Tag Archives: women

The United Nations’ Annual Adventure

29 Sep

It is the Sunday after a long week of Heads of State, Foreign Ministers and a wide variety of other stakeholders all seeking to keep the UN on a positive, hopeful, practical trajectory, despite a myriad of global crises.

Side events on issues from the situation in Central African Republic to the abolition of child marriages occupied the attention of diplomats and select non-governmental representatives.   And then there was a most dramatic climate march as well as a media worthy presentation by Emma Watson on the need to encourage more male ‘champions’ for women’s rights.

The opening of the General Assembly corresponded with the re-opening of the General Assembly building.   While we have come to appreciate the North Lawn Building greatly, most participants in last week’s events seemed to enjoy the upgraded amenities of the new GA space, not to mention the reopening of the basement café. Guards and other UN personnel generally did a fine job of getting people in and out of meeting rooms and on and off crowded elevators.

It is not yet apparent how many compelling, new commitments were made this week by leaders.  There were, of course, some interesting ideas floated by civil society and governments – ideas that in our view still require more urgent scrutiny to minimize the possibility of unintended consequences.  We have already written about our cautions elsewhere on this blog with regard to both ‘veto restraint’ and the inclusion of a ‘peace objective’ within the post-2015 development goals.

There were many other things that happened this week that piqued our interest and even conveyed glimmers of hope that we can actually move confidently and urgently towards a holistic engagement of strategies to address some stubborn global emergencies.

  • At an event focused on nuclear disarmament, Brazil, Costa Rica and others properly highlighted the need for more investment in Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zones. At the same time, Chile called for the “delegitimizing” of nuclear weapons doctrines.
  • At another event focused on the death penalty, we were encouraged that so few states sought to defend their use of capital punishment. The President of Switzerland and Prime Minister of Italy made strong and convincing presentations exposing the fallacies of the death penalty.  At this same meeting, the office of the new High Commissioner for Human Rights launched the fine resource, “Moving away from the Death Penalty.”
  • In the Security Council, a US-led, co-sponsored resolution on foreign fighters passed unanimously, but Argentina’s president also noted the increasingly complex nature of terrorism and wondered aloud whether the Council’s responses are keeping pace.
  • In another Council meeting focused on ISIS, Luxembourg joined with other states in reminding members that (France’s reference to the ‘throat cutters’ notwithstanding) we are not going to solve deeper problems in the region through the application of threatening rhetoric and military power. In a similar vein, Rwanda described the ‘unbearable consequences’ that occur when the Council fails to use all available tools to maintain peace and security.
  • At an event on the role of education in the prevention of genocide, states noted the need to educate adults as well as children about the dangers of hate speech and other incitements to violence. Spain in particular spoke about the need to address conflict at its roots and noted its own, sustained advocacy work on behalf of more mediation resources.  For his part, USG Adama Dieng underscored the urgent responsibility to prevent incitement rather than waiting to address its consequences after the fact.
  • At a breakfast discussion focused on Women and Land, Ethiopia noted that land rights are tied to other rights and urged adoption of a holistic gender framework.  This sentiment was echoed by UN Women and other states in attendance.  It was also affirmed that land ownership by women lifts their general status in a variety of helpful ways.
  • At a ministerial event on Peace and Capable Institutions hosted by G7+ states, South Sudan highlighted the profound negative impacts of armed violence on fulfillment of development objectives, but wondered aloud about the wisdom of having a stand-alone ‘peace goal’ in the SDGs rather than, as others including the Prime Minister of Timor-Leste noted, a broader, more inclusive recognition in all SDGs of the importance of peaceful societies to development.
  • At a Sustainable Land Management event, New Zealand and others highlighted the degree to which restoration of damaged land constitutes a viable peace and security concern. During the same discussion, Germany highlighted some hopeful restoration initiatives while depicting hunger as one of the great “scandals” of our time.

There was so much more of note both within and beyond our hearing, of course: more hopeful statements, more missed opportunities, more rhetoric divorced from viable implementation strategies, more reminders of the connected, multi-dimensional crises that define our time.

All of this made up the past week at the UN, a highly political space that is often most effective at creating global norms to support change enacted at national and local levels.  It is at times like this when the need to simultaneously honor and demystify UN processes becomes apparent.  There are so many critical issues, including climate change, child soldiers and gender violence, that would have far less traction globally were it not for the UN’s sustained involvement.  On the other hand, the ‘talk shop’ reputation of the UN is only enhanced as a week’s worth of traffic-clogging motorcades and massive security bills result in modest outcomes as likely to disappoint public hopes as to inspire them.

As the barricades come down, the working-level diplomats resume their pride of place at UN headquarters.   Now is the time to take the most compelling suggestions from this week and turn them into strong resolutions that can leverage meaningful change.  We’ll be there to observe and reflect.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Avoiding Inter-Generational Gender Traps

14 Aug

As many readers of this Blog already know, the primary preoccupation of GAPW is with the ‘gender dimensions’ of UN policies – from peacekeeping and disarmament to youth leadership and social development.   Together with program partners at UN headquarters and in many communities and countries worldwide, we are convinced that efforts to promote women’s full participation in political and social life, as well as ending impunity for gender violence (which itself constitutes a significant barrier to participation) are key to both effective international security and the promotion of sustainable development priorities.

