Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff made the following statement on the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day:
"100 years ago tomorrow, the first International Women's Day was established in 1911 to campaign for women's rights to work, vote, hold public office and end gender discrimination.
"Today, International Women’s Day celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women across the globe..."
Journalist Sheryl WuDunn, co-author with her husband New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof of Half the Sky, says it all at a recent TEDtalk.
H/T to my longtime -- from high school! -- friend Mark Takefman, who walks the talk in India.
UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Almost forgot. Under PM Stephen Harper's ''maternal health'' plan, women in these countries are not entitled to the reproductive freedom, including contraception, they would need to achieve equality.
Longtime readers -- and I do appreciate your loyalty and patience during my absence from the blogosphere
-- know that I have bitched loud and often about how US/Canada/NATO have used and abused women and their (human) rights as an excuse to continue the war in Afghanistan.
Oh, it's never about the oil, the pipelines, the mineral rights, the regional hegemony, or anything like that. No no. It's always about the women. Save the women. Think of the women. Even though Afghan women themselves have decried the current corrupt regime as well as the continued oppression of women which appears to have been stepped up because of the war.
Even though there have been numerous occasions when NATO has allowed women to be sold out.
The Taliban pounded on the door just before midnight, demanding that Aisha, 18, be punished for running away from her husband's house. Her in-laws treated her like a slave, Aisha pleaded. They beat her. If she hadn't run away, she would have died. Her judge, a local Taliban commander, was unmoved. Aisha's brother-in-law held her down while her husband pulled out a knife. First he sliced off her ears. Then he started on her nose...
Now you would think I would be all for the exposure of the terrible treatment of women in Afghanistan, and that I would be cheering on the NATO foot soldiers who are dying because they believe they are fighting to make things right in that blighted country.
The thing is that I am all for these things and more. Much more.
But here's the other bigger thing. If the west gave a rat's tail about women's rights, it would also be in the Congo where women are being gang-raped daily in the fight for, among other things, the minerals that go into our iPods and mobile phones. It would not be in bed with the Saudi Arabian sexist apartheid state where women are chattel. It would not be bombing Afghan women and children, making the occupation worse and worse for them everyday.
And besides, wasn't the ostensible real purpose for going there in the first place to find the terrorist masterminds behind 9/11? (And let's not forget Prime Minister Stephen Harper's March 2006 speech about how our soldiers were also there to halt the drug trade.)
I don't know what the answer to Afghanistan's problem is but I do know that it doesn't come in the form of drones, tanks and fighter jets.
My principle -- and principal ;-) -- objection to this cover story is how it EXPLOITS the mutilation
of a beautiful young woman to promote the continued war that really,
let's not kid ourselves, has nothing to do with women's rights. I mean,
come on. And I am not the only one who says that.
... worth mentioning: the girl on the cover was attacked not in long
ago days of Taliban rule but with tens of thousands of U.S. troops in
the country.
I have to ask: In Time's mission to really "illuminate
what is actually happening on the ground" has it ever put on its cover
close-up images of 1) a badly wounded or dead U.S. soldier 2) an
Afghan killed in a NATO missile strike 3) an Afghan official, police
officer or military commander accepting a bribe from a Taliban war
lord. Alison Kilkenny has her own examples here.
No one makes light of the plight of women and children in Afghanistan
under the Taliban--and, contrary to (Time editor Rick) Stengel's claim, many Americans do
know about it. Indeed, liberal women's groups in the U.S. have raised
the issue often and expressed mixed feelings about staying (or even
escalating) in Afghanistan because of it. It's a serious issue. And
please see the response to Time by the Feminist Peace Network. Jezebel with another good take here.
Something tells me that no one at a the magazine's editorial meeting suggested a "What Happens if We Stay in Afghanistan" cover headline, which would have been accompanied by a photo of the corpse of an Afghan child killed in an airstrike or a house raid.
Finally a few words from, you know, an actual Afghan woman, Sonali Kolhatkar, author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence. She is also co-director of the Afghan Women's Mission, a U.S.-based nonprofit that supports women's rights activists in Afghanistan. (via The Institute for Public Accuracy).
