As the situation in Darfur continues, sexual violence remains in the forefront as a means of war and humiliation. As a result, survivors of sexual violence are not only ostracized by their families and communities but left to struggle alone with the long-term effects of this brutal victimization. Though they may find temporary sanctuary at a refugee camp and IDP settlement, survivors are still vulnerable to attacks during the day and night as the perpetrators wait outside the gates. At night, the perpetrators kidnap girls and bring them outside the camps to rape them. Sexual violence against women and girls is a very important issue, but more focus must be brought to solutions and the fact that though one may survive an attack, the emotional and physical scars run deep not only within the survivor but one’s society.

Article 1 of the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women defines violence against women as “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual, or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” Although rapes in Sudan do take place in private, many take place in public view in front of the victim’s family and community. If the rape is in private, the victim will most likely hide it from her relatives and community, in hopes of not being ostracized. However, when a woman is raped publically, her community has witnessed the rape and considers her as tainted. If she is married, her husband most likely will leave her. If she is unmarried, she will not be considered for marriage. As a result she is left without the economic support and physical protection of a husband, which is important to Sudanese culture, and left more vulnerable to further attacks.

Pregnant women are not spared from rape in Darfur either. Amnesty International received several reports of women raped during pregnancy, which often leads to the loss of the child and physical and psychological injury of the mother. Women and girls often become pregnant as a result of rape. Since some in their communities do not believe pregnancy can occur from unwanted sex, the victim must choose either between her communities or her child as the child is considered “the child of the enemy.” In either case, the victim is presented with the traumatic aftermath of ostracism from society and the psychological and physical injuries that may pose problems for future pregnancies in addition to her reproductive and general health.

Surviving an attack is not the end to the suffering of women in Darfur; their husbands, children, relatives, and communities are ALL affected by this violent act. But most importantly, the survivor is the one who carries the shame and burden of an act that is beyond her control. We must all remember that the act of rape is something that affects us all and no woman, man, or child should have to experience the pain of such suffering. It is our duty to not only bring our sisters to safety, but to support them in the healing process and after. Rape survivors need more than adequate medical care, counseling services, education, sanitary equipment, food supplies, and water from humanitarian organizations. We also need to call on UN member states and the Security Council to provide more than adequate security for the complete safety of women and in girls in

Sudan to help prevent their vulnerability to further attack. We must to stand in solidarity with the women and girls in Darfur and work with them to bring peace and safety to their home.

To find out more information or how you can help stop violence against women, you can visit http://www.amnestyusa.org/women/svaw/about.html.

After many years of advocating for the Gender entity, finally “UN Women” is born!   On Friday July 2, 2010, the General Assembly voted unanimously to create a dynamic new entity — the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, to be known as UN Women. Its work will be framed by the Beijing Platform for Action and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The new body will merge four of the world body’s agencies and offices focusing on gender equality: UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues, and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW).

One of the main goals of UN Women will be to support the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and other inter-governmental bodies in devising policies.  The new body will also aim to help Member States implement standards, provide technical and financial support to countries which request it, and forge partnerships with civil society. UN Women is also mandated to monitor and hold the UN accountable in its own system-wide progress in gender main-streaming and gender equality.

“Grounded on the vision of equality enshrined in the UN Charter, UN Women will work for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and girls, the empowerment of women, and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security,” the UN Women’s website notes.

Set to be based in New York, UN Women will be headed by an Under-Secretary-General, to be appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. It will start operating in January 2011.

Key to the success of the new gender entity will be sufficient funding along with political will and leadership displayed by UN Member States and the Secretariat.

Member States who are currently drafting the ECOSOC resolution “Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system” have another the opportunity to show their commitment and political will in advancing gender justice.

You can read more at the new UN Women website http://www.unwomen.org/

Tackling the roots of poverty

For Christian churches and the worldwide ecumenical movement, eradicating poverty is nothing less than a moral and ethical imperative. We believe that God’s will is for all humanity – regardless of gender, religious belief, race and ethnicity – to experience life in fullness and in dignity. Thus, together with many civil society organisations (CSOs), we at the World Council of Churches (WCC) applauded the United Nations (UN) in 2000 for taking leadership in the articulation and adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), foremost of which is the internationally agreed goal to halve the number of people “living” in poverty by 2015. Discussions on poverty eradication must continue to be a main concern of the UN, where broad participation of all nation-states and civil society could take place. As 2015 looms closer, there is an urgent need for the international community to revisit and deeply consider the structural, historical and interconnected roots of impoverishment and the required policy- and systemic transformations leading not just to the attainment of the MDGs but to the eventual eradication of poverty.

