Women News Network – WNN

“Women Commandos” in Iran

Robert Dreyfuss – The Nation – 13 July, 2009

On Monday, the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington assembled an all-star panel of analysts for perspective on the role of women in the recent Iran election and post-election upheaval.

Among the participants: Pari Esfandiari of IranDokht.com, a web site that describes itself as “an online media platform that connects the global community to Iranian women”; Fatemeh Haghighatjoo, a former member of Iran’s parliament (2000-2004); Nayereh Tohidi, a Cal State professor; Norma Moruzzi, a professor from the University of Illinois, Chicago; and Jaleh Lackner-Gohari, from Vienna, a physician, activist, and vice president of innerChange Associates.

The moderator was Haleh Esfandiari of the Wilson Center, whose 2007 arrest in Iran made headlines around the world. So strong is the women’s movement that a web site linked to Iran’s intelligence ministry has begun referring to “woman commandos” in describing post-election protests. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Child-sex trade flourishing in Winnipeg, says expert

CTV.ca News - Sunday 12 July, 2009 – 10:09 pm ET

Benjamin Perrin, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, spoke with CTV News on Sunday, July 12, 2009 about his findings. Image: CTV.ca News

An activist against human trafficking has given Winnipeg a dubious distinction: He says it’s the worst Canadian city for child sex crimes.

Benjamin Perrin, a law professor at the University of British Columbia, has said that as many as 400 teens — mostly aboriginal girls — are being sold for sex in the Manitoba capital.

The UBC professor has found more than 300 advertisements for Winnipeg girls and women on Craigslist, despite a disclaimer outlawing human trafficking. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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In Egypt, Invoking Islam to Combat Sexual Harassment

Abigail Hauslohner – Time Magazine – Friday 10 July, 2009

CAIRO: Doaa Kassem, like most Egyptian women, is used to being catcalled and grabbed at by men in the crowded streets of Cairo. The 24-year-old executive secretary is well versed in women’s rights, having studied the subject in Sweden, and she is bolder than most when it comes to dealing with her harassers. “I’m brave enough to stop them and tell them [what they're doing is wrong],” she says. Sometimes she even chases them down.

Kassem may be brave, but she’s under no illusions about the Egyptian government’s attitude toward the issue. “The government has always denied sexual harassment [happens] in the street,” she says. So when Kassem is shown the new government-issued pamphlet titled Sexual Harassment: Causes and Solutions, her eyes widen. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Peru: “Scandalous” rates of maternal mortality says Amnesty-new report

Amnesty International report – Thursday 9 July, 2009

Hundreds of poor, rural and Indigenous pregnant women in Peru are dying because they are effectively being denied the same health services other women in the country receive, Amnesty International concluded in a new report today (9 July).

The report ‘Fatal Flaws: Barriers to Maternal Health in Peru’ explored the high levels of maternal mortality amongst poor and Indigenous women in rural Peru and evaluates the impact of recent government policies designed to tackle the problem.

Peru has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the Americas. According to official figures, 185 women die for every 100,000 live births in Peru. The United Nations puts the number even higher at 240. Most of these are rural, poor and Indigenous women. . .

. . . read complete report . . .
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GHANA: Tomato Queens Short-Change Farmers

Francis Kokutse – IPS – Wednesday 8 July, 2009

Market queens control the market for fresh vegetables in Ghana. Image: Evans Mensah/IRIN

ACCRA, Jul 7 (IPS) – When you meet Naomi Aframea, 60, in the streets of Accra, you could take her for any other Ghanaian woman going about her business. But step into her stall at Agbobloshie Market, one of the capital’s satellite markets, and amidst stacks of the wooden crates used to ship tomatoes, you sense her power.

When I met Aframea, she was counting money and engaged in conversation with another equally-powerful tomato trader. Neatly dressed, in contrast to the other women who sell tomatoes in the market, her soft-spoken nature belies the control she exerts over hundreds of women and farmers in a network that spans the country.

