In Syria, Honour Killers Get Two Years

Article 548 of Syria’s Penal Code had previously allowed for a complete “exemption of penalty” for the killing of female family members who had been found committing “illegitimate sex acts”, and for the murder of wives having extramarital affairs.

On 1 June, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad replaced this Article with one reading: “He who catches his wife, sister, mother or daughter by surprise, engaging in an illegitimate sexual act and kills or injures them unintentionally must serve a minimum of two years in prison.”

Syrian Women Observatory, an independent Syrian website for women’s rights, estimates there are nearly 200 honour killings there a year. The UNFPA estimates that as many as 5000 women and girls are victims of honour killings each year worldwide.

Human rights activists welcome Syria’s move to enforce a minimum jail sentence for honour killers as better than nothing, but are asking that the Syrian government go further and treat all murderers alike – no exceptions.

Underage Girls Dance in Rhode Island Strip Clubs

Prostitution is not illegal in Rhode Island, nor is it regulated. Only street prostitution is prohibited.

This has created a favorable climate for sex related businesses. Massage parlors, strip clubs, and “spas” have proliferated as well as sex trafficking and sex slavery.

Recently, girls under the age of eighteen were discovered dancing in strip clubs in the State and right now according to Rhode Island law, that’s not illegal.

State Rep. Joanne Giannini is currently working on a bill to prohibit minors from working in strip clubs. She blames legalized prostitution for creating the atmosphere where such a thing could happen in the first place.

If Ms. Giannini really wants to change the climate; reduce the number of sex clubs, fight human trafficking and protect girls and boys, I would suggest that she go for the jugular and sponsor a bill that makes paying for sex illegal. Stop the demand! It has worked well elsewhere and I the think Rhode Islanders will appreciate the change in climate.

More info: http://www.stopdemand.org/wawcs016272/ln-home.html

What has Changed for Girls since 1995?

In September of 1995 the United Nations convened the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China. The official name of the Conference was “The Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace”. 189 governments participated in the conference and more than 5,000 representatives from 2,100 non-governmental organizations.

The outcome document of this conference known as The Platform for Action set out a number of actions that were to lead to fundamental changes in the lives of women and girls. Section L of the document focuses on the girl child and contains nine strategic objectives with corresponding actions that were to be taken by governments and civil society.

The objectives are:

1. Eliminate all forms of discrimination against the girl-child.
2. Eliminate negative cultural attitudes and practices against girls.
3. Promote and protect the rights of the girl-child and increase awareness of her needs and potential.
4. Eliminate discrimination against girls in education, skills development and training.
5. Eliminate discrimination against girls in health and nutrition.
6. Eliminate the economic exploitation of child labour and protect young girls at work.
7. Eradicate violence against the girl-child.
8. Promote the girl-child’s awareness of and participation in social, economic and political life.
9. Strengthen the role of the family in improving the status of the girl-child.

In 2010 the United Nations will review progress on Beijing. An important part of this Beijing +15 review will be to ask how and in what ways girls are better off or worse off than they were in 1995.

As an NGO representative at the UN working on girls’ issues I am interested in what you think, especially if you are a girl.

Can you cite one success and one failure regarding any or all of these objectives? Thanks in advance for sharing your ideas.

Read more at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/girl.htm

Pakistani Women Protest Violence Against Women

Photo:Arif Ali/AFP

Pakistani women, reacting to the public flogging of a seventeen year old girl in the Swat valley protested in Lahore, on April 4.

On April 6, Pakistan’s top judge ordered a court hearing into the public flogging of the girl, filmed on an a cell phone. See: FRONTLINE: Where women are flogged… | PBS

The recently restored chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, summoned senior government officials before a special eight-judge bench in response to public outrage over the video, which shows a bearded militant whipping the screaming girl 34 times.

Chaand Bibi the girl at the center of the controversy did not appear in court, although ordered to do so and has denied being the burqa clad figure in the video. The Taliban control the area where she lives and claim that it is their right to thrash women, so her denial is understandable.

Meanwhile, the man who filmed the Taliban flogging has said that the treatment meted out to the girl was actually a “punishment” for her refusing a marriage proposal from a militant. This is consistant with reports coming out of Swat that the Taliban have ordered families to declare in the mosques if they have unmarried daughters so that they can be married off to militants. Families who do not comply have been threatened with “dire consequences.”

New Afghan Law Strips Women and Girls of Hard Won Rights

Afghanistan’s President, Hamid Karzai, in a bid to gain support for his faltering Presidential re-election campaign, has signed a law that is reminiscent of the days of Taliban rule. The new law prohibits women from leaving their homes, seeking work, education or visiting the doctor without their husbands’ permission, and forbids them from refusing their husband sex.  According to the UN, the law essentially legalizes rape. It also grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only and tacitly approves child marriage.

Female parliamentarians report that the law was passed with unprecedented speed and little debate. Through negotiation they were able to raise the minimum age for marriage from nine years old to sixteen and to outlaw temporary marriage.  They wanted other changes as well, but but little or no discussion was allowed.

So far, the international community has not questioned the new law out of fear of being accused of not respecting Afghan culture. However, women leaders in Afghanistan are hoping that foreign embassies and governments that support Karzai will intervene when the new law is published.

Becu-Villalobos, Damasia, “Passionist Nuns at Michael Ham: their legacy to Argentine education”

via Becu-Villalobos, Damasia, “Passionist Nuns at Michael Ham: their legacy to Argentine education”

This is a fascinating article about the continuing impact of Michael Ham, a girls’ school founded by the Passionist Sisters in Argentina in the 1920’s.

It is a perfect example of the good things that happen when girls are given an education. Most Passionists in the United States don’t know anything about this.

Here’s the website of the Passionist Sisters in Argentina.

http://www.hermanaspasionistas.org.ar/

Tiny Voices Defy Fate of Yemen’s Girls

Today I was at the UN attending the 41st session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and it was the turn of Yemen to report and be examined. According to the government of Yemen’s own report there is no minimum age for marriage in that country. Girls as young as eight are routinely married to much older men. Temporary marriage is also common. Wealthy male tourists marry little girls while visiting Yeman and divorce them when they leave.

Girls who marry before the age of 18 are more likely than unmarried girls to die younger, suffer from health problems, live in poverty and remain illiterate. They usually bear children before they are physically or emotionally ready and are thus nearly five times more likely to die during child birth and even more likely to lose the baby. They are more likely to contract STDs, including HIV/AIDS, than unmarried girls.

Yemen is a signatory to both the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Woman and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Forced early marriage and the temporary marriage of little girls to adult men are violations of these conventions, but there seems to be a lack of political will to end these practices. Instead religion is used to cloak them with respectability.

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