Ten Years Later–The ‘Liberation’ Of Afghan Women

 Comments Off
Oct 052011
 

When the United States attacked Afghanistan ten years ago, we were told that not only were we going after those who had attacked us but also that we would liberate Afghan women from the Taliban.  It was a very effective selling point, there is nothing we tend to like better than rescuing helpless women.  But let’s be clear–that was not the reason we invaded Afghanistan–women had been being abused by the Taliban and the warlords before them for quite some time by then.  As we observe the 10th anniversary of what now seems like an endless war, it is important to look at what Afghan women have experienced since the U.S. invasion and what needs to be considered going forward.

ActionAid and Oxfam have both issued lengthy reports addressing these issues.  In a survey of 1000 Afghan women, ActionAid found that,

72% of Afghan women believe their lives are better now than they were 10 years ago, while 37% think Afghanistan will become a worse place if international troops leave. A massive 86% are worried about a return to Taliban-style government, with one in five citing their daughter’s education as the main concern…

…However women’s rights groups in Afghanistan say they are being kept in the dark regarding the talks with the Taliban, as well as being frozen out of an important international conference on the country’s future and transition of power, which will take place in Bonn, Germany in December 2011…

…Women who have stood up for women’s rights in the past 10 years are also worried about their own personal safety if the Taliban returns to power, with some activists making plans to leave the country.

The report goes on to say that today,

  • 39% of children who attend school are girls
  • 27% of MPs are women (higher than the world average)
  • 5% of positions in the army and police force are filled by women
  • 25% of government jobs are filled by women

These achievements are real and should not be underestimated. Yet huge challenges remain and too many women are still denied rights that should be taken for granted. Even now, a woman who runs away from home to escape domestic abuse is seen as dishonouring her family and often loses the right to see her children.

Forced and child marriage are common and only 13% of women are literate (the figure for men is 43%). Eighty-seven per cent of all women in Afghanistan suffer domestic abuse, according to a UN survey and life expectancy for both men and women is around 45 – more than 20 years lower than the world average. The Save the Children index this May described Afghanistan as the worst place in the world to be a mother – one in 11 women perishes in pregnancy (one every 30 minutes) while one child in every five dies before reaching its fifth birthday. This means that every mother in Afghanistan is likely to face the loss of a child. And many women remain isolated. The ActionAid poll found that four in 10 women never leave their village or neighbourhood.

It is important to note, which this report does not, that not only do women run away from home to escape domestic abuse, but all too often they attempt suicide to escape, frequently setting themselves on fire to do so.  The abuse itself is often horrific beyond description, including brutal disfigurement and outright murder.

As for where we are now, ActionAid reports,

“After the fall of the Taliban things got better. But then gradually, after 2006, the situation got worse,” says Selay Ghaffar, executive director of ActionAid partner HAWCA. “All these efforts were undermined because of security and the presence of people who committed crimes and abuses in the past who are still in power. Girls’ schools shut down, acid was thrown in girls’ faces, schools were burnt down.”…

…And despite the early statements from international leaders, women’s rights seem to have been deprioritised as the military operation against the Taliban and other insurgents has been stepped up…

This is  delusional phrasing–women’s rights have never been the priority in Afghanistan except to the extent that they are politically expedient towards other ends.  The report continues,

…In September last year the Afghan government set up a High Peace Council – a 79-member body which is tasked with talking to the Taliban. There are just nine women on the council and many women’s rights activists say they hold merely symbolic positions and are not part of the real negotiations.

…The international community can also support Afghan women through deeper engagement with women’s civil society and community-based organisations. Direct funding to women’s organisations to build their capacity as advocates and leaders will enable funds to aid transformation to a more democratic society, not just facilitate transition without the promise of sustainable change…

…However, providing this support will require a fresh look at funding priorities, and methods to ensure aid reaches women and can address the root causes of women’s inequality. Women’s organisations working to reduce poverty and empower women and girls say they receive little or no funding, forcing them to operate hand to mouth and limit activities to practical services rather than also being able to lobby for long-term changes for women….

