Archive for category: Women and Female Empowerment

information and Stories about woman and female empowerment.

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Women in Syria

womin in syria
Human Rights Watch (HRW) has recently released a report titled “We are still here: Women on the front lines of Syria’s conflict,” which details the increasingly significant role women in Syria have been playing over the past three years during the vicious war as well as the additional obstacles that women must face.

Protests against the Syrian government began in 2011, and they quickly erupted into a deadly civil war, pitting antigovernment militias against government forces. According to the United Nations, the war has killed 150,000 people and displaced over nine million. As of June, half of the entire population of the country is currently in need of humanitarian aid.

The report released by HRW includes the stories of 17 different women who fled this destruction in Syria and are now refugees in the neighboring country of Turkey. “Their experiences reflect the various roles that women, particularly those opposed to the government or living in areas that came under government attack, have taken on as political activists, caregivers, humanitarians, and providers, as well as the particular ways in which conflict impacts women.”

Because many men have had to leave their homes due to “indiscriminate attacks, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, or engagement in military operations,” women have become especially vulnerable, having less support in the case of an emergency, and having the additional responsibility of sole breadwinner.

Raids by armed forces and abductions, in which women are more highly targeted, become larger threats without this support. When women are abducted or arbitrarily detained, they are also disproportionately prone to receive abuse, including sexual assault and torture.

Some armed groups have explicitly targeted women in Syria, putting in place discriminatory policies that limit “women’s engagement in public life and ability to move freely” and “their access to education and employment.” In addition to fear of conflict, these types of overt restrictions severely limit women’s mobility.

However, many women are fighting back. Maha, a Syrian woman and founder of a peaceful activism organization, is continuing her organization’s civic work in Syria even though she fled the country after losing her husband to a government attack.

Maha is worried, however, that the work her organization and others like it are doing is being covered by the images of violence, saying, “On the news, you only see blood and destruction. You don’t see that behind it, there are civilian groups doing things peacefully.”

This HRW report has helped to shed light on the experiences Syrian women have had during this troubling conflict. They are at a disproportionately high risk to experience abuse and many have had to assume challenging and dangerous leadership roles.

“Recognizing women’s multiple and significant roles in the conflict,” the report noted, “and their experiences as both actors and victims, is critical to developing appropriate responses to women’s needs inside Syria and in refugee communities and to ensuring their ongoing and meaningful participation in determining Syria’s future.”

– Emily Jablonski

Sources: Al Jazeera America, Human Rights Watch
Photo: CTV News

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Ghana Drafts Affirmative Action Bill

Groups in Ghana are working to draft an affirmative action bill to put more women in government positions. The bill is aimed to help Ghana reach Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Although a draft has been submitted to the Attorney General, workshops are still being held to tweak the bill for Parliament.

A two-day validation workshop was being held in Koforidua, and 21 public servants and representatives of political parties worked, and continue to work, to improve the legislation. The bill is supported by the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection.

Presently, only 10.9 percent of Parliament consists of female representatives. The affirmative action bill would call for quotas on women representatives. This is not the first time an African country has used this tactic to increase the amount of women in leadership positions.

Liberia recommended that political parties in the 2005 election choose 30 percent female nominees. While not law, the parties that did follow the recommendation had the largest numbers of women in the Legislature for that election. The Legislature consisted of 14 women out of 94 positions, but this number dropped to only nine when the quota was not enforced in 2011.

In Nigeria, the current administration has promised a 35 percent representation of women in government. This has yet to be reached, and at the national convention of the All Progressives Congress, only eight out of 46 positions on the national executive council fell to women. All of these positions involved the title of “women leader.”

Why do women leaders in these countries feel that affirmative action quotas are necessary to put more women in leadership roles?

Bernice Sam, a Ghanaian women’s activist, spoke at the national forum on gender equality and women’s rights, held by the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Centre in Accra. She believes empowered women are necessary for growth, and that Ghana needs to work to empower women in these roles. She mentions the challenges faced by female politicians, despite legislation designed to allow them to run for office.

