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The principle of gender equality has found more space in several societies over the last two decades and, has begun to underpin all aspects of national development. For this reason, governments, international organizations and the civil society met this week on July 26 to 28, 2011 at the 'High Level Global Meeting' on Gender Responsive Planning and Budgeting, at Kigali Serena Hotel, Rwanda. Among the key issues of discussion was the need for governments to ensure that that the collection and allocation of public resources, is done in ways that contribute effectively to the advancing of gender equality and women empowerment.
Rwanda is the first country in the world where women outnumber men in parliament, with women occupying 45 out of 80 seats. However, despite this, experts say that the country still needs a gender equality perspective on how national resources and programmes are implemented. "The move will help ensure government spending addresses the needs of women and men equitably," said Susan Mutoni, referring to the situation in Rwanda. Mutoni is the project coordinator of gender responsive budgeting in Rwanda’s ministry of finance and economic planning.
The murder of journalist Yolanda Ordaz, whose body was found Tuesday in the eastern Mexican city of Veracruz, once again threw into relief the dangers that reporters face in this country, which in the case of women are compounded by discriminatory and sexist treatment. Ordaz, a reporter with Notiver, the leading newspaper in that region, went missing Sunday. Her corpse was found, with the throat cut, behind the offices of another newspaper. Her death brings to 14 the number of journalists killed in Mexico since 2010, and she is the third reporter murdered in the state of Veracruz in the last two months. When she began to investigate the Jun. 20 murder of Notiver's assistant director Miguel Ángel López, Ordaz received threats telling her she "would be next" if she did not drop the case. López was shot in his home along with his wife and son.
Juana Majel Dixon, first vice president of the National Congress of American Indians, said earlier this year that, "Young women on reservations live their lives in anticipation of being raped…They talk about 'how I will survive my rape‚' as opposed to not thinking about it at all." "We shouldn't have to live our lives that way," she added.
But this is the harsh reality that a majority of all American Indian and Native Alaskan women face. According to the Indian Law Resource Center, one in three native women is raped in her lifetime, while one in six will be domestically abused by a husband, boyfriend or intimate partner. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) estimates that the average annual rate of rape and sexual assault among American Indians is 3.5 times higher than for all races.
For the first time ever, the Kenyan finance minister has allocated almost four million dollars, about 3.6 percent of the primary education budget, to provide free sanitary pads to schoolgirls. This comes after persistent pressure from women parliamentarians who took the issue of girls’ absenteeism from school, due to lack of sanitary pads, to parliament. It was a campaign that left their male counterparts speechless, for such matters are rarely spoken about in public, let alone in parliament, in Kenya’s conservative society. In their persistent lobbying, the women parliamentarians brought to the fore a problem that could have continued to hinder the education of young girls. Thirteen-year-old Dorothy Akinyi, a standard seven pupil from Kibera, which is arguably the largest slum in Africa, stays at home every time she menstruates.
Zimbabwe is a fragile state. The whole country has been plunged into a humanitarian crisis and all social, economic, and political fundamentals are deteriorating faster than they would in a country at war. Women constitute 52% of the population of Zimbabwe, yet we have never defined democracy for ourselves. Democracy has been strictly defined for us by political parties, governments, civic groups, the international community, and church groups. All these institutions are male-dominated, and have therefore defined democracy according to their own patriarchal notions. Yet women have our own unique requirements for democracy. Our country needs to pay attention to us. Democracy for women in Zimbabwe can be summarized in two key capacities: participation in decision-making at all levels, and
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Johannesburg, South Africa – 20th July 2011.
From the 18th- 20th July 2011, the first Southern African Regional Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) was hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa, by JASS (Just Associates) Southern Africa and Women’s Net. The Feminist Tech Exchange, organized under the building women’s collective power partnership, brought nine women’s rights activists from Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe together to share and build knowledge and skills on communication and ICTs from a feminist perspective. The exchange was convened as a way to strengthen women’s collective organizing power through the use of ICTs. It created a platform for women activists to explore how different forms of technology can support, strengthen or disrupt power and allowed for a greater understanding of emerging technologies, their potential and impact on the rights and lives of women.
