By Mathilde Bagneres and - -
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 28 2012 (IPS)

Young people aged 15-24 make up a quarter of sexually active individuals, yet they comprise half of new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) infections each year.

Oriana Lopez Uribe, Mexican youth activist for sexual and reproductive health services and information. Credit: Mathilde Bagneres/IPS

At the same time, 75,000 children under the age of 18 lack health insurance and nearly 30,000 people aged 18-24 are uninsured, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Compared to the rest of the industrialised world, American teens are less likely to use contraception and have less access to reproductive health services and sex education. These factors help explain why the U.S. has the highest teen pregnancy rate of the industrialised world.

Oriana Lopez Uribe of Mexico began her activism as a volunteer with Mexfam, the Mexican Planned Parenthood Association, where she developed strategies for sexual and reproductive health services and information for youth.

She is currently a program officer at Balance, which promotes sexual and reproductive health services for young people and women at the national, regional and international levels.

IPS correspondent Mathilde Bagneres spoke with Oriana Lopez Uribe about her commitment to sexual and reproductive rights for young people.

Q: Can you tell me more about your work and about the presentation you gave during the commission on population and development at the United Nations (U.N.)? A: I have been an advocate for sexual and reproductive rights for 13 years.

I came to the U.N. to advocate for sexual and reproductive rights. Later, in two panels related to access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, I spoke about the national experience and some of the barriers that young people have to tackle to access health services.

We still have not a very enabling environment for communicating about sexuality issues with our parents. The obligation for parental consent is a barrier for young people because if your family is not very open to sexuality, then it will be very difficult to tell them that you need to go to sexual and reproductive health services.

Lack of confidentiality is also a big issue. There is a lot of discrimination and especially with young and adolescent girls. If they are not married, everyone expects them not to have sexuality.

Due to all this discrimination, health providers have bad attitudes when young women come to their services. They don’t give them the service, or they lecture them about how they should behave. After such treatment, girls are not coming back.

In Mexico, we have specific laws and norms about giving adolescents access to sexual and reproductive health services. But the health providers don’t know the laws. They don’t know that it is their obligation to provide the service. There is a real need to train and inform those health care providers.

Q: What concrete measures and actions could be taken to promote sexual and reproductive rights for young people? Can you share a successful experience? A: One NGO had a successful experience. They built a program to help rural and indigenous adolescents and young women. Those clinics work in the community – they are not outsiders. People working in the clinics are coming from the community; they are really working within the community.

They also provide a space for young people to express themselves, to dance, to paint; so it is not just about diseases. It is a whole program for youth and not just healing services.

The clinics are also integrated clinics, so you can go there and you can get many services such as STI prevention, contraception. You have everything you need in one place. Even some other health related topics like nutrition, psychological help.

The government supported this program, and it was taken into more and more rural areas and marginalised parts of the country with the same components: lots of participation, community work.

Of course, it still needs to be improved, but I think it is a very good experience because it shows how much youth participation needs to be taken in account to develop policies and for the implementation of those policies, the evaluation, the monitoring and at all levels. Youth participation is crucial.

Q: What is the situation regarding sexual and reproductive rights in Mexico and, more particularly, norms regarding abortion? A: Mexico has different states so it is complicated. In general, in Mexico abortion is against the law, but there are some exceptions.

In every state, if the pregnancy is due to rape, you can have a legal abortion or at least that’s what the law says, or if the woman has gynaecological problems, some health issues, if there is a death risk, she can have an abortion.

In certain states you can also have a legal abortion for economic reasons. In Mexico City, without any reason, you can ask for an abortion during the first trimester.

The law says that if you’re a minor, you don’t have to come with your parents – it can be an adult that you trust. But the reality is that the health providers, to protect themselves, don’t think about the teenager in front of them. They ask for parental consent or a legal guardian’s consent, which makes it really hard for young girls because there is still a lot of stigma and discrimination around abortions. It’s very hard to change that.

The ideal would be to say, “She is the one that knows better.” If that pregnancy is not wanted, we need to start trusting women. They know what’s best for them.

Q: What are the greatest sexual health challenges that young people face nowadays? A: Everyone has to start believing, seeing and acknowledging that adolescents and young people have rights. We need to start giving them the ability to make their own choices. We, young people, are able to make decisions.

There is a lot of negativity surrounding and associated with youth – immaturity, drug use, bad sexuality, promiscuity.

I think it is very disempowering to think that an adolescent is a child. We need to stop protecting young people and start empowering them. We need to make them believe in themselves and boost their self- esteem and their capacity to make choices.

Excerpt:

By Mathilde Bagneres and - -
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 9 2012 (IPS)

As many as seven in 10 women in the world report experiencing physical and/or sexual violence at some point in their lifetime, leaving a devastating aftermath for individuals, communities and nations.

Marai Larasi Credit: Courtesy of Marai Larasi

Access can be especially problematic for women in rural and remote areas, or women belonging to excluded groups or ethnic minorities, indigenous and migrant women, adolescent girls, and those with disabilities or living with HIV/AIDS, among others.

But a growing number of countries are intensifying their efforts to prevent and address violence against women. It is now clearly recognised that a systematic, comprehensive, multi-sectoral and sustained approach is necessary to address both the symptoms and roots of the problem.

Marai Larasi is the director of Imkaan, a UK-based organisation dedicated to challenging violence against black, minorities and refugee women and girls. She is also the co-chair of the countrywide End Violence against Women Coalition.

She took part in the 56th session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which concluded here Friday. Larasi’s work focuses on strategic advocacy and policy development, and her organisation also works on the challenges associated with the prevention of violence against women and girls.

IPS Correspondent Mathilde Bagneres spoke with Larasi about what has been accomplished, and the challenges that lie ahead.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Can you tell me what concrete measures have been taken to help primary prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls? A: To date there have been very few consistent concrete measures taken to help primary prevention of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG). For example, in the UK, prevention has been identified as a key element of the Westminster government’s VAWG narrative.

However, this has not been matched with a systematic approach to prevention. Whilst the government has run awareness-raising campaigns that have been targeted at teenagers, and these have been largely welcomed, there is not a centralised approach to primary prevention in schools.

This, despite a growing consensus that schools are important sites, which support the development of constructive and positive attitudes and behaviours.

In many states, primary prevention has been led by grassroots organisations. Projects have tended to emerge in an ad hoc way and are often restricted by lack of resources and a lack of a supportive policy landscape. This is often creative, innovative and valuable work, which has made a real difference but which is limited in reach.

Q: What are the key areas where new and concrete policy measures and interventions are necessary to strengthen support services for women victims/survivors of violence and primary prevention? A: It is essential that a comprehensive, integrated approach to gender equality, the prevention of VAWG and the provision of support to victims is developed across states.

Such an approach would ensure for example that VAWG is addressed strategically and operationally across all areas of government, including areas such as health, criminal justice, housing and education

It would also ensure that work to address VAWG includes both prevention and support. It is essential that resources for survivors are not diverted into prevention work. What is needed instead is investment in both areas of work.

The expertise – with respect to prevention, support and protection – which has been developed largely in the specialist women’s-led NGO sector is supported, also has to be sustained and replicated.

Such an approach could also ensure that specialist, and women-led independent services for survivors are supported. Schools would also be able to adopt a ‘whole school approach’ to the promotion of gender equality and the prevention of VAWG.

A comprehensive approach would ensure that there is investment in, and facilitation of community mobilisation and also that marginalised groups are supported to provide leadership and to participate equally across all programme areas. Also the sexualisation of girls and women in media, advertising and popular culture would have to be addressed systematically.

Q: What are the main gaps and challenges in primary prevention and how can those be scaled up? A: First of all, the lack of systematic approach to primary prevention, as previously highlighted.

Then there is still a lack of funding for prevention work – this includes all areas of prevention. The focus of VAWG work, particularly given limited resources, has necessarily focussed on support for survivors. New investment is needed which supports primary prevention.

There is also a lack of investment in research and monitoring – resulting in a lack of robust body of evidence which demonstrates the effectiveness of the various approaches to prevention.

Another major challenge is the issue of shifting landscapes – with the emergence of phenomena such as new technology, shifting cultural attitudes and social media, practitioners face different challenges.

For example, work to prevent and address sexual exploitation now often has to take into account how mobile phones, chat sites and social networking spaces are utilised as part of the grooming / exploitation process.

Q: What initiatives are emerging as promising and effective in primary prevention and how can those be scaled up? A: There are a range of initiatives which are emerging as promising and effective. Work in schools can be used to change attitudes and assist early intervention and prevention.

For example, one school programme led by the Ashiana Project in London, which worked to prevent forced marriage, cost only 31,000 pounds and resulted in 95 percent of girls feeling more confident about forming healthy relationships.

The programme also prevented a number of forced marriages from taking place, while delivering a range of other positive outcomes for students and staff.

Work in communities helps to facilitate change, leadership and community ownership of programmes. Uganda-based Raising Voices has been widely recognised as a leader in primary prevention work, using a multi-layered approach which includes raising awareness and action integration to ensure effective community mobilisation.

Work which engages men and boys in challenging attitudes, and preventing VAWG, provides men with the opportunity to take responsibility for addressing VAWG. The award-winning Bell Bajao project provides an excellent example of such engagement.

Excerpt:

By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 2 2012 (IPS)

In 2008, delegates meeting for the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) agreed that much greater investments in women and gender equality were a critical – and overlooked – aspect of sustainable development.

For example, according to UN Women, while the international community gave 7.5 billion dollars in official development assistance to rural development and the agricultural sector in 2008–2009, a mere three percent was spent on programmes in which gender equality was a principal objective, and only 32 percent to those in which gender equality was a secondary objective.

Four years later, there has been some forward movement in a number of countries, but in many others, progress remains slow and uneven, a situation that is exacerbated by the ongoing global financial crisis.

Rural women continue to face limited access to productive resources, such as agricultural inputs and technology; only five percent of agricultural extension services are provided for women farmers.

As the CSW meets again here from Feb 27 to Mar. 9, panellists from around the world sat down Thursday to evaluate the evolution of financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment in their home countries, and chart a way forward.

“It’s time to promote gender equality and for that purpose we need a change of paradigm, we definitely need to change our way of thinking,” said Maria Almeida, vice finance minister of Ecuador.

Cambodia

Dr. Ing Phavi, minister of women’s affairs in Cambodia, cited a series of measures taken by the Cambodian government that have proved successful in enhancing gender equality across different areas.

“In Cambodia, in the context of a public administration reform, the prime minister has launched a major drive in 2008 to address the gender imbalance in the public administration,” she said.

As a result of extensive promotion across ministries and affirmative action policies, the number of female civil servants increased by 34 percent. At the sub-national level, more women were appointed as deputy governors or heads of government departments.

“In education, gender disparity has been eliminated in the primary and lower secondary education,” she noted. “Remarkably, with the focus on training and deploying female teachers, the female ratio at the primary level reached 46 percent in 2009/2010.”

However, fewer girls than boys continue on to get a higher education.

Asked what more needs to be done, Phavi told IPS, “The most important thing to understand is that gender equality is a government policy and it has to mainstream the poverty reduction strategy.

“Poverty reduction means taking care of growth, trade, agriculture development, well-being in terms of health, education and so on,” she said. “Gender is already inside all sectors so it should be part of the poverty reduction strategy.”

Morocco

Mohammed Chafiki, director of studies and financial forecasts for the ministry of economy and finance in Morocco, spoke about Morocco’s transition to equal rights and liberties for men and women.

In April 2011, the country ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a key instrument often described as an international bill of rights for women.

Morocco also adopted a new constitution in July that included many articles which expressly enshrined gender equality. For example, Article 19 affirms that men and women have equal civil, political, economic, cultural and environmental rights and liberties.

“In Morocco, we now need to continue the institutional reform. We are reforming our financial laws so it integrates gender considerations irreversibly,” Chafiki told IPS.

“But in order to move forward with gender equality, it is not all about the government. Local communities will also have to take concrete actions,” he said.

“To finance gender equality and women empowerment, we also need partnerships. We need partnerships with the private sector, with NGOs, with governments, of course, and we need international cooperation.”

Chafiki cited significant progress in reducing educational disparities as one of the country’s primary achievements.

“In 2010/2011, 96.3 percent of the girls from six to 11 years old are sent to school,” he said.

Austria

Gerhard Steger, director general of budget for the ministry of finance in Austria, explained how the government now integrates gender considerations into budgets.

The concept of gender responsive budgeting (GRB) was included in a comprehensive budget reform package that was unanimously adopted by parliament. It features a medium-term expenditure framework, accrual budgeting and accounting and performance budgeting.

“First of all, we transformed our budget from a traditional steering instrument of resources, asking the question ‘who gets what?’, into a comprehensive instrument for resources and results,” Steger told IPS.

“So we ask two questions: who gets what, and who has to deliver what for public management,” he added.

“We ask each and every ministry to define no more than five top objectives for the ministry, which are part of the budget decision in parliament, and at least one of those objectives has to be a gender objective.

“Gender is directly interpreted into the performance budgeting process in Austria. Therefore every ministry has to contribute – with no exceptions.”

Steger stressed crucial lessons that can be drawn from the Austrian experience.

“To make GRB a success, the design needs to be simple and focused on the most important aspects. If the design is too complex, GRB will very likely be a failure,” he said.

“We also have to make gender relevant and thus integrate it into the budget and to create awareness for gender issues to convince decision makers to support GRB.”

While national governments must take the lead, key agencies like UN Women are also working hard to steer funds into gender-oriented development.

On Thursday, UN Women announced it will give out 10.5 million dollars in grants to organisations working to advance economic and political empowerment of women in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.

The grants will start at 200,000 dollars for initiatives that “make tangible improvements in the lives of women and girls, from enabling women candidates to run for office, to managing resources to support themselves and their families.”

“At this moment of historic change, we cannot afford to leave women out. These grants will advance women’s efforts to achieve greater economic and political equality during this time of transition,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director for UN Women.

Since its creation in 2009, the Fund has invested a total of 43 million dollars in 40 countries around the world for projects working for gender equality.

Excerpt:

In 2008, delegates meeting for the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) agreed that much greater investments in women and gender equality were a critical – and overlooked – aspect of sustainable development.

For example, according to UN Women, while the international community gave 7.5 billion dollars in official development assistance to rural development and the agricultural sector in 2008–2009, a mere three percent was spent on programmes in which gender equality was a principal objective, and only 32 percent to those in which gender equality was a secondary objective.

Four years later, there has been some forward movement in a number of countries, but in many others, progress remains slow and uneven, a situation that is exacerbated by the ongoing global financial crisis.

Rural women continue to face limited access to productive resources, such as agricultural inputs and technology; only five percent of agricultural extension services are provided for women farmers.

As the CSW meets again here from Feb 27 to Mar. 9, panellists from around the world sat down Thursday to evaluate the evolution of financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment in their home countries, and chart a way forward.

“It’s time to promote gender equality and for that purpose we need a change of paradigm, we definitely need to change our way of thinking,” said Maria Almeida, vice finance minister of Ecuador.

Cambodia

Dr. Ing Phavi, minister of women’s affairs in Cambodia, cited a series of measures taken by the Cambodian government that have proved successful in enhancing gender equality across different areas.

“In Cambodia, in the context of a public administration reform, the prime minister has launched a major drive in 2008 to address the gender imbalance in the public administration,” she said.

As a result of extensive promotion across ministries and affirmative action policies, the number of female civil servants increased by 34 percent. At the sub-national level, more women were appointed as deputy governors or heads of government departments.

“In education, gender disparity has been eliminated in the primary and lower secondary education,” she noted. “Remarkably, with the focus on training and deploying female teachers, the female ratio at the primary level reached 46 percent in 2009/2010.”

However, fewer girls than boys continue on to get a higher education.

Asked what more needs to be done, Phavi told IPS, “The most important thing to understand is that gender equality is a government policy and it has to mainstream the poverty reduction strategy.

“Poverty reduction means taking care of growth, trade, agriculture development, well-being in terms of health, education and so on,” she said. “Gender is already inside all sectors so it should be part of the poverty reduction strategy.”

Morocco

Mohammed Chafiki, director of studies and financial forecasts for the ministry of economy and finance in Morocco, spoke about Morocco’s transition to equal rights and liberties for men and women.

In April 2011, the country ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), a key instrument often described as an international bill of rights for women.

Morocco also adopted a new constitution in July that included many articles which expressly enshrined gender equality. For example, Article 19 affirms that men and women have equal civil, political, economic, cultural and environmental rights and liberties.

“In Morocco, we now need to continue the institutional reform. We are reforming our financial laws so it integrates gender considerations irreversibly,” Chafiki told IPS.

“But in order to move forward with gender equality, it is not all about the government. Local communities will also have to take concrete actions,” he said.

“To finance gender equality and women empowerment, we also need partnerships. We need partnerships with the private sector, with NGOs, with governments, of course, and we need international cooperation.”

Chafiki cited significant progress in reducing educational disparities as one of the country’s primary achievements.

“In 2010/2011, 96.3 percent of the girls from six to 11 years old are sent to school,” he said.

Austria

Gerhard Steger, director general of budget for the ministry of finance in Austria, explained how the government now integrates gender considerations into budgets.

The concept of gender responsive budgeting (GRB) was included in a comprehensive budget reform package that was unanimously adopted by parliament. It features a medium-term expenditure framework, accrual budgeting and accounting and performance budgeting.

“First of all, we transformed our budget from a traditional steering instrument of resources, asking the question ‘who gets what?’, into a comprehensive instrument for resources and results,” Steger told IPS.

“So we ask two questions: who gets what, and who has to deliver what for public management,” he added.

“We ask each and every ministry to define no more than five top objectives for the ministry, which are part of the budget decision in parliament, and at least one of those objectives has to be a gender objective.

“Gender is directly interpreted into the performance budgeting process in Austria. Therefore every ministry has to contribute – with no exceptions.”

Steger stressed crucial lessons that can be drawn from the Austrian experience.

“To make GRB a success, the design needs to be simple and focused on the most important aspects. If the design is too complex, GRB will very likely be a failure,” he said.

“We also have to make gender relevant and thus integrate it into the budget and to create awareness for gender issues to convince decision makers to support GRB.”

While national governments must take the lead, key agencies like UN Women are also working hard to steer funds into gender-oriented development.

On Thursday, UN Women announced it will give out 10.5 million dollars in grants to organisations working to advance economic and political empowerment of women in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Europe and Central Asia.

The grants will start at 200,000 dollars for initiatives that “make tangible improvements in the lives of women and girls, from enabling women candidates to run for office, to managing resources to support themselves and their families.”

“At this moment of historic change, we cannot afford to leave women out. These grants will advance women’s efforts to achieve greater economic and political equality during this time of transition,” said Michelle Bachelet, executive director for UN Women.

Since its creation in 2009, the Fund has invested a total of 43 million dollars in 40 countries around the world for projects working for gender equality.

(END)

By Mathilde Bagneres and - -
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 29 2012 (IPS)

Violence, torture and other forms of cruel treatment are on the rise for women in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Lilly Be'Soer, founder of Voice for Change, a non-governmental organisation for women's rights in Papua New Guinea. Credit: Mathilde Bagneres/ IPS

In 2010, Be’Soer was awarded a Pacific Human Rights Defenders Award. Most recently, she has helped negotiate a peace agreement to resettle 500 internally displaced families.

IPS correspondent Mathilde Bagneres spoke with Be’Soer about her experiences, the situation of women in Papua New Guinea and the role of Voice for Change. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What is the main purpose of Voice for Change? What is it achieving on the ground for Papua New Guinea’s women? My own experience made me understand that there are many women who are facing the problems that I faced. Many of them are displaced, resettled or survivors of violence in PNG. We set up this organisation, this network, to support women who are facing those problems.

Over the past four years, Voice for Change leaders have responded by forming an organisation that runs two main programs: Promoting and Protecting Women’s Human Rights and Economic Empowerment of Women.

Because of tribal conflicts, thousands of people are internally displaced in PNG. One of our main works is to try to mediate and intervene during confrontations, tribal conflicts and wars to come to a peaceful resolution.

We also work on women’s economic recovery. Women who have been internally displaced, the widows, survivors or victims of violence, need support, and need to be economically empowered.

Voice for Change is providing opportunity for those women to access cash from the organisation’s loans and credit project so that they can engage in income generating activities to support their family, send their children to school, pay for school fees or improve their house.

One of the most promising new ideas to is to unite women market vendors in a mass association, to give them voice in visioning, planning, budgeting and managing the markets, which are their mains site of income earning.

Q: How did you and Voice for Change facilitate mediation in tribal conflicts and wars in your country? Being a woman and a woman right defender is really challenging in the society I come from. I had to make a lot of sacrifices, in terms of money, for example. I have to be present in every social obligation; I have to be part of what the community is doing.

I have to do certain things to earn that recognition, so they can allow me and give me the space to be able to fill roles that are traditionally endorsed by men.

Women in conflict-affected highlands societies are in dire need of financial support to engage in economic activity to generate income to meet their family’s basic needs and to seek justice.

Since 2009, Voice for Change has been involved in assisting about 500 families who were displaced as a result of a tribal war. For years, women were internally displaced and they had no place to grow food and no way of supporting themselves and their families.

We have successfully, in the last six months, led the pre-mediation consultations and now we have come to peace reconciliation by both tribes.

Now we are working on resettling those women and their families back to their land, so they can start a normal life again.

Q: You are taking part in the CSW’s 56th session as a member of the panel about “Governance and institutions for the empowerment of rural women”. What concrete measures do you think Papua New Guinea’s government should take to empower women? Since independence in 1975, state legislative, administrative and judicial systems in the largely unexplored highlands region were still very weak, inadequate, neglected and under-resourced.

The government of Papua New Guinea hasn’t been really supporting the rural women. And in terms of gender-based violence, the fact that women are abused is an accepted norm.

A husband can hit his wife in the public place and nobody will support the woman. Women, as a result of polygamist relationships, are fighting against each other and are sometimes killing each other.

One of the bigger problems we also have is women who are tortured, killed, burned alive, because they are blamed for sorcery. And there’s nothing the government has done about it.

The government of Papua New Guinea has signed many international conventions, and treaties to promote the safety of women in the country but it’s not doing the job. It is not honouring its commitment to protect women. The government has neglected rural women.

The CSW has been on every year. This is my first time here, and it would be really interesting for me to know if the United Nations can make a government honour its commitment to support women on the ground.

In PNG, the government signed the declaration to end violence against women and all forms of discrimination against women. It also signed the Security Council’s resolution 1325 for women in armed conflicts.

Everything is signed, but the government is not making its commitment. The U.N. should ensure that governments honour their commitments. And meanwhile, 60 to 90 percent of women are currently victims of sexual or gender based violence in PNG.

Excerpt:

By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 29 2012 (IPS)

Violence, torture and other forms of cruel treatment are on the rise for women in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.