Women often do not have as much money as their male opponents, which is a major barrier. They also have higher levels of illiteracy, tied to less educational attainment and opportunity. Sam encourages all women to attain skills for civic leadership. These include public speaking, networking and the ability and confidence to motivate and mobilize others. To find this confidence, women also need more support from their spouses, along with faith in their own abilities.

They also just need knowledge. In Kenya, a large portion of women in rural areas do not know that the government requires 30 percent of all procurement in public service to be reserved for them. Rachel Ruto, the wife of the Deputy President of Kenya, called on women to pass along knowledge of their rights and powers to other women.

There is also an “old boys” network of political connections that impede women from entering the political sphere. Women tend to be ignored by incumbent male leadership.

Another issue is that women are required to balance their home and political lives. They are expected to take care of their families while also trying to run an underfunded, under-supported campaign.

Across Africa, there is a call for power structures to enable women to step into leadership positions. Simultaneously, there is a call for women to assert themselves into these positions. Despite these movements, parties are not encouraging women to run. Consequently, many women are taught that they are incompetent and unlikely to succeed in government.

Ghanaian leaders believe the affirmative action bill will provide a balance of allowing competent women to fill leadership positions, while  assuring others that  that they too can succeed. Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, assures that the bill does not aim to make women compete with men, but to ensure they have equal opportunity to pursue positions.

To Lithur, the bill is designed to give women and other minorities in the country a voice. It works in tandem with legislation to ban early and forced marriage, witchcraft and genital mutilation to empower women in Ghana.

The bill aims to help women and therefore, the country.

-Monica Roth

Sources: Ghana Web 1, Ghana Web 2, Ghana Web 3, KBC, Leadership, All Africa
Photo: InformGhana

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The Fight for Feminism in China

Feminism in China
In an attempt to raise awareness about the overall inequality women in China face, various groups have been performing an assortment of “stunts” in the hopes to provoke a positive response in favor of feminism in China.

Within the past few years, displays have included women wearing wedding dresses covered in red in an effort to stand up to domestic violence, disapproving of the lack of female facilities by participating in “Occupy the Men’s Toilets” and shaving their heads to address the more demanding requirements women need to meet to attend college.

While feminism is not as widespread in China as some of these activists would like, it is by no means a new movement. In the 19th and 20th centuries, women such as Lin Zongsu fought for female suffrage and women such as Qiu Jin wrote and spoke out about the practice of footbinding and the limited education of young girls.

Li Mizai explains to a Guardian reporter that despite the plethora of past feminist figures the activists use for inspiration, “gender discrimination is getting worse.”

Only two women serve on the politiburo and “the proportion of women on the party’s 200-strong central committee has slipped to less than 5 percent, lower than in Mao’s day.” Less than a fifth of land use contacts are in or include the name of the wife, and in 2011 rights to marital property were legally reduced. Moreover, the percentage of urban working women has decreased from 77 percent to 61 percent in the past two decades.

Part of the discrimination starts at birth, and while the gender gap has decreased in the past two years, there are still 118 male births for every 100 female births.

Interviewee Xiao Men comments that although sex discrimination is illegal in the work place, companies are unlikely to receive legal punishment for such actions. She comments that “when women face discrimination they don’t fight against it because they weren’t raised this way, and even if they try to, they don’t know how to do it. I think all women know something’s wrong, but they don’t know what it is or why.”

Activists, however, have not been discouraged thus far, and keep advocating for women’s equality across the country by trying to make women recognize their right to advocate for themselves.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: The Guardian 1, The Guardian 2, The Guardian 3, Wall Street Journal
Photo: Global Times

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What is 1,000 Days?

1,000 days
The fact remains that undernutrition is completely and indisputably preventable.

Yet this condition continues to claim the lives of 2.6 million children each year. This is more than any other disease, making malnutrition the leading cause of death among young children.

