Women News Network

Sweeping Support Sought for Domestic Workers’ Rights

Sutthida Malikaew – IPS – Friday, 27 August, 2010 (originally published 25 Aug)

BANGKOK, Aug 25, 2010 (IPS) – “My male employer was a womaniser and he liked to touch me and told me not to tell his wife. I felt so uncomfortable,” says Chompoo, who was just 15 years old when she served – and suffered abuse – as a domestic worker here in the Thai capital.

According to data collected by the Kasikorn Research Centre in 2007, there are some 400,000 workers in private households in Thailand, including some 225,000 Thai domestic workers and 150,000 foreigners.

But domestic workers only have a ministerial regulation they hope to fall back on as Thailand’s 1998 Labour Protection Act, the main law that spells out basic benefits from minimum wages to rest days and leaves, does not include them.

. . . read the complete article . . .
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Uganda: For Women with Disabilities, Barriers and Abuse

Shantha Rau Barriga – Human Rights Watch – Thursday, 26 August, 2010

A woman with mobility impairments uses a hand-crank bicycle to move around her village. Image by Martina Bacigalupo for Human Rights Watch.

(Kampala) – Women with disabilities in northern Uganda experience ongoing discrimination and sexual and gender-based violence, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Many are unable to gain access to basic services, including health care and justice, and they have been largely ignored in post-conflict reconstruction efforts.

The 73-page report, “‘As if We Weren’t Human’: Discrimination and Violence against Women with Disabilities in Northern Uganda,” describes frequent abuse and discrimination by strangers, neighbors, and even family members against women and girls with disabilities in the north.  Women interviewed for the report said they were not able to get basic provisions such as food, clothing, and shelter in camps for displaced persons or in their own communities. One woman with a physical disability who lived in such a camp told Human Rights Watch that people said to her, “You are useless. You are a waste of food. You should just die so that others can eat the food.”  The research was conducted in six districts of northern Uganda – a region recently emerging from over two decades of brutal conflict between the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army and the government.

The report is based on interviews with 64 women and girls with a wide range of disabilities, some caused by diseases such as polio and others by landmines or gunshot wounds during the protracted conflict. According to a 2007 national survey, approximately 20 percent of people in Uganda have disabilities. However, northern Uganda is believed to have higher disability rates because of war-related injuries and limited access to treatment or vaccinations for illnesses.

. . . read the complete article . . .

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Wife of ‘ground zero mosque’ imam epitomizes Islam’s modernizing voice

Ben Arnoldy – The Christian Science Monitor – Wednesday, 25 August, 2010 (originally published  23, Aug)

Daisy Khan, co-founder of the Cordoba Initiative, speaks at a rally in support of an Islamic center and mosque near the World Trade Center on Aug. 5, in New York. Image: Frank Franklin II/AP

One of the leaders of the proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero has spent years trying to amplify the voices of educated women within Islam. In this way, Daisy Khan epitomizes the so-called “moderate Muslim” and modernizing force from within Islam that some Americans are impatient to see.

I met Khan in 2006 at an international conference in New York City that she had organized. The conference brought strong Muslim women from 25 countries to hash out plans for a council of female Islamic jurists, known as muftias or muftiyyahs. These women jurists would be capable of issuing fatwas, or religious rulings.

Some of the delegates at the conference had already succeeded in fighting for women’s rights within the religion. One, Zainah Anwar, used her Koranic scholarship to rebuff efforts to exclude Muslims from a domestic-abuse law in Malaysia.

. . . read the complete article . . .
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Reports of mass rape by DRC rebels

Aljazeera.net - Tuesday, 24 August, 2010

Almost 200 women have been raped by rebels in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), during a four-day seizure of a town, aid groups have said.

Will Cragin of the International Medical Corps (IMC) said that aid and UN workers knew fighters from Rwandan rebel FDLR group and Congolese Mai-Mai rebels had occupied Luvungi town and surrounding villages the day after the attack began on July 30.

“There was no fighting and no deaths, Cragin said, just “lots of pillaging and the systematic raping of women”.

. . . read complete article . . .
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Native Women in Bolivia’s Lowlands Build Leadership Skills

Franz Chavez - IPS – Monday, 23 August, 2010, (originally published 20 Aug)

Zulema Lehm. Image: Franz Chávez /IPS

In the northeastern Bolivian department (province) of Beni, a region of wetlands, savannah and jungle where three-quarters of the population lives in poverty, indigenous women are building a new kind of leadership to help develop their communities.

The lowlands region, whose capital is Trinidad, is home to 16 of the country’s 36 native groups, each one of which preserves its own traditions and particular ways of living in community, researcher Zulema Lehm, one of the foremost experts on Bolivia’s lowlands indigenous peoples, says in this interview with IPS.

