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Women Pin Hopes on First-Ever Female
Vice President
Women's rights groups are pinning their hopes on Roxana Baldetti, the first
woman to be elected vice president of Guatemala, to boost the chances of
increased female participation in politics. President-elect
Otto Pérez Molina,
a retired general, and the 49-year-old Baldetti, both of the rightwing Patriotic
Party, were sworn on Jan. 14. "We hope she will perform well, so that in future
we may look forward to having a woman president," Miriam Ordóñez, the mayor of
San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán, 100 km northeast of the capital, told IPS. "She is
facing a great challenge: to give women a good name so that we are not
constantly dismissed as we are today, and I am confident that she is well
qualified to succeed," the mayor said. Only seven of the country's 333 mayors
are women, and the same number have been elected for the 2012-2016 period.
Women currently hold just 18 of the 158 seats in the single-chamber Congress, a
number that will only rise to 19 (12 percent) for the next four-year term. Of
these, only four are indigenous women. Women have won barely 5.5 percent of
elected positions - only 27 out of 493 possible posts, including those of
president, vice president, mayors, legislators and town councilors, according to
a report by the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman on the 2011 elections. The
vice president-elect has repeatedly said she will support educational, health
and productive projects for women in rural areas, which she calls "the other
Guatemala". She has stated that "The duty that falls to me is to do a good job
so that more women can go into politics, but above all so that women are taken
into account in this country's important decisions".
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Taiwan's
opposition accepts chair's resignation
Taiwan's major opposition party accepted the resignation of
its chairwoman, Tsai Ing-wen, on Monday, following her
defeat in Saturday's leadership election. Tsai will analyze
her failure, complete a report on the Democratic Progressive
Party's (DPP) continued reform and transformation, and tour
the island to thank her supporters, before her resignation
takes effect on March 1, a DPP spokesman said. The
55-year-old announced her plan to resign as party chief in
her concession speech on Saturday night, so as to "shoulder
the responsibility of the failure" to oust incumbent Taiwan
leader Ma Ying-jeou, who won the election by a margin of
nearly 6 percent, or 800,000 votes. Ma's position on
cross-Straits issues was the key to his victory, local media
said, adding that the voters' choice showed their support
for the 1992 Consensus and peaceful development across the
Straits. "Ma's victory means both sides of the Straits can
expect to maintain stability for another four years. This
will be conducive to Taiwan's economic growth, employment
and the layout of the island's industries based on
cross-Straits cooperation." The re-elected Ma should
continue to boost cross-Straits economic cooperation and
accelerate follow-up negotiations of key bilateral economic
agreements, it added. During his three-and-a-half years in
office, Ma has advocated a series of bold commercial
initiatives and helped reduce tensions across the Straits to
their lowest levels since 1949.
A major economic framework that took effect in 2010, the
Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, has enabled
hundreds of products from the island to be sold without
tariffs in the mainland market.
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Burma
Release, Ceasefire Hailed by Obama, Rights Groups
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama Friday hailed the release by
the Burmese government of hundreds of political prisoners, suggesting that it
went far toward satisfying Washington's conditions for fully normalising ties
between the two countries. In a statement released by the White House after the
first releases were confirmed, Obama called it a "crucial step in Burma's
democratic transformation and national reconciliation process. He said: "I have
directed Secretary (of State Hillary) Clinton and my Administration to take
additional steps to build confidence with the government and people of Burma so
that we seize this historic and hopeful opportunity". For her part, Clinton, who
met last December with President Thein Sein and the country's most famous
dissident, Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, during the first trip by a
U.S. secretary of state to Burma in nearly 60 years, called the releases "a
substantial and serious step forward in the government's stated commitment to
political reform". She added that the administration will soon send an
ambassador to Burma, among other measures, to "strengthen and deepen our ties
with both the people and the government". She also praised a ceasefire agreement
reached Thursday between the government and the six-year-old Karen National
Union (KNU) insurgency as an "important step forward". The next step for Burma's
government is to allow international monitors to verify the whereabouts and
conditions of remaining political prisoners. Among the prisoners released Friday
were a number of leaders of the 1988 student uprising, of Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy (NLD) party that swept the 1990 parliamentary election, and
of the 2007 "Saffron Revolution". Some detainees had been in prison for more
than 20 years.
