16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence Campaign

16 Days

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USAID is joining the global community in observance of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence.  The campaign -  it begins on the International Day of Eliminating Violence Against Women (Nov. 25) and ends on International Human Rights Day (Dec. 10) - plays an important role in promoting international cooperation to end gender-based violence.

 

The 16 days are a sobering reminder that gender-based violence cannot be treated as solely a women's issue, but is a profound challenge for the entire world.  Violence effectively acts as a cancer on societies, causing enormous upheaval in the progress of social and economic development.  During these 16 days, let us reflect and act collectively to end gender-based violence.

 

Visit the USAID 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence page to learn more about the campaign then check out the first blog in our 16 day series on the USAID Impact blog.

 

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2011 Gender Intelligence Summit


Friday, December 2, 2011 from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM (ET)

Washington, DC

The Gender Intelligence Summit will convene recognized experts and accomplished leaders and highlight best practices of leading organizations in advancing Gender Intelligence.

The Summit will feature:

  • A lively and engaging conversation with a panel of scientific experts who will explore the concrete differences between men and women and disucss how they can work together more effectively.  
  • Dynamic sessions with leadership practitioners from across the private, public and non-profit sectors who will provide real-world lessons and practical strategies for applying gender intelligence.  
  • Keynote conversations with high-level executives and accomplished leaders interviewed by notable media personalizes on their successes advancing leaders through the application of gender intelligence and professional sponsorship.


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Kevin C. Rubio
Senior Technical Advisor, Civil Society Division
IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board)
2121 K Street NW suite 700, Washington D.C. 20037 U.S.A.

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Gender Equality and Development: Discussing the 2012 World Development Repor

Gender Equality and Development: Discussing the 2012 World Development Report

Nov 30, 2011

  


The Center for Global Development invites you to a brownbag on
Gender Equality and Development: Discussing the 2012 World Development Report

Featuring
Jishnu Das
Senior Economist, 2012 World Development Report
The World Bank

Markus Goldstein
Senior Economist, 2012 World Development Report
The World Bank

Sudhir Shetty
Co-Director, 2012 World Development Report
The World Bank

Hosted by
Amanda Glassman
Director of Global Health Policy and Research Fellow
Center for Global Development

Wednesday, November 30, 2011 
12:30pm – 2:00pm

at 
Center for Global Development
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC

*Please bring photo identification*

Please RSVP Here

CGD is pleased to host Sudhir Shetty, Jishnu Das and Markus Goldstein – all  members of the core team that prepared the World Bank's recently-released 2012 World Development Report on gender equality and development. They will discuss the unprecedented gains made by women in education, health and labor markets in low- and middle-income countries, the gaps remaining in human capital accumulation, access to economic opportunities and justice, priorities for public action at the national level, and a global agenda for action to achieve gender equality. 

Sudhir Shetty was the co-director of the report team, and he has previously managed the Bank’s economic policy and poverty reduction unit for Sub-Saharan Africa. Jishnu Das is a Senior Economist in the Development Research Group (Human Development and Public Services Team) at The World Bank and a Visiting Fellow at The Center for Policy Research, New Delhi. His work focuses on the delivery of basic services, particularly health and education using market-level analysis and draws upon data collected in Zambia, India, Pakistan and Paraguay. Markus Goldstein is a development economist who has worked in sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and South Asia. He coordinates the work of the Africa Region Gender Practice, focusing on impact evaluations on the issues of gender and economic activity, especially in agriculture and small-scale enterprises.


Sent from my iPad

Kevin C. Rubio
Senior Technical Advisor, Civil Society Division
IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board)
2121 K Street NW suite 700, Washington D.C. 20037 U.S.A.

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Moroccan Vote Puts Women's Gains to Crucial Test

Monday, November 21, 2011

Morocco's new constitution offers huge hope for gender equality, including combating a well-documented problem of domestic violence. New members of parliament elected Nov. 25, along with the king, will determine actual change.

