Author: Feminist Majority Foundation Blog

On Wednesday, hundreds of Yemeni women gathered in the country’s capital of Sanaa to burn their veils in protest of the government’s on-going crackdown against anti-government demonstrations. The women held banners to criticize President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s authoritative regime, with the banners reading: “Saleh the butcher is killing women and is proud of it” and “Women have no value in the eyes in Ali Saleh.” The act itself, which holds great symbolic meaning in the conservative Islamic nation where women are required to cover themselves with veils, is another example of Yemeni women taking part in the country’s uprising.

Government forces attacked more than 60 women in October alone, according to CNN. Protestor Ruqaiah Nasser stated “We will not stay quiet…Tribes must understand they will not be respected by Yemeni women if they stay quiet while their women are being attacked by the Saleh regime. Tribes who ignore our calls are cowards and have no dignity.”

Although the Yemeni government announced a “cease-fire” earlier this week, more than ten demonstrators were killed on Tuesday.

Women in Kenya are dying at an alarming rate due to unsafe backstreet abortions, according to Reuters. In Kenya, which has high rates of poverty, sexual violence and limited access to family planning, approximately 35 percent of maternal deaths are the result of unsafe abortions and an estimated 2,600 women die each year from complications of abortions.

Although abortion is prohibited in Kenya, exception in cases when a woman’s life is in danger, wealthier women often have increased access to abortion care, which is easily made available in private hospitals that almost exclusively service Kenya’s affluent population. “The high and mighty don’t have a problem. In those ivory tower hospitals, these services are available as a routine,” said Dr. Joseph Karanja, an obstetrician-gynecologist who works at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi.

For years, officials from many African countries, including Kenya, have called for increased access to legal, safe abortion care in an effort to curb maternal mortality among African women. The Kenya Human Rights Commission and the Reproductive Health and Rights Alliance have both supported efforts to “publicize the negative consequences of the criminalization of abortion in Kenya,” calling the absence of safe abortions in the country a violation of a woman’s human rights.

In anticipation of the world’s population reaching 7 billion at the end of this month, approximately 2,000 policymakers and advocates will gather for the International Conference on Family Planning from November 29 to December 2 in Dakar, Senegal. The conference – sponsored by over 30 international organizations, including UNFPA, USAID, WHO, European Commission, World Bank and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – seeks to gather experts and activists to address the unmet need for family planning. According to the Nigerian Tribune, “Worldwide 215 million women have an unmet need for family planning.”

United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin stated, “A world of seven billion people is a distinctive moment in history. It represents an achievement, as well as an unprecedented challenge for the future of the planet and its inhabitants. It also presents a rare opportunity for a call-to-action to renew global commitment for a healthy and sustainable world.”

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.”

According to a study by Amir Erfani, entitled “Induced Abortion in Tehran, Iran: Estimated Rates and Correlates,” many women in Tehran obtain abortions, despite Iran’s highly restrictive abortion laws. Erfani reports that approximately “one in six married women of reproductive age in Tehran will have an abortion in their lifetime” or 9 percent of pregnancies, women undergo an abortion.

Due to Iran’s restrictive laws governing abortion, most of the abortions are performed in secret and are highly unsafe. Erfani notes that unlike most other countries, where women are more likely to seek an abortion in their 20s, women in Tehran more commonly obtain abortions in their 30s. Moreover, the highest rate was among married women who had higher levels of education and higher incomes. The women most frequently cited their desire to control the number of children and spacing of their births, as well as socioeconomic factors, as their reasons for seeking an abortion.

The study, published in International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, is the first to document abortion statistics in Tehran. Erfani indicates that the actual rate of abortion in Tehran is probably much higher, due to underreporting, and advocates for improved reproductive health services in Iran to reduce the rate of unsafe abortion s and maternal mortality.

The movement to end the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is spreading across Senegal, with as many as 5,000 villages joining the collective effort to eliminate the procedure. “Before you would never even dare to discuss this. It was taboo. Now you have thousands of people coming to abandon it,” said Mamadou Dia, governor of the Kolda region of Senegal. Although FGM was formally outlawed in Senegal more than ten years ago, it is still practiced in areas of the country with a traditionalist base, where the national government has little influence.