…In addition the international community should broaden diplomatic efforts to include consultations and information sharing with women’s organisations. Amplifying the concerns of women’s organisations and ensuring women’s voices are heard is a valuable role the international community can play.

Conspicuously absent in ActionAid’s analysis is the existence of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1889 as  framework for conflict resolution and peace negotiating which are however addressed by Oxfam (see below).

According to Oxfam,

Western leaders have a responsibility toward Afghan women, not least because protection of women’s rights was sold as a positive outcome of the international intervention in October 2001. Ten years on, however, time is running out to fulfill these promises.

The Afghan government and the international community must:

  • Ensure women’s rights are not sacrificed, by publicly pledging that any political settlement must explicitly guarantee women’s rights;
  • Make a genuine commitment to meaningful participation of women in all phases and levels of any peace processes.

The Afghan government must:

  • Enhance efforts to increase representation of women in elected bodies and government institutions at all levels to 30 per cent;
  • Encourage religious leaders to speak out on women’s rights in Islam;
  • Intensify efforts to promote female access to education, health, justice, and other basic services.

The Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defence must:

  • Improve awareness of women’s rights and human rights law in the justice and security sector, and ensure effective imple- mentation of these laws;
  • Increase substantially women recruits in the security and justice sectors.

The international community must:

  • Support expanded civic education programmes to raise awareness of women’s rights at community level;
  • Support efforts to improve female leadership;
  • Intensify support to promote access to education and other key services, and ensure this support will continue at current or in- creased levels even as international military forces prepare to withdraw.

The UN must:

  • Continue to monitor all government actions including the peace processes and provide increased support to the Afghan government on all negotiation, reconciliation, and reintegra- tion processes.

The report points to the dichotomy between the current lip-service regarding Afghan women and the realities of how the issue is being approached,

Publicly, Western politicians are still backing Afghan women. In July 2011, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated her commitment to women, saying: ‘Any potential for peace will be subverted if women and ethnic minorities are marginalised or silenced…And so when we look at what will happen in Afghanistan, the United States will not abandon our values or support a political process that undoes the progress that has been made in the past decade.’ But behind the scenes it is less clear what will happen if the Taliban make demands that require compromise on women’s rights, as the US government prepares to withdraw the majority of its troops by the end of 2014 and seeks a political settlement to bring an end to the fighting. In July 2011, a Washington Post article reported one USAID official as saying ‘gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities’.This reflects ‘growing realism’ tempering expectations of what they can achieve on the ground after ten years. As one analysis puts it, ‘On this list of priorities, ‘gender’ is generally seen as a luxury to be left aside until the supposedly gender-neutral objectives in the domains of security and governance have been achieved.’ (Emphasis mine.)

Let’s be very clear here–gender issues have always taken a back seat.  This isn’t a question of ‘growing realism’, it is a question of persistent, pandemic misogyny that has infested and damaged life on this planet since the dawn of patriarchy.  It is precisely the stupidity of seeing these issues as a luxury that undermines any realistic achievement of security since the day men first started going to war.  But as Oxfam points out,

The vital role of women in peace-building at the national level and in peace negotiations has been recognised in UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1889, applicable to all UN member states, including Afghanistan. The Afghan government reaffirmed its support for women’s role in peace-building in its national peace plan, the donor-funded Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP), which began to be rolled out nationwide in early 2011.

Yet women are currently under-represented or not represented at all in the APRP, which augurs poorly for female participation in any future formal peace talks with the Taliban. There are just nine women on the 70-member High Peace Council (HPC), which was created to lead the peace process. Many of the male members are former warlords and powerbrokers who do not take their female counterparts seriously. The APRP has also established provincial peace councils under the HPC, composed of between 20 and 35 members, with a minimum of three women, one of whom must be a representative from the Department of Women’s Affairs (DoWA). However, no council as yet has more than three female members. Women at the community level have little understanding of APRP; their formal role, at the moment, is unclear but is likely to be limited to involvement in community development programmes. According to a provincial DoWA head, ‘although women have great potential as negotiators and peacebuilders, the will and commitment from Kabul to involve them is almost nil.’

