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Empowering Young Women to Lead Change [pdf]

Empowering Young Women to Lead Change is an easy to follow resource manual designed to enable young women to prepare and facilitate training on a host of issues that are important to them. A joint publication of the World YWCA and UNFPA, the manual was developed by young women and contains modules on young women's leadership, economic justice, HIV and AIDS, human rights, peace, self esteem and body image, sexual and reproductive health and violence against women. (UNFPA, 2006)

http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/628_filename_empowering-young-women_eng.pdf

(Added: Fri Sep 01 2006   Hits: 360)

Beijing Plus 10: An Ambivalent Record on Gender Justice

The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women (the "Beijing Conference") was a landmark in policy terms, setting a global policy framework to advance gender equality. Ten years after Beijing, in March 2005, the UN's Commission on the Status of Women presided over an intergovernmental meeting in New York to review the progress achieved on the commitments made in the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action. This "Plus 10" event was decidedly low key. This paper, drawing on research undertaken for the UNRISD report, Gender Equality: Striving for Justice in an Unequal World, reflects on the ambivalent record of progress achieved by women over the last decades and considers how the policy environment has changed over the period since the high point of the global women's movements. (UNRISD, August 2006)

http://www.unrisd.org/80256B3C005BF3C2/setLanguageCookie?OpenAgent&langcode=en&url=/80256B3C005BCCF9/search/4EE168779E57E924C12571CA003C2295?OpenDocument

(Added: Thu Aug 24 2006   Hits: 198)

Women Matter - In All of the Millennium Goals

In order to advance towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), gender equality cannot merely be limited to a number of specific objectives, but must be the lens through which all the targets are viewed, say experts and representatives of women's movements in Argentina. (Marcela Valente, 21 August 2006, IPS)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34412

(Added: Wed Aug 23 2006   Modified: Mon Jul 02 2007   Hits: 237)

Women Activists Who Pave The Way

So who says the participation of women in politics, governance and decision-making can only be marked by their representation in parliament? If the actions of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) are anything to go by, women are at the forefront of the activism in Zimbabwe.(The Namibian, August 25, 2005)

http://www.namibian.com.na/2005/August/columns/05D003C872.html

(Added: Fri Aug 18 2006   Modified: Thu Aug 24 2006   Hits: 46)

The brief describes three innovative initiatives to get girls out of work and into school in China, India and the Philippines. These initiatives incor

The 30 page report describes three innovative initiatives to get girls out of work and into school in China, India and the Philippines. These initiatives incorporate methods such as training girls to be peer educators; direct assistance to cover education costs; incorporating life skills and sex education; creating participatory "girl-friendly" environments and outreach education for communities; community mobilisation against bonded labour; training local girl-child activists to educate communities. The brief sets out key actions required to increase girls' participation in education. (UNESCO Bankok, 2006)

http://www.unescobkk.org/fileadmin/user_upload/appeal/gender/pdf/girls.pdf

(Added: Tue Aug 15 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 70)

Myths and Stigma around Female Sexuality in Islam

Western conceptions of female sexuality within Islam come under scrutiny in Zanzibar. (Nina Springle, Just Change, July 2006)

http://www.dev-zone.org/downloads/jc6springle.pdf

(Added: Mon Aug 07 2006   Hits: 65)

Perwiridan

This article looks at perwiridan, religious women's groupings in Indonesia which allow women to participate in local governance in their own way. (Asima Siahaam, Just Change, July 2006)

http://www.dev-zone.org/downloads/jc6siahaam.pdf

(Added: Mon Aug 07 2006   Hits: 46)

Women Living Under Muslim Laws

An interview with Casandra Balchin on the work of the WLUML network. (Yoginder Sikand, Just Change, July 2006)

http://www.dev-zone.org/downloads/jc6sikand.pdf

(Added: Mon Aug 07 2006   Hits: 55)