The WCC remains profoundly concerned that the global financial and economic crisis – which continues to wreak havoc on economies including in the Euro zone – has thrown tens of millions more people into poverty, swelling the ranks of the disempowered, hungry, thirsty, unemployed, sick and homeless, and further derailing the achievement of the MDGs. At this stage of the crisis, many countries are being forced to adopt stringent fiscal policies that imperil economic recovery as well as social and ecological protection – at a time when such protection is needed most.

If anything, the global economic turmoil has called into serious question the previously widely accepted role of deregulated and liberalised global financial and trade structures in reducing poverty: current evidence points to the opposite. Yet the international community appears not to have adequately absorbed these sobering lessons. Prevailing financial and trade paradigms are still driven, at core, by the pursuit of ever-higher growth rates and short-term returns at the expense of people’s economic, social and cultural rights and the health of our increasingly fragile ecosystems. Mere economic growth, however, has already been shown to be an unsustainable, inefficient – and in some cases, ineffective – way of addressing the global poverty crisis.

Against this light, the WCC reiterates its calls for governments and international institutions – with the democratic participation of all peoples – to pursue economic policies as well as build economic frameworks that move away from the current paradigm that is focused on unlimited growth and based on structural greed towards models founded on pro-poor, redistributive growth; universal provisioning of common social goods; sustainable consumption and production; and investments in small-holder agriculture (which continues to be the main source of livelihood for people and women in poverty), social reproduction and ecological protection.

Critical to lifting societies and people out of poverty is a much more equitable distribution of assets (capital, technology, land, education, health care, among others). A wealth of studies reveals that the lack of access by the poor (especially poor women) to assets necessary to achieve socio-economic security as well as higher productivity and income is a “fundamental constraint” on poverty eradication.

Emphasising the pivotal role of MDG 8 (global partnerships for development) in meeting the rest of the MDGs, governments and international institutions must seriously respond to widening inequalities among and within nations and the global financial and trade structures that propagate and deepen these inequalities.  Much more attention ought to be placed on developing policies and structures that enable wealth-sharing among and within countries.

Poverty eradication is of course a critical goal in and by itself. At the same time, the WCC has long argued that many of the violent conflicts that continue to rage in different parts of our world stem in large part from the socio-economic deprivation experienced by communities. Thus, measures to eradicate poverty and close socio-economic gaps are important pathways to strengthening social cohesion and achieving lasting peace at local, national and global levels.

We believe that mobilising the financial resources needed for poverty eradication and the achievement of the MDGs – particularly through creative forms of taxation inasmuch as taxes are the only sustainable source of development finance – is a matter of political will, yes, and also of moral courage. At the onset of the global financial and economic crash, governments in rich countries were able to put together trillions of dollars in a matter of months to resuscitate ailing financial institutions; and global military spending continues to increase, amounting to US$ 1464 billion in 2008 alone (SIPRI 2010). We need to re-examine and dismantle such a perverse system of priorities that places more import on rescuing big banks and acquiring machines that kill people than on emancipating people from starvation and homelessness. Clearly, the often put forward excuse of a dearth of financial resources to overcome poverty is instead more indicative of a dearth of life-affirming values and morals – a dearth of justice, solidarity and care.

What the international community can and must do in 1660 days

Reshaping the unjust financial and trade structures that generate and reinforce poverty and inequality is a long-term undertaking requiring coordinated action and meaningful cooperation among and between governments and international developmental institutions, as recognised by MDG 8, beyond 2015. Yet this does not preclude the international community from taking immediate measures and initial steps towards deep-seated transformations. Therefore, the WCC calls on governments and international institutions to commit to the following actions at the MDG Summit in September 2010:

• Enact urgent financial reforms and support further high-level discussions with substantial civil society participation under the auspices of the Financing for Development process to build an international financial architecture that not only distributes socio-economic risks fairly but finances job-creating production, social reproduction and environmental sustainability; and in particular with a view to:
  • Achieving stronger democratic oversight of international financial institutions, by making them subject to a UN Global Economic Council with the same status as the UN Security Council as proposed by the Stiglitz Commission;
  • Creating and/or transforming financial regulatory institutions and mechanisms and implementing financial transaction taxes to deter speculation (whether on currency, food and other commodities) and capital flight;
  • Supporting regional initiatives that decentralise finance and empower people in the global South to exercise control over their own development through bodies such as the Bank of the South, the Asian Monetary Fund and the Bank of the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América;
  • Strengthening tax systems by establishing an international accounting standard requiring country-by-country reporting of transnational companies’ economic activities and taxes paid and forging a multilateral agreement to set a mandatory requirement for the automatic exchange of tax information between all jurisdictions to prevent tax avoidance;
  • Establishing a new global reserve system based on a supranational global reserve currency and regional and local currencies;
  • Setting up a new international credit agency with greater democratic governance than currently exists under the Bretton Woods institutions;
  • Setting up an international bankruptcy court with the authority to cancel odious and other kinds of illegitimate debts and to arbitrate other debt issues;
  • Regulating and reforming the credit agency industry into proper independent supervision institution(s), based on more transparency about ratings and strict regulation on the management of conflict of interest; and
  • Using innovative sources of finance, including carbon and financial transaction taxes, to pay for global public goods and poverty eradication.
• Resume the Doha Round of trade talks and review free trade agreements based on the objective of transforming multilateral and bilateral trade and investment rules and agreements in support of realising the enshrined rights to food, water, health, education, and gainful and decent employment; and in particular to:
  • Implement workable common international regulations to end agricultural import dumping; and
  • Establish international commodity agreements setting stable base prices for products.
• Channel resources away from military spending and odious and illegitimate debt payments to investment areas with potentially strong anti-poverty impacts, particularly small-holder agriculture, social development and ecological sustainability; as well as ensure that development assistance to poor countries is not diminished in light of current pressures to rein in fiscal deficits.
• Discuss and adopt new and more balanced indicators that factor in social and ecological costs and benefits, and therefore better measure and monitor global socio-ecological-economic progress.

World without Empire Conference and Peace Festival is a gathering of individuals from grassroots and church organisations and the academe from the United States and Global South aiming to present analyses of empire domination from the perspectives of the South in resistance and of the disadvantaged of the North (people of colour, migrants, indigenous), foregrounding these on race, gender and spirituality in counter-imperial resistance to the politics of U.S. Empire.

This gathering will highlight the analysis of women and youth as those significantly affected by empire dynamics. While maintaining the focus on women and youth, the conference will also seek to facilitate solidarity and partnerships between people’s movements in the North and those in the Global South.

The programme will be shaped by three moments:

• A day of North-South dialogue in three parts
• Part 1 lays down the foreground with presentations of women’s voices
• Part 2 deals with militarism, the empire’s most direct and most violent policy
• Part 3 is group conversation on building alliances to counter U.S. imperialistic strategies
• A three-hour open fishbowl forum that dissects U.S. exceptionalism
• A youth-led peace festival featuring workshops and staged political resistance – dance, music, theatre, video, painting, poetry

The events will be hosted by the Union Theological Seminary (UTS) at its campus on 3041 Broadway, New York City, NY 10027.

Also involved in co-organising the events with Peace for Life and UTS are the Drew University Theological School Center for Christianities in Global Contexts; the World Student Christian Federation North America Region, and the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministries.  Other academic and church-related institutions as well as artists’ groups based in the United States are also supporting the event through various means.

Any relevant information for this study is welcome. Your input would greatly enhance the quality of this report and ensure that it considers issues that may not have been adequately addressed, such as the situation of indigenous women, SOGI issues, etc.

This report will be submitted to the Human Rights Council at the September 2010 session.  Read the Call for Input for more information.

Please send your responses directly to Cecilia Moller, Acting Coordinator of the Women’s Rights and Gender Section.

Email: cmoller@ohchr.org

Telephone: +41.22.928 9265

Deadline: 15 May 2010, maximum 3000 words

How can NGOs participate?

Organizations in general and special consultative status are encouraged to make oral presentations to the Council.