A gender lens is also valuable in approaching the Fourth session of the Open Ended Working Group on Aging.  It is true, as a brochure distributed by the Subcommittee on Older Women notes, that “older men and women both face age discrimination but older women also face cumulative effects of gender discrimination throughout their lives, including less access to education and health services, lower earning capacity and limited access to rights to land ownership, contributing to their vulnerability in old age.”

But there are other vulnerabilities for older women which are cultural in origin, and which may constitute the ‘final frontier’ of gender discrimination.  In my years of providing faith-based counseling for communities of largely older women and in my current work characterized in part by providing mentoring options for women working at UN headquarters, it is clear that older and younger women remain disconnected, that most younger women do not have older women who are not their mothers as ‘accompanying elders’ in their lives and, perhaps most relevant in this context, that younger women are not prepared (and indeed are largely ignoring) the long term, “cumulative” effects of all aspects of this subtle gender discrimination, but especially those aspects that are embedded in cultures that value physical beauty over character and worldly riches over connection.

Despite the dramatic anxiety that too often accompanies women in the early years of their life journey, these women often believe that they can alleviate some of the implications of anxiety and develop a competitive edge by ‘purchasing the surfaces.’   In this context, that means spending lots of energy on the things that win approval of peers and family members – focusing on enhancing physical beauty, having a clearly articulate career path, finding a mate and engaging in conventional family life.

None of these are problematic in themselves, perhaps aside from their implications for the lives of many women as they age.  Eventually, the wrinkles cannot be hidden, the hair greys, joints ache more often, life partners become more sporadically attentive, children move to distant cities, skills that defined a career are supplanted by new technology in younger hands.

In other words, the things of their youth that made these women ‘valuable’ in the eyes of their societies (and often in their own eyes as well) begin to slip away, sometimes slowly, other times with a speed that would shock a gazelle.

Many older women report feeling ‘invisible.’   The world’s attention has flowed elsewhere.   And sadly and unacceptably, respect and appreciation, including too often from younger women, flow away as well.

When that happens, the capacity for generosity is compromised.   The capacity to communicate hope through the aches of aging is undermined as well.  Prospects for life-giving connectivity are reduced to peer groups that are sometimes more restricted than the relationships of school – needlessly age and class specific.

In such circumstances, women are the losers.  Indeed, we are all the losers.    The ‘cumulative’ effects that lead too often to social isolation, feelings of ‘invisibility’ and other psychic deficits are, especially in western societies, undermining respectful and dignified engagements with the ‘last years,’ years that we are all destined to face and for which we are so often emotionally and materially unprepared.

As important as the Convention proposed by delegates to this Working Group would be, these psychic deficits cannot be addressed solely by recourse to resource-focused policies.   This is a problem that will more likely be solved through a robust, multi-generational engagement, an engagement that requires older women to be transparent about the ‘traps’ that they fell victim to in their early years, and younger women who are demonstrably less and less content to rely for their self-worth on things they will surely lose long before their life cycles have run their course.

This ‘final frontier’ of gender discrimination is deeply embedded and too rarely interrogated.   As we lobby for more health, employment and education options for aging populations, we should commit to expose the cultural ‘traps’ that keep too many younger women anxious and too many older women invisible.

Dr. Robert Zuber

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Conversation Starter: Civil Society Consultations

14 May

On the morning of the 14 of May at UN headquarters in New York, four panelists reflected on an important regional consultation that took place recently in Guadalajara, Mexico with the support of the Mexican government.  The Guadalajara meeting was part of a larger process designed, in part, to assess and integrate regional civil society concerns in laying out follow-up processes for the post-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework and the Rio plus 20 Conference on Sustainable Development held in June 2012.

The speakers highlighted the value of more regional engagement as a post-2015 agenda begins to take shape.   Also noted was the need for clear feedback loops that can help civil society track their impact on documents prepared by States and the UN Secretariat to help guide movement on development going forward.

In listening to the speakers, I was both grateful for this attention by UN stakeholders to the needs and wishes of civil society groups and also dismayed by what seems to be the unwillingness of speakers to publicly identify some of the enormous challenges associated with conducting a genuinely consultative process at this moment in our collective history.  There are now so many civil society groups, so little civil society consensus, and some particularly ‘muscular’ non-governmental organizations (especially in New York) that brand their work in ways that deflect as much civil society involvement as they invite.   We in New York are too often prone to gate-keeping more than assessing and promoting a wide range of voices from diverse social, geographic and economic circumstances to help address shifting circumstances. Gate keeping, perhaps more than any other NGO activity, is anathema to the kinds of consultations which the panelists envisioned.

It is probably valid to say, as one or more of the speakers mentioned, that the initial MDG process in 2000 lacked a clear consultative element.  It is also true that we were in a different period then with respect to civil society involvement.   For one thing, there are so many more of us than there used to be, a great blessing to be sure, but one which makes fair and transparent consultation difficult to implement.  What is the dividing line for involvement–   a history with the issue, connections to groups in New York, or perhaps a defined skills set related to some sustainable development priority?