Barter Markets: Sustaining people and nature in the Andes

As regulative institutions, Andean barter markets help sustain local food systems and the ecosystems in which they are embedded. Action research with indigenous communities in Peru generated new evidence on the importance of barter markets for: - giving some of the poorest social groups in the Andes better food security and nutrition; - conserving agricultural biodiversity (genetic, species, ecosystem) through the growing and exchange of native food crops in barter markets; - maintaining ecosystem services and landscape features in different agro-ecological zones; and - enabling local, autonomous control of production and consumption - and more specifically control by women over key decisions that affect both local livelihoods and ecological processes. (IIED, July 2005)

http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/full/14518IIED.pdf

(Added: Thu Jul 27 2006   Hits: 280)

Give women's issues stronger UN profile

The United Nations is facing a sea change in coming months as Secretary-General Kofi Annan prepares to step down. Stephen Lewis, Annan's AIDS envoy to Africa, is taking the opportunity to push for the creation of a new International Agency for Women with the mandate, expertise and funding to champion women's rights, health and security. (Toronto Star, 9 July 2006)

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1152309010421&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

(Added: Tue Jul 11 2006   Hits: 264)

MisFortune500: exposing corporate malfeasance against women

MisFortune 500 is a parody of Fortune magazine's annual listing of top profit-making companies. Instead of ranking 'winners' and 'losers', it exposes corporate activities that violate women's rights, threaten lives and livelihoods, and destroy the environment. MisFortune 500 documents women's resistance and promotes corporate accountability.

http://www.misfortune500.org/

(Added: Mon Jul 10 2006   Hits: 140)

Beyond Victimhood: Women's Peacebuilding in Sudan, Congo and Uganda

Countries in crisis and the wider international community must do much more to support women's involvement in solving Africa's deadliest conflicts. In Sudan, Congo and Uganda, an array of women's organisations and leaders are doing remarkable work, under difficult circumstances, especially in community organisations and informal conflict resolution mechanisms. Still, women remain marginalised in formal peace processes and post-conflict governments. Donors and others in the international community all need to do much more to offer sustainable support rather than just rhetoric. It is not merely a question of fairness or equity: women make a difference in part because they often adopt a more inclusive approach toward security and address key social and economic issues that would otherwise be ignored. Peace agreements, post-conflict reconstruction and governance work better when women peace activists are involved. (International Crisis Group, 28 June 2006)

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?l=1&id=4185

(Added: Thu Jun 29 2006   Modified: Thu Jul 13 2006   Hits: 290)

The Missionary Position

In this article the author looks at what it means for Muslim women today to be saddled with what she calls the "burden of pity" from disparate quarters. Muslim women are used as pawns by Islamist movements that make the control of women's lives a foundation of their retrograde agenda, and by Western governments that use them as an excuse for building empire. Instead, what Muslim women need is the end of their treatment as a silent, helpless mass of undifferentiated beings who think alike and face identical problems. Recognising that each country and each society has its own unique issues, and tackling the underdevelopment of many Muslim societies would go a long way toward reducing inequities. Hugely unhelpful towards this is the work of Muslim women Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Irshad Manji, which, this article argues, is "riddled with inaccuracies and generalizations". (Laila Lalami, The Nation, 16 June 2006)

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060619/lalami

(Added: Fri Jun 09 2006   Hits: 124)

The salience of citizenship and nationality.

In most Middle Eastern countries, a woman can't pass her nationality to her children or spouse like a man can. In many countries around the world, children are relegated stateless because of who their parents are (or aren't). This brief report explores the importance of nationality to full civic participation and human rights. (Rochelle Jones, AWID, 14 April 2006)

http://www.awid.org/go.php?list=analysis&prefix=analysis&item=00311

(Added: Wed Jun 07 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 241)

Philippines: A Nation in the Grip of a Grave Crisis, Implications on the Lives of Grassroots Women