She is a “tomato queen”, one of the canny businesswomen who dominate trade in fresh produce in urban centres across Ghana. Aframea is one of those who controls part of the Agbobloshie Market’s trade in tomatoes. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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A shot in the arm for marginalized children (Zimbabwe)

Gertrude F. Pswarayi – World Pulse – Tuesday 7 July, 2009

Gertrude F. Pswarayi, Communications Manager - Sexual Rights Centre, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

There is an adage that education is the gateway to success. In the traditional African life, senior community members were responsible for providing the much needed education and life skills to children for free. However, modern day education is expensive, a situation that may reduce the chances for orphans and vulnerable children to acquire basic education.

The HIV scourge has ravaged communities and the poverty stricken Sub-Saharan Africa is on record as the worst affected. Many children who have lost parents can not afford school fees. On seeing scores of school drop-outs hanging out in the streets, Febie Chuma, a Reverend with the House of Prayer International converted her garage into Noah’s Ark, a pre-school and a nursery providing free education for children. Her first intake was 50 children all from her Queens Park suburb in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

“I could not wait to get money to purchase a stand to construct proper classroom blocks. Constructing classrooms is far too expensive and could even prevent me from achieving my goal of supporting the marginalized children. This garage is big enough to accommodate all the children. I received donations of carpets and furniture and those were all the basics I needed to kick start this project,” Febie says. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Malalai Joya: the woman MP who dares to defy Afghanistan’s warlord rulers

She has survived five assassination attempts, been suspended from parliament and forced into hiding, but Joya refuses to be silent

Sunday London TimesOnline Book Extract – 5 July, 2009

Former Parliamentarian Malalai Joya. Image: Sunday London TimesOnline

My father always said he could spot me in any crowd of women wearing burqas because I walk like a penguin. You have no peripheral vision because of the netting in front of your eyes — and it’s hot and suffocating under there.

The most useful thing about these long blue robes is that you can hide schoolbooks and other forbidden objects beneath them. Under the Taliban I also appreciated the anonymity of the burqa when I had to walk to and from the illicit lessons I gave for girls. Today, however, I don’t feel safe under the thickest veil, even though I have armed guards. My visitors are searched for weapons and even the flowers at my wedding had to be checked for bombs. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Appalling levels of child abuse found in Aborigine communities

Anne Barrowclough in Sydney – The TimesOnline (AU) – Fri 3 July, 2009

A town camp in Alice Springs where women and children are routinely abused. Image: Marianna Day Massey

Children in Australia’s aboriginal communities are nearly seven times more likely to be abused or neglected than the country’s non-indigenous children, an Australian government report has found.

The report, which was expected to reveal improvements in the lives of Australia’s most disadvantaged minority, highlights instead the devastating abuse suffered by Aboriginal women and children and the widening discrepancies between their lives and those of other Australians.

Two years after former Prime Minister John Howard introduced the Northern Territories Emergency Response (NTER) in an attempt to reduce the appalling levels of violence in indigenous communities, yesterday’s report reveals that little has changed. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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 Kenyan daughters set to inherit family land

EMEKA-MAYAKA GEKARA – Daily Nation (Kenya) – Thurs July 2, 2009

Ms Susan Cherotich Sugut, 53, weeds her maize crop at Ngarua in Burnt Forest, Eldoret East District. The new land policy gives women the right to inherit land. Image:JARED NYATAYA

Kenyan women, who have suffered discrimination in inheritance of family property for decades, stand to win big if Parliament approves the new land policy.

The policy accepted by Cabinet recently seeks to reinforce women’s rights to inheritance and acquisition of family land.

The radical move is likely to face resistance by forces supportive of cultures and traditions which had confined women to the fence of family property. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Women in Fata find a voice

Huma Yusuf – DAWN News - Wednesday July 1, 2009

Radio Khyber's female journalists prepare scripts for news bulletins outside a studio in Peshawar. Image: Courtesy Radio Khyber

PESHAWAR (PAKISTAN): In a small recording studio in Peshawar, Asma rushes around with a minidisc recorder. She has to finish editing a news bulletin and make it back to her home in Nowshera before it gets dark. ‘If I don’t get the bulletin done in time for this evening’s show, the station won’t let me continue as a radio journalist,’ she says. ‘But if I don’t get home on time, then my parents won’t let me continue working either.’