This is the same type of justification that the Soviets used (among
others) to explain why they should remain in Afghanistan: to save Afghan
women from the 'backward' fundamentalists. Foreign armies have always
sought to protect Afghan women from violence by fomenting violence
themselves. But in the end, just like the Soviets did backroom deals
with radical misogynist groups, the U.S. has been empowering non-Taliban
misogynist fundamentalists since the start of this war. There are
incidents happening every day in Afghanistan of women and girls being
harassed, raped, flogged and killed by pro-U.S. warlords and local
commanders that are not working with the Taliban -- these incidents are
rarely covered by the Western media. In many ways the U.S. occupation
has actually made things worse for Afghan women. Afghan women activists I
work with prefer to resist two threats to their security (the Taliban
and the U.S.-backed central government) instead of three (the third
being the U.S./NATO occupation) and have long called for U.S. forces to
leave. Time magazine is playing to age-old racist stereotypes: that
brown women need a foreign white army to save them from their men.
What a difference it would make in Afghanistan if, instead of spending hundreds of billions on bombs, we just gave all the money to the women and let them build a better society for everybody there.
There's been plenty of emailing, tweeting, Facebook posting, blogging and more about International Women's Day, now marking its 100th anniversary. No question women in the west have considerably advanced from being nothing more than chattel to citizens ostensibly enjoying equal rights. (Although, the fight really never ends.)
But the human race and the planet would be far better off if women everywhere had access to reproductive choices and maternal healthcare, education and land and property rights. Instead, they suffer forced marriage, devastatingly early pregnancies, multiple births, crushing burdens of having to look after small children while also walking miles for food, water and kindling ...
Over the past couple of years, since this blog was birthed, I've been pleased to see some of these notions gain traction beyond the usual NGOs. There's a lot of talk. But there seems to be little political action.
Political action is what is needed.
And so, for International Women's Day, I would like to propose you do one thing to help women in one country where we already investing so much blood and treasure.
Orzala Ashraf, a women’s rights activist in Kabul, blames the government: “Laws are clear about crimes but we see big criminals thriving and being nurtured by the state for illicit political gains,” she told IRIN, pointing to the government’s alleged failure to address human rights violations committed over the past three decades of conflict.
“Because no one is put on trial for his crimes, a criminal culture is being promoted: violators have no fear of the law, prosecution and a meaningful penalty,” said Ashraf.
Deep-seated ambivalence to women’s rights is evident from a law signed off by President Hamid Karzai in early 2009: The Shia Personal Status Law, dubbed a ‘rape legalizing law’, was amended after strong domestic and international pressure.
“The first version [of the law] was totally intolerable,” said Najia Zewari, a women’s rights expert with the UN Fund for Women (UNIFEM). “Despite positive changes in the final version, there are articles that still need to be discussed and reviewed further,” she said.
Another example of this ambivalence is the case of the men who threw acid in the faces of 15 female students in Kandahar city in November 2008: Karzai publicly vowed they would be “severely punished” but court officials in Kandahar and Kabul have said they are unaware of the case and do not know where the alleged perpetrators are.
“Judges say the men were wrongly accused and forced to confess,” Ranna Tarina, head of Kandahar women’s affairs department, told IRIN.
Today RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan put out this statement:
Today, on the 8th of March, Afghan women are mourning for the gang-rape of Bashiras and Saimas, for being flogged by most lowed elements, for being auctioned in open market and for their young daughters who put an end to their miserable lives by self-immolation. But the perpetrators of all these crimes are forgiven; therefore they enjoy complete immunity, are still holding their official positions and tightening it through plundering our people and country.
Though we don’t expect anything different from the most corrupt and dirty puppet regime of the world, the pain of Afghan women turns chronic when the world believes that the US and NATO has donated liberation, democracy and human and women rights for Afghanistan; whereas, after eight years of the US and allies’ aggression under the banner of “war on terror”, they empowered the most brutal terrorists of the Northern Alliance and the former Russian puppets – the Khalqis and Parchamis – and by relying on them, the US imposed a puppet government on Afghan people. And instead of uprooting its Taliban and Al-Qaeda creations, the US and NATO continues to kill our innocent and poor civilians, mostly women and children, in their vicious air raids.
