Migration Category: Global Old Site

Six months after the creation of UN Women (UNW), a special agency for women started by the United Nations, the agency lacks the voluntary funding necessary to complete its 2011-2013 Strategic Plan, to assist countries in achieving gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Initially, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had set a 500 million dollar target as an annual budget for UNW, but the agency has only received around 80 million dollars.

Stephen Lewis, former deputy executive director of UNICEF and co-founder of AIDS-Free World, stated, “UN Women is being strangled at birth by a coalition of the wealthy. All the misogynist countries, from Pakistan to Sudan, must surely be laughing behind the scenes. They never wanted UN Women and now the western donors are doing the dirty work for them.”

The UNW, formally titled the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, is headed by Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile. It was formed by combining the four small entities of the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, the U.N. Division for the Advancement of Women, the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW).

On July 8, UNW released its first major report “Progress of the World’s Women: In Pursuit of Justice,” which found that despite advances in women’s equality, justice is still out of reach for millions of women worldwide. Bachelet described the report as a “call for action,” asking governments, societies and communities to support their battle for justice, which includes the desperately needed financial funding.

In honor of World Population Day today, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), together with National Geographic, IBM, and SAP, launched the 7 Billion Action Campaign, which will run through October 31 when the world population is expected to exceed 7 billion. The campaign seeks to educate people concerns related to the growing population.

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of UNFPA stated, “Whether we can live together on a healthy planet will depend on the decisions we make now. The date we reach the next billion-and the ones after that-depends on policy and funding decisions made now about maternal and child health care, access to voluntary family planning, girls’ education, and expanded opportunities for women and young people.”

Since 1950, the world’s population has grown from 2.5 billion people to 7 billion, and since 1987, when the first World Population Day took place, the world’s population has grown by approximately 40 percent. According to UNFPA, “all of this population growth – 97 of every 100 people – is occurring in less developed countries” and approximately 215 women who want access to birth control lack access to family planning in developing nations.

See Suzanne Petroni’s article entitled “7 Billion Reasons” in the Summer 2011 issue of Ms. magazine, to be released August 2.

Yingluck Shinawatra was elected as Thailand’s first woman prime minister on Sunday. Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party won the majority of the country’s 500 seat parliament with 262 votes as of Sunday night. Official results of the election will come in July 12. This was the first general election since 2007.

Shinawatra stated that her primary goals for her term are to work toward of process of national reconciliation to improve class and political divisions, improve economic issues by increasing the minimum wage, and guaranteeing access to free education.

Shinawatra is sister to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted from his position in a 2006 military coup. She promises to bring back similar populist policies to those of her brother. She received an undergraduate degree in politics from the northern city of Chiang Mai and a masters degree in politics from Kentucky State University in the United States.

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, former Rwandan minister for women and family affairs, is the first woman to be convicted of genocide by the United Nations Chamber of the Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). ICTR found Nyiramasuhuko guilty of “conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, extermination, rape, persecution and…violence to life and outrages upon personal dignity.”

During her time as the women’s minister, a role intended to advance the lives of Rwandan women and children, Nyiramasuhuko ordered and assisted soldiers in raping and killing Tutsi women and girls in her home district of Butare in southern Rwanda. She also assisted in creating Hutu militias that systematically killed Tutsi civilians.

Seventeen years after the genocide in Rwanda, Nyiramasuhuko was found guilty on 7 of the 11 charges following a 10-year trial and will face a life sentence, though she denies the charges. Her son and four other former officials were also found guilty of a range of charges.

Throughout the 1994 genocide, approximately 800,000 people were murdered and 250,000 women were raped. Rape was named a crime against humanity in 1946 by an Allied Statute covering the trials for German war crimes of World War II. However, this law was not implemented until 1995 when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia prosecuted rape as a grave crime.

The UNFPA, UNICEF, UN Women, WHO, and OHCHR issued a statement examining causes and consequences of gender-based sex selection. In South, East and Central Asian countries, the sex ratio imbalances are growing and can be as skewed as 130 males per every 100 females. By contrast, the normal sex ratio is 102-106 males per every 100 females born.

According to the statement, “Sex selection in favour of boys is a symptom of pervasive social, cultural, political, and economic injustices against women, and a manifest violation of women’s human rights…There is a huge pressure on women to produce sons…which not only directly affects women’s reproductive decisions, with implications for their health and survival, but also puts women in a position where they must perpetuate the lower status of girls through son preference.”

The statement notes that patrilineal inheritance and the reliance on sons for economic support and the performance of death rites contributes to the preference for male children. Sex selection can be performed through “prenatal sex detection and selective abortion, or following birth through infanticide or child neglect.” The statement calls for the establishment of guidelines on the use of technology by health professionals, educational and awareness-raising programs about female infanticide, and incentives for families with only daughters.

A senior Egyptian general confirmed findings in an Amnesty International report that during the uprisings in Egypt, military officials conducted virginity checks on women who were arrested during the uprisings. The general stated that the virginity checks were conducted so that the women could not claim that they had been raped while in military custody.

