Migration Category: Global Old Site

The case of three Irish women who are challenging Ireland’s abortion ban will be heard by the full 17 member chamber of the European Court of Human Rights this week. The three women claim in their lawsuit, ABC v. Ireland, that their well-being and health was threatened by Ireland’s restrictive laws that prevent abortion in almost every circumstance except when a woman’s life is in jeopardy. Due to the stigma associated with abortion, the women have chosen to remain anonymous and are referred to as A, B, and C in court documents.

All three women traveled to England to have an abortion. Annually, more than 7,000 women travel from Ireland to obtain legal and safe abortions elsewhere. The Irish Family Planning Association, which represents the women, argue that the necessity to travel to obtain safe and legal abortion is direct discrimination based on sex and financial status. They charge that their human rights were violated under the European Convention of Human Rights’ “Articles 2 (Right to Life), 3 (Prohibition of Torture), 8 (Right to Respect for Family and Private Life) and 14 (Prohibition of Discrimination).”

In 2007, a similar case brought to the same Court by a Polish woman resulted in the court instructing Poland to change its abortion laws, according to the Irish Times.

Historically, there has been strong opposition within largely Roman Catholic Ireland to legalizing abortion. Abortion is criminalized in Ireland by an 1861 law that prohibits “unlawfully procur[ing] a miscarriage” and threatens life imprisonment. In the 1992 ‘X Case’, the Irish Supreme Court ruled that abortion is allowable only when the woman’s life is substantially at risk, according to the Irish Independent.

A bill introduced in the French parliament last week would require all companies on the Paris Stock Exchange to ensure that 50 percent of their board members are women by 2015. According to the plan, companies would be required to have women as 20 percent of their boards within 18 months and women as 40 percent within four years, according to the Guardian UK. Currently, only 10.5 percent of board members in these companies are women.

Leading French Businesswoman Veronique Preaux-Cobti, said earlier this year that “In 2002, a huge majority would have been against [this quota legislation]…Now, after years of good will with no change, there is a real realization that things are not going to change on their own,” according to the Guardian UK.

France imposed similar gender equity quotas to the political sphere in 2000, but these quotas have yet to be reached. According to the Telegraph UK, French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party paid nearly $7.5 million in fines after the 2007 elections because parity was not imposed. After the 2007 elections, only 18 percent of parliamentarians in France’s lower house were women.

The new quota bill does not establish financial penalties for violations, but instead introduces the power to invalidate nominations and nullify board decisions that violate the law.

The head of Iran’s state television, Ezatollah Zarghami, said Wednesday that state-sponsored television programs will prohibit women who appear on air from using make-up. Zarghami also said that programs will ban “repulsive jokes” between women and men, and that it is “preferable” that women guests appear on shows hosted by other women, according to Agence France Presse.

According to Digital Production Middle East, Zarghami told the newspaper Eternad that “Make-up by women during television programs is illegal and against Islamic Sharia law. There should not be a single case of a woman wearing make-up during a program.” Even so, the Washington Post reports that millions of Iranian women wear make-up. Prior to the announcement of this ban, women appearing on television were only required to wear headscarves.

Critics of Iran’s state television–supporters and opponents of the government alike–say that currently, the programs on Iran’s state channel are boring relative to other programs. Iran’s head of state and religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini is reportedly dissatisfied with state television, and has asked Zarghami to make state-run programs demonstrate an “outstanding representation of morality, religion, hopefulness and awareness.”

Zarghami also announced this week that state television will ban appearances of children insulting elders and restrict the quantity and type of music that is played on programs.

The State Department announced a new five-year strategy for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) this week on World AIDS Day. The plan (see PDF) indicates a shift away from the Bush administration’s ABC (abstinence, be faithful, and as a last resort use condoms) prevention program and toward expanding family planning as an HIV prevention measure.