In September of 2010, U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and then-Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin, took a stand to fight this deadly disease.

The two diplomats, along with a community of global leaders, launched the 1,000 Days Partnership. This movement promotes action and investment in nutrition during the 1,000 days from the start of a woman’s pregnancy until a child’s 2nd birthday.

Why 1,000 days? Leading scientists, economists and health experts all agree that the proper nutrition in the first 1,000 days of pregnancy and the life of an infant “have a profound impact on a child’s ability to grow, learn and rise out of poverty.”

When a woman is undernourished during pregnancy, her baby has a higher risk of dying in infancy and is more likely to face lifelong cognitive and physical deficits and chronic health problems.

Once the child is born, the first two years are critical to their chance at a healthy and productive life. Undernutrition weakens the immune system, and children not receiving nutritious foods are more susceptible to dying from common illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria.

According to The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a nutrient deficiency is not only dangerous to early childhood health, but also to the long-term success of a child. Lower levels of educational attainment, reduced productivity later in life and lower lifetime earnings are all consequences of a lack of early-nutrition.

In a recent release, USAID reports that “undernutition robs the developing world of critical human capital and capacity, and undermines other development investments in health, education and economic growth.”

According to the 1,000 Days movement, the answer to improving nutrition lies in three strategic, affordable, cost-effect solutions: “ensuring that mothers and young children get the necessary vitamins and minerals they need; promoting good nutrition practices, including breastfeeding and appropriate healthy foods for infants; and treating malnourished children with special, therapeutic foods.”

Evidence shows that providing the proper nutrition to a mother and her newborn has extensive benefits. These advantages include significantly reducing the burden of diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS, increasing a country’s GDP by at least 2-3 percent annually, and, most importantly, saving more than 1 million lives each year.

Since it was created in 2010, over 80 international relief and development organizations have partnered with the 1,000 Movement. Along with its efforts to encourage new actors to invest in maternal and child nutrition, 1,000 Days also encourages support for the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) movement. The two organizations work in tandem at a U.S.-based hub formed in June 2011 by InterAction, a coalition of U.S.-based international relief and development organizations and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) in collaboration with the U.S Department of State.

1,000 Days founder, Hillary Clinton, appropriately asserted, “Improving nutrition for mothers and children is one of the most cost-effective and impactful tools we have for poverty alleviation and sustainable development.”

— Grace Flaherty

Sources: Daily Times NG, 1,000 Days
Photo: Care

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Women and Environmental Protection

Women suffer the most when it comes to climate change and natural disasters, yet in many areas around the world, women do not have a large say in the policies surrounding environment or how finances are used towards environmental protection. In areas where it has been tested though, empowering women can lead to better preparedness for disasters and better governance of natural resources. Overall, gender equality can lead to better environmental governance.

Rachel Carson created the modern day environmental movement with her book Silent Spring. Today women following her footsteps around the world are essential in the protection of our environment.

In Nepal and India, when more than the minimum threshold of one-third women participated in forest committees, it resulted in forest regeneration and a decrease in illegal extraction of forest resources.

Another success story took place in Kenya and Ethiopia, where women took a leadership role managing the risks regarding the 2005-08 drought cycle. The women generated income by diversifying livelihoods and then saved using women’s savings and loan groups. By doing this, women were able to preserve resources, which then lead to better food security.

Women also play an important role in protecting the environment because they can have a strong impact on the amount of carbon emissions in our atmosphere.

Due to gender norms that exist regarding labor in the household, many of women’s day-to-day tasks have a direct impact on carbon emissions. This means that when a goal is set to reduce carbon emissions, it is up to women to make environmentally friendly decisions regarding cooking, farming and what they purchase for their families.

Women’s decisions regarding cooking fuel, cooking technology and which foods they choose to buy have an impact on the amount of carbon emission released. Women also often have a say in agricultural practices that have an impact because they can determine whether carbon is released or stored in agricultural soils and above ground biomass. In many areas, women are the ones making household purchasing decisions at markets. Because of this women directly impact the amount of carbon emitted through the production, distribution, use and disposal of goods.