In its report, Amnesty International indicated that over 18 women were tortured, beaten, and subjected to electric shocks while being held in military detention. Amnesty International strongly denounced the treatment of the women in its statement: “Forcing women to have ‘virginity tests’ is utterly unacceptable. Its purpose is to degrade women because they are women. All members of the medical profession must refuse to take part in such so-called ‘tests’….Women and girls must be able to express their views on the future of Egypt and protest against the government without being detained, tortured, or subjected to profoundly degrading and discriminatory treatment.”

The general defended the virginity checks stating, “The girls who were detained were not like your daughter or mine. These were girls who had camped out in tents with male protestors in Tahrir Square.”

The United Kingdom Department of Health released a report today revealing that everyday 12 women travel from Ireland, where abortion is not legal, to Great Britain to obtain abortion services. In 2010, 4,402 Irish residents sought abortions in England or Wales.

Niall Behan, Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) chief executive, clarified, “These figures serve to highlight yet again the hypocrisy of Ireland’s restrictive abortion law and clearly demonstrate the necessity for domestic-based abortion services in Ireland. Clients attending IFPA services for pregnancy counseling express frustration and anger that they have to leave this country to access health services they feel should be available to them at home. Women don’t want sympathy, they simply want access to the health services they need.”

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in December that Ireland’s constitutional ban on abortions violates a woman’s right to adequate medical care in life-threatening situations. Nevertheless, the court maintained Ireland’s right to prohibit abortions in other circumstances. In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal in cases when the woman’s life was endangered. Ireland’s Parliament, however, never enacted legislation to protect that right.

Late last week, 16 countries (see list here), 9 of which are from the African continent, pledged their commitments to reducing maternal, newborn, and child mortality, as part of the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. The countries, supported by UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF, the World Bank, and WHO, will focus on promoting increased contraceptive use, better access to obstetric care, immunizations, and the prevention of mother to child HIV transmission.

Anthony Lake, UNICEF executive director stated, “Focusing on the women and children in greatest need is not only the right thing to do, it moves us faster and most cost-effectively towards meeting the health Millennium Development Goals. By choosing to redouble their efforts on maternal and child health, these 16 nations are not only saving lives, they are making an investment in their future.”

Launched in September 2010, the Global Strategy aims to reduce maternal and child death in developing nations. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the World Bank released a report in September stating that although maternal mortality rates have decreased by 34 percent since 1990, the decline in the rate of pregnancy-related deaths is not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal target for 2015. Currently, there are approximately 1,000 maternal deaths per day caused by easily preventable conditions that include severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders, and unsafe abortion.

A new policy took effect on Friday in Wales that will allow women and girls over the age of 13 to obtain emergency contraception free of charge and without a prescription. Welsh Health Minister Edwina Hart stated that the plan is part of an initiative to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies in Wales, which hosts the highest rate of teen pregnancies in the United Kingdom.

An official from the Welsh government stated, “While (condoms) remain the best form of contraception, from 1 April, pharmacists in Wales will be able to provide the morning after pill to individuals and provide discreet counseling and advice on contraceptive use. Pharmacists have a key role to play in the reduction of unwanted pregnancies, especially when coupled with advice.”

Wales is the first country in the United Kingdom to allow women and girls to obtain emergency contraception at no cost and without a doctor’s prescription.

Levonorgestrel, sold under the brand name Plan B, is a form of emergency contraception that must be taken within 72 hours of sexual activity. Emergency contraception or the “morning-after” pill is available over the counter to women over the age of 17 in the United States.

Zohre Elahian, a member of Iran’s parliament, stated yesterday that Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani’s hanging sentence had been commuted to a 10 year prison sentence. Ashtiani’s hanging was scheduled for early November, but as a result of massive international protest, her execution was suspended.

In 2006, Ashtiani was convicted of murdering her husband and sentenced to a 10-year prison term. The sentence was later reduced to a five year term for complicity in his murder. Ashtiani was also convicted of having extramarital relations and initially received a sentence of 99 lashes for adultery. However, during an appeal of her case, the court changed the sentence to death by stoning. After worldwide outrage, this sentence was commuted to death by hanging.

Prominent political figures, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, have issued statements expressing concern and dismay over Ashtiani’s treatment. The Feminist Majority Foundation and women’s groups globally conducted email campaigns to stop the death sentence.

January 1 marked the first working day of UN Women, a UN agency created to promote gender equality and advance the rights of women. The UN General Assembly formed the agency through a resolution in July 2010.

UN Women’s goals include fostering women’s equality, reducing violence against women, and empowering and providing greater opportunities for women worldwide. The agency will partner with UN Member States to develop and implement standards for gender equality.

Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN Women and the former President of Chile, stated, “This is a time of great promise. We have a historic opportunity to accelerate the achievement of what champions of gender equality have worked towards for years.”

Salman Taseer, the Governor of the Punjab Province and a senior member of the People’s Party of Pakistan, was shot and killed yesterday in Islamabad. Pakistani officials are investigating one of Taseer’s bodyguards, who cited Taseer’s opposition to Pakistan’s blasphemy laws as his justification for committing the murder.

Taseer was a vocal supporter of women’s rights in Pakistan and an opponent of the controversial anti-blasphemy laws. In November, he called for the pardon of Aasia Bibi, a Christian woman who received a death sentence for allegedly criticizing the prophet Muhammad. Religious groups in favor of the blasphemy laws responded by burning effigies of Taseer.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced three days of national morning, as protesters gathered in the streets of Punjab.