Gamcotrap Officials’trial resumes

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

The criminal trial involving Dr. Isatou Touray, Executive Director of the Gambia Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (GAMCOTRAP), and Amie Bojang-Sosoho, Programme Co-ordinator of the same organisation, Monday resumed at the Banjul Magistrates’ Court.

However, the case was supposed to proceed with the ninth prosecution witness,  but could not proceed due to the lack of a Fula interpreter. 

The two prominent women’s rights activists are being tried before acting-Principal Magistrate Alagba for allegedly stealing 30,000 Euros, being money provided by the YALOCAMBA SOLIDARIDAD of Spain to GAMCOTRAP. When the trial resumed, the prosecuting officer, Superintendent Sainey Joof, told the court that the prosecution was ready to proceed with their ninth witness. The witness told the court that she could only understand the Fula language, and the court then suggested for someone to volunteer to interpret for the court.

The prosecuting officer then told the court that the witness came with a relative, who can speak both Fula and Wolof, and that she would be able to help the court to translate what the witness said.

But the lead defence counsel, Amie Bensouda, told the court that the interpretation can only be interpreted from one local language to English, but not from one local language to another before being interpreted into English. She added that the defence did not know how capable the relative was, and they could not assess his interpretation skills.

Counsel Bensouda further said that the prosecution should, in fact, close their case, because this particular witness would come to say the same thing like other female circumcisers.

The case was subsequently adjourned till 20 April 2011 for hearing. Meanwhile, in the separate trial of lawyer Moses B. Jonhson Richards, charged with giving false information and sedition, the case was also adjourned till 30 March 2011, for cross-examination.

Women Turn Spotlight on Haiti's Silent Rape Epidemic

By Cléo Fatoorehchi

Some 14 months after Haiti's earthquake, activists say there is an ongoing epidemic of rape and gender-based violence (GBV) in the country's more than 1,000 squalid displaced persons camps, where nearly a million people are still awaiting permanent housing.

According to Annie Gell, Bureau des Avocats Internationaux's coordinator of the Rape Accountability and Prevention Project in Port-au-Prince, "The lack of lighting, the lack of patrols, the inability of women to lock their doors" contribute to the "incredibly insecure situation for women and girls" in the camps.

She accused MINUSTAH, the United Nations Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, of "generally (staying) on the perimetre of camps," instead of going into the areas where women's lives are actually at risk, especially at night.

According to a March 2011 survey conducted by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law, "an alarming 14 percent of households surveyed reported that, since the earthquake, one or more members of their household had been victimised by rape or unwanted touching or both."

Marie Françoise Vital Metellus, a gender unit officer with MINUSTAH, told IPS the peacekeeping force has created a trained unit - the UNPOLs - to patrol in the camps and provide specialised assistance to women victims of GBV.

But she acknowledged that the number of camps is huge, and most of them are overcrowded. That makes the UNPOLs' work, along with the National Haitian Police's, particularly difficult.

"We're seeing more women coming forward to report rapes and GBV," Gell told IPS that adding, "a lot of people are moving out of camps because they're so insecure, so dangerous."

Grassroots groups take the lead

"Grassroots groups have the expertise of what needs to be done on the ground, because they live and work in the camps," Lisa Davis, human rights advocacy director with the women's group MADRE and an adjunct professor of law for the International Women's Human Rights Clinic at CUNY Law School, told IPS.

Among these groups is KOFAVIV (Commission of Women Victims for Victims), a Haitian organisation founded in 2004 by rape survivors to provide assistance to others, which recreated itself in the camps after the earthquake.

On Mar. 25, women activists from MADRE, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, CUNY School of Law and Women's Link Worldwide testified before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington about the severe problems in the camps.

Three Haitian women - Malya Appolon-Villard, Marie Eramithe Delva and Jocie Philistin – attended the hearing to convey the reality of life in the camps, a "nightmare", according to Gell.

But "their voices (of grassroots movements) are being excluded from the planning sessions," Davis told IPS.

