Iraqi Kids Struggle on Dangerous Edges

Growing up is hard for Iraqi children in Syria.  Credit:Rebecca Murray

Leila, 17, presses her hijab-clad head against the front door and strains to hear outside. "There's nothing," she says cautiously, turning towards her mother Rawda, the head of the household, in their quiet basement apartment. Along the brocade couch sit her two sisters, Mona, 19, Nadja, 15, and 10-year-old brother Khaled.*

This close knit family is paranoid, and for good reason. They fled Iraq's sectarian violence to Damascus with the children's father in 2006, only to find themselves on the run from him too.

Since the start of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Syria has registered 260,000 Iraqis - with this year's total just over 150,000. In reality, an estimated 1.5 million Iraqis have lived in Syria over the past seven years, the largest community outside Iraq.

Although Syria has granted visas at the borders for Iraqi refugees since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, employment of Iraqis is prohibited.

Rawda's family initially settled in Sayida Zeinab, one of Damascus's chaotic satellite communities with a large concentration of Iraqi refugees. Like most of the recently arrived, they had little option but to register for resettlement with UNHCR, and wait.

Living in impoverished conditions, the family sold all their belongings, including the girls' gold jewelry, piece by piece. Rawda - forced by her parents to marry her much older husband at 13 years old - found informal work at a hairdressing boutique, leaving her vulnerable to sex solicitations from clients.

She says that while she worked, her husband drank alcohol, slept with prostitutes and borrowed cash. The final straw came when he arranged for his daughters to marry what they describe as 'bad' men for cash, starting with Mona, Rawda's eldest daughter.

"The last time he brought his friend over who had a lot of money, and it was clear he wanted her to marry this guy," says Rawda. "Mona became sick and couldn't move her hands...she was paralyzed for three hours."

Last year, when Rawda's husband returned temporarily to Iraq to sell more family furniture, Rawda's family seized the opportunity to go into hiding. They fled to a church-run shelter for ten months, and then to a small basement apartment living anonymously far from the Iraqi enclaves.

Mona is the biggest causality; at 19 years she is too old to re-enroll in school like her sisters and brother, and too paranoid to leave their small flat in case relatives or friends of her father identify her.

When Firas Majeed, himself an Iraqi refugee, visits the family every week, a sumptuous Iraqi meal is cooked and laughter fills the flat. His community- based project, 'Native Without a Nation', aims to teach Iraqi girls and boys essential English language and computer skills. It also organises Internet conferences, bringing together young refugees and school kids their age in the U.S., promoting a better understanding of each other's lives and culture.

Education is the cornerstone to building a new life for the children of Iraqi refugees. UNICEF says over 200 schools in Syria have been rehabilitated by the agency and Syria's Ministry of Education, which mandates compulsory education for all children, including Iraqis, up to 15 years old.

However, UNICEF statistics show enrollment has fallen among Iraqi refugees from over 33,000 in the 2008-2009 school year to around 24,500 this year. These figures mirror the overall decline in registration figures at UNHCR centres, and the driving issue is poverty.

UNICEF's communications liaison, Razan Rashidi, explained to IPS that "people who came here include middle class Iraqis who thought they could slip into the middle class here. But being prevented from working, their savings have been depleted.

"Children dropping out of school is an issue. There are Iraqi children, especially young boys, who have to work... in basic mechanics, market porter work, and textile workshops, particularly in areas outside central Damascus."

Hamed, 18, came from a comfortable middle class background in Baghdad. But after receiving death threats by local militia, and the killing of his beloved uncle, a body building champion, his family fled to Syria in 2006. A year later, their funds exhausted, Hamed's father decided to make the dangerous trip home to obtain more money. But he never made it, and disappeared in the desert somewhere along the Iraqi border.

Hamed says his small family in Damascus was traumatised. They felt safe only when ensconced together in their small flat in the crowded Iraqi neighborhood of Jeremana. He and his mother work as tailors to make ends meet.

"During school I became depressed," says Hamed. "I started asking what am I doing here? What is this world? Am I alive or dead? I was shaving my head, and using the same razor blade to cut my arms and stomach. I felt if I could see my own blood I would feel better."

"There is fear and anxiety from the kids mostly transferred from the parents," says Maysoun Alradi, a counselor with charity Terre Des Hommes Syria (TDH). "Most parents don't know how to deal with it. They become isolated, stop speaking, are inward or aggressive."