In their conclusions, Oxfam writes that, “words must be matched with action and firm guarantees,” and this is indeed true but not sufficient.  Our words in regard to Afghan women were used in 2001 as a tool to garner support for the invasion of Afghanistan, not a call on its own merits to address Afghan human rights issues.  Just bringing women to the table will not be enough–it must be insured that the women who come to the table are not puppet window dressing proxies for warlords or the Taliban and that they are allowed to safely speak freely and that their words be taken seriously.

The most crucial point to be made however is that while women’s human rights, progress and security are a huge concern, they should not be construed as a reason for continued, never ending foreign military presence in Afghanistan, which is only aggravating the continuing violence that pervades the country.  Killing and maiming people does not secure human rights, it destroys them.  There is no possibility of living in peace until the violence ends.  It is time to disarm the warring factions within Afghanistan and for the U.S. military to leave–only then will there be a realistic chance for women’s human rights in Afghanistan.

 

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on October 5, 2011

The HPV Vaccine Debate And The Unhealthy Corporatization Of Our Political Process And Public Policy Decisions

 3 Responses »
Sep 152011
 

In his critique of the recent CNN/Tea Party sponsored Republican presidential candidates debate, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart described the set as looking like the inside of Betsy Ross’s vagina.  Crude but apt for a debate that saw two candidates stumble badly on the unlikely political football that the HPV vaccine has become.

As has been well reported, Texas Governor Rick Perry has been trying to distance himself from his highly publicized effort to mandate the vaccination of all girls in Texas because in addition to sounding like the dreaded idea of  government interference in our lives which strikes maniacal fear in the hearts of Tea Partiers, it has served to highlight the large donations Perry has received from Merck, the maker of the HPV vaccine Gardisil.  Michele Bachmann, not wanting to be left out, then claimed that she had heard from a mother whose daughter became mentally retarded because of the vaccine, a claim that is questionable and certainly not proven.  All of which has served to kick up some major dust in the absurd debate about whether it is un-American big government at its worst to mandate vaccinations as opposed to being un-American to not vaccinate children because it imperils public health.

Unfortunately, both stances not only lack subtlety, they  completely miss the real issues involved that need to be addressed in regard to the HPV vaccine.  In 2007, after Perry’s short-lived effort to mandate HPV vaccination, I pointed to some of the problematic issues in the debate about Gardisil:

Cervical cancer is only expected to cause 3,670 deaths in the U.S. in 2007, a miniscule percentage (less than 2%) of the 270,000 deaths from the disease worldwide and only 1% of the total annual number of deaths from all cancers in the United States.

While cervical cancer used to be one of the deadliest diseases for women in the U.S., the number of deaths it causes has dropped dramatically (by 74% from 1955-1992) and it continues to drop). Why then are so many states considering mandating a vaccine that costs $300-$500 per patient for a type of cancer that is already largely under control in this country and which can be almost entirely prevented by regular gynecological checkups and Pap smears?

Merck & Co., the giant pharmaceutical company that makes the vaccine Gardasil, (spent) millions of dollars lobbying state legislators. In Texas… Gov. Perry received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his last campaign. One of Merck’s key lobbyists in Texas is Perry’s former chief-of-staff, the mother-in-law of his current chief-of-staff, and the state director of Women in Government, a national advocacy group of female state legislators that has received substantial funds from Merck.

It is important to note that low-income women and women who do not have health insurance are most at risk because they are less likely to get regular Pap smears. More than half of the diagnosed cases of cervical cancer are in women who have not had a Pap smear in three years. While Gov. Perry has mandated that the state of Texas foot the bill for those who can’t afford the expensive HPV vaccine, it is unclear where those funds would come from either in Texas or in other states that are considering making the vaccine mandatory. And obviously the cost of the vaccine makes it prohibitive in the countries where it is most needed and would potentially do the most good.