In the projects, she works to make sure that one basic element is the promotion of gender parity, while taking into account the particular roles played by women in each group.

. . . read complete interview . . .

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TANZANIA: Women caught in crossfire of HIV battle

IRIN (PlusNews) – Friday, 20 August, 2010 (originally published 18 Aug)

Regina Joseph was beaten up by a group of young men for “dressing indecently” on her way to the local market in northeastern Tanzania’s Mkinga District.

“They say I wanted to spread HIV, yet they didn’t know my status,” she said.

Josiah Makulu, 67, a community elder in Mkinga, believes returning to ancient cultural values is the best way to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. He and several other elders have been encouraging locals to punish “inappropriately” dressed women.

. . . read complete article . . .

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Health of women and children worsens in flood-hit Pakistan

Plan International (UK)  – Rueters AlertNet – Thursday, 19 August, 2010 (originally published 18 Aug)

HEALTH is deteriorating rapidly in flood-hit Pakistan with sickness and infection sweeping through camps sheltering the homeless.

Food is scarce, living conditions cramped and medicine in short supply with women and girls most at risk, aid workers from Plan International report.

Girls and young mothers are bearing the brunt of the poor conditions. “There are not enough sanitary towels while pregnant and lactating mothers have no separate food,” says Ms Jawad.

. . . read complete article . . .
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Not All Working Women Are Equal

Suvendrini Kakuchi – IPS news – Wednesday, 18 August, 2010 (originally published 17 Aug)

Fifty-one year old Miharu juggles two part-time jobs at a law firm and at a design company, but is barely able to make ends meet in one of the world’s richest economies.

In stark contrast to Miharu, who works as an office assistant in her two jobs, is her friend Satoko Kobayashi. A full-time dental assistant and single, the 46-year-old takes home a stable wage and has two annual bonuses that pay for a comfortable lifestyle, one that includes foreign trips and leisure time with her friends.

The stories of Miharu and Kobayashi show not only how Japan’s economic recession has taken a harder toll on women, but has also helped create a social gap between different groups of working women, says Prof Toshiaki Tachibanaki, author of ‘Greater Choice, Greater Inequality’, an analysis of the Japanese economy from the perspective of women.

. . . read complete article . . .

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The European Institute for Gender Equality Officially Opens

Anna Wilkowska-Landowska – RH Realty Check (Eastern Europe) – Tuesday, 17 Aug, 2010 (originally published 16 August)

On 20 June 2010 in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė and Eva-Britt Svensson (Swedish Member of Parliament) officially announced the opening of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE). It is the first EU agency that is based in one of the Baltic States of the European Union.

The European Institute for Gender Equality is a new European Union agency with a special focus on gender equality. It is to support the EU Institutions and Member States in promoting and assisting in realization of gender equality, fighting discrimination based on sex and raising awareness about gender issues. EIGE collects and analyses data on gender issues and develops practical tools, especially to include the perspective and needs of women and men in policy areas, to encourage and exchange best practices and dialogue among interested parties, and to raise awareness on equality between women and men among EU citizens. The European Gender Institute is to form a ‘knowledge centre’ (dealing with research, data collection, technical assistance to policy-makers, dissemination of information), serving the goals of the EU gender policy and should be open to governmental and non-governmental, institutional and non-institutional target groups.

. . . read complete article . . .
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How expectant mothers cope in the workplace

Laws supposedly protect pregnant working women from getting a raw deal, but the reality can be different.

Lucinda Schmidt – The Sidney Morning Herald – Monday, 16 August, 2010

Many women are still worried about how a pregnancy announcement will affect their careers. IMAGE: LOUISE KENNERLEY/The Sydney Morning Herald

Despite women comprising 58 per cent of the workforce (according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics) and rigorous anti-discrimination laws regarding pregnancy and maternity leave (see panel), many women are still worried about how announcing that they’re expecting a baby will affect their careers.

Almost one in five employed women feel they have been discriminated against at work, according to a 2007 University of Melbourne study. Discrimination ranged from negative or offensive comments to being denied promotion or training. The findings echoed a 2005 survey by the ABS, which found that 22 per cent of women with children under two had experienced problems in the workplace because of their pregnancy. These ranged from “inappropriate or negative” comments to more serious issues, such as missing out on a promotion.

Kelly Winder, the creator of Melbourne-based pregnancy website BellyBelly, says many of the posts on her maternity-leave forum show that “we’re still in the Dark Ages.”  .   .

. . . read complete article . . .