She said that while the United Nations GBV cluster should bring together all the actors dealing with sexual violence in Haiti, "(it) is not working with the grassroots groups."

"We're (thus) hoping … that the commission will reinforce that the grassroots groups' voices must be included in planning sessions to end sexual violence," Gell said.

The decision the IACHR will take after all the hearings – likely in a week or two - is "binding on Haiti in a sense that Haiti is a member of the Organisation of American States (OAS), and the Commission is a body that interprets the treaties and laws" signed under the OAS, Gell explained to IPS.

But the government itself was crippled by the earthquake, and lacks the capacity to fully address the issue of gender- based violence. Despite the existence since 1994 of a Ministry of Women's Affairs and Women's Rights (MCFDF, Ministère à la Condition Féminine et aux Droits des Femmes), its programmes are weak due to a lack of resources, Vital Metellus of MINUSTAH told IPS.

She nevertheless stressed that "the state is the key actor", adding, "In its current state, it needs the support from women's groups and U.N. agencies."

As Gell noted, "It's not necessarily that they (the Haitian government) don't want to help women and girls, it's that they don't have the capacity or the will right now to do that."

The organisations hope that donor countries will provide more funding to target the GBV problem, Davis told IPS.

According to Gell, that requires "mak(ing) not only the government of Haiti but the world aware (of the) epidemic of violence against women and girls."

"(In order to) reinforce the capacity of the government's action to be effective in protecting women and girls," emphasised Gell, the organisations are using the petition and the hearings before the IACHR as a way to put pressure on the Haitian government and at the same time on the international community, particularly the donors.

She also stressed to IPS "the need for supporting domestic mechanisms for prosecution," since the attackers usually go unpunished.


source: ips news

Statement: H.E. Mr. Garen Nazarian Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women

Commission on the Status of Women 

55th  session 

22 February to 4 March 2011 

H.E. Mr. Garen Nazarian 

Chair of the Commission on the Status of Women 

Opening remarks  

Deputy Secretary General, President of the Economic and Social Council, Under-Secretary-General,
Distinguished delegates,

 I am honored to welcome you all to the 55th  session of the Commission on the Status of  Women. I extend a special welcome to representatives from Capitals and in particular to Ministers  and senior Government officials, to the large number of non-governmental organizations and to the entities of the United Nations system that have joined us for this important gathering.

 We meet at a moment of tremendous expectations, excitement and promise.  
 In 2010, achieving the goals and commitments  for gender equality, development and peace
was the central objective of a number of review sessions, commemorations and summits.  
 Member States and other stakeholders strengthened the basis for real change for gender
equality, women’s rights and empowerment.  It is  now our responsibility to see to it that these
commitments are turned into reality for girls and women in all parts of the world.  
  
 The establishment of UN  Women has created an unprecedented momentum for action
towards gender equality and women’s empowerment. UN Women will be a key partner in all our
efforts.    It gives me very great pleasure to welcome UN Women, and its Executive  Director, Ms.
Bachelet, to the United Nations family.  

Distinguished delegates,  One of the key tasks of the Commission on the Status of Women is to monitor progress achieved and  problems encountered in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.   The annual sessions are the occasion where we focus on a specific theme in an in-depth manner, and identify good practices, lessons learned and results achieved.  It is also the occasion where we resolve to accelerate implementation of previous commitments and make additional  action-oriented recommendations  addressed to States and other  stakeholders.

We review the status of implementation of previously agreed commitments, highlight new
and emerging issues of concern, and exercise a catalytic role in promoting gender mainstreaming.  
This year, the main focus of our work will be on the role of education, training and science
and technology, and the transition of women from education into the world of work.  While much
progress has been, and is being made, inequalities between women and men persist in all parts of the
world.