TDH project coordinator Elisabeth Finianos explains further. "What children are dealing with now is the fear of the unknown - where they are going to end up. For the large part traumas from the war have been addressed, and the prevalent issue is now fear of the unknown and what is going to happen."

Thanks to TDH, Hamed now has a clearer vision of his future. He took theatre courses at the charity's recreational centre, and fell in love with writing poetry. His counselor gave him a guitar, and his favorite self-taught melodies are classical Flamenco and Arabic.

Hamed is now pushing himself to enroll back in school, and towards a future working with kids. "I will never go back to Iraq," he says unhesitatingly. He pauses and softens. "If I do go back it's to help society. Now there is nothing there."

* The names of the children and mother have been changed to protect their identities

No Rest for the Weary – Women Declare War on Gender Violence

Women from a dozen countries convened in New York this week to share their struggles to implement state legislation and empower women at the grassroots level to put an end to gender- based violence (GBV) worldwide.

Hosted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Nov. 4-5 high-level consultation entitled 'Delivering as One on Violence Against Women: From Intent to Action' addressed the triumphs and tribulations of the Inter-Agency Task Force's pilot programme on GBV.

Since Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched 'UNiTE to End Violence Against Women' in 2006, various U.N. agencies, civil society organisations and national coalitions have taken up the struggle, with renewed vigour.

The pilot programme, launched in Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Jamaica, Paraguay, Chile, Fiji, Jordan, Yemen, Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines, was based on the supposition that greater cohesion across regions and between organisations was needed to yield the greatest benefits for women's security. The pilot sought to connect multiple stakeholders through joint programming in the 10 countries.

"This all comes down to a question of empowerment," Aminata Toure, Chief of Gender, Culture and Human Rights at the UNFPA, told IPS. "We have to first turn victims into survivors and then into activists and advocates."

"You have to put the issue of VAW [violence against women] within the context of women's low status in the world," Toure added, "and of women being treated like disposable commodities. To challenge that perception, you have to challenge the very foundation of patriarchy."

According to Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser to the Secretary General on Gender Issues, "The joint programme allows stakeholders to jointly assess progress and decide what has worked and what has not."

"They allow multi-sectoral approaches to addressing issues that are often dealt with by a single entity," she explained.

Virtually every participant echoed this sentiment and expressed dissatisfaction with the bureaucratic nature of competing U.N. agencies that often replicate each other's work and fail to pool their efforts effectively.

The two-day consultation covered a lot of ground, touching on everything from Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting (FGM/C) to the engagement of men and boys in ending GBV, and ended with several positive conclusions.

Representatives from each of the pilot countries discussed experiences across a range of regional, religious and cultural realms, highlighting the successes of the programme.

In Rwanda, this initiative led to the creation of the 'Isange One-Stop Center' based at the Police Hospital in Kigali, a shelter-cum-rehabilitation center for abused, battered women.

In Paraguay, several leaps were taken towards bringing issues of GBV and VAW into the mainstream, including a manual for journalists, round-table discussions at the national level on trafficking of women and children, and workshops for media personnel involved in TV and radio programming.

In Jamaica, an after-school programme focused on educating young men on the importance of working in solidarity with women towards ending violence. Boys came up with slogans like "Abusers are losers" and "Don't fight it out, talk it out."

This is a tremendous step for youth in a country that is saturated in the culture of 'dance hall' music, which posits women as sex objects and binds male identity to images of aggression, violence and masculinity.

Tom Minerson, executive director of the Toronto-based White Ribbon campaign, referred to the "disadvantages of the advantages of being a man." According to Minerson, educating young men on the harmful effects of the system of male power and privilege can transform gender identities and generate compassion and an enlightened sense of self for men.

But despite a few victories dotting the battlefield on which women wage a daily struggle for respect, equality and survival, the overall picture is still extremely grim.

Every single country reported a host of barriers to broader implementation of the pilot programme, including consistent lack of funds, disorganisation within U.N. agencies, cultural and governmental blockades - particularly in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - and low awareness on a national level.

Pamela Averion, the national programme officer for UNFPA in the Philippines, discussed the disconnect between legislation and reality on the ground. Although the Gender Development Index in the Philippines for 2010 was 99.6 percent of the Human Development Index, 90 percent of reported pregnancies were unwanted and ended in abortion.