There are certainly no firm criteria for participation in consultations and certainly no consensus by civil society groups regarding how development-related issues should be articulated and supported, both politically and financially.   It is wishful thinking to think that it is otherwise, and it is disappointing to hear people talk as though the key to a good consultative process is merely wanting it to be so.

Moreover, there is an issue about how civil society interventions in consultative processes should be assessed.  Is it solely about the number of times when language favorable to our own organizational mandates appears in resolutions of the General Assembly or its constitutive bodies?   Given the uneasy relationship between resolutions and practical engagements on the ground, is resolution language alone the bar that we need to be reaching for?  Are there deeper levels of engagement to which we should be pointing, engagement that continues to reach out beyond the most widely known ‘players’ to the many new leaders and organizational assets anxiously awaiting their turn?

This is not a critique of the specific panel hosted by Mexico, but rather a reflection on the degrees of difficulty that we face when we try to organize a field (civil society) that is expanding more quickly and in more diverse directions than we can map its movements.   There are many challenges and limitations in our sector that we must address, such as when we settle for new resolution language when so many in the world are clamoring for just and robust implementation of existing resolutions; or when we endorse existing ‘seating’ arrangements at a time when there are so many more chairs that need to be set up at the policy table.

It is possible to be thankful to the Mexican government and speakers that there is more consultation moving forward on development priorities, and still lament all of the ways in which civil society participation is still very much a work in progress.   While there is an abundance of responsibility to share among different stakeholders, including governments and the UN itself, much of this development-related work is the responsibility of civil society groups themselves. We need development in our sector that can complement and enrich prospects for development on the ground.

–Dr. Robert Zuber

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Facing History and Ourselves: GA Debate on the Role of International Criminal Justice in Reconciliation

15 Apr

On April 10, the President of the General Assembly’s Office initiated a 1 ½ day event focused on the relationship of international justice – specifically the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) – and prospects for national and regional reconciliation. The President of the GA offered opening remarks.

The event drew a large crowd of diplomats and a few civil society representatives, though many of the folks we spoke with came for the spectacle as much as for the content.    Many were aware of the decision by several invited persons – including Adama Dieng, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, and Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch – to cancel their participation in the event precisely because of the specter of a contentious and one-sided event that hung over the room.

Those who chose to stay away had their share of good reasons to do so.  The event itself was a carefully choreographed and at times intellectually dishonest exercise that sought to rehabilitate the reputation of the Serbian government and people by attacking the foundations of the system of international justice for which Serbian government behavior was an initial impetus.

The event may have done more to polarize the international community than to help explore legitimate concerns regarding the effectiveness of our international legal architecture, specifically concerns focused on the unresolved inconsistencies of the system of justice established by the UN Security Council – itself a politically compromised body.   Sadly the event did too little to enhance understanding of how international law functions, the nature and limitation of Tribunal mandates, or the complementary functions needed to establish conditions of positive reconciliation.  It should be noted here that it was not specifically the task of the Tribunal to promote conditions for reconciliation divorced from (often neglected) initiatives by other parts of the UN system let alone by the regional States themselves.

Nor was there any discussion of how the behavior of Serbs and others led us down the path where Tribunals were considered to be a viable option to national courts which, 20 years after this phase of violence commenced, have still proven themselves unwilling and unable to prosecute their own.   The Serbs-as-victims line is not completely without merit, insofar as international efforts to end impunity were selective and inadvertently reinforced negative stereotypes about Serbian ethnic communities, even regarding the ability of their newly elected representatives to contribute as viable members of the international community.  But such damage has remedial options that should have been explored carefully, one of which should NOT have been calls to dismantle the Tribunal, especially with key figures still awaiting trial. Moreover, we must have more clarity regarding what is wrong with the Tribunals, what can be fixed, and how we would avoid making the same mistakes again in other international fora mandated to end impunity for the most horrible, State-sanctioned crimes.

There is certainly merit to attempts to understand more clearly the limitations and compromises of our system of international criminal justice.   They clearly exist, and it would be wrong to sweep them under the rug.   At the same time, many of the complaints throughout the event were as unbalanced as the alleged behaviors of international prosecutors and their judicial processes.   Below I attempt to wade through what I and others felt to be a swamp of sloppy and compromised analysis to make the following points:

  • While it is important for any Tribunal to be sensitive to the impacts of their prosecutions and convictions on public perceptions, it is commonplace for victims of abuse to be dissatisfied with the results of court action that presumes to apply justice to victims’ allegations.   Courts must weigh options and evidence.   They cannot convict if there is insufficient evidence, regardless of the need of victims for conviction.   Nor can a Tribunal impose punitive measures beyond relevant sentencing guidelines.   It would appear that the Tribunal did its work within an environment where governments and constituents were rooting for it to fail.   That it has partially succeeded in fulfilling its mandate has little to do with levels of regional cooperation, including efforts to understand and work with the Tribunal’s limitations.  The Tribunal was treated by many as more like a tax collector to be spurned than a reconciler to be welcomed, officials’ contentions to the contrary.
  • Moreover, a Tribunal is not responsible for addressing all violations of law, but only those that rise to a level that establishes a clear and compelling interest for international prosecutors. While many of us, for good reason, recoil from the notion of symbolic justice – that is, prosecuting some as a ‘lesson’ to others – there is clearly a tendency to focus the attention of Tribunals on the highest established levels of accountability for gross violence and violations of rights.  Given the many resource and political limitations of the Tribunal, there is little justification for spending time on the equivalent of ‘street level drug dealers’ when the narcotics bosses are firmly within your sights.
  • Tribunals were established by the Security Council as a function of its (self-perceived) Charter-mandated responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.   Many States are uncomfortable (as are we) with the recent history of Council effort to expand its own mandate beyond what we believe to be the intent of the Charter.  Nevertheless, it is not clear where the viable, authorized alternatives might be to Council oversight of peace and security concerns, especially if we accept, which some on the panels clearly did not, that State “sovereignty implies responsibility” for the protection of civilian populations.  Invoking a recycled, Westphalian notion of sovereignty, as some participants did, was most unfortunate.   States participate in the UN, not because it is perfect or because they are rushing to cede national authority to international institutions, but because they recognize the limitations of State centrism in a multi-polar world.     There are things that States want and need that they simply cannot get within a system that holds them solely and rigorously responsible for all internal matters – including the economy, security and international justice.
  • As highlighted on day 2 of the GA debate, a clear majority of States continue to support (in theory and even in practice) the work of international Tribunals while affirming the duty of responsible parties to ensure that justice is pursued in a fair, impartial and vigorous manner.  But it is also clear that ‘responsible parties’ are not confined to Council members and Tribunal officials.   They also include States and the political entities within States.   It is clear to most States that the fair and equitable pursuit of justice in countries wracked by ethnic bitterness and massive human rights violations – let alone the larger agendas of national and regional reconciliation – cannot find success in the absence of support from those very same regional governments.      It was disturbing to many participants at this event that so few commitments to reconciliation – new or existing – were made or highlighted by the very States that were criticizing the limitations of the Tribunal in this area.      It is unfortunate at best for States that have not done nearly enough to foster national and regional reconciliation to claim that a Tribunal somehow has ‘magic bullets’ to share in this area.
  • National justice systems, as many States acknowledge, are ultimately the best setting for the adjudication of grave violations of human rights.   As our program partners in Guatemala indicate, their national courts are taking responsibility for sexual slavery and other crimes committed under previous governments, albeit tentatively and belatedly. National courts in Guatemala have advantages that do not accrue to international Tribunals, including having a more contextualized understanding of the impact of indictments and prosecutions on elements as diverse as national mood and access to justice.  We must utilize and support national judicial authorities wherever it is practical to do so, though the opinion of most at the GA debate is that we must also be able to supplement such capacity at the international level where needed.

At the end of the day, the debate failed some basic tenets of intellectual and political viability.   For instance, it seemed odd at best to attack the Tribunal for not solving problems inconsistent with its mandate, while essentially letting off the hook States and other stakeholders for which reconciliation tasks are very much within their sphere of responsibility.  Moreover,  to dismiss (as did some ‘scholars’ in this process) the relevance of international criminal justice altogether without any viable alternatives  or suggestions for practically modifying the limitations which were legitimately called to account seemed to us to be an unprofessional attempt to toss the baby out with the bathwater.

We can do better than this.  Thankfully, many participating States pointed us in a more fruitful way forward.

 

—Dr. Robert Zuber

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Profile of Activist Luz Mendez: Legal Case on Sexual Enslavement of Indigenous Women in Guatemala

15 Mar

Women’s rights activist from Guatemala Luz Mendez has been presenting her legal case on the sexual enslavement of women during Guatemala’s civil war at the 57th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) this month.

Luz Mendez was 15 years of age when she decided to become involved in her home country’s political course of action. Guatemala had been torn by a civil war for nine years at the time Mendez decided to no longer simply accept the status quo. “The numerous years of political oppression and the lack of liberties were the call to action for me”, Mendez explains retrospectively.

Mendez became the President of her High School’s Student Association creating “a small democracy within my school”, Mendez states. It was the year 1969 when the world was shook up by a politicized, international youth that was not willing to accept military dictatorships, questionable wars and the ongoing, and further growing, already vast economic imbalance between nations and entire continents.

Her position in high school put her in touch with many more student leaders from other schools. “That really opened my eyes and I understood how much power we have, when we organize for a good cause and start advocating for our rights.” She moved on to become a noteworthy activist, soon to establish international recognition, by participating in the peace negotiations as the only female member of the delegation of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (UNRC), contributing to the incorporation of unprecedented commitments for gender-equity in the accords. In 1996, she was the only woman representative signing the peace agreements for socioeconomic development and democratization in Guatemala.

Mendez joined this year’s CSW in order to present comprehensive details about the legal case she is trying to establish for indigenous Guatemalan women who have been victims of sexual violence during Guatemala’s civil war. It would also be the first trial of this kind brought to a national court.

