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Extremists Undermine Gender Equality in Syria

Extremists Undermine Gender Equality in Syria
The takeover of certain regions in Syria by extremist groups has caused a significant regression in gender equality. In particular, the groups Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIS), which may be linked to al-Qaeda, have taken advantage of the country’s vulnerable state due to the tumultuous civil war.

Jabhat al-Nusra and the ISIS have implemented their interpretations of Sharia law, which is law based on the religion of Islam. This has placed discriminatory regulations, particularly on women, violating Syrian laws that generally promote gender equality. Although there have been flaws within the Syrian constitution, specifically regarding marriage and divorce rights in previous years, the current occupation of extremist groups has essentially ripped away women’s rights to dress, move and practice the religion of their choice.

Some of these restrictions include forcing women to wear a veil, or what is formally known as a hijab, and to wear a full-length robe, called an abaya. Despite the variety of religious identities within Syria, such as Alawite, Armenian Christian, Syriac Christian as well as Sunni and Shia Muslim, these extremist groups are pressuring women to wear Islamic garb only, with serious consequences if they do not obey.

The punishments for not being compliant include being denied access to public transportation and education. These women are furthermore, unable to leave the house and complete simple tasks necessary for survival, such as buying food. Punishment has also gone as far as to include the abduction of women by Jabhat al-Nusra and ISIS fighters in numerous regions such as Aleppo, Hassakeh and Raqqa. These women are living in fear and are completely dependent on male family members. They are unable to live their lives as they did before, as their basic freedoms have been jeopardized.

This has all not gone unnoticed, however, as several Syrian grassroots activists have, in fact, been demanding resolution in accordance with the United Nations. Specifically, Syrian activist Kefah ali Deeb spoke out at the UN conference in Geneva this past week demanding the representation of women during peace talks. She has, through these peace talks, been placed in a position to provide a voice for unheard Syrian women and children in hopes of influencing the enactment of nondiscriminatory laws.

As ali Deeb puts it, “women must be heard because no less than 80[%] of all 9.3 million Syrians who need aid are women and children.” The UN meeting in Geneva, furthermore, gave ali Deeb a platform to speak of the harsh restrictions in place and to stress the importance of appointing a gender advisor to stabilize the current situation in Syria.

The women’s conference provided a great opportunity for ali Deeb, as she was able to describe the horrors occurring in her country, stating, “we cannot remain silent regarding events unfolding in Syria such as daily death, massive destruction, starvation of people and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Syrian families, in Syria and abroad, as well as the spread of terror, of violence, ongoing detentions, acts of kidnapping, destruction of infrastructures and the spread of diseases, particularly among children.”

Syrian women have thus formed a team in Geneva to consult with peace negotiators, as to fulfill the need for representation of the whole population during the peace talks. A gender advisor is vital to restoring equality in Syria to ensure that women take back the freedoms they once enjoyed. Now more than ever, women need representation to help them regain their rights and extinguish the turmoil in Syria.

– Danielle Warren

Sources: Human Rights Watch, Washington Post
Photo: Thomson Reuters Foundation

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Congress to Aid Female Forces in Afghanistan

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In December 2013, the United States Congress allocated $25 million in funds to support the operations of female soldiers in the Afghan National Army. The appropriation was a part of the 52nd National Defense Authorization Act and will be used to increase and strengthen female forces.

Women are currently a rough 1% of the Afghan National Police and .3% of the Afghan National Army.

Michelle Barsa, Senior Manager for Policy at Inclusive Security Action, actively works with female forces in the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army to increase their numbers. She writes in The Daily Beast that the benefits of more women in Afghanistan’s security ranks are multi-faceted, and current low numbers are a serious security concern.

Most polling stations in Afghanistan are sex-segregated, which means that stations require female security officers to remain open. A shortage of women in the ranks has meant that women’s polling stations have remained closed, effectively denying many Afghan women their right to vote.

Barsa asserts further, “There’s a lot riding on the April 2014 presidential election—not least, protections for women’s rights. The best way to maintain the hard-earned gains of Afghan women is to elect a president who will uphold them. And the best way to elect a president of that profile is to enable women to vote.”

Security issues also arise when there are not enough female security forces.

In 2012, there were a reported 13 incidents of men dressing as women to enter restricted locations and wage insurgent attacks. Since sexual taboos dictate that men are forbidden from searching women at checkpoints, there emerged a security blind spot.

Had there been female security officers, Barsa argues, the men could have been searched and stopped before committing these attacks.

Further, women in military ranks serve to expand engagement with male and female citizens, increasing the effectiveness of military operations and allowing forces to better respond to the needs of their community. For example, upwards of 87% of women in Afghanistan will be a victim of domestic violence or forced marriage during their lives.