What is clear is that Merck has a substantial financial interest in the vaccine becoming mandatory even though the added benefit to public health is both minimal and costly. With more than 10 million girls in the U.S. between the ages of 10-14, the drug company stands to make billions of dollars preventing a disease that is already treatable in the targeted population. Since the vaccine does not eliminate the need for regular Pap smears, it would appear that a far more appropriate and cost effective first step would be to make regular gynecological healthcare available for all women regardless of income and medical insurance, particularly since this step by itself would go a long way in reducing the few cases of cervical cancer that still occur in this country.

There is however another significant public health concern in regards to the HPV vaccine, namely that it is a very new drug with no history. We are of course being told that it is perfectly safe and has few side effects, but we were also told that about Thalidomide, DES, and Hormone Replacement Therapy. Negative health concerns have also been raised about other children’s vaccines and the Anthrax vaccine given to those in the armed forces as well as drugs such as Vioxx, another Merck drug.

While Merck says that Gardasil is 100% effective in preventing the two types of the HPV virus that cause 70% of all cervical cancer, questions have arisen about these results. In an article in Healthfacts, Maryann Napoli, associate director of the Center for Medical Consumers reports that according to Barbara Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center and a former member of the FDA Vaccines and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee, the placebos in Merck’s studies contained aluminum (which is reported to cause inflammation and cell death in animals and humans) rather than saline solution, which according to Fisher “violates the principle of scientific method…making it hard to tell whether the many adverse events reported were due to the use of aluminum in both the placebo and the drug or to the Gardasil itself.

And in an essay published in The New York Times in July 2006, Roni Rabin points out that most of the subjects in the Merck trials were women over the age of 16. Rabin found that the vaccine was only tested on 1,200 girls under the age of 16. In addition, the vaccine is so new that it is not yet known for how long it will be effective or whether a booster will be required. It is also important to note that Merck’s own literature states that Gardasil, “has not been evaluated for the potential to cause carcinogenicity or genotoxicity.”

I also discussed Merck’s marketing campaign and the fast tracking of the FDA approval of Gardisil here,

The New York Times ran several articles by Elizabeth Rosenthal (here and here) that finally address the points that I had raised. Rosenthal writes that, according to the New England Journal of Medicine,

“Two vaccines against cervical cancer are being widely used without sufficient evidence about whether they are worth their high cost or even whether they will effectively stop women from getting the disease.”

Those are rather serious issues considering that 16 million doses of the drug have already been distributed in this country alone, at a cost of $360 and upwards for a series of 3 shots, putting a serious crimp on the pocketbooks of parents and public health agencies and billions of dollars into the Merck coffers. And as Rosenthal points out, while cervical cancer is a major killer in developing countries,

“In developed countries, Pap smear screening and treatment have effectively reduced cervical cancer death rates to very low levels already. There are 3,600 deaths annually from cervical cancer in the United States, 1,000 in France and 400 in Britain.

Given that there are still serious unknowns about the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine, it is important to examine the sudden concern about HPV and cervical cancer.

“”Merck lobbied every opinion leader, women’s group, medical society, politicians, and went directly to the people — it created a sense of panic that says you have to have this vaccine now,” said Dr. Diane Harper, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School. Dr. Harper was a principal investigator on the clinical trials of both Gardasil and Cervarix, and she spent 2006-7 on sabbatical at the World Health Organization developing plans for cervical cancer vaccine programs around the world.

“Because Merck was so aggressive, it went too fast,” Dr. Harper said. “I would have liked to see it go much slower.”

In receiving expedited consideration from the Food and Drug Administration, Gardasil took six months from application to approval and was recommended by the C.D.C. weeks later for universal use among girls. Most vaccines take three years to get that sort of endorsement, Dr. Harper said, and then 5 to 10 more for universal acceptance.”

And as anyone who watches television, reads teen and women’s magazines or has been in a pediatrician or gynecologists office lately knows, the Merck marketing campaign was indeed quite impressive. The campaign has included such tactics as getting hundreds of doctors as unofficial spokesmen (paying them $4500 for each talk given about Gardisil), letting girls sign up to get text messages reminding them to get their next dose of the vaccine (as long as they let Merck use the information they provide for marketing purposes) and funding ‘awareness’ conferences, sometimes not so transparently.  Merck also has provided substantive funding to legislative groups such as “Women In Government”, a group that suddenly appeared from nowhere to champion the vaccine (see this earlier post detailing the funding trail for this seemingly impartial group.)
There are also serious questions about the use of health dollars on this very expensive vaccine,

“(W)ith their high price, the vaccines are straining national and state health budgets as well as family pocketbooks. These were the first vaccines approved for universal use in any age group that clearly cost the health system money rather than saved it, in contrast to less expensive shots, against measles and tetanus, for example, that pay for themselves by preventing costly diseases.”

“Looked at another way, countries that pay for the vaccines will have less money available for other health needs. “This kind of money could be better used to solve so many other problems in women’s health,” said Dr. (Abby) Lippman at McGill (University). “Some of our provinces are running out of money to provide primary care. I’m not against vaccines, but in Canada and the U.S., women are not dying in the streets of cervical cancer.”"

Another concern is that since it is not yet known for how many years the vaccine provides protection, the vaccine could actually cause more deaths by, “giving girls false security that they are protected for life and no longer need to be screened.”

To be very clear, it is should be obvious that we should be completely in favor of a vaccine that effectively saves lives. The uncomfortable truth however  is that our health care decisions are all too often predicated by the corporate  bottom line rather than the public good.  When a large pharmaceutical company launches a huge advertising campaign and sprinkles huge campaign contributions around to secure the fast-track approval and use of a very expensive vaccine with known efficacy and safety issues (for an informed discussion of this, please see Marcia G. Yerman’s series on the HPV vaccine that begins here), we need to raise a caution flag. The key issue that we need to keep sight of  is how large corporations are framing (and funding) our political debate and the harm that does to our health and well-being.

———-

Addenda:  For more on Perry’s links to Merck, see this.

And while I don’t totally agree with her viewpoint on vaccines, Amanda Marcotte points to the issue of sexual control which is most definitely part of the rightwing argument against the HPV vaccine.  While I have questions about the vaccine, this kind of thinking is obviously harmful and should not be a factor in making decisions about this vaccine.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on September 15, 2011

10 Years After 9/11–The Undeclared War Against Women Rages On

 Comments Off
Sep 072011
 

Ten years ago, after the World Trade Center towers crumbled, the United States declared a war on terror. At first we were told we would defeat the enemy quickly. But that war with its ever-shifting enemies and goals continues today with no end in sight. In late 2001, we were told that one of the reasons it was imperative that we attack Afghanistan was to liberate Afghan women from the Taliban. And then a few months later we were told that we must also rescue Iraqi women.

But the truth is that women’s human rights were never a priority, merely an excuse for exerting military domination. Today in Afghanistan and Iraq, the problems faced by women are myriad, little has been improved and much has been made worse. In Afghanistan, women continue to be maimed and beaten and their maternal mortality rate continues to be the second highest in the world. In Iraq, trafficking of women has increased dramatically, women human rights defenders are attacked in public places and women’s health, jobs and education has suffered dramatically as a result of the U.S. invasion.

Looking beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, the gender-specific impact of war and violence is all too apparent throughout the world.

  • It is not possible to say that  women’s lives are a priority while we stand by as crises like the never-ending mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of Congo continue unabated.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority while women refugees are raped in Somali refugee camps or while women are murdered in Guatemala and Mexico and their killers go unpunished.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority when women’s reproductive rights are under siege in the U.S. and throughout the world.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority when women are afraid to walk down the street for fear of being attacked and harassed or of going home and being beaten and raped behind closed doors.
  • It is not possible to say that women’s lives are a priority when women are more likely to be food insecure, have less access to education and earn less than men throughout the world.