 

(WOMENSENEWS)-- Morocco's Nov. 25 parliamentary elections are expected to decide if the country's new constitutional provisions for women can go beyond paper gains.

"People are tired of promises," said Fatima Sadiqi, a lecturer at the University of Fes in Morocco and Harvard University. "They want to see things happening on the ground. In order to apply them you need the infrastructure, schools in rural areas. That's not easy. There should be a serious thought about these issues, and this is the moment. Elections are close."

Judges' decisions in Morocco are driven more by laws than constitutional rights. That means the next parliament has the chance, through legislation, to decide the real reach of constitutional reforms approved by a landslide popular vote in July.

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The reformed constitution recognizes that women--in addition to having equal civil and political rights already laid out in the old constitution--have equal economic, social, cultural and environmental rights. It encourages the creation of women's rights organizations to help institutionalize change.

"It's a really important achievement for women in the Arab world," said Latif Ait Baala, president of Action Internationale, a rights group based in Brussels, Belgium, in a recent interview outside U.N. headquarters in New York.

Morocco's landmark 2004 family code is a beacon for Arab women's rights. It raised the age of marriage for women to 18 from 15 and gave wives joint responsibility with husbands in such family matters as property upon divorce. It also criminalized sexual harassment.

Zahra Chagaf, a politician from southern Morocco who has been a member of parliament since 2002, says the reformed constitution takes all that a step further.

"Thanks to the new constitution, all of women's rights are based on the principle of equality," she said in a recent interview during a visit to New York. "Before it was just equality between husband and wife, but now it is principled at all levels of society. We will work until the constitution is completely respected," she said.

Aiming for Higher Quotas

Sixty seats are now reserved for women, about 15 percent of Morocco's parliament, up from 9 percent. But women's rights activists had hoped for a quota of 25 percent.

"It will be interesting to see how many women candidates are elected to office outside of and in addition to the national list reserved for women," said Stephanie Willman Bordat in a recent phone interview.

Bordat is Maghreb regional director at the Rabat-based Morocco office of Global Rights. She is warily watching the Islamist Development Party, or PJD, particularly after the recent success of the Islamist Ennahda party in Tunisia.

"A PJD win in Morocco risks to move us further along the path to a regional Maghreb dynamic of increasing conservatism in both society and law on women's rights," she said in an email interview.

Bordat also worries that the elections will fail to change the membership of parliament.

"I don't think people are convinced that the power structure in the country has changed, or that the usual list of suspects--the socioeconomic elite--won't be elected back. And it depends on how much the people elected will continue to be rubber stampers, and how many will actually take an active, creative role in protecting women's rights."

A delegation of international observers that arrived in the country on Oct. 20 has found that parties put forward their most popular, wealthiest, candidates. The delegation was organized by the National Democratic Institute, a pro-democracy group based in Washington, D.C.

"This presents a dilemma for parties that wish to respond to the almost universal demand among the politically active and civil society for change and 'new faces' in politics," said the delegation in an Oct. 26 statement.

 

New Faces Significant

Bordat said that if new faces do manage to enter government, eager to promulgate the ideals of the new constitution, it would be hugely important.

"There are many progressive political leaders in this country, as well as very progressive lawyers. And with that kind of bloc you could really get people actively looking to apply international human rights laws directly," she said.

Demonstrations and rallies in cities across Morocco that started in February were understated compared to those of neighboring countries. They nonetheless marked an unprecedented period of political turmoil under King Mohammed VI. Protesters demanded greater democracy from their government, for the king to relinquish some power and for greater rights for all citizens; notably young people, women and Berber-speaking communities.

In June, the king announced constitutional reforms in a national address. These were approved by 98 percent of those who voted in the July 1 referendum; a group representing 73 percent of the country's 13 million registered voters.

In light of the constitutional changes, parliamentary elections scheduled for the fall of 2012 were moved up to Nov. 25.

The reformed constitution, which is a lengthy180 articles, also leaves some room for interpretation.

