Source: The Guardian Despite new legislation and proactive policies such as quotas, the world is failing to deliver on equality between girls and boys, according to a report that calls for a sea change in attitudes across society as well as sustained, vocal support for grassroots movements.
Source: The Guardian
Hundreds of pregnant women and girls are dying needlessly in South Africa, partly because of well-founded fears that their HIV status may be revealed during antenatal care, leading to discrimination in their communities and homes, according to Amnesty International.
In a report released on Thursday, Amnesty said that field research in the eastern provinces of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal showed women’s HIV status was sometimes revealed at antenatal clinics, with staff showing scant regard for patients’ right to confidentiality.
Something as simple as the queue women were asked to join could be enough to reveal a woman’s positive status, leaving her exposed to the stigma that persists around the virus that causes Aids.
More than a third of the 1,426 reported maternal deaths in 2012 were linked to HIV, the report said. Experts estimated that 60% of all the deaths were avoidable. A lack of information about sexual and reproductive health and poor roads also contributed to hundreds of maternal deaths by discouraging women from seeking adequate and timely antenatal care.
The report said that nearly a quarter of avoidable maternal deaths were linked to late or no access to antenatal care, which is free in South Africa’s public health system.
Amnesty’s secretary general, Salil Shetty, said: “It is unacceptable that pregnant women and girls are continuing to die in South Africa because they fear their HIV status will be revealed, or because of a lack of transport or basic health and sexuality education. This cannot continue.”
The report found that many women and girls do not attend clinics until the latter stages of pregnancy because they have been led to believe an HIV test is compulsory. In the report, some women who did attend clinics described how their HIV status could be revealed through negligence, inconsiderate processes and even workplace gossip.
“The nurses are talking about people and their status,” a woman from KwaZulu-Natal told the report’s authors.
In several clinics visited, the processing system identified pregnant women and girls living with HIV. Some used separate queues for antiretroviral medication, different-coloured antenatal files, and different days for appointments.
“[I]f I go for antiretroviral, my line is that side. All the people in this line, they know these people are HIV. That’s why people are afraid to come to the clinic,” a woman from Mpumalanga told Amnesty.
“During antenatal care, if women come out of the counsellor’s room with two files, then everyone knows they are HIV positive,” said another woman.
Women and girls told the report’s authors that they feared discrimination from partners and family members as a result of testing positive for HIV, and that stigma around the virus remained a problem in many communities.
Shetty said that HIV testing must be done in a manner that respects the rights of women and girls, without exposing them to additional harm.
She added that “it is vital that healthcare workers in South Africa receive additional training on providing quality care that is both free of judgment and stigma, and that women and girls accessing sexual and reproductive health services are able to trust that their confidentiality will be respected”. She called on the South African government to take urgent steps to ensure the privacy of pregnant women and girls is respected in health facilities.
In April, South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council found that the prevalence of HIV and Aids in South Africa was rising, partly because the country has the world’s fastest growth rate in new infections and partly because patients were surviving longer, due to an expanded antiretroviral treatment programme.
The report said an estimated 12.2% of South Africa’s population was infected with the HIV virus in 2012, compared with 10.6% in 2008, based on a survey of 38,000 people. The percentage rise was partly due to the discovery of 400,000 new cases in the year studied, bringing the total number of infected people to 6.4 million, it said.
“The HIV incidence rates among women are of particular concern,” the report stated. It noted that the rate among females aged between 15-24 years was more than four times higher than for males in this age group. Overall, knowledge about how HIV is transmitted and can be prevented fell to 26.8% in 2012, compared with 30.3% in 2008.
In its study, Amnesty said many women, especially adolescents, lacked sufficient knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights, increasing the risk of unplanned pregnancies and HIV transmission. Women and girls were also often unaware of how important it is to have early antenatal checks.
Even if women do want to attend clinics, the state of the roads and the lack of reliable public transport can be obstacles. Amnesty said that some of the roads were so poor that they became impassable during the rainy season, with ambulances also refusing to go beyond a certain point on some roads.
The report’s authors called on the South African government to ensure that all health system procedures uphold patient privacy, particularly for people living with HIV. They also urged it to improve knowledge about sexual and reproductive health and rights, and urgently address the lack of safe, convenient and adequate transport.
“The South African government must ensure all departments work together to urgently address all the barriers that place the health of pregnant women and girls at risk,” Shetty added.
Source: Aawsat
Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat—Noor and Salma, two 15-year-old Egyptian girls, were flushed with happiness when a policewoman accompanied them through the crowded entrance of the Metro cinema in central Cairo on the first day of Eid Al-Adha. The female police officer is a member of a newly formed police unit tasked with protecting women against sexual harassment.
In a sight uncommon to the people of the country, members of the female police unit were deployed across the streets of Cairo and other Egyptian cities during the Eid festival. The initiative has attracted much public attention and has been widely welcomed by Egyptians weary of sexual harassment, a phenomenon that has grown rampant in the country in recent years.Asharq Al-Awsat tried to speak to one of the female police officers, but she politely declined since she cannot speak to the media without formal permission from her superiors.
The new initiative has not been without its challenges, however. It has already been reported on social media websites that several of the anti-harassment female personnel were themselves subjected to harassment during the Eid holiday; however, these incidents proved limited in most cases to verbal abuse and members of the public were quick to rush to the young policewomen’s rescue.
“The deployment of a trained female police force comes within the framework of . . . of confronting all negative phenomena against women in the country,” Deputy Minister of Interior for Human Rights Maj. Gen. Abu Bakr Abdelkarim tells Asharq Al-Awsat.
The initiative, Abdelkarim says, has led to a “significant and marked decline in harassment cases this year, with [the majority] being limited to verbal abuse only.”