The extraordinarily bloody civil war in Guatemala lasted thirty six years total, from 1960 to 1996. All this time the government was fighting left-leaning rebel groups that were supported by Mayan indigenous people. About 50,000 Guatemalans disappeared and up to 200,000 were killed or went missing. According to a UN report released in 1999, called “Guatemala: Memory of Silence”, 83 percent of those Guatemalans killed were Mayan. The Guatemalan government to this day is hesitant to acknowledge the commitment of genocide, although it has been internationally condemned in the past. According to UN resolution 260A, genocide is defined as follows: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life

calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”

A truth commission that had been installed in Guatemala after the civil war and was supported by the United Nations stated that “over 80 percent of the atrocities were committed by the army”. Current Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, to the contrary of his predecessor Álvaro Colom, has also promoted the view that genocide did not take place in Guatemala. Only in 2009 the former Military Commissioner Felipe Cusanero was sentenced to receive a 150-year jail term, for the disappearance of six farmers in the years of 1982 until 1984. “This was hailed as a landmark prison sentence in Guatemala,” Reuters wrote back then.

In February this year, the news that former General and Guatemalan Head of State Jose Efrain Rios Montt would be on trial at home for the crime of genocide, found great international support and positive acknowledgement. It is the first time in history that a domestic court is sentencing a former chief-of-state for genocide. “The Rios Montt trial also marks an important development in an evolving arena of international human rights,” comments News Network Al Jazeera.

Although several international courts established in the past 20 years have prosecuted individuals involved in genocide, the events in Guatemala are exceptional because the trial has been brought “home” and also because no ranking officer of the former totalitarian Guatemalan government has been held responsible thus far. The first public hearing will be held on 19 March.

Furthermore, the brutal victimization of indigenous women in Guatemala has not been rectified in any noteworthy manner as of now. Activist Luz Mendez wants to change that. In September of last year, fifteen Guatemalan women from the indigenous q’eqchí people testified before the High Risk Court in Guatemala City, with their testimony establishing the first criminal trial for sexual slavery and rape during an armed conflict in front of a domestic court. Moreover, as it applies to indigenous women, this testimony is ultimately helping thousands of women victims all over the world.

Mendez describes in her article, “I don’t want to die without seeing justice’: Sexual Slavery During Guatemala’s Armed Conflict,” the atrocities committed against indigenous women during the civil war:

“The history of Dominga Coc made a profound impression on the enslaved women in Sepur Zarco. Dominga, a twenty year-old woman went to the military camp with her two little daughters, Anita and Hermelinda, in search of her husband who had been captured by members of the army in 1982. After arriving at the base, she was captured and raped repeatedly by soldiers in front of her husband and her daughters. After several weeks of being brutally raped, she and her daughters were forcibly disappeared. Her body was found, in early 2012, on the edge of the river and exhumed. Dominga’s husband survived. He presented the testimony in the court. The story of Dominga Coc resonated for years among the women enslaved in Sepur Zarco and became a permanent warning of what could happen to any one of them at any time.”

According to the International Indigenous Women’s Forum, a “general pattern” exists that holds for indigenous women worldwide—that they have a particular “vulnerability to sexual violence.” In areas of conflict, indigenous women have often fallen victims to abuse by members of the military and are often subject to sexual enslavement, forced pregnancy, gang-rapes, sexual mutilation and killings. The International Indigenous Women’s Forum points out that “Historically, violence against women was used as a weapon in colonial conquests of indigenous lands, but as recently as the 1980s and 1990s, 1,400 indigenous Samburu women of Kenya were raped by British soldiers on their lands. In the 1980s, indigenous women were targeted for rape as a weapon of war in Guatemala.” In the 1990s, indigenous women in Chiapas, Mexico were subject to compulsory servitude in paramilitary camps. In times of crises, indigenous women are often forced to leave their communities and search for shelters and jobs elsewhere, which results in cultural and spiritual isolation as well as their exposure to sexual trafficking and prostitution as well as exploitation as domestic workers.

Nevertheless, Mendez is optimistic about her case. “We have any reason to be,” she explains. She is naming several groups of Guatemalan society that have been teaming up and are actively supporting the process. “Not only are the survivors strong women who have been waiting for public recognition for more than a decade, but women lawyers, psychologists and last, but not least, my group the Advisers’ Council of the National Union of Guatemala Women (UNAMG) have been closely working together to try and achieve justice for Guatemala’s indigenous women.” Mendez also points out that Guatemala has undergone a shift in dealing with its own history. “The fact that Rios Montt is now standing trial is giving me a lot of hope to also achieve public recognition and justice for indigenous women in Guatemala.”

 

–Lia Petridis Maiello

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Speak Up! Girls for Negotiation

18 Sep

This is one of two articles on PROGRESS’s inaugural workshop in Washington DC.  The first article looks at the Institution and concept behind PROGRESS. The second article will describe the workshop and its impact on the participating girls here in Washington DC – written by Jenneth Macan Markar

In a society where young girls are targeted by the media as viable consumers of materialism and women learn to comply with what is expected of them as opposed to what they want or can achieve, PROGRESS stands out as a program intended to effectuate a positive change in society by helping women and girls learn to make better decisions for themselves through negotiation. Teaching “Negotiation skills” are the hallmark of the Program for Research and Outreach on Gender Equity in Society (PROGRESS) developed at the Heinz College of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The inspiration behind the workshops developed by PROGRESS is to teach young girls the skill of negotiation, to enable them to make better life style decisions and grow up to be successful women.