One of the goals listed in the written strategy is to expand “integration of HIV prevention, care and support, and treatment services with family planning and reproductive health services, so that women living with HIV can access necessary care, and so that all women know how to protect themselves from HIV infection.” The plan also explicitly aims to expand “prevention strategies that have been proven effective and targeting interventions to most at-risk populations with high incidence rates.” Condom distribution and usage is the most effective barrier method to prevent the spread of HIV. The plan indicates that although men who have sex with men, IV drug users, and sex workers are still high-risk populations, “women and girls continue to face disproportionate impact of new infections.”

Ambassador Eric Goosby, who is also the State Department’s Global AIDS Coordinator, said in a briefing, “We are going to start targeting high-risk populations as opposed to general public service announcements that have dominated PEPFAR 1 (the first phase of PEPFAR) as one of the central strategies – the abstinence, be faithful type of activity. We’re linking family planning, reproductive health services to our prevention efforts because they are more effective. Those needs are going largely unaddressed, and where interfaced with populations that need both, we should overlap them.”

Eleanor Smeal, President of the Feminist Majority Foundation joined Women for Afghan Women in a press conference, on the same day President Obama is announcing the new US policies for Afghanistan and Pakistan, to keep in focus the plight of Afghan women and girls.

In a statement, Smeal said, “We must not forget the horrific human rights abuses toward women and girls that have been and are being committed by the Taliban. In the past several years, hundreds of girls’ schools have been destroyed. Teachers have been murdered – some right in front of their students. Girls are being attacked with acid thrown in their faces on their way to or from school. Atrocities are regularly committed by Taliban forces against women. And we cannot forget, when Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban, women and girls were not allowed to be educated, employed, go outside their homes without the company of a close male relative, go to a male doctor (female doctors were forbidden to work), or go to a hospital. Girl babies were even forbidden treatment by male doctors. Women were beaten and killed for violations of intolerable restrictions.”

President Obama announced in March a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that will provide not only military assistance, but also “a greater civilian commitment to the Afghan people.” He pledged we will “support the basic human rights of all Afghans – including women and girls.”

Smeal also said, “We believe for any campaign to bring lasting peace to Afghanistan humanitarian and development programs of education, health care, and employment, especially for women and girls, who compose the majority of Afghans, are essential…We believe that the new strategy about to be announced must increase the humanitarian and development programs for Afghanistan. To establish the conditions for a lasting peace, Afghanistan must be rebuilt and the basic building blocs of a civil society must be restored. President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. In the long run, rebuilding Afghanistan is not only the moral solution, but also the more economical solution.”

Read the full press release here.

World AIDS Day was globally commemorated today with more than awareness events and free HIV testing sites. Those honoring World AIDS Day were asked to a push for universal access to treatment and prevention. HIV/AIDS rates have globally increased this year and an estimated 33.4 million are currently living with AIDS. Of that figure, 15.7 million people are adult women.

Some progress in achieving more universal access has already been achieved. According to UNAIDS’ 2009 AIDS Update (see PDF), there has been a 35 percent increase throughout the world in access to Antiretroviral therapy from 2003 to 2008. South African President Zuma, announced his plan today for a national prevention and testing initiative, which will include guaranteed treatment of all children under the age of one who test positive for HIV.

UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said in a speech (see PDF), “From today, we reject all excuses for failure, we tolerate no more injustice, and we bond together in a wedge of activism, slicing through complacency to achieve our goal of universal access.”

While most World AIDS Day events are face-to-face gatherings, social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter have created applications that link to fact sheets for the occasion.

The United Nations announced Tuesday $10.5 million in new grants to bolster international efforts to end violence against women.

The funds, which were announced in honor of the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women today, will assist 13 initiatives in 18 countries and territories. The UN Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women, overseen by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), will disperse the grants.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged governments and international organizations to strengthen their work on gender-based violence, and emphasized the prevalence of such violence:

“Some 70 percent of women experience in their lifetime some form of physical or sexual violence from men — the majority from husbands, intimate partners or someone they know. This is unacceptable,” he said.

The UN also launched on Tuesday the Network of Men Leaders, a coalition of public and private leaders working to stop violence against women. Prominent members of the Network include Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, and Brazilian novelist and UN Messenger of Peace Paulo Coelho.

US Vice President Joseph Biden called on Americans to join international efforts to stop violence against women, in a statement released today. “Violence against women is found in every culture around the world. It is one of our most pervasive global problems,” he said.

The US is leading UN efforts to end the use of rape as a tactic of war, according to Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is working with the UN Security Council to increase prevention efforts against sexual violence and hold perpetrators accountable, she said.

The British Columbia Appeal Court provided written rationale for it’s ruling that will allow Olympic organizers to hold a men’s ski jumping event, but not a women’s event in the upcoming Vancouver Olympic games. According to the Associated Press, the Court wrote in its decision that “It is a case in which a non-governmental body (VANOC) is brought before the court as a result of policies which neither it nor any Canadian authority has the power to change,” the justices wrote in the ruling…VANOC simply does not have the power to determine what events are included in the 2010 Olympic program.”

After the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rejected the inclusion of women’s ski jumping in the 2010 games, fourteen athletes brought the issue to court as a sex discrimination case. They argued that the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) is subject to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and therefore should not allow sex discrimination in the Olympic events it will host. The British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in July that while the exclusion of women’s ski jumping is discriminatory, only the IOC has the authority to determine which events are included.

The IOC says it will not stage a women’s ski jump event because there are not enough women competing at the highest levels of the sport. However, men’s ski jumping also does not fully meet the IOC’s criteria for inclusion but has been an Olympic sport since 1924 and was grandfathered into the 2010 games. Even if the current case is appealed to the Canadian Supreme Court, it will not be heard prior to the 2010 Olympic Games.

The United Nation’s Population Fund (UNFPA) released a report Wednesday that indicates women, especially poor women living in developing countries, are more susceptible to the negative effects of climate change. The report also identified that increased contraceptive access, increased participation of women in policymaking, and increased civil rights could help alleviate the affects of climate change, according to the Voice of America.

The report, Facing a Changing World: Women, Population and Climate (see PDF) found that women’s traditional role as homemaker along with their greater participation in the agricultural work force directly relates to increased vulnerability https://feminist.org/majorityspeaks/climate change. The report states that caring for family members “often limits [women’s] mobility and increases their vulnerability to sudden weather-related natural disasters. Drought and erratic rainfall force women to work harder to secure food, water and energy for their homes. Girls drop out of school to help their mothers with these tasks. This cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality undermines the social capital needed to deal effectively with climate change.”

Bunmi Makinwa, Africa director of the UNFPA, said “Women have the potential that we are not using to contribute, to mitigate the effects of climate change. And therefore women should be part of the discussion, should be involved in the discussion and be involved in the decision making on climate change issues,” according to the Voice of America.

The release of this report is in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, expected to take place next month. World leaders intend to build on the 1997 Kyoto protocol, in which 37 industrial nations agreed to reduce heat-raising gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. However, the United Press International reported that the US Congress failure to pass effective Climate Change legislation will likely damage negotiation efforts.

The United States lags behind most other industrialized countries in failing to provide paid sick leave, paid paternal leave, breastfeeding breaks and other policies to support workers, according to an eight-year-long worldwide study released this week that focuses on family-friendly workplace policy. Raising the Global Floor: Dismantling the Myth that We Can’t Afford Good Working Conditions for Everyone, is the most extensive study of its kind. The report compiled information from 190 of 192 United Nations countries and from 55,000 households on seven continents. The study was led by researchers at Harvard and McGill Universities.

Researchers found that US law does not guarantee paid leave for new mothers (177 countries do), paid paternal leave (74 countries do), paid leave to care for an ill child (48 countries do), paid annual leave (164 countries do), paid sick leave (163 countries do), and a day of rest each week to workers (157 countries do). The report sought to examine the economic feasibility of implementing these policies as well as the costs and benefits of providing this safety net for working families.

“The world’s most successful and competitive nations are providing the supports the United States lacks, without harming their competitiveness,” lead author Jody Heymann of McGill University said in a press release. “Globally, we found that none of these working conditions are linked with lower levels of economic competitiveness or employment. There simply is no negative relationship at all between decent working conditions and competitiveness or job creation. In fact, we found that a number of these guarantees are associated with increased competitiveness.”