The movement to end FGM has gained considerable momentum in the country over the past 15 years, due in part to the efforts of Tostan, a nonprofit group whose name means “breakthrough” in the Wolof, Senegal’s primary language. Tostan has developed educational programs to promote a comprehensive, culturally based awareness of the dangers of FGM.

According to the New York Times, an estimated 92 million girls and women have undergone FGM procedures across the continent of Africa, with FGM being practiced as a rite of passage in 28 African countries. The procedure, which involves the partial or total removal of external genitalia, is designed to decrease women’s sexual desire and is seen in many cultures as essential for a women’s suitability for marriage. The practice is also known to both increase the risk of HIV transmission and infant and maternal mortality rates.

Recently, Education as Vaccine, a Nigerian organization, petitioned the Ministry of Women Affairs to adopt a more aggressive stance on women’s rights issues in the country. The call to action is in response to the failure of the Ministry of Women Affairs to respond to a recent incident of rape, videotaped at a college campus in Abia State, Nigeria. The organization also urged the Ministry to create a support system for victims of abuse.

Members of Education as Vaccine submitted a document entitled “How many more rape victims before our leaders act?” to the ministry two weeks ago, but the ministry has yet to issue a formal response. Aisha Kishimi, a member of the organization, condemned the government for its lack of transparency on the issue, saying that, “bureaucracy is killing Nigeria.”

Plans for a rally to protest the Abia State rape were subsequently cancelled by the State Security Services (SSS), due to the SSS’s concerns over the safety of the protestors.

On Wednesday, Nobuko Horibe, director of the Asia and Pacific Regional Office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) issued a statement before the International Workshop on Prenatal Sex Selection describing the UNFPA’s renewed commitment to ending gender-based sex selection and discrimination against women and girls. Horibe pointed out that that gender imbalances contribute to increased sexual violence against women and trafficking.

According to Horibe, there are as many as 117 million “missing” women in Asia, a number which she argued calls for improved gender equality on an international scale. She stated, “We must accelerate our efforts and give priority to developing programs and policies that foster norms and an attitude of ‘zero tolerance’ for discrimination, harmful attitudes and unethical practices, such as prenatal sex selection. Gender equality is at the very heart of each country’s successful development.”

Gender-based sex selection remains a persistent problem in South, East, and Central Asian countries. As of June 2011, the sex ratio imbalances continue to grow 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. The UNFPA 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.”

According to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Washington, published in the Lancet Infections Diseases, women who used contraceptive injections were twice as likely to contract and spread HIV. The researchers studied 3,790 couples in which one partner was HIV positive in Botswana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Ungada, and Zambia.

Isobel Coleman, director of the women and foreign policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations, stated, “The best contraception today is injectable hormonal contraception because you don’t need a doctor, it’s long-lasting, it enables women to control timing and spacing of birth without a lot of fuss and travel. If it is now proven that these contraceptions are helping spread the AIDS epidemic, we have a major health crisis on our hands.”

Contraceptive injections, which are administered every three months, are the most commonly used form of birth control in Africa. According to the New York Times, “About 12 million between the ages of 15 and 49 in sub-Saharan Africa, roughly 6 percent of all women in that age group, use them.” Throughout the world, over 140 million women use hormonal contraception, with includes both birth control pills an injections.

A survey of approximately 1,000 Afghan women, conducted by Action Aid and Oxfam, revealed that the majority of the women (86 percent) were concerned about the possibility of returning to a Taliban-style government. Seventy-two percent of the women surveyed had experienced improvements and increased rights since the war began in Afghanistan in 2001, and 37 percent expressed apprehension about the withdrawal of international troops, the study found.

According to Action Aid, “Women are [now] free to be educated and to work. They serve as government ministers and MPs and work as doctors, teachers, professors, entrepreneurs and lawyers. These are significant achievements. However, huge challenges remain, with many women still denied basic rights. Action Aid believes that including women in the peace, reconciliation and transition processes is the best means of safeguarding and furthering women’s hard-won civil freedoms and human rights.”

During Taliban control from 1996 to 2001, women and girls were not permitted to attend work or school and their mobility and access to healthcare were limited.