<SNIP>
RAWA is eager to get united in solidarity with individuals and forces that are ready to fight for democracy in an independent front against the occupation, the Taliban, Jehadi and Khalqi and Parchami homeland-sellers.
While women of Afghanistan are experiencing a new era of captivity and are in the grip of the fundamentalist monsters, RAWA sends it heartfelt salutations to struggling brave women of Iran, Palestine, Kurdistan, Sudan, Nepal, India and the rest of the world and announces solidarity with them.
So, this is the kind of thing our tax dollars are supporting.
Do I advocate abandoning these people? No. But I do think that we can let our politicians know that this is not acceptable, not under Canada's flag.
While no doubt thousands of women and men will still join together to
celebrate IWD and in some cities still go into the streets, there is
little question that the women’s movement is a shadow of its former
self. The strategy of second wave feminism was firmly rooted in the
welfare state. Women’s equality depended on social programs like social
assistance, women’s services and child care. The neo-liberal turn begun
by Brian Mulroney in the 1980s and continued by every government since
put not only the women’s movement itself but almost all the policies we
had fought for under attack. It was no accident that the National
Action Committee on the Status of Women was the first organization to
protest Mulroney’s neo-liberal turn towards free trade. NAC saw that
the turn represented by the Free Trade Agreement with the United States
would impact disproportionately on women, through loss of jobs and
attacks on social programs. Women political scientists like Janine Brodie and economists like Marjorie Cohen have documented the impact of free trade and corporate globalization on women’s economic and social equality.
Let's begin in the Sunshine state of Florida where Southern Baptist theologian, father of eight and Republican rep Charles E. Van Zant proposes all citizens, especially of the wombanly persuasion, share his upright way of thinking.
Here's his way of thinking though: Rather than punish the maternal units, go after the doctors who perform the evil abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.
An expansive measure to make most abortions illegal in Florida has been filed for the 2010 Legislative session, challenging federal protections in place for more than 40 years.
Both anti-abortion advocates and abortion rights supporters agree the 53-page proposal is an attempt to directly challenge the 40-year-old Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortions in the United States in 1973.
“The Legislature finds that there have been 50 million abortions in the United States since the Roe decision,” the bill reads. “ The Legislature further finds that every life lost to abortion was sacred and of the highest value.”
Sponsored by Rep. Charles Van Zant, R-Palatka, HB 1097 would criminalize most abortions now allowed under state and federal law, increase penalties for physicians who perform such services and require pregnant women to receive more information on adoption. The bill was filed Wednesday, the same day that right to life groups made the trek to Tallahassee to meet lawmakers and rally support.
Except in cases where a woman’s life is considered in danger, doctors who perform abortions would face first degree felonies punishable by up to life in prison and civil fines.
Now, it's doubtful this bill will get very far. But you can bet Van Zant will have back-up in the House. And, if they don't succeed this time, they'll try another way to crack this.
By the way: You'll find the comments over at Feministing rather amusing.
On Friday an Oklahoma judge declared a controversial law
unconstitutional that would have enacted a host of new abortion
regulations, including one mandating that detailed demographic and
personal information about women seeking abortions be posted online.
Though pro-choice activists are applauding the decision, it was not
indicative of a dismissal of the regulations themselves. Instead, the
judge knocked down the law due to the fact that it violated Oklahoma’s
"single-subject" rule, which states that each law can only cover one
subject.
The law, which was initially scheduled to go
into effect on Nov. 1, 2009, would have required a woman seeking an
abortion to fill out a 10-page questionnaire asking everything from her
age and marital status to the date of the abortion to the county in
which it took place. That information would then be posted on the
state’s Department of Health website. Proponents of the law say that
names would not have accompanied the statistics. But opponents say the
law was a scare tactic that infringed on women’s privacy, and that
people in small towns in Oklahoma could easily draw conclusions about
identities from even seemingly anonymous information.
Undaunted, the forced birthers are back at the drawing board, drafting, count 'em, four new laws that will get around the technicality.
In other action, the panel passed
four separate abortion measures that previously had been declared
unconstitutional because they had been combined in one bill.
Bills must deal with only one subject.
The panel passed HB 3290 by Rep. Skye McNiel, R-Bristow. It would
require a doctor to be in the room when the abortion pill RU486 is
administered.