From the 18th to the 20th July 2011, the first Southern African Regional Feminist Tech Exchange (FTX) was hosted in Johannesburg, South Africa, by JASS (Just Associates) Southern Africa and Women’s Net. The Feminist Tech Exchange, organized under the Building Women’s Collective Power partnership, brought nine women’s rights activists from Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe together to share and build knowledge and skills on communication and ICTs from a feminist perspective. The exchange was convened as a way to strengthen women’s collective organizing power through the use of ICTs. It created a platform for women activists to explore how different forms of technology can support, strengthen or disrupt power and allowed for a greater understanding of emerging technologies, their potential and impact on the rights and lives of women.
Women in Mpumalanga will undergo a series of workshops aimed at equipping them to effectively raise concerns with the provincial government. The provincial legislature has organised workshops between Wednesday and Friday, where the women will be prepared for the upcoming Women's Parliament on August 5. "We will be conducting these workshops to help women find a way of raising issues in the provincial legislature. When we held the women's parliament last year, we realised that most women did not know how to participate fully," said legislature spokeswoman Tsholofelo Moreosele on Monday. Moreosele said some women did not even know what was on the agenda for the day. She said the women's parliament was created to enhance and facilitate women's participation in legislative processes, and that the workshops would make them aware of their role during the sessions and the topics of discussion.
A three-day training workshop for journalists working with the electronic media, especially radio, opened in Accra on Monday to enhance their skills on using their medium of communication to promote women’s rights in Ghana. The training, which is being organised by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), is the second phase of a project to expand public education on women’s rights and involves 24 selected journalists from 12 radio stations in the Northern, Central and Western Regions. It is expected that participants would come up with radio programs, documentaries and positive reportage aimed at promoting the rights of women and children in the country.
The Department of Women, Children and People with Disabilities has kicked off preparations for Women's Month in August. South Africa annually sets aside this month to commemorate the aspirations and achievements of women. The historical significance of 9 August, National Women's Day, goes back to 1956 when 20 000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to protest the extension of passes restricting freedom of movement during the apartheid government. The women were led by the Federation of South African Women (Fedsaw) including four women: Lillian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph, Rahima Moosa and Sophia Williams De Bruyn. Proposed commemorative events for 9 August 2011 intend to remind the country about women's rights issues and will recall the struggle for women's emancipation.
MUMBAI, INDIA – Jasjit Kaur, 40, who requested her name be changed, is a well-educated urban housewife. Fifteen years ago, she says her family pressured her to have two abortions, a decision she has long regretted.
Kaur says she was a happy mother of two daughters and didn’t want to have more children. But her husband and in-laws kept pressuring her to bear a male child, a preference she didn’t share. She says that her husband told her that their two daughters would go away to live with their husbands when they got married, but a son would stay and take care of them in their old age. Her husband and her in-laws also worried about the expensive dowries they would have to pay their daughters’ huson their wedding days. Her in-laws also felt they were respected less in their village because they didn’t have a grandson. She says that having a son or grandson was a status symbol for them. Any attempts to argue about gender equality were in vain. She says daily arguments disrupted the peace of their home, and she didn’t want her daughters to watch their parents fight every day.
"God willing, we will make it" reads the sign on a rusty old all-terrain vehicle, ideal for the complicated drive to the remote Curbaradó river valley in the banana-producing region of Urabá in northwest Colombia.
This area is part of the jungle province of Chocó, one of the world's most biodiverse places until it was drawn into the armed conflict between left-wing guerrillas and government forces – and, since the 1980s, far-right paramilitary militias – that has plagued Colombia for nearly half a century.
Even at the best of times, obtaining a title deed from the ministry of lands is a difficult process. But as the minister of lands admitted on Jul. 13 that his office is rife with corruption, the disorganisation of this office means Kenyan women are no closer to owning land. "It has become impossible to reclaim illegally-acquired land as powerful individuals collude with corrupt officials in my ministry to acquire illegal title deeds," said James Orengo, the lands minister. But, right’s experts say, Orengo should have addressed corruption a long time ago and it only delays women’s access to land. "It was very progressive for the minister to admit that corruption is rife in the ministry. But that has a negative impact on the struggle to have more women own land. Fighting corruption will take centre stage while land ownership for women will seem like a non-issue," said Grace Gakii, a gender expert in Nairobi.
A 1993 forest act gave back Nepal its green hills, many believe. Activists say the law was also a catalyst for positive change in an area not readily linked with it – women’s rights in rural Nepal. Kalpana Giri, the gender and governance specialist with Forest Action Nepal, a think tank working on natural resources management, told IPS that the act, which created community forests, was a prime mover in bringing the voices of Nepal’s rural women into public fora.