This study’s release follows the publication of the Shriver Report last month, which was a comprehensive study of women becoming the majority of the American workforce. Ms. Magazine recently addressed the need for US legislation to develop women-friendly economic policies like those detailed in Raising the Global Floor, in light of women becoming more than 50 percent of US paid workers. Authors Karen Kornbluh and Rachel Homer said in Ms., “True reform of our safety net would mean that American families are assured that their income will be replaced not only as a result of retirement, disability or unemployment but also when they have to care for a new child or an ill relative.”

A Pakistani middle school for girls was bombed late last night near Peshawar, which is in the northern region bordering Afghanistan. No one was injured in the bombing, but reports indicate that the attack completely destroyed the girls’ school building. According to officials, this is the third school bombing this month in the Peshawar region.

Local official Farooq Khan told Agence France Presse that “the girls’ middle school was badly damaged because of the explosion, now the school building is almost out of use. The classrooms, desks and chairs were also damaged.”

In Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan, violence against schools that educate girls has been part of campaigns against the education of women. In Pakistan’s Swat Valley, more than 130 primarily all girl schools have been destroyed in the past year, allegedly by the Taliban. In total, hundreds of schools have been destroyed in Pakistan’s northwest region over the past several years. During the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which lasted until 2001, Afghan girls were forbidden to attend school. To date, approximately 1,000 girls’ or co-educational schools have been bombed or burned in Afghanistan.

Last week, an Argentinean Judge granted the first same sex marriage license in Latin America to two men, Jose Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre. According to Agence France Presse, the couple sued after being denied a marriage license from the civil registry because they were both men. Judge Gabriela Seijas’ ruled in favor of the couple, declaring that laws limiting marriage between a man and a woman were unconstitutional, reported the Associated Press.

“We are very happy, moved, but we also feel the heavy weight of responsibility because it’s not just about us, it’s encouraging legal equality in Argentina and the rest of Latin America,” Di Bello told Agence France Presse.

Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri promised not to appeal the decision, reported the Buenos Aires Herald. “This is an important step, because we must learn how to live in freedom without hurting the rights of others…We must cohabit, and accept this reality. The world is heading toward that direction,” said Macri. The decision comes at a time when Argentina’s Congress has proposed changing the nation’s laws to allow same-sex marriage.

The couple plans to marry on World AIDS Day, December 1st.

Fourteen women ski jumpers will appear in a British Colombia court today to continue their legal battle for the opportunity to compete in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. After the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rejected the inclusion of women’s ski jumping in the 2010 games, the athletes brought the issue to court as a sex discrimination case, reports the Associated Press.

The athletes argue that the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) is subject to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and therefore should not allow sex discrimination in the Olympic events it will host. The British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in July that while the exclusion of women’s ski jumping is discriminatory, only the IOC has the authority to determine which events are included, according to the Associated Press. The British Columbia Court of Appeals will hear the case again today and tomorrow. If the court rules in favor of the athletes, it could force VANOC to either hold a women’s ski jump competition or cancel the men’s event, reports CBC News.

The IOC says it will not stage a women’s ski jump event because there are not enough women competing at the highest levels of the sport, reports the Christian Science Monitor. However, men’s ski jumping also does not fully meet the IOC’s criteria for inclusion but was grandfathered into the 2010 games, according to the Christian Science Monitor. Members of the IOC also acknowledge that commercial appeal is a factor in what sports are chosen for the games.

VANOC argues that while they support the ski jumpers’ bid for inclusion, their hands are tied by the IOC. Cathy Priestner-Allinger, vice-president of sport and operation for VANOC, told CTV, “We will continue to do everything we can to help these athletes achieve their goal. We provided them with free access to the jumps at Whistler Olympic Park; we helped sponsor and stage several elite national and international competitions; we helped create programs to introduce more women to the sport; we welcomed one of these young ladies to participate in the Torch Relay on the first day of the relay,” referring to torchbearer Charlotte Mitchell, one of the athletes involved in the suit. American ski jumper Lindsey Van set a record for the 90-meter jump at Whistler Olympic Park when it opened last year, reports the CS Monitor.

Pakistan’s National Assembly passed a law increasing the penalty for sexual harassment yesterday. The law now moves to the country’s senate, where it faces another vote. If the law is passed, it would increase the penalty guidelines for sexual harassment from one year to three years in prison and would add a fine of up to 500,000 Pakistani rupees ($6,000), United Press International reports.

MP and former information minister Sherry Rehman, who has worked for laws protecting women’s rights, told the BBC “This bill will be especially empowering for women who work as domestic workers.” The law would also allow sexual harassment cases to go to higher courts.

This law is the latest legislative development to further women’s rights since a new government took power last year. According to United Press International, another law was passed recently that provides financial and other assistance to those who have experienced domestic violence including women, the elderly, children, and servants. Earlier this year, Inter Press Service reported that Pakistan took steps to pass a law criminalizing domestic violence.

Saudi Arabian women’s rights activists, led by Wajeha al Huwaider, are launching a “Black Ribbon Campaign” to demand women’s rights today. It is the 19th anniversary of the day forty-seven Saudi women drove their cars in public to protest a policy that bans women from driving, Memri Blog reports.

According to the Middle East Transparent, the campaign has three goals: that Saudi women be allowed to represent themselves in official and government agencies without a male guardian; that Saudi women be treated as citizens equal to Saudi men; and that Saudi women be allowed to enjoy rights and privileges that are currently restricted including the rights to travel, work, study, inherit, gain custody of children, marry, divorce, drive cars.

The motto of the campaign is, “we will not untie our ribbon until Saudi women enjoy their rights as adult citizens.” Saudi women’s activists ask that supporters wear black ribbons or black bracelets to show their solidarity with Saudi women.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said Tuesday that rich countries will have to pledge more than the $100 billion per year currently on the table if negotiations on a climate change treaty are to be successful at the United Nations Climate Change Conference next month in Copenhagen. He also announced that he will meet with all US Senators involved in negotiations over the pending “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” (see PDF) next week, the Guardian reports.

The Copenhagen summit is intended to build on the 1997 Kyoto protocol, in which 37 industrial nations agreed to reduce heat-raising gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, according to the Associated Press. The US was the only industrialized nation that didn’t sign the Kyoto protocol. If the US Senate doesn’t pass the energy and climate bill, US negotiators in Copenhagen will likely have little power to join an effective climate change treaty. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also spoken to both houses in the US Congress urging them to signal their commitment to the Copenhagen Conference, reported the Digital Journal.

African countries boycotted preliminary talks on a potential treaty because they claim that industrial nations have not set their carbon-cutting targets high enough to effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Associated Press. Studies have shown that African nations will suffer the most from climate change, but are the least responsible for causing it.

Women, who make up about 65 percent of the world’s poor, will also be disproportionately affected by climate change, according to a post on Feministing Community. As water becomes more scarce, girls will have to forgo school to collect water, and women “climate refugees” will become more vulnerable as they are forced to leave their homes due to climate change.

The Secretary General said, “Copenhagen will be a very important milestone. At the same time, realistically speaking, we may not be able to agree to all the words…We need at this time the political will – if there is a political will, there is a way we can come to a binding agreement in Copenhagen,” the Associated Press reports.

Al-Shabaab militants in Somalia are allegedly rounding up and beating women who are not wearing veils or socks. In total, over 130 people have been detained in the past three days for violating Al-Shabaab’s interpretation of sharia law, according to CNN.

“Just today, Al-Shabaab dispatched men with whips to the streets around Bakara market and they are flogging any woman who is found not wearing socks,” an anonymous female maize trader told CNN. She also said that many who have been detained because they were not wearing veils “were vegetable traders, so they are poor and can’t afford to buy veils for 600,000 shillings [about $23 U.S.].”

Militants have committed a number of human rights violations in Somalia recently. Earlier this month, China View reported that members of Al-Shabaab executed two men on charges of spying, and the South African Star reported that Al-Shabaab flogged women who were wearing bras and then forced the women to remove their bras and “shake their breasts.” Last year, a 13-year old rape victim was stoned on charges of adultery after her family tried to report the rape.