There will be ample opportunity for dialogue to share experiences and exchange views on
good practices and lessons learned in high-level roundtables and interactive expert panels.  
The Commission’s deliberations should result in a set of agreed conclusions on the priority
theme that are focused, practical and action-oriented, so that they can effectively guide the different
stakeholders towards implementation.   The Commission’s discussions should also result in a renewed effort to eliminate all forms of  discrimination and violence against the girl child, which is the topic of our review theme.  And they  should raise the visibility of gender perspectives in the preparatory process for the 2012 Conference  on Sustainable Development.   Many parallel events organized by Member States, United Nations entities, nongovernmental organizations and other stakeholders will further enrich our work.  I look forward to  two weeks of dedicated work with concrete outcomes that will improve the lives of women and girls  globally.

8th Annual World Educational Tour Launches

 

Youth for Human Rights International (YHRI) is launching its eighth annual World Educational Tour from California, USA this year.  From there it circles the globe to countries including Bangladesh, Belgium, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Honduras and Thailand. This year's tour will increase the availability of YHRI educational materials to youth around the world and highlights the ongoing United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014).
Knowing the importance of meeting with people in their own countries to observe the issues and challenges they face and to encourage their efforts, YHRI founder and president Dr. Mary Shuttleworth has personally led the World Tour team each year since 2004. "Youth are the heartbeat of our future. When they do not know their rights, they are vulnerable and easy prey for ill-intentioned individuals," explained Dr. Shuttleworth. "Youth who know that they have rights and responsibilities can defend against or report abuses, and strive to reach their full potentials." 
The Tour presents the YHRI human rights education programs to youth and educators in universities, schools, youth groups, juvenile detention centers and orphanages, as well as to dignitaries including kings, heads of government and officials of the United Nations and Commonwealth of Nations. The annual YHRI World Tour has reached 6 continents, more than 70 countries and hundreds of thousands of youth.

YHRI educational materials include the multi-award winning music video,UNITED, the 30 Public Service Announcements, The Story of Human Rightsvideo, the educator's handbook and the What are Human Rights? booklet. YHRI audiovisual products have reached more than 500 million around the world in 17 languages, with local, national and international media coverage in print as well as radio and television.

The purpose of YHRI is to teach youth about human rights, specifically the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and inspire them to become advocates for tolerance and peace. As a nonprofit organization, YHRI collaborates with like-minded individuals, groups and organizations. Through their support and that of thousands of volunteers, YHRI has expanded to hundreds of affiliated chapters, groups and clubs in more than 100 countries around the world.

Set on Fire – New Form of Sexist Violence in Argentina

By Marcela Valente

Fátima Catán and her mother, Elsa Jerez, in a photo from the family album.  Credit:Courtesy of Catán Jerez family

 "I knew he beat her but I never imagined that she would end up like this," Elsa Jerez told IPS, talking about her 24-year-old daughter Fátima Catán, a victim of domestic violence in Argentina who died of severe burns to her body.

Catán's partner, Martin Santillán, was not arrested. Twice he has sent someone to threaten to set his mother-in-law's house on fire. The courts are investigating a double homicide, because Fátima was pregnant, but he has only testified as a witness.

The young woman's death five months ago was one of 260 "femicides" -- a term coined for misogynist or gender-related murders of women -- documented in 2010 by a special observatory of La Casa del Encuentro, an Argentine civil society association, which has produced an annual report on gender-related murders since 2008.

The 2010 total represents a 12.5 percent increase from 2009 in this South American country of 40 million people.

Victims of femicide in Argentina are stabbed, strangled, shot, drowned, beaten to death -- and more recently, set on fire.

In 65 percent of the cases of femicide, the murderer is the woman's partner or ex-partner. And many of the killings occur after the courts have ordered the partner to leave the home or have issued a restraining order to keep him away from the victim of domestic violence.

Last year "we saw a veritable epidemic of women who 'accidentally' caught on fire," Fabiana Tuñez, who heads La Casa del Encuentro, told IPS, pointing out that the number of cases rose from six in 2009 to 11 in 2010.

Tuñez said that after a famous musician allegedly doused his wife with alcohol and set her on fire in February 2010, "a copycat effect occurred."