PROGRESS is holding a workshop in Washington DC for young girls for the first time at the end of September. The workshop titled “Speak Up” will be a half day program with food, games and activities along with entertainment by the Georgetown University Step Team and Batala Washington. Molly Barker, Founder of Girls on the Run International will be the keynote speaker at the conference.

In the past 4 years since the program has been in operation in several communities in Pittsburgh, girls between the ages of  7-12 participating in half day workshops have been taught negotiation skills in a fun way. The workshops have been held with the help of facilitators from within the community, who are trained by Progress staff prior to the workshop. It is hoped that through the adoption of these skills the girls will learn how to make better life choices by creating positive options for them regarding their safety, health, education, future relationships and jobs. Progress workshops focus on girls from low income and marginalized communities as well as at schools that have the capacity to conduct similar workshops themselves.

The curriculum which is taught to the girls was developed by Ayana Ledford, Executive Director of PROGRESS and Professor Linda Babcock, the James M. Walton Professor of Economics at Carnegie Mellon, based on 20 years of  research on gender roles and negotiation which she and her co-author explore more fully in their book “Women Don’t Ask”. Ayana Ledford, the Executive Director of Progress conducts programming and community outreach. Currently PROGRESS conducts research, carries out advocacy projects and implements workshops. The newest long term initiative by PROGRESS is a continuing education program for professional women called the Heinz Negotiation Academy for Women, which is to start in January of 2013.

Although PROGRESS has had many workshops in Pittsburgh this is the first time in Washington DC. Heinz College has a branch here in DC and it seems like the natural step up for PROGRESS to expand its work. Similar to the workshops conducted in Pittsburgh the program will work with girls and community volunteers as facilitators.

Currently PROGRESS has just started a three-year long collaboration with the Consortium for Public Education in McKeesport, PA to track the girls that they work with in this program for several years and study how the workshop has influenced their decision-making. In the future Progress hopes to develop the capacity to conduct follow up programs to follow the progress of all the girls over the years and study the long term impacts of workshops such as this.

Workshop date in Washington DC: Saturday, September 22, 2012

Time: 8:30 AM – 1 PM

To register, call 412.268.8650 or go online to progress.heinz.cmu.edu and click on the banner ad titled “Speak Up!”

To find out about sponsorship and advertising opportunities please contact Rachel Koch at rakoch@andrew.cmu.edu.    (412) 925-6741

Facebook page: Progress CMU

Twitter account: @PROGRESSatCMU

 

–Jenneth Macan Markar

Jenneth is a Washington DC based gender and development consultant with a Law degree from the University of Colombo in Sri Lanka and a Master in International Affairs from Columbia University in New York. Originally from Sri Lanka she formally worked at Global Action to Prevent War in New York on Women, Peace and Security issues. She can be contacted at jennethm@gmail.com.

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ECOSOC Discusses the Women, Peace and Security Agenda

10 Aug

For those who followed the discussions of the 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) on the theme of “The Empowerment of Rural Women and their Role in Poverty and Hunger Eradication, Development and Current Challenges,”it was disappointing to see that there were no agreed recommendations. It was disappointing not only for the process, but also for what the lack of agreement says about the importance of the issues of rural women. CSW is part of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and is a global policy-making body focused on gender equality and the advancement of women. Annual meetings are held during which member states evaluate progress and establish global standards on these issues.

At the recent ECOSOC session, after a statement made by Ambassador Kamara of the Republic of Liberia who chaired the 56th session of CSW, member states discussed the progress that has been made with regard to mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programs in the UN system. While many applauded the creation of UN Women and the work of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), states were nevertheless frustrated about missed opportunities and felt that much more work needed to be done to advance women’s rights. Mexico, El Salvador, the United States, Belarus, Israel, Australia, Indonesia, Argentina, and Japan all mentioned that the inability to reach consensus on rural women at the 56th session was disappointing. Some states indicated that working methods should be reevaluated. Many highlighted forms of gender-based violence and discrimination that they believed should be focus points moving forward.

Nonetheless, the discussion at the most recent ECOSOC session did not just focus on the CSW; a few draft resolutions were also passed but only one of these – Situation of and Assistance to Palestinian Women – was contested. The United States shared its commitment to support women in Palestine and improving the humanitarian situation, but also expressed concerns over how the situation in Gaza and the role of Hamas can be a barrier to women’s fundamental rights. Finally, the US was not satisfied with the status of the text and encouraged ECOSOC to look at mutual goals. Israel and Canada agreed that politicizing the situation of Palestinian women was not justified and reminded the Council of the many human rights violations attributed to Hamas. These states asserted that an ethical draft would have focused on supporting Palestinian women, and would have been written primarily to address the challenges they face. Palestine reiterated that Israeli occupation is a major difficulty for Palestinian women and girls. The draft passed with 30 votes in favor, 2 opposed, and 18 abstentions. By adopting the resolution, the Council encouraged the international community to take special note of the human rights of Palestinian women and girls and to increase measures to help these women and girls in the challenges they face.

