland. Image: Tibor Krausz for the Christian Science Monitor

MAE SOT, THAILAND: She found shelter in the Thai border town of Mae Sot herself as a refugee in 1989, following the Burmese junta’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations the previous year. She’d fled through land-mine-infested jungles from the region of eastern Burma (Myanmar) where she’d worked as a village doctor among the indigent hill tribes.

Appalled by the misery of impoverished Burmese exiles in Thailand, Dr. Maung set up a free clinic for them. She scrounged medicine from foreign aid agencies and used a rice cooker to sterilize her instruments in boiling water.

She expected to go home within months.

Twenty years later, like hundreds of thousands of other Burmese migrants, Maung remains illegally in Thailand, living within sight of a homeland to which she can’t return. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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EU members in 12 nations work together to end the practice of female genital mutilation

Women News Network (WNN) Breaking News Release – Monday, 8 February, 2010

This Amnesty International poster reads, "Every year two million girls suffer the pain of genital mutilation - a clear violation of their human rights. No government should continue to ignore this crime. Help us stop violence against women. Give your support at www.amnesty.se

Amnesty International Ireland and the European Union Institutions have launched a campaign to put an end to a global practice that has had a grave “detrimental impact on the health and well-being of girls,” says a new Amnesty/EU report. The practice is FGM – Female Genital Mutilation, which is the “non-therapeutic” removal, cutting and change in otherwise healthy external female organs.

It is an act that is wrapped in cultural practice, as “old fashioned” mothers believe it will help their daughters stay healthy, find husbands and live a “proper” life in society.

The long standing global practice has affected over 100 million women to date and continues to place over 3 million girls at risk each year. In the EU alone, it is estimated that approx 180,000 girls are at risk of receiving this procedure each year.

Working together on a global campaign to eliminate FGM, Amnesty International Ireland and members of the European Union are launching a multi-tiered campaign that recognizes the human rights of girls and women not to endure this procedure. Action plans to eliminate FGM has already taken place in Belgium, France, Netherlands and Norway.

Now 8 more countries will join the campaign call to permanently end female genital mutilation in Austria, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Portugal and the UK. . .

. . . read more about this launch in a new Amnesty International/EU Commission report . . .

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Men and women – MEPs (Members of European Parliament) debate pay & equality gap

European Parliament – Friday, 5 February, 2010

The state of equality between the sexes in Europe will be debated Monday. This is American actress Lena Horne in 1943. Image: ©Belga/Van Parys

Equal pay for men and women, paternity leave and tackling violence are at the heart of a report being debated Monday evening by MEPs. The state of relations between men and women across Europe will be in the spotlight as Belgian Socialist Marc Tarabella’s report is debated. It calls for a change in attitudes so that “no one will still be surprised to find women driving buses or men doing laundry”.

Many speakers noted the grim impact the current economic crisis is having on women. However, they said it represents an opportunity as governments are now re-thinking long established policies.

One of the most nagging problems the report identifies is the continued pay gap between men and women. It is estimated that women earn 17%-14% less than men for the same work. In general women are much more likely to be in poorly-paid jobs and part-time work on fixed contracts. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Human Trafficking Alive and Well for the 2010 Olympics

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter…”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Kathie Wallace – Vancouver Observer – Thursday, 4 February, 2010 (originally published 2 Feb)

This past Tuesday, January 2010, the Social Justice Committee of the Burnaby Teachers’ Association (Vancouver) held a panel discussion on human trafficking and the sex trade, referencing the upcoming Olympics.

Robin Pike, from the Office to Combat Trafficked Persons, indicated that women involved are afraid and won’t identify themselves. There is a covert network of services in place for trafficked people, much like the Underground Railroad that existed in the time of slavery in the United States. There is a real concern about possible child trafficking in British Columbia as well as domestic trafficking in Canada which is mostly aboriginal women from poor reserves.

As well as this concern for the unique vulnerabilities of aboriginal and other women, Daisy Klein from Vancouver Rape Relief mentioned her concern for Southeast Asian women, stating that poor, addicted, and racialized women are the most likely to be on the streets. . .

. . . read complete commentary . . .
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Cornton Vale: (Scottish) Women’s prison in ’state of crisis’

Reevel Alderson – BBC Scotland – Wednesday, 3 February, 2010 (originally published 27 Jan)

The governor of Scotland’s only women’s prison has admitted that most of those held there should not be in jail.

Teresa Medhurst said many prisoners have such complex problems they actually feel safer at Cornton Vale than at home.

The perennial problem of overcrowding causes significant problems – and it has worsened in recent years.

. . . read complete article . . .
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Status of women must be addressed for lasting peace in Sudan

Lyric Thompson (Policy Analyst, Women for Women International) – The Jurist – Tuesday, 2 February, 2010 (originally published 13 Jan)

From where Mayik sits as a Sudanese woman, war survivor and humanitarian in Southern Sudan, the next year is a critical one for her country, especially for women and children. She spent years in a Khartoum-based camp for people displaced by the war and now risks her life daily to equip women with valuable rights training and economic opportunities that will enable them and their families to rebuild. She recalls one instance last year when violent tribal clashes erupted near Women for Women International’s offices. The violence threatened the lives of many, and displaced thousands of women and children, who found themselves without food, shelter and water. Mayik’s staff put together the few resources they had to buy food, blankets and clothes for hundreds of displaced people stranded on Women for Women International farmland. The governor of Lakes State, South Sudan, recently gave her the title of “Commander of Nonviolent Forces” for her efforts.