The monumental irony is that it has been proven time and time again that when women do not live in fear and when they have equal access to food and education and work, we are all better off and there is less likelihood of violence.  We cannot improve women’s lives by bombing their countries and when conflict does occur, we cannot truly resolve it unless women have a full and equal stake in the peace-making.

The only way to end terrorism is to quit creating terrifying conditions and the uncomfortable truth is that in the years since the World Trade Center towers fell, the U.S. has done everything in its power to create and further the conditions in which terror ferments.  As long as we persist on this path, we will live in a state of terror that only exacerbates the undeclared war on women.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on September 7, 2011

Reclaiming Her-Story–Time Out! Women Call Pre-Emptive Strike For Peace

 Comments Off
Mar 232011
 

In our continuing look at the Feminist Peace Network’s story as part of Women’ History Month, we were a signatory to this letter in 2003.  In retrospect one wonders if this should be an annual call.  Imagine if we took this path instead of using embargoes and no-fly zones.

TIME OUT! WOMEN CALL PREEMPTIVE STRIKE FOR PEACE

Open letter to the United Nations Security Council

Women call a Preemptive Strike for Peace as the clearest expression of our informed, collective self-interest. Peace best enables our lives and the lives of our offspring, our brothers, fathers, spouses and partners, families, friends, neighbors and fellow human beings, wherever they live.  Peace among humans is the necessary condition to rescue our beleaguered planet and it may well be the imperative for species survival.

According to the Global Action To Prevent War: “The past century was the most lethal in human history. There were 250 wars, including two worldwide wars and a cold war, with more dead than in all previous wars of the past two thousand years. Over six million more have died even after the cold war ended, when things should have changed for the better.

This situation must not continue into this new century and it does not have to.”

WE cannot allow it. We Must Act Now. Our approach is not idealistic. It is a pragmatic, relevant, achievable response to war. Everywhere (and historically) non-combatant women, adolescent girls and children are the most brutalized victims of war. Violence against this population is the most relentlessly cruel and widespread violence of war. All conditions that produce and reproduce such violence should be intolerable to every woman and man and to every institution designed to organize human life.

What We Want

We request the UN Security Council

  1. To join us in calling TIME OUT on war. To help mobilize every UN Agency, especially all those mandated with the protection and well being of women and children, to invoke the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Beijing Platform on Women, to declare the impending war on Iraq (and by default in the whole region), illegal, irresponsible, immoral, unnecessary and untenable showing a blatant disregard for the lives of women, adolescent girls and children. If anyone claims we can fight a war and protect the human rights of this population, we ask the question, what of the human rights of every human being to whom every human woman’s life is attached, and what of the universal nature of human rights?
  2. To request the Secretary General to submit information for consideration –in step with the weapons inspection and disarmament of Iraq–on the condition of women in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Caspian Basin the USA and Britain as their lives embroil in the stresses of war in its every phase…impending (USA, Britain, Caspian Basin); escalating (Iraq); under foreign military occupation (Afghanistan).  
  3. To hold the line on war, enforcing the weapons inspection and disarmament project in Iraq unhindered and un-pressed for time by all parties.
  4. To call for unhindered, immediate and ongoing restoration of the critical life-support infrastructure in Afghanistan and Iraq and clean up of the depleted uranium contamination in both countries
  5. To mobilize with the NGO’s Global Action Plan To Prevent War and The Hague Appeal For Peace for implementation of their programs of action moving towards the Abolition of War. The time to act is now, before the military machine roars into full gear and runs amok.
  6. To recognize that the UNSC Iraq weapons inspections and disarmament project has laid the groundwork and precedent for universal weapons inspections and disarmament and to push and call for it in every forum.
  7. To call an emergency global conference on The Root Cause of Conflict and The Culture of Peace. The conference will deliberate upon the problems and prospects of the Oil Industry and the International Weapons Industry and articulate action plans and timelines for their conversion to socially useful and sustainable industries. We propose that the conference be held in Baghdad as soon as possible, drawing ‘stakeholder’ participation from NGO’s and labor unions, government and industry.
  8. To mobilize UNESCO to hold a Middle East Cultural Festival in Iraq by early fall. The festival should include scholarly forums/ conferences on religion and peace, for example, Islam, Judaism, Christianity and World Peace, Mapping Peaceful Paths for our Children’s Children’s Children; health and healing, ecology and human culture, youth culture. We envision a great surge in International travel on missions of goodwill to replace the cold and cruel insanity of the war fever.