The panel also passed HB 2780 by Rep.
Lisa Billy, R-Lindsay, which would require women who seek an abortion
to have an ultrasound and have its contents explained to them.
Rep. Ryan Kiesel, D-Seminole, said the
Legislature should focus on preventing unintended pregnancies rather
than bringing further disgrace and shame to women facing the most
difficult decision of their lives.
Billy responded: “This bill is about
choice for women. It is an opportunity for her to understand what is
growing inside of her and the consequences.”
The panel passed HB 3110 by Rep. Pam
Peterson, R-Tulsa, which would allow health-care providers who object
to abortion not to participate in the procedure.
Peterson’s other abortion bill, HB 3284, also passed.
It would require women who seek abortions to provide a host of information about themselves to be posted on a public Web site.
As if there aren't bigger things to worry about in Oklahoma -- like how one in five actual children live in poverty.
A bill passed by the Utah House and Senate this
week
and waiting for the governor's signature, will make it a crime for a
woman to have a miscarriage, and make induced abortion a crime in some
instances.
According Lynn M. Paltrow, executive director of National
Advocates for Pregnant Women, what makes Utah's proposed law unique is
that it
is specifically designed to be punitive toward pregnant women, not
those who might assist or cause an illegal abortion or unintended
miscarriage.
The bill passed by legislators amends Utah's criminal
statute to allow the state to charge a woman with criminal homicide for
inducing a miscarriage or obtaining an illegal abortion. The
basis for the law was a recent case in which a 17-year-old girl, who
was seven
months pregnant, paid a man
$150 to beat her in an attempt to cause a miscarriage. Although the girl
gave birth to a baby later given up for adoption, she was
initially charged with attempted murder. However the charges were dropped because,
at the time, under Utah state law a woman could not be prosecuted for
attempting to arrange an abortion, lawful or unlawful.
The bill passed by the Utah legislature would change that. While
the bill does not affect legally obtained abortions, it criminalizes any actions
taken by women to induce a miscarriage or abortion outside of a doctor's care,
with penalties including up to life in prison.
In addition to criminalizing an intentional attempt to
induce a miscarriage or abortion, the bill also creates a standard that could
make women legally responsible for miscarriages caused by "reckless" behavior.
Using the legal standard of "reckless behavior" all a district
attorney needs to show is that a woman behaved in a manner that is thought to
cause miscarriage, even if she didn't intend to lose the pregnancy. Drink too
much alcohol and have a miscarriage? Under the new law such actions could be cause for prosecution.
"This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a
miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder," says Missy Bird,
executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah. Bird says there are
no exemptions in the bill for victims of domestic violence or for those who are
substance abusers. The standard is so broad, Bird says, "there nothing in the
bill to exempt a woman for not wearing her seatbelt who got into a car
accident."
Such a standard could even make falling down stairs a
prosecutable event, such as the recent case in Iowa where a pregnant woman who
fell down the stairs at her home was arrested under the suspicion she was trying to terminate
her pregnancy.
Because, Lady, when you're preggers your body is nationalized by the state.
Take Kenya. For 20 years, Kenyans have been working fitfully to
revise their constitution and are now mere weeks away from possibly finalizing
the document. But this milestone in the nation's slow move towards real
democracy may be marred by another human rights calamity. If the constitution
is approved in its current form by the Kenyan Parliament sometime this year,
Kenya will join the inglorious ranks of three nations -- Northern Mariana
Islands, Uganda, and Zambia -- that have prohibited abortion within their
constitution.
The most recent draft of the constitution had solid human rights
protections for women. However, a review by a parliamentary commission resulted
in the evisceration of many of the core democratic constitutional provisions.
This included amending Article 25, which in its original language guaranteed
that "Every individual has the
right to life" (emphasis added).
The wording choice for Article 25 is hardly revolutionary. In
fact, it reflects the values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
is consistent with the majority of national constitutions in the world. But
conservative religious groups are not partial to international legal precedence
and many lobbied Kenyan parliamentarians to amend Article 25. Which they did,
and then some.
Article 25 still protects life, but life is now defined as
beginning at conception. Moreover, Article 25 also outlaws abortion. Phrases in
the draft guaranteeing the right to healthcare, including reproductive health
care, and that no one may be refused emergency medical treatment (say, for an
unsafe abortion) were also eliminated from the draft text.