Domestic abuse hot-lines have reported that they have lately received more and more calls from women saying their partners or ex-partners have threatened to burn them alive, douse them with gasoline, or set them on fire -- threats that are often accompanied by the tag-line "like Wanda."

According to Tuñez, the case set a terrible precedent. The former drummer of the Argentine rock group Callejeros, Eduardo Vázquez, was not arrested after his wife, 29-year-old Wanda Taddei, was admitted to the hospital with burns over 50 percent of her body.

After Taddei died 11 days later, Vázquez was arrested and an investigation was launched. He is now in prison awaiting trial.

But the impunity he initially enjoyed may have encouraged others to follow in his footsteps, Tuñez said.

Catán's mother said her daughter had repeatedly been beaten by her partner in the past, and that several reports were filed with the police. "You nasty old bag, they called the cops on me," he complained to his mother-in-law at the time.

After Catán and Santillán separated briefly, he managed to persuade her to get together again. "She told me she wanted to give him a chance," Jerez said. "But I told her: 'He's not going to stop until he kills you.' I think he killed her because she was pregnant."

She saw her daughter, beaten and badly burnt, in the intensive care unit after Santillán took the young woman to the hospital. "I think he beat her really badly, and thought he had killed her, which his why he set her on fire," she said, in her heartrending attempt to comprehend what happened.

Catán died five days later, without ever being able to explain what occurred.

In the meantime, the apartment where she and Santillán lived in Villa Fiorito, a shanty town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, had been cleared of all evidence, Jerez said.

Santillán said Catán had been using alcohol to clean CDs while smoking a cigarette, and accidentally set herself on fire. The story was similar to the account given by Vázquez when his wife Wanda Taddei was admitted to the hospital. According to the musician, his wife was cleaning a shelf with alcohol.

Tuñez said that funds are lacking to implement an ambitious law passed in March 2009 to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women. She also said a clear political message from the government and the justice system is needed, to begin changing attitudes towards sexist violence.

The Supreme Court's office on domestic violence acknowledged the magnitude of the problem in 2010, when it reported that 40 percent of murders of women were the result of domestic abuse.

But in late 2010, the Public Defender's Office presented the study "Discriminación de Género en las Decisiones Judiciales" (Gender Discrimination in Court Verdicts), which concluded that discrimination "ensures impunity" for the perpetrators of gender-based crimes.

Gabriela Boada, executive director of Amnesty International in Argentina, told IPS that the law is complex, and that a great deal of coordination is necessary between different ministries and jurisdictions. She said the legislation has not yet been fully put into effect.

"The law is not reality yet, and it does not clearly show, with evidence, what difference it has made in addressing and preventing the violence suffered by at least one out of three women at some point in their lives" in Argentina, she said.

Boada described the law, which takes into account physical, psychological and economic violence, as "a major stride forward," but said that "we know that there are huge gaps between the law and its implementation."

Tuñez said that what is needed is "a sustained, comprehensive policy for assistance to victims and an autonomous, specific legal classification of femicide, as already exists in Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Spain.

"Another basic problem is that many women are not financially independent, which makes it even more difficult for them to leave," she said. "That's why we believe there should be subsidies for housing and food, and that education on these issues is necessary at all levels."

Tuñez underscored two positive aspects of the new law: its definition of violence against women is broad and not just limited to physical abuse, and it stipulates the creation of an observatory to compile specific official statistics on the phenomenon, although this has not yet begun to function.

"Awareness-raising campaigns are also necessary, not only on symbolic dates, but permanently, in the media, the schools, everywhere -- and funds are needed for that," Tuñez said.

Should U.N. Chief's Public Pronouncements Be Copyrighted?

By Thalif Deen

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (left) holds his first press conference of 2011, outlining his priorities for the year.  Credit:UN Photo/Mark Garten

When the secretary-general of the United Nations issues a key policy statement, holds a news conference or simply makes off- the-cuff remarks to the press corps, they traditionally remain in the public domain.

