International Women’s Day Special Issue,
5 March 2010
Edition No: 477

• Celebrating International Women’s day 2010
• News in brief
• Get Involved
• Resources
• Events
• Opportunities
• Book Reviews
• Appointments

Supporting the recovery efforts in Chile

Saturday’s earthquake in Chile literally rocked the nation. In response to the ensuing destruction and devastation, many local, national and international civil society organisations are now working hard to support the rescue and rebuilding efforts in the areas most affected by the quake. These include Caritas Chile, the Red Cross Chile and A Roof for Chile.
You can also find more information about the work being done to repair the country (in Spanish), including who to contact when looking for missing persons, and how to donate to the recovery efforts at Levantemos Chile.
CIVICUS would like to send sincerest condolences to the people affected by the quake.
CIVICUS encourages support for and solidarity with civil society actors working in the country to rebuild the nation.

GEAR: Building a United Nations that Works for all Women

Source: Charlotte Bunch, Founding Director of Centre for Women's Global Leadership

The Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) Campaign, a network of over 300 women’s, human rights and social justice groups around the world, urges UN Member States and the UN Secretariat to move swiftly forward to create the new UN gender equality entity. GEAR also urges the UN to set up a transparent process now for recruiting the best qualified Under Secretary-General to head this agency. On the 15th anniversary of the historic Beijing World Conference on Women, the United Nations must move without further delay to implement changes that it has repeatedly recognised as critical to fulfilling its mandate of working for gender equality as a crucial component of development, human rights, peace, and security.
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Sign petition now
Arabic - www.amensty.org/ar/gear
English - www.amnesty.org/en/gear
Spanish - www.amnesty.org/es/gear
French - www.amnesty.org/fr/gear

International Women’s Day: Silver Key Event (6 March 2010)

Source: Network of Non Governmental Organisations of Trinidad and Tobago for the Advancement of Women

IWD has been celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago since 1958, when Christina Lewis and the Caribbean’s Women’s National Assembly organised rallies and placard protests for maternity benefits, equal pay and other democratic rights for women in Trinidad and Tobago.
The Silver Key event will be held between 3 pm and 6 pm on 6 March 2010 at the Cascadia Hotel, Cascade, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

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The Foundation Week (31 May to 4 June, 2010)

Source: European Foundation Centre

The Foundation Week is organised by the European Foundation Centre (EFC). Established in 1989, the EFC is an independent international association of foundations and corporate funders dedicated to advancing the public good in Europe and beyond. The Centre is dedicated to creating an enabling legal and fiscal environment for foundations, documenting the foundation landscape, strengthening the sector’s infrastructure and promoting collaboration among foundations and between foundations and other players.
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Personal History

The autobiography of Katharine Graham. It was published in 1997 and won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography in 1998. The book received widespread critical acclaim for its candour in dealing with her husband's mental illness, and the challenges she faced in a male-dominated working environment.
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For more book reviews, click here

This week, new civil society job openings have been added to the CIVICUS website. Please click here. Should you wish to publish a New Vacancy, please click on Add job. Please add an expiry date for applications.

Senior Programme Officer (Application deadline: 8 March 2010)

Source: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

IATP seeks a full-time senior programme officer to serve as its representative in Geneva, working on climate change, food security and economic policy. Work will be focused on the international institutions operating in Geneva and elsewhere in Europe, in collaboration with like-minded NGOs and social movements. The senior programme officer will advocate for rights-based approaches to climate change, food security and trade policy in support of IATP goals. This position reports to IATP's International Programme Director.
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This is a Special Issue on the occasion of International Women’s Day (8 March). In the SG’s column we feature an interview with the Gender Equality Team (GET) at CIVICUS. This team has volunteer members from various programmes/departments at CIVICUS and is working to ensure progress for gender mainstreaming within the organisation.

This Special Issue also features several contributions from members and non-members of CIVICUS. We are grateful for these and are certain that they will help readers to get a better insight into the dilemmas of gender inequality.