Overall, while discussions on the advancement of women are always welcomed and there can never be too many, we hope that more issues will get on the ECOSOC agenda that are complementary to other issues in the UN system, especially as the 57th session of the CSW approaches with the theme of “Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.”

–Melina Lito and Henry Neuwirth

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Opening of CSW 56 with Special Focus on Empowering Rural Women through Technology

28 Feb

Yesterday marked the opening of the 56th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), organized for the first time in conjunction with UN-Women. Madame Michelle Bachelet, Executive Director of UN-Women, offered remarks to the Commission chaired this year by Ambassador Marjon Kamara of Liberia. In addition to the theme of this year’s CSW on the situation of rural women, Madame Bachelet drew particular attention to the assistance needed for Palestinian women as well as women and children kidnapped and subsequently imprisoned in armed conflict. Madame Bachelet called for adoption of concrete actions for empowering rural women, women who represent one out of every four people in the world, over the next two weeks of the CSW. As aptly noted by many of the speakers in the opening session, empowering women is not only good for women, but it is good for peace and, therefore, for humanity.

Ms. Bachelet succinctly outlined the social, cultural, economic and political barriers impeding rural women’s participation and, in turn, the development of the entire community. Ms. Bachelet provided  examples of improved communities around the globe, such as Egyptian women being able to sign up for ID cards for access to health care, suffrage and education, as well as the more than 1 million women who have been asked to sit on rural village boards throughout India.

Ms. Bachelet also described another phenomenal form of development and its connection to women- Information Communication Technology for Development (ICTD). ICTD was referenced as it relates to a global survey conducted by the GSMA Development Fund. She reported that 93 percent of women surveyed felt safer with a mobile phone, 85 percent of women felt more independent with a mobile phone, and 41 percent had increased their economic opportunities by being mobile and connected. Other speakers such as Elizabeth Atangania of the Pan-African Farmer’s Forum also outlined the benefits of connecting women with resources and access explaining that mobile technology can be a helpful tool in aiding this process.

The exponential effects of a mobile phone were specifically underscored for their powerful influence on women’s empowerment, whether economic, political, social or otherwise. Ms. Bachelet noted, “And here I want to talk about mobile phones because they are changing lives and strengthening economic enterprises. Whether it’s information about credit, markets, weather updates, transportation or health services, mobile phones are changing the way rural women and men obtain services and conduct business.” One need not look much farther than the events associated with the Arab Spring over the last year and the tremendous impact of mobile technologies, social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, and other real-time updates from the ground by women and men alike.

These new technologies are key components to bridging the divide between men and women, rural and urban, as well as granting access and mobilization opportunities, most especially for rural women who are so often removed from the center of political discourse. In the context of social networking, these tools have a multiplier effect that ultimately give a voice to any woman that has a mobile phone and internet connection. Therefore, we sincerely hope that this year’s CSW will form concrete and actionable recommendations for improving the situation of rural women such that their voices can be heard buttressed by greater access to information and resources through these new technologies.

–Shea Molloy and Katherine Prizeman

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Sexual Violence in Conflict, Small Arms, and Key Linkages

27 Feb

The Security Council, under the presidency of Togo, hosted an open debate on sexual violence in armed conflict featuring briefings from the Secretary-General’s Special Representative Margot Wallstrom, the Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Herve Ladsous, and a statement from Libyan activist Ms. Amina Megheirbi representing the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. Although unable to adopt a Presidential Statement condemning such violence or a public statement on follow-up to Resolution 1960 (2010), the Council did express relatively unanimous support for Ms. Wallstrom’s mandate to alert the members to instances of sexual violence in conflict as well as increasing the effectiveness of the 1960 mandate through better coordination and information sharing. Member states were also supportive of the inclusion of a new mandate for Women Protection Advisers in peacekeeping operations. The debate was held just a few weeks after the Secretary-General released a  new report on ‘Conflict-related Sexual Violence’ on 13 January 2012.

Ms. Wallstrom noted in her statement that no one could remain unmoved by the striking country examples found in the most recent SG report, which she identified as already a ‘bit out of date’ and but one tool to combat the scourge of sexual violence in conflict. She referred to instances in Guinea, Syria, and Libya and poignantly stated that in contemporary wars it is more dangerous to be a women collecting firewood than a solider on the front line. More broadly, Special Representative Wallstrom also emphasized country level information moving effectively to the Council as well as robust support for government initiatives to combat impunity. Expanding the ‘naming and shaming’ listing was also identified as one way in which perpetrators could more effectively be held accountable.

Nonetheless, perhaps most importantly, Ms. Wallstrom classified the issue of conflict-related sexual violence as not a women’s issue, but a security issue with much wider peace and security implications than particular instances of rape. This point is particularly important for Global Action as we strive to link such issues to other components of the broader human security agenda. Not only can rape serve as a precursor to conflict, a diagnostic of pre-conflict conditions, and a symptom of impunity, it is also evidence of a weak and insufficient security sector. As is often said by proponents of the women, peace and security agenda, there is no security without women’s security and the aim is not only to protect women from violence, but to also encourage their active participation in political and economic life. A robust sector sector will indubitably support such participation as well as enhance protection mechanisms needed to eliminate such sexual violence in and out of conflict.

