This text focuses on gender and age, offering an insight into who migrates and who doesn’t, reasons for migrating, experiences of the migration process and what life is like for different groups of migrants and refugees when, and if, they reach their destinations.
Migration journeys take place within countries, regions and internationally and involve many different people all with their own motivations. Decisions to migrate may be forced, in situations of conflict and disaster, or they may involve different degrees of choice and agency, and combinations of motivation and coercion. They are always, however, made in response to a complex mixture of social, economic and political pressures, incentives and norms. Characteristics such as gender and age play a strong role in influencing whether particular groups of people migrate, or stay where they are.
By Jin In, Founder of 4Girls GLocal Leadership (4GGL) – March 8, 2016
Empowering girls and women is powerful. Today, we know it is the key to economic growth, political stability, and social transformation. World leaders, experts and scholars alike are giving their voice to this critical endeavor.
When women succeed, nations are more safe, secure and prosperous.
Barack Obama, 44th US President
There is no tool for development more effective than
the empowerment of women.
Kofi Annan, 7th UN Secretary General
Empowering women is key to building a future we want.
Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics
So then, why isn’t this happening on a mass scale?
CEDAW Committee General Recommendation No. 34 on the Rights of Rural Women
6 UN Language Translations: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CEDAW/C/GC/34&Lang=en
(d) Obtain the free and informed consent of rural women before the approval of any acquisitions or project affecting rural lands or territories and resources, including those relating to the lease and sale of land, land expropriation and resettlement. When such land acquisitions do occur, they should be in line with international standards, and rural women should be adequately compensated;
Cultural Survival - https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/rural-womens-right-free-prior-and-informed-consent
On March 4, 2016, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) released “General Recommendation No. 34 on the Rights of Rural Women.”
Anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) candidate as Rome's mayor Virginia Raggi poses for photographers as she casts her ballot in polling station in Rome, Sunday, June 19, 2016.
Rome elects first female
19 June 2016 - ROME -- An anti-establishment newcomer, capitalizing on anger over political corruption and deteriorating city services, trounced Premier Matteo Renzi's candidate in Rome's mayoral runoff Sunday to become the first woman to head City Hall in the Italian capital.
With more than 80 percent of ballots counted from Sunday's election, Virginia Raggi of the 5-Star Movement led by a 2-to-1 margin. Her rival, Democrat Roberto Giachetti, who was backed by Renzi, conceded defeat less than an hour after polls closed.
Giachetti said he had called Raggi to wish her luck. Dozens of people, including local politicians from the Democrats, right-wing parties and other political forces, have been implicated in corruption probes of city contracts.
1. Of the more than 125 million people in need of humanitarian assistance worldwide, over 75 per cent are women and children.
Women often stay behind during conflict and natural disasters to take care of children and family members, while men may leave for the frontlines or to find jobs elsewhere. As they try to get by with little support in chaotic and dangerous situations, women and girls are exposed to death and disability, hunger, exploitation and gender-based violence. In conflict settings, just travelling to the local market can put their lives at risk.
Women and girls best understand these daily needs and risks, and must be a part of designing the humanitarian responses intended to prevent them.