Since the last quarter of 2004, a surge of killings, abductions and disappearances have swept the Philippines. This article tells of Esmeralda Ecat, a peasant woman leader from Leyte in the Visayas, that were subjected to torture for almost 24 hours in front of her two young children, and other women having their human rights violated by the military. (National Federation of Peasant Women - Philippines, 2005)

http://www.dontglobalisehunger.org/article_tfriw.php

(Added: Thu Jun 01 2006   Modified: Thu Jan 18 2007   Hits: 94)

Public Choices, Private Decisions: Sexual and Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals

Sexual and reproductive health is crucial for the achievement of the MDGs. Access to family planning services; safe motherhood; prevention efforts as well as treatment of sexual transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS; and the elimination of gender violence would improve the lives of the poor and spur economic and social development. (UN Millennium Project, May 2006)

http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/reports/srh_main.htm

(Added: Thu Jun 01 2006   Modified: Mon Jul 02 2007   Hits: 152)

Beyond Inequalities: Women in Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

Each book in the 'Beyond Equalities' Series focuses on the rights and status of women in a Southern African country, profiling the efforts to mainstream gender-equality concerns at all levels. It was updated in 2005 for Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Chapter analyse the situation for women in regards to the economy, health, education, decision-making, HIV and AIDS media and information, mechanisms, legal and policy reform, gender-based violence, and the environment. They discuss policies and programmes relevant to women, and look at the way forward from here. The books are free to download, by chapter or as a whole. (Southern African research and Documentation Centre, 2005)

http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001465/index.php

(Added: Tue May 23 2006   Modified: Thu Feb 15 2007   Hits: 240)

Beyond Tools: Technology as a feminist agenda

This srticle argues strongly for a feminist agenda on technology. Drawing on the discussions at the AWID Forum, she shows how within the framework of women's rights technology is a determining factor in women's sexuality, representation and exploitation, and has to be seen as one more facet of violence against women. She calls on the feminist movement to engage technologies as a site of feminist political struggle.(Chat Garcia Ramilo, Development, 2006)

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v49/n1/full/1100230a.html

(Added: Tue May 23 2006   Hits: 232)

Meri Kirap, Women Arise! Promoting women's rights in Papua New Guinea

In this personal piece of writing, an Australian activist and film-maker shares her experience of 20 years of work with women's rights in Papua New Guinea. (Robyn Slarke, Development Journal no.49, Society for International Development, 2006)

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v49/n1/full/1100239a.html

(Added: Wed May 17 2006   Hits: 209)

Where is the money for women's rights? Assessing the resources and the role of donors in the promotion of women's rights and the support of women's ri

To the Association for Women's Rights in Development, it seems that there are too few interested funders, with too little money, to support existing women's rights organizations and initiatives. Is it that women's rights groups are not bold enough in their fundraising strategies? Is it that donors simply don't understand the urgency and importance of this work? What has really been happening in terms of funding for women's rights organizations in the last ten years and what have been the driving forces behind those trends? This report is the result of an action research initiative launched by AWID to explore these questions and to give insights into possible strategies for changing the existing funding landscape so that more resources are made available to women's rights organizations. (AWID, October 2005)

http://www.awid.org/go.php?pg=where_is_money

(Added: Wed May 17 2006   Hits: 43)

Karanga: Ngā Reo o ngā Wāhine Māori: Voices of Māori Women

The theme for the 2005 Mana Wahine week was to celebrate ten years since the launch of the Karanga: Ngä Reo o ngä Wähine Mäori -Voices of Mäori Women cassette tapes produced by the Ministry to promote the use of the Mäori Language. The Karanga project consists of 13 topics with 29 Mäori women speaking about aspects in Te Reo Mäori including: women and leadership; storytelling; the language and custom of Karanga; writers and publishers, Mäori language immersion schools and modern music composition. These tapes are now available after a re-record due to overwhelming popularity. You can order a pack by emailing the Ministry at mwa@mwa.govt.nz (Ministry of Women's Affairs, 2005)

http://www.mwa.govt.nz/women-in-nz/maoriwomen/manawahine_week06

(Added: Thu Apr 27 2006   Modified: Mon Aug 14 2006   Hits: 260)