From leadership roles to every day decisions, women are an important component in protecting the environment for now and for future generations.

– Kim Tierney 

Sources: World Bank, UN Women
Photo: Environment and Society

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Entrepreneurs May Solve Global Poverty

According to the global entrepreneurship GEDI index, for the past 30 years almost half of all new jobs in the United States alone were created by businesses that are less than five years old. Globally, 65 million entrepreneurs each plan to create 20 or more jobs in the next five years.

Many of these start-up businesses offer products that are new to the market, according to a GEM report.

“Part of what we’re trying to do is sort of raise entrepreneurship to the level of the public policy agenda,” said Michael Dell. “If you look at what’s going on in the world today, in terms of where jobs are being created, we need more entrepreneurs. We need more risk-taking. High-risk entrepreneurs and bureaucratic U.N. officials might seem like a strange combination, but applying the problem-solving of a startup culture to global development is the idea.”

Around the world, over 565,000 small businesses start each month, and the products and profit they provide could be key to the recovery of the world economy as they create jobs, more global disposable income and new products. However, only 15 percent of entrepreneurs say that their country’s culture supports entrepreneurs, according to ey.com.

“Technology has enabled undeserved communities to get out of poverty,” said Ruma Bose, an entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist. “In the slums of India we saw a lot of hope and magic, there are thousands of new businesses there, and factories that generate millions in revenue and provide clean water. Even in the worst conditions the entrepreneurial spirit exists.”

Around 63 percent of women in the non-agricultural labor force are self-employed in the informal sector in Africa, a number which is twice the worldwide rate, according to the World Bank’s data — data which also shows that necessity is the main driving force behind female entrepreneurship in poor countries, not opportunity.

“Traditionally women would sit at home and wait for the man to return home with a bag of groceries, but this has been changing over time as women’s dependence gradually reduces,” said Thomas Bwire, an economist with Uganda’s central bank. “In a sign of the times, Ugandan women now even work at road construction sites.”

A report released earlier this year by Goldman Sachs stated that women’s “increased bargaining power has the potential to create a virtuous cycle” as women begin to spend more, thus fueling economic growth in the years ahead. According to the International Finance Corp. of the World Bank, an estimated $300 billion credit gap exists for female-owned businesses.

Other entrepreneurial companies, like Popinjay, have aided the advancement of many people around the world. Popinjay employs around 150 women who work four hours a day and at $3 an hour. “When I started Popinjay, my goal was really to get women to sustain themselves, but what I realized over time is that it wasn’t just about the money,” said Saba Gul, CEO and founder of Popinjay. “It was also about the fact that they gained so much dignity and pride in knowing that they were creating something with their own hands.”

— Monica Newell

Sources: Deseret News National, Epoch Times
Photo: Tadias

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Rape in Liberia Remains a Problem

When the 14-year civil war in Liberia came to an end in 2003, it seemed that the country could begin the road to recovery, slowly but surely. Despite the economic improvements made, women and girls have continued to be victims of rape at alarming rates.

During the war, children and adults used rape against women to instill fear, cause further destruction and assert superiority. When the war ended, the rape in Liberia continued, pointing to the deep-seated traumatic effects the war left in its wake.

Nicola Jones, a researcher at Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a London based think-tank, explains, “After the war, men are often aggressive, ‘hyper-masculine’ and struggle to adapt to peacetime.” Essentially, after over a decade of being stripped of the basic necessities for survival, men are often overwhelmed with a feeling of helplessness, and raping women and girls is a means of reasserting their masculinity.

The statistics reflect this observation, with 1,002 rape cases reported in 2013 concerning children between the ages of 3 and 14. However, there were only 49 rape convictions, pointing to yet another problem.