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Elections Playbook Starts With
Crackdown on Critics
Less than two months before Iran's parliamentary elections, as much of the
opposition mounts a boycott of the polls, a wave of arrests and lengthy prison
sentences for political activists and journalists appears to herald a renewed
crackdown in the Iranian capital. The pressure comes as Iran faces new sanctions
from the West over its nuclear programme and increased tensions with United
States, with Iran threatening to close the strategic Strait of Hormuz. On
Monday, Mehdi Khazali, the dissident son of an influential conservative
ayatollah, was arrested. On Jan. 8, security forces arrested Saeed Madani, an
influential member of the Nationalist-Religious group, who is critical of the
Islamic government. That same day, journalist and ethnic issues researcher Ehsan
Houshmand was arrested at his home. Journalist Fatemeh Kheradmand was also
arrested. On Jan. 3, the Tehran Revolutionary Court sentenced Faezeh Hashemi, a
former member of parliament and daughter of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, head
of Iran's Expediency Council, to six months in prison for participating in
anti-government protests. Fakhressadat Mohtashamipour, an advisor to the
interior minister in former President Mohammad Khatami's cabinet, was also
sentenced to four years' suspended imprisonment. Her husband, Mostafa Tajzadeh,
a prominent reformist figure and a former deputy interior minister, is currently
serving a six-year term inside Evin Prison. But the most shocking verdict
belonged to Amir Hekmati, an Iranian- American citizen. On Monday, a lower court
found Hekmati guilty of "cooperating with the enemy state of US, and the CIA
against the Islamic Republic of Iran," identifying him as a "Mohareb" (enemy of
God), "and a corrupter-on-Earth", and sentenced him to death.
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Women and the Elections in Egypt
On January 3
and 4, Egyptians voted in the third and final stage of elections for the lower
house of Parliament, the People’s Assembly.
Seventy-one
out of 498 seats
are still being decided through runoffs, but the results for the other 427 seats
are final. Women have fared poorly in the election. Only six have been elected,
giving them just over one percent of seats if no other women win in the runoffs.
They include three members of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice
Party, two members of Al Wafd party, and a member of the Egyptian Social
Democratic Party. As you can imagine, these women are not wall flowers. They all
have some political experience, have been actively involved in the public sphere
for years, and are outspoken champions for women’s right to lead. A recent
interview,
Seham Al
Gamal,
a member of the FJP from the Delta region, summed it up: “Whosoever doubts the
women’s ability to perform in parliament questions the people’s ability who
chose these women to represent them. It also questions the ability of women to
succeed in parliament. Egyptian women are not less efficient than their
counterparts in the Muslim world and the West.
All of the
elected women have expressed their disappointment with the lack of female
candidate’s success at the polls, blaming the fact that women were put at the
end of lists, significantly reducing their chances of winning. They are also
critical of the fact that women have been left out of leadership committees
after the revolution. But interestingly, they are united in their opposition to
any quota system. Quotas, a popular approach across the Middle East to
bring more women into politics, have a decidedly bad rap in Egypt.
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Gender in Climate Change and
Disaster Risk Reduction
New Climate Agreement Increases Gender
Equality Commitments
Gender equality
issues rose a step higher on the international climate change agenda at the
recently concluded UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa. The Durban Platform
that resulted from the meeting highlights an unprecedented 11 commitments to
gender equality, including in a widely heralded new agreement to create an
international Green Climate Fund. The creation of the Green Climate Fund marks
the first time that a climate finance mechanism will be established with gender
aspects integrated from the onset, including in its objectives and guiding
principles, operational modalities, and goal for gender balance on its board and
secretariat. It will support efforts both to mitigate the greenhouse gas
emissions that cause climate change, and adapt to the consequences of warming,
from natural disasters to changes in agricultural productivity. Prominent women
at the climate talks highlighted the roles that women play in climate change.
Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland who now chairs the Mary Robinson
Foundation–Climate Justice noted: “We have an opportunity if we link the
leadership of women at the grass-roots, their wisdom, their knowledge, their
coping mechanisms with the fact that more and more women are ministers and
leaders who have access to the negotiating tables…where decisions are being
taken.” In Durban, UN Women played a critical role in providing technical
support to Delegations that intervened on behalf of gender dimensions and
advocating for broader recognition of the gender dimensions of global warming,
working with key partners. UN Women is an Official Observer to the
United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC),
under which international climate talks take place.
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Two years after the devastating
earthquake in Haiti
Two years ago, a powerful 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit
Haiti, leaving in its wake a trail of massive destruction
including more than 200,000 people dead and 2.3 million
people displaced. One of the largest humanitarian responses
ever mounted was launched to provide assistance to the
survivors of the most destructive urban disaster in recent
history. Ten months later, humanitarian actors faced a new
crisis when a severe cholera epidemic broke and spread
rapidly across the entire country. Two years on, a sustained
and colossal humanitarian operation in response to the
earthquake and the cholera epidemic has yielded remarkable
results and continues to save lives. Today, almost one
million people have moved from camps to homes. The collapse
of 70,000 buildings generated 10 million cubic metres of
debris, 50 per cent of which has now been removed.
Transitional shelters have been provided to 420,000 people.
Schools and hospitals have been rebuilt, and more children
are being educated today than before the earthquake. A joint
national contingency plan, developed with the international
community for the first time, has been replicated in all 10
departments in Haiti should another major natural disaster
strike the country. Since the beginning of the cholera
epidemic, health partners have scaled up human and material
capacities to support the Ministry of Public Health and
Population (MSPP). Haiti is taking the road to recovery,
with several large-scale reconstruction projects being
launched. But humanitarian assistance will still be needed
in 2012 to provide basic services to more than half a
million displaced people still stranded in camps. And it
will still be needed to contain the cholera epidemic that
has so far killed 7,000 people and infected 500,000
Haitians.
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For Chaluay
Kawaonag, and her community in the province of Pathum Thani in Thailand, the
flood waters that inundated their homes in October were not unexpected. About 46
kilometres from Thailand’s bustling capital of Bangkok, they live in the
low-lying areas by the Chao Phraya river, along canals that feed the paddy
fields. However, no one anticipated the extent of damage that the floods would
cause. Patum Thani, an industrial province, bordering the capital city of
Bangkok, was severely impacted with flood damage affecting property, livestock
and income. According to the World Bank, overall damage from the floods in
Thailand amounts to THB 1.44 trillion, leaving many farms, factories and workers
affected. With food supplies limited, water levels above 2 metres, pregnant
women and babies needing urgent attention, and elderly populations refusing to
leave their homes and go to the
evacuation
centres,
community members like Chaluay Kawaonag, as the Chairperson of the local
committee, took the lead in coping with the disaster. She worked with a
core group
of leaders
— many of them women — from 28 neighboring communities to mobilize, draw up the
daily plan to cook and feed the 3050 households in the area, along with the
thousands of outsiders stranded due to the floods. With women and elderly facing
different needs ranging from limited mobility to lack of privacy and safety
concerns, they gathered boats to bring people to safe quarters like the local
temple, to relay messages to the municipality that much more than relief kits
were needed, such as medicines and milk powder for the infants, to resolve
burglaries and conflicts in the evacuation camps, andl to also undertake a
mapping study of the population and their needs, in order to be prepared better
for the future.