Interview with CIVICUS’ Gender Equality Team (GET) on Women’s Day

On the occasion of Women’s Day, e-CIVICUS interviewed the Gender Equality Team (GET) at CIVICUS on its work and the crisis affecting women today (and how civil society can make a difference). Here are the responses:

1. What does Women’s Day mean to you as a GET member?

Women’s Day is a wonderful opportunity for the Gender Equality Team (GET) and CIVICUS generally to create awareness internally within the organisation and also externally through this e-CIVICUS Issue about gender issues and diversity. This is a day when the world pays more attention to women whose significant role in society, either as fellow workers, breadwinners, daughters, sisters, mothers, freedom fighters and so forth, cannot be overemphasised. GET feels that it is important to contribute to the growing awareness of gender inequalities and work towards eliminating them for a freer and more just world.

2. Which crisis affects women the most; climate change, the financial crisis, the health crisis, human rights?

All these challenges are having an adverse impact on women and gender equality. The financial crisis is very important because a woman traditionally runs the home and manages the family in most cultures. The financial crisis makes it difficult for women to cope with all other challenges.

3. What can global civil society organisations like CIVICUS do to support female civil society actors?

CIVICUS already works with both male and female civil society actors and so supporting female activists in ways that make sense to them would not be an extraordinary thing to do. However, CIVICUS should first start by internalising gender issues and providing its staff and members with the tools to create more knowledge, understanding and skills. From increased knowledge and understanding, actions will emerge that will express solidarity and amplify the voices of the marginalised sections of society. Through dissemination and knowledge sharing CIVICUS and other civil society organisations can support female civil society actors Read more

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Celebrating International Women’s day 2010
Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all

Essays

Women Living in Extraordinary Times

Source: Reuters

Reuters invites you to join us in celebrating International Women's Day and the role of women in bringing about positive change in the world. To mark this occasion Reuters has created a slideshow of women from across the globe, living in extraordinary times.
See photo slide show

A man in a woman’s world: my experiences in gender equality!

Devendra Tak, Communications & Media Manager, CIVICUS

In India, and living for many years in Mumbai, I saw how it was relatively safer for women to travel even at odd hours in public transport as compared to New Delhi or even that they fared better in the workplace. When I climb up to the fort in my native city of Jodhpur, I see the handprints of queens on the fort’s wall that have committed sati and jumped into the funeral pyres of their husbands.
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Celebrating Women: Human rights activist empower the next generation

Every Human Has Rights Campaign, CIVICUS

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, the world will celebrate women and their achievements -- past, present and future. This is one day to recognise the work that women the world over do to improve their lives, the lives of their families and the lives of their communities. Women like Monica Carrilo. Monica is a human rights activist in Peru who works with some of her country’s most neglected citizens, young Afro-Peruvian women, to empower them to build a better future.
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Gender Justice instead of Gender Apartheid

Sylvia Borren, GCAP IFT Co-chair

Fifteen years after the Beijing Platform for Action thousands of women from all ages, organisations and backgrounds are in New York to challenge the member states within the United Nations about the lack of progress made regarding the position of women in the world. Fighting for women’s rights -- or for gender justice as I prefer to call it -- has been a slow and painful process. Governments come to the Commission on the Status of Women UN meeting with optimistic stories, but the women’s movement is much more critical.
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Why gender equality needs sanitation and water for all – and vice versa!

Steve Cockburn, International Campaign Coordinator, End Water Poverty

For those of us campaigning for the eradication of poverty, International Women’s Day reminds us not only of the past, present and future struggles for gender equality, but the inherent interconnectedness between gender justice and our broader development goals. And for those of us working to increase access to clean water and safe sanitation through the international End Water Poverty campaign, the links could not be clearer. The absence of these most basic rights for so many people is both cause and effect of gender inequality. Read more

Women – Making the Difference

Ashna Khan, Programme Officer for Families and Population Activities Centre (FAMPAC), FIJI