And although the Philippines ranks 59th out of 108 countries on the gender empowerment measure, men dominate 90 percent of all political positions in the country.

The Philippines emerged 9th out of 134 countries in a study on the global gender gap, but one out of every five women experienced gender-related domestic violence and almost half of those women believed that husbands were justified in abusing their wives. These are only a few of countless disheartening yet unavoidable statistics. In Yemen, for example, a marriage bill was passed in 2008 making it illegal for girls under the age of 18 to be married. Imams across the country quickly collected over five million signatures of citizens opposed to such a constitutional change and the bill was quickly overturned.

Despite ongoing efforts by activists and ordinary women around the world, the road towards women's equality looms interminably ahead. Women, and their male allies all over the world, are weary from the march, but cannot afford to drag their feet.

"We can see the trends reversing," Toure told IPS, "but it is happening too slowly, much too slowly."

Minerson summed up the struggle by harking back to Martin Luther King's words on the "urgency of now."

"Women are dying now," he stressed, "and it is now that we must work to change that." 


source:ipsnews

Cancer Treatment Out of Reach for Ugandan Women

Cervical cancer screening in Soroti, Uganda.  Credit: Rosebell Kagumire/IPS

Josephine Adongo's heart leapt when she heard that two doctors from Kampala were offering free medical exams in Soroti. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer at a regional hospital more than a year previously, but unable to afford to travel to the capital for treatment.

Adongo, a 68-year-old farmer who lost everything during Uganda's long conflict against the insurgent Lords Resistance Army, was diagnosed with cancer at the local hospital in May 2009. But the only cancer treatment centre in Uganda was 300 kilometres away.

She was disappointed to find that the visiting doctors had only come to screen women and refer anyone with dangerous signs to Kampala.

The screening, which is rare service to ordinary women across Uganda, was being offered by ISIS-Women’s International Cross Cultural Exchange, as part of the commemoration of ten years of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. ISIS is a women’s organisation that seeks to raise attention on the reproductive health of women in post-conflict areas.

Cervical cancer, caused primarily by the human papillomavirus (HPV), is the second most common cancer among women worldwide. In Uganda it ranks as the most frequently occurring cancer among women. According to a World Health Organisation (WHO) September 2010 report titled, "Human Papillomavirus and Related Cancers in Uganda", every year 3,577 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 2,464 die from the disease.

Women like Adongo, in remote regions are at high risk.

The number could also be high due to the low level of cancer screening and limited data on the HPV burden in the general population of Uganda. Cancer screening services are only available at regional referral hospitals and many women cannot afford the transport costs to these centres.

Women, particularly from war affected areas, are also at high risk because of massive sexual violence, often gang rapes, they were subjected to.

According to Dr Tom Otim, gynecologist at Mbale Hospital in eastern Uganda, early marriages among rural women also places them at higher risk.

"The other major hindrance to prevention and treatment of cervical cancer is lack of information," said Otim.

"If the women came when the conditions that lead to cancer can be detected it would greatly help. But few women have information about the existence of this cancer."

Most Ugandan women report to health centres with advanced stages of cervical cancer, which include irregular vaginal bleeding and in some cases post menopausal bleeding.

"The outcry of many women is, why do you refer us to Mulago for radiotherapy when we can’t afford it?" Otim said. "It is demoralizing to diagnose a woman and you cannot improve her life. But what is even more painful is when you tell them the service is available but they cannot afford it because they are poor."

The few regional cancer screening and treatment centres are mostly donor funded and once the donor funds are finished, there is little government uptake of the projects.

Helen Angura is a registered midwife trained in cervical cancer screening. The hospital where she works, Mbale regional referral hospital, has been unable to care for women whose tests show early symptoms that could develop into cervical cancer.

The screening project was funded by Women Health initiative under the National Institutes of Health. It was launched in May 2009 but after a year the radiotherapy machine at the hospital is not in operation.

"We have been unable to treat women with lesions that could develop into cervical cancer because the nitrous-oxide gas used to run the machine ran out four months ago," said Angura.

"We have sent letters to the hospital administration since June and we haven’t heard from them. Hundreds of women whom we screened have been waiting."

In a country that spends less than 10 percent of its annual budget on health, issues like reproductive health and especially conditions like cervical cancer are mostly ignored.

Uganda runs a decentralized healthcare system but funding comes from the central government.