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Farmers Bet on Climate-Proof Crops
With floods, droughts and other calamities battering deltaic Bangladesh
regularly, farmers need little prompting in switching to climate-resistant
varieties of rice, wheat, pulses and other staples. The crop diversification,
actively supported by the government’s research institutions, is already
benefitting the 145 million people of this densely populated, predominantly
agricultural South Asian country. Mosammet Sabera Begum, 38, a farmer in
Purbadebu village, Rangpur district, about 370 km from the capital, earned
Bangladeshi taka 14,000 (177 dollars) last summer selling paddy cultivated on
two acres of land leased from a local landlord. "I’d planted ‘paijam’ (an early
maturing rice breed) which is ready for harvest about 30 days earlier than
traditional varieties that take 150 days. It is superior in quality, has higher
yield and fetches better pric," said Sabera, mother of two teenage girls. The
rice variety that Sabera resorted to, developed last year by the Bangladesh
Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA,) withstands floods, drought and pest
attacks and gives 4.5 - 5.5 tonnes per hectare compared to regular varieties
which yield a maximum of three tonnes per hectare. Far in the southwest,
43-year-old Nargis Ara Begum dries harvested paddy in an open courtyard that she
and her husband, Mukul Miah, had cultivated on highly saline soil. "We never
expected to get such a good harvest in salty soil," said Nargis who owns the
small granary next to her home in the Chaukani village of Satkhira district,
located some 320 km southwest of Dhaka. Nargis and her husband had cultivated a
rice variety developed by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) named,
‘BRRI -47’, which survives highly saline and water-logged conditions.
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Melting Ice Makes Arctic Access a Hot Commodity
China, Brazil and India want seats on the Arctic Council as global warming
creates new opportunities for shipping and resource extraction in the vast
Arctic region. There are concerns this is the beginning of a 21st century
"scramble for the Arctic", but rather than staking territorial claims, non-
Arctic countries want to exert economic and political influence in the region.
China already has a research station in Norway's high Arctic and is building an
8,000-tonne icebreaker. Canada has a great opportunity to become an influential
Arctic power, and to ensure the resource-rich but fragile region doesn't become
a "Wild West" where the views of indigenous and other longstanding residents are
ignored, said Tony Penikett, former premier of the Yukon, one of Canada's three
Arctic territories. The council is unique amongst international bodies by
including six Arctic indigenous groups as permanent members along with eight
countries with Arctic territories: Canada, Russia, the United States, Norway,
Finland, Sweden, Iceland and Denmark (Greenland). However, only these countries
have a vote. The European Union, other European nations, Japan and South Korea
have indicated they want observer status as well. Climate change and its
consequences are the overriding issue in the Arctic. Canada could be a leader -
but it won't under the Harper government. Under the Harper government, Canada
has been a "rogue state" at international climate meetings and its rejection of
the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to reduce carbon emissions causing
climate change. Instead of reducing those emissions by six percent as agreed in
the treaty, Canada's emissions soared 24 percent. Last month, as reported by IPS,
the Harper government
pulled out of Kyoto.
Canada is seen to have a retrograde position on climate change. That will make
it challenging to be an effective leader on the Council.
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Campaigns
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in cooperation with
International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction
Training on Making
Disaster Risk
Reduction
Gender Responsive
(MDGR)
(the first CAPWIP MDGR
training to be held)
for women and men involved
in disaster risk reduction programs/policies;
parliamentarians,
legislators (national / local) interested/involve
in disaster risk reduction
policies/programs;
political parties, local
governments (city/municipality)
and the government
bureaucracy involved in disaster risk reduction;
training institutes
involved in gender and disaster risk reduction;
international and local
disaster agencies/organizations;
human rights and other
civil society groups;
humanitarian organizations
involved in disaster risk reduction.