Traditionally, men went out to work and earn for the family while women stayed home to perform their roles. Over decades, a woman’s responsibilities and duties have evolved. In most cases, women still bear almost every responsibility for meeting the basic needs of their family. When there is less food in the house, it is a woman who will forego her meal to feed the rest of the family, especially her children.
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Importance of education for ‘women of tomorrow’

Surbhi Saraswat, Voluntary Association of Agriculture, General Development, Health and Reconstruction Society (VAAGDHARA) India

'Education for empowerment' has been a handy slogan for the government while promoting the rights of a girl child. But what does 8 March (International Women's Day) mean for millions of girls in India who cannot attend or finish school because they have to graze cattle, labour in the house or fields, or are sexually harassed and humiliated by their teachers/principals?Although admission of girls in schools has gone up significantly over the past few years, is it any wonder that attendance and retention rates are low? According to a recently concluded research study 'Gender Discrimination: Impact on Lives of Girls in School in four States (Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, Delhi)', large numbers -- over 50 per cent -- drop out of schooling before or at the point of transition from Class 5 to Class 6. The reasons are the same: they have to look after siblings; they have to do household chores; or work to support the family. Read more

Resolutions and Statements

Statement of Tiye International on the fifteen-year review of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action at the 54th session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York

Source: CIVICUS

Tiye International, the Umbrella NGO of National Associations of Black Immigrant and Refugee Women and Youth in the Netherlands, in Special Consultative Status with the ECOSOC of the United Nations, welcomes the fifteen-year review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted by the Fourth World Conference of Women and the outcomes of the twenty-third Special session of the General Assembly on Beijing +5 which will be conducted by the fifty-fourth session of the Commission on the Status of Women in New York from 1-12 March, 2010.
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Kampala: statement on the occasion of International Women’s Day, 2010

Source: Uganda Land Alliance (ULA)

As the entire world celebrates International Women’s Day, the Uganda Land Alliance (ULA) wishes to express deep concern over continued violation of women’s rights, particularly the right to own land. This happens despite international legal provisions stipulating absolute equality of the human fold irrespective of sex. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for example states in part that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights…”, but in Uganda today, this provision seems to have been blatantly ignored.
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International Women's Day Solidarity Resolution

Dr. V. Mohini Giri, India

A century after that first call for an International Women's Day, on this March 8th we remember the second International Conference of Socialist Women held at Copenhagen in 1910 where Clara Zetkin, great pioneer of the socialist women's movement, proposed that women throughout the world should focus on a particular day each year to press for their demands. We remember those 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women's clubs, who supported Zetkin's resolution that read "the Socialist women of all countries will hold each year a Women's Day, whose foremost purpose it must be to aid the attainment of women's suffrage. This demand must be handled in conjunction with the entire women's question according to Socialist precepts. The Women's Day must have an international character." We remember the first celebration of International Women's Day in 1911 in the words of the revolutionary Alexandra Kollontai about its observance in Germany, "…one seething trembling sea of women...Men stayed home with their children for a change and their wives, the captive housewives, went to meetings.”
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Women Strive for Peace, Solidarity and Rights

Source: WIDE

On the occasion of International Women’s day, the third World March of Women and the 25th Anniversary of the WIDE Network, a monumental sculpture will be inaugurated in Brussels. Chloé Coomans, a creator of the statue, together with WIDE and Le Monde selon les femmes (WIDE’s Belgian platform) will officially open the exposition on the 6th of March. The giant metal sculpture symbolically represents women, who strive for peace, solidarity and respect for women’s human rights. Chloé Coomans has dedicated her work to the women victims of the Haiti earthquake.
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Women’s Empowerment Lifts Obstacles to Achieving Development Goals

Source: UN News

More than a decade after world leaders agreed to eliminate all forms of discrimination against women, their empowerment remains a necessary element in attaining development targets, said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"Until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals - peace, security, sustainable development - stand in jeopardy," Mr. Ban said to the Commission on the Status of Women, as the United Nations marked International Women's Day, which is observed annually on 8 March.
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Women judges barred from influential Egypt court