A pregnant 27-year old Nicaraguan woman, "Amelia," with metastatic
cancer has been denied medical treatment on the grounds that it might
harm her baby.
Nicaragua passed a draconian anti-abortion law in 2008 which
criminalizes abortion even in the case of rape or incest or when the
mother's life is in danger. Nicaraguan doctors are prohibited from
treating pregnant women with cancer, HIV/AIDS, malaria and cardiac
diseases, and threatened with prison sentences for providing health
services or information related to abortion.
Amelia has effectively been handed a death sentence by her
government. Each day she is denied treatment, she edges closer to
death; in a tragic irony, she will most likely die before the baby is
even born. Her 10-year old daughter will be left without a mother,
since the Nicaraguan government values the life of an unborn fetus over
that of a mother.
And doesn't that just put the ''life'' in ''pro-life?'' (And if you want to do something to help, please go here.)
... it's not just the preventable deaths of these women,
but the bloody suffering they go through. And their families. And their
soon-to-be-orphaned children.
Yet this is the kind of no-family-planning, no-contraception, no-abortion, misogynist healthcare Steve is promoting.
It's unconscionable.
Indeed.
And, finally, something completely different. Angie the Anti-Theist is having an abortion -- and is documenting it. (Follow the Twitter debate here.)
Prior to conceiving my son five years ago, I was told I would never carry a child to term because of sexual abuse that happened when I was 7- and 8-years-old — and I barely did. I didn’t find out I was pregnant with him until the 21st week, roughly halfway through my pregnancy. When I did find out, I was underweight for the duration of the pregnancy, and I had several other high risk indicators. I did my best to gain weight (it helped that my ex-husband worked at a pizza store).
Even still, I made several trips to the emergency room throughout my last two trimesters. During my eighth month of pregnancy, I actually lost ten pounds due to a pretty horrible stomach virus. It was as if I had no immune system at all while pregnant. I went from having never received IV fluids in my life, to being intimately familiar with the feeling of cold fluids dumping into my veins. And let’s not even get into the other causes of dehydration.
When my son was born, I decided I didn’t want any more kids, in part because I’d learned during my pregnancy that I was a carrier for Cystic Fibrosis, a fatal and painful disease (of which my son was fortunately spared). I don’t regret that decision. My son is happiest when he’s getting one-on-one attention from an adult — he has even manipulated the system at school so that he gets to hang out with his teacher while she eats lunch and the other kids nap! I honestly don’t believe siblings are always a blessing, always friends, or always best for a family.
I know that I can be a damn good mom to the one special needs child I have — he had many health problems when he was younger and he is speech delayed and has a short attention span now — but I don’t know if I could be a good mom to two kids, one or both of whom would have special needs. I know my mom had more children than she could afford or care for, and I don’t want to make the same mistake.
Now, considering all that, I think Angie is entitled to make her own decisions about her own health and well-being, as well as those of her son. But you can be sure that there are millions of people who believe that they have the right to colonize her body.
The U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that out of nearly 1,000 sexual abuse and over 1,500 domestic violence cases reported in Sierra Leone last year, there wasn't a single conviction.
"By the end of her lifespan, nearly all Sierra Leonean women will suffer some form of sexual or gender-based violence," says UNDP's deputy country director Samuel Harbor.
At the same time, nearly 250,000 child soldiers have been recruited in various conflicts worldwide, with girls at particular risk of becoming sex slaves, says the U.N. children's agency UNICEF.
"Violence against women and girls is found in all countries," he says, pointing an accusing finger at all 192 U.N. member states.
Let's just focus on Congo, shall we?
KAIROS has fought long and hard to help rape victims in Congo, pushing for counselling and medical treatment while advocating for the distribution and use of emergency post-exposure contraception as well as anti-retroviral treatment for HIV.
But the Harpocrats fail to see the connection between contraception -- never mind abortion -- and maternal health.
So, as far as they are concerned, those women and girls in the Congo are just going to have to stand and deliver, even if it kills them.
But yeah. Canada's government really cares about maternal health.