Training Venue: Manila
International Youth Hostel
(MIYH)Conference Center
Training
Date
(November 2012)
SECRETARIAT:
Center for Asia Pacific Women in Politics (CAPWIP)
4227-4229 Tomas Claudio Street,
Parañaque City, Metro Manila, Philippines,
Tele
Fax: (632) 8522112 Fax: (632) 8514954 Mobile
Phon (63) 917 8403711
Email:
capwip@capwip.org;
trainings@capwip.org;
mdgr.capwip@gmail.com
Web:
www.capwip.org;
www.onlinewomeninpolitics.org
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The Countdown to 2015 in Maternal, Newborn &
Child Survival
|
Countdown to 2015 Initiative
·
Tracking progress of countries
towards the achievement of MDGs
4 and 5 is critical to the work
done by The Partnership and its
members. Key to this undertaking
is an initiative coordinated by
The Partnership which focuses on
68 priority countries which
represent 97% of all global
maternal and child deaths.
The Countdown to 2015 Initiative
measures coverage of basic
health services proven to reduce
maternal and child mortality and
assesses domestic and donor
resources, the strength of
health systems, the status of
policies related to maternal,
newborn and child health and how
equitably health services are
distributed. The Countdown also
works to create accountability
amongst governments and
development partners and
identifies knowledge gaps and
proposes new actions to reach
Millennium Development Goals 4
and 5.
Link to the Countdown to 2015
MNCH website
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Other News
Female Unemployment Rises With
Education
Every weekend it has been the same ritual for so many months. Buying the
newspaper, going through the classified and the employment sections inch by
column inch, marking job offers that could offer a chance, even remotely. Next
comes the posting of applications, then the wait for interviews. That is as far
as Harshini Hathurusinghe has gone. Her friend Anupama Ganegoda has seen life on
the other side of the dreaded interview, twice. But both were temporary posts
that soon folded. "I don't know, but for some reason I have never got a job,"
Hathurusinghe said. She is qualified, holds a post-graduate diploma and speaks
passable English. But she says that jobs on offer for women like her are far too
few for the ever-increasing applicants. Her friend has had a similar experience
despite the two short employment stints; no jobs in the last year and a half. "I
think women are getting a raw deal," she said. Such inability to secure a job is
common in Sri Lanka where unemployment rates among females are higher across the
board. The latest labour force data released by the government's Department of
Census and Statistics listed overall unemployment at 4.2 percent by the middle
of last year. The figure changes when men and women are taken separately. They
were 4.4 percent and 11.6 percent for males and females respectively. The more
educated women like Hathurusinghe and Ganegoda are, the higher the rate of
unemployment. This shows the problem of unemployment is more acute in the case
of educated females than educated males.
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Safe Houses Provide Critical
Support to Survivors of Violence in Haiti
“Please come with me tomorrow, come with me tomorrow as
you did today with the other teenager.” This is the cry
from 13-year-old Johanne to Monique, a counselor at the
Myriam Merlet Safe House of Cape Haitian, when police
sent her home after she filed a complaint for rape she
was a victim of the day before. Monique and Johanne had
met at the police station a few hours earlier. Monique
was at the time accompanying 15-year-old orphan Nadja,
who was pregnant following repeated rapes of one of the
men at the house she had recently been taken in. Two
years since a catastrophic 7.0 earthquake shook Haiti on
12 January 2010, support to survivors of violence, such
as Johanne and Nadja, remains critical in a country that
continues to re-build itself from ground up. Responding
to the need, UN Women provided technical support to six
safe houses across five regions in Haiti this past year.
Supported by UN Women through the programme “Economic
security, autonomy and women’s right,” the safe houses
provide training to practitioners and counselors, as
well as mentoring and clinical supervision. The Ministry
for Women Condition and Women’s Rights (MCFDF) has also
provided support by establishing standard operating
procedures and a manual of norms for safe houses.
According to Denise Amedee, the main contributor to the
manual and director of the Yvonne Hakim Rimpel Safe
House, by turning theafe ouse run by the MCFDF into a
training center.These trainings are essential to ensure
that every woman, no matter where they live, have equal
access to quality services, including counselling,
medical services, and police and judiciary services.