This marks a significant step from previous reports of physical violations and violent attacks being committed against women, including instances of group harassment.
Over the past few years, many Egyptian women have fallen victim to sexual harassment, both verbal and physical, with the majority of incidents taking place during protests and the Eid holidays. In a study issued in 2013, the UN said almost 99 percent of Egyptian women had been subjected to some form of sexual harassment.
But the government has finally begun to act. Egypt’s judiciary approved a legal amendment in June penalizing harassers with at least six months’ imprisonment or a 3,000-Egyptian-pound (420-US-dollar) fine. Under the new law, many have already been sentenced to years in prison for sexually harassing women at the iconic Tahrir Square during celebrations marking the inauguration of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in May.
Abdelkarim says his ministry heavily deployed members of the new police force unit throughout all main streets during the Eid season last week, and when the new school year began last month.
Current members of the unit had served at different Ministry departments until July 2013, when Egypt’s Minister of Interior Mohamed Ibrahim issued a resolution establishing the department.
“As the phenomenon of harassment exacerbated and women were being subjected to sexual harassment, the interior minister established sections for fighting crimes of violence against women in all security directorates and embedded within them female police personnel,” he adds.
“The presence of policewomen is very significant in terms of dealing with girls and women in the street . . . They have played a positive and marked role and they succeeded in fighting harassment and arresting several young men for committing violence against women,” he says.
The Ministry’s plans this year have been extremely influential in reducing violence against women, and the heavy deployment of security forces played a significant role in limiting most recorded cases to verbal abuse.
With the proliferation of acts of group harassment, however, it has been difficult for female officers to be on their own on the streets, Abdelkarim says. As a result, the Ministry decided to employ male officers into the force as well. Abdelkarim says the unit will operate throughout the year and not only during public occasions, and that the ministry is currently coordinating with several voluntary groups to boost its performance.
Source: TWCNews
UTICA, N.Y. -- Domestic violence plagues many families and communities. October is domestic violence awareness month and U.S. Representative Richard Hanna said the government can do more to help international victims.
Hanna's urging Congress to pass the International Violence Against Women Act.
The legislation would allow American agencies abroad to support and protect victims in at least five countries where the problem is severe. It would also work to bring perpetrators to justice.
According to the World Health Organization, one in three women world wide is the victim
of gender based violence.
Hanna said the legislation has been sitting in Congress for years, but if passed, would make the U.S. a leader against domestic violence.
"It speaks to our humanity. It speaks to our willingness to send the world a message about who we are and what we stand for. It's not about money, it's not an expensive bill. It's about setting a standard," said Hanna.
The Violence Against Women Act was established in the U.S. in 1994. It was renewed last year and serves as a model for the the international version.
Source: Anglican News
The Mother’s Union (MU) in Tanzania is prioritising the empowerment of women and girls in the country to “make them more independent and less subject to gender-based violence.”
Source: New Times
Governments and institutions must involve women in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction, participants at a Gender Pre-forum that opened in Kigali yesterday have said.
Source: The Herald
Zimbabwe is about to launch the Girl's and Young Women's Empowerment Framework, which is the first national document that guides how young women and girls can be empowered to live meaningful lives.
Source: Star Africa
As part of an urgent need to address the high level of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) – including rape, abuse and harassment – experienced by women and girls in the camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Darfur region of Sudan, Darfuri lawyers have implemented projects aimed at promoting and protecting women’s rights in the region.
Source: UNAMID
As part of global open days on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on women, peace and security, UNAMID's Gender Advisory Section organized a one-day forum for women on 29 September 2014 in Nyala to identify the priorities, concerns and needs of women in South Darfur. The session brought together more than 60 women representatives from the Darfur Regional Authority, the South Darfur Legislative Council, traditional women leaders and members of the state committee on UNSCR 1325.
Source: The New Times
Governments and institutions must involve women in conflict prevention and post-conflict reconstruction, participants at a Gender Pre-forum that opened in Kigali yesterday have said.
Source: UN News Centre
The horrors of sexual violence in South Sudan did not end with the ceasefire agreement, a senior United Nations official today said calling on citizens of the world's youngest country to stand together and say "enough is enough."
Source: The Guardian
Human rights abuses entrenched in legal system, with women facing flogging or jail for going about their daily lives
Source: Open Democracy
We must conceptualise the epidemic levels of sexual violence in post-revolutionary Egypt at least partly as "state violence", and resist the state's attempt to selectively appropriate women's rights. Every post-revolutionary Egyptian regime has the blood of women on its hands.
Source: The Nation
Women's reproductive rights are at risk of being de-emphasized as UN member nations draft the Sustainable Development Goals.
Source: The Star About 2,050 physically challenged girls in 50 primary schools in Nyanza will benefit from a Sh276 million project.
Source: Spy Ghana Gender activists have raised concerns that despite considerable gains made under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), persistent gender inequality and denial of women's rights remain significant challenge.
Source: Al Jazeera The "men only" signs may no longer be needed for a U.N.-supported men-only conference on gender equality, plans for which were unveiled earlier this week by leaders of Iceland and Suriname.
Source: South Africa Government The Commission for Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (CRL Rights Commission) and the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE) are both Chapter nine Institutions established to strengthen and deepen Constitutional Democracy are concerned that basic fundamental rights of individuals in the name of religion are being violated by some Religious institutions.
Source: Devex In the past 60 years or so, we have seen capitalism reach its peak. We have seen the socialist economies fall away and move rapidly toward capitalism. This has undoubtedly brought unprecedented wealth and prosperity in many parts of the world and to many people. At the same time, millions — if not billions — have been left behind.
Source: Mmegi Online Dr Dorcus Mompati said this when officiating at the second annual Northern Women's expo, which was held at Adansonia Hotel.