Otim says the government must invest in prevention of cervical cancer. HPV vaccines that prevent against HPV 16 and 18 infections are now available but few Ugandans can afford them.

"We have very safe vaccines that have been proven to prevent cervical cancer but one has to pay over 600,000 shillings (US$300) for an entire dose," Otim explained.

There are only two hospitals offering free vaccination. The programmes are all funded by Pathfinder International, an organisation that seeks to ensure that people everywhere have the right and opportunity to live a healthy reproductive life.

The WHO report recommended that government must include HPV vaccines in the national immunization programme if the risk is to be greatly reduced. The report also called for the integration of vaccination and cervical cancer screening programmes so that every woman who is screened is vaccinated. It would also require a countrywide campaign to inform ordinary Ugandans about the disease.

Meanwhile, women like Adongo will have to wait.

Sexual Violence Is Not "Collateral Damage"

On the tenth anniversary of a groundbreaking U.N. resolution, a conference on "Women and War" opened here Wednesday to discuss the disproportionate impact violent conflict has on women and possible ways to prevent these atrocities.

"I'm often told sexual violence in war and conflict is unavoidable, that it should be considered collateral damage," Margot Wallström, the U.N.'s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, said at an event held in World Bank headquarters Wednesday.

People say it is nothing new and point to anecdotes from the Iliad, the Bible and all the way up to the countless examples among the conflicts of the past several decades, she said, "But I want to say we cannot and should not accept this. Sexual violence in conflict is neither cultural nor sexual, actually; it is criminal. No other human rights violation is routinely dismissed as inevitable."

Over the past 10 years, international organisations have gradually woken up to both the magnitude of this problem and the fact that they have historically not paid it enough attention.

Wallström herself is evidence of this slow but steady awakening. In April, she became the first person to hold her sexual violence-focused position at the U.N. Ten years earlier, she had helped urge the U.N. Security Council to adopt resolution 1325, a landmark resolution that reaffirmed the critical role of women in peace-building and reconstruction and urged parties to protect women and girls from gender-based violence.

That resolution is seen as the first time the Security Council recognised that war affects women and men differently.

In June 2008, the Security Council went a step further and adopted resolution 1820, focusing on sexual violence in armed conflict and recognising for the first time that sexual violence is a tactic used in war and a force impacting international peace and security – and thus within the Security Council's purview.

This week's conference commemorates the 10 years since the unique challenges posed to women by war and conflict were first acknowledged. Its organisers, including the United States Institute of Peace, the World Bank, several universities and the U.S. State Department, hope it will help deliver concrete actions that can be taken to achieve the principles behind resolution 1325.

Toward that goal, it is focusing on the experiences of victims and many different ways in which other women and girls might avoid their nightmares.

In August, details emerged of a mass rape in villages in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, known as the "rape capital of the world" due to the widespread practice of using rape as a weapon. There, not even 80-year-old women or young children were safe from the rebel assailants. Congolese troops are also known to be perpetrators.

"Sexual violence in conflict has become the weapon of choice. The reason is as simple as it is wicked – because it is cheap, silent and effective," says Wallström.

All told, over 200,000 rapes have been reported in the DRC, but, as Wallström points out, for each rape reported, 10 to 20 go unreported.

And the ongoing conflict in the DRC is only the most widely- known example. Speakers at the conference Wednesday also mentioned the fighting in Kosovo last decade and the camps that have been set up in Haiti following January's earthquake as places where conflict and disruption have given rise to a terrifying rate of sexual violence.

Lisa Davis, human rights advocacy director for the group MADRE, says rape in the Haitian camps is "pervasive, consistent and egregious". Every time she goes to Haiti, she says, she hears of a victim who was attacked yesterday or the day before.

One victim, Davis says, was gang-raped in a car and choked so hard that her tongue came out and the perpetrators bit it off.

She says solving these egregious crimes is not too difficult, but requires working together to improve security, lighting and medical care in the camps. In order to do that correctly, though, she says grassroots groups must be involved in determining the tactics that will make a difference, such as distributing whistles with directions explaining how to use them or solar torches rather than battery-powered ones that will be useless once the batteries run out.

Gary Baker, director of gender, violence and rights at the International Center for Research on Women, says that group education sessions run by well-trained men and women have been shown to be effective but are slow and expensive.

