Francesca Rice, Corinne Redfern - 02 Jun 2016
Did you know that in some countries it's actually legal for a man to abduct a woman if he marries her afterwards? And, that nine women are currently facing trial because they dared to wear trousers?
Nine Sudanese women have been sentenced to 40 lashes - each - all because they wore trousers. They're aged between 17 and 23 and are being tried under Sharia (or Islamic) law - even though they're Christians. And while wearing trousers is normal for Christian women in the country, it falls under 'indecent dress' for the Muslim population.
But as human rights activists campaign for the women's freedom, it's not the only law that discriminates between the sexes.
It's been 20 years since 189 countries agreed to a plan to advance women's rights and achieve gender equality. It was called the Beijing Platform for Action, and the states involved committed to "revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex".
Sadly, two decades later, this goal has still not been reached. Some progress has been made – more than half of the countries that were called out on their anti-women laws have repealed or partially amended them since the year 2000 – but there is still work to be done.
April 25, 2016 - FIAN’s Analytical Note focuses on the aspects of the General Recommendation that relate to the explicit recognition of the right to adequate food and nutrition of rural women. The analysis notes that the adoption of the General Recommendation is especially significant because “it is the first international instrument that specifically addresses the rights of rural women and furthermore, it is the first that explicitly recognizes the human right to adequate food and nutrition of rural women within the framework of food sovereignty.”
FIAN’s analysis also demonstrates the ways in which the General Recommendation is an important tool which civil society can use to hold their governments accountable for human rights violations suffered by rural women. For example, among other things, civil society actors can be guided by the General Recommendation to include specific information in their parallel reports to the CEDAW Committee during the State reporting process regarding compliance with the CEDAW Convention.
The report provides an introduction to the concepts of gender and GBV, placing them in the context of conventional weapons, the ATT, and the UNPoA. It then provides an overview of current practices in export licensing, including applications and documentations, risk assessments, information sharing, monitoring, and transparency. Based on the analysis of current practice, the report then offers guidelines for assessing the risk of GBV. It covers items, intended end users, destination countries, criteria, and indicators relevant for assessing whether or not an arms transfer could result in GBV. It also provides informative guidelines for preventing GBV through arms control measures, such as legislation, national commissions, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes, data collection, and international aid. Finally, the report offers recommendation and resources to guide export officials in their responsibilities.
Download executive summary in PDF - http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/preventing-gbv-executive-summary.pdf
Download full report in PDF - http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/images/documents/Publications/preventing-gbv.pdf
Maiduguri, Nigeria:Isha sits with her granddaughter in this make-shift settlement in Maiduguri. Members of her family were killed as they fled violence and her home was burnt down. Credit: OCHA/O. Fagan.
18 August, 2016 - Nigeria’s north-east region is undergoing a humanitarian crisis due to prolonged conflict, continuous violence wrought on civilians by Boko Haram, and counter-insurgency measures to combat the terror. Over the last six years, more than 2 million people have fled towns and villages across Adamawa, Borno, Gobme and Yobe states as their homes and farms were razed to the ground. For the third consecutive year, fields remain unplanted, and hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in inaccessible areas without food, water and basic health services.
People who managed to flee went towards Borno’s state capital, Maiduguri, and moved in with host families, placing a huge strain on the local population. The city’s population was once 1 million but now tops 2.4 million. This huge surge of people is comparable to the entire population of Sweden’s capital, Stockholm, fleeing to Denmark’s capital, Copenhagen.
The burden on the host communities is colossal. Households that would normally comprise between seven and 10 people are now hugely overcrowded, sometimes with up to 80 people living in a tiny space.
Not everybody who fled was fortunate enough to have relatives in the city: approximately 700,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) are now living in either official IDP camps or ad hoc sites scattered throughout the city, often in extremely poor conditions. When people flee their homes, they generally expect to return in just days or weeks. In reality, they usually cannot return for years, sometimes decades, due to factors including ongoing conflict, the destruction or occupation of homes of origin, and the fear of continued harassment, discrimination or attacks. Some IDPs find solutions on their own, often with the help of host families.
8-23-2016 - Germany - As the number of migrant deaths worldwide continues to rise significantly, IOM’s Missing Migrants Project has recorded 23 per cent more migrant deaths during the first half of 2016 compared with the same period in 2015.
The latest IOM GMDAC Data Briefing, “Dangerous Journeys,” released on Tuesday 23 August, was prepared by the International Organization for Migration’s Global Migration Data Analysis Centre (GMDAC) in Berlin. It takes an in-depth look at the available global figures for migrant deaths and disappearances during the first half of 2016.
The data collected by Missing Migrants Project indicate that the number of people who go missing or die in the process of migration has increased significantly since 2014, especially in the Mediterranean region. The increase can partly be attributed to improving data collection. However, it also speaks to the level of risk associated with attempting to migrate by irregular means across international borders in 2016, as well as the desperation that motivates people to take these migration journeys.