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Displaced by floods now reaching southern Pakistan, (women and) families seek shelter and relief

UNICEF – Friday, 13 August, 2010 (originally published 10 Aug)

Noor Jehan (right), with neighbours from her flooded village in Pakistan's Sindh Province, waits to receive news about her husband and brother-in-law, who remained behind to guard their animals and belongings. Image: UNICEF/Raabya

In Sukkur city, one of the province’s largest municipalities, the Government Comprehensive Higher Secondary School has been converted into a relief camp for people displaced by the floods. Tired and expressionless faces at the camp attest to the flood victims’ search for answers to their misery.

Carrying her 15-month-old son in her arms, Noor Jehan, who comes from Unar Goth village in Shikarpur district, is as lost as many others from her community. Still in a state of shock and fatigue, she recalls fleeing from her ancestral village.

“I was tending the goats in the compound when my brother-in-law hurriedly came in and informed us that we had to vacate our house immediately as the river would flood our village by nightfall,” says Ms. Jehan. “It was chaotic. I don’t know how we loaded our meagre belongings onto the donkey cart, got onto it ourselves and set out on the road to Sukkur.”. .

. . . read complete article . . .

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A female “hibakusha” speaks out (Atomic bomb survivor – Nagasaki)

Toshiko Hamamako – IPS news, Gender Masala – Thursday, 12 August, 2010 (originally published 9 Aug)

Thank you for asking me to write about myself. I am happy to share my experiences.
Actually, it is only recently that I have begun to talk about my life as an atomic bomb survivor from Nagasaki. I am now 66 years old but I got the courage to talk to others only about two years ago. Till then I have kept the fact that I am an atomic bomb survivor just within my family.

There are reasons why I have kept silent. The most important reason is fear of stigma and discrimination. For the public there is the image that we are dangerous to others because we are contaminated with radiation. Therefore, my mother never told me I was a survivor. She also never talked about the fact that she was also affected by the bomb and so was my older sister. So I never knew that I was exposed to radiation from the bomb when I was just one year old. I was sleeping when Nagasaki was bombed. . .

. . . read complete editorial . . .
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Sitting in judgement: for men only?

Cassandra Balchin – 50.50 openDemocracy – Wednesday, 11 August, 2010 (originally published 2 Aug)

As the move to appoint women judges in Muslim countries gathers pace, how far is this a guarantee of access to justice for women, especially in family law cases?

Sitting in judgement is something only men can do—or at least that is how legal systems in several Muslim countries have worked until recent legal and social changes. The pace of this change seems to be gathering, such that countries which had previously completely excluded women from an active role in the legal process are now opening their doors, albeit slowly, to women as lawyers and judges.

These changes illustrate some of the challenges women’s rights activists face and the strategies they have used to have their voices heard when religion is presented as the dominant basis of public policy. The question is, though, how far is having women judges and lawyers a sufficient guarantee of access to justice for women, especially in family law cases?

For the first time in Malaysia, two women, Rafidah Abdul Razak, 39, and Surayah Ramlee, 31, have recently been appointed as judges to Syariah Courts. But they are still having to wait for a decision on what cases they will be permitted to hear. . .

<a title=”50.50 openDemocracy – Sitting in judgement: for men only?” href=”http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/cassandra-balchin/sitting-in-judgement-for-men-only” target=”_blank”>. . . read complete editorial . . .
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Sierra Leone’s Model for Improving Maternal Health and Women’s Rights

Mary Robinson – The Huffington Post – Tuesday, 10 August, 2010 (originally published 6 Aug)

Freetown, Sierra Leone — Continuing high rates of maternal mortality and persistent gender-based violence must be addressed through a holistic and rights-based approach that strengthens health systems and empowers women. As we approach the ten-year review of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in September, we have an extraordinary model of leadership to look to in Sierra Leone of how such approaches can be implemented in practice.

My last trip to Sierra Leone was in 1999, when I was serving as UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. At that time, the country was still in the midst of terrible conflict. I returned last week to a nation still struggling to rebuild following more than a decade of civil war. But much has changed, and those changes are nothing short of stunning. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Uzbek State Propaganda Outlets Fight Back on Charges of Forced Sterilization

Catherine A. Fitzpatrick – EurasiaNet (via Choihona) – Monday, 9 August, 2010 (originally published 8 Aug)

In response to increasing international coverage of the problem of forced sterilizations in Uzbekistan, the state-sponsored media is fighting back with a series of propagandistic pieces portraying generous maternal policies in Uzbekistan, claiming the government is promoting maternal health care and reducing the number of abortions.

In a story published July 17 based on reports from human rights groups, victims and health officials, Associated Press said that Uzbek women are accusing the Uzbek state of mass sterilizations. Women reported that they had been pressured to have the procedure ostensibly for health reasons.

In March, EurasiaNet reported on Tashkent’s pursuit of a forced sterilization policy, citing an Uzbek civil society activist who spoke on condition of anonymity, who said increasing numbers of women in rural areas appear to be giving birth at home, due primarily to spreading concerns about forced sterilization in hospitals. Women with three or more children, mainly in rural areas, are being targeted for sterilization procedures, the activist said, saying instructions were given verbally to doctors. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Abuse of women on the rise since start of war, claim critics

US media reports are warning that the plight of Afghan women will worsen at the hands of the Taliban after foreign troops withdraw but critics of the occupation say brutalities against women have actually risen under the US occupation since 2001

Mehdi Chebil – France24 news – Friday, 6 August, 2010 (originally published 1 Aug)

The provocative photo showing the mutilated face of 18-year-old Aisha on this week’s TIME magazine cover with the headline “What Happens If We Leave Afghanistan” illustrates the current plight of Afghan women at the hands of the Taliban.

TIME’s managing editor Richard Stengel wrote that he was acutely aware of the photograph’s shock impact but that he deemed it necessary to “confront readers with the reality” of the Taliban’s brutal treatment of women.

Several writers and bloggers have, however, slammed TIME’s cover headline as pure war propaganda, pointing to the fact that such abuses would likely continue whether foreign troops stay or leave Afghanistan. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Developing More Top African Women Research Scientists

Isaiah Esipisu – IPS news – Thursday – 5 August, 2010 (originally published 2 Aug)

NAIROBI, Aug 2, 2010 (IPS) – In a tiny village near Kisumu city in Kenya, scientific researcher Mary Anyango Oyunga spends most of her time educating women about something they have always done – grow sweet potatoes.

But Oyunga’s message to the female farmers in Kisian village is new, even though it is based on her scientific research findings published in 2009 in the refereed African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development. The research, which revealed that Orange Fleshed Sweet Potatoes (OFSP) were extremely rich in vitamin A, may have been in the scientific domain for a while but until recently the women in Kisian knew nothing about it.

For Oyunga this implementation of her research findings is just as important as conducting the research. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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(US) Bill seeks action to curb brutality against women globally

Lauren French – The Miami Herald (US) – Wednesday, 4 August, 2010 (originally published 2 Aug)

WASHINGTON — Bipartisan legislation that would mandate a comprehensive plan to combat violence against women worldwide is poised for a potential congressional vote, marking tough new action by the United States on a problem that’s commonplace across the globe.

Among other things, the bill would increase U.S. aid to 20 nations that take concrete action to curb brutality against women.

Amnesty International calls violence against women “a human rights violation, a public health epidemic and a barrier to solving global challenges like desperate poverty, HIV/AIDS and conflict.” According to the human rights organization, at least one in every three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused. . .

Hopes are high as the United Nations launches an agency for women

UN’s new agency for women will tackle a range of issues, from education and training, healthcare and workplace discrimination, to inequality in the political arena

Brigitte Perucca – The Guardian – Tuesday, 3 August, 2010

Towards equality ... UN Women is due to start work in January and awaits the appointment of a director. Image: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

A newly established agency called UN Women, devoted entirely to gender equality and the empowerment of women, has raised high hopes while also prompting concern.

“It is a magnificent step in the right direction,” says Paula Donovan, the joint founder of Aids-Free World. “But now words must be put into action.” UN Women needs an adequate budget and workforce, she says, under the leadership of a figure capable of positioning the agency and asserting its authority.

The new panel will be tasked with a huge range of activities, from education and training, to healthcare and battling inequality in the political arena. In the UN pecking order, the agency’s head will have the same standing as heads of other major agencies such as Unicef or the UN Development Programme. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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Brazil’s sex tourism boom

Chris Rogers – BBC News World – Monday, 2 August, 2010 (originally published 30 July)

Love Motels can be hired by the hour. Chris Rogers - Image: BBC News World

Young children are supplying an increasing demand from foreign tourists who travel to Brazil for sex holidays, according to a BBC investigation. Chris Rogers reports on how the country is overtaking Thailand as a destination for sex tourism and on attempts to curb the problem.

Most sex tourists used to head to the city of Fortaleza some 500 miles away.

But not anymore. For the past year, the state capital of Ceara – which also a World Cup host city – has been sending a clear message to sex tourists that they are not welcome. Every week a dozen armed cars and federal police armed with AK-47s sweep through the streets of the red-light district, breaking down the doors of motels and brothels, arresting offenders and taking underage girls into care. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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US hostage in Darfur says conditions desperate

Opheera McDoom – Reuters Africa – Friday, 30 July, 2010 (originally published 28 July)

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – An American woman abducted by armed men in western Sudan more than two months ago said on Tuesday that food and drinking water were scarce and her living conditions had become desperate.

The woman works for the U.S.-based Christian charity Samaritan’s Purse, which has asked that her name be withheld, and is the last foreign captive held in Darfur. Two German men were freed earlier in the day after nearly five weeks in captivity.

“Now I’m camping out in a wadi (dried river bed) with about 20 men,” she told Reuters by satellite phone. “I’m no longer being fed, it’s raining here and there are a couple of tarps (tarpaulins) but we are sleeping in the rain with no clean water — I drink rain water when I can collect it.” . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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My mother’s escape from Khmer Rouge

Sophal Ear – CNN – Thursday, 29 July, 2010 (originally published 26 July)

(CNN) — After four years and more than $100 million spent by the international community, the Khmer Rouge Tribunal rendered its first verdict Monday.

Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced to serve up to 19 more years in prison in what was an open-and-shut case. From the start, Duch, a born-again Christian, fully admitted his leadership role in Phnom Penh’s infamous Tuol Sleng, a school-turned-torture center, where more than 14,000 people were killed.

On this momentous occasion, I’d like to step back by reflecting upon and give voice to one victim of the Khmer Rouge: my late mother, Cam Youk Lim. . .

Editor’s note: Sophal Ear is an assistant professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He is a TED Fellow and author of a forthcoming book on aid dependence and democracy in Cambodia. He spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum 2010.

. . . read Sophal Ear’s complete story about his mother at CNN . . .
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Mitsubishi’s WWII (teenage girls) victims keep fighting

Rick Wallace, Tokyo correspondent – The Australian – Wednesday, 28 July, 2010 (originally published 24 July)

WHEN Makoto Takahashi stumbled across some Korean names in a list of earthquake victims in Nagoya, the history teacher had a hunch he’d latched on to an interesting story.

He didn’t realise it was the start of a mission that would come to dominate his life and see him bring one of Japan’s most famous industrial powerhouses — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — to the brink of making amends for its wartime use of forced labour.

Takahashi’s curiosity about these mystery Koreans, all of whom were teenage girls, led him to unearth a dirty and long-buried secret about his city. He discovered the teenagers were part of a group of 289 Korean girls brought to Japan to labour in Mitsubishi’s aircraft factory. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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Haiti’s Incarcerated Minors (Girls): My Friends, the Children Ask for Freedom

Alice Speri – theWIP – Tuesday, 27 July, 2010 (originally published 23 July)

Outside the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. Image: Alice Speri via theWIP

Eleven-year-old Carmen Suze quarreled with a classmate and ended up in jail. Barely audible, she explains that her friend had lifted her skirt and had been the first to throw a rock. The plastic butterfly hairclips holding her braids together make her look even younger. Suze says that she did not realize how badly she had hit her back. Her father had offered the girl’s parents some money to take her to a hospital, but they did not. Her classmate died eight days later.

Suze is the youngest of 58 minors currently incarcerated in Port-au-Prince’s penitentiaries – held next to adult inmates, with no trial, and in degrading conditions. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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MALAYSIA: Gender Paradox Means Too Few Women Decision-makers

Anil Netto – IPS News – Monday, 26 July, 2010

PENANG, Malaysia, Jul 26, 2010 (IPS) – It is a paradox, all right. Women make up more than half of those who take part in protests and other activities organised by her political party on issues affecting low-income workers, says Rani Rasiah of the Socialist Party of Malaysia.

But when it comes to holding official positions at the party’s local branches, more than half of the officials happen to be men, she observes.

“Maybe the womenfolk feel they have responsibilities at home and are unable to attend regular party meetings and the demands that come with them,” reasons the party’s deputy secretary general. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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Landmark US legislation addresses sexual violence against native women

Amnesty International (US) – Friday, 23 July, 2010

Amnesty International has welcomed groundbreaking legislation in the USA, which addresses the disturbing rates of acts of sexual violence committed with impunity against American Indian and Alaska Native women.

The Tribal Law and Order Act, which was passed by the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, aims to address public safety issues in Indian territories.

“If properly implemented, it will open the door for the US government to address the erosion of tribal authority. In time it will decrease the high levels of rape and finally provide Native women with effective recourse if they are sexually assaulted. In short, this legislation stands to curtail the impunity that allows rapists to prey on Native women like vultures.” (said Larry Cox, executive director for Amnesty International USA). . .

. . . read complete release . . .

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