Join the WGNRR Campaign to Recognise Reproductive Rights & Organise for Reproductive Justice

Join the WGNRR Campaign to Recognise Reproductive Rights &Organise for Reproductive Justice... With the Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence being marked around the world, and the efforts of women human rights defenders being commemorated internationally,the Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights http://www.wgnrr.org/ invites you to join us in our new multi-year campaign: "Recognise Reproductive Rights, Organise for Reproductive Justice!", launched in collaboration with the Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition http://www.defendingwomen-defendingrights.org/ Regionalised information about this campaign is posted online: www.wgnrr.org or campaigns http://www.wgnrr.org/campaigns
In the year ahead, WGNRR's campaign work will particularly address two specific demands related to the recognition and defense of sexual and reproductive rights as indivisible human rights:
1. Access to Safe, Legal, Affordable Abortion, free of stigmatisation and criminalisation
 2. An end to forced sterilisation and coercive abortion programmes, such as those targeted at marginalised populations.


 Mobilise for Reproductive Justice Around the World - within communities and across borders!

Take action on: 
4 February - African Women's Sexual and Reproductive Health Day
8 March - International Women's Day 
28 May - International Day of Action for Women's Health 
4 September - World Sexual Health Day 
26 September - World Day for Universal Access to Contraceptives
28 September -Day of Action to Decriminalise Abortion in Latin America 
and the Caribbean 
29 November - Women's Human Rights Defenders Day 
30 November - South Asian Women's Day for Human Rights







Actions You Can Take Include
 
* Organising public forums, meetings and actions to raise the profile 
of your local demands for reproductive justice.
 
* Documenting violations of sexual and reproductive rights, and 
sharing experiences about personal, family and community struggles for reproductive justice.

 * Joining the WGNRR 2011 RJMob (Reproductive Justice Mobilisation) 
Creative Campaign Challenge!

Interested in receiving regular updates about the progress of the 
campaign? Email: tanya@wgnrr.org 

WGNRR's website is being updated with new campaign resources. If you 
are able to translate any of the material into your local language, we 
would welcome your contribution. Please email: tanya@wgnrr.org

Tanya Roberts-Davis, Campaigns Officer
Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights (WGNRR)
Red Mundial de Mujeres por los Derechos Reproductivos
R?seau Mondial de Femmes por les Droits Reproductifs
13 Dao Street, Project 3 Barangay Quirino 3-A
Quezon City, 1102 Philippines
T: + 63 (2) 913 6708
F: + 63 (2) 911 8293
www.wgnrr.org <http://www.wgnrr.org/














source: 16days_discussions

Gender-Based Violence: 'Zimbabwe Police Officers Forget Themselves'

By Ignatius Banda

'Male police officers forget that when they are at work they are professionals and demean women who seek their protection'

Tasha Ncube* has no kind words for the police. Early last month, the 31-year-old mother of two was beaten several times by her husband over what she says were small arguments. This was the first time in a marriage that has gone for years without any such occurrence.

"I began suspecting he must be seeing someone as I have heard such stories before about men with ‘small houses’ suddenly being moody," Ncube said. Small house is a local euphemism for a lover.

"When I confronted him he went mad and he beat me up. I reported him to the police."

But Ncube did not get the response she expected. "They said I should go back home and ask relatives to mediate as they were getting many reports from women who withdrew charges after the husband apologised. I was so angry I did not know what to say..."

Like many other women, she returned home to continue life with her abusive husband.

Officers 'interpreting' law

Ncube’s case is typical example of what gender activists say is a glaring gap between the enforcement and interpretation of legal provisions that seek to protect women from gender-based violence.

Gender activists and the gender ministry made groundbreaking strides over several years to push GBV legislation through Parliament. The Domestic Violence Act was finally passed by Parliament in 2007 amidst much celebration.

But Irene Zwelibanzi, an activist who has spent several nights in police cells after Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) organised demonstrations in the streets of Bulawayo says police attitudes towards women are yet to change.