Indicative of these linkages, the delegate of Germany also referred to the proliferation of small arms and its dire effects on violence against women and children. It is a fact that women are disproportionately affected by gun violence in communities. Furthermore, the ready availability of small arms undoubtedly facilitates grave crimes such as sexual and gender-based violence, which is almost always committed at the point of a gun. Better gun control mechanisms, including a robust Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) that is to be negotiated this July as well as better implementation of the UN Programme of Action on small arms, are essential to a more dependable security sector and, in turn, protections for women against sexual violence and, just as critical, participation opportunities.

As Special Representative Wallstrom noted, the response to conflict-related sexual violence must be gender-focused and community-based. Communities must deal with this issue as part of a bundle of security issues that pose a threat to the well-being of its citizens– including small arms proliferation, gender-based violence, and lack of women’s access to political and economic life. We fully support the mandate of Ms. Wallstrom and her staff and hope that continued emphasis on the broad security implications of sexual violence will bear more robust and effective response mechanisms for communities suffering from such blights.

–Katherine Prizeman

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Secretary-General Presents New 5-Year Agenda: Focusing on Prevention

31 Jan

Just last week, the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon presented his Five-Year Action Agenda: ‘The Future We Want’ for his next term at the helm of the UN. He expanded further on the list of five imperatives laid forth last September: sustainable development; preventing conflicts and disasters, human rights abuses, and development setbacks; building a safer and more secure world, including standing strong on fundamental principles of democracy and human rights; supporting nations in transitions; and working with and for women and young people.

The Secretary-General made several important points regarding the changing dynamics of the world’s community that will require new and more dynamic responses by various stakeholders. The world’s population has officially exceeded 7 billion, new economic strongholds are emerging, social inequality is proliferating, climate change and environmental degradation are becoming harsher realities, and limited resources are continuing to shrink. These are no small challenges. It seems that any agenda,  not matter how far reaching and detailed, would be insufficient to tackle such gargantuan issues (the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs] are not on track to be achieved by 2015 as was envisioned when they were adopted in 2000. Nonetheless, as Ban Ki-moon said, the myth that development does not work is false– there has been more effective disease control, more children in primary school, and significant reductions in poverty throughout the world.) Nonetheless, it is important to temper opinions regarding the reality of setting forth such sweeping and lofty goals. A critical element of making these goals a reality is transparency, information sharing, and inter-agency coordination that not only engages the UN and its agencies, but also civil society, the private sector, academics, and other engaged global citizens that have the resources, enthusiasm, and skills to make progress, no matter how small, on these ambitious goals. As such, a welcome development was the SG’s announcement that he would appoint a senior adviser tasked with coordinating system-wide partnerships.

It’s worth a discussion on prevention– a key component of the SG’s agenda that is a ‘cure’ that is both better and cheaper than emergency response. In a system that is often focused on dealing with spiraling-out-of-control crises, this is a welcome initiative. The SG noted that his agenda emphasizes early warning and action through conflict mapping and linking, collecting and integrating information from across the system. This is precisely where the focus needs to be in addressing conflict, including mass atrocities and genocide, and human rights. As emphasized in our own organizational mission and priorities, it is essential to promote more transparency for findings generated by the UN, by member states and by civil society groups that indicate a credible threat of mass atrocities such that these findings can be made actionable at earlier stages before full-scale violence flares up. Findings are ultimately limited in their usefulness unless there is an attentive and robust infrastructure to turn information into preventative policy.

The SG’s reference to ‘a new dimension for the emerging doctrine of the responsibility to protect’ is somewhat vague, but it is a welcome reference to a framework that, although the majority of news-grabbing political considerations have focused on the last resort (military) intervention piece of it, fully embraces prevention as a means to limit the worst of human rights abuses. ‘Pillars’ one and two of the R2P framework focus on capacity-building and assistance for governments to protect their own people as a means of prevention. It is only the third and final pillar that focuses on potential outside intervention as a means to ‘protect.’  Likewise, more effective mapping and integration of information across the international system is welcome initiative that would promote greater transparency in findings of potential human rights abuses so that it is not left exclusively to the Security Council to deal with a full-blown crisis, but rather the wider international community can engage in early action and preventative activities.

It is important that the international community looks at the most pressing issues of the immediate future on a macro level, in addition to the micro dealings of day-to-day UN work. It is in these broader assessments that the different challenges can be better understood in concert with one another so that better and more efficient coordination can be planned for and ultimately implemented. The linkages are clear– higher levels of participation from women and youth are linked to more sustainable development; preventing conflicts and development setbacks surely depend on building a safer and more secure world. The UN is an imperfect system, but it is a system that is universal in representation and replete with human creativity and skills to tackle, even if imperfectly, these difficult challenges of our time.

 

–Katherine Prizeman

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