Asma is one of 15 reporters for Radio Khyber, a Jamrud-based FM radio station, and one of the few legal media outlets in Pakistan’s tribal belt. The station, which is supported by the Fata Secretariat, aims to counter the extremist, pro-jihad and anti-West programming that is typical of dozens of illegal radio stations run by hard-line clerics throughout the tribal agencies.

The station’s programming is notable – listeners enjoy a mix of infotainment shows, call-in talk shows, development-oriented programmes that touch on social taboos and health care, and music, particularly hits in Pashto by Fata-based artists. Broadcasting for a total of six hours a day. . .

. . . read (and hear) complete article . . .
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Traffickers Prey on N.Korean Women Fleeing to China

The Chosun Ilbo (Daily News from Korea) – Tuesday 30 June, 2009

For thousands of North Korean women, the decision to flee their impoverished, repressive homeland often puts them at the mercy of human traffickers. In China, many are forced into prostitution or marriage with Chinese men.

Bang Mi Sun left North Korea and crossed illegally into China in 2002. Countless other North Korean women have done the same since the mid 1990s. Hunger and severe shortages of necessities such as medicine and heating fuel have driven them from home.

Human rights organizations say local governments in China are slowly starting to acknowledge the problem of trafficked North Korean women and their children. Some municipalities are beginning to register the mothers as members of Chinese families, to help them avoid arrest. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Bahrain Offers Women No Protection from Spousal Rape

Suad Hamada (Bahrain) – theWIP – Monday 29 June, 2009

Bahrain's Ministry of Justice building which houses the country's courts. Image: Biju Haridas.

Getting a divorce and custody of one’s children is very difficult in Bahrain, even in cases where a husband sexually attacks his wife. The issue was exposed to the public last year, when an Arab woman married to a Bahraini was granted a divorce by the courts after she lost part of her breast during a violent sexual encounter with her spouse. A medical report submitted during the case citing the need for corrective surgery was valid enough evidence for the judge to call off the marriage. Though such cases are rarely highlighted in the media here, the plight of this woman made top headlines in many regional newspapers. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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The most influential person in Indonesia?

Peter Gelling – GlobalPost – 25 June, 2009

Indonesia's Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati holds a media briefing Aug. 1, 2007. Image: Mick Tsikas/Reuters

As Indonesia dodges the global economic crisis bullet, Sri Mulyani, a woman educated in America, has become a star.

JAKARTA — The impact Sri Mulyani, Indonesia’s current finance minister, has had on the country in the last few years is difficult to overstate.

Mulyani has, for starters, steered the country through the global economic crisis. Indonesia’s economy is growing — at a rate of 4.9 percent — faster than any of its regional counterparts and looks poised to come out of the crisis in a better position than it went in.

This is in no small part a result of aggressive reforms Mulyani pushed through the finance ministry, most notably the customs and tax offices — two institutions that for decades were the most striking examples of how corruption can destroy a nation. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Women Ready To Take Their Place

Joyce Chimbi – IPS – Thursday 25 June, 2009

South Sudan's women face numerous obstacles to taking their place in the country's leadership. Image: IRIN

JUBA, Jun 24 (IPS) – When the women of South Sudan welcomed the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2005, they were cognizant of the fact that true democracy will be realised only when their human rights are realised.

It is a young democracy battling to stay afloat against the backdrop of a fragile peace arrangement. A 22-year-war rained terror on the land, and caused unimaginable levels of destruction, killing two million people and displacing four million more according to U.N. estimates.

The CPA, which brought an end to the bloodshed, also reserved 25 percent of government posts for women. This was duly realised – at least in terms of numbers – in the new government of South Sudan. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Amazing blog of 19-year-old from Tehran

Exclusive: By Victoria Kennedy – Daily Mirror (UK) – Wed 24 June, 2009

Tehran blogger Nazanin. Image: Daily Mirror (UK)

In many ways, Nazanin is like any other 19-year-old girl.

She pores over fashion websites and spends hours blogging. Yet unlike Western teens, she writes about bloodshed, fear and oppression.

Like Neda Agha Soltani – the 27-year-old shot dead at an anti-government protest in Tehran last weekend – Nazanin lives under President Ahmadinejad’s hardline regime. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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