Migration Category: news-5001-10000-global

The United States has failed to successfully comply with standards for women’s human rights set out by the United Nations’ International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, according to a report recently released by a coalition of US nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to gender equality. The 60-page “Gender Shadow Report,” submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Committee on June 15, points to inadequate constitutional protections, weakened governmental monitoring of inequalities, unscientific sex education programs, inhumane treatment of incarcerated women and increasingly harsh immigration and asylum laws as the most egregious of US government violations.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) contributed to the report, noting that the present government is “reducing funds and dismantling programs adopted over the past 40 years that have promoted equality for women.” As a whole, the report beseeches the UN committee to “explore with the US” actions to remedy the identified problems, including that the US institute adequate monitoring of preexisting statutes that protect equality, that women prisoners have access to the full spectrum of reproductive rights, and that the US ensure accurate an unbiased sexuality education in its schools.

Numerous groups contributed to the creation of the Gender Shadow Report, including the Human Rights Advocates International (New York), International Gender Organization, International Women’s Rights Action Watch, Legal Momentum, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, and the NOW Foundation. The National Council of Women’s Organizations, which represents 200 women’s groups in the United States with over 10 million members, endorsed the report.

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) has offered an amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations bill that would raise the minimum wage for American workers from $5.15 to $7.25 over about two years, including workers in the US territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The current minimum wage in the CNMI is only $3.15, compared to $5.15 in the United States. Kennedy’s amendment would require a 50-cent per-hour raise every six months until the Mariana Islands’ minimum wage meets the federal standard. A bill addressing similar issues was introduced in the House of Representatives earlier this month by Representatives George Miller (D-CA), Hilda Solis (D-CA), and John Spratt (D-SC).

The Marianas are subject to US laws, but are exempt from US minimum wage requirements and most provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Currently, some 30,000 temporary “guestworkers” Ñ predominately women Ñ from China, the Philippines, and Thailand sew clothing for top-name American brands, which are then allowed to label the clothes Made in Saipan (USA), Made in Northern Mariana Islands (USA) or Made in the USA. Reduced to little more than indentured servants due to the high recruitment fees and the low minimum wage, many of these women have been subjected to long working hours (some up to 20 hours a day or even off the clock), and poor living conditions, according to an investigative report in Ms. magazine.

Since 1995 at least 29 different bills regarding labor and immigration issues in the Northern Mariana Islands have been introduced. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff worked on behalf of the Marianas government and its garment industry to ensure that Congress would not pass laws to improve wages and working conditions for the Marianas workers. Tom DeLay, one of Abramoff’s staunch Congressional allies, helped in keeping any bills regarding the Marianas from reaching the House floor, according to Rep. Miller, and even called the Marianas “a Petri dish of ‘capitalism’.”

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The House of Representatives passed the 2007 fiscal year budget on Friday, which includes $432 billion for international family planning programs. President Bush had proposed cutting aid for international family planning by 18 percent to $357 million, although he has said since 2001 that he would maintain international family planning funding at $425 million, according to Kaiser Daily Women’s Health Policy Report. The House Appropriations Committee eliminated President Bush’s cuts to family planning programs in a vote last month.

While the budget allocates funding to go to developing countries for international family planning programs, the global gag rule restricts which programs can receive the funding. The gag rule, or the Mexico City Policy, bars family planning programs in countries that receive US federal aid from using separate, private monies for abortion counseling, advocacy, and referrals.

In a press conference yesterday, several members of Congress announced the introduction of labor law legislation to address women’s rights and human rights abuses taking place on the US territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). Introduced by Representatives George Miller (D-CA), Hilda Solis (D-CA), and John Spratt (D-SC), the bill would require the Marianas to gradually increase its minimum wage (currently $3.15) until it reaches the federal minimum wage of the US and to follow the US Immigration and Nationality Act as if it were a state. The bill also prohibits the use of the “Made in the USA” label on any products leaving the Marianas unless “the minimum wage was paid to the workers, all labor laws were obeyed, and no indentured servitude was allowed.”

The Marianas are subject to US laws, but are exempt from US minimum wage requirements and most provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Currently, some 30,000 temporary “guestworkers” Ñ predominately women Ñ from China, the Philippines, and Thailand sew clothing for top-name American brands, which are then allowed to label the clothes Made in Saipan (USA), Made in Northern Mariana Islands (USA) or Made in the USA. Reduced to little more than indentured servants due to the high recruitment fees and the low minimum wage, many of these women have been subjected to long working hours (some up to 20 hours a day or even off the clock), and poor living conditions, according to an investigative report in Ms. magazine.

Since 1995 at least 29 different bills regarding labor and immigration issues in the Northern Mariana Islands have been introduced. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff worked on behalf of the Marianas government and its garment industry to ensure that Congress would not pass laws to improve wages and working conditions for the Marianas workers. Tom DeLay, one of Abramoff’s staunch Congressional allies, helped in keeping any bills regarding the Marianas from reaching the House floor, according to Rep. Miller, and even called the Marianas “a Petri dish of Ôcapitalism’.”

Rep. Miller, who has been championing the cause of the Marianas workers for years, said that Abramoff’s upcoming imprisonment and DeLay’s resignation this week provide “a window of opportunity” to properly address the women’s rights and human rights abuses taking place in the Northern Mariana Islands. “Let’s give TomDeLay a real going away present Ð fair wages and justice for the workers of the Marianas Islands,” said Congresswoman Solis.