He also points to campaigns that do not just say gender- based violence is against the law but try to deconstruct what it means to be a man or woman – thus promoting the idea of being a more virtuous man – and models where men and women from a community are able to hold each other accountable for violence, "so that the justice is coming from within the community."

Other measures discussed included community liaison offices to work with local populations, foot patrols to accompany women when they might be vulnerable to attack, and training peacekeepers on how to report and react to sexual violence.

For now, though, "primary prevention of sexual violence has been marginalised in favour of providing services to victims," says Marya Buvinic, who works on gender and development at the World Bank.

Wallström says she will use her mandate at the U.N. to end impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence and make sure amnesty is not an option, to give women more of a voice especially in post-conflict reconstruction, and to better coordinate the U.N. system with regard to its response to rape.

"Much more must yet be done to promote actions that have real impact as we move from recognition to action and from best intentions to best practice," she says. 

UN continues drive to combat violence against women

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 honour. 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 can subjugate women and leave them vulnerable to violence.

Leadership of Corporate Sector

This year’s commemoration of the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November will take place under the umbrella of the Secretary-General’s Campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women and will focus on: “The Leadership of the Corporate Sector in Empowering Women and Ending Violence against Women and Girls.”

In many cases, the private sector has shown to be effective in preventing violence against women through raising awareness, generally at the workplace and in the community. These private sector initiatives aim to eliminate violence against women by adopting measures such as employment-based codes of conduct and zero tolerance policies, distributing awareness-raising materials to employees, clients, and customers, and providing technical assistance to other organizations.

The private sector has also played a key role by contributing financially to foundations and organizations focusing on initiatives to end violence against women and girls. Examples of this commitment include Avon Products Inc., which in 2008, announced a public-private partnership with the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), part of UN Women, and committed $1 million USD to the United Nations Trust Fund to End Violence against Women. In 2009, Avon committed an additional $250,000 USD to the Trust Fund.

The major challenge worldwide is to translate commitments into practice. Innovative and groundbreaking campaigns, as well as policy and practice changing initiatives, are some of the areas in which the corporate sector can focus their efforts to raise awareness among employees and customers and change their attitudes.

Since the UNiTE campaign was launched in February 2008, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has made urgent calls on governments, civil society, the media, the private sector and the entire United Nations system to join forces in addressing this global issue. This year’s commemoration will acknowledge the continuing corporate leadership in addressing this issue, and it will also provide an important opportunity for sharing experiences and discussing strategies for enhancing the leadership role in addressing violence against women and girls.

UN trust fund

In October this year, the United Nations Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women (UN Trust Fund) announced US$10 million in grants to 13 initiatives in 18 countries. The UN Trust Fund is the only multilateral grant-making mechanism exclusively devoted to supporting local and national efforts to end violence against women and girls. Established in 1996, the Fund is managed by UNIFEM.

“Violence against women destroys families, fractures communities and hampers progress on development goals,” said Inés Alberdi, Executive Director, UNIFEM. “But it is a problem with a solution. Only by intensifying support and increasing investment to national and local efforts can we ensure women and girls are safe from violence and can lead healthy, productive lives,” she added.

The Secretary-General’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women includes a specific target of raising US$100 million annually for the UN Trust Fund by 2015.

Tasks of UN Committee

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women regularly reviews the status and progress of each of the 186 countries that have accepted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which was adopted in 1979.

“Significant progress has been achieved with respect to women’s human rights but we know that much more needs to be done throughout the whole world,” said Zou Xiaoqiau, the vice chair of the 23-member Committee during the recent meeting in October.

Ms. Zou expressed alarm over the fact that violence against women is prevalent in many parts of the world, pointing out that the scourge is on the rise with one in three women around the world being beaten, coerced into sex or abused. Characterizing the statistics as “frightening,” she noted that many rapes go unreported due to stigma and trauma.

Asked why sexual violence against women was on the rise, she cited several different reasons, saying that in some countries, stereotypes were deeply rooted and women were considered objects.  Incidents of sexual violence against women, especially in situations of armed conflict, were often politically charged.  The Committee had therefore started discussing, in cooperation with UNIFEM, general recommendations for women in such situations.

She also welcomed the creation of UN Women, the first UN super-agency on female empowerment, headed by former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

Michelle Bachelet’s address to the 3rd Committee

“Although Member States set the goal of universal ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) for 2000, ten years later, it still has not been reached. We all agree that much more needs to be done to close the gaps between women’s rights in the law, and their enjoyment in practice,” Ms. Bachelet told the Third Committee in her first address as Head of UN Women.