On October 28th. 2002, in the Secretary-General’s Statement To Security Council on Women, Peace and Security, Mr. Kofi Annan reported, …“patterns of discrimination against women and girls tend to be exacerbated in armed conflict…. But if women suffer the impact of conflict disproportionately, they are also key to the solution of conflict…However, with a few exceptions, women are not present at the formal negotiating tables and at formal peace negotiations. The report calls for greater representation of women in formal peace negotiations… The world can no longer afford to neglect the abuses to which women and girls are subjected in armed conflict and its aftermath, or to ignore the contributions that women make to the search for peace”.

Mr. Kofi Annan’s report was based on a 179 page study undertaken by his office in response to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. This historic resolution was unanimously adopted following an open discussion on October 24 & 25, 2000 when for the first time since its establishment in 1947, the UN Security Council  (UNSC) considered war from women’s perspective.  Better late than never.

UNSC Resolution 1325 reiterates the importance of bringing gender perspectives to the center of attention in all UN peace-making, peace-building, peacekeeping, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. The resolution provides a number of important operational mandates. They include:

  • Increase representation of women in decision-making for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict and peace processes (paras 1 and 2);
  • Increase appointment of women as special representatives and envoys (para 3);
  • … support local women’s peace initiatives; and ensure protection and respect for the human rights of women and girls (para 8);
  • Ensure respect for international law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls (para 9);
  • Adopt special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence (para 10);
  • Ensure that Security Council missions take gender considerations and rights of women into account, including through consultation with local and international women’s groups (para 15);
  • The Secretary General to carry out a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, the role of women in peace-building and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict resolution and submit a report to the Security Council (para 16);
  • The Secretary General to include in his reporting to the Security Council progress on gender mainstreaming throughout peacekeeping missions (para 17)

Any resolution is only as good as its full implementation. While the UN Secretary General’s study was underway, UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund For Women) commissioned a simultaneous, independent study reporting similar conclusions. Each of these studies and both should have certainly mobilized the UN system to call the UN’s overarching mandate into full operation. The Preamble to the Charter establishing the United Nations says:

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

  • to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.
  • to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small
  • to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
  • to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom

AND FOR THESE ENDS

  • to practice tolerance…in peace with one another as good neighbors
  • to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security
  • to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest…

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Clearly, war is not a “condition under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”.

Yet here we are, sliding precipitously into the Bush administrations WAR ON TERROR in terrifying and unconscionable disregard of the findings of two exhaustive reports and in direct contravention of our collective obligation under UNSC Resolution 1325 and a host of other treaties including the UN Charter and the UN Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

Women and men of good conscience must not allow this outrage. We are resolved to mobilize all resources in our power for peace. We urge every United Nations agency all National missions to the UN (signatories to the UN Charter) and all NGO’s to do the same.

We believe that the only appropriate follow up to UNSC Resolution 1325, is to implement the Hague Appeal For Peace: Replacing the law of force with the force of fair and just law. Ours is a human rights response. We assert our inalienable, common human right to Live Free of tyranny.

We have come through the bloodiest century in human history, with multiple, unprecedented, global attempts to chart a course for peaceful conflict resolution between and within nations. We have delineated in binding treaties, much of the international legal framework for peace. We have expressed our vision and intent in words. Now we must implement our common human will in action.