"After a great declaration for women's rights or human rights, the articles often end with a qualifier clause: 'as long as it respects the constitution, the laws of Islam and the kingdom,'" Bordat, the rights advocate, said in a separate phone interview. That clause, she added, allows slippage in applying the fundamental rights in the constitution.

Lawyers Unaware

As it is, Bordat said many lawyers are unaware of human rights the government has agreed to uphold when it comes to such matters as domestic violence.

She recently attended a meeting in Geneva organized by the U.N. Committee Against Torture. Delegates from the Moroccan government told the committee they were actively recognizing their obligations against torture, including domestic violence, Bordat said.

"I can assure you that most of the average folks applying the law at the local level are not aware of that," she said. "All of the public civil servants have got to be educated and informed about what Morocco's international human rights obligations are."

A 2011 national study by Morocco's High Commission for Planning found that nearly 63 percent of Moroccan women ages 18-64 had suffered some form of violence during the year preceding the study, and for 55 percent of them their husbands were the perpetrators. Violence by the wife was reported in only 3 percent of such cases, according to a joint statement by the Advocates for Human Rights and Global Rights, presented to the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva earlier this month.

Thirty-three percent of respondents said that a man is sometimes justified to beat his wife, another report released by UN Women found.

Maura Ewing is an editorial intern at Women's eNews and a student at The New School for Social Research. You can read more of her work here.

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Male Leaders Speak: Critical Strategies for Combating Gender-Based Violence

(download)

I attended an excellent panel discussion yesterday on the role of men in combating gender-based violence. A few highlights are below. My notes are attached.


Randal

MALE LEADERS SPEAK: CRITICAL STRATEGIES FOR COMBATING GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

Speakers/Moderator

·         Ambassador Donald Steinberg, Deputy Administrator, USAID

·         Major General Patrick Cammaert, United Nations Force Commander, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

·         Jimmie Briggs, Founder and Executive Director. The Man Up Campaign

·         Gary Barker (moderator), International Director, Promundo

Key Highlights:

·         "Nothing about them without them." We must engage local groups & wisdom of women affected by sexual violence. –Don Steinberg

·         "We need to turn 16 days of activism against gender violence into 365 days of concrete action." –Gary Barker

·         “We have all the [UN Security Council] resolutions we need, (e.g., 1325, 1820, 1888, and 1889) to prevent sexual violence. We have all the institutions and norms. We need political will and resources.” –Don Steinberg

·         “Child marriage establishes a norm in society that girls are valuable for their reproductive capacity and ability to please men versus having inherent self-worth.” –Don Steinberg

Invitation: Haiti: Reconstruction and the Role of Women

Haiti: Reconstruction and the Role of Women

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 | 9:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

U.S. Institute of Peace

2301 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20037

 RSVP http://haitiwomen.eventbrite.com/

Women played a vital role in Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating 2010 earthquake. In leveled communities and overcrowded tent cities, Haitian women worked tirelessly to treat the wounded, reunite families, and support survivors. Nearly two years later, they remain a critical factor in Haiti's recovery, but face considerable hardship. Gender-based violence, pregnancy-related mortality, extreme poverty, and unemployment remain high. Meanwhile, women feel excluded from the reconstruction process, which is stalled by political deadlock.

On November 29, the U.S. Institute of Peace and Vital Voices will co-host a panel of distinguished experts to discuss the situation of women in Haiti and their role in reconstruction.  The event will feature an exhibition of photos taken by Haitian women depicting their lives in the tent cities around Port-au-Prince. Through a partnership between USIP and Digital Democracy, these women and others like them have been trained on how to utilize blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of new media to highlight issues in their communities and push for policy change.