Analysts state that women are more likely to report domestic violence or sexual assault to female officers, who in turn are more likely to investigate the accusations.

Militarily, female forces are learning to conduct home raids, which had proven problematic when carried out by American forces due to cultural barriers and sensitivities.

Women have been recruited into Afghan Special Forces since 2011, a move coming during a critical time of American troop pullout from Afghanistan and amid emerging concerns over the safety and rights of women upon the United States’ departure from the traditionally conservative nation.

Barsa stresses that female participation in security forces is crucial for maintaining women’s rights and for supporting an inclusive transition in Afghanistan. For this reason, she states, Congressional funding cannot come soon enough.

She writes, “Billions later, Congress is finally realizing that peace and stability are, in fact, contingent on [women’s participation].”

– Kaylie Cordingley

Sources: The Daily Beast, Euronews
Photo: The Sacramento Bee

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Women Make Waves in Social Entrepreneurship

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It is no secret that social entrepreneurship is a growing industry. Especially in Western Europe and the United States, business-minded and socially-conscience individuals are merging their missions and making a difference. “The U.K. is certainly a great testing lab for social enterprises,” U.K. based start-up Ogunte’s Servane Mouazan told The Huffington Post. “But Europe in general is certainly very open to the concept and it’s a great movement to be part of.”

Mouazan began her social entrepreneurship network 12 years ago, and from the start noticed something unique: only women were joining.  Though this may come as a surprise to many in an industry that tends to be male-dominated, Mouazan recognized an innate connection.  “There’s this sort of natural tendency of spotting things that are not going well around us and willingness to transform them, to fix them,” Mouazan says, giving women a more pointed interest in her social enterprise.

Thus, Mouazan created Ogunte, a network organization designed to foster the skills of women and enable them to start their own social enterprises. According to the group’s website, Ogunte and its “Make a Wave” incubator program have already assisted more than 2,750 women, conducted research with 120 women social innovators globally and catalyzed 7 International Women’s Social Leadership Awards for impactful women social leaders.

Female social entrepreneurs are making strides outside of the U.K. as well.  The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) report on social entrepreneurship analyzes and compares social venture activity across various world regions based on demographic factors such as age, education, work status, and gender. According to the report, the gender gap is not as high in the social realm as it is with the traditional commercial business route. In fact, women are surpassing men in social venture start-ups in Malaysia, Lebanon, Russia, Israel, Iceland, and Argentina.  The ratio is about even in the United States, China, Finland, and Latvia.

Why is it important to foster women’s social entrepreneurial skills? “By taking women out of the shadows, balancing gender equity, equipping them, and connecting them to influential stakeholders, we grow the pool of entrepreneurial opportunities,” says Ogunte’s mission statement. “We boost local and global welfare and we help them to have a positive social impact on their wider networks.” Cultivating women’s social innovation breaks traditional barriers and benefits individuals – both men and women – all around the globe.

– Mallory Thayer

Sources: The Huffington Post, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor
Photo: Vintage 3D

10 Gender Role Quotes in the Developing World

Gender inequality is a major concern in many developing countries. Women are sometimes still viewed as inferior to men and are often not given equal opportunities.  Gender inequality is not only delaying the progress of women in education and in the workplace, but it has also been proven to impede a nation’s overall economic development.  Here are some thought-provoking gender role quotes in the developing world:

1. “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance.” – Kofi Annan

2. “Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to learn respect, responsibility, advancement and remuneration based on ability.” – Sandra Day O’Connor 

3. “Compared to income or assets in the hands of men, income or assets in the hands of women is associated with larger improvements in child health, and larger expenditure shares of household nutrients, health, and housing.” – Esther Duflo 

4. “Empowering women in the developing world is crucial for greater equality between the sexes.” – European Commission

5. “Blocking women and girls from getting skills and earnings to succeed in a globalized world is not only wrong, but also economically harmful.” – Justin Yifu Lin

6. “Sharing the fruits of growth and globalization equally between men and women is essential to meeting key development goals.” – Justin Yifu Lin

7. “Equality is not just the right thing to do. It’s smart economics. How can an economy achieve full potential if it ignores, sidelines, or fails to invest in half its population?” –Robert Zoellick

8. “Gender inequality holds back the growth of individuals, the development of countries and the evolution of societies, to the disadvantage of both men and women.” – State of World Population Report

9. “As long as women face violence and discrimination, our efforts to eradicate poverty, achieve equality, and advance human rights and democracy will not succeed.” –Michelle Bachelet

10. “Much more must be done to combat discriminatory gender norms. In developed and developing countries alike, inegalitarian practices and beliefs expose women and girls to physical, sexual, and emotional violence while simultaneously stunting their own and their societies’ economic potential.” –Jordan Bernhardt

Other gender role quotes in the developing world can be found on www.brainyquote.com and www.goodreads.com/quotes.