Please visit the following link to read more:

http://esango.un.org/irene/?page=static&content=statements

Sincerely yours,

NGO Branch

Department of Economic and Social Affairs

United Nations

Was this your first time attending the Conference on the Status of Women (CSW)?

I have been here several times before.  The last one I attended was the CSW focused on the Girl Child.  I think this is the fourth time that I have attended a CSW.  This year I was requested by the archbishop to come.  They send someone yearly, but some years for personal reasons I have been unable to serve as the delegate. 

What have you learned or taken away from this year’s CSW?

We cannot let the Beijing Platform for Action to be eclipsed by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), or be dropped as a tool in addressing women’s rights.  We are far from achieving our goal.  It is a struggle to keep this movement going, to achieve the empowerment of women.  The Beijing Platform is useful to us though, because it reminds us and equips us to keep this struggle going.  It helps articulate women’s issues.  We can refer to it and make sure – through the use of the right language – that others understand. 

What are the pressing issues that you see in Kenya?  In the church?

Also, gender equity in the church needs to be addressed.  We are far behind the governments in terms of gender equity.  This will not do.  The church ought to be the model for society.  We also have to acknowledge the huge reach that we have.  We reach everyone: girls, women, men, and boys.  We have the ability to ensure that the message is being heard.

This can be complicated however.  There is a debate that the girl-child has been promoted so much that the boy-child has been left behind.  So now I include the boy-child, so that it is about holistic participation in change.  However, we have not forgotten that that the child-girl has been in a difficult situation.  We all have become involved, and help them become and stay students.

Another significant issue is domestic violence against women.  When there is violence, a woman is reduced to nothing.  We need to change this.  The church has not been able to address this yet.  During this conference, however, I heard a South African man talk about his work of leading men to address violence against women.  Men themselves condemning the violence.  They see that it is their issue.  This is powerful and a model that I would like to see adopted in Kenya, so that men don’t push the issue aside.  

In Kenya, we are changing the constitution.  This presents a great possibility for women.  We need to finish this process.  Though we can critique the government, we cannot let this opportunity pass.  We must recognize that we all function under the government, so we need to partner with the government to get the constitution to its the best stage. 

How do you feel that the church does on women’s issues?

There is good will with the church; that is why they sent me to the CSW.  Also, I have been given the opportunity to present on women’s issues in the past to provincial synod. Further, women are being given decision making opportunities.  There is now a woman serving as the provincial secretary, immediately under the bishop.  Also several women run departments, and serve as deacons. 

African Consultative Council also has passed a resolution, calling for women to be in 30% of decision-making positions.  The implementation of this is going slowly, but improvements are being made.

How have you experienced being with women from around the world?

It has been a learning process, listening to them and hearing different perspectives.  Our struggles are the same, but we handle them differently.  Still it is encouraging to know that solutions have worked elsewhere and to be forming partnerships with other women leaders.  It brings a sense of unity to the Anglican Church to see that we are speaking from the same faith.

In what ways does your faith or theology inform the work that you do?

It is a part of it.  I am not separate from my faith or my God.  It is a part of me that I can’t do without.  And these issues affect human life, and therefore affect my faith.  They are not separate.  Jesus went around healing not just preaching.  His healing was the biggest part of his part of his ministry.

For ministry to be meaningful you have to touch people’s lives.  You have to work to make a difference.

What message would you like to share with the next generation?

Respect of human life, regardless of sex, status, race or any of factors.  Value them all as God’s creation. 

Work to create a forum for people to be their full selves.  Emulate some of the good lessons that have been taught to you.  We will be mentors when you need us. 

Achieving and living in freedom is important, but it comes with responsibility.  We have to accept this responsibility despite its hard work.  The next generation has to be able to sacrifice themselves for God.

Finally, the UN instruments have done quite a bit, but more improvement is needed to get the UN to work with the faith-based sector.  This is especially true in regards to capacity-building.  When the UN is working in communities, to be successful they must involve the faith-based sector.  We have the people to do the work and know the challenges at hand.

View the entire album on Picasa.

All photos taken by Jennifer Becker.

The World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) and its Zimbabwe Advocacy Office (ZAO) wish to express shock and outrage at the recent wave of attacks on trade union leaders by police and security forces in Zimbabwe.  On March 1, 2010 police raided and ransacked offices of the General Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) forcing its Secretary General, Mrs. Gertrude Hambira, a mother and farm-workers’ leader to flee her home and country. On March 3, WSCF and ZAO also received troubling reports of the arrest of staff of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) who were conducting a civic education workshop in the eastern city of Mutare.