"Some male police officers forget that when they are at work they are professionals but they still behave like uneducated men in the street and demean women who seek their protection," Zwelibanzi complained.

"This is not helping the fight we are waging for our rights as we are also now fighting to change the attitudes of the police themselves," she said.

Police: 'We do take it seriously'

The Zimbabwe Republic Police maintains that it has done much to sensitise members of the force on dealing with domestic violence cases and how to handle reports, especially from battered women.

The Domestic Violence Act stipulates that domestic violence is punishable by up to 10 years. This is the reason some police officers give for not taking all reports seriously, claiming that some wives do not want to see their husbands locked up for that long.

"Sometimes we get wives reporting their husbands for beating them up, but after locking him up, the wife comes only a few minutes later to say she has forgiven him and wants to withdraw the charges," said an officer who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"It’s not that we do no take these reports seriously, but sometimes it helps that these disputes do not reach the police station if marriages are to be saved," the officer reasoned.

"I think it is generally about gender relations -- how sensitive men are to women’s experiences of domestic violence, particularly women they don’t know," says Amanda Atwood of kubatana.net, a forum for Zimbabwe online activists and bloggers.

"How comfortable are women generally discussing issues of domestic violence with strangers, particularly men?" Atwood reflected.

Meanwhile, according to research conducted this year by the Zimbabwe Women Resource Centre and Network, domestic violence accounted for more than 60 percent of murder cases in Harare’s High Court, providing insight into the gravity of the situation.

Raising profile of GBV

There has been a push to give the issue prominence in the constitution making process with advocacy based on evidence of the high cost of GBV to the nation. In particular, medical costs, justice, transport, school fees, loss of working hours, treatment of sexually-transmitted infections, HIV and loss of household income have been cited.

Efforts to address GBV at community level are generally dismissed as ineffective by women like Ncube who say the non-involvement of law enforcement officers means such initiatives are ignored by men.

As part of a Gender Based Violence Strategy and Implementation Plan, the Gender Ministry, together with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), has been conducting training of community-based counsellors.

Rejoice Timire, executive director of the Disabled Women Support Organisation, says women living with disability have not been spared either. Timire called for the needs of this oft forgotten group of women to be addressed during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence.

"There is high unemployment and economic dependency and this has left the women with disability more vulnerable to abuse," Timire told IPS.

Ncube is still hurting from the double abuse she suffered – at the hands of her husband and the police who refused to act. "I obviously feel bad about having reported my husband. Not because I reported him but because the police refuse to do anything about it," she said.

*Names have been changed. 


source: ips news

Plans underway for Pacific UNiTE Campaign to End Violence Against Women and Girls

The Asia Pacific UNiTE Campaign Strategy was launched in Bangkok on 25 November - the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women - as part of the global Secretary-General's UNiTE Campaign aimed to prevent and eliminate violence against women and girls in all parts of the world.

In order to ensure the UNiTE Campaign is designed to respond to the context and priorities of violence against women and girls in the Pacific, the three United Nations Country Teams (UNCTs) serving the Pacific region (Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea) are working together to develop a Pacific UNiTE Campaign (2011-2015) that will further develop the existing Asia Pacific UNiTE Campaign Strategy, by tailoring it specifically to the Pacific context.

UN Agencies in the Pacific are contracting two violence against women and communications specialists to develop and design a Pacific UNiTE Campaign Strategy and Communication Plan to End Violence Against Women and Girls.

The specialists will conduct extensive consultations with governments, civil society, faith-based organizations, the private sector, media and with United Nations (UN) agencies to develop strategies for key development partners and stakeholders to communicate and coordinate effectively to eliminate violence against women and girls in the Pacific and to discuss recommendations for an effective, large-scale, multi-media campaign.

