Migration Category: news-10001-15000-global

A United Nations report released Monday shows reductions in the number of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, as well as significant progress towards reaching the 2015 UN Millenium Development Goal on HIV.

The report by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS finds that new HIV infections among adults and children were estimated at 2.3 million in 2012, a 33% reduction since 2001. Among only children, there was a 52% drop in new HIV infections. Part of this reduction can be attributed to programs, such as one in Ethiopia, that work to prevent transmission of the virus from HIV-positive mothers to their children, and train nurses and midwives on emergency obstetric and newborn care.

AIDS-related deaths have dropped by 30% since the peak in 2005, as the number of people accessing antiretroviral therapy has significantly increased. In 2005, only 1.3 million people in low- and middle- income countries were accessing antiretroviral therapy, while an estimated 9.7 million people were accessing treatment in 2012. Free treatment has helped with this increase in access, as shown in Zambia.

As little as 54% of all people eligible for HIV treatment worldwide actually receive it. Prevention efforts are also often stymied by persistent condom stockouts, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 69% of all people affected by HIV live. This problem is especially acute for women and girls. Women make up 58% of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region, and young women ages 15-24 are as much as eight times more likely than men to be HIV positive. More than 90% of pregnant women living with HIV reside in Sub-Saharan Africa.

“Gender inequality, punitive laws and discriminatory actions are continuing to hamper national responses to HIV,” according to UNAIDS, “and concerted efforts are needed to address these persistent obstacles.”

Pakistan freed Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, former Taliban military commander and second in command to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. The release came on Saturday and was welcomed by the Afghan High Peace Council (HPC) as a move to reinvigorate stalled peace negotiations with the Taliban militia before the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2014.

Afghan women leaders have criticized the prospect of Taliban peace negotiations and the release of Taliban detainees. Female MP Shukria Barakzai expressed concern to the BBC that the Afghan government wanted to make a peace deal “whatever the price,” even if it meant sacrificing the women of Afghanistan. Pakistan has already released 33 Taliban prisoners this year. Senator Lailuma Ahmadi cautioned, “The released prisoners will join the Taliban again.”

Her fears are not unfounded. Just this month, Tolo news reported that Mullah Ghulam Mohammad–released this August by the Afghan government from Bagram Prison–had rejoined the Taliban and was responsible for the killing of 13 Afghan local police in the Badghis province. Several experts have warned that the release of Taliban prisoners could lead to further insecurity and violence and pressed that the government should have proper mechanisms in place to ensure that former prisoners do not return to the battlefield.

The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Pakistan released Mullah Baradar but would not comment on his location. HPC deputy head Attaullah Ludin noted, however, that Baradar had not been handed over to the Afghan government.

At least 50 people were injured Sunday in Dhaka, Bangladesh after police tried to break up massive garment worker protests with tear gas and rubber bullets, and workers responded by throwing bricks at the officers.

Up to 50,000 garment workers have been protesting for several days to demand an increase in the minimum wage to $100. The current minimum wage is around $38 per month, which is only 14 percent of a living wage for the country. A protesting woman said, “We work to survive but we can’t even cover our basic needs.” A new law was expected to make it easier for garment workers, 80 percent of whom are women, to form unions to demand higher wages and better working environments, but management has responded to recently registered unions with violence, bribes, and threats.

Bangladesh has seen significant labor unrest after a series of deadly factory incidents, including the April collapse of the Rana Plaza building that killed 1,132 workers. While there are 2,000 factories in Dhaka like Rana Plaza, there are only 40 building inspectors, and 3 in 5 industrial structures are reportedly vulnerable to collapse.

The country is the cheapest place to make clothing because of lax safety rules and low wages. Several retailers that purchase clothing made in Bangladesh have entered into a pact to improve factory fire and safety rules, but some major ones have not, including Walmart and GAP.

Over the past 10 years, the Republic of Congo has reduced the number of women dying in childbirth by 50 percent and, if progress continues at this rate, may reach the Millennium Development Goal of reducing maternal mortality by 75 percent by 2015. Experts cite improvements to maternal healthcare and efforts to enhance family planning programs as contributing factors to this sharp decrease in maternal death.

The majority of women in Congo live in urban areas and give birth in health care facilities, but these facilities were often inadequate. According to Dr. Leon Herve Iloki, director of the National Observatory on Maternal and Newborn Mortality, birthing facilities have improved tremendously. “Forceps? You didn’t have them. You didn’t have other instruments for helping in delivery. Even beds were not always there.”

The government, with the help of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), also began offering women free Caesarean sections in 2011. The procedure used to cost $500 or more, an insurmountable obstacle to many poor women whose choices were to come up with the money or “die there, on the table,” according to Rose-Marie Moundele, a woman whose sister-in-law recently delivered a child by Caesarean. UNFPA has also supported the government’s initiative to prevent and treat obstetric fistula, a preventable medical condition caused by prolonged labor. Women can now receive free care for this condition. Obstetric fistula is a major contributor to maternal death among poor women.

Experts also credit family planning for the decline of maternal mortality. UNFPA has supported the Congo Health Ministry’s attempts to create better family planning programs.”Promoting family planning is among the cheapest investments to reduce maternal mortality,” said UNFPA Representative David Lawson at the launch of the initiative in November 2011. A recent study conducted by the Ministry of Health showed that 45 percent of Congolese women use contraceptives.

Progress, however, has been uneven. For women living in rural areas and for indigenous women, there is little access to quality health centers. Although midwives attend births in rural facilities, improvements to infrastructure are needed. Health officials in the country hope to see further developments in other areas of maternal health as well, including cheaper pre-natal checkups and strengthening of family planning and HIV/AIDS programs.

Five men have been arrested in connection with the shooting death of a senior female police officer in Afghanistan.

Lieutenant Negar died on Monday after being shot by gunmen near police headquarters in Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern province of Helmand. Negar was the highest-ranking female officer in the province. Her predecessor, Islam Bibi, also a woman, was murdered in July.

Women comprise less than one percent of Afghanistan’s police force, with about 1,600 women serving and about 200 more in training. In an interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty before her death, Negar discussed the importance of having women police officers. She said, “Women are needed, and they shouldn’t be scared [to join]. We should take pride in the fact that our people are happy with the work we do and they thank God that we women police exist.”

Fifty-three percent of Afghans approve of having female police in their communities, according to a recent UNDP police perception survey. In the same survey, seven in ten Afghans reported that they would be more likely to report a crime to a female police officer, and nearly six in ten said they would be more likely to trust a female officer to resolve a crime fairly. The Afghan Ministry of the Interior has pledged to increase the number of women police to 5,000 by 2015.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has recently announced several programs aimed at empowering women and girls in Afghanistan.

The three-year women’s empowerment project launched last week aims to strengthen the Ministry of Women’s Affairs’ (MoWA) capacity to support women. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs Organizational Restructuring and Empowerment Project (MORE), which will be implemented in partnership with The Asia Foundation, will support the delivery of key components of MoWA’s National Priority Program: institutional reform and organizational capacity building, public awareness and education, outreach, and news-media relations. Institutional reform will be achieved through employee trainings on policy leadership and advocacy, human resource management, financial management, and other areas, as well as a scholarship program for MoWA employees. Outreach will be supported through door-to-door campaigns, workshops, and seminars, and there will be a special grant to fund outreach in the provinces. The project will also strengthen ties between MoWA and other Afghan ministries to encourage other ministries to incorporate gender into their own policy development.

Another USAID program, aimed at increasing literacy of Afghan women and girls, will provide 840 women with literacy classes and establish 40 community libraries. The two-year project, called Afghanistan Reads, aims to improve the educational status of women and girls by strengthening reading comprehension and increasing access to reading materials. Currently, out of about 146,000 students in medical, technical, and vocational higher education institutes, 17 percent are female. USAID partnered with the Linda Norgrove Foundation and Canadian Women for Women Afghanistan to fund the program.

In a press release, USAID said, “The United States applauds the progress Afghan women and girls have made over the past 10 years. We will continue to stand with and work closely with Afghan women.”

