Newsletters 2001-2003
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Newsletters - 2003
In this last newsletter of 2003 you will meet some of our IAW organisations, standing firmly with their roots in history and branching out with new leaves in the world of today. Leadership, political involvement, new technologies and straight journalism are keywords in this newsletter, alongside with education, justice and healthcare. The Editorial Committee of the IAW newsletter thanks all of you who have been sending us news in 2003 and we look forward to hearing more from you in 2004.
This newsletter starts with the warm welcome of the IAW Board by IAW Affiliate ADDEM in the Dominican Republic and it describes in short the decisions taken at a successful Board meeting. ADDEM earns our heartfelt thanks for ten very special days! We wish them all the best with their difficult work, empowering women who have suffered domestic violence. This time we selected a few outstanding women who were in the news, and we notice with pride their accomplishments, their perseverance and their courage. We also go around the world with important events and conferences, with reports and books to read and interesting websites to look up.
News about the UN, CSW, CEDAW, WISIS, ITC, HIV/AIDS, Media, Peace, a threatening food shortage, and in particular: news about women’s rights!
Our world seems to have become even more vulnerable after the attack on the UN in Baghdad. Can women influence and change courses of extreme violence? Maybe! We have to keep trying. After centuries of male dominance in politics, the experience of women in that field is less than one hundred years. The Alliance has been trying with many other organisations, for at least a century, to get more women involved in politics and decision making. Although it is veryimportant, it is not enough. Women need political courage, alertness, drive and being supported in solidarity by others. Like in the case of EU Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou. Or the support by NGOs, in the case of the EU Constitution, to give women the position they rightfully earn with ‘equality’ as one of the principal ‘moral values’.
In this newsletter also news about IAW meetings in the Dominican Republic and the Netherlands, news from IAW members from India and Greece, news about WTO, WHO and IANSA, about the new Rapporteur against Violence and about coming Conferences, books etc. etc.
Many items in this newsletter were sent in by IAW members - thank you all! We start the newsletter with the juggling around of funds by the United States - giving here, taking there. It is not that peculiar it is connected with the political view of the Bush administration. It’s politics!
Also in this newsletter a variety of subjects. Please have a look at CEDAW - WSIS - OMCT - IANSA - Girl Child - Discrimination - Diversity - Development. And some interesting websites and books.
This newsletter is mostly about war and its aftermath, all rather sad and gloomy. There is one wonderful exception and a most promising one: the enormous response the IANSA got from people all over the world in its fight against small arms!
Also: Gudrun Haupter spoke for IAW at the 56th Session of the World Health Assembly; in India women’s groups are still confronting politicians about a law on sexual harassment; in the Philippines women’s groups won a victory with the signing of the Anti-sex Trafficking Law see notes. And sadly for us all, Mrs. Aroti Dutt, former President of the CWAI, active IAW member and a well known social worker, passed away last month.
This time you will find a few ‘reflections’ in the newsletter. On using quotas for empowering women in politics, on an unhappy ending of Violence against Women in CSW, on ‘terror’ and the global women’s movement and on the situation of our sisters in Kuwait. And several events and URLs, most of them sent in by members, will tell you that the global women’s movement is sturdily pushing forward in this complicated world.
Newsletters - 2002
In this last newsletter of 2002 we are sending you the greetings of the season, with our best wishes for a good, healthy, happy and above all, peaceful 2003 all over the world!
This newsletter has as an attachment - the IAW Action Programme, which clearly states the aims we, as IAW members, will be working on in the coming two years. As usual IAW will send a delegation to the Commission on the Status of Women, to focus on two important issues: Violence against Women and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). We will keep you informed! At the end of the newsletter you will find a selection of news from around the world and some much appreciated news sent to us by IAW members.
The preparation of WSSD in Johannesburg is in full swing and the events in Johannesburg will be followed with great interest by us all, in the daily news and on the internet. Will there be a reliable result afterwards? One of the bottlenecks up to now has been the attitude of the United States. We like to join the US NGOs in asking: What are we going to do about the United States? IAW members Mmabatho Ramogoshi, Amy Mokorosi and Ida Kurth will attend WSSD. In this newsletter also news about CEDAW, ICC, the new Commissioner for Human Rights and a short note about a wonderful and inspiring conference called Know How 2002 in Kampala, Uganda. And you will find more news about the planning of the 32nd IAW Congress in Sri Lanka next month.
A historic day for Africa, the launching of the African Union on 11 July 2002. Happy news, but also disappointing news about the violation of the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court and of the UN Charter. Equal rights, yes, for women but also for big and small nations! IAW Affiliates, Associates and individual IAW members are going steadily on with promoting equal rights for women, like the Greek League for Women‘s Rights has done for 50 years in Greece and Cyprus and like many IAW members are doing at conferences. To keep us all steadily on networking at an international level, the Executive needs to know your ideas and thoughts but also needs your contribution!
Editing means also cutting out or reducing subjects to keep the flow of international news in hand. We did not do so with the two priority issues of CSW 2003 - ICT and Violence. ICT gives the women‘s movement just that uplift in cyberspace necessary for intensive networking and fighting violence against women is at the core of our fight for Human Rights. Other articles in this newsletter include news of the struggle of women for gender equality in Afghanistan, a possible remedy to prevent getting HIV/AIDS. The cruel mutilation of girls by circumcision can now be debated in the open instead of in dark back rooms, CEDAW is going as strong as ever, in particular with the excellent report from Odense at hand, women are working hard to influence the outcome of WSSD in Johannesburg and IAW is preparing for her 32nd Congress from 14-22 September 2002 in Sri Lanka.
