Newsletters 2007
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Newsletters - 2007
The Editing Committee of the IAW newsletter wishes you a peaceful and productive 2008! Good health, wisdom and a bit of humour for us all!
In this last newsletter for 2007 a variety of news. There is a request of CEDAw and please stay alert during the fight in the coming two years for climate change. The criteria of deforestation for example have still to be developed and implemented with a worldwide view in mind.
Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Ada Yonath and Prof. Dr. Agneta Nordberg, who both won important prizes. India has made good progress in the fight against tuberculosis.
In the five IAW Commissions a lot of preparatory work is being done to support the Board and the IAW representatives. Any member who believes she can contribute to one or more of the Commissions may become a resource person.
Our warmest thanks goes to all of you who have been sending us articles and interesting news during 2007. And please keep up your good work in 2008!
We are beginning this newsletter with the 34th IAW Congress. And also with a short impression of how the Alliance was welcomed by the All India Women’s Conference in Delhi! IAW members Soon-Young Soon, Hélène Sackstein and Gudrun Haupter are drawing our attention to the Commission on the Status of Women, the Human Rights Council and to pledges for funding maternal mortality.
The Bali Conference on Climate Change will start soon and will the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa make a meaningful difference in the lives of African women?
Rape (and politics at the UN) - violent and cowardly attacks on women in Basra, Iraq. Two current articles in the news that shocked us all. The worldwide fight for women’s rights is still badly needed.
And so is the International Alliance of Women. The decisions taken at the 34th IAW Congress in India gave us even more determination to go on.
At the end of the newsletter you will find, as usual, news of conferences and events.
We ask you to give special attention to the preparation of the program on combating sexual harassment, organised by IAW Affiliate the Greek League of Women’s Rights, in June 2008.
The gender pay gap across Europe remains almost as wide as a decade ago, in fact 15%, despite women outperforming men academically, as research by the European Commission shows. It is time to scrutinise what is happening in European workplaces!
The shocking figures on maternal mortality are getting worldwide attention. At last, with the Millennium Development Goal no.5, Improve maternal health. Millennium Development Goal No.4, To reduce child mortality will be helped by the approach to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015. 2008 will be International Year of Sanitation.
And the Saudis are (maybe) rethinking the taboo on women behind the wheel!
A newsletter full of news around the world, most of it from the United Nations. A report on Gender Equality Architecture Reform at the UN; Rights of Indigenous People; the Human Rights Council; UNICEF with child deaths worldwide, which went down a bit but also with some scandalous figures; and corruption by bent leaders, stealing much needed money from their countries.
The UN, which has to deal with it all and with a lot more, opened this month the 62nd session of the General Assembly.
Also: climate change, cluster bombs, what are fatwas, undernourished children in India. As usual, at the end of this newsletter you will find some interesting reports, books, and nominations.
Amidst it all the International Alliance of Women is steadily going on planning Congress!
More than 300 natural disasters, affecting 117 million people, in one year. It’s worrying.
There is heartwarming relief, in particular by the UN, but what we need is adequate worldwide measures to prevent disasters and to limit the worst.
The conferences on Climate Change, in Vienna at the end of August and in Bali in December, are promising. There is progress, in particular in planning better water management. But ... where are the women?
Also in this newsletter: celebration of twenty-five years of the Commission on the Elimination of Discrimination of Women (CEDAW), preparing for the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 2008, Amnesty taking a big step forward in women’s rights, and the appointment of Noeleen Heyzer as Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
The situation of women in the MDGs needs constant monitoring. One of the possibilities for change in their situation is the quality of funding projects. A good example of that quality is to be found with Mama Cash. Funding is also one of the issues of CSW 2008.
In this newsletter news for women from Africa, India, Egypt, the Maldives, Madagascar, the European Union and a poem from an African girl child.
IAW members from Greece and Vienna have mailed us their contributions to the women’s movement, and the All-India Women’s Conference is busy preparing for the IAW Congress 2007.
As usual you will find some publications and coming events at the end of the newsletter.
The Commission on the Status of Women 2008 will be on ‘Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women’. That’s why we are quoting figures in this newsletter.
