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Celebrating 100 Years of International Women's Day

In 1911, the first International Women's Day was celebrated, when more than one million women and men demanded women's rights to work, hold office and vote. Next Tuesday, March 8, will mark 100 years since International Women's Day was first celebrated. 

We have come a long way from the demands women made a century ago, and on this day, we honor the achievements of the women who came before us.  But it also serves as a day to look forward and to take stock of the work we have yet to do to ensure women's human rights are fulfilled around the world. 

To celebrate the 100th International Women's Day, we want to share with you the stories of the women who have become a part of the MADRE family through our sister organizations.  Their stories span geographic areas - from Colombia to Iraq to Haiti, and cover a multitude of issues - from violence against women to economic justice. 

A new story will be posted every day, starting tomorrow and ending on March 7.  Check back with us each day this week to read these stories - stories that not only demonstrate the obstacles women around the world continue to face, but that celebrate the strength and determination of these women in their fight to demand their human rights. 

So tune in tomorrow for our first feature!

Violence against Women and HIV/AIDS

I was able to attend a panel organized by the Women WON’T Wait campaign at the 55^th Committee on the Status of Women last Wednesday.  Representatives from Action Aid International, UNAIDS, and UNDP discussed the campaign's initiative to integrate and address issues of HIV, violence, and sexual reproductive health.

Women account for slightly more than half of the people living with HIV in the world. In Sub-Saharan Africa alone, women constitute 60% of people contracting HIV. By adopting a human rights approach to ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the campaign addresses stigma and discrimination against women, and also confronts violence against women. 

There is a lack of sufficient acknowledgement of the relationship between HIV and violence, namely that violence as a consequence of actual or perceived HIV status.  Women who discover they are HIV-positive are often blamed for bringing the disease into the household.  They might be sent away, abandoned or subject to violence, while carrying the burden of being HIV infected.

The newly launched UNAIDS “Getting to Zero” campaign fights for zero discrimination with a goal of zero tolerance for gender-based violence (GBV) to advance human rights and gender equality.  They are working to develop strategies that engage men and boys in transforming social norms and to expand action for GBV and HIV awareness.

A few women in the audience introduced themselves as HIV-positive women and urged the campaign panel to include the voices and perspectives of positive women in their advocacy campaign; “otherwise you are excluding us and discriminating against those you are trying to save,” one woman said.  Another positive Bolivian woman advocated “we must hear their voices. We must unite the HIV positive with the feminist movement.”

Attention New Yorkers!

Over the past week of my internship here at MADRE, I have had the privilege to attend two parallel events held in connection with the meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women. The presenters and listeners have been informative and passionate, and sharing the room with so many others who care for women's empowerment has been very inspirational.

Presentations and panels will take place near the United Nations Headquarters in New York everyday next week, until  Friday, March 4th. If you live in New York and care about the status of women worldwide, I strongly suggest you attend at least one of these discussions. All of them are open to the public, and you do not need to sign up beforehand. Take a look at the schedule of events for next week to see which events most interest you!

Let's Talk About Sex and Gender

I was able to attend a panel organized by International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) at the 55th Commision on the Status of Women this past Wednesday.  The women of the panel called for more targeted interventions, specifically amongst young girls, to prevent them from feeling socially excluded and powerless.

The IPPF panel highlighted the significance of providing Gender and Youth Programs not only to in-school girls and boys, but to the most vulnerable populations. Although most countries have declared the minimum legal age of marriage to be 18, some 10 million teenage girls marry every year, a majority of them without completing secondary school education.  At least 2.5 million adolescent pregnancies each year lead to unsafe abortion and at least 111 million new cases of curable STIs occur among young people. 

The IPPF framework for Comprehensive Sexual Education (CSE) is formed around the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child and declares that all persons have the right to education.  "Decisions need to be made with free, educated, and full consent and this information must be offered before young people become sexually active, not afterwards," stated Flora Hunt, a member of the Advocacy team at IPPF.

As many of you already know, Planned Parenthood is under attack in the United States. If you are concerned and live in the New York Area, please come out and show your support tomorrow: Rally For Women's Health

Watch Michelle Bachelet's Speech at the Launch of UN Women

Last night marked the official launch date of the new United Nations agency, UN Women. Yesterday, I blogged encouraging you all to watch a live webcast of the launch. In case you missed it, videos of last night's speeches are now featured on the UN website, including a speech delivered by Michelle Bachelet, the head of UN Women. Watch Michelle Bachelet's speech below, or click here to watch more of last night's speeches.

 

For more on MADRE's coverage of UN Women, read Executive Director Yifat Susskind's open letter to Michelle Bachelet.

Event: Sudanese Grassroots Women Leaders Speak Out on Violence Against Women

MADRE's sister organization in Sudan, Zenab for Women in Development, will be in New York City next week for the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at the United Nations. They will be hosting a panel on Access of Women and Girls to Education: Training to End Violence Against Women. The event will be held on:

Monday, February 28 from 12 pm-1:30 pm

Church Center for the United Nations, 777 UN Plaza (corner of 44th Street and 1st Avenue) in the Drew Room, Ground Floor

We hope to see you there!

Watch the Launch of UN Women Live Via Webcast

Today is the official launch date of UN Women, a new United Nations agency dedicated specifically to the pursuit of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The launch event, which is titled Honouring the Past – Envisioning the Future for Women and Girls, is hosted by the head of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, and will be emceed by ABC News Anchor Christiane Amanpour. Tune in to watch a live webcast of the event today from 6:30 pm to 8 pm by clicking here.

Earlier today, MADRE's Executive Director Yifat Susskind drafted an open letter to Michelle Bachelet, which you can read by clicking here.

Open Letter to Michelle Bachelet on the Launch of UN Women

To the Honorable Michelle Bachelet:

It is with great pleasure and anticipation that we reach out to you today. As an international women’s human rights organization working in partnership with community-based women’s groups around the world, we join many others in celebrating the launch of UN Women.

For decades, advocates have fought for the full recognition of women’s human rights on the UN agenda. We negotiated landmark treaties that made specific reference to human rights violations that women face. We demanded a space for women’s voices at decision-making tables. We struggled to ensure the necessary authority, funding and access to women’s institutions and initiatives within the UN. Yet women’s human rights endeavors at the UN remained chronically underfunded, and UN bodies set up to address women’s issues were disjointed and uncoordinated.

Today, we attain a new milestone, one that women through the decades fought and hoped for. As UN Women sets forth, it must be more than another UN entity; it must be a powerful voice for global women’s rights.

We have no doubt that you stand ready to face the many challenges that will confront you. We look forward to working with you to overcome whatever hurdles may stand in the way and to achieve our shared goals:

• Recognizing and learning from women’s peace building efforts: In the many armed conflicts that rage worldwide, women are caught in the crossfire. When communities are decimated, women shoulder much of the burden of caring for families and of rebuilding shattered community networks. Women are targeted for gender-based violence, turning their bodies into a warzone when rape is used as a weapon. And women are taking the lead in devising peace building solutions that embrace the needs of all people.
  
  MADRE will support UN Women to insist on a space for women at the negotiating table. As recognized by UN Security Council Resolution 1325, for any peace agreement to last and to introduce a non-violent future, it must reflect the voices of those rendered most vulnerable by conflict.

• Guaranteeing women worldwide the right to health: Lack of access to medical care plagues communities across the world, and women are disproportionately threatened. For the right to health to mean more than just words on paper, it must reflect and guarantee the full range of needs—including reproductive and sexual rights.
  
  MADRE will support UN Women to guard against the growing backlash to the advances women have made to guarantee their own health.  These have often taken the form of attacks against reproductive and sexual rights, using the language of culture or morality to justify this assault. These threats do not only emerge from conservatives occupying seats of power. Those launching these attacks have also coopted the proven tactics and language of popular protest and local activism.  This backlash marks the terrain that UN Women must navigate.

• Combating violence against women: One in three women in the world will face physical or sexual violence in her lifetime. Pervasive violence against women in their homes and in public prevents women from exercising the full range of their human rights. Women targeted with violence are left with little agency to build a life of their own choosing. The fabric that holds communities together is weakened.
  
  MADRE will support UN Women to use its platform to counter violence against women as a human rights violation. Too often, it is disregarded as incidental to larger concerns or as a private matter. This widespread mentality has been curbed by the work of women’s human rights advocates who placed violence against women as a central concern—and UN Women must further chip away at that attitude.

• Promoting an economically and environmentally sustainable future for women and for all: Women continue to be disproportionately represented among the poor, and they have been hard hit by recent economic crises. Women have also faced the ravages of environmental disasters linked to climate change and resource depletion. But they are also at the forefront of groundbreaking and innovative initiatives to build new and sustainable local economies.
  
  MADRE will support UN Women to uplift the examples that women have set worldwide: women farmers who sustain their communities through local, organic practices; women working in sweatshops who organize to defend their labor rights; women who confront long droughts by digging wells to provide their communities with clean water, and more.  Following these local examples is our best hope to pull away from the dangerous tipping point our planet is approaching.

The path ahead will be difficult, but we have already seen the steps that grassroots women’s human rights activists have taken to point the way. As MADRE continues our work with our local partners, we also look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with UN Women.

Sincerely,
Yifat Susskind
MADRE Executive Director

MADRE Events Bring Together Activists to Discuss Women's Human Rights and Sexual Violence in Haiti

Thank you to everyone who came to our events yesterday!

At our first event, attendees got the chance to meet MADRE's new Executive Director Yifat Susskind, and to network with others at the start of this year's 55th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).

 

 

 

 

 

At the evening event, panelists Yifat Susskind, Natalie Fleming Nolen (from Morrison and Foerster) and Meg Satterthwaite (Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Associate Professor of Clinical Law at the NYU Global Justice Clinic) discussed the epidemic of sexual violence in Haiti's displacement camps.

In the panel, Yifat explained to the audience how far MADRE and our partners have come in our fight to end sexual violence in Haiti. One year ago, we were rebuffed in our efforts to secure even a minimal space for Haitian grassroots women to be heard at a conference of donor states.  Now, as a result of our advocacy efforts with our partners, a major human rights institution has issued legally binding requirements to the Haitian government to address rape in the displacement camps. But as Yifat stressed how far we have come, she also acknowledged that it's not far enough. Now is the time to make these legal victories a reality for the women on the ground. She explained how MADRE is working with our grassroots partners to give them the advocacy strategies and tools to demand action from their government and from the international community.

Attendees also got the amazing opportunity to communicate via Skype with Malya Villard-Apollon, co-founder and leader of MADRE's sister organization in Haiti, KOFAVIV.

In the discussion, Malya stressed the immense challenges women in the Haitian camps face, especially with regard to the legal process and prosecution of perpetrators of rape. Malya also emphasized the incredible work that KOFAVIV has been doing in providing trainings, counseling and medical services to the many Haitian women and girls that are survivors of rape.

We are currently working on posting a video of Yifat's comments at the panel discussion to the blog - so stay tuned! And to learn more about MADRE's work in Haiti, click here.

Reminder: Two MADRE Events Being Held Today!

Please join MADRE and our new Executive Director Yifat Susