Sally Ncube, Equality Now, addresses the Standing Committee of the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF). Credit: Equality Now

By Cecilia Russell
JOHANNESBURG, Nov 3 2025 (IPS)

Closing the chapter on child marriages is still a distant ambition in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, and despite great strides at developing and passing legislation to eradicate it, existing and emerging drivers are still at play, making youngsters vulnerable to the practice.

These were key messages from Equality Now at the Standing Committee Session of the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF) held in Kempton Park, South Africa, from October 24 to November 1, with the theme of Enhancing the Role of Parliamentarians in Advocating for the Signing, Ratification, Accession, Domestication, and Implementation of SADC Protocols.

Equality Now, in partnership with SADC-PF, launched two policy briefs—Protection measures for children already in marriage in Eastern and Southern Africa and Addressing emerging drivers of child marriages in Eastern and Southern Africa—for Parliamentarians’ consideration during a session aimed at sensitizing and increasing their knowledge on child marriage legislation and trends.

SADC countries adopted the Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage and Protecting Children in Marriage in 2016; however, its domestication is uneven, children already in marriages need protection, and emergent drivers of child marriage need to be factored into the legal frameworks and policies.

Equality Now’s Divya Srinivasan addresses the Standing Committee of the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF). Credit: Equality Now

Equality Now’s Divya Srinivasan elaborated on the context of the domestication of the SADC model law on child marriage, noting that seven out of 16 countries (or about 45 percent) set the minimum age of 18 without exceptions. Five out of the 16 SADC countries set the age of 18 with some exceptions, with, for example, Botswana specifically excluding customary and religious marriages from the protection.

“Four countries, or around 25 percent, including Eswatini, Lesotho, South Africa, and Tanzania, provide for the minimum age of between 15 and 18. In these countries, the minimum age of marriage is different for boys and girls, with boys invariably having a higher age limit. In addition to these differences, all four countries allow for traditional and parental consent to lower the age of marriage,” Srinivasan noted.

Bevis Kapaso from Plan International said that since 2016, child marriage has dropped by 5 percentage points, going from 40 percent of all marriages to 35 percent in 2025, making it unlikely that the region will achieve SDG target 5.3, which aims to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child marriage, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation” by 2030.

Most concerning was that the decrease was mainly urban, with the practice remaining fairly entrenched in rural areas.

This meant that children in marriages should be protected, and parliamentarians sensitized the drivers that were halting progress toward ending the practice.

Lawmakers should strive to ensure that married children have the right to void their marriages, retain their rights, access the property acquired during marriage, and not have their citizenship revoked, said Nkatha Murungi, an Equality Now Consultant.

“Children (in these circumstances) often end up stateless,” she said. While child marriage was a “symptom and a driver of entrenched inequality, poverty, and rights violations,” parliamentarians had a role to play in ensuring immediate, targeted measures to protect and empower children already in marriage, including the right to custody of their offspring and access to sexual and reproductive services.

Nkatha Murungi, an Equality Now Consultant, addresses the Standing Committee of the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF). Credit: Equality Now

Murungi suggested that lawmakers should also become aware of emerging issues, such as climate change. She said that after the 2019 floods in Malawi, which affected more than 868,900 people and displaced 86,980 individuals, child marriage spiked. Parliamentarians, according to Equality Now, should integrate child marriage prevention into national climate change adaptation and disaster risk management strategies.

It also suggested a gender-sensitive approach to economic empowerment by “supporting climate-resilient economic opportunities and programs for women and girls in affected communities.”

Other concerning emergent and persistent drivers include conflict and insecurity and increased migration and displacement, which often remove children from protective oversight while persistent poverty and inequality drive children into marriage.

The policy brief also warned about the rapid growth of technology, which, “while enabling advocacy and awareness, also facilitates misinformation that normalizes harmful practices, including child marriage.”

Sylvia Elizabeth Lucas, a South African parliamentarian and Vice President of the SADC parliamentary forum, on the sidelines of the meeting, stated that protecting children is non-negotiable; she emphasized that practical legislation and implementation, guided by the “spirit of ubuntu” (compassion and humanity), can effectively protect girl children.

On the sidelines of the meeting, Murungi elaborated that it was important to look at why the traditional approaches were not resulting in the ending of child marriages. Poverty has always been considered a driver, but traditional efforts to end child marriage have not benefited those living in poverty. Education was key to empowerment, not only for keeping children in school and out of marriage but also for giving them options for their futures.

The forum was reminded that it was imperative that the SADC Model Law be updated in their countries to reflect some of these emerging drivers.

“It is also necessary for Parliament and the Executive at the national level to work together to promote anti-child marriage policies and laws and ensure that targeted policy responses fill all prevailing gaps,” the policy brief on emergent drivers concluded.

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According to a new report, ‘burdensome’ evidence requirements in sexual violence cases are impeding access to justice for survivors across South Asia. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Alison Kentish
UNITED NATIONS, Apr 21 2021 (IPS)

Gaps in laws, illegal out-of-court settlements, rape survivor intimidation and law enforcement failure to adequately respond to sexual violence reports are hindering women from seeking justice and maintaining impunity for perpetrators of rape in South Asia.

This is according to the women and girls rights group Equality Now which, along with Dignity Alliance International, released a report titled “Sexual Violence in South Asia: Legal and Other Barriers to Justice for Survivors” today, Apr. 21.

The report focused on six countries; Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, the Maldives, India and Sri Lanka. It follows focus group discussions with survivors in four of the countries, as well as stakeholder interviews with lawyers and activists working on sexual violence. It unveiled protection gaps in the laws across the countries.

“It is just the text of the law is contributing to impunity for perpetrators and preventing survivors from getting justice. One of the major gaps that we found is that in four out of the six countries, there is no criminalisation of marital rape,” Equality Now’s legal advisor Divya Srinivasan told IPS.

According to the report, ‘burdensome’ evidence requirements in rape cases are impeding access to justice for survivors. It states that five out of the six countries, India being the exception, allow evidence on the past sexual history of a rape victim.

The report also highlights the prevalence of extra-legal settlements, or compromises, across the region. To arrive at these pay-outs, survivors are sometimes pressured by their families, relatives of the accused or community members.

“Even though such settlements are illegal, they are still happening in large numbers. Often, they are done between the families without even asking the survivor or getting her consent. Even when she consents, it is because she’s put under enormous pressure and even threatened with violence and other threats and this is one of the reasons that cases are dropping out of the system,” Srinivasan said.

The report contains survivor stories, sobering first-person accounts that include protracted trials, members of caste systems who refused to listen to pleas for redress and protection following marital rape and one survivor from India whose husband blamed her for disgracing the home by being raped. Apart from being ostracised, survivors also reported that the courage to file an official police report was often met with disbelief and refusals to record statements.

“Failures include inadequacies in the way justice system officials are responding to sexual violence, including the refusal of police to register cases or even filing wrong information in the police report and victim-blaming attitudes. We saw a lot of that across the board from police, medical professionals and even from judges,” Srinivasan said.

The report notes that many of the survivor stories were told by women in the six countries who are marginalised based on caste, ethnicity and religion, noting that they face intersectional forms of discrimination when trying to access justice.

“Women and girls from socially excluded communities are often at higher risk of being subjected to sexual violence as compared to other communities, due to the use of rape as a weapon of suppression, accompanied by a general culture of impunity for sexual violence and particular impunity for those from dominant classes, castes or religions, which often leads to a denial of justice,” it states.

“Further, lack of social, political and economic clout often hinders reporting of cases by these communities or increases their vulnerability to threats and pressure from perpetrators. Survivors are further subjected to discrimination when dealing with the criminal justice system. Survivors of sexual violence from socially excluded communities thus face severe obstacles to accessing justice.”

The report makes comprehensive recommendations to all sectors of the government, listing what must change to ensure access to justice for survivors.

It calls on authorities to rectify the protection gaps in the law. It zeroes in on policing, asking South Asian governments to put measures in place to improve police response to cases of sexual violence, including educating and training officers in gender sensitisation. It also demands action against police officers who refuse to file cases or actively obstruct justice in rape cases.

The authors are also asking for more humane medical examinations in rape cases, denouncing the continued use of the two-finger or virginity tests in some countries, despite this being a human rights violation

Our fourth recommendation is to improve prosecution procedures and trials of sexual offences to ensure that there is quality prosecution that leads to increased conviction rates, along with speedy trials.

The fifth point calls for designing and funding holistic interventions to improve access to justice for survivors. It notes that while convictions are needed, there are not enough and should be accompanied by support for survivors including psychosocial care and access to compensation, measures that can help them get their lives back on track.

“What we have seen across South Asia is that there are lots of very high-profile rape cases and following public protests, the government comes out with a superficial response to pacify the public sentiment,” said Srinivasan. “Really, there needs to be systemic changes, every aspect of the system needs to improve access to justice for survivors.”

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Excerpt:

Women listen to the news in a village comprising mainly of Dalits in Uttar Pradesh. After a 19-year-old young woman was murdered and raped in the state last month it triggered nationwide protests. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India , Nov 2 2020 (IPS)

Shabnam*, a young woman from Northern India’s Haryana state, is two years away from becoming a law graduate. She sees parallels between her own rape and that of the 19-year-old Maha Dalit woman whose brutal rape and torture by a group of men from a “dominant” or “higher” caste in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh triggered nationwide protests.

“She was a Valmiki like us, from a landless and poor family like ours. They raped her, brutalised her and when she died, they burnt her body without the consent of her family. And even after all of that, they would not allow her family to talk about it and threaten them to keep quiet. This is exactly what I and my family have experienced and what we continue to go through. The only exception is that I am still alive,” Shabnam tells IPS in Hindi. The 19-year-old young woman eventually died of her injuries. But just like her, Shabnam also belongs to the Maha Dalit – India’s most marginalised and oppressed community formerly known as “untouchables”.

The death of the young woman focused a spotlight on the sexual violence faced by Dalit women in India, who number some 100 million according to a discussion document by Navsarjan Trust (India), FEDO (Nepal) and the International Dalit Solidarity Network.

“Violence, including rape and gang rape, have been systematically utilised as weapons by dominant castes to oppress Dalit women and girls and reinforce structural gender and caste hierarchies,” a soon-to-be-released report by Equality Now, a global non-profit which promotes human rights and equality, and the local charity Swabhiman Society, states.

“In the northern state of Haryana, where Dalit make up around one-fifth of the state’s population, a deeply-rooted caste-based and patriarchal society still flourishes. There are high rates of violence against women – data from the National Crime Records Bureau in 2018 indicates that nearly 4 women are raped every day in this state alone,” the report further states. Titled “Justice Denied: Sexual Violence and intersectional discrimination: Barriers to Accessing Justice for Dalit Women and Girls in Haryana, India”, the report draws from Swabhiman Society’s experience of working directly with Dalit survivors of sexual violence in Haryana over the past decade and highlights insights from this work.  

Shabnam was a minor when she was gang raped in 2013. Over the past seven years, even as her case has gone to trial, there have been several attempts and threats on her life for which she was eventually granted court protection.

“People think rape is a single crime. But for Dalit rape victims, it’s just the beginning of a lifelong chain of crimes and struggles: mental abuse, fear, intimidation, threats, denial of basic rights, denial of education and a decent livelihood – the list is very long. In fact, once you are raped, you stay a victim all through your life,” Manisha Mashaal, founder of Swabhiman Society, tells IPS in Hindi. Mashaal, a Dalit women’s rights defender and lawyer, is helping Shabnam and many other young women in their fight for justice.

Violence against Dalit women – what are the true numbers?

According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), a federal agency, cases of physical attacks on women have been increasing.

In 2019 alone, says NCRBs latest report, there were over 405,861 cases of assaults on women — 7 percent more than was reported in 2018. The crimes include beating, stripping, kidnapping and rape.

Of these, 13,273 assaults, which included 3,486 cases of rape, were against women from Dalit communities.

Jacqui Hunt, the Europe and Eurasia Director of Equality Now, says widespread under-reporting and problems registering sexual assaults with the police mean that the true figures are likely to be considerably higher.

“As a consequence of gender, caste and class inequalities, Dalit women and girls are subjected to multiple forms of subjugation, exploitation, and oppression. Sexual violence, including rape and gang rape, has been perpetrated against them by men from dominant castes as a mechanism that reinforces India’s deeply entrenched structural hierarchies. Women’s bodies are being used as a battleground to assert caste supremacy and to keep women ‘in their place,’” Hunt tells IPS.

Mashaal believes that almost 80 percent of Dalit women who are raped do not report the crime because of political and social pressure as the women and their families are usually threatened by the perpetrators. Besides, Mashaal says, a majority of the sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) survivors are minor Dalit girls, while NCRB data for child rape survivors does not differentiate according to caste. 

A safe space for Dalit women

To help break the cycle of silence on crimes against Dalit women and girls, in 2013 Mashaal founded Swabhiman Society – a charity that provides various services, including legal and psychological support to Dalit survivors of SGBV.

“We currently have 25 women who work with us off and on, but this is a safe place for hundreds of women who have been stigmatised, brutalised and yet have nobody else to turn to,” says Mashaal.

Mashaal started the society because she noticed few organisations were aiding Dalit survivors of SBGV and that there was a lack of knowledge and awareness among the community about their legal rights to justice or the procedure to follow.

In several cases, they would be dictated to settle out of the court by the Khap Panchayat – a powerful, traditional, community assembly run by the landowning Jat community, which decides on village affairs. The decisions of the Khap are often controversial and considered anti-Dalit, but few dare oppose them fearing reprisals.

Mamta*, another woman Mashaal represents, was a minor when she was gang raped by “dominant” caste men in 2012. When the Khap Panchayat ordered that she had to marry one of her rapists, her father – a farmhand and daily wage earner — was too scared to oppose the decision.

For months Mamta was locked in a small room and repeatedly raped by both her ‘husband’ and his friends and relatives.

“It was like a cage. I lived in a small room. My husband would lock the door from outside. He would not otherwise touch me as I was a Dalit but would forcibly have sex whenever he wanted. Every day, he would bring other men and they would also rape me.

“I was like a fly stuck in mud – I could not live and could not fly away either,” Mamta, who is now 26, tells IPS in Hindi.

Eventually Mamta managed to escape and discovered the Swabhiman Society. There she met many other women who had also experienced similar abuse and brutality. Together they have received counselling, awareness training about laws on rape and sexual attacks on women. But most important of all, they have gathered the courage to demand justice in a legal court.

Land ownership or lack thereof perpetuating vulnerabilities and violence

According to  Hunt, Dalit women lack economic power and are often reliant on dominant castes for their livelihoods. When survivors of sexual assault or their families are dependent for jobs or other sources of income from someone who is from the same caste as an assailant, or the perpetrator is also their employer, accessing justice for sexual violence becomes even more problematic

“Culprits and their associates often wield their economic power to silence survivors and witnesses. This includes coercing survivors or victims’ family members into settling cases out of court, or hounding them from their home and village.

“Our forthcoming report gives an indication of how common this problem is. In almost 60 percent of the cases we studied, survivors were forced into a compromise, many times caused by threats of economic retaliation,” Hunt says.

According to the recent data published by the Census of India, 71 percent Dalits are landless labourers who work on land they do not own. According to the Agriculture Census, in rural areas, 58.4 percent Dalit households do not own land at all. This gets grimmer in Dalit-dominated states such as Haryana, Punjab and Bihar, where 85 percent do not own land.

“This is the reason why there is continuous gruesome sexual assaults on Dalit women because they are thrice-vulnerable. First, because of their caste, second, because of their gender and third, because of their landless status,” says Mashaal.

Independent studies have established this as well.

According to a 2018 study by Reena Kukreja, an assistant Professor at Queens University, Canada, the Dalit community in Haryana, “with over 80 percent of Dalits living in rural areas, they are dependent on the three landowning castes for agricultural wage labour as their primary source of livelihood.” The study explores the link between land rights and gender violence, especially in the context of Dalit women’s marriages in Haryana.

Preparing for a life-long fight

The women Mashaal represents don’t believe there is a silver bullet for the endemic SGBV against women in their community. It is why a number of them are pursuing a college degree, especially in law.

“Every time we go to court, we see the perpetrators hiring 10 to 15 lawyers to fight their cases. They hire big law firms. On the other hand, a Dalit woman victim can hardly afford a single lawyer. It is very frustrating. So, we encourage the girls who come here to go back to school and study law. We must build our own network of women lawyers who will fight and win every single case of Dalit rape,” Mashaal says.

Presently, at least 10 women from the Swabhiman Society are studying law, says Shabnam.

Pooja* is another young Dalit woman whom Mashaal is assisting. When Pooja was only 17 she was kidnapped by 12 men who took turns to rape her. Pooja – the youngest of the women — just passed her last school exams and plans to enrol in a law school. Though her enrolment has been delayed by COVID-19 lockdowns.

“I will apply to a private college if needed and  take up a job to pay the fees, but will not give up on becoming a lawyer,” Pooja tells IPS as Mashaal and the other Dalit women in the room break into a cheering chorus of support pledging to “make sure that happens”.

Meanwhile, the Equality Now / Swabhiman Society joint report provides recommendations for improvement of the police, medico-legal and judicial processes in Haryana to improve access to justice for survivors of sexual violence, particularly Dalit women and girls. 

*Not her real name. Names of some interviewees have been changed to protect their identity.

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By Kitty Stapp
NEW YORK, Aug 5 2015 (IPS)

Jaha Dukureh knows firsthand the barbaric effects of undergoing female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Now a resident of the United States, she was mutilated as a baby in the Gambia in West Africa. Her sister bled to death after enduring the same procedure.

What was done to Dakureh is called “infibulation,” where the clitoris and the labia are removed and the vagina is sealed to insure a girl’s virginity until marriage."Policy makers, doctors, police, teachers and community leaders all have a role in making sure that girls can receive the help they need and deserve. There is no excuse for this type of abuse." -- Paula Kweskin

Now a passionate advocate against FGM/C, Dakureh issued a call to arms on the eve of President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Africa, urging him to “play a historic role in the fight to eliminate FGM.”

“While the origins of FGM are ancient and predate organised religion, there is one thing we know for sure: its purpose is to control female sexuality and lessen a woman’s humanity,” she wrote in a powerful commentary for the Guardian.

In the last 15 years, the number of women and girls at risk of FGM/C in the United States has more than doubled, advocacy groups warn, calling for stronger measures to prevent this human rights violation.

According to data from the Population Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C. research group, a staggering 506,795 girls and women in the United States have undergone or are at risk of undergoing FGM/C.

“It’s important this subject is no longer taboo,” Paula Kweskin, a human rights attorney who produced a film called Honor Diaries that deals with the problem of FGM, told IPS. “It needs to be discussed at every level so that it can be addressed and eradicated. When it’s swept under the carpet, women and girls are revictimized by the silence and inaction.”

“Policy makers, doctors, police, teachers and community leaders all have a role in making sure that girls can receive the help they need and deserve. There is no excuse for this type of abuse.”

The top 10 metropolitan areas where girls and women are at highest risk of female genital mutilation include New York, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The PRB notes that FGM/C, which entails partial or total removal of the external genitals of girls and women for religious, cultural, or other nonmedical reasons, has devastating immediate and long-term health and social effects, especially related to childbirth.

Most girls at risk are in found in sub-Saharan Africa. In Djibouti, Guinea, and Somalia, for example, nine in 10 girls ages 15 to 19 have been subjected to FGM/C. But the practice is not limited to developing countries.

An estimated 137,000 women and girls in Britain have undergone the procedure, according to a report released in July by City University London and Equality Now.

In the United States, the PRB says, efforts to stop families from sending their daughters abroad to be cut — so-called “vacation cutting” — spurred the passage of a law in 2013 making it illegal to knowingly transport a girl out of the United States for the purpose of cutting.

“We urge the U.S. to provide a public update on its plans to ensure all efforts to end FGM are sustainable and supported with funding, and support and encourage state efforts to end FGM at local levels,” Shelby Quast, policy director at Equality Now, said last month.

She added that having specific laws in each state would prompt state schools, hospitals and clinics as well as local law enforcement agencies and the judiciary to step up prevention efforts and act swiftly in FGM cases.

“People in [the U.S.] don’t want to think it happens here. But their daughters might be sitting next to a best friend who can be subjected to a violent, cultural procedure,” she told NPR. “If it were cutting the nose or the ear off — something everyone could see — there’d be a different response. We can’t continue to hide this away.”

The U.S. Congress had already passed a law in 1996 making it illegal to perform FGM/C and 23 states have laws against the practice, which has grown in part because of increased immigration from countries where FGM/C is prevalent, especially in North and sub-Saharan Africa.

Between 2000 and 2013, the PRB says, the foreign-born population from Africa more than doubled, from 881,000 to 1.8 million. Just three sending countries—Egypt, Ethiopia, and Somalia—accounted for 55 percent of all U.S. women and girls at risk in 2013.

“This is a barbaric and completely unnecessary practice that causes devastating physical and psychological damage for countless girls and women in the United States and countries across the globe,” said Raheel Raza, president of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow.

Raheel, a human rights activist, is among several Muslim women featured in Honor Diaries, a documentary breaking the silence on FGM and other abuse against women and girls in honour-based communities.

Edited by Thalif Deen

A scene from the 57th Commission on the Status of Women. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 5 2015 (IPS)

The meeting is billed as one of the biggest single gatherings of women activists under one roof.

According to the United Nations, over 1,100 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and more than 8,600 representatives have registered to participate in this year’s session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).“This is a reality check on the part of the member states." -- Mavic Cabrera-Balleza of the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders

Described as the primary intergovernmental body mandated to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women, the 45-member CSW will hold its 59th sessions Mar. 9-20.

About 200 side events, hosted by governments and U.N. agencies, are planned alongside official meetings of the CSW, plus an additional 450 parallel events by civil society organisations (CSOs), both in and outside the United Nations.

Their primary mission: to take stock of the successes and failures of the 20-year Platform for Action adopted at the historic 1995 Women’s Conference in Beijing. The achievements are limited, say CSOs and U.N. officials, but the unfulfilled promises are countless.

The reason is simple, warns Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: “We cannot fulfill 100 percent of the world’s potential by excluding 50 percent (read: women) of the world’s people.”

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein says the U.N.’s 193 member states have to go beyond “paying lip service” towards gender equality.

They should “genuinely challenge and dismantle the power structures and dynamics which perpetuate discrimination against women.”

But will they?

Yasmeen Hassan, global executive director of Equality Now, told IPS in the Beijing Platform for Action, 189 governments pledged to “revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex”.

Twenty years later, just over half of the sex discriminatory laws highlighted in three successive Equality Now reports have been revised, appealed or amended, she said.

“Although we applaud the governments that took positive action, we are concerned that so many sex discriminatory laws remain on the books around the world,” Hassan noted.

Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, international coordinator at Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, a programme partner of the International Civil Society Action Network, told IPS she was happy to see the latest draft of the Beijing + 20 Political Declaration, presented by the Bureau of the CSW, expressing “concern that progress has been slow and uneven and that major gaps and obstacles remain in the implementation of the 12 critical areas of concern of the Beijing Platform for Action.”

“And it [has] recognized that 20 years after the Fourth World Conference on Women [in Beijing], no country has achieved equality for women and girls; and that significant levels of inequality between women and men persist, and that some women and girls experience increased vulnerability and marginalization due to multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination.”

“This is a reality check on the part of the member states, which is welcomed by the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and the rest of civil society,” she added.

Speaking specifically on reproductive health, Joseph Chamie, a former director of the U.N. Population Division, told IPS the work of the CSW is important and it has contributed to improving women’s lives.

Pointing out the important areas of health and mortality, he said, when the CSW was established seven decades ago, the average life expectancy at birth for a baby girl was about 45 years; today it is 72 years, which, by any standards, is a remarkable achievement.

With respect to reproductive health, he said, great strides have been achieved.

In addition to improved overall health and lower maternal mortality rates, most women today can decide on the number, timing and spacing of their children.

“Simply focusing attention, policies and programmes on the inequalities and biases that women and girls encounter, while largely ignoring those facing men and boys, will obstruct and delay efforts to attain true gender equality and the needed socio-economic development for everyone,” Chamie warned.

According to U.N. Women, only one in five parliamentarians is a woman.

Approximately 50 per cent of women worldwide are in paid employment, an increase from 40 per cent more than 20 years ago, with wage inequality persistent.

At the present rate of progress, said U.N. Women, it will take 81 years for women to achieve parity in employment.

In 2000, the groundbreaking Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security recognised the need to increase women’s role in peacebuilding in post-conflict countries. Yet, from 1992 to 2011 only 4 per cent of signatories to peace agreements and nine per cent of negotiators at peace tables were women.

Hassan told IPS there are still laws that restrict women’s rights in marriage (women not allowed to enter and exist marriages on the same basis as men; appointing men as the head of a household; requiring wife obedience; allowing polygamy; setting different ages of marriage for girls and boys).

There are also laws that give women a lower personal status and less rights as citizens (women not being able to transmit their nationality to husbands and children; women’s evidence not equal to that of a man; restriction on women traveling).

And women being treated as economically unequal to men (less rights to inheritance or property ownership; restrictions on employment); and laws that promote violence against women (giving men the right to rape their wives; exempting rapists from punishment for marrying their victims; allowing men to chastise their wives).

“The fact that these laws continue to exist shows that many governments do not consider women to be full citizens and as such it is not possible to make progress on the goals set 20 years ago,” Hassan said.

Cabrera-Balleza told IPS the CSW political declaration also states that member states reaffirm their “political will and firmly commit to tackle critical remaining gaps and challenges and pledge to take concrete further actions to transform discriminatory social norms and gender stereotypes,” among other very good promises.

This is where the crux of the matter lies, she said.

“We’ve heard these promises many times before from past CSW sessions and yet recent data, such as those from the World Health Organisation (WHO), indicate the following:

– 35 percent of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime;

– on average, 30 percent of women who have been in a relationship report that they have experienced some form of physical or sexual violence by their partner.”

Globally, she said, as many as 38 percent of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner.

She predicted that issues of sexual and reproductive health and rights, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights will remain contentious in this CSW, as in previous years.

“It also worries me that while thousands of women have died and many more continue to suffer because of ongoing conflicts as well as violent extremism around the world, none of this is addressed in the political declaration.”

Sadly, the U.N. continues to operate in silos, she said. The Security Council remains disconnected with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) under which the CSW functions.

“Having said all of this, I want us, in civil society, to push the envelope as far as possible in this 59th CSW session,” she added.

Edited by Kitty Stapp

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@aol.com

Zambian women at a rally demanding equal political representation. The United Nations says that sexist laws worldwide violate international conventions and treaties. Credit: Richard Mulonga/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 18 2015 (IPS)

A rash of sex discriminatory laws – including the legalisation of polygamy, marital rape, abduction and the justification of violence against women – remains in statute books around the world.

In a new report released here, the New York-based Equality Now has identified dozens of countries, including Kenya, Mali, Iran, Saudi Arabia, India, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Bahamas, Malta, Nigeria and Yemen, which have continued with discriminatory laws in violation of international conventions and U.N. declarations.

The same [...] governments who decry equal rights for women as Western or immoral “have no qualms using Western medicine, weaponry, technology, education, media and probably Viagra and pornography.” -- Sanam Anderlini, executive director and co-founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)
Antonia Kirkland, legal advisor for Equality Now, told IPS, “Our report highlights a cross-sample of different sex discriminatory laws from a range of countries, which harm and impede a woman or girl throughout her life in many different ways.

“We urge not only these countries – but all governments around the world – to immediately revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex, as called for in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action.”

In 2000, she said, the U.N. General Assembly reaffirmed the urgency of doing this by setting a target date of 2005.

“Although this was not achieved, we are encouraged by the U.N.’s continued reflection of this priority in the development of a post-2015 framework,” she noted.

This year the United Nations, spearheaded by U.N. Women, will be commemorating the 20^th anniversary of the historic Beijing Women’s Conference, taking stock of successes and failures.

The new study identifies dozens of discriminatory laws, either in existence, or just enacted.

In Malta, if a kidnapper “after abducting a person, shall marry such person, he shall not be liable to prosecution”; in Nigeria, violence “by a husband for the purpose of correcting his wife” is considered lawful; in the Democratic Republic of Congo, “the wife is obliged to live with her husband and follow him wherever he sees fit to reside”; and in Guinea, “a wife can have a separate profession from that of her husband unless he objects.”

Sanam Anderlini, executive director and co-founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) told IPS hypocrisy and double standards are pervasive – not just about the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) or the Beijing Plan of Action but also about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which all countries have signed.

She said the problem is exacerbated by a lack of equality in basic terms – for example there is no equal pay in the United States. Also, the fact that so many countries refuse to live up to their own commitments means the bar is lowered constantly or remains forever low.

“We have to call it what it is – universally sanctioned sexism,” said Anderlini, who was the first senior gender and inclusion adviser on the U.N.’s standby team of expert mediation advisers (2011-2012).

She said cultural excuses are given to block changes in the laws in each context, but given how pervasive it is, “we have to be frank – it’s sexist and it’s about power.”

Meanwhile, the report also points out that, as recently as last year, Kenya adopted a new Marriage Act that permits polygamy, including without consent of the first wife.

Mali revised its family code in 2011, rejecting the opportunity to remove the discriminatory “wife obedience” and other provisions that were found in the 1962 Marriage and Guardianship Code, while Iran’s new Penal Code of 2013 maintains the provision stipulating a woman’s testimony to be worth less than a man’s.

Equality Now’s Kirkland told IPS sex discriminatory laws are in direct violation of the equality, non-discrimination and equal protection of the law provisions of the major international treaties and conventions.

There is no good reason why those countries highlighted in the report – as well as many others – are yet to reform their laws, she added.

Women and girls must have their rights protected and promoted and an equal start in life so they can reach their full potential, she said.

“Without equality in the law, there can never be equality in society,” Kirkland declared.

Currently, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women is meeting in Geneva, as it does periodically, to review reports from several of the 188 States Parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

At the current session, the Committee of 23 independent experts is reviewing the implementation of CEDAW by several countries, including Azerbaijan, Gabon, Ecuador, Tuvalu, Denmark, Kyrgyzstan, Eritrea, and Maldives.

The discriminatory sex laws cited in the study also include Kenya’s 2014 Marriage Act, which says, “A marriage celebrated under customary law or Islamic law is presumed to be polygamous or potentially polygamous.”

An Indian act from 2013 states, “Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.”

A Bahamian act from 1991 defines rape as the act of those over 14 years “having sexual intercourse with another person who is not his spouse”, thereby permitting marital rape.

In Yemen’s 1992 act, Article 40 suggests that a wife “must permit [her husband] to have legitimate intercourse with her when she is fit to do so.”

In the United States, a child born outside of marriage can only be granted citizenship in certain cases relating to the father, such as, if “a blood relationship between the person and the father is established by clear and convincing evidence” or “the father (unless deceased) has agreed in writing to provide financial support for the person until the person reaches the age of 18 years.”

And in Saudi Arabia, a 1990 Fatwa suggests: “women’s driving of automobiles” is prohibited as it “is a source of undeniable vices.”

Asked whether countries practicing discriminatory sex laws should be named and shamed, ICAN’s Anderlini told IPS it is time for an annual report card of countries – to show clearly where they are on the hypocrisy scale vis-à-vis gender equality in actions and changes evident in the lives of women and girls.

She said public statements, rhetoric, pledges and even ratifications are meaningless if there is no action and more importantly more positive outcomes.

“Why not have an ascendency process – like joining the European Union – where countries get recognised based on demonstrable actions [or] outcomes, not just what they say or sign?” she suggested.

Anderlini also pointed out that, sadly, progressive voices just don’t care enough or understand the political repercussions enough to act; or they have such an Orientalist view of women in developing countries that they minimise and marginalise their role.

But the extremists get it, she said – they understand women’s power and influence. That’s why they are killing the ones who speak out and are actively recruiting young and older women into their fold.

“And too often those who oppose equal rights will claim it counters their culture or traditions – but it’s hypocritical and inaccurate.”

She pointed out that a close look at the history, religion or traditions of many countries provides ample evidence of women’s rights and equality. But that just gets erased away by those – typically men – who interpret and recount the past.

Islam for example, said Anderlini, not only states that women and men were created equal but specifically calls for equal rights to education and pay, among other things.

“Or when we think of land ownership, it was Victorian colonialists who imposed their version of inheritance laws – property goes to the eldest son – on many countries where collective ownership and matrilineal systems were in place.”

Never in the history of humankind has culture been static, she said.

Furthermore, she claimed, the same people and governments who decry equal rights for women as foreign or Western or colonial or immoral or ask for ‘patience’ or cultural sensitivity “have no qualms using Western medicine, weaponry, technology, education, media and probably Viagra and pornography.”

These have a far more damaging impact on their culture or going against religion and tradition than giving women the rights to inherit land, get equal pay for equal work, pass citizenship to their children, “or, dare I say, drive,” she concluded.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

The village of rape survivor Angeline Mwarusena continues to be threatened by militia. Credit: Einberger/argum/EED/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 12 2014 (IPS)

When sexual violence – whether against men, women or children – takes place in United Nations peacekeeping missions worldwide, the world body has been quick to single out the perpetrators and expel them back to their home countries.

But the U.N. has little or no authority to prosecute offenders, mete out justice or ensure adequate compensation to victims.

The 193 member states, which provide thousands of troops for peacekeeping missions largely in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean, are beyond the reach of the long arm of the law.

But at a summit meeting in London this week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon released a set of guidelines titled ‘Reparations for Conflict-Related Sexual Violence.’

These reparations include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-repetition.

"People should have the right to silence if they so choose, but they also have the right to social justice [...]." -- Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, co-founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN)
“A key element of reparation is that it should be proportional to the gravity of the violations and the harm suffered,” says the 20-page document.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, co-founder of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN), told IPS it would be useful to know how the United Nations plans to disseminate the guidelines so that its own staffers are trained in these issues.

“And what means do they have to ensure compliance?” she asked.

In other words, is this guidance just for optional use, or is this setting a baseline standard by which the United Nations must operate?

“What are the penalties for non-compliance? And how will they monitor this?” asked Anderlini, who is also a senior fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s Centre for International Studies.

In its report, the United Nations also points out some of the flaws in the existing system.

In South Africa, for example, reparations to victims of sexual violence took the form of a one-off payment of approximately 4,000 dollars.

However, the policy failed to take into consideration both power differentials within families, as well as the historic lack of access to bank accounts among women.

“Local victims groups reported the money was often deposited into the accounts of male family member and women were given limited or no control over the resources,” the guidelines stated.

In some cases, tensions over how money should be spent in households lent itself to family violence, according to the United Nations.

Shelby Quast, policy director at the New York-based Equality Now, told IPS it is vital that reparations occur alongside development of a human rights-based legal framework that protects the rights of women and girls in the post-conflict and development periods.

“Because so much sexual violence is targeted toward adolescent girls, it is also important the variety of reparations – medical, psychological, financial, etc – pay special attention to the unique needs of girls at this particularly formative time in their lives,” she added.

Addressing the London summit on ‘Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict’, Zainab Hawa Bangura, U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict, said: “Reparations are routinely left out of peace negotiations or sidelined in funding priorities, even though they are of utmost importance to survivors.”

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos cited a study by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which found that in one concentration camp near Sarajevo, 4,000 of the 5,000 male prisoners said they had been raped.

She said research in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) found that one in six of the men surveyed said they had experienced conflict-related sexual violence.

And a study in post-conflict Liberia found that among former combatants, 42 percent of women and 33 percent of men had experienced sexual violence.

“There are huge gaps in research, but we know that all sexual crimes are under-reported and those against men and boys in conflict are particularly difficult to quantify,” said Amos.

Under-Secretary-General Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who is also the executive director of U.N. Women, said stronger action is the need of the hour, and “sexual violence in conflict is a frontline concern for us.”

Anderlini, who has done extensive research on the subject and is armed with field experience, told IPS victims of sexual violence should have the right and ability to move beyond ‘victimhood’ and reclaim their lives.

To this end, they require physical and psycho-social care, access to justice, and educational and professional opportunities to rebuild their lives. They also need a socio-cultural context that accepts and respects them, she pointed out.

Anderlini also said justice for victims should not be limited to legal justice or stand-alone reparation programmes that depend on people coming forward.

“People should have the right to silence if they so choose, but they also have the right to social justice – meaning that the framing has to go beyond just reparation programmes to ensure that health, education, economic programming in conflict/ post conflict integrate and address the needs of people affected by sexual violence.”

For example, she said, health clinics and workers must be trained to deal with sexual violence issues in all these settings.

Educational and professional training and opportunities should be made available to sexual violence victims that also integrate a psycho-social dimension and group therapy support, said Anderlini, author of ‘Women Building Peace: What They do, Why it Matters.’

(END)

Brazilian women have been making headway in traditionally male-dominated areas. Construction workers in Rio de Janeiro. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 24 2014 (IPS)

The 45-member U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) concluded its annual 10-day session Saturday with several key pronouncements, including on reproductive health, women’s rights, sexual violence, female genital mutilation (FGM) and the role of women in implementing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The heaviest round of applause came when the Commission specifically called for a “stand-alone goal” on gender equality – a longstanding demand by women’s groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) – in the U.N.’s post-2015 development agenda.

Still, the primary inter-governmental policy-making body on gender empowerment did not weigh in on a key proposal being kicked around in the corridors of the world body: a proposal for a woman to be the next U.N. secretary-general (SG), come January 2017.

She said that in pre-CSW conversations, she heard the names of two possible candidates from Europe – whose turn it is to field candidates on the basis of geographical rotation – but both were men.

“The question is: Is the United Nations ready for a woman SG?” she asked.

Dr. Abigail E. Ruane, PeaceWomen Programme Manager at the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS the biggest thing at the CSW session was support for a gender equality goal in the post-2015 development agenda and the integration of gender throughout the proposed sustainable development goals (SDGs).

She said the recognition of the link between conflict and development was also important because it is not one that is usually recognised.

Asked about the proposal for a woman SG, she said: “I didn’t hear any discussion of a woman SG in the sessions I participated in.”

Harriette Williams Bright, advocacy director of Femmes Africa Solidarite (FAS), also told IPS the various civil society and CSW sessions she attended did not bring up the discussion of a woman as the next SG.

Still, she said the commitment of the CSW to a stand-alone goal on gender equality is welcomed and “we are hopeful that member states will honour this commitment in the post-2015 development framework and allocate the resources and political will needed for concrete progress in the lives of women, particularly in situations of conflict.”

Antonia Kirkland, legal advisor at Equality Now, told IPS her organisation was heartened that U.N. member states were able to reach consensus endorsing the idea that gender equality, the empowerment of women and the human rights of women and girls must be addressed in any post-2015 development framework following the expiration of MDGs in 2015.

“Throughout the process there has been broad agreement that freedom from violence against women and girls and the elimination of child marriage and FGM must be achieved,” she said.

“Equality Now believes sex discriminatory laws, including those that actually promote violence against women and girls, should be repealed as soon as possible to really change harmful practices and social norms,” Kirkland added.

Cabrera-Balleza of GNWP said the call for a stand-alone goal on gender equality; women’s empowerment and human rights of women and girls; the elimination of FGM and honour crimes, child, early and forced marriages; protection of women and girls from violence; the protection of women human rights defenders; the integration of a gender perspective in environmental and climate change policies and humanitarian response to natural disasters; “are all reasons to celebrate.”

She regretted the CSW conclusions did not make a link between peace, development and the post-2015 agenda.

The earlier drafts of the Agreed Conclusions were much stronger in terms of defining this intersection, she noted.

“I hate to think delegates see peace and development and gender equality and women’s empowerment as disconnected issues or that peace is an easy bargaining chip. …that there is no text on the intersection of peace, security and development defies logic,” she said. “How can we have development without peace and how can we have peace without development?”

Cabrera-Balleza pointed out that “even as we hold governments accountable to respond to this gap, we need to have a serious dialogue among ourselves too as civil society actors – across issues, across different thematic agendas.”

Dr. Ruane of WILPF told IPS that despite longstanding commitments to strengthen financing to move words to action, including through arms reduction, such as included both in the plan of action at the Earth Summit in Rio (1992) and the Beijing women’s conference (1995), “governments gave in to pressure to weaken commitments and ended up reiterating only support for voluntary innovative financing mechanisms, as appropriate.”

In a statement released Monday, Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) said that while the MDGs resulted in a reduction of poverty in some respects, the goals furthest from being achieved are those focused on women and girls – particularly on achieving gender equality and improving maternal health.

Executive Director of U.N. Women Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka said the agreement represents a milestone toward a transformative global development agenda that puts the empowerment of women and girls at its centre.

She said member states have stressed that while the MDGs have advanced progress in many areas, they remain unfinished business as long as gender inequality persists.

As the Commission rightly points out, she said, funding in support of gender equality and women’s empowerment remains inadequate.

Investments in women and girls will have to be significantly stepped up. As member states underline, this will have a multiplier effect on sustained economic growth, she declared.

At the conclusion of the session, CSW Chair Ambassador Libran Cabactulan of the Philippines said “it is critical, important and urgent to appreciate every tree in the forest, and have an agreement on how big, how tall or how fat each tree.

“At the same time, we need to be mindful of the entire forest,” she added, pointing out that “the absence of peace and security in the discourse on post-2015 agenda does not make a whole forest.”

Everyday life for women and girls in Saudi Arabia depends on the goodwill of male guardians at all times. Credit: Rebecca Murray/IPS

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 30 2013 (IPS)

When Saudi Arabia permitted women to vote but not drive, a newspaper cartoon last year captured the double standard with dark irony.

As a group of women in burqa wait in line to vote at a polling station in Riyadh, an aggressive-looking polling agent tells the women, “We have a small problem here. We need your driver’s licence as identification.”"Saudi Arabia stands out for its extraordinarily high levels of repression." -- HRW's Joe Stork

The only country in the world where women are still not permitted to drive is in the running for a seat on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council (HRC) for a three-year term, beginning January 2014.

The elections for the four vacant seats in the Asia-Pacific group, based on geographical rotation, are scheduled to take place in the General Assembly Nov. 12. The five candidates in the running are China, Jordan, the Maldives, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia.

Since Saudi Arabia rejected its Security Council seat after being voted into office last week, there is speculation whether it will do the same in the 47-member HRC, if it wins the seat.

Adam Coogle of Human Rights Watch (HRW) told IPS, “Our Geneva team has asked around and no one apparently has heard that Saudi Arabia may not accept the HRC seat. Obviously that doesn’t mean it can’t happen, but we won’t comment on it at this point.”

Suad Abu-Dayyeh of the New York-based Equality Now told IPS that Saudi Arabia, like many countries around the world, needs to make substantial improvements to its provision and protection of the rights of women and girls.

“These fundamental human rights abuses such as the lack of a minimum age of marriage and an effective ban on women driving have been well-documented and are extremely damaging,” she said.

Everyday life for women and girls in Saudi Arabia depends on the goodwill of male guardians at all times – a predicament which utterly limits freedom of movement for the Kingdom’s women and girls and something which needs to be urgently changed, she said.
Recent indications that Saudi Arabia has been making very tentative steps to address this situation are positive, but much more is needed, she added.

“We encourage the Kingdom to use all opportunities for positive engagement as stepping stones towards making transformational advancements in its treatment of women and girls,” she added.

Last week, scores of women defied the government by driving through the streets of Saudi Arabia. According to published reports, the police detained several women drivers and asked them to sign pledges not to drive in the future.

Sheik Mohammed al-Nujaimi, a Saudi cleric, said last week the campaign to permit women drivers in Saudi Arabia would lead to ruined marriages, a low birth rate, spread of adultery, more car accidents and “excessive spending on beauty products.”

Last week, Saudi Arabia was one of the countries whose human rights record came under the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) undertaken by the HRC.

But HRW’s Coogle told IPS Saudi Arabia’s engagement in its UPR was little more than delivering prepared statements that failed to respond to detailed criticism on its rights record.

“Saudi Arabia took the UPR as a routine foreign policy obligation, not as an opportunity to commit to urgently needed reform,” he said.

In a statement released last week, HRW singled out a litany of human rights violations by Saudi Arabia.

Since the beginning of 2013, Saudi Arabia has convicted seven prominent human rights and civil society activists on broad, catch-all charges, such as “trying to distort the reputation of the kingdom,” “breaking allegiance with the ruler,” and “setting up an unlicensed organisation.”

Joe Stork, HRW’s deputy Middle East director, said many countries have problematic records, “but Saudi Arabia stands out for its extraordinarily high levels of repression and its failure to carry out its promises to the Human Rights Council.”

Despite longstanding reform promises, the government of Saudi Arabia has failed to make substantive changes, said a statement released by HRW. “In particular, it should improve its arbitrary criminal justice system, abolish the system of male guardianship over women, and throw out discriminatory aspects of its sponsorship system for foreign workers, which leave workers vulnerable to abuses including forced labour.”

Saudi Arabia also stands out for its failure to heed the recommendations of its most recent Human Rights Council review in February 2009.

HRW said Saudi Arabia should sign and ratify core U.N. human rights treaties and agreements such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based U.N. Watch, a strongly pro-Israeli non-governmental organisation (NGO), was quoted as saying, “Making Saudi Arabia a world judge on women’s rights and religious freedom would be like naming a pyromaniac as the town fire chief.”

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (centre) and Vuk Jeremić (right), President of the sixty-seventh session of the General Assembly. Credit: UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz

By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2013 (IPS)

Despite adopting scores of pious resolutions on gender empowerment over the last 67 years, the 193-member General Assembly has failed to practice in its own backyard what it has vigourously preached to the outside world.

So far, the U.N’s highest policy making body has elected only three women as its president since 1946: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit of India (1953), Angie Brooks of Liberia (1969) and Sheikha Haya Rasheed al-Khalifa of Bahrain (2006)."It is a pity that the U.N. has kept 50 percent of humanity out of consideration for its highest position." -- Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

In a letter addressed to over 160 world leaders, who were at the United Nations last week, the New York-based Impact Leadership 21 has called for meaningful steps in establishing “the rights of women and the equality of their participation at all decision-making levels”.

More specifically, the letter makes a strong case for a woman as the next U.N. secretary-general (UNSG) when Ban Ki-moon finishes his current term at the end of 2016.

The all-male UNSGs were Trygve Lie of Norway, Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden, U. Thant of Burma (now Myanmar), Kurt Waldheim of Austria, Javier Perez de Cuellar of Peru, Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, Kofi Annan of Ghana and current incumbent Ban Ki-moon of South Korea.

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury, a former permanent representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations and a onetime U.N. under-secretary-general, told IPS the most important “reform” needed for the choice of the U.N. leader is in the mindset of member-states.

At this point of time in human progress, he said, it is a shame that in the 69 years of its existence, the United Nations was not able to elect a woman to lead.

Not only that, there has been no candidate even nominated to be considered for election, he complained.

“Notwithstanding all the U.N. resolutions, treaties, declarations and pronouncements asserting the equality of women, it is a pity that the U.N. has kept 50 percent of humanity out of consideration for its highest position,” he added.

The organisation is undoubtedly poorer as it restricted its choice only to the half of the potential candidates, said Chowdhury, a member of the Global Advisory Council of Impact Leadership 21, described as a movement and a platform committed to transforming women’s global leadership at the highest level of influence in the 21st century.

Yasmeen Hassan, global director of Equality Now, told IPS her organisation has been advocating for a woman UNSG since 1996.

“We started an action in 2011 but Ban Ki-moon was very quickly re-elected for a second term,” she said. “In fact, a woman UNSG has been feasible and realistic since Eleanor Roosevelt played an essential role in the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.”

Encouraged by the newly-created U.N. Women, Impact Leadership 21 has urged world leaders to commit themselves and the countries they represent to work to achieve four objectives:

First, the appointment of a woman as the next UNSG, come January 2017.

Second, the nomination and election of women as future presidents of the General Assembly.

Third, the election of more women as heads of various U.N. governing bodies (which have been led mostly by men).

And fourth, the appointment by member-states of more women as ambassadors to the United Nations in New York and to U.N. missions in Geneva.

Chowdhury told IPS that without peace, development is impossible, and without development peace is not achievable.

“But without women, neither peace nor development is possible,” he added. “We should never forget that when women are marginalised, there is little chance for the world to get sustainable peace in the real sense.”

Barbara Crossette, a former U.N. bureau chief for the New York Times (1994-2001), told IPS the time is overdue for a female secretary-general and very long overdue for more women as General Assembly presidents.

“But the choice should not be made on that ground: finding a woman. They are out there – good ones – but that doesn’t mean a good one would be chosen under the current system, and if the job criterion seems token,” said Crossette, a longtime chief correspondent for the New York Times covering Southeast and South Asia.

She also pointed out that countries will always have different ideas about what kind of UNSG they want, “and I think that is important to remember”.

“But this choice should not forever be made under the table, behind closed doors,” she added.

And that includes the gambit of claiming geographic distribution or rotation and then naming someone less than the best they have to offer.

“If the best people – both men and women – were to compete in some way openly [such as] a debate before the General Assembly, the whole world would get a chance to think about this. It would also draw huge attention to the U.N.,” she noted.

Crossette said when Louise Frechette of Canada was deputy secretary-general, “She told me once how painful it was to see governments not take her seriously in nominating stellar women for good U.N. jobs when she asked them for names.”

And many government never even answered her request, Crossette said.

Chowdhury told IPS the United Nations has been in the forefront of a continuing endeavour for equality since its inception.

The U.N.’s last women’s summit held in Beijing in 1995 made the boldest and most forward-looking call for equality.

The landmark 1325 U.N. Security Council resolution in 2000 on women and peace and security has made the realisation of women’s equal participation at all decision making levels obligatory on all members of the United Nations.

Hassan of Equality Now said it has always advocated for Security Council members to develop a fair process that seriously considers women candidates, as well as encouraging people to put pressure on their own country’s mission to the United Nations.

“By any standards, there are many women who are qualified for the post and it is past time for the U.N. to live up to its rhetoric on gender equality by electing a woman as UNSG,” she said.

Seventy percent of France’s 20,000 sex workers are migrant women. Credit: A.D. McKenzie/IPS

By Lucy Westcott
UNITED NATIONS, Sep 26 2013 (IPS)

The age-old debate over how to regulate sex work has led to a rift between the United Nations and anti-trafficking organisations, which are pressuring the world body to rethink its position following two reports that advocate decriminalising all aspects of prostitution.

“When we saw the reports we became very concerned,” said Lauren Hersh, New York director of Equality Now, which is leading the public campaign that launched this week. “To have U.N. agencies call for brothel-keeping is egregious,” she told IPS.“People in prostitution need to be recognised as trafficking victims… We don’t believe anyone chooses.” -- Stella Marr of Sex Trafficking Survivors United

The coalition of 98 groups is asking the U.N. to update and reissue the reports, which were published last year, to reflect the experiences of survivors of prostitution, and include a wider range of views on the impact of legalising of the sex industry.

The two reports, Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific, backed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Joint United Nations Programme of HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and HIV and the Law, published by UNDP’s Global Commission on HIV and the Law, are focused on reducing HIV/AIDS while simultaneously protecting the rights of those involved in prostitution.

Survivors say that addressing the demand that keeps the cycle of prostitution in motion is imperative and is not adequately addressed in the reports.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for UNDP said in a statement that the reports examined the issues of sex work through a specific lens of the HIV epidemic and strongly condemned sex trafficking.

“UNDP advocates and promotes the respect of human rights for all, especially the most excluded and marginalised. The report on Sex Work and the Law in Asia and the Pacific… clearly distinguishes between adult consensual sex work and human trafficking for sexual exploitation,” the spokesperson said.

Spokespersons from UNFPA and UNAIDS told IPS that the UNDP statement accurately reflects their agencies’ position.

The reports also see decriminalisation of the sex industry as a way to promote the ability of prostitutes to negotiate condom use, but Equality Now says that for many women in prostitution, there is an economic dependency, thus pressure, to have sex without a condom as clients will often offer more money for sex without one.

If women are trafficked or controlled by a pimp, they have less ability to insist on the use of condoms.

In a statement, UNDP said that the criminalisation of sex work increases vulnerability to HIV and limits access to condoms and sexual health services.

But Hersh says that, “Often it’s the pimps and buyers that dictate condom use as women can get more money from not using one.”

Hersh emphasises that the coalition is not trying to undermine the efforts of the campaign against HIV/AIDS. Equality Now has spent nearly a year reaching out to the U.N. through internal channels, including sending a letter co-signed with over 80 organisations, to Michel Sidibe, executive director of UNAIDS.

Prostitution is legal in many countries, including Switzerland, where “sex boxes” were recently introduced in Zurich to promote the safety of prostitutes in what the city considers a more pleasant environment. But the situation for men and women in countries where prostitution is legalised and decriminalised remains dire, according to Equality Now.

“One of the major issues is that the reports did not consult with our partners on the ground, particularly survivor-led organisations,” Hersh told IPS.

Stella Marr, executive director and one of the co-founders of Sex Trafficking Survivors United, an international organisation of over 100 survivors of prostitution, is herself a survivor, first trafficked at age 20 and involved in prostitution for 10 years.

“If we don’t address demand, there will always be trafficking,” Marr told IPS, adding that she is “saddened” at the reports.

Marr believes the best solution is the Nordic model, which criminalises the purchase of sex, but decriminalises being a prostitute.

Marr left prostitution after a buyer offered to help her, giving her a safe place to live for two years. She is the only person she knows who this has happened to.

“The fact that I got out doesn’t mean I was strong. I was lucky,” Marr said.

Survivors of the sex industry do not have their voices heard as loudly as those who are currently involved due to the amount of shame around it, said Rachel Moran, a founding member of Survivors of Prostitution-Abuse Calling for Enlightenment (SPACE) International, who was prostituted from age 15 until she was 22.

Another facet of the reports Equality Now wants to address is the definition of “trafficking” by the U.N. In 2000, in the U.N. Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, commonly known as the U.N. Trafficking Protocol, members states agreed on a broad definition of trafficking that reflects a variety of experiences from sex trafficking survivors.

The 2012 U.N. reports recommend narrowing down and redefining the definition, which could mean many trafficked persons would no longer be considered victims and their traffickers would not be held accountable.

“I understand that it’s difficult… you have to have a way to help people out of that life,” Marr said. “People in prostitution need to be recognised as trafficking victims… We don’t believe anyone chooses.”

Equality Now is optimistic about future reports, including a recent study from Asia and the Pacific, launched by UNDP, UNFPA and U.N. Women, that reports the purchase of commercial sex in the region is strongly associated with widespread rape and sexual violence against women.

FGM is a taboo and complicated topic in Liberia and it is dangerous for women to speak out about it. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Lucy Westcott
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 22 2013 (IPS)

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF released a report Monday that gives the most complete picture of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) ever published.

Over 125 million women and girls have undergone the practice, and there are 30 million women and girls at risk of the procedure in the next decade. The report is a culmination of 20 years of research from 29 countries across Africa and Asia, using national surveys. UNICEF began to look closely at FGM/C 10 years ago.

Egypt is the highest-ranking country in terms of numbers, with 27.2 million women and girls, or 91 percent, having undergone the procedure. Despite being illegal, an overwhelming majority of FGM/C cases in Egypt are carried out by a medical professional.

In a number of countries, FGM/C is a near-universal practice. In Somalia, the rate is 98 percent, the highest percentage in the world, and in Guinea and Djibouti the rates are 96 percent and 93 percent respectively. The likelihood of a girl undergoing FGM/C is also higher if her mother has had it.

The younger generation of girls is less likely to undergo FGM/C and is more educated and aware of the negative health consequences of the procedure, which include complications during birth, infections and excessive bleeding, Claudia Cappa, author of the report and a UNICEF statistics and monitoring specialist, told IPS. These also include mental health problems, Cappa added.

“Girls can be seen as important agents of change across generations,” Cappa said.

The report contains the first published data from Iraq, which only started conducting a nationally representative survey on the practice in 2010, where prevalence of FGM/C has been reduced by half, Cappa said, adding that this is a positive development.

“These girls have also had the opportunity to interact with girls who have not been cut, and can see that they aren’t exposed to [social] stigma,” Cappa said.

The importance of including men in the fight against FGM/C was one of the key findings from the report, which reveals that many men and boys across the 29 countries investigated want to see an end to the practice.

The amount of hidden support, which includes the men and boys who oppose FGM/C, means that UNICEF has to put resources into bringing these attitudes to light, helping societies to shift towards complete abandonment of the practice.

Yet FGM/C continues, and there are large discrepancies between the attitudes of mothers, many of whom want the practice to stop, and their behaviour of allowing their daughters to have the procedure.

Reasons for continuing with FGM/C include cleanliness and hygiene, preservation of virginity and social acceptance, which is the most commonly reported factor. In some countries, increased sexual pleasure for men was also cited as a reason to keep the practice alive, the report says.

“It’s something that’s always there,” Francesca Moneti, senior adviser in child protection at UNICEF, said at the press conference. “The daughter reaches the age of cutting and she is cut.”

By conforming to the practice, girls gain social acceptance and have a “good conscience”, the report says.

Efua Dorkenoo, OBE, advocacy director of the FGM project at Equality Now, sees the need for more protection measures to be established in communities where FGM continues, as well as support systems for girls who flee their families and communities to escape the practice.

It’s also important for organisations, including UNICEF, to realise that a “multi-pronged approach” is necessary, involving health workers and authorities as well as focusing on behaviour change in the community, Dorkenoo says.

“In the UNICEF model they tend to focus on community behaviour change… behaviour change is more of a long-term process,” Dorkenoo told IPS.

“We don’t know how far village empowerment models have gone, we don’t know if they’ve actually stopped,” she says. “Our work on the ground doesn’t mean they’ve actually stopped.”

For Dorkneoo, FGM directly concerns violence against women and revolves around sexuality and social and gender control. And stopping a deeply entrenched cultural practice isn’t as easy as communities saying they’ve abandoned FGM.

“It is too simplistic that public declarations means FGM has stopped. It is more of a feel-good factor for a Western audience,” Dorkenoo says. “There isn’t a one-size-fits-all model.”

When communities make a declaration to stop it is significant, Cappa says, and that it’s often difficult to see if the practice has been fully abandoned due to the time between the declaration and subsequent data collection.

Dorkenoo says that while the UNICEF model of community education, which includes emphasis on democracy and human rights, is a good foundation and contributes to raising awareness about FGM, more needs to be done at a structural level.

“It’s very simplistic to think you can go into a community for 30 years, talk about human rights and democracy, and expect change,” she said, adding that FGM manifests itself in a complex way across each country.

Two Saudi Arabian women’s rights activists are filing an appeal on Friday after being sentenced to 10 months in prison for helping a woman who had allegedly been abused by her husband.

On Jun. 15, Wajeha Al-Huwaider and Fawzia Al-Oyouni were convicted by a district court in Al-Khobar of “takhbib”, an element of shari’a law that states they incited a woman to defy her husband and supported a wife without her husband’s knowledge. A two-year travel ban will follow their prison term.

Saudi Arabia follows conservative interpretations of Islam that often place tight restrictions on women’s rights. Credit: Retlaw Snellac/CC by 2.0

The women came to the assistance of a Canadian woman, Nathalie Morin, who called Al-Huwaider asking for help after being locked in a room by her husband without adequate food or water.

But as the women approached her house they were ambushed and arrested, Suad Abu-Dayyeh, programme consultant on Middle East and North Africa for Equality Now, told IPS. Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, is calling on supporters to send letters in preparation for the appeal deadline on Friday, Jul. 12.

“They did not conspire to turn Nathalie against her husband or attempt to convince her to abandon him. In fact, they have never met her,” Abu-Dayyeh told IPS.

Abu-Dayyeh believes the allegations against the women are false and that Saudi Arabia is instead cracking down on the two women for their history of human rights activism.

“The Saudi government has clearly created a scenario whereby Fawzia and Wajeha, brave women who wanted to help another woman in need, were arrested for the activism they carry out,” Abu-Dayyeh said.

“These two women have been activists for a long time, and the Saudi government has been keen to silence them for a long time. They are now being made an example of to ensure that other activists don’t speak out either,” Abu-Dayyeh added.

Al-Huwaider and Al-Oyouni have been active in a number of human and women’s campaigns in Saudi Arabia, including Women2Drive, which encouraged women to defy Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving.

In a YouTube video filmed on Women’s Day in 2008, Al-Huwaider is seen driving around an empty countryside and talking to online supporters from the driver’s seat. Saudi Arabia follows very conservative interpretations of Islamic law that forbids women from driving.

Last year, Al-Huwaider was listed as number 82 on Arabian Business’ list of the 100 most powerful Arab women, but she was missing from the list this year. She is also the co-founder of Association for the Protection and Defence of Women’s Rights in Saudi Arabia."[Wajeha Al-Huwaider and Fawzia Al-Oyouni] are being made an example of to ensure that other activists don't speak out."
-- Suad Abu-Dayyeh

“These two women are being persecuted for their work on human rights and women’s rights,” Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told IPS. “It’s not a criminal offence.”

The application of “takhbib”, where a man or woman interferes with a marriage or engagement, turning one spouse against another, is curious in this case, and it is possible that it is being used to mask what authorities see as the real crime: Al-Huwaider’s and Al-Oyouni’s activism.

“It seems a little unusual from the point of view of classical Islamic law, which may not line up with current Saudi practice… takhbib is more usually associated with seducing a woman to leave or divorce her husband, or marry somebody unauthorised,” Marion Katz, associate professor in the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies department at New York University, told IPS.

When Al-Huwaider was first questioned over a year ago about the incident, the questions authorities asked were mainly about her work as a human and women’s rights activist, Stork said.

The success of Friday’s appeal, based on Saudi Arabia’s track record, seems unlikely, Stork said.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Stork said. “[Saudi Arabia] has made a decision to really stamp out human rights activism.”

On the ground in Saudi Arabia, gaining support is difficult for Al-Huwaider and Al-Oyouni, as women cannot speak out freely in the country and the government controls the media.

“The rights of women and girls are often deeply compromised,” Abu-Dayyeh said. “In Saudi Arabia, there are no civil society organisations that can pick up such issues.”

Despite recent small glimmers of positive developments to improve and expand the rights of women in Saudi Arabia, including sending its first female athlete, Sarah Attar, to the Olympic Games in London last year and giving girls in private schools the right to play sports, as well as allowing women to ride bikes, the case of the two activists is a step backwards for the Kingdom.

“Saudi Arabia still needs to do a lot more to ensure that women and girls are protected and that their fundamental human rights are safeguarded,” Abu-Dayyeh stated, pointing out, “Allowing this to happen would benefit the entire society.”

In June, New York state legislature will vote on a bill that will increase protection for sex trafficking victims. Credit: Bigstock

By Lucy Westcott
NEW YORK, Jun 13 2013 (IPS)

It started for Ruth when she was 12 years old and for Lowyal when she was 13. After being raped by her mother’s boyfriend, Ruth ran away from home and was picked up by a pimp, who sold her into prostitution.

Lowyal, bullied at school and facing a deteriorating situation at home, dropped out of school and eventually began working on the streets. In a drawing Lowyal created to depict this traumatic time in her life, a wide eye reflects a city skyline as red flames curl at the bottom, with menacing faces on both sides.

This month, New York’s legislature will vote on the New York Trafficking Victims and Protection and Justice Act (TVPJA), which would give more protection to girls like Ruth and Lowyal, and harsher punishments for those who trafficked them. It is part of the Women’s Equality Act that supporters hope will be voted on before the legislative session ends Jun. 20.

Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, is working with the Jewish Child Care Association and the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition to get the law passed.

The organisation is encouraging supporters to send letters to Governor Andrew Cuomo, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, and State Senator Dean G. Skelos.

The TVPJA will direct resources to toughening laws to target and arrest pimps and buyers rather than victims. And under the new law, penalties for buying sex from a minor will be similar to those for statutory rape.

The law would also mean that all prostituted persons under the age of 18 are treated as trafficking victims instead of criminals in the state of New York. Currently, 16- and 17-year-olds arrested for prostitution are prosecuted as adults.

“There are two provisions that we are having a hard time with and [are] getting opposition to,” Lauren Hersh, New York director of Equality Now, told IPS. Hersh is perplexed as to why these provisions are problematic."Sex trafficking is happening within New York City, and many of its victims are American-born."
-- Lauren Hersh

The first is making sex trafficking a violent felony in New York State, which would send a message to law enforcement that trafficking is a violent crime, Hersh explained.

“Talk to any sex trafficking victim, and they’ll tell you how violent it is,” she added.

The second is aligning New York state law with U.S. federal law, which does not require prosecutors to prove that minors were coerced into sexual acts. Under the current law, with most cases in New York, victims have to testify in court, Hersh said.

“The New York State assembly is historically against raising penalties,” Emily Amick, staff attorney at Sanctuary for Families and legislative director for the New York State Anti-Trafficking Coalition, told IPS.

“The law needs to evolve,” Amick said. “Albany is letting politics get in the way of helping people,” she added, with state lawmakers who oppose these provisions working against the livelihoods and futures of sex trafficking victims.

Despite some opposition, Hersh sees the bill as “excellent and comprehensive”.

The fact that women and girls are being trafficked not only inside U.S. borders, but also within city limits, may be a surprise to some people, Hersh said.

“When people think of sex trafficking, they often only think of women and girls being smuggled across international borders. But sex trafficking is happening within New York City, and many of its victims are American-born,” Hersh said in a statement.

Legislative justice is one part of the solution. Sexually exploited girls like Ruth and Lowyal should also be given a voice in the process of advocacy and justice, Hersh said. Project IMPACT, a New York-based programme that allows trafficking victims to share their stories, if and how they choose to, is one way to do so.

“I think telling my story matters because it could help other girls like me,” Veronica, another formerly trafficked girl, said, after sharing her story at Project IMPACT. “Storytelling is important because I lived this – I’m the one who knows what it’s really like.”

Ruth, Lowyal and Veronica are part of Gateways, a residential treatment program for commercially sexually exploited youth that is run by the Jewish Child Care Association and allows them to rebuild their lives and self-esteem. Some Gateways residents visited Albany in May to lobby for the bill’s passing.

Reliable statistics on sex trafficking are difficult to obtain due to the hidden and underground nature of the crime, according to Hersh, but a 2010 State Department report put the number of people trafficked to the United States each year at around 15,000.

Two million children are exploited each year in the international commercial sex trade, according to 2012 data from the International Labour Organisation, which also estimates that women and girls make up 98 percent of sex trafficking victims.

And in the United States, while little data is available for the number of victims, the FBI estimates that 293,000 American children and teenagers are at risk of becoming victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

“The only way we’re going to have justice in New York is to pass this bill in its entirety,” Hersh told IPS.

The face of migration is changing dramatically as women and girls now represent about half of the over 214 million migrants worldwide.

Bolivian migrant in the airport in El Alto, next to La Paz. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS

And in some regions of the world, they outnumber their male counterparts, says Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA).

Addressing a weeklong meeting of the 46th session of the U.N. Commission on Population and Development (CPD), which concluded Friday, he pointed out that many women migrate on their own as heads of households, to secure a livelihood.

“Others leave their homes in search of more open societies, to get out of a bad marriage, or to escape all forms of discrimination and gender-based violence, political conflicts, and cultural constraints.”

Like other migrants, Dr. Osotimehin said, women contribute to the well-being of their households, through remittances that benefit the family.

An increasing number of migrants were women and children who bore the brunt of human rights violations around the world.

After a contentious debate, the CPD adopted a belated consensus resolution late Friday, recognising the central role of sexual and reproductive rights giving it prominent visibility.

This year’s CPD session focused on new trends in international migration. And the change in the gender composition among migrants is one of the growing new developments.

Yasmeen Hassan, global director of the New York-based Equality Now, told IPS, “In our experience, the so-called migration of women is deeply linked to trafficking, whether for sex or for domestic labour.”

She said women who see themselves as voluntary migrants find themselves trapped in situations of deep exploitation.

“And these are made possible and exacerbated by their vulnerable legal situation, their lack of social and family contacts, their isolation, their inability often to understand the language or to access systems of protection,” she said.

These factors make them a very attractive target of traffickers, said Hassan, formerly with the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women and who worked on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Speaking on behalf of the United States, Margaret Pollack said women migrants were often the victims of exploitation and sexual abuse, often lacking access to health care. She said this was particularly true for young migrants and others belonging to vulnerable migrant populations, such as LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) persons and the disabled.

Pollack called for specific policies aimed at helping those groups and for the collection of data on the abuses to which migrants were subjected.

A study released last week by the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO) said an estimated 600,000 migrant workers “are tricked and trapped into forced labour across the Middle East”.

Based on more than 650 interviews conducted over a two-year period in several countries, including Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the report points out the Middle East alone hosts millions of migrant workers, who in some cases exceed the number of national workers substantially.

In Qatar, about 94 percent of workers are migrants and in Saudi Arabia the figure is over 50 percent.

Last month a Sri Lankan maid, accused of allegedly killing an infant in her care, was beheaded in Saudi Arabia.

“Human trafficking can only be effectively tackled by addressing the systemic gaps in labour migration governance across the region,” Frank Hagemann, ILO deputy regional director for the Arab States, told the commission.

The resolution, adopted by the commission, calls on all member states to ensure migration is integrated into national and sectoral development policies, strategies and programmes.

At the same time, there should be due consideration to the linkages between migration and development in the further implementation of the 1994 Programme of Action adopted at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, and in the elaboration of the post-2015 development agenda.

The resolution specifically calls for the protection of the rights of migrant women and children, including those related to sexual and reproductive rights.

In a new report on migration released last week, the United Nations says new poles of economic growth in the global South have created new migratory flows between countries of the South.

In recent years, there has also been a significant increase in migration from developing to developed countries.

“Growth in migration from the South to the North has generated significant remittance flows to the South that can spur economic growth,” the report said.

And according to the World Bank, officially recorded remittances to developing countries reached 406 billion dollars in 2012.

Many of the rapidly growing economies in East and Southeast Asia, South America and West Africa have become poles for migration within their respective regions, the study adds. In addition, the oil-producing countries of Western Asia and some countries of Southern Europe experienced a rapid growth in the numbers of international migrants between 1990 and 2010.

Following the onset of the global financial crisis in 2008, some trends slowed or reversed temporarily, but more recent national data indicate that migration to most of those countries rose in 2011.