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Follow Live-Tweets from the Event on Women's Participation in Haiti Reconstruction

For those of you who could not make it to our event today on reconstruction in Haiti, featuring Edwidge Danticat and Marie St. Cyr, check out the streaming live-tweets below. We're also going to post some video of the event in the near future.

EVENT: Edwidge Danticat & Marie St. Cyr on Women's Participation in Rebuilding Haiti

This Wednesday, MADRE is joining a coalition of women's organizations to hold a public event on reconstruction in Haiti.  As over 100 countries will be represented at a New York meeting of donor nations, Haitian and international women's organizations are mobilizing to ensure that women's voices are heard and able to influence a plan to rebuild Haiti in the coming years.  More details are at the end of this blog entry.

Joining us to speak at this event will be Edwidge Danticat, Haitian writer and activist, and Marie St. Cyr, a Haitian human rights advocate and board member for MADRE.  Both women have been longtime staunch women's rights advocates, who are now working to build a new future for their country. 

Edwidge spoke to the Miami Herald a few days after the earthquake, and the video is available here:

Less than three weeks after the earthquake struck, Edwidge also wrote a piece published in the New Yorker about the impact of the earthquake on her family and the loss of her cousin Maxo.  This heartbreaking piece speaks to the tremendous loss that so many Haitians have experienced.

Marie recorded a video message for MADRE members on the one-month anniversary of the earthquake.  In it, she talked about the resilience of the Haitian people and the role of Haitian women.

To hear from both of these women in person, join us at this event.  Here are the details:

Who:

Edwidge Danticat, Haitian writer and activist
Marie St. Cyr, Haitian human rights advocate, and board member for MADRE and the Lambi Fund

When: Wednesday March 31, 1:15pm – 3:00pm
Where: Boss Rm., 8th Floor, Church Center | 44th Street & 1st Ave, New York, NY

To read and sign an open letter to donor nations, click here.

For more information, email madre@madre.org or call 212-627-0444.

Click here to download a flyer for this event.

Event: A Call for the Inclusion of Haitian Women in International Donor Meeting

As donor nations gather in New York for a major conference on reconstruction in Haiti, Haitian women are demanding that their voices be heard in all phases of the deliberation.  To amplify their call, a coalition of Haitian and international women’s organizations will hold a public event.

Come hear directly from Haitian women about their proposals for Haiti’s future and the results they want to see from the donors’ conference and beyond.

MADRE calls for a human rights-based approach to reconstruction.  MADRE supports Haitian women’s call for policies that reflect the needs of Haiti’s poor majority, not the financial interests of donor countries.

When: Wednesday March 31, 1:15pm – 3:00pm
Where: Boss Rm., 8th Floor, Church Center | 44th Street & 1st Ave, New York, NY

To read and sign an open letter to donor nations, click here.

For more information, email madre@madre.org or call 212-627-0444.

Click here to download a flyer for this event.

Video: Conditions in Displacement Camps in Haiti

We just received this video created by the New Media Advocacy Project, illustrating the terrible conditions in some of the camps for displaced people that have been set up in Haiti.  The images it shows were recorded just last weekend.  Watch it here or click below:

The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti called our attention to this video, also alerting us to a report they submitted to the Inter-American Commission, titled "Neglect in the Encampments: Haiti’s Second Wave Humanitarian Disaster."  Click here to read that report.  Among other findings of the report were that:

• 82% of households surveyed in the displacement camps arrived either on the day of the earthquake or within the next four days.
• 72% of households surveyed had at least one child in school before the earthquake.  Since schools have closed, none of those children are now in school.
• In one study 65% to 100% of respondents were said to be in urgent need of tents, and 61% to 100% of respondents in urgent need of water.
• More than one-third of people in one study reported not having access to bathing facilities.
• Nearly half of people in one study reported having at least one sick person in their household.

For more information and updates on MADRE's on-going work in Haiti, click here.

UPDATE (4/5/2010): Make sure to sign the petition being distributed by the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti on the need for transparency and improved aid distribution.

Take Action: Tell Donor Nations to Listen to Haitian Women

Next week, donor nations will meet at the UN in New York City to set an agenda for Haiti's reconstruction after January's devastating earthquake.  MADRE has joined a coalition of organizations to voice a call for the inclusion of Haitian women's perspectives in the rebuilding effort, putting forward an open letter to donor nations.  You can add your name to the letter by clicking here.

An excerpt from the letter is below:

Women in Haiti are disproportionately impacted by the earthquake, both because they face gender discrimination, exposing them to higher rates of poverty and violence; and because they are responsible for meeting the needs of the most vulnerable, including infants, children, the elderly and the thousands of newly disabled people. Because disasters amplify existing social inequalities, a gender perspective is needed to avoid recovery policies that inadvertently reproduce discrimination against women. We respectfully remind donor governments of their obligation to ensure that policies are non-discriminatory in outcome as well as intent. 

In Our Own Image: Sex Worker Made Media and the Story of $pread Magazine

Founded by New Orleans artists and activists, Patois: the New Orleans Human Rights Film Festival, is dedicated to nurturing the New Orleans’ human rights community, supporting the work of local organizers and organizations involved in these struggles, and providing a forum for artistic expression of local and international issues.

On March 21st, In Our Own Image: Sex Worker Made Media and the Story of $pread Magazine, was featured at the Patois Film Festival. As the co-director of the film, I spoke on a panel following the film on sex worker and sexual rights.

MADRE understands that sexual rights—including the right to exercise and express sexuality freely and safely; be protected from sexual violence and discrimination; be in charge of decisions about one’s own body; have access to information and services necessary for sexual health; and experience sexual pleasure—are human rights. Sexuality is essential to identity, social and personal interaction, and physical and mental health. And sexual rights are inextricably connected to economic, social and political rights: when one is violated, the others are affected.

To watch the 19 minute documentary, In Our Own Image: Sex Worker Made Media and the Story of $pread Magazine, click here: http://mandonaproductions.org/ourfilms/spreadmagazine/

Video: Women's Rights Activists Argue for US Ratification of CEDAW

In this short video produced by the ACLU, women's rights activists lay out multiple arguments for why the US must ratify CEDAW, the UN women's rights treaty.

Last December, for the 30th anniversary of CEDAW, Yifat posted a blog entry asking the question, "When Will the US Ratify the Women's Rights Convention?"  To read more from that, click here.

MADRE to Haiti Donors: Respect Women's Human Rights in Recovery Policies

At the end of this month, Haiti donors will gather in New York to set forth an agenda for reconstruction in Haiti.  Already, it has become clear that the participation of Haitian civil society or community-based organizations is far from given.  Today, MADRE sent out this press release about a joint effort by organizations around the world to push for the inclusion of local Haitian voices in the upcoming donor conference:

In advance of a crucial donors' conference on Haiti, 300 organizations today joined together and submitted a two-page letter of principles to participating states.  MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, participated in this effort to ensure that human rights principles are embedded in the international community's response to January's devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Donor countries will meet at the United Nations (UN) in New York on March 31, in a gathering to be chaired by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  Yesterday, the Haitian government released a needs assessment that estimated $11.5 billion would be required for the country to rebuild and expand its infrastructure, social programs and more.

MADRE Policy and Communications Director Yifat Susskind said today, "Rebuilding Haiti on a more sustainable, equitable and disaster-resilient foundation will require using human rights standards to guide the recovery process. The women of Haiti must play meaningful roles in this process along with other sectors of Haitian civil society. Their priorities and perspectives, and not the financial interests of corporations, should be the starting point for discussion among donors."

The letter of principles submitted today underscores that assistance must be accountable to all Haitian people and must respect their human rights.  Assistance projects must be driven by Haitian leadership and must invest in building long-term capacity.  The letter emphasizes the role of the government of Haiti as a key partner for the international community and for non-profit organizations. 

Furthermore, the letter recommends specific mechanisms to ensure that information is provided transparently to the Haitian people and to allow for feedback from the community level.

To read the full text of the letter, click here: http://www.madre.org/index/press-room-4/news/haiti-ngo-letter-to-the-donors-conference-336.html

"Lady Business"

Last week, there was some blogging hype about the ignorance that still persists when people are asked about the actual workings behind birth control methods. Both men and women seem to appreciate the results of birth control without really knowing what goes on inside (or nearly inside) of women, men and their sexual organs. Holly Grigg-Spall from Bitch Magazine describes her astonishment in her blog "Reproductive Writes: Sex In The Dark": "Just as I use the Internet all the time and rely on it for some very important elements of my life without having a clue about how it even gets words on a screen, I used the birth control pill for more than a decade without thinking about how it worked beyond what I got from a ten-minute consultation and a couple of magazine articles."