The Pacific UNiTE Communication Action Plan to end violence against women and girls will partner with key regional, national and local level organizations to develop common key messages around ending violence against women and girls in the region. The Pacific UNiTE Campaign will enhance and strengthen important work implemented by well established violence against women organizations in the Pacific to eliminate violence against women and girls.

The UNiTE Campaign will support all regional efforts to adopt and enforce national laws to address and punish all forms of violence against women and girls; adopt and implement multi-sectoral national action plans; strengthen data collection on the prevalence of violence against women and girls; increase public awareness and social mobilization; and address sexual violence in conflict. It is a UN system wide effort to partner strategically to accelerate efforts to end violence against women and girls in our region.

''DEFINING THE INTERSECTIONS OF MILITARISM AND VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN''

by Fatou C Malang

2010 marks the twentieth year of the “16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign”. The campaign began in 1991 and originated from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute, sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers University.The main idea of the campaign is to draw attention at a local, national and global level to the different forms of violence that women face. It aims to show the link between violence against women and human rights highlighting that such violence is a human rights violation; Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day against Violence against Women, and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a human rights violation.  

The international theme for the 2010 16 Days Campaign is Structures of Violence: Defining the Intersections of Militarism and Violence Against Women. Militarism defined “as an ideology that creates a culture of fear and supports the use of violence, aggression, or military interventions for settling disputes and enforcing economic and political interests.” It was not only examined in the context of war zones but also at the home level and areas where military- linked forms of violence may be hidden from the public eye. It is a psychology that often has grave consequences for the true safety and security of women and of society as a whole.

There is a need to address militaristic beliefs in all of our societies. Rape is used as a tactic of war to drive fear and to humiliate women and their communities. But sexual violence is just one form of violence that women and girls suffer throughout the continuum of violence before, during and after conflict has ostensibly ended. Militarism neither ends nor begins in warzones, nor does it confine itself to the public sphere.

Women do not often wage war, but they often suffer the worst of its consequences. In many of today's conflicts, women are disempowered by rape or the threat of it, and by the HIV infection, trauma and disabilities that often result from it. As women become a vulnerable sector for violence, they became easy targets of inflictions. Recalling the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 157 Guineans on the 28th of September 2009 where Hundreds of women and girls were subjected to brutal, barbaric acts of sexual violence. In the last ten years in Congo, hundreds of thousands of women have been raped, most of them gang raped. Abduction, rape and sexual slavery of girls and women have been among the most abhorrent and distressing features of the nine-year internal armed conflict in Sierra 

Leone.

The rape statistics for South Africa have gone up instead of down over the past years. Women in the Sudanese region of Darfur have been raped since the start of the conflict there in 2003 .There is a code of silence surrounding rape in Senegambia, with many cases going unreported. The Gambia has witnessed a series of rapes against women and children of late. "The Kolda region of senegal had 211 cases in 2008, of which half were rapes of pupils by teachers and resulting in pregnancies. A 19-year old Ghanaian girl was raped in the full glare of the public at Kumasi-Asafo. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Somewhere in America, a woman is raped every 2 minutes to mention but a few.

Violence against women is widespread in every corner of the globe: from the bedroom to the battlefield. Women and girls suffer many forms of violence, including genital mutilation, rape, beatings by their partners, families or killings in the name of honor. Violence against women is a worldwide yet still hidden problem. Freedom from the threat of harassment, battering, and sexual assault is a concept that most of us have a hard time imagining because violence is such a deep part of our cultures and lives. It is one of the most pervasive of human rights violations, denying women and girls’ equality, security, dignity, self-worth, and their right to enjoy fundamental freedoms. It is shocking that in women’s lifetime, up to 76 per cent are subject to physical and/or sexual violence within intimate relationships.

Discrimination in law, social practice and attitude, impunity and apathy are the underlying causes of violence against women and girls. In many countries, laws, policies and practices discriminate against women and girls, denying them equality with men, politically, economically and socially. Social roles reinforce the power of men over women’s lives and bodies, while traditions and customs subjugate women and leave them vulnerable to violence.