– Allison Johnson

 

Read global poverty quotes.

Sources: Brainy Quote, The Atlantic, American Progress, Reuters, The Economist
Photo: Wikipedia

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Malalai Joya: A Woman Against Warlords

The longest war to date in contemporary American history is the war with Afghanistan. With interests building the fresh battlefields of Syria and Lebanon, American public consciousness has all but forgotten its government’s role in the Afghani conflict and the state of civilians caught in the crossfire. Malalai Joya, a women’s rights activist and former member of the Afghani parliament, has come to the forefront, however, with her refusal to remain silent concerning the turmoil in her country.

Joya’s story is one for the books. In the official rhetoric, writes the Independent, is everything we’ve been fighting for. Casting off the burka and running against religious fundamentalists, Malalai has experienced seven assassination attempts due to her efforts to provide underground education for girls and speak out against the warlords that are tearing her beloved country apart.

“I don’t fear death,” she states plainly, “I fear remaining silent in the face of injustice. I am young, and I want to live.” And to those looking to kill her: “I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can keep the coming of the spring.”

Joya’s activism has made her a target for both the Taliban and the U.S. sponsored regime in Afghanistan. She lives underground and never leaves her home without an armed escort. Attempts on her life have included bombs hidden in her path and the raining of gunfire at unexpected times. She says she’s been lucky to escape, and even though the assassination attempts only seem to be getting closer to their goal, she refuses to back down.

Joya’s passion includes freedom from oppression, and she fights unceasingly for Afghani women and education. She claims hundreds of schools have been closed because of a lack of security and that teachers have been kidnapped, raped, and even beheaded. There are numerous unreported examples of girls who’ve had acid thrown on their faces or been raped on their way to school.

“When we are ruled by misogynists and warlords, how can we expect the education for girls will improve?” Joya argued, “They know educated women have their own identities.”

She’s not far from the truth. 25 percent of parliamentary seats in Afghanistan belong to women, but women’s rights continuously suffer. Women that are the heads of major NGOs have obtained fame and wealth from the occupation by the puppet Mafia regime and have turned into “NGO-lords” themselves, according to Joya.

With no one to defend Afghani women, Malalai Joya has taken it upon herself and garnered media attention around the world for the positive changes she pushes for. While she doesn’t harbor contempt for U.S. and NATO involvement, she argues that it could only benefit Afghanistan if the United States stopped empowering warlords that have been cloaked in the disguise of democracy.

But Malalai has hope for her country. She’s a firm believer that, eventually, peaceful Afghani citizens will rise from the oppression and be freed of the shackles of both the warlords and foreign powers with geopolitical interest in the region.

“One day, we will win,” she says, “and that is why I will not leave Afghanistan. We can liberate ourselves.”

– Janki Kaswala

Sources: Vice, Independent
Photo: The Telegraph

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Gender Equality Still an Important Goal

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As the 2015 target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)  rapidly approaches, there is much discussion on the post-2015 MDGs. A coalition of charities and campaign groups plans to ask the leaders at this year’s UN General Assembly to take a holistic approach to ending global poverty.

This holistic approach targets those most vulnerable demographics: women and girls. The coalition argues that by empowering women and girls, the true root causes of poverty will be addressed.

There is concern that the current MDG goal of gender equality will be replaced with a watered-down goal addressing broader inequality concerns. However, the coalition believes that gender equality was a neglected MDG goal the first time around and, therefore, needs to be an area of focus in the post-2015 goals.

Countries with greater gender equality in education and employment have stronger economic growth and human development. Therefore, empowering women and girls creates a stronger country and world. Empowering women and girls will help end world poverty.

Empowering women and girls starts with their physical health. By providing accessible and affordable healthcare, core concerns such as maternal health, gender equality, and sexual and reproductive health and rights will be addressed. Currently, the main concerns include the lack of healthcare and sexual and reproductive health services for women, as well as the lack of medical care for their children.

Many women and girls die from inadequate healthcare. By addressing these vital needs, it is estimated that 79,000 maternal deaths, most of which occur in sub-Saharan Africa, would be prevented.

Recognizing that mothers sustain and create life, the coalition is urging the Member States to include a goal that focuses explicitly  on gender and equality. According to Tewodros Melesse, the Director General of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), a world with gender equality is a “world of justice, choice, and well being for all.”