 

This event will feature the following speakers:

 

Ambassador Richard Solomon (introduction)

President, U.S. Institute of Peace

 

Congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-MD)

United States House of Representatives

 

The Honorable Yanick Mezile* (Invited)

Minister, Ministry of Women's Affairs of Haiti 

 

Michele Montas

Journalist/Consultant on Human Rights and Media Issues

Former Spokesperson for the UN Secretary General

 

Emily Jacobi

Co-Founder and Executive Director, Digital Democracy

 

Dr. Robert Maguire

Chairman, Haiti Working Group, U.S. Institute of Peace

 

Dr. Kathleen Kuehnast

Director, Gender and Peacebuilding Center, U.S. Institute of Peace

 

Robert Perito

Director, Haiti Program, U.S. Institute of Peace

 

* With a delegation of civil society representatives from Haiti

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Gender Equality and Development: Discussing the 2012 World Development Report

Gender Equality and Development: Discussing the 2012 World Development Report

Nov 30, 2011

  


The Center for Global Development invites you to a brownbag on
Gender Equality and Development: Discussing the 2012 World Development Report

Featuring
Jishnu Das
Senior Economist, 2012 World Development Report
The World Bank

Markus Goldstein
Senior Economist, 2012 World Development Report
The World Bank

Sudhir Shetty
Co-Director, 2012 World Development Report
The World Bank

Hosted by
Amanda Glassman
Director of Global Health Policy and Research Fellow
Center for Global Development

Wednesday, November 30, 2011
12:30pm – 2:00pm

at
Center for Global Development
1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Third Floor, Washington, DC

*Please bring photo identification*

Please RSVP Here

CGD is pleased to host Sudhir Shetty, Jishnu Das and Markus Goldstein – all  members of the core team that prepared the World Bank's recently-released 2012 World Development Report on gender equality and development. They will discuss the unprecedented gains made by women in education, health and labor markets in low- and middle-income countries, the gaps remaining in human capital accumulation, access to economic opportunities and justice, priorities for public action at the national level, and a global agenda for action to achieve gender equality.

Sudhir Shetty was the co-director of the report team, and he has previously managed the Bank’s economic policy and poverty reduction unit for Sub-Saharan Africa. Jishnu Das is a Senior Economist in the Development Research Group (Human Development and Public Services Team) at The World Bank and a Visiting Fellow at The Center for Policy Research, New Delhi. His work focuses on the delivery of basic services, particularly health and education using market-level analysis and draws upon data collected in Zambia, India, Pakistan and Paraguay. Markus Goldstein is a development economist who has worked in sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and South Asia. He coordinates the work of the Africa Region Gender Practice, focusing on impact evaluations on the issues of gender and economic activity, especially in agriculture and small-scale enterprises.

Katherine Evans

Director, Civil Society Division

IREX

2121 K St. NW, Suite 700 | Washington, DC 20037|(202-628-8188 x105 |* kevans@irex.org |

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 kathy.w.evans |www.irex.org

Make a Better World: www.irex.org/donate

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Crossing the Line: Sexual Harassment in Grades 7-12

See below for some highlights from a new report by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). I’d love to see us begin to address issues like these in our teacher training programs. --Randal

Crossing the Line (2011)

Based on findings from a nationally representative survey conducted in May and June, 2011, this report presents the most comprehensive research to date on sexual harassment in grades 7-12 and reveals some sobering statistics about the prevalence of sexual harassment and the negative impact it has on students' education. A few highlights from the report:

·         Sexual harassment is part of everyday life in middle and high schools. Nearly half (48 percent) of the students surveyed experienced some form of sexual harassment in the 2010–11 school year, and the majority of those students (87 percent) said it had a negative effect on them.

·         Too often, these negative emotional effects take a toll on students’ and especially girls’ education, resulting in decreased productivity and increased absenteeism from school (Chesire, 2004).

·         …although both girls and boys can encounter sexual harassment at school, it is still a highly “gendered phenomenon that is directly and negatively associated with outcomes for girls” (Ormerod et al., 2008).

·         Students offered ideas for reducing sexual harassment in their school, including designating a person they can talk to (39 percent), providing online resources (22 percent), and holding in-class discussions (31 percent). Allowing students to anonymously report problems was a top recommendation (57 percent), as was enforcing sexual harassment policies and punishing harassers (51 percent).

Download the full report (PDF, 2 MB)

Download the Executive Summary (PDF, 723 kB)