This is an excellent comparison. Everyday, week or month women use birth control methods and neither they nor their partners are experts on the methods origins, history or chemistry. Yet much trust is placed in them to prevent pregnancy, and most of the time, it works.

So my question is - does it really matter if you are an expert or not on mechanisms that become "important elements of my life"? Innovation is there to help people manage their lives and make choices. However, it's not necessarily there to force people into expertise. Sure, it doesn't hurt.

So how does, for example, the pill work? No, the added hormones do not "catch" the semen. Most birth control pills are "combination pills" containing a combination of the hormones estrogen and progesterone to prevent ovulation (the release of an egg during the monthly cycle). A female cannot get pregnant if she doesn't ovulate because there is no egg to be fertilized. The pill also works by thickening the mucus around the cervix, which makes it difficult for sperm to enter the uterus and reach any eggs that may have been released. The hormones in the pill can also sometimes affect the lining of the uterus, making it difficult for an egg to attach to the wall of the uterus.

Last week, Amanda Hess from The Sexist interviewed men in Washington, DC on their knowledge of birth control (video). Most stuttered, some silently stood and smoked a cigarette, and some threw around words like "hormones", "uterine lining," "ovulation" and "menstruation" to explain their case.

I think what both Holly and Amanda are trying to get at is not converting young men and women into super geniuses on sexual biologies - rather, what is extremely vital is knowing all the different kinds of methods that are available to use.

On a related note, Planned Parenthood has short tests you can take online that provisionally tell you the risk you have for STIs and what birth control method might work best for you based on price range and preferences. Don't be shy, it only takes about three minutes each. Plus, it is so refreshing to read upfront questions on sex, instead of having to hear the word vagina being replaced by phrases such as "lady business" (note the endearing term in Hess's short clip).

Migrant Labor Rights in the Middle East

Between the Middle East and Asia, both labor-sending and labor-receiving countries benefit from migration, but abuse of workers’ rights remains high. These abuses include recruitment-related deception, unpaid wages, confiscation of passports, and even physical violence. Tens of millions of Asian men and women work as fixed-contract migrant workers in both Asia and the Middle East, typically in domestic work, construction, manufacturing and agriculture. Women are even more restricted in their movements since they usually take up jobs in domestic work, where families control their every activity.

As it is in most cases of migration around the world, the workers meet the very high demand for cheap labor in Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia. Because workers have no power to negotiate their contracts, they are sometimes forced to work twelve hours days in high temperatures, with high humidity. After a long day of work, a worker takes home an average of US$8 per day.

In an event sponsored by the Human Right's Watch (HRW) at the CSW conference, Priyanka Motaparthy, Sandler Fellow for the Women’s Rights Division and the Middle East and North Africa Division of HRW, pointed out that the main root of the rights violations lay in the agencies that profit from bringing migrant labor into a national job market. Poorly monitored labor recruitment agencies often overcharge migrants, leaving them heavily indebted. Many labor-receiving countries tie migrant visas to their employers, making it all but impossible to switch employers when they experience abuse.

Women at times experience abuse in transit before they arrive to new countries. In 2009, UNDP reported that women in transit from Asian to Middle Eastern countries often live in dire circumstances, making them vulnerable to sexual abuse. In some cases, the agencies that hire them then require an HIV test - and many women test positive. They are then deported to their countries of origin, where they experience discrimination and social isolation in addition to the difficulty of finding alternative livelihoods

These countries also exclude domestic workers from the labor laws, leaving them open to abuse with few avenues for redress. Motaparthy emphasized that both sending and receiving countries should reform the kafala (“sponsorship”) visa system. Employment visas that tie workers to their employers make it difficult for workers to change employers, even in cases of abuse, and sometimes require them to obtain their employer’s consent before leaving the country.

Finally, countries need to implement stronger monitoring of labor-recruitment agencies. Both sending and receiving countries should more rigorously regulate, monitor, and enforce minimum standards for labor-recruitment agencies. Governments should set clear standards for recruitment fees or eliminate these fees completely.