Lilly Be'Soer, founder of Voice for Change, a non-governmental organisation for women's rights in Papua New Guinea. Credit: Mathilde Bagneres/IPS

The highlands women of Papua New Guinea (PNG) experience the most frequent and severe forms of violence, according to two studies. The violence is linked to extreme cultural traditions that discriminate against women and girls, such as polygamy, forced marriages, sorcery, witch-hunting and extra-judicial killings. But at least one woman is fighting back in Papua New Guinea. Lilly Be’Soer, who was once a victim of tribal conflict and has been in a polygamous marriage, founded Voice for Change, a women’s rights non-governmental organisation (NGO).

In 2010, Be’Soer was awarded a Pacific Human Rights Defenders Award. Most recently, she has helped negotiate a peace agreement to resettle 500 internally displaced families.

IPS correspondent Mathilde Bagneres spoke with Be’Soer about her experiences, the situation of women in Papua New Guinea and the role of Voice for Change. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What is the main purpose of Voice for Change? What is it achieving on the ground for Papua New Guinea’s women? 

My own experience made me understand that there are many women who are facing the problems that I faced. Many of them are displaced, resettled or survivors of violence in PNG. We set up this organisation, this network, to support women who are facing those problems.

Over the past four years, Voice for Change leaders have responded by forming an organisation that runs two main programs: Promoting and Protecting Women’s Human Rights and Economic Empowerment of Women.

Because of tribal conflicts, thousands of people are internally displaced in PNG. One of our main works is to try to mediate and intervene during confrontations, tribal conflicts and wars to come to a peaceful resolution.

We also work on women’s economic recovery. Women who have been internally displaced, the widows, survivors or victims of violence, need support, and need to be economically empowered.

Voice for Change is providing opportunity for those women to access cash from the organisation’s loans and credit project so that they can engage in income generating activities to support their family, send their children to school, pay for school fees or improve their house.

One of the most promising new ideas to is to unite women market vendors in a mass association, to give them voice in visioning, planning, budgeting and managing the markets, which are their mains site of income earning.

Q: How did you and Voice for Change facilitate mediation in tribal conflicts and wars in your country? 

Being a woman and a women’s rights defender is really challenging in the society I come from. I had to make a lot of sacrifices, in terms of money, for example. I have to be present in every social obligation; I have to be part of what the community is doing.

I have to do certain things to earn that recognition, so they can allow me and give me the space to be able to fill roles that are traditionally endorsed by men.

Women in conflict-affected highlands societies are in dire need of financial support to engage in economic activity to generate income to meet their family’s basic needs and to seek justice.

Since 2009, Voice for Change has been involved in assisting about 500 families who were displaced as a result of a tribal war. For years, women were internally displaced and they had no place to grow food and no way of supporting themselves and their families.

We have successfully, in the last six months, led the pre-mediation consultations and now we have come to peace reconciliation by both tribes.

Now we are working on resettling those women and their families back to their land, so they can start a normal life again.

Q: You are taking part in the CSW’s 56th session as a member of the panel about “Governance and institutions for the empowerment of rural women”. What concrete measures do you think Papua New Guinea’s government should take to empower women? 

Since independence in 1975, state legislative, administrative and judicial systems in the largely unexplored highlands region were still very weak, inadequate, neglected and under-resourced.

The government of Papua New Guinea hasn’t been really supporting the rural women. And in terms of gender-based violence, the fact that women are abused is an accepted norm.

A husband can hit his wife in the public place and nobody will support the woman. Women, as a result of polygamist relationships, are fighting against each other and are sometimes killing each other.

One of the bigger problems we also have is women who are tortured, killed, burned alive, because they are blamed for sorcery. And there’s nothing the government has done about it.

The government of Papua New Guinea has signed many international conventions, and treaties to promote the safety of women in the country but it’s not doing the job. It is not honouring its commitment to protect women. The government has neglected rural women.

The CSW has been on every year. This is my first time here, and it would be really interesting for me to know if the United Nations can make a government honour its commitment to support women on the ground.

In PNG, the government signed the declaration to end violence against women and all forms of discrimination against women. It also signed the Security Council’s resolution 1325 for women in armed conflicts.

Everything is signed, but the government is not making its commitment. The U.N. should ensure that governments honour their commitments. And meanwhile, 60 to 90 percent of women are currently victims of sexual or gender based violence in PNG.

(END)

Excerpt:

By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 22 2012 (IPS)

The phrase “financing for gender equality” may sound dry, but it lies at the heart of some of the most intractable problems faced by women around the world today – and whether the political will exists to allocate real resources to solving them or simply pay lip service.

Beginning next week, from Feb. 27 to Mar. 9, ministers and civil society delegates will meet at the United Nations for the 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

This year’s meeting is especially critical because it will assess how governments have made good on promises at the 52nd session in 2008 to boost financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Stephanie Seguino. Credit: Courtesy of Stephanie Seguino

The topic covers everything from broader macroeconomic policies, to public finance and gender responsive budgeting, the mobilisation of international resources and aid, and finding new and innovative sources of funding.

Stephanie Seguino, an economics professor at the University of Vermont in the United States, will take part in the CSW discussions as a member of a panel on “national experiences in implementing the agreed conclusions of CSW 2008”.

IPS Correspondent Mathilde Bagneres talked with Seguino about how women are particularly affected by the current economic crisis, and the role of government in crafting policies that promote not only women’s equality but sustainable development for society as a whole. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Low wages and underemployment of women have been a persistent problem around the world, long before the latest financial crisis. How can financing for gender equality address these issues?

A: Some of the problems of women’s lower wages and underemployment can be addressed through gender-aware targeting of public expenditures as well as anti-discrimination policies. Clearly, policies to promote girls’ education, including publicly funded education, are key.

However, more than that, policies to reduce women’s care burden and policies to promote men’s participation in unpaid caring labour – such as paternity leave – free up women’s time to engage in paid work.

Also, public investment in infrastructure that improves women’s access to health care – rural health clinics, skilled health personnel – and reduces the time they spend fetching water and fuel, or moving goods to market helps them engage in productive activities.

Training programmes that target women, especially for non-traditional “male” jobs, are important. In agricultural economies, governments can offer loan guarantees where women lack title to land in order to leverage their access to credit.

(But) even these steps will be insufficient to undermine pay inequality. Governments need to assertively develop and enforce anti-discrimination legislation, AND affirmative action programmes. Governments can serve as role models by ensuring that some minimum level of leadership positions is filled by women – 30 percent or more.

Q: The 2008 CSW Declaration expressed concern about “the growing feminisation of poverty”. Is this a trend that is likely to continue in the near future?

A: The forces of globalisation continue to push down the wages of workers, and result in a squeeze on public sector budgets (because of the declining corporate tax burden and reductions in tariff revenues).

As a result, women are likely to fare poorly, especially in the context of high unemployment. This is because men tend to be seen as more deserving of jobs when jobs are scarce.

Until we resolve these negative macroeconomic pressures that result in slow growth, job shortages, and growing inequality, it will be difficult to resolve the problem of women’s poverty and that of the children they care for.

Q: You have written that “This crisis provides the opportunity to rethink the role of government in the economy”. Can you briefly elaborate on that idea?

A: This crisis has its roots in the global deregulation of economies, leading to market failures, the growth of inequality, along with increased economic insecurity.

Firms have pursued profits often at the expense of broadly shared well-being. This is not to condemn corporations for their behaviour. Firms seek to maximise their profits in the context of societal rules that regulate their actions.

This poses two challenges for governments. First, they must identify and enforce a set of rules and regulations that are sufficiently flexible to permit firms to innovate while also requiring firms to align their profit motives with social well-being. To give an example, firms try to reduce their costs to raise profits.

They can do this by lowering wages or by innovating and thus raising their productivity. Their choice about which path to cost reduction to take will depend on the set of incentives that governments set.

If a government sets and enforces a minimum wage, firms will be constrained to innovate as a way to compete, which is a good thing for the firm, workers, and society as a whole.