Working on the MDGs has provided the world with many lessons. Perhaps the most valuable of these is that progress is likely to be uneven – and at times reversed – if gender equality is not viewed and addressed as a vital goal.

– Caressa Kruth

Sources: News Afrique Informations, The Guardian
Photo: A Nation of Moms

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Gender Equality and the Developing World

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According to the World Bank, gender equality enhances economic development, improves prospects for future generations and strengthens political and social systems. Though women now comprise more than 40 percent of the world’s labor force, they still lag behind men in terms of earnings and productivity. Women also face greater obstacles when it comes to participation in social and political institutions. Particularly in developing nations, the gender gap hinders economic and social development and destabilizes the political environment.

In it’s 2012 World Development Report: Gender Equality and Development, the World Bank suggests four priority areas for improving gender equality. The first is reducing gender gaps in human capital, specifically female mortality and education. Second, improving female access to education and economic opportunities. Third, addressing women’s under-representation in communities and political systems. Finally, understanding how gender inequality applies across generations. These four priority areas help policymakers understand and address problems associated with the gender gap.

Many factors are helping alleviate the gender gap and promote gender equality in developing nations. Globalization and increased access to information are providing women with stronger connections to markets and economic opportunities. These factors also contribute to increasing knowledge about women’s roles in other cultures throughout the world. Perhaps most importantly, there seems to be a broad understanding and growing consensus about the importance of women’s economic, political, and social empowerment.

One area where gender equality seems particularly important is that of agricultural production and food security. The World Bank Report suggests that improving resource access for women could increase agricultural productivity by 4 percent in developing countries. For example, maize production increased by more than 15 percent in Malawi and Ghana when women farmers were provided with the same resources as men. And, according to the World Food Programme, the number of hungry people in the world could be reduced by as much as 150 million if women farmers had the same access to resources as men.

These reports and accompanying statistics suggest that improving gender equality in developing nations will enhance economic production and create stronger social and political systems. With these systems in place, nations and leaders will be better equipped to address the many issues that confront the developing world. Progress has certainly been made when it comes to gender equality. With more and more evidence confirming the importance of empowering women, policymakers would be well served to improve women’s access to healthcare, education, and economic opportunities as well as increasing female participation in social and political systems.

– Daniel Bonasso

Sources: Council on Foreign Relations, World Bank, World Food Program
Photo: Fincon

MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

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This is the third in a series of posts discussing the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. These are set of 8 interconnected goals agreed upon by most countries around the world based on a shared commitment to improving the political, social, and economic lives of all people. They are to be achieved by 2015 and, two years out from this deadline, it is important to celebrate all the progress we have made and to recognize the work we have left.

The third of the MDGs is to promote gender equality and embolden women. Education is the primary mode of empowerment, so the UN’s stated goal is to eliminate the gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005 and in all levels of education by 2015. The gender disparity in education is judged by statistics such as the ratio of girls to boys in all levels of education, literacy in women as compared to men, women working outside the agricultural sector, and female governmental leaders worldwide.

The gender gap in primary school has decreased substantially in recent years. In 1999, there were 16 million more girls than boys out of primary school. Over the next ten years, this number dropped dramatically to just 4 million. However, this still leaves significantly more educated boys than girls, a phenomenon that perpetuates gender inequality later in life.

According to the World Bank, equal percentages of girls and boys complete primary school in Latin America and East Asia. However, in all other developing regions, this ideal has not yet been achieved.

The significant gender gap in youth literacy rates has been shrinking in recent years. However, girls are still considerably less likely to graduate from primary school with basic literacy skills than boys. This is a concerning trend that often leads to the disempowerment of women, and perpetuation of a discriminating patriarchal societal structure.

In many countries, women have less access to stable jobs, education, economic assets, and governmental participation. They may not be allowed to work outside the home, forcing them to rely on men for their family’s income. And even when they do enter the job market, they tend to hold lower-paying positions with less job security and benefits. This represents an unacceptable inequity that must be addressed seriously. Not only does it devalue women’s work, it also means that men tend to have more influence on how the family’s money is spend, consistently minimizing women’s authority. Through extensive work toward MDG 3, women’s role in the workplace is improving, with 40% of wage-earning jobs in the non-agricultural sector held by women as of 2011.

The number of women in government is also on the rise, thanks in part to quota systems that require a certain percentage of leaders to be female. Worldwide, just over 20% of parliament members were female as of January 2013. While this still reflects a heavy bias towards men, it also represents incredible progress. In 1995, women held a meager 10% of parliamentary seats. This percentage has been steadily increasing, and progress will continue to be made if girls’ education is made an international priority.