On financing for development, in an excellent statement by Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalif; on the arms trade and on the ‘failed states’, with their conflicts spilling over to neighbouring states. Conflicts which are especially disastrous for women. Preparation on-line for CSW 2008 has started this month - you can still join!
Women are on the move around the world: in Iceland, Africa, Asia, Latin-America, Turkey. IAW is always on the move including also planning a Board Meeting and Congress in Delhi, India, later this year.
The General Assembly at the UN - the news can be followed directly from the source. It’s amazing, really! In this newsletter the change of the Presidency and the following-up of the fight against HIV/AIDS.
The women’s movement is already preparing CSW 2008, but the girldchild still keeps us focussed on the implementation of CSW 2007. The violence of the honour killing of a 17-year old girl in Iraq has shocked us all. On the other side of the balance: the UNICEF Calendar, with girls as role models, all achievers in their own way.
We ask for your special attention to the issue of climate change, with women the most vulnerable and the most invisible! For EU citizens, please sign the Darfur Europetition!
Last but not least: IAW will held her Triennial Congress in New Delhi, India. More in IWNews.
After two special editions of the newsletter, we are trying to catch up with news worldwide. UNIFEM has started an interesting initiative to train women in building peace and preventing sexual violence, during and after conflicts.
The UN is planning a new gender architecture - and IAW has put in a statement on gender mainstreaming in the whole of the UN architecture.
The Human Rights Council is tackling future water problems, in particular the dehydration in Africa, with women and children as the most vulnerable.
India will have soon a strict law on child abuse, and shadow reporting at CEDAW gives more opportunities for implementing women's rights at national and local level.
Books, events and conferences are as always at the end of the newsletter, including a new book written by one of our IAW members!
Special CSW Edition March 2007
This Special Newsletter is about statements and reports by two IAW representatives. IAW President Rosy Weiss reports on the Commission on the Status of Women and Hélène Sackstein provides the IAW statement on Maternal Mortality made during the 4th session of the Human Rights Council.
Your special attention is also drawn to the IAW side event, organised by the All India Women’s Conference at CSW, on “Missing Girls”.
This is a SPECIAL INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY newsletter. A day for the Commission on the Status of Women at the UN, focussing on ending impunity for violence against women and girls. With messages of all major UN agencies and departments, but also with statements, reports, side events and actions from NGOs all over the world.
For a CSW-report of the International Alliance of Women, please have a look in a week or so at the IAW website: www.womenalliance.org. Note the correct URL because some people still have the old one ending in .com but that has gone into cyberspace!.
In 1908 women marched in New York demanding shorter working hours, better pay and voting rights. International Women’s Day was subsequently named and on 8 March women around the world use this as a specific day to protest for women’s rights and to celebrate the gains won for women.
It is amazing how much there is to find on the internet about the girlchild, who suffers so much from malnutrion, educational discriminatation, sexual violence and barbaric customs. In this newsletter you will find a selection of worrying topics, to be discussed at the Commission on the Status of Women, February 26 - March 9.
This is not a happy newsletter to mail around. We know our IAW members in the CSW delegations, all supported by their organisations and all dedicated to help, will certainly be most vigilant. Many national and international women organisations have also formulated and signed the NGO statements on http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/csw51/OfficialDocuments.html
The review of the second theme of CSW: “The Role of Men and Boys” makes us wonder where they have been, all those men and boys, those fathers, brothers, uncles and grandfathers of the girlchild? For reports, have a look at http://www.un.org/womenwatch/asp/user/list.asp?ParentID=10897
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has appointed staff members, who will help with managing the problems accumulating at the UN every day. We start this newsletter with the names of some interesting women, including Sheika Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, who were appointed recently to UN top positions.
The Commission on the Status of Women is as always high on the IAW agenda. At the end of the newsletter you will find a statement on the girl child, signed by IAW and other organisations.
Other issues in this newsletter include: preventing cervical cancer; FGM in Germany; maternal mortality in India; the human rights situation in Darfur; disarmament, education of tribals.
As usual at the end you will find some handy links to websites of conferences and interesting books.