Second, governments have an important role to play in investing in key areas to “crowd in” private investment. For example, investment in infrastructure and education is good for business because it reduces their costs. It is also good for citizens as a whole. The challenge is to carefully target those expenditures so that they do succeed in stimulating business investment that leads to higher incomes.

A related challenge is to identify gender-enabling investments. As I noted above, some public spending that had previously been thought of as social welfare is in reality social infrastructure investment – e.g., education, health, and conditional cash transfer programmes.

They are investments because they improve the productive capacity of the economy, yielding a stream of benefits into the future, which can be used to pay down the debt incurred to finance these expenditures.

The concept of social infrastructure is not well developed. It is an important one, and is an important avenue for promoting gender equality in ways that are financially sustainable.

Excerpt:

UNITED NATIONS – The number of journalists imprisoned worldwide reached a 15-year high in 2011, driven by repressive states seeking to choke the flow of information.

Repressive governments, militants and criminal groups across the globe are leveraging both new and traditional tactics to control information, according to “Attacks on the Press”, a yearly survey released today by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Their aim is to obscure wrongdoing, silence dissent and reduce citizens’ power, the report also said.

CPJ had identified 179 writers, editors and photojournalists behind bars on December 1, 2012, up 34 from 2010, according to CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon.

With 42 journalists in jail, Iran had the most imprisoned journalists for the second consecutive year.  Next was Eritrea with 28, followed by China (27), Burma (12) and Vietnam (9).

“In Iran the situation has worsened with continuous media repression this month (February) following ten new arrests of journalists in January documented by CPJ,” Simon told IPS.

“The government has also restricted adversarial reporting by using sophisticated technology to block websites,” he said, by “jamming satellite signals and banning publications”.

In the Americas, although authorities continue to detain journalists on a short-term basis, not a single journalist was in jail for work-related reasons on December 1, 2012.

Imprisonments also continued to decline gradually in Europe and Central Asia, where only eight journalists were jailed, the lowest tally in six years.

Nevertheless, the 2011 census found an alarming rise in the number of journalists held without charge or due process. 65 journalists, accounting for more than a third of those in prison worldwide, were being held without any publicly disclosed charge, many of them in secret prisons without access to lawyers or family members.

In some instances, governments such as those in Eritrea, Syria and Gambia have denied the very existence of these jailed journalists.

CPJ research also shows the impunity rate across the world remains stubbornly high, hovering just below 90 percent, and largely unchanged over the past five years.

In Libya, where CPJ recorded a single media fatality between 1992 and 2010, five journalists were killed in 2011. Syria and Tunisia both saw their first media fatality since CPJ began keeping detailed records in 1992.

In Bahrain, two journalists died in custody from what the government called medical complications, although there were widespread allegations that the two had been tortured.

By 2011, about 40 percent of media fatalities came during coverage of street demonstrations, many during the series of popular uprisings that swept the Arab world.

“Journalists, particularly independent journalists, bloggers and ‘citizen’ journalists played a huge role in the Arab uprising,” Rober Mahoney, CPJ’s deputy director, told IPS.

“They harnessed the power of social media and embraced new technology to broadcast news and information that only a few years earlier would have been impossible to report let alone publish. Some were detained and harassed for their work; others paid with their lives.”

“The authorities, for example in Egypt, tried to staunch the flood of news and images pouring out of Tahrir Square by shutting down mobile phone service and at one point hitting the ‘kill switch’ for the entire Egyptian Internet. But news kept flowing,” Mahoney added.

“Reporting played an important role too in the Libyan conflict, but there the cost in terms of journalists’ lives was high, with at least five journalists killed in 2011.”

In Syria, the regime enforced an effective media blackout in March 2011, banning international journalists from reporting or entering the country and detaining local journalists who tried to cover protests seeking an end to Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

In November 2011, cameraman Ferzat Jarban was the first journalist to be killed in Syria in connection with his work since CPJ began keeping detailed records in 1992.

“Journalists in Syria are in tremendous danger because independent reporting and analysis is the last thing the government in Damascus wants,” Mahoney told IPS.

The Syrian government has denied most foreign reporters access to the country, and those allowed in are heavily restricted.

“Those who want to do their own first hand reporting have either had to slip their Syrian minders (and that is difficult and dangerous for their sources) or sneak into the country, often from Turkey. Crossing the border clandestinely is extremely hazardous. If you are caught by a Syrian patrol it’s game over.”

“Those bearing the brunt of the Syrian crackdown on the press are local journalists. They are the ones who provide foreign journalists with their news and access,” Mahoney added.

Just last week, 14 journalists, bloggers and press freedom activists with the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression were arrested, and in the past year, six journalists have been killed, with many more fleeing the country.

(END)

When images of North London’s gutted and burning buildings, broken shop windows and refuse-lined streets appeared on TV screens and front-page headlines during the four-day Tottenham riots last August, many dismissed the damage as the work of “hoodlums” and “delinquents”.

Young protesters in Yemen. Credit: Yazeed Kamaldien/IPS

What most media failed to mention – and continues to ignore – is that riots such as those that wracked England from Aug. 6-10 sprang largely from a deeper problem: a global youth unemployment epidemic that has left millions of young people jobless, excluded and increasingly frustrated.

According to the World Youth Report released Monday by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), worldwide youth participation in the labour force has been in relatively sharp decline, slipping from 54.7 percent in 1998 to just 50.8 percent a decade later.

The year 2009 saw the highest level of youth unemployment on record since the International Labour Organisation began collecting such data almost 20 years ago, with 75.8 million young job seekers without gainful employment.

In 2010, the global youth unemployment rate was 12.7 percent, dramatically overshadowing the adult unemployment rate of 4.8 percent.

The combined burden of a youth bulge and shrinking job market falls most heavily on the developing world, which is home to 87 percent of the world’s youth, most of whom are often underemployed or working in the informal economy under poor conditions.

Today, about 152 million young workers live in households that are below the poverty line of 1.25 dollars a day, comprising 24 percent of the total working poor. For these young people – often heads of households – unemployment is more than a “social ill”; it is a matter of life and death.

Two-thirds of the Arab world is under the age of 30. A third of Africa’s total population (roughly 331 million people) is between the ages of 15-25. Since 40 percent of Africa’s population is under 15 years of age, this number will increase significantly in the coming decade.

Meanwhile 62 percent of the world’s 1.2 billion youth live in Asian countries where at least a third of the population exists on less than two dollars a day.

The report relied heavily on inputs from over 1,100 youth leaders and organisers across the world who were invited to share their opinions on the labour market and their prospects within it via an online consultation form.

“A keen observation of the massive rallies and demonstrations during 2011 clearly shows a lot of similarities, not only of the social media and web tools (used) to mobilise millions of dissidents but of the common goals and frustrations that erupted those rallies in Tahrir Square, Wall Street, London, Chile, Spain, and so many cities all over the world,” 28-year-old Emad Karim, a youth contributor to the report and a senior programme specialist at the Etijah youth and development consultancy institute in Cairo, told IPS.

“We are witnessing a new young generation – more well-informed, closely connected, and globally inspired than their parents and those in power. This generation can no longer be easily taken to war, bear even a soft dictator or accept racism. They are calling for an entire restructure of our social, economical, political, and educational policies and organisations to respond to their bigger aspirations and passions.”

It should come as no surprise that these very “passions” fired the ongoing Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa. But a closer look at unemployment trends in the region raises the question of why the uprising took so long to come.

The total youth unemployment rate in 2010 was 25.5 percent in the Middle East and 23.8 percent in North Africa. Female youth employment in these regions was particularly striking, at 39.4 and 34.1 percent, respectively.

Highlighting the fact that unemployment does not stem solely from poor education, the report noted that the developed world plays host to scores of jobless youth, many of whom are considered the “educated unemployed”.

Nor is joblessness simply an offshoot of under-development, limited exclusively to the third world. Europe too is rife with it.

