Women: Leading the Way
Saturday, February 04, 2012   03:21 GMT    
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Political and Economic Turmoil Threaten Women's Progress
By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS - As UN Women celebrated its first birthday, its executive director Michelle Bachelet stressed that political upheveal and shrinking budgets are no excuse to push back the hard-won gains made by the women's movement globally.
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Guatemala Heeds the Cries of Femicide Victims
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY - The relentless wave of femicides in Guatemala, which has one of the highest female murder rates in the world, has prompted actions by the government, civil society groups, and two Nobel Peace laureates to try to put a stop to this brutal violence against women, which has reached horrific proportions.
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BALKANS-SOCIETY
First Abused, Then Imprisoned
By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE - The women languishing in Serbia’s Pozarevac Penal Correctional Institution are victims twice over: survivors of decades of domestic violence, they have been imprisoned for killing their partners and often spend up to 15 years in jail.
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ZAMBIA
Chinese Underage Sex Scandal Sparks Emotive Debate
By Lewis Mwanangombe
LUSAKA - Zhang Daliu, 46, a carpenter from China never imagined himself in the dreadful confines of a stinking and overcrowded Zambian jail where conditions are so terrible that they lead to gastronomic disorders and skin diseases within days of confinement.
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UGANDA
Rural Women’s Banks Ease Tough Times
By Wambi Michael
WAKISO, Uganda - For most Ugandan women, obtaining a commercial loan to start a business has been very difficult. Many do not have the required collateral of land title deeds and many cannot afford the interest rates charged by commercial banks.
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PAKISTAN-INDIA
Women Expose Secret Genital Cutting Rite
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI - "It was a dark and dingy room, where an elderly woman asked me to take off my panties, made me sit on a low wooden stool with my legs parted and then did something…I screamed out in pain," recalls Alefia Mustansir, 40, of her childhood experience.
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U.S.
Forced Marriages Still an Ugly Secret
By Charundi Panagoda
WASHINGTON - Two years ago, 40-year-old Vidya Sri decided to leave the devastating marriage her parents had forced her into nearly two decades ago. Alone for the first time, she began an earnest quest for support groups, women's organisations or service providers who might help her in the healing process.
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Senior Management Heads Roll at World Body
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - As Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon continues his search for a new team of senior managers for his second five-year term in office which began Jan. 1, two more heads have rolled at the world body.
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LEBANON
Could a New Civil Law Unify a Divided Society?
By Mona Alami
BEIRUT - Odette Klysinska, a Catholic French native, sits in her living room in an affluent neighbourhood in Beirut, clutching her will in one hand, shocked to learn that it is no longer legally valid in the country she now calls home.
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JAMAICA
"Mama P" Faces Prejudice, Economic Challenges
Analysis by Zadie Neufville
KINGSTON - Running on promises of job creation, economic growth and wider stakeholder consultations, Jamaica's most popular politician and the country's first female prime minister Portia Simpson Miller swept to power in a victory almost no one had predicted.
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MALAWI
Street Vendors Lose Customers after Stripping Women Naked
By Claire Ngozo
LILONGWE - A campaign to stop people buying merchandise from street vendors is gaining momentum in Malawi’s main cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu after the small-scale traders went on a rampage undressing women and girls wearing trousers, leggings, shorts and mini-skirts.
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U.N. "Outraged" at Sexual Abuse by Peacekeepers in Haiti
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - The Caribbean nation of Haiti, still struggling to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake, is once again trying to cope with the sexual abuse of minors by U.N. peacekeepers - for the third time in five years.
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Half of All Abortions Now Unsafe, Study Finds
By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS - The proportion of abortions deemed unsafe rose from 44 percent in 1995 to almost half (49 percent) in 2008, according to a new study released Thursday.
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MEXICO
Even Educated Young Women Face Poor, Jobless Future
By Guadalupe Cruz Jaimes*
MEXICO CITY - The year 2012 started off with little promise for workers in Mexico, with analysts projecting job losses and wages below subsistence levels.
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Report Exposes "Survival Sex Trade" in Post-Earthquake Haiti
By Kanya D'Almeida
NEW YORK - Eighteen-year-old "Kettlyne", a Haitian orphan living in the rubble-strewn Croix Deprez camp – one of the many remaining tent-cities that houses refugees from the Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake – is unable to feed her three-year-old daughter.
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CANADA
U.N. to Probe Missing and Murdered Native Women
By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours
MONTREAL - As a United Nations committee initiates an inquiry procedure into the alarming number of missing and murdered Native women across Canada, human rights groups are hoping that an on-the- ground investigation by the international body will finally help stem systematic violence against Native women.
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SRI LANKA
Female Unemployment Rises With Education
By Amantha Perera
COLOMBO - Every weekend it has been the same ritual for so many months. Buying the newspaper, going through the classified and the employment sections inch by column inch, marking job offers that could offer a chance, even remotely.
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GUATEMALA
Women Pin Hopes on First-Ever Female Vice President
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY - Women's rights groups are pinning their hopes on Roxana Baldetti, the first woman to be elected vice president of Guatemala, to boost the chances of increased female participation in politics.
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KENYA
Women Set to Make Their Mark in Politics
By Protus Onyango
NAIROBI - The August 2012 elections in Kenya will open doors to massive political participation by women for the first time ever.