“One area that has clearly moved to the centre of global and local attention is ending violence against women,” she added, noting that two reports on the subject were put before the Third Committee, during the 65th session of the General Assembly. The first focused on the intensification of efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women and the second addressed trafficking in women and girls

“These are indicative of the scope and range of actions taken by Member States and other stakeholders...,” Ms. Bachelet recognized, “Yet, notwithstanding this attention, violence against women continues in all parts of the world, and trafficking in women persists. The reports highlight key actions and strategies that should be in place and effectively enforced. …I pledge UN Women’s enhanced support at national level to strengthen implementation of your recommendations,” she added.

History of International Day

In October 1999, at a meeting of the Third Committee, the representative of the Dominican Republic, on behalf of 74 Member States, introduced a draft resolution calling for the designation of 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

The draft expressed alarm that endemic violence against women was impeding women’s opportunities to achieve legal, social, political and economic equality in society.

On 17 December 1999, the General Assembly designated 25 November as the annual date for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in commemoration of the Mirabal sisters as it marked the day when these political activists from the Dominican Republic were assassinated in 1960, during the Trujillo dictatorship. This day also marks the beginning of the 16 days of Activism against Gender Violence.

For more information: http://www.un.org/en/events/endviolenceday/

‘Why Not A Baby Girl?’ Urban Parents Ask

Although Li Xiaoxue and her husband, Dai Chunlin, are already happy parents to a young boy, they plan to skirt China’s one- child policy by having another baby. And like a growing number of affluent, urban Chinese, their fingers are crossed for a baby girl.

"If my son wants to work in a place far from us when he grows up, the daughter can stay and take care of us," says the 34-year-old Li.

She and her husband own a software company in Beijing that earns the couple about 500,000 yuan (74,828 U.S. dollars) a year – enough to afford circumventing the one- child policy. Under this policy, couples need to pay a fine, based on families’ annual income, that has been reported to range from 45,000 dollars to more than 100,000 dollars.

"And it’s too expensive to raise a boy, especially in big cities like Beijing and Shanghai. We have to buy him an apartment at least. Otherwise it will be difficult for him to find a girlfriend," Li adds.

Li and Dai are not alone in their wish for a girl of their own. In China, where a historical preference for boys has led to a dramatic gender imbalance, attitudes about having girls are beginning to change in urban areas. According to a 2009 survey of 3,500 prospective parents in Shanghai, 15 percent of those interviewed wanted a baby daughter compared to 12 percent who wanted a baby boy. The rest had no preference.

Li says many of her friends also hope to have a baby girl, aware that China’s gender imbalance has reached dangerous levels. She also views as outdated the attitude that girls cannot accomplish as much as boys. "Girls can also inherit a family business," she says. "They can be as able as men."

Several factors have contributed to changing these attitudes, sociologists and demographers say. A booming economy in the last decade has created more opportunities for woman, particularly in the cities. Rising incomes have rendered moot the traditional reasons for wanting a boy – namely that a boy will earn more money to support his parents in old age.

Others, like Li, think that the cost of raising a boy is too great and feel that a daughter is better equipped to take care of them in old age.

China’s gender imbalance remains potentially calamitous. In 2005, the last year for which data is available, there were 119 boys born for every 100 girls. In some areas, the ratio was as high as 130 males for every 100 females.

In rural areas especially, the historical preference for boys has led to a number of societal ills, including selective abortion, prostitution and human trafficking. China has a surplus of some 32 million boys.

But as attitudes change, some demographers have suggested China could follow a path blazed by neighbouring South Korea, where a dramatic shift in gender attitudes has taken place in the last 20 years. In 2006, Korea’s gender ratio was 107.4 boys born for every 100 girls, down from a peak of 116.5 boys to every 100 girls in 1990, according to a 2007 World Bank study. (Demographers consider a 105 to 100 ratio as normal).

Beginning in the late 1980s, Korea experienced many of the same changes China is undergoing today. Major shifts in the country’s economy created opportunities for women in the work force, changing long-held attitudes toward women’s role in society. In the 1970s, the Korean government launched a campaign to change the public’s attitudes about gender and in 1987 it banned doctors from revealing the sex of a foetus before birth.