Domestic violence, being the most prevalent yet relatively hidden and ignored form of violence against women and girls is a global problem. Marital rape is domestic violence and is not justifiable on the basis of consent. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), violence affects millions of women in Africa.  In a 2005 study on women’s health and domestic violence, the WHO found that 50 percent of women in Tanzania and 71 per cent of women in Ethiopia’s rural areas reported beatings or other forms of violence by husbands or other intimate partners. In South Africa, reports Amnesty International, about one woman is killed by her husband or boyfriend every six hours. In Zimbabwe, six out of  10 murder cases tried in the Harare High Court in 1998 were related to domestic violence. In Kenya, the attorney 

general’s office reported in 2003 that domestic violence accounted for 47 per cent of all homicides.

In conclusion, peacekeeping forces in conflict zones should put special emphasis on protecting women around areas where they are most vulnerable to rape and other sexual violence. I firmly believe that we all have a role to play in alleviating violence against women in our different communities by mobilizing and sensitizing our people on the different forms of violence’s against women and ways of eliminating them with the support of our governments.

Fatou C. Malang- Fatou is a Gambian gender activist and an emerging voice on issues of women’s rights  and equality in Africa. She is the founder of the “Stop Violence Against Women Blog”. Fatou was recognized as a 2009 MILEAD Fellows- as an outstanding young African women leader.

Press Release: Armed Forces Jubilee:Women Still Far Off the Mark

The celebration of  the golden jubilee of the founding of the Cameroon army on November29, 2010 in Bamenda coincides with the 10th  Anniversary of the United Nations Security Council's  landmark Resolution 1325, which aimed to put an end to sexual violence against women and girls in armed conflict and to encourage greater participation by female military officers in high decision  making levels and in peace  building initiatives. It is  also a happy coincidence that President Paul Biya who is the  commander  in-chief of Armed Forces chosed  November 29, which is the International Women Human Rights  Defenders Day, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of  independence of the Cameroon army with theme: Defence  Forces at the Service of Nation building. A Common Future, which is a leading  national men's organization working with men to end  violence and all forms of discrimination against women in  Cameroon urges President Biya to take an appointment with  history on this day by making bold, new, and more specific  commitments on U.N.R 1325 which demands that member governments increase the participation of women in decisions  about peace and security. Progress in this domain in  Cameroon has unfortunately been anecdotal in the past  decade. Cameroon also missed out an opportunity last October  26, 2010 at the U.N Security Council Ministerial Open Debate  to join the 80 countries in making new commitments to its  international engagements. As Cameroon military celebrates their  50th Anniversary in Bamenda this November 29, 2010, A Common  Future Organization hails them for the brilliant  achievements in the past decade in the defence of our  territorial integrity, especially, in efforts at overcoming  the Bakassi crisis peacefully. We equally congratulate the  Cameroon police and the military that successfully took part  in international peace missions in Cambodia, Kosovo, the  Congo and others. Regrettably we note that women were not a  missions, nor have Northwest authorities associated the  women's Affairs Delegation in preparation for this important anniversary, which is against R1325. We also  regret that rape as a weapon of humiliation continues to be  used by some misguided young Cameroon soldiers on women and  girls. Cameroon media have in the last few months reported  on the conduct of the Rapid Intervention Force, BIR, in  Misaje Sub  Division, Donga Mantung, in the North West Region. This is  part of the men, masculinities and violence culture A Common  Future organisation is fighting.  We are joining like-minded organisations across the globe,   16 Days of Activism theme: Militarism and the Intersections  of violence Against Women to respond energetically to the  many reports in Cameroon of husbands who have battered their  wives to death and particularly of a police officer who this  year shut his magistrate wife to death on mere suspicion of  adultery, A Common Future is organising on the sidelines of  the military jubilee in Bamenda, a Brides March and a men  on women's shoes walkathon to protest against  domestic violence. This, unfortunately, is not limited to  husbands. The Divisional Officer for Fura Awa reported early  last year that a man there beat his sister to death on  suspicion that he visited a boyfriend.  As an act of global solidarity to challenge militarism and  demand an end to all forms of violence against Women, A  Common Future is organising a Bamenda Human Rights Film Festival form December 02- 16, 2010 with 16 selected Films  and documentaries on violence against Women in Cameroon.  Through this, we are urging Cameroon government, which is  Central Africa's military and diplomatic Superpower to  lead the region in the protection of women. This can be done  by putting women in senior level positions, and setting up a  department for inclusive security in our Ministry of  Defence.  A Common Future believes that although women have been at  the fore front of fighting violence against them, it is the  primary responsibility of men to end violence against women  by being part of the solution not part of the problem. We  challenge men to reconsider their long held beliefs about  women in an effort to create a more just society.