Even against a backdrop of violence and instability, these women were building bridges of peace and security.

So what is the American plan for Sudan? How will America work to quell the fighting and empower the grassroots movement for peace that Commander Karak and her colleagues are waging? . .

. . . read complete commentary . . .
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BURMA: Ethnic Women Expose Opium Fields in Junta Strongholds

Marwaan Macan-Markar – IPS -Monday, 1 February, 2010 (originally published 31 Jan)

BANGKOK, Jan 31, 2010 (IPS) – A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.

“One of the most damning points of this new report is to show the extent of opium being grown in areas under the control of the Burmese military regime,” said Debbie Stothard, coordinator of ALTSEAN, a regional human rights group monitoring rights violations in Burma.

“The regime has tried to give the impression that poppy cultivation continues in areas only under the control of ethnic rebel groups,” she told IPS. “But these women have seriously undermined that picture.” . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Behind the Burqa

SANDEEP GOPALAN – The New York Times – Friday, 29 January, 2010 (originally published 27 Jan)

Why the French obsession with the burqa? After all, as the French government itself has conceded, only about 1,900 women wear the full-body covering. So why are over half of the respondents in recent public opinion polls in favor of a ban on it?

The answer is simple. This is not about a fashion faux pas or women’s rights, but about sending a message to Muslims. Concerned with increasingly visible numbers of Muslims openly practicing their way of life while enjoying the privileges of life in the West, French citizens and politicians alike feel that they need to restore “Frenchness” to their streets.

What exactly they mean by this is unclear, but there is apparently agreement that it means a largely homogenous society or, at the least, a multicultural one with well-integrated foreigners. Whether such a society is desirable or not, the burqa ban is not the way to get there.

. . . read complete editorial . . .
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Memories of the Holocaust: Sabina Miller

‘We ran because we heard the ghettos were being liquidated and that lorries were coming for the Jews’

Stuart Jeffries – The Guardian – Thursday, 28 January, 2010 (originally published 27 Jan)

Sabina Miller, Holocaust survivor. Image: David Levene/The Guardian

Sabina Miller never did find out what happened to the young woman she only knew as Ruszka. They both spent the winter of 1942-43 ­sheltering in a hole in the forests of northern Poland. It had been dug earlier by partisans and was the best ­accommodation the two women could find. “We couldn’t go home because we had no home and we felt safer there in the woods than risk being betrayed to the Germans.”

Sabina fled the horrors of the Warsaw ghetto in her teens; later she ended up working on a farm run by a Lithuanian man. He used to horsewhip the Jewish women labourers if they didn’t work hard enough. There she met Ruszka, and together they finally ran away, to shelter in the forest. “We ran not ­because of him but because we heard that the ghettoes were being liquidated, and we heard that lorries were coming for [the Jews].”

We’re sitting over tea and cakes in Sabina’s warm kitchen in the flat in west Hampstead, London, where she has lived for nearly 50 years. What was it like in that freezing hole? . . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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White House Highlights Step Forward For Native American Women

Lynn Rosenthal, The White House – the Gov Monitor – Wednesday, 27 January, 2010 (originally published 18 Jan)

All Americans should be heartened by the recent announcement that the (US) Department of Justice, under the leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, is strengthening its commitment to fighting crimes of violence against Native American women.

As part of broader DOJ reforms to dramatically improve public safety in tribal communities, the Attorney General recognized that though there is no “quick fix,” we “must continue our efforts with federal, state, and tribal partners to identify solutions to the challenges we face.” After holding listening sessions with tribal leaders across the nation, he directed all 44 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices with federally recognized tribes in their districts to reinvigorate efforts to combat and prosecute violent crime, particularly against women and children. And he announced an additional $6 million to hire Assistant United States Attorneys—and additional victim specialists—to assist with the ever-growing Indian Country caseload.

After all, for Native American women, even “challenges” may be an understatement. On some reservations, violent crime is more than twenty times the national average—but women tend to suffer most. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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Are female Indian (India) lawyers outpacing Western colleagues?

Legally India (Mobile Edition) - Tuesday, 26 January, 2010

“Law was often looked at as a marriage degree – three years in law, then you get married,” recalls AZB founding partner Zia Mody about women’s views of a legal career 30 years ago. Since then law firms have gradually fought the profession’s gender bias, arguably more successfully in India than abroad. But there is still a long way to go.

“Law was often looked at as a marriage degree – three years in law, then you get married,” recalls AZB founding partner Zia Mody about women’s views of a legal career 30 years ago. Since then law firms have gradually fought the profession’s gender bias, arguably more successfully in India than abroad. But there is still a long way to go.

An un-Indian problem
Retaining female lawyers all the way to partnership has been a headache for almost all international law firms and is a perennial debate. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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