Eurostat estimates that youth unemployment is a staggering 48.7 percent in Spain, 47.2 percent in Greece and 35.6 percent in Slovakia.

“Learning institutions should focus more on technical skills than just theory so that us young people acquire (practical) knowledge,” Ayshah Maende, a 27-year-old Kenyan participant in the e-discussion, told IPS.

Addressing a press conference in Washington DC last summer, Ali Babacan, Turkey’s deputy prime minister, illustrated a successful example of Maende’s recommendations.

“In 2002, three percent of Turkey’s population was living on two dollars a day or less. By 2011, that number was down to 0.2 percent of the population, with the Gini coefficient (the measure of a country’s gap between the richest and poorest people) constantly on the decline.”

Babacan pointed out that Turkey’s system of state-subsidised apprenticeships for students leaving educational institutions shift the financial burden off employers, while simultaneously providing a safety net for youth entering the job market.

Though the report called for better communication between youth and the private sector, many believe that nothing short of an overhaul of the existing system could work.

“In Egypt, after the 2011 revolution and a year of sacrifice, with the death and permanent injuries toll increasing every day, the frustration is much higher with less jobs and more injustice,” Karim added.

“Young Egyptians rebelled against an oppressively corrupt regime that violated their rights in the name of democracy and human rights. Now, they are facing a newly elected old style leadership that…does not reflect their actual needs as the majority of the population.”

“If (major changes) don’t happen soon we are risking an intergenerational conflict that will not appear as a conflict between parents and their young children but will appear in the form of reconsidering (all) the old notions of our entire economic, healthcare, education, security, justice, media, culture, and environmental system,” he stressed.

Indeed many economists have echoed the claim that the old neoliberal paradigm of “economic growth” – represented by better education, more jobs and higher GDP growth – will not solve the jobs crisis.

“People will rebel against inequalities even if (their countries) are supposedly experiencing ‘decent economic growth’, as was the case in Tunisia,” Omar Dahi, professor of economics at Hampshire College, told IPS.

“Neoliberal globalisation, with its trinity of liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation, has not delivered, and instead has exposed the most vulnerable populations to the vagaries of international markets and rising commodity prices, while making countries more and more desperate for attracting foreign investment,” Dahi said.

“Economic growth, even when it can be achieved through the private sector, is meaningless if it comes without meaningful social inclusion,” he added.

*Mathilde Bagneres reported from the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Excerpt:

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.

Executive Director of UN Women Michelle Bachelet Credit:

“My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push for women’s economic empowerment and political participation,” Bachelet said at UN Women’s one-year anniversary press conference Thursday.

Formally known as the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting women and girls’ needs worldwide. Created by the U.N. General Assembly in July 2010, it became operational on Jan. 1, 2011.

Its six priorities are advancing women’s political participation and leadership; improving women’s economic empowerment; ending violence against women and girls; expanding the role of women in peace talks, peace building, and recovery; making budgets and plans benefit women and men equally; and increasing coordination and accountability across the U.N. system for gender equality.

“At this moment of historic change, we cannot afford to leave women out. Women’s full and equal participation in the political arena is fundamental to democracy and justice, which people are demanding,” Bachelet said.

“Without women, we cannot have a healthy economy. Yet today more than 800 million women lack the education, training, and opportunities to participate fully in economic life,” she added.

Bachelet cited examples of UN Women’s achievements on the ground: “In Liberia, women set up justice brigades and now the level of violence is lower and more perpetrators have been brought to justice.

“More than 250 women in Africa and Asia were trained to be mediators in conflict prevention, and peacekeepers were trained pre-deployment to prevent and respond to sexual violence. In Rwanda, gender budgeting is now used, more money is devoted to women’s health and maternal mortality has declined.

“Obviously, this is not something that UN Women can do alone. Equality depends on global mobilisation, the support of decision- makers, the voice of the media, and a concerted effort by the entire U.N. system and other development partners.”

In 2011, contributions to UN Women totaled 235 million dollars, representing a 33-percent increase from 2010 thanks to a wider donor base.

“However, we need more,” Bachelet stressed, if the target of 700 million dollars for 2012 through 2013 is to be met.

“Today I call for stronger commitment for women’s empowerment and gender equality. During this time of austerity and uncertainty, we cannot let budget cuts and political change cut progress for girls and women. Our challenge is not only to protect hard won gains, but to advance the rights of women.”

Spain (48 million dollars) and Norway (22 million dollars) are the top two funders of UN Women, leaving traditional heavyweights like the United Kingdom (6.6 million dollars) and the United States (five million) far behind.

“Spain and Norway made serious commitments to UN Women and gender equality while other countries, such as the U.S., Germany and France, have not made it a priority in these times of budget constraint,” Charlotte Bunch, of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership and co- facilitator of the Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) campaign, told IPS.

Asked whether this gap signifies that gender equality remains a secondary issue, she said, “To make gender equality a greater priority in these economic times would require them to decrease funding in other areas, which they have not done and in this sense it does remain a secondary issue for most governments.”

“The financial crisis did not so much cause cuts in the UN Women budget since it is a new budget, but it has prevented them from being able to move forward vigorously on the desired plans for expanding the presence of UN Women on the ground at the country level,” Bunch added.

She said she hoped to see deeper cooperation with grassroots women’s groups in the coming years.

“In this first year, the process of setting up the organisation – structure, staffing, policies, etc. – has taken a lot of UN Women’s time, while civil society relations and programming have not been as strong a focus as GEAR would like to see.

“Now that the structure and personnel are in place, we hope that UN Women can be more effective in programmatic work and especially in listening to and working with civil society,” Bunch told IPS. “For example, GEAR is disappointed that UN Women has still not created any of the proposed civil society bodies – at the national, regional, or global level”.

“About the member states donations in this economic crisis situation, most of them still give the backing to UN Women in what they say, but until they put up more money, it is hard to say that many of them are strong supporters,” she concluded.

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.

Launched in London, “Induced Abortion: Incidence and Trends Worldwide from 1995 to 2008″ by the Guttmacher Institute and World Health Organisation (WHO) notes that in 2008, the global abortion rate was 28 per 1,000, virtually unchanged since 2003.

However, in hard numbers, there were 2.2 million more abortions in 2008 (43.8 million) compared with 2003 (41.6 million) due to the growing global population. Since 2003, the number of abortions fell by 0.6 million in the developed world, but increased by 2.8 million in developing countries.

According to a WHO report from March 2011, unsafe abortion is one of the three leading causes of maternal mortality, along with haemorrhage and sepsis from childbirth.

“The number of unsafe abortions has increased from 19.7 million in 2003 to 21.6 million in 2008,” Dr. Iqbal Shah from the WHO’s Department of Reproductive Health and Research in Geneva and one of the report’s co-authors, told IPS.

“The numbers have gone up primarily because of the increase in the size of women’s population in the reproductive age of 15-44 years, without accompanying a rise in modern contraceptive uptake or access to safe abortion,” he explained.

“One can safely say that the unsafe abortion rate of 14 per 1,000 women in ages 15-44 years has not gone down from 2003 to 2008,” he added.

Researchers found that nearly half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe procedures, and almost all unsafe abortions occur in the developing world, placing the health and lives of millions of women and adolescent girls at risk.

Unsafe abortion is defined by WHO and the authors of the report as a procedure for terminating a pregnancy that is performed by an individual lacking the necessary skills, or in an environment that does not conform to minimal medical standards, or both.

Shah also stressed that the reason for the lack of progress in reducing unsafe abortions has been the lack of progress in contraceptive uptake in recent periods, and lack of progress in improving access to safe abortion.

Nevertheless, the study points out that some countries are trying to address the problem, especially in Southern Africa and South-Central Asia.

“Within the developing world, abortion is becoming safer in South Africa,” Dr. Gilda Sedgh of the Guttmacher Institute, a co-author of the study, told IPS.