LEARN MORE For more on this exclusive Ms. investigative article, pick up Ms. magazine on a newsstand near you.

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Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president, begins her first official visit to the United States today. The New York Times reports that Bachelet will meet with President Bush and attend a dinner in her honor hosted by the White House Project and women politicians. She will also visit leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill and speak to the Organization of American States, reports the Associated Press (AP).

While the Bush administration’s relationship with Bachelet’s government has been much more cordial than those with the governments of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia, it has not been entirely smooth. Bachelet, speaking to the Times about Chile’s private social security system, which Bush has praised, noted the discriminatory effects of the current system for women which she has promised to address. According to the AP, the Bush administration is also disappointed that Bachelet has shown support for Chavez, who was invited to her inauguration.

Bachelet, an agnostic and a single mother, gained popularity as minister of health in 2000, when she revamped Chile’s moribund public health system. In 2002, she was appointed Chile’s Defense Minister, the first woman in Latin America to hold the post. A charismatic speaker, Bachelet campaigned on a leftist platform and spoke out for women’s rights.

After some concern that the United Nations High-Level Meeting on AIDS, held last week in New York City, would not address the importance of empowering women and girls in the fight to stem the AIDS pandemic, the Political Declaration agreed upon explicitly confronts the issue several times. Jan Eliasson, the Assembly President, stated during his closing remarks, that the Declaration includes “strong languageÉon women and girls.” He added, “I would hope that we can all use this new energy to translate this Declaration into action, to make a difference between life and death for many, and give a life in dignity for all affected by HIV/AIDS.”

Six out of the 53 points listed in the UN’s Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS directly address the effect of the disease on women and girls and the document pointedly includes the phrase “feminization of the pandemic.” The Declaration also condemns “gender-based abuse and violence,” “all forms of discrimination,” “harmful traditional and customary practices,” and “trafficking in women and girls.”

Afghanistan’s parliament rejected with a vote of 117 to 77 President Hamid Karzai’s reappointment of an extreme conservative for chief justice of the Supreme Court. Fazel Hagi Shinwari had held the post of chief justice since shortly after the Taliban fell.

Shinwari was known for ruling against free speech, women’s rights, and human rights. “Shinwari has established a record of ignoring human rights standards on the Supreme Court,” said Sam Zia-Zarifi, head of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division, according to the Associated Press. Under Shinwari, the Supreme Court issued a fatwa against the editor of a women’s rights magazine, tried to declare the candidacy of a woman for president of Afghanistan un-Islamic and illegal, and protested the television broadcast of a woman singing.

Shinwari also demanded that a male candidate for president be expelled from the election in 2004 for speaking out on women’s rights in marriage and divorce.

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In a victory for international HIV/AIDS prevention work, two federal courts have ruled that the US government’s requirement that US groups condemn prostitution in order to receive US funds is a violation of the First Amendment. Groups were outraged at the requirement, as it prevented them from effectively working with prostitutes to curb HIV/AIDS infections, even when they use their own private funds to do so.

Federal Courts of Appeals in New York and Washington, DC both ruled that the requirement, which the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has enforced since 2005, was a violation of the right to free speech. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, of the DC court, ruled last week that the regulation forced organizations to “parrot the government’s policies,” reports the Washington Post. The case heard by this court was brought by DKT International, which works on international AIDS prevention, last summer. Kaiser Network reports that Julie Carpenter, who worked on the DKT case, praised the ruling for its message that the federal government “can’t use its spending power to constrain private speech.”

The New York ruling came a week earlier, in a case brought by the Open Society Institute, the Alliance for Open Society International (AOSI) and Pathfinder International. Judge Victor Marrero wrote that “The Supreme Court has repeatedly found that speech, or an agreement not to speak, cannot be compelled or coerced as a condition of participation in a government program,” and made a preliminary injunction on the policy as it applies to AOSI and Pathfinder. Daniel Pellegrom, executive director of Pathfinder, said in a statement that the decision “enables Pathfinder to continue serving the most vulnerable women in many of the world’s poorest nations without impediment.”

HIV/AIDS activists and advocacy groups held a press conference yesterday to draw attention to the feminization of the global epidemic prior to a review of global AIDS policy by the United Nations at the end of the month. Speakers at Tuesday’s press conference emphasized “the global face of AIDS Ð which is increasingly women and girls,” according to Yolanda Richardson, President of the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA).

Speakers Pauline Muchina, Senior Women and AIDS Advocacy Officer of UNAIDS; Tendayi Westerhof, founder of Public Personalities Against AIDS Trust in Zimbabwe; and Inviolata Mwali Mmbwavi, CEO of National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya, centered their comments on empowering women, reducing the stigma often attached to an HIV-positive status, and highlighting the connection between HIV infection and violence against women. Said Muchina, “The truth is that, in all regions of the world, women are getting infected with HIV not only because they lack information, but because they lack the social and economic power to protect themselves.”

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the identification of AIDS by the Centers for Disease Control. According to CEDPA, there are more than 17 million HIV-positive women across the globe, 77 percent of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. In the United States, the number one cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 and 34 is AIDS, reports CEDPA.