USAID also announced that it will contribute $55 million to assist the Independent Election Commission with budget needs for Afghanistan’s April 2014 elections, and that it will continue to support the Ministry of Public Health.

Pakistan announced last week that it would free captured Taliban commander Mullah Adbul Ghani Baradar later this month. Baradar is one of the founders of the Taliban and was second in command when he was captured in Karachi through a joint operation between Pakistani and American intelligence forces in February 2010. At the time of his capture, the New York Times reported that Baradar directed the Taliban’s military operations and headed the group’s leadership council.

Afghan and Pakistani officials intend for the release of Baradar to advance peace talks between Afghanistan and the Taliban. A spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that the country welcomed the decision to release Baradar, stating “his release will certainly help the Afghan peace process.” Pakistan has already released 33 Afghan Taliban prisoners this year. At least some of those released are believed to have rejoined the militia group.

Formal peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan and U.S. governments were set to begin last June in Qatar. Talks stalled, however, after the Taliban opened an office in Doha proclaiming itself to be an official government, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Together with Women for Afghan Women, the Feminist Majority Foundation has consistently warned about the dangers of negotiating with the Taliban and has urged that the international community continue to pursue other peace channels through funding for economic development, security, and women’s rights. “The Taliban can’t be trusted,” said Manizha Naderi, Executive Director of Women for Afghan Women. “They are killing civilians on a daily basis. You can’t negotiate peace on the one hand and kill civilians with the other.” Naderi also cautioned against backsliding on women’s rights, essential to the development of Afghanistan and the reconciliation process. “The Taliban will say that they will accept the Afghan Constitution and will respect girls’ right to go to school and women’s right to work, but when the US leaves, they can do what they want. Negotiations with the Taliban are not good for women.”

The four men found guilty Tuesday of the fatal gang-rape of a 23 year-old student in New Delhi, India have been sentenced to death by hanging.

AP reports that they will be hanged. Vinay Sharma, Ashkay Thakur, Pawan Gupta, and Mukesh Sing were convicted of murder, rape, and kidnapping; last December, they tortured and raped a young woman who had been heading home from the movies. The men raped her one-by-one for nearly an hour before violating her with a metal rod, and afterward left her on the side of the road. The victim died two weeks later of critical damage to her organs,sparking massive ongoing protests in the region and around the world. (The men were joined as well by a minor who was sentenced previously this year and the bus driver, who committed suicide in jail in March prior to sentencing.)

Protesters outside of the court erupted in cheering when the men were handed their sentence, and the victim’s family felt the decision was fair. “We are very happy,” the victim’s father told reporters. “Justice has been delivered.” Calls for the men to be executed had come from high-profile politicians and many other Indians throughout the ongoing trial.

According to Indian government statistics, a woman is raped every 22 minutes in the region. Karuna Nundy, a lawyer for India’s Supreme Court, says the high-profile rape case has caused a surge in reports. Last year, 433 women had reported rapes between January and August; this year the number rose to 1,036. “It’s all very new,” she said. “It’s a beginning.” It is likely survivors feel more empowered to report in light of the outpouring of support this victim’s case received, and how public the pursuit for justice on her behalf has been. Protesters sought out the death penalty, as did the prosecutors in the case, in order to send a message about sexual violence in India.

“In these times when crimes against women are on the rise,” Judge Yogesh Khanna said when announcing the sentence, “the court cannot turn a blind eye to this gruesome act.” He added that the crime was one of the “rarest of the rare category” deserving capital punishment, which is not a common sentence in Indian courts.

The sentence must be confirmed by India’s High Court and can be appealed to the court, and their lawyer has confirmed that they will appeal within the month.

Four men have been found guilty by District Court judge Yogesh Khanna of the fatal gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student in New Delhi, India last December.

The victim and a friend were trying to taxi home after seeing a movie when the men lured them onto a private bus. They beat both of them and raped the woman as the bus driver drove around for an hour, then threw them out naked onto the road. The victim died two weeks later of severe internal injuries. She was able to provide evidence against the attackers while on her hospital bed.

