Older people attending the Open-ended Working Group on ageing in 2015
We need a convention on the rights of older people
Existing human rights mechanisms fail to adequately protect and promote the rights of older people. We believe that a single instrument, a new international convention on the rights of older people, is the most effective way to make sure that all people enjoy their human rights in older age, and on an equal basis with others.
We need a convention to:
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Establish legal standards that challenge and replace stigmatising and dehumanising ageist attitudes and behaviour
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Clarify how human rights apply in older age
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Ensure states understand their human rights obligations to us in our older age
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Better understand and assert our rights in our older age
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Improve accountability of states for their human rights obligations towards us in older age
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Provide a framework for policy and decision making.
Copyright: Brian Sokol / Panos
December 12, 2016 - Providing HIV self-test kits to women seeking care in healthcare facilities could promote HIV testing among couples and male partners, a study says.
According to researchers from Kenya and the United States, men in Sub-Saharan Africa tend to have lower rates of HIV testing than women.
Thus, the researchers determined whether providing HIV self-test to women aged 18 to 39 years old who visited antenatal and post-pregnancy clinics in Kisumu, Kenya between June 2015 and January 2016 could encourage their partners to test for HIV.
According to the study published in PLOS Medicine last month (8 November), after three months of follow-up of 600 women divided into two groups, with half receiving the kits, partner testing rate was found to be higher in those who received the kits. 90 per cent used the kits given compared to 52 per cent in the group who did not receive the kits. Similarly, the couple testing rate was 75 per cent for those who received the kits and 33 per cent for the other group.
On Nov. 25, 2016, UN Women kicked off its annual “Orange the World” campaign to end violence against women. To participate, a motorcycle entourage of women in Cairo, Egypt, highlighted their right to move freely around the capital. MUHAMMAD GHOUNEIM/UN WOMEN
By Joseph Chamie – December 6, 2016
It is not only “glass ceilings” limiting women’s career progress but also “glass floors” and “glass walls” blocking gender equality in the workplace.
These hurdles actually limit the entry and mobility of both women and men in predominately gender-defined jobs. If women are to achieve gender equality with men at high levels in the workplace, it makes logical and mathematical sense to strive for equality across the job spectrum.
When paid employment and unpaid work are combined, men and women work approximately the same amount of time. Typically, men spend more time in paid employment while women spend more time in unpaid work.
Equality between women and men is one of the European Union's founding values. It goes back to 1957 when the principle of equal pay for equal work became part of the Treaty of Rome.
The European Union's achievements in fostering equality between women and men have helped to change the lives of many European citizens for the better.
Although inequalities still exist, the EU has made significant progress over the last decades. This is mainly thanks to:
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Equal treatment legislation;
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Gender mainstreaming (integration of the gender perspective into all other policies);
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Specific measures for the advancement of women.
Faces of Courage and Commitment fallen for freedom
Photo Exhibition: Women Against Islamic Extremism Meet the Faces of Courage & Commitment
November 22, 2016 | 345 Cannon Caucus Room | U.S. House of Representatives
Many of us are aware that women and girls suffer most during and after war due to ravaged resources and women’s vulnerability to exploitation and sexual violence. But in regions where Islamic extremism is rampant, women and girls face these abuses and many more every day.
Around the world, men and women are uniting to eliminate violence against women, especially where Islamic extremism targets women and girls with unimaginable brutality.
In Iran, the Islamic extremist government has raged a war on women since the 1979 Revolution. Today, even though journalists, Internet sources, and social networks have brought greater awareness of the vicious abuses of the Iranian regime, violence against women is at an all-time high.