The education of girls affects every facet of society as children grow into adults. While we have made significant progress towards gender equality, we clearly have work to do when girls do not graduate with the same basic skills that boys do and are not consistently presented with the same opportunities in the workplace and government. Educated girls become educated women that are empowered in their personal, social, political, and work lives. They demand to be treated respectfully, and are not constrained by their gender. They are strong women that can be leaders just as well as they can be wives. They are the women this world needs.

– Katie Fullerton

Sources: UN, UNDP, World Bank, UN Stats
Sources: The Guardian

It Takes Two: Why Family Planning is Imperative for Gender Equality

It_takes_twoGlobal Citizen has recently launched a new initiative called It Takes Two – its goal is to spread awareness of the necessity of contraceptives and family planning for millions of women around the world that currently have no access to these programs. In developing countries, complications from pregnancy and childbirth are some of the leading causes of death for women. Early and frequent pregnancies also prevent women from advancing their opportunities for education and economic self-sufficiency.

At the London Family Planning Summit in July 2012, NGOs and donors came together to pledge money to halve the number of women without access to modern family planning by 2020. According to Global Citizen, however, “without proving there is demand for increased access to family planning services and information, there is a high risk these pledges won’t be honored”. If funded as promised, these pledges would provide around 120 million women with the information and services they need to plan their own lives. Further benefits could be seen in a dramatically reduced number of unintended pregnancies, as well as a reduced number of maternal and newborn deaths caused by complications with pregnancy and childbirth.

With these modern family planning services accessible to more women in the developing world, more women will have more time available to them. This means that less time will be spent with unwanted pregnancies and raising children, and more girls and women will be able to gain an education as well as enter the workforce and increase productivity as well as economic stability. Access to contraception and information about family planning is imperative for gender equality. It Takes Two encourages support for improved family planning from both men and women around the world in order to make gender inequalities a thing of the past. The first step the initiative has taken to gauge support from the public is to circulate a petition calling for government and organizations to make access to family planning a priority in developing nations.

In order to achieve equality, It Takes Two wants to fight not only for contraceptive provision, but also for the eradication of early and forced marriage, to keep girls in school, and to end gender-based violence. Matti Navellou, the campaign manager for It Takes Two, encourages the use of social media and the Internet to spread information and support for the project saying “It’s time to unlock the potential of technology for social good.”

The site also gives the opportunity to design and share personalized condoms, and the top ten designers will receive a few condoms of their own designs for free. The act of designing a condom wrapper itself also enters the creator into a drawing for a chance to win tickets to a concert from over 70 artists. Design and share for your chance to win, but more importantly for the chance for millions of women to receive the care they need to do greater things in life, and for a step closer to gender equality.

– Sarah Rybak
Sources: Take Part, Global Citizen
Photo: Take Part

Post-2015: A New Millennium for Women

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For U.N. members looking to affect real change in reforming the millennium development goals post-2015, one thing is clear: gender equality goals must be at the top of the agenda.

Many argue that a lack of attention to the pervasive inequalities that plague the developing world was the key limitation of the last round of millennium development goals (MDGs) that are set to expire in 2015. While the new set of MDGs now makes achieving greater equality a priority, some wonder if the goals will focus too much on income inequality while overshadowing issues of gender and other social inequalities.

Specifically, human rights advocates worry about the proposal to replace the current, specified gender equality goal with a less defined, overarching goal covering all “inequalities.” Female empowerment advocates disagree with the MDGs’ tendency to treat gender as merely one of the many inequalities that generate poverty. Rather, they say, gender is both the most pervasive form of inequality as well as the root problem that instigates other forms of inequality.

Despite its limitations, however, having the MDGs has proven useful both as a tool to hold governments accountable for their responsibilities to women, and as a line of defense against conservative forces in developing nations that threaten to reverse equality gains. U.N. leaders and stakeholders around the world should use this solid foundation to achieve further, more progressive reforms, like ensuring fairer access to employment opportunities and greater representation in decision-making positions in the public sector.

As it turns out, as rates of gender equality improve, so does a country’s overall well-being. Recent reviews have shown that countries with greater gender equality in employment and education were more likely to experience greater economic growth and human development rates. Thus, fixing the gender inequality problem can consequently help improve the socio-economic inequality problems without necessitating separate initiatives.

The same principle does not apply in the reverse, however. Economic growth does not necessarily contribute to gender inequality if the social structures needed to empower women are not put in place. Gender, then, seems to be the only standalone factor that intertwines itself with every other aspect of the complex issue of global poverty, and thus the issue that must be addressed and corrected before any other reforms can occur.

– Ally Bruschi

Source: The Guardian,Institute of Development Studies
Photo: The Business Finance Store