Facebook friend and sister Fringer Elizabeth Pickett found this must-bookmark website, which tracks the well-being of adolescent girls around the world through interactive maps.
The welfare of adolescent girls is crucial in determining economic
and social outcomes for countries today, and in the future. For girls
to become healthy mothers, productive citizens and economic
contributors, their unique needs must be seen and understood.
Yet today, adolescent girls are undercounted and so underserved. Counting them is the first step to increasing their visibility.
Girls Discovered takes that first step. As a comprehensive source of
maps and data on the status of adolescent girls worldwide, Girls
Discovered helps donors, policy makers and implementing agencies target
their investments.
For example, keeping a girl in school until her body is mature enough for maternity not only results in better outcomes for mother and child, it reduces the strain for scarce resources such as food and water.
What's more, an educated girl is better equipped to support herself and her family -- and maybe, as I have already demonstrated, feed a village.
Many right-whingers think I bash Prime Minister Stephen Harper for sport.
Wrong. I bash Harper because just about everything he does, at least when it comes to women, is wrong.
Just look how Canadian women have fared throughout his reignrule government. According to the World Economic Forum, which publishes an annual Global Gender Gap Index, Canada slipped from 14th place to 25th.
That's why I wrote Friday's column, which is still generating hits and emails. I've added some links.
Tuesday, on the Star's op-ed page, Prime
Minister Stephen Harper announced that he would "mobilize" world
leaders to save the lives of women and children around the world.
He cited some horrifying statistics: "Each
year, it is estimated that 500,000 women lose their lives during
pregnancy or childbirth. Further, an astonishing 9 million children die
before their fifth birthday."
Hmm. These are numbers I have repeatedly noted in this column and on my blog – often to the derision of Harper supporters.(In fact I already posted the UNICEF video you see above last March. But I am reposting it.)
Now, I
am the last person on Earth not to applaud any concerted effort to help
women. Feminists have long said that women's rights are human rights –
an idea that is finally sinking in among Western leaders.
Improve the lot of women, improve the lives of all.
As
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton observed this month, "Well, you
know the proverb, `Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, but teach
a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime'? Well, if you teach a woman
to fish, she'll feed the whole village."
But Harper didn't mention anything about women getting educations or achieving economic parity.
As
internationally known human rights activist Stephen Lewis told me
Wednesday night, "None of the spectrum of women's rights and issues is
encompassed in this announcement.
It doesn't include
sexual violence, child marriage, sexual trafficking, female genital
mutilation, economic autonomy, political representation, land rights or
inheritance rights.
It includes none of the panoply of women's issues which consign women to subordinate positions around the world."
Hardly surprising considering Harper's government record on everything from women's reproductive rights to equality.
And
so he plans to help women only as baby-makers while ignoring all the
other Millennium Goals to end Poverty by 2015 on the international
agenda, including "environmental sustainability."
(Incidentally,
many NGOs, including CIDA, report that it's women who suffer most from
climate change. Whether they have to walk farther to find water, food
or fuel for cooking, their burdens are increased.)
What's more, as
Lewis emphasized, other nations have been on board what's known as the
Clinton Global Initiative for more than two years. In 2007, Norway and
the Netherlands committed $1.2 billion to this. Last year, another $5.3
billion was kicked in from other sources.
But, on Tuesday, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda would not tell media how much Canada is actually committing.
"It
takes a lot of chutzpah to pretend that somehow you're championing
something that others have championed so vigorously before you," Lewis
said.
It gets better – or worse, depending on your perspective.
Last week, the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health reported
on Canada's sinking infant mortality record – we're now 24th in the
world – while revealing Saskatchewan's shocking numbers of aboriginal
infant deaths. (There's a PDF Download Pages from PaedsJan2010_Blues here.)
And here's my longtime friend Gerry Caplan in that other paper.
I said that maternal and child health could he helped significantly by
inexpensive interventions, as has been shown in many countries. But if
anyone is genuinely interested in the overall well-being of women and
children, which ultimately will determine both their quality of life
and their mortality, larger issues of development and women's rights
must be pursued diligently. Birth control, abortion, sexual violence,
child marriage, land and inheritance rights, political rights – all
these issues related to women's subordination must be faced if their
overall physical and mental health is to be improved. Is Mr. Harper
ready to sign on to this program?