But a recent op-ed commentary in an Australian newspaper, authored by Ban Ki-moon, was not only copyrighted but also truncated, thereby omitting a crucial policy decision - the creation of a new U.N. women's agency - from his public pronouncement spelling out the world body's 2011 agenda.

At the bottom of the article, published in the Sydney Morning Herald in late December, was the warning: "Copyright, Project Syndicate, 2010".

The Prague-based outfit is an international not-for-profit newspaper syndicate soliciting articles, analyses and op-ed pieces from a variety of writers, including political thinkers, Nobel laureates, activists and academics - and placing them in newspapers worldwide.

Stephen Lewis, a former deputy executive director of the U.N. children's agency UNICEF, is challenging the new-found exclusiveness of the secretary-general.

"I was sent an e-mail by a senior member of the secretary- general's (SG) staff indicating that something called Project Syndicate had crafted the op-ed taken from a previous speech the SG had given," he said.

Apparently, it wasn't vetted by the SG's office. That's entirely irresponsible, said Lewis.

"You don't allow a private company to fool around with the words of the SG without scrutiny by the SG's staff before publication," he said.

Lewis, a former U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and currently co-director of the group AIDS-Free World, wondered how a non-profit association of newspapers - really a private company, non-profit or otherwise – managed to hold a copyright on the words of the SG.

Asked to respond, a spokesperson for secretary-general, Farhan Haq, told IPS: "That's just because some op-eds are sent to a syndicated service, which places them in newspapers around the world."

Haq confirmed that the SG's statements "remain in the public domain".

Lewis remained sceptical. "If, however, we were to believe the response given to IPS," he said, "then an op-ed was drafted by the SG's office with no reference to U.N. Women."

That's even more reprehensible, he said. "No matter how you look at this, the U.N. has contracted out the words of the secretary-general of the United Nations as though he was a commonplace blogger."

Something is terribly wrong in the offices of the secretary- general, he added.

In his op-ed piece, Ban stressed the important role the United Nations will play in 2011 and beyond.

"People everywhere live in growing anxiety and fear. There is near-universal loss of trust in institutions and leaders," he wrote.

Amid such uncertainty, he said, "Our future depends on a United Nations that brings together the countries of the world not only to talk and debate, but also to agree and to act; that mobilises civil society, business, philanthropists and ordinary citizens to help the world's governments solve current problems; and that delivers peace, development, human rights, and global public goods - in a word, hope - to people around the world every day."

Although he singled out the U.N.'s past achievements and projected its future role, Ban's commentary left out one of the most positive achievements of the world body: the creation of U.N. Women launched in the new year.

"The conventional wisdom will tell you that the MDG targets - reducing poverty and hunger, improving the health of mothers and children, combating HIV/AIDS, increasing access to education, protecting the environment, and forging a global partnership for development - are simply unattainable," he says.

But those "targets" spelled out in his article do not include gender empowerment and the future role of women in society.

Lewis said: "I see from the Project Syndicate website that they solicit or accept unsolicited op-ed commentaries of 800 to 1000 words in length, but do they have the right to extract sections from other materials [such as speeches] and then present them as though they were an original commentary? That's what they did with the SG."

"We'd love to see the contract between the SG and Project Syndicate. It's one thing to toy with the copy of Jeffrey Sachs or Joe Stiglitz or Jimmy Carter or Naomi Wolfe, but the SG is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations, not of an academic institution or a think-tank," Lewis said.

"And look how embarrassing it can be," added Lewis, currently a distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada.

Lewis said the editors of Project Syndicate clearly couldn't have cared less about women, so they simply excised that part of the SG's address. 