Given the stigma around rape worldwide, much of the rape in Liberia goes unpunished when women don’t come forward or the justice system neglects to arrest the accused rapists. The U.S. takes some of the blame for this stigma, often making rape a societal taboo, which as a result, makes women reluctant to come forward and report what happened to them.

Gbowee, an international speaker, activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, commented on America’s lack of action, explaining that “when American women are silent on issues of women’s rights, that attitude permeates the developing world.” When the U.S. sets an example of punishing rapists and accepting women who have been attacked, developing countries may follow suit and see a decline in cases in the near future.

There has been improvement, however, in the number of women and girls who go to the police with reports of rape. Annie Jones Demen, Liberia’s Gender Affairs minister, notes, “We now have more reports on sexual and gender-based violence. Survivors of sexual violence now feel safe to come out to say they were raped.” Since 2006, reports of rape in Liberia have become more common, and as acceptance has become more widespread, more women have seen justice served on their behalf.

The impoverished state of Liberia contributes to the lack of punishment for rapists, with a dearth of facilities to treat those who have been raped. Monrovia, in western Liberia, has the only hospital dedicated to treating rape victims, often receiving between 10 and 15 rape victims every month.

The end of a war brings hope for a brighter future, but in the case of Liberia, the rape problem has remained stronger than ever. Thousands of women every year are raped and left to recover on their own, contributing to a culture that displays complacency in response to the high numbers of rape. The U.S. can lend a hand on the road to justice, as can the media, and aid given to develop Liberia at a faster pace could put rape culture behind them.

— Magdalen Wagner

Sources: Malay Mail, IRIN, Trust, Global Post
Photo: flickr

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Aryana Sayeed: A Voice for Afghan Women

The shaky voice of a female contestant caught the attention of a woman who understands. A judge on the popular TV show, “The Voice of Afghanistan,” turned her chair the moment she heard the melody of a fellow woman’s voice.

Until the Taliban crumbled in 2011, women were not allowed to be shown on TV. Now, Aryana Sayeed is proving people wrong and as a popular female vocalist, she acts as one of the judges for the show. Sayeed stands alone as a symbol for female independence in a country where the culture feels differently. She chooses not to wear a head scarf onscreen; something she receives death threats for. In an interview with CNN, Sayeed remembers, “They said that whoever kills this singer would go to heaven,” and acknowledges how her choices have influenced many Afghan women.

Women of Afghanistan are expected to keep themselves covered in a patriarchal society, but Sayeed sees a different future. By uncovering her hair she forces people to see her and her beauty, and does so as an act of personal freedom. Appearing on national TV without a headscarf brought on a myriad of hateful comments from the Afghan public, mostly men shaming her for exposing herself. Her figure fitting wardrobe angered some, but for others her act of defiance spoke to them.

In the conservative culture of Islamic Afghanistan, Sayeed pushes back, using her music as  a platform. In one of her popular songs, she makes the distinct connection between her womanhood and slavery. In her experience, she is secondary to men solely based on her gender. She fights this, telling AFP, “I want women to have rights, to talk freely, to walk freely, to be able to go shopping when they wish,” without the fear of a man telling her what she should and should not be doing.

Sayeed took steps forward by immediately supporting the female contestant who demonstrated bravery when she sang in front of an audience of men and on national TV. Sayeed hopes for this to become commonplace and accepted as it is in many other countries, with women receiving the same opportunities and respect as men.

 — Elena Lopez

Sources: CNN, News.co.au: Entertainment, News.co.au: Lifestyle
Photo: Inquirer

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Katra and India’s Women’s Rights Problem

Two 12 and 15-year-old girls were lynched last week in western Uttar Pradesh in India after being abducted, gang raped and hanged by their attackers. The Indian village, known as Katra in the Badaun district, is one of the world’s most impoverished areas.

Most of its citizens work as tillers or take up small, part-time jobs in order to make a living. With hardly any money, most cannot afford a functioning toilet, so they relieve themselves in nearby fields.