Power in Global Value Chains: Implications for employment and livelihoods in the cashew nut industry [pdf 615k]

This report explores the impacts of an expanding global market for cashew nuts on the livelihoods of women workers in the cashew processing industry and shows that a power imbalance between intensely competing producers and relatively few buyers in the global market place gives large retailers, namely supermarkets, the upper hand over their supply chains. Supermarkets are increasingly able to dictate the terms on which business is done and how the cashew is produced. Our survey of the women workers in this industry shows clearly that such work, while essential for survival, does not provide enough income to raise households out of poverty. This research is a good example of how international trade too often fails to provide the kind of economic growth which will foster secure and equitable employment and enable the working poor to escape from poverty. (K. N. Harilal, Nazneen Kanji, J. Jeyaranjan, Mridul Eapen and Padmini Swaminatha, IIED, April 2006)

http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/full/14514IIED.pdf

(Added: Fri Apr 21 2006   Hits: 62)

Empowering women: inter-state comparison of Indian experiments

This document considers the different methods of measuring women's empowerment and possible ways of assessing its impact in India. The author analyses the impact of interventions amongst poor women and the provision of supporting facilities in order to help thrift, credit and income generating programmes to run smoothly. The paper concludes that the empowerment and general situation of women and girls continues to deteriorate due to a number of factors. These include: low life expectancy of women; increasing female foeticide; female infanticide; high maternal mortality rate; very poor literacy rates among women. (K. Muraleedharan, Indian Council of Social Science Research, December 2005)

http://www.eldis.org/fulltext/empoweringwomen.pdf

(Added: Tue Apr 18 2006   Hits: 87)

Report submitted by the Special Rapporteur on the right to education

A report or the right of girls to education, originally intended for the Commission on Human Rights will now be presented to the new Human Rights Council by Vernor Muñoz, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education The Special Rapporteur addresses the socio-cultural context of gender discrimination by defining the concept of patriarchalism, which underpins discriminatory behaviours. He denounces the negative impact on education, and especially on girls' education, of the persistent consideration of education as being a service rather than a human right and insists on the importance of ensuring not only girls' access to school but also their completion of the education cycle. The report identifies obstacles to education for girls, such as early marriages and pregnancies, child labour (especially domestic work) and armed conflicts. His report covers social and cultural context of gender discrimination including standardised education and patriarchal attitudes and inequalities; girls' education and the economy; the long road to gender equality; universal primary education and its impact on gender balance; from equal access to total equality; on working girls; on marriage, pregnancy and motherhood as well as girls from communities that experience discrimination; communication with governments; education policy and classroom reality from individual challenges to collective responsibilities; and sex education He devotes a chapter to girls in armed conflicts and makes 25 recommendations. (Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, United Nations, written 14 December 2004, presented 31 March 2006)

http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/docs/61chr/E.CN.4.2005.50.pdf

(Added: Mon Apr 10 2006   Hits: 110)

The Fair Trade Zone

On October 18, 2004 the Nueva Vida Women's Sewing Cooperative (COMAMNUVI) in Nicaragua received certification as a free trade zone. However, the women worker/owners describe it as as much a "fair trade zone". They produce clothing made out of organic cotton for a chain in the US, and their certification as the world's first worker owned free trade zone means that they can compete on an equal footing - tax breaks, duty free import and export - with traditional "sweatshops" while providing just pay, fair working conditions, and worker control of the workplace. The women have worked their way out of poverty, and are now contributing some of the profits towards social projects in the community, once devastated by Hurricane Mitch. Their website explains how their success came about, the concepts of free and fair trade zones, and how to buy the products via the web.

http://www.fairtradezone.jhc-cdca.org/index.htm

(Added: Mon Apr 10 2006   Hits: 76)

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