I'm sure the Prime Minster is well aware that his government cut off
funding for Kairos, the church-backed Canadian NGO. I wonder if anyone
has told him that Kairos worked in the Congo with a Congolese group
that was planning to set up a legal clinic to protect women's rights.
One of its intended projects was to support Congolese women who had
been raped. Renewing the Kairos CIDA grant would go a long way to
convincing Canadians that he is sincere in his concern for women's
health.
(The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof wrote this about life for women in the Congo just the other day.)
Here are some other things that didn't make the final cut.
It is with surprise that I learned of Stephen Harper's desire to help
the women and children of the world. How can he be so callous when one
million Canadian children don't have enough to eat? You have to wonder
how does he want to help them? What does he hope to get from it, especially when he cut off help to some of the poorest countries? What
about those women and children?
I heard from a reader who wanted to point out that, in spite of what I see as hypocrisy and opportunism on Harper's part, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada applauded his announcement.
Pro-life leaders are calling on Canadians to contact the Prime Minister and International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda, and ask them to ensure that the government does not cave in to pressure to push abortion and population control as part of the initiative.
No, because, after all, handing out contraception, or helping women to get abortions when they already have more mouths than they can feed or care for, just wouldn't be fair to women, right? And how come all the anti-choice ''leaders'' quoted are, um, men?
Pro-life leaders are calling on Canadians to contact the Prime Minister and International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda, and ask them to ensure that the government does not cave in to pressure to push abortion and population control as part of the initiative.
<SNIP>
I asked Minister Oda whether the Harper government was leaning toward the aggressive family planning model or favoured the building of local health clinics. While Minister Oda said she was seeking the best advice and not leaning in any direction at this point, one of the experts around the table nodded her head in agreement as I asked my question. Jennifer Kitts from Action Canada for Population and Development approached me excitedly after the news conference to tell me that family planning is key to reducing maternal mortality and infant deaths.
Kitts says that 30% of maternal deaths can be avoided and infant mortality can be reduced by 20% with proper family planning. Now I quickly understood how family planning could reduce maternal death but when I asked her to explain how family planning could help children live past their 5th birthday, Ms. Kitts became nervous and asked me to turn off my recorder. I asked her the question again and she told me she would have to do the interview later.
I don't know why Kitts would be so skittish. It's easy to answer the question. A woman not exhausted by multiple childbirths -- not to mention inferior nutrition and bigger burdens than the menfolk -- can't adequately care for too many children. This is why 70,000 women a year die from botched illegal abortions. That is why so many women die in childbirth. This is why so many kids don't make it to age 5.
Your chances of survival aas a child in these hellholes aren't great if your mother is dead.
But, with these people, the fetus reigns supreme.
As for women, well, dead or alive, they're just a political means to an end ...
Algeria says it is prepared to apply the provisions of the treaty as long as they
do not conflict with the provisions of the Algerian Family Code.
The government of Australia, on the other hand, says it does not accept the
application of CEDAW in so far as it would require alteration of the country’s
defence force policy - which excludes women from combat duties.
Yasmeen Hassan, director of programmes at the New York-based Equality
Now told IPS that lack of implementation of CEDAW is exacerbated by
countries’ reservations to the treaty.
"Many countries, including most Muslim countries [with the exceptions of
Afghanistan and Yemen], have significant and broad reservations to CEDAW
that nullify their commitment to gender equality," she added.
However, even in these cases, "the positive is that they are obligated to report
on the situation of women which gives us a platform to advocate and push for
change," she explained.
Except that some countries -- come on down Canada! -- are not even reporting.
Mind you, some countries never even ratified the CEDAW in the first place. They include those women's rights utopias Sudan, Iran, Somalia and, drum roll please, the U.S.
Antonia Zerbisias has been a Star columnist since 1989 but has been telling people what she thinks ever since she could open her mouth. Her career ambition as an opinionator dates back to Grade 9 when a cartoon commentary on a teacher resulted in her suspension from high school. The principal sent her home with a note calling her "rude, obstreperous and bold." Her parents were neither amused, nor surprised. Once she was punished for being that way. Now she makes it pay. And, because she can take it as well as dish it out, she wants to hear what you have to say. Fire away!
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