The attack and death of the student led to huge protests across India about sexual violence and the status of women. It resulted in the introduction of tough new laws to punish sexual offenses, including allowing the death penalty to be used in serious cases of rape. Karuna Nundy, an attorney and advocate for the Supreme Court, said, “I think the legacy of the case, the most positive aspect, is the change in the law. There has been something of a change in the way violence against women is perceived. There is a shift from victim-blaming to a sense of women’s bodily integrity and dignity. That’s been a significant but not comprehensive shift. It’s a beginning.”

Another suspect, a man who was a juvenile when he committed the attack, was sentenced in August to three years in a reform facility. Also, the suspect thought to be the bus driver was found hanged in his prison cell in March.

The four convicted men will be sentenced tomorrow. They face either life imprisonment or death by hanging.

Enhancing women’s political participation is at the forefront of preparation for Afghanistan’s next set of presidential and provincial elections. The Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC) has partnered with the Asia Foundation to launch a new project that will support voter turnout among women in the April 2014 election as well as female elected officials and candidates running for office.

With 4.5 million pounds of funding from the United Kingdom, the project, entitled “Increasing Women’s Political Participation and Dialogue Opportunities in Afghanistan,” will run through December 2015. The Asia Foundation announced that the project will not only boost the ability of women to vote, but would also “provide capacity-building assistance to female members of parliament, female provincial councilors and potential female candidates to run in 2014-2015 elections” and “support women candidates to deliver campaign messages, facilitate networking and mentoring events with public figures and civil society organizations.” In announcing the program, UK Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander emphasized, “Women are key to building a democratic and safe country. They are the future of Afghanistan.”

The IEC has been working to advance Afghan women’s participation in the electoral process through the establishment of a Gender Unit in 2009, targeted public education directed at women voters, the use of female polling staff and observers, and the development of appropriate security measures. Challenges to female candidacy and voter turnout remain, including inaccessibility of polling booths for women in remote areas as well as concerns for the safety of female candidates and voters. Despite these challenges, however, over four million Afghan citizens voted in the 2010 parliamentary election. About 39 percent of these voters were women, and women made up 15 percent of parliamentary candidates. Currently, women hold 28 percent of seats in the National Parliament.

In early August, the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) published a five-year research project looking into the cost, quality, health benefits and stigma reduction of integrating HIV programs and sexual and reproductive health service programs in Kenya, Malawi, and Swaziland. Named The Integra Initiative, the study, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and carried out in partnership with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Population Council, provides “evidence to support the integration of HIV counseling and testing into mainstream family planning and maternal health services.”

Researchers found that integration can improve service delivery and increase the number of people receiving HIV counselling and testing. For clients, integrated services save them time and money, allow them to develop trusting relationships with their providers, and give them the opportunity to meet other clients living with HIV. IPPF’s Director General, Tewodros Melesse, said, “We know that there is a clear and obvious link between sexual and reproductive health and HIV so providing [sexual, reproductive,] and HIV services in the same place and at the same time makes good sense.” While the results are promising, more investment in research is needed.

These results are in line with a key goal of the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to expand service integration–although the program is not currently meeting this goal. In Ms. Magazine’s Summer 2013 issue, Jeanne Clark writes in “Unholy Alliance” about how PEPFAR-funded abstinence-only programs and conservative religious organizations affect prevention efforts.

Clark writes, “Even though current PEPFAR guidance has shifted to support comprehensive reproductive and sexual-health programs, the abstinence programs still have a lingering effect, leading some providers to de-emphasize condom education and other comprehensive prevention strategies. On Dec. 1, 2009, PEPFAR released its five-year strategy, which indicated that a key goal is to expand integration of HIV prevention, care, support and treatment services with family planning and other reproductive-health services. Yet the Fiscal Year 2013 Country Operational Plan Guidance states in no uncertain terms that ‘PEPFAR funds may not be used to purchase family-planning commodities.’ That means that women cannot get contraceptives at the same site where they receive HIV/AIDS testing, counseling, treatment and care.”