China still has a long way to go before it can match Korea, however.

A study in 2010 by the government-supported Chinese Academy of Social Sciences named the gender imbalance among newborns – not overpopulation – the country’s most serious demographic problem. "Sex-specific abortions remained extremely commonplace, especially in rural areas," the study said.

The study attributed the gender imbalance to China’s three-decade-old one-child policy and to a poor social security system. Wang Guangzhou, one of the study’s researchers, said the imbalance could lead to men who earn lower incomes having difficulty in finding wives, according to the English-language ‘Global Times’ newspaper.

"The chance of getting married will be rare if a man is more than 40 years old in the countryside. They will be more dependent on social security as they age and have fewer household resources to rely on," another researcher, Wang Yuesheng, told the ‘Global Times’. The paper, citing the National Population and Family Planning Commission, said abductions and trafficking of women were "rampant" in areas with too many men.

But Zheng Zhenzi, director of the Institute of Population Research at the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, says that although attitudes about having a baby girl are changing in the cities, the preference for boys in rural areas remains firmly in place.

At the same time, Zheng told IPS that China has made great strides in terms of gender equality. There are a growing number of women in government administrative positions, legislation on gender equality continues to rise and there are more women receiving education at high levels.

"Most women today have equal status as their husbands," Zheng says. "But there is still a long way to go." 

Zimbabwe Women Make Themselves Heard on Draft Constitution

A parliamentary select committee has begun compiling comments on a new constitution, gathered at 4,000 meetings held across Zimbabwe over the past three months. Gender activists are confident that women's views have been expressed; it will be up to the eventual drafters of the new constitution to ensure they are reflected.

Over 700,000 people attended public meetings on Zimbabwe's draft constitution. The creation of a new supreme law of the land is part of the Sep. 15 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA), signed by President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party and the two Movement for Democratic Change formations led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his Arthur Mutambara.

The accord followed a mass rejection of a draft constitution in 2000, before fierce farm invasions and political violence stemming from what have widely been described as flawed elections -- developments that caved-in the country's economic and legal structures.

The GPA makes special reference to women in Article IV on the constitution, noting that the planned law should deepen national "democratic values and principles and the protection of the equality of all citizens, particularly the enhancement of full citizenship and equality of women."

Raising women's voices

Sylvia Chirawu, the National Coordinator of Women and Law in Southern Africa, an NGO, says her organisation has since last year been involved in almost all stakeholder meetings and discussed a number of issues women want included in the supreme law, among them socio-economic rights.

"The right to shelter, the right to health, the right to land, and also the issue of customary law that we don’t want to be subjected to anymore," says Chirawu.

She says lobby groups have, through the Women’s Coalition, devised the Women’s Charter in which they articulate all the concerns female citizens would like to see in the constitution: "From that point of view, there is some form of consensus ."

Chirawu feels some of the issues discussed are too technical for the majority of the women to understand."For instance, how do you break down the preamble for an ordinary woman? It’s now up to the drafters to take into account all things that were said and hopefully come out with a document that reflects the wishes of everyone."

The Minister of Regional Integration and International Cooperation – the only woman to take part in the inter-party negotiations that led to the GPA – says there has generally been support for the idea that women needed to be protected by the country's highest law.

Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga says while the ongoing public consultations have remained a politically-led process, political groups have been able to convey the common feelings of female members of society.

"If reports coming in [from different regions of the country] are anything to go by, then the major concerns of women have been captured in the planned draft document," she told IPS.

Distractions

However, Misihairabwi-Mushonga accuses the various women’s lobby groups in the country of failing to present a common message: "They spent too much time trying to fight for recognition, like political parties, instead of educating communities on what is going on and capturing public views on the process."

But Jenni Williams, leader of Women of Zimbabwe Arise, WOZA, says her organisation has carried out "a lot of parallel programmes" to make women aware of the ongoing exercise and the need for them to take part.

A September report by the Constitution Parliamentary Select Committee, COPAC, says women slightly outnumbered men at its outreach meetings, which started on Jun. 23.

But on the streets of Harare, some members of the public seemed disinterested in the whole process, seeing it as a matter for politicians.

"I hope they get over it without the violence we saw during the [2000] referendum," said Eniah Benyura who hails from the southern district of Zvishavane. "Many innocent people were killed that time… We don’t mind what they come up with, as long as it helps the country return to normalcy."