No Easy Path for Disabled Women with Political Dreams

Joyce Labosa and Millie Odhiambo, MP's at the forefront fighting for disabled women's rights  Credit:Miriam Gathigah/IPS "People living with disability face all sorts of discrimination. We are discriminated against at job interviews in schools. Everyday is a battle to remain positive in the face of a world that is too bent on dismissing those among us that do not meet the standard of what is normal", explains Mishi Juma, a disabled community leader from the Coast region.  In the past, Juma never had a safe space to raise these issues. But all this has now changed. Juma and many other disabled women can now raise their concerns with the newly established Ministry of gender and social development.

The establishment of this Ministry two years ago has been a milestone in Kenya and has had to prove that it is more than just another women’s organisation.

Critical processes which were meant to improve the plight of the minority and disadvantaged in the country have been initiated.

This is reflected by the formulation of various interventions to reach those who may not be in a position to access socio-economic opportunities, which are key to their development.

Some of these interventions have included the setting up of a Women and Youth Fund, as well as a persistent push for gender equality policies in all sectors of the economy.

Even so, it is the call for a census to establish the number of persons with disabilities, and the nature of disabilities, that has further proved that the Ministry does not only address women’s and children’s issues, as had been previously perceived.

This call was initiated by the former Minister, Esther Murugi, in an effort to mainstream the issue of disability in the country.

But some feel not enough has been done. It is even worse for those with political ambitions, "I have been dismissed even before being given an opportunity to speak my mind - firstly for just being a woman and then for being a woman who is not physically fit," explains Kanini Mugambi, an aspiring politician from Eastern Kenya.

The country is yet to see a disabled woman in Parliament. "Going by the kind of violence meted out to female politicians in the last general elections of 2007, many women with disabilities nurturing political ambitions might feel threatened because their mobility is limited and they may not be able to run in case there is a scuffle - as is usually the case," explains Mishi Juma.

This is despite the fact that, according to Murugi, Kenya is one of the few countries in Africa with a Disability Act already in place, which clearly enumerates the rights of the disabled, including the right to rehabilitation in order for them to achieve equalisation of opportunities".

She further explained that Kenya is being considered for an ambassadorial position by the African Decade for Persons with Disabilities Secretariat, based in South Africa, due to its efforts to promote issues affecting people living with disability.

Within this financial year, the government had committed itself to set up a multi million-dollar fund to address problems faced by people living with disability.

While Murugi said the establishment of the fund was a good beginning, she was also optimistic that the fund could be doubled in the next financial year to enable persons living with disabilities to access funding for entrepreneurship, as was the case with the Women and Youth Fund.

"Although this might be the case, most physical amenities in the country lack suitable infrastructure to assist people with disabilities," explains Juma.

This is in spite of the fact that the Disability Act, as well as the Constitution, demands that all persons living with disabilities are entitled to ‘reasonable access to all places, public transport and information.’

The call for a census to be undertaken among persons living with disabilities was therefore an expression of the government’s commitment to improving the plight of the physically challenged.

In fact, according to the Constitution that was only recently promulgated, the "State shall ensure the progressive implementation of the principle that at least five percent of the members of the public in elective and appointive bodies are persons with disabilities."

It is imperative to also note that the government, in conjunction with state corporations, is working on identifying targets to establish a disability committee that would be mandated with the task of developing a disability mainstreaming strategy.

The strategy will not only ensure that people with disabilities do not face discrimination in public places, but that they are also able to access services which are available to other Kenyans.

Although there are legal frameworks in place to protect and promote the rights of the disabled, including policy guidelines awaiting Cabinet’s approval, there is a need for the legal system to work in collaboration with society.

"This is because it is the same society that hides children born with disability from the world, denying them an opportunity to grow together with other children. And by the time they are exposed to society, the culture shock is too overwhelming for them," explains Hamisa Zaja, chairperson of disabled groups in the Coast region.

In light of the devolved system of government, Hamisa Zaja further urged disabled women not to shy away from politics and to present themselves to the electorate when the opportunity presented itself.

In the meantime, she called for leaders to sensitise the public on the need to create an enabling environment for people with disabilities to pursue the same opportunities as other Kenyans, particularly in the political arena.