In the USA, Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and other leading women activists are mobilizing against the escalating war on Iraq under a Code Pink Alert. Starhawk, one of the leaders explains: “a Code Pink alert: signifying extreme danger to all the values of nurturing, caring, and compassion that women and loving men have held. We choose pink, the color of roses, the beauty that like bread is food for life; the color of the dawn of a new era when cooperation and negotiation prevail over force”.

Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness has helped to maintain a steady flow of Peace Teams into Iraq since the first Gulf War. Across the globe, organizations like Women In Black, Global Women Strike, have sent women into strife ravaged areas to be peacemakers. The Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom was founded on such actions.

In September, UNIFEM helped form a coalition of women in Azerbaijan to do peace work in the region. These are just a few of the many actions of Peace Women. Women of extraordinary courage and will are putting their lives on the line alongside men of conscience and humanity to prevent war. And this is not accounting for all the hundreds of thousands of courageous men organizing worldwide to avert war and work to bring us the sustainable world we envision.

Like the newly formed coalition in Azerbaijan, invoking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Beijing Declaration and Action Platform, the final documents of the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Women in Development: Equality Development and Peace Between Men and Women in the 21st. Century, the UNSC Resolution 1325, and CEDAW we invite all Women, all peace-loving institutions and all peaceful people of the world to join our call.

TIME OUT! WOMEN CALL PREMPTIVE STRIKE FOR PEACE.

ENDORSING ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS

Women’s International League For Peace And Freedom, NY Metro

Evelyn Mauss (board Member Physicians For Social Responsibility, Consultant National Resources Defense Council -for identification only)

MADRE

Deborah Gorham, Prof. Emerita, Dept.of History/Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Professor Harriet Alonso City College NY, Women’s Peace Historian, Author

Feminist Peace Network

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on March 23, 2011

Beyond Lara Logan–How We Address And Talk About The Pandemic Of Sexual Assault In The U.S. and Egypt

 Comments Off
Feb 212011
 

The media coverage and the U.S. response to the brutal attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan in Egypt last week has raised several troubling issues, particularly that sexual assault is a very common crime in this country and even more so in Egypt, but the reality is that few of those cases get the kind of attention the Logan assault has.  The Poynter Institute takes a good look at how the media covers less prominent cases of sexual assault and rape in this country here:

We miss many of these stories, in part, because the people involved don’t want them told. Sometimes we miss them because we start with breaking news, says Poynter’s Kelly McBride. If you begin with an individual crime, you focus on the specifics, the victim, the circumstances and lose the wider view. If we started at another point in the timeline of sexual violence, then we could tell different stories, she says.

And the problem is even worse in Egypt, as Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe,

Data compiled by the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics indicate that half of all married women experience violence in Egypt, usually at the hands of their husbands. A different study, cited by the 2009 Arab Human Development Report, estimated that 35 percent of married Egyptian women have been physically attacked — but the report cautions that violence against women is severely underreported in the Arab world, because “the subject is taboo’’ and women who file complaints are considered shamed.

It isn’t just the media that prefers to focus on the Logan case though.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told Egyptian authorities that she wants the Logan case thoroughly investigated, but she took a pass on using this as an opportunity to call for an improvement in women’s human rights in Egypt.  I have examined this and the tools available to us for substantively addressing those abuses in a piece that I wrote for RH Reality Check.  You can read the full piece here.

Finally, writer Ursula K. Le Guin offers this very well-said analysis of how to frame things in the aftermath of the Egyptian uprising:

Old Egypt is offering us a new and great opportunity: to break free from out-dated, noxious alignments and policies in the Middle East, to speak out for freedom from tyranny, to support a people reaching for democracy, to remember what being on the right side is like.

DeliciousFacebookGoogle+RedditStumbleUponTwitterPrintFriendlyEmailEvernoteDiggShare
 Posted by Fempeace on February 21, 2011
 Older Entries  Newer Entries