“After the law was liberalised in 1997, many providers were trained in how to do abortions and abortion services were established at public facilities. Between 1994 and 2000, the number of maternal deaths from unsafe abortion fell by 90 percent.”

“It happens that the overall abortion rate in Southern Africa (a region comprised largely of South Africa), fell from 19 to 15 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 between 1995 and 2008,” she added. “Southern Africa is the only region in Africa where the rate has fallen sharply; it is also the region where the level of contraceptive use has risen most dramatically between 1990 and 2009.”

Abortion remains, particularly in the developing world, a broadly polarising issue, and in many countries it is illegal.

“Most people on both sides of the abortion debate would agree that fewer abortions are preferable. Stakeholders can help reduce the level of abortion – whether safe or unsafe – by taking measures to ensure that women have access to family planning services, so they can avoid unintended pregnancies in the first place,” Sedgh told IPS.

“Evidence shows that, in order to be effective, these services need to provide not just contraceptives, but also information and counselling to help women be satisfied users of contraception,” she added.

Asked about the importance of wider access to contraception in reducing abortion rates, Shah said, “A wider access to contraception, especially modern methods of contraception, is very important in reducing abortion rates. Countries where prevalence of modern contraceptives is high show one of the lowest abortion rates.”

“Just meeting the unmet need for modern methods of family planning for women wishing to postpone or cease further childbearing can reduce the number of abortions and 90 percent of global mortality and morbidity due to unsafe abortion,” he added.

“Our findings on abortion rates across sub regions and over time, taken together with United Nations estimates of contraceptive levels and trends, add to the body of evidence that contraceptive use is one of the strongest known predictors of abortion levels,” Sedgh told IPS. “Where contraceptive use is high, abortion rates are low.”

“Still, about 215 million women in the developing world have an unmet need for contraception – that is, they are having sex, they don’t want to get pregnant, and yet they are not using a modern method of contraception,” she added.

In the report, the authors conclude that “restrictive abortion laws are not associated with lower abortion rates.”

“Measures to reduce the incidence of unintended pregnancy and unsafe abortion, including investments in family planning services and safe abortion care, are crucial steps toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals.”

Dr Beverly Winikoff and Dr Wendy R. Sheldon, Gynuity Health Projects, New York also said: “The study shows that it is precisely where abortion is illegal that it must become safer. The public health community will not be able to address maternal mortality adequately and attainment of Millennium Development Goals is questionable until we directly confront the issue of unsafe abortion.”

“These latest figures are deeply disturbing. The progress made in the 1990s is now in reverse,” Dr Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal The Lancet which published the study, said in a release.

“Promoting and implementing policies to reduce the number of abortions is now an urgent priority for all countries and for global health agencies, such as WHO,” Horton said. “Condemning, stigmatising, and criminalising abortion are cruel and failed strategies. It’s time for a public health approach that emphasises reducing harm – and that means more liberal abortion laws.”

By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 6 2011 (IPS)

“The violent crackdown against peaceful protesters and civilians in the Syrian Arab Republic has continued… since March of this year. More than 4,000 people have reportedly been killed. Tens of thousands have been arrested.”

Maha Abu Shama, Amnesty International campaigner for the Middle East and North Africa programme. Credit: Mathilde Bagneres/IPS

The words of the United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, in Geneva on Dec. 2 were not new, but they reminded the international community of the dire straits Syrian citizens have been in for months now.

The deteriorating situation in the Syrian Arab Republic prompted the U.N.’s Human Rights Council to establish an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged violations of human rights in the country since March 2011.

On Nov. 23, the commission presented a report of its findings. It documented widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by Syrian authorities by acts such as killing of children by beating or shooting during demonstrations, arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment.

Shortly thereafter, on Nov. 28, human rights organisation Amnesty International organised a briefing at the U.N., setting out its concerns regarding these violations and others.

Maha Abu Shama, one of the panellists, has been working for Amnesty International for four years and is the campaigner on Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Her work specifically focuses on researching the human rights violations in Syria, as well as devising and leading campaign strategies in this country.

IPS correspondent Mathilde Bagneres spoke with Abu Shama about the situation in Syria and Amnesty International’s concerns and recommendations.

Q: Can you tell us more about the human rights situation in Syria? A: The human right situation in Syria has worsened since the beginning of March 2011. We have so far documented the names of 3,200 people who have been killed, 190 of them children.

The majority of the people who were killed were peaceful protesters or bystanders shot by the security forces, for example, during security operations in residential areas. That number includes at least 150 cases of death in custody and in suspicious circumstances.

We are also very concerned about thousands of people who have been arrested since the beginning of the events until now, many of them are held in detention centres in horrible conditions and with high risk of torture and mistreatment.

Q: How have the revolution and the so-called Arab Spring affected human rights violations in Syria? A: Human right violations by the authorities have increased significantly since the beginning of the revolution in March 2011. However, civilians were living under repression for over 40 years.

I visited Syria on an official mission in 2010 and I met former political prisoners, families of prisoners of conscience, political prisoners and some human rights activists. They felt like an isolated group of those who tried to voice their opinion and to criticise the government, while Syrian citizens were oblivious to their suffering and causes.

This has changed after the revolution. Now in many towns and cities, people have tried to step out and walk on the street and call for reforms and democracy and for a change. That’s a very positive step.

It is true that the repression has increased as well. However, these people are aware of the price they are paying for freedom, and they deserve freedom and the respect of human rights.

Q: Can you share with us a story that touched you and that illustrates human rights violations in Syria? A: There are many stories that really touched me, but one of them is the story of the death in custody of Giath Matar. He was a Syrian activist from Darayya, a village near Damascus, and he was a truly non-violent, peaceful activist.

He and his friends focused on organising peaceful protests in towns. One of their tactics was to give soldiers who attacked them bottles of water with roses and messages like, “Don’t kill me; I’m like you.”

It did work a couple of times, but the security forces were worried by Matar and his friends because they seemed to be successful and they seemed to mobilise more and more people, to have an impact.

So they arrested him, and after four days they delivered his body to his family. His wife was pregnant at the time. He was only in his mid-twenties. His child was born a few days ago.

That case touched me deeply because he was such an innovative, exceptional person. To be killed like this in cold blood – it is inhuman.

Q: What is Amnesty International doing for Syria and why does Amnesty International say that the Security Council must act on Syria? A: As Amnesty International, our main role is to document human rights violations and to highlight them in the media and with the international community, and also to put pressure on those who are the main decision makers.

We have to put pressure on the Syrian authorities to stop the violence and also to put pressure on the U.N. Security Council to bring this situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Security Council should also impose an arms embargo and freeze the assets of the Syrian president and his senior associates because we believe that there are crimes against humanity committed in Syria.

The international community has the obligation to protect the Syrian people from these crimes and to stop these crimes.

Q: Do you think that the report of the independent international commission of inquiry on Syria can lead to an action by the Security Council? A: The report is another form of pressure and it’s a positive action by the U.N. However, unfortunately, the report falls short in terms of recommendations at the end, because it doesn’t call for an ICC referral.

But as it is, the report is excellent. It reaches the same conclusions as we do, which is that there are crimes against humanity committed in Syria.

I would like to add that I am very impressed by the Syrian people, their determination and their commitment to the human rights. I think they should not pay for wrong decisions taken by other countries in other incidents.

They should not suffer on their own; they need and they demand the international community’s support and that can only happen by referring the situation to the ICC.

Excerpt:

By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 11 2011 (IPS)

Dedicated efforts by women’s rights advocates are bearing fruit, UN Women says: for example, two-thirds of the world’s countries now have legal provisions to stop domestic violence.

Aldijana Sisic Credit: Courtesy of Aldijana Sisic

But as the issue has also risen on international security agendas, such as through the formal recognition of rape as a war crime, violence against women and girls remains a pervasive problem in nearly every society.

Aldijana Sisic has been the campaign manager of the United Nations Secretary-General’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women since August 2010.

She joined the UNITE campaign from the position of communications and resource mobilisation specialist on ending violence against women at UN Women. Prior to her coming to the United Nations in January 2009, Sisic was the campaign manager for Amnesty International’s global Stop Violence against Women campaign.

At a recent panel at the United Nations on the problem of gender violence in rural communities, Sisic stressed that we have to “prevent and end violence against women and girls, because violence is not natural and not inevitable.”

“Everybody can suffer of violence, violence against women and girls is a violation of a human right and the work to prevent it and end it must become a top-level national concern,” she said.

Mathilde Bagneres talked with Sisic about the purpose of the UNiTE campaign and how such campaigns can make lasting changes for women.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What are the main goals of the UNiTE campaign? A: Launched in 2008, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s UNiTE to End Violence against Women campaign is a multi-year effort aimed at preventing and eliminating violence against women and girls in all parts of the world.

UNiTE calls on governments, civil society, women’s organisations, young people, the private sector, the media and the entire U.N. system to join forces in addressing this global pandemic.

Overall objectives of the campaign are to raise public awareness and increase political will and resources for preventing and responding to all forms of violence against women and girls in all parts of the world.

The campaign also works to contribute to positive changes in the area of national legislations and action plans, collection and analysis of national data, use of sexual violence in conflict and social mobilisation.

Finally, by 2015, the campaign aims to raise an annual contribution of 100 million dollars to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women.

Q: You said during the panel that thousands of women are still being killed in the name of “honour”. Does that mean that in some countries violence against women is considered as justifiable and natural? A: Violence against women and girls is severe, often hidden, and widespread. It has many different shapes and has no ethnicity, race or religion. It is a direct result of inequality and impunity, power, prejudice and apathy.

Violence against women and girls may be universal but it is certainly never justified, natural or inevitable. And, can without doubt be eradicated.

Q: What kind of actions can be taken on both international and local levels to end violence against women? A: At all levels we must continue to advocate for action and accountability. But, for real change to occur in women and girls’ lives, these have to take place at the local, community and national levels.

To create a future without violence, we must build societies that understand that violence against women and girls is wrong, and not part of a culture or way of living.

As professionals and leaders in our own communities, schools, work places etc. we all have opportunities to use our influence and responsibility to provide new generations with examples that they can learn and follow.

Q: Do you think that actions and campaigns such as UNITE can really make things change on the local level, also in terms of long-term norms and behaviors? A: Absolutely. Campaigns like the secretary-general’s campaign provide us with a powerful tool to challenge around the world those who would argue that culture, religion or national laws justify restricting women’s human rights.

They provide governments with benchmarks and standards that they can implement into law and policy. They provide a tool to hold governments to account and to measure their performance not simply by their own national standards and local resources, but by common internationally accepted rules.

They also provide society with a different paradigm and activists with a powerful framework for advocacy. Above all, they give women, victims and survivors around the world hope.

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By Mathilde Bagneres
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 2 2011 (IPS)

The first United Nations (U.N.) Security Council resolution to specifically address women’s contributions to conflict prevention and sustainable peace was passed just 11 years ago, on Oct. 31, 2000.

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls Credit: Mathilde Bagneres/IPS

Today, activists continue to make the annual pilgrimage to U.N. headquarters in New York for the open debate on Resolution 1325, with the mission of “taking women beyond 1325” and taking part in collaboration, advocacy and action.

On Oct. 27, 10 women, each with a long history of working on conflict prevention and peace building, came from all over the world to speak at a panel near the U.N.

Their goal was to focus attention on the media’s portrayal of women and on the need to develop and strengthen the efforts of communicators, activists, peace and security analysts and advocates for conflict prevention and transformation.

They also sought to communicate the stories, the realities and the priorities from the grassroots level to governments, the media and broader civil society.

Sharon Bhagwan Rolls, who hails from Fiji, is the executive director of FemLINKPACIFIC: Media Initiatives for Women (www.femlinkpacific.org.fj), an organisation that advocates for Resolution 1325, community media, and women, peace and human security concerns.

As GPPAC’s regional secretariat for the Pacific region, Rolls was appointed gender liaison for GPPAC’s International Steering Group in 2009. She is also a member of the U.N. Civil Society Advisory Group on Resolution 1325.

IPS correspondent Mathilde Bagneres spoke with Rolls about female empowerment and what it means to take women beyond Resolution 1325.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Can you introduce the FemLINKPACIFIC organisation? What is it trying to achieve for women? A: FemLINKPACIFIC emerged after the political crisis in Fiji in 2000. We are a feminist, media-based organisation, now working in the Pacific Islands, such as in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Tonga.

The basis of our work is advocacy, using media information technology in order to advance gender equality commitments and women’s right, and it’s about enhancing women’s visibility to address the lack of women’s representation.

We were established in Sep. 2000 and the Security Council resolution is dated Oct. 31, 2000, so this was the opportunity to link our media work to this particular Security Council resolution.

Q: How do you think media can contribute to women’s empowerment? A: The role of media is, first of all, to be able to go more in depth into issues and to be able to understand those issues. When we are talking about peace and security, the voice of women has to be heard.

In content development, we should look at ways to diversify media’s content, so it is not just about five minutes news headlines to tell you what is happening in the world or who it is affecting. Media should go deeper into issues and give more time to women voices.

Q: What is FemLINKPACIFIC doing to foster change for women on a local level? A: The first thing that we need to understand is that when we try to make things change at the local level, it doesn’t happen automatically. It means working with women consistently, continuously to build trust, confidence.

We work in five borough communities in Fiji. We have seen a change as a result of being able to continue to mobilise resources to create a space for women to come together once a month, on what we call the “1325 days”, on the third Wednesday of every month.

They didn’t have the resources to do that by their own, so that’s the first change – giving them the resources for them to come together, have conversations and then make radio programs.

Things always evolve by the gathering of personal confidence and confidence in each other. Women realised that by sharing stories, when we lobby together, voices are stronger. They realized too that by telling again and again their stories about unresolved issues, it could make things change.

Q: Can you share with us an experience that illustrates how FemLINKPACIFIC can help women to express themselves and share their issues? A: I started meeting one particular woman back in 2006. She talked about the change along the riverbed and how it was affecting the food security, the economic security of women.

Women were fishing or collecting crabs to cook or to sell, and as the riverbed was being destroyed, they were losing that source of income or food. But she couldn’t raise that story using the traditional decision-making structures because she was a woman.

We have continuously documented that story; we knew that it was an unresolved issue. FemLINKPACIFIC got in touch with a government official and he came to meet that woman and the other women in the 1325 space and listen to them.

Subsequently, those government officials talked to the traditional leaders, there was a village meeting and the traditional leaders were told not to take the sand and the soil anymore because they were destroying the river.

What the woman also told me afterward was that this way, she was protected. She wasn’t seen as the one who was causing troubles. It’s a story at the local level, but for me it demonstrates that one story, when we keep lobbying for it, can be taken into account.

Q: Do you think that international decisions can concretely help women to become peace builders? A: I think that international solidarity is really important. At the New York level, the greater visibility of the Pacific is a huge change. It is about the importance of recognising the specific issues of women in the developing states of the Pacific Islands, because they are distinctively different from Australia and New Zealand.

In Fiji, we should have elections in 2014. I think the role of the international community is to help the state and to give women a role as peace builders in this process of transition.

The international community should be a bridge between the state and women. It is not about imposing what they might think to be the right solution but it can be about assisting the work of civil society to be able to engage better with the state and vice versa.

The United Nations can help us to have a peaceful transition back to elections, but we should not stop by saying that elections will solve everything. We have work on the next step to sustainable democracy and peace, and women have to be part of it.

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