 Gwain Colbert 

 Co-Founder 

 A Common Future

Sharing article on 16 Days in South Africa

The allegations of the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl on the Jules High
School campus in Jeppestown rocked the nation.

It wasn't just that she was drugged; that the heinous, brutal attack was
recorded on a cellphone; that the recording of the vicious act was
circulated and  if we believe some early reports that some educators
laughed when they saw the video that was so devastating.

It wasn't the chilling comments from the school pupils, some of whom told
our reporters that watching the incident was like watching soccer and that
the victim looked like she was enjoying herself  that makes it so shocking.

It wasn't even the reports of police not initially arresting the boys
suspected of being involved because they needed to take their exams; nor was
it their later release, reportedly because of a lack of evidence, that makes
the incident entirely deplorable. And it wasn't the fact that the latest
reports seem to be an attempt to discredit the victim by saying she was
drunk, not drugged. No.

The saddest part of the entire case is the fact that our outrage probably
won't last another week. We've known about this problem in our schools for
years. Baby rape is rampant, corrective rape of lesbians is accepted
practice in some areas, and gang rape all too prevalent. There is a war
against women and children in our country and the weapon is rape.

The truth is we leave it to civil society to deal with. We wait for Sonke
Gender Justice to condemn leaders such as Julius Malema, who was only
backing President Jacob Zuma's account of his rape accuser when he made his she enjoyed herself comment.

Then we shake our collective heads in disbelief when those comments come out
of the mouths of babes.

We hope women like Lisa Vetten, the director of Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy
Centre, will continue to shout on our behalf, that Gender Links will keep
holding 16 Days of Activism each year in its too often unheard effort to
tell the world about violence against women. We, the media, tell the story
of the victim and unravel the horrific details.

And the next hour, day, week, we, too, move on. Until the next woman or
child or baby is attacked.

We can't leave this up to civil society any longer. We need to shift our
national mentality. We need awareness in every crevice of our nation. We
need to have the SABC broadcast public service announcements, with leaders
like Malema telling the nation that real men don't rape women and don't
even utter comments that undermine women's rights in this way.

We need every type of media to tell the stories of our daughters, our
nieces, our grandmothers, our mothers, our wives, our girlfriends, our
sisters and our aunts, so that every man, woman and child clearly
understands that rape affects us all.

Will this be the one case, because of the shock factor, that won't allow us
to avert our eyes, that will force us to admit how bad it really is We
doubt it. And that might be the saddest part of it all.

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA 

A Brand New Constitution, But Can Women Enjoy Land Rights?

By Suleiman Mbatiah

Lucy Wanjiku Macharia tends coffee bushes at her farm at Nyarugum-Nyeri in Central Kenya. Only five percent of women in Kenya own land.  Credit:Suleiman Mbatiah/IPS Buy this picture

Mary Kimani wishes her husband were still alive. Holding her one-year-old son in one hand and a hoe in the other, she recounts with bitterness how she and her children lost their livelihood to her husband’s family.