Source: Yahoo News

The Council of State's association voted by an overwhelming majority against appointing women as judges in the council, Egypt's MENA news agency said. "Three-hundred and eighty judges took part in the general assembly and voted, with 334 rejecting the appointment of females to judicial posts and 42 agreeing, with four abstentions."
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Indian women UN peacekeepers hailed in Liberia

Source: CNN

They are trained in sophisticated combat tactics and weaponry, crowd and mob control and counter-insurgency. They patrol the streets of the Liberian capital, expected to keep the peace after years of war.
Most of them are also mothers and form an all-women unit from India, policing in a country where a 15-year conflict was characterised by sexual violence. Rape, according to the United Nations, remains the No. 1 crime reported to police in Liberia.
The Indian women were pioneers, the unit's experience in Liberia an experiment of sorts for the United Nations.
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Global Media Monitoring Project 2010-Preliminary Findings

Source: WURN

This is the moment of truth for thousands around the world who have been engaged in the process since the GMMP began in 1995, and for the thousands of volunteers whose selfless commitment has made GMMP 2010 a reality. It is also a watershed moment for those concerned about the gender dimensions of media wanting to take stock of the progress made during the past decade and a half and to know how much more work lies ahead.
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Alliance magazine March 2010

Focus on … Chasing the butterfly: why small grants matter

With the global financial situation under the spotlight, many organizations are rethinking their grantmaking strategies. What place will small grants have in future funding plans? What may seem like a drop in the ocean now can have long-term effects that go way beyond the original scope of the grant, says guest editor Chet Tchozewski, president of Global Greengrants Fund.
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Transforming Relations between Women and Men: Gender Reconciliation in South Africa

Nozizwe Madlala Routledge, (former Deputy Speaker of Parliament and former Deputy Minister of Health and Defense) South Africa

This article reports on the first phase of a new Gender Reconciliation Initiative in South Africa. The Satyana Institute (based near Seattle, Washington) was invited by Phaphama Initiatives based in Johannesburg to conduct a series of intensive training programmes on “gender reconciliation,” a new form of transformative social healing work for women and men. The invitation came after several successful pilot programmes conducted by Satyana Institute staff between 2003 and 2008 in collaboration with several South Afircan organisations in diverse venues, including Members of Parliament, the South African Council of Churches, the Quaker Peace Centre in Cape Town, and prisoners in Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town.
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Girl Power: Educating Girls in the 21st Century

Source: The World Bank

Girls’ education is key to lasting development. The business case for continuing to invest in girls’ education is beyond question, even in the teeth of the global financial and jobless crisis, write Joy Phumaphi, World Bank vice president for human development, and Danny Leipziger, World Bank vice president for poverty reduction, in the foreword of the report.
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Human rights education in the school systems of Europe, Central Asia and North America: A compendium of good practice

Source: Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODHR)

This tool includes descriptions and actual samples of successful education initiatives in the fields of human rights and democratic citizenship education, as well as educational practices aimed at fostering mutual respect and understanding from Europe, North America and Central Asia. It covers key elements of successful human rights education, such as normative frameworks, the learning environment, teaching and learning tools and professional development for educators and evaluation.
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Download

Call for Papers (20 March 2010)

The organising committee of the International Workshop on Gender, Economic Integration, and Cross-border Road Infrastructure Development: Poverty and Mobility in the Context of Asia scheduled to be held between the 6th and 7th of May 2010 invites interested parties to submit abstracts of papers on the following sub themes:
• Changes in agriculture production, such as changes induced by an increase in contract farming and plantation with cross-border investment in agriculture
• Changes in people’s livelihoods, which can occur through cross-border tourism, cross-border trade, cross-border transportation and investments
• Changes in cross-border migration and daily mobility of people, and how mobility is used by local women and men to cope with or take advantage of economic integration
• Changes in access to social services such as health and education
• Changes in land use and land ownership under contesting demand for land
Deadline for submission is 20 March 2010.
Travel grants are available for a limited number of participants from ASEAN member countries, as well as Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.
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