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PAKISTAN
Girls Defuse This Taliban Bomb
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR - Suicide bombing is down, bomb attacks are fewer, but the Taliban are keeping up attacks on girls’ schools. In retaliation, a growing number of girls are going for school education – without school buildings.
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MAURITIUS
Women Find a Political Voice, Locally
By Nasseem Ackbarally
PORT-LOUIS - Under a new gender quota law introduced in Mauritius, at least one-third of the candidates in local elections must be women. But the adoption of a national quota is not yet on the horizon, even though just 18 percent of legislators are women and there are only two female cabinet ministers.
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AFGHANISTAN
Catch 'em Young, for Prostitution
By Rebecca Murray
MAZAR-E-SHARIF - Soma was a teenager in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif when her grandfather arranged her marriage to a husband she had never met.
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EGYPT
Islamist Parliament Inevitable ‘But Not Worrying’
By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
CAIRO - Following another Islamist landslide in the second round of legislative polling, Egypt's first post-Mubarak parliament will likely see Islamist parties - especially the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) - calling the shots. While high-profile secular figures warn of looming "theocracy", many local analysts believe an Islamist-led parliament won't make any radical legislative changes.
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JAPAN
New Year Brings Economic Aftershocks
By Suvendrini Kakuchi
AIZUWAKAMASTU, Japan - Hideo Sato, 47, and his family escaped to this snowy city 200 km from the radiation emitting Fuksuhima power plant that was struck by a massive earthquake-driven tsunami on Mar. 11.
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NEPAL
Peace Brings More Violence Against Women
By Sudeshna Sarkar
KATHMANDU - Four months after her murder, you can see Rosy Maharjan flashing the two- finger victory sign - from a Facebook page. With police arresting the 21-year- old’s boyfriend and the people he hired to kill her due to jealousy, agitated civil society members have opened accounts on social networking sites, demanding justice for the slain college student.
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CUBA
Men for Non-Violence
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA - Promoting the first Men for Non-Violence platform is one of the challenges undertaken by a group of social actors who devoted November and December 2011 to the most intensive Cuban campaign ever against gender-based violence.
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AFGHANISTAN
Husband, 60, Wife, 8
By Rebecca Murray
KABUL - Activists voice concern that Afghan women’s rights continue to be marginalised, and nowhere is gender inequality more starkly illustrated than in the country’s flawed justice system.
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Q&A
War Crimes Court Should Strengthen Victims' Participation
Tressia Boukhors interviews BRIGID INDER, Executive Director of Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice
UNITED NATIONS - Most of the cases brought before the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) include gender-based crimes, but advocates say the court is still falling short in ensuring that women play an active role in decision-making and outreach at the highest levels.
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Women's in RSS Half the world's population, but not with half the share of wealth, wellbeing and opportunity. And certainly, women do not get half of media attention, or an equal voice in expression - only 22 percent of the voices you hear and read in the news today are women's. In this set of reports IPS gives women and their issues their fair share of voice; not by way of artificial allowance, but as arising naturally in the news of the day.

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Advancing gender equality means a shift in thinking — from seeing boys and men as part of the problem, to including boys and men as part of the solution. (Credit: Sujoy Dhar/IPS) Dear Editors, Thanks for the story on working with males and females on gender equality. You may also be interested in work that ICRW has [...]
Dispatch from Kibera, East Africa’s Largest Slum
Photo Essay by Aline Cunico (IPS/Aline Cunico) Considered one of the biggest slums in the world, Kibera is Nairobi’s–and East Africa’s–largest urban settlement. Over one million people struggle daily to meet basic needs such as access to water, nutrition and sanitation. In this community lacking education and opportunities, women and girls are most affected by [...]
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Sexual Diversity and Gender Identity
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“We Women Want to Be Heard”
Eva Carroll interviews activist FÁTIMA HERNÁNDEZ MANAGUA, Oct 25, 2011 (IPS) – Fátima Hernández, a young Nicaraguan rape victim who has become a symbol in her country in her fight for justice, is now working to help women in a similar situation, and preparing to take her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. [...]
Tackling Human Rights in Iran Is “Like a Minefield”
Christian Papesch interviews ELISE AUERBACH, Iran country specialist for Amnesty International USA UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21, 2011 (IPS) – The Islamic Republic of Iran has one of the most desperate human rights situations in the world. On Tuesday, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which monitors states’ compliance with their obligations under the International Covenant [...]
Redesigning Urban Landscapes with People at the Centre
José Domingo Guariglia interviews NATÁLIA GARCIA, creator of the project Cidades para Pessoas UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13, 2011 (IPS) – In May 2011, Brazilian journalist Natália Garcia decided to spend one year travelling to different cities around the world to better understand how to make urban landscapes more liveable for inhabitants. She called her project [...]
Africa’s Legislated Civil Society Crackdown
Laura Lopez Gonzalez interviews CIVICUS secretary general, INGRID SRINATH MONTREAL, Canada , Sep 30, 2011 (IPS) – Assassinations, intimidation and disappearances were the manifestations of civil society repression in Africa, but this may be changing as the crackdown on civil society is becoming more formally accepted and increasingly “by the book”, according to Ingrid Srinath, [...]
“Things Are Bound to Change in China”
José Domingo Guariglia interviews advocate for the Uyghur people, REBIYA KADEER UNITED NATIONS, Sep 19, 2011 (IPS) – Before 1999, she was best known as the richest woman in China. Her business empire included a trading firm, real estate investments and a department store, putting her among the top 10 wealthiest individuals in the Asian [...]

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