These senseless attacks, together with the recent upsurge in general violence in the country, indicate clearly that Zimbabwe’s political crisis remains unresolved and that Zimbabwe’s Inclusive Government needs to do much more to deliver change.

We pray for the safe return of Mrs. Hambira and her colleagues to their homes and places of work.

We urge the Inclusive Government in Zimbabwe to protect the rights of workers and students to organise freely and uphold its commitment to restoring human rights and the rule of law in the country. A year after the formation of the Inclusive Government the international community continues to look to the leadership in Zimbabwe to demonstrate its commitment to genuine, irreversible reforms. We ask the ongoing 13th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council and the International Labour Organisation to take note and act on these attacks.

We urge students and workers worldwide to stand in unbreakable solidarity in the face of injustice and repression, particularly in support of the students and workers in Zimbabwe.

For further details please contact:

Rev Michael Wallace, General Secretary Coordinator, World Student Christian Federation, Email: wscf@wscf.ch

Marlon Zakeyo Zimbabwe Advocacy Office Email: wscf.zimadvocacy@gmail.com

On the 9^th of March 2010, members of Ecumenical Women started the day with a worship service at the United Nations Church Center that centered around reflections on the story of Deborah.

The church members together affirmed that:

• We are women created in the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully made.
• We affirm that all women are created in the image of God.
• We claim our voices and dare to tell our stories while uplifting the stories of others.
• We claim our agency in political discourse.
• We claim our responsibility to challenge oppressive systems.
• We claim our power, our beauty, and our hope.
• We affirm that we are called by God to be leaders and prophets, witnesses to God’s love and justice in the world.

Jointly, the congregation was asked to anoint their neighbor by placing a circle of oil on their neighbor’s hand while saying:  “You are called by God.”  We, Monica and Facia, members of the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), realized that the oil symbolically affirmed our mission and our advocacy roles within society. After that, everyone went to different missions and conferences that were taking place in the United Nations Church Center, the Salvation Army and United Nations.

Monica along with an eight-member delegation representing Ecumenical Women had a meeting at the Seychelles Embassy. The meeting was part of an ongoing advocacy effort focused on the three main interventions that had been developed by Ecumenical Women for CSW 54.  In one word, it can be said that the visit to the Seychelles’ embassy was simply a success because the ambassador was very hospitable and sincerely explained and listened to our questions and concerns about women in Seychelles.  Some of the topics covered were women’s empowerment, domestic violence and churches’ roles in assisting those that have been violated either by their husbands, families or society.

Aside from the mission visits, a capturing side event, “Violence against women in Nigeria,” was organized by the Nigerian Consortium.  The points that were highlighted and fully discussed were: rape, trafficking of women and children, girl-child gender violence and documentation of violence against women in Nigeria.  One of the speakers provided very vivid and horrifying cases with pictures, from across Nigeria, of women who suffered from violence. The discussion also highlighted that Nigeria has a high rate of trafficking in women and girls to Europe and the Middle East, in addition to internal trafficking. 

One of the traumatic experiences involved a Nigerian lady.  After giving birth to twins, she had to receive an injection by the doctor on her buttocks.  As soon as her husband found out another man had seen part of his wife’s body, he cut off her leg.  What an injustice and violence!!!!!!  Reflect upon this issue.  How would you have felt if you were in this woman’s position???

Another example was of a young female university student.  While taking part in a national service program, she and two-year-old toddler were reportedly raped and killed by eighteen-year-old boy.

These were some of the horrifying and emotional cases that were shared by the presenters during the conference.  From the telling of these particular stories rapidly emerged a women’s movement to advocate and create awareness on sexual and gender-based violence.

We have shared some of the challenging and real experiences that we had during the day, which deeply reflect our shared common interest regarding the Beijing Platform for Action, adopted in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference for Women in Beijing China, as an agenda for women’s empowerment.

Tomorrow we will start a new day, continuing in our work with renewed strength for social justice advocacy.

Now, we leave you, the reader, to reflect on the importance of partnership and collective effort in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action.