"The road accident that took my husband changed my life completely. That was the end of me and my children," Kimani told IPS. She was married for seven years and, together with her late husband, worked hard to own land, a house and a vehicle.

But only a few months after she buried her husband, her in-laws ejected her and her two children from the homestead. Today, even as she is haunted by the past, she works hard to keep hope glowing, working as a casual labourer on neighbourhood farms.

"I must move on. I have to feed my children, educate them and help them make a descent living," she told IPS.

Kimani’s in-laws sold the house and land before giving the vehicle to a close relative. She had no right to the property. In Kenya, many women lose their rights to property after divorceor the death of a spouse. According to human rights experts, women’s socially sanctioned dependence on men leaves them vulnerable to "cultural traditions" that do not recognise women’s ownership of land and other property.

Men most often are willing to enforce such so-called customs, says Njoki Njehu, executive director of Daughters of Mumbi Global Resource Centre. The organisation is an independent, non-ethnic network bringing together people of diverse origins as well as "honouring women's roles in anchoring family and community".

"But it is not only men; some women who were themselves denied rights because of retrogressive practices uphold such practices to deny other women their rights," Njehu told IPS. She explains that if a mother did not get land she will not champion her daughter or daughter-in-law's cause in this regard.

Kimani appreciates that Kenya’s new constitution, promulgated in Aug 2010, represents gains for the women of Kenya. Section 40 of the Kenyan constitution promises the right to own property to "every person", while section 60 ensures "equitable access to land" and "security of land rights" but without mentioning women or acknowledging their historical landlessness.

Njehu recalls the 2005 referendum: "Politicians mobilised communities to oppose the draft constitution as it would allow women to inherit land."

Kimani is worried that men won’t enforce the constitution as it stands. "Customs and practices still hold women back. We are discriminated against in several areas that include land and property rights. The society positions men as the sole property owners," Kimani points out.

The customary laws of some ethnic groups demand that land and other property that a woman acquires before or during the marriage belongs to her husband, who can sell it without her consent. "The key role of a woman is to take care of the property. Should your husband die, others stream in for inheritance. You can’t escape," says 32-year old Grace Akinyi*.

Akinyi raises the issue of "wife inheritance" where widows are forced to marry again. It is still being practised, especially in western Kenya. According to her, should a woman decline to be inherited and she succeeds, she is often under constant pressure to sell the property at discounted prices.

She has been a victim of this practice. "A woman who owns land is still defined through her ties to men. Women are not recognised as owners in title deeds," laments Akinyi.

According to international nongovernmental organisation (NGO) Human Rights Watch, customary laws in sub-Saharan Africa have greater influence than civil law when it comes to women’s property rights. And, acccording to a report entitled "The National Land Policy: Critical Gender Issues and Policy Statement", only five percent of women in Kenya own land.

Hubbie Hussein, director of Womankind Kenya, women must be empowered as part of the effort to eradicate poverty as they produce 80 percent of food crops in sub-Saharan Africa but have no claim to land. Womankind Kenya is a local NGO based in North-Eastern Province, Kenya, with its head office in Garissa.

The predominantly Muslim zone has all manner of religious and cultural rules to limit women’s property ownership. Most residents are of Somali origin. "We often train women on what Islam provides for them with respect to property rights. Men have used religion as a tool to deprive women of their rights," Hubbie told IPS in a telephonic interview.

Womankind Kenya uses religious texts, the constitution as well as international charters advocating for women’s rights to educate women on the ground. She adds that cases of discrimination against women are common but that affected women do not take any steps out of fear of being stigmatised.

"Girls never get an equal share of their parents’ property. It is a worrying trend here. Whenever a case arises, a council of men will sit to settle it and in the end rule in men’s favour," Hubbie said.

Gender and human rights advocates believe that if women enjoyed equal property rights they could change the social landscape for the better.

*Name changed to avoid persecution