Yet this is exactly what would lead to the death of two young cousins after being abducted by three men in the fields of their village. Their attackers hanged the two girls on a tree in the village, which would be on display for the entire community.

Thought by medical experts to have been hanged alive, many are wondering how and why these gruesome attacks could have taken place in a day and age where feminism is, in most parts of the world, on the rise.

India has had a history of women’s rights problems for years. After the gang rape case of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi in 2012, in which four men were all found guilty and given the death penalty, India has been making a concerted effort to tighten their rules regarding violence against women.

Yet this has by no means actually prevented or improved cases of violence against women in the country; in most cases, police insensitivity has been proliferated by patriarchal attitudes of those in governmental power.

The Samajwadi Party is just one example of misogyny’s power in Indian politics. The senior Samajwadi Party leader, Ram Gopal Yadav, spoke of the most recent incident, stating, “[In] many places, when the relationship between girls and boys come out in the open, it is termed as rape.”

Two months ago, party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav claimed that “boys will be boys” and vehemently opposed the death penalty as punishment for acts of rape.

The three men responsible for the two teenage girls’ deaths in Katra have been arrested, and two policemen are being held on suspicion for trying to cover up the crimes.

This is not an uncommon occurrence: while a rape is reported every 21 minutes in India, law enforcement failure often results in crimes not being reported or investigated fully. Yet as the case rises in power, world officials are continuing to speak out against these acts of misogyny.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who stated that he was “appalled” by these recent acts, is just one of many to have spoken out. “We say no to the dismissive, destructive attitude of ‘boys will be boys,’” he said. As the government continues to crack down on these acts, many hope its citizens will listen.

 — Nick Magnanti

Sources: The Diplomat, ODT, Scroll, Times of India 1, Times of India 2
Photo: The Story Exchange

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Domestic Violence in Nepal

Radha Neupane, who is already married at the age of 12, lives and supports her family on $30 a month. She has no financial backing from her alcoholic husband and she is also a victim of domestic violence. She works  for a cleaning service, cleaning over three houses a day to place food on the table for her young ones.

“I’m used to it now. What choice do I have?” said Neupane to IRIN, a service of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Over the past decades, domestic violence in Nepal still remains an unsolved issue. Gender based violence, particularly toward females, is the main concern. The violence comes in all forms, including verbal abuse, beating and even more common, acid burning.

Saathi is an organization directed at helping victims of domestic violence. Activist and Saathi vice president Bhawana Rana states, “The office has barely changed because we hold the same patriarchal society where women’s equality is not accepted.”

Nepal is known to hold the worst rates of gender based violence in Asia. The current bill to hinder domestic violence from continuing to be a problem is currently on hold in Nepal’s government. As of now, the government is not taking any proactive actions to help relieve any of the domestic violence in Nepal.

In Nepal, domestic violence is considered to be more of a private family issue than a crime, thus resulting in a lack of outside interference. Abused women suffer from mental health problems like depression and physical reproductive health problems.

Violence against women in Nepal continues to grow every day. A total of 86 percent of women are unsafe in the communities they reside in. A disturbing 91 percent of women killed in Nepal have been killed by someone they know. Many of these abused adult females do not seek legal help in fear of more abuse from the government agencies and authorities.

Nepal does not provide secure areas for adult females who are victims of domestic abuse. This leaves women vulnerable and unable to escape the abuse. Over one-fifth of Nepal’s population deems domestic abuse acceptable. For most women the home is the most unsafe place to be. Women in the home are more likely to face marital rape and violence.

Activists are continuing their efforts to put an end to domestic violence and provide a safe environment for women and children to live in. The society is in need of political leadership to speak up for not only the women in Nepal, but all victims of domestic violence in the area. There is much improvement needed within Nepal’s government and legislature. Their view of domestic violence needs to change.  Human rights activists have raised awareness of the social unjust in Nepal and continue to raise the question of providing necessary protocol and policies to end this epidemic.

– Rachel Cannon

Sources: IRIN, WOREC
Photo: World Bank