The final article is a cry of outrage from the FAO because 800 million people still go hungry in a world marked by affluence.
We urgently ask you to take action - please fax or email as soon as possible after reading the first two issues of this IAW newsletter. Also: the result of FfD in Monterrey is looked at by women’s eyes, the World Bank is measured with a women’s measure rod and PrepCom III of WSSD is investigated for gender aspects. A handy list of URLs of these and other conferences, some with appropriate documents, is to be found at the end of this newsletter.
You will also find IAW news: the program of the 32nd Triennial IAW Congress in Colombo, Sri Lanka, looks fine (see the attachments).
In this newsletter an impression of the 46th CSW Conference, where IAW organised an excellent side event. April will bring the Conference on Ageing in Madrid and May will bring the UN special session on Children’s Rights, followed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg at the end of August and the beginning of September. The WSSD will probably be a huge event.
In this newsletter we are urging our readers to lobby within their countries to end the use of three deadly pesticides and asbestos. We are sending our warmest congratulations to the Nepali women and to Hands Across The Divide, a group of Turkish and Greek Cypriot women joining minds and hands.
And everywhere, at every conference and also in daily life, women are in need of “a strong voice for human rights”.
Most of us, when preparing conferences, will probably know by now how to surf the net and how to find the subjects and narrow down what we are looking for, for news about CSW for example. In this newsletter also two cross-cutting issues to focus on. The first is a sad and alarming one: the child in danger all over the world, that will certainly be the centre of attention in the UN special session on children, May 6-10, 2002.
The second one is one of progress: the sudden interest of women all over the world on financing for development. In Monterey, Mexico and in the Alternative World Social Forum in Porte Alegro, Brazil, but also in a practical way. More than 40 countries handled the succesful Gender Responsive Budget Analysis.
The organisation of the IAW Congress in Sri Lank is running smoothly, in Afghanistan women have been lobbying for the Declaration, Kenia has a law against FGM, and forests have to be saved and protected..
At the beginning of the year 2002 the Editorial Committee members send you their best wishes for a good, peaceful and healthy year! We will continue sending you news from all corners of the world in 2002 and we also would appreciate very much hearing from you. This year will be an interesting year, with many international problems to tackle and with some important summits coming up.
In this letter some good news from Afghanistan. The news about the progress of installing an International Criminal Court was not that good; the US Congress passed a prohibitive piece of legislation intended to undermine US co-operation with the future International Criminal Court.
Important conferences like CSW, CEDAW and Sustainable Development are being seriously prepared for by IAW representatives - we could only put in a few quotations from their excellent reports, distributed in Vienna in this newsletter - there is more in IWNews.
Women everywhere have to fight continuously for human rights for women and children. Also for implementing voting rights, but voting rights can, after 90 years of struggle, suddenly blossom up like they did in Japan. And if you get a bit stressed in 2002 because the world seems so complicated nowadays, think of the Lotus exercise out of Tai Chi!
Newsletters - 2001
In this electronic newsletter a short impression of two important IAW events, the CEDAW conference in Ödense, Denmark and the International Meeting in Vienna, Austria.
Also concern for the women in Afghanistan, where gender equality has still a long way to go. The World Bank has launched a new all-in strategy to fight poverty, but the FAO has postponed the World Food Summit. The UN made a step forward preventing children being sent to war - no children under 18 and Gudrun Haupter warns again about the dangers of smoking, in particular for girls and young women.
We collected some important dates and events for the year 2002 and please have a look at the websites of some of our IAW Affiliates and Associates.
In this newsletter items around the United Nations with the Nobel Peace Prize for the UN and Kofi Annan, and news about two postponed UN conferences - the UN Special Session on Children’s Rights and the World Food Summit in Rome. IWTC looks after gender equality at all levels and so does UNIFEM. ILO will start a campaign for ratification of the Maternity Protection Convention and the number of ratifications of the Rome Statute of the ICC had grown 38 to 42. In Bangkok Asian governments put up an action plan for fighting Child Sexual Exploitation, with ‘time bound commitments’.
For IAW members preparing the two items of CSW 2002 we found lots of URLs on ‘freshwater’, a parable of a golden snail and a report about a day of fighting natural disasters in Bangkok.
Also: congratulations for the first Indian woman to win the Golden Lion prize for best movie and likes to help Victoria Slatford?
And last but certainly not least: the IAW CEDAW Conference in Odense, Denmark is preparing a cordial welcome for the participants on the 31st of October and we are maintaining the dates and venue of the IAW International Meeting in Vienna, promising a serious discussion on the role of women in the culture of peace and non-violence. And, with the Euro taking over in many countries next year, Alison Brown has a useful suggestion about what you can do with your old currency.
We urgently request that you give your attention to the Commission on the Status of Women, which will meet to discuss one of the most serious health problems of the 21st century, HIV/AIDS. It‘s a topic that has to be discussed at the next World Conference on Women. And at CSW, it is the time to seek more effective means and ways to improve the gender mainstreaming in the implementation of all major world conferences. One of the first acts of brand new USA president Bush was to deny US aid to pro-choice groups. Read the comments of IAW president, Patricia Giles, in our chapter AROUND THE WORLD.
IAW held a wonderful workshop in
Nicosia, Cyprus on
Violence against Women; just read the resolution. And please read what
is happening in France at the moment, for women in politics!