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Call for more coordinated approach to child protection
A new report on child migration in West Africa says thousands of children
are being sold, exchanged or transported out of their communities each year
in violation of internationally-recognized rights of the child, and calls on
the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to persuade
governments to better protect these children. Children may leave
their communities because of conflict within the family, or the desire for
education, apprenticeships or job opportunities to help their families. Some
parents force their children to leave, but often departure is voluntary and
motivated by the quest for a better life. Zelmet Fatimah and Zeydata Amina
from Niger, two girls who beg along the Teteh Quarshie Interchange, a busy
highway in the Ghanaian capital Accra, say they left home because of hunger.
“There is no food there,” said Zeydata, “I come here every day with my
sisters and my parents to beg for money. I beg because we don’t have money
and I am hungry.” However, push factors are many and varied: “The children’s
motivations are rooted in the current changing world… It is misleading to
believe that a state, civil society and development partners have the
capacity and sufficient legitimacy to end, simply, this many-sided practice
of child mobility,” said the report. The migration of children is not always
a negative phenomenon: migrant children send money home. Those from the same
community might collectively fund a project. Harouna said this had been the
case in some villages in the Niger region of Makalondi, near the border with
Burkina Faso, where migrant children had jointly paid to build a school for
their community.
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Stepping Naturally Away from Plastic
Maya Stella,
a restaurant manager in the capital of Cameroon, no longer uses plastic to
wrap the corn-fufu that she sells to her customers. She now uses banana or
plantain leaves because these are "natural and it is an
African culture to use leaves in wrapping food. "The
food really has a nice flavour when it is wrapped in banana leaves," says
Professor Agatha Tanya, a nutritionist at the University of Yaoundé 1. The
secretary general at the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable
Development, Patrick Akwa, has lauded the gradual return to the use of
leaves as an important step towards environmental protection. "Used plastics
very easily degrade the environment if not properly disposed of, but used
banana leaves can be thrown away to decay naturally," he says. The
immediate reason why Stella has gone back to these "traditional wrapping
papers" is because of a news report on state radio
that using plastic to wrap food is dangerous to human health. The
warning note came from Maurice Dikonta, a chemistry lecturer and researcher
at the University of Yaoundé 1. He has been making research on
plastics and polymers for the past 15 years. Initially driven by academic
interest, Dikonta now believes what he has found out could help save lives:
"When you want to make those plastics have a nice,
smooth form, you add plasticisers. These plasticisers will not stay in the plastic
once you put them in a microwave oven or if you use them to wrap hot food.
The plasticisers will evaporate under such conditions and enter your
food. Each time you eat food wrapped in plastic, you
are actually consuming those plasticisers, which are toxic."
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Mutilated for venturing outdoors
Opposition by the Taliban to girls` education,
propaganda against it through illegal FM radio channels, threats and the
declaring of girls` education a “vulgarity” and un-Islamic, were preventing
parents from sending their daughters to schools. Zuleikha
Bibi told IRIN from her village near the town of Wana that she had heard of
women being mutilated by militants, for “offences” such as venturing
outdoors without a male escort. "You who live outside the tribal areas
cannot imagine what fear we women live in,” she said. “Here, in South
Waziristan, there have been cases of Taliban bursting into homes to `check’
on women's morality. My teenage cousin had her hair chopped off because her
head was not properly covered, just a few months back.”
Maryum Bibi,
chief executive of the Peshawar-based NGO
Khwendo Kor
(Sister's Home), said: "Despite the official stance that the
Taliban have been defeated, they remain present in remote areas. Women live
in terror and have told me their stories of exploitation, harassment or
other forms of terrible violence by militants.” She said accounts contained
in a recent study by her organization, which spoke of militants slicing off
the breasts of a mother feeding her baby inside her home, had been
verified by field workers. "I have met displaced women who were asked by
security staff at camps for sexual favours in exchange for food. Women also lived in terror in settled areas with Taliban
domination, such as Tank District in Khyber Paktoonkhwa Province.
The plight of these women is terrible. It will change only if male mindsets
can be altered," she added.
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click archives to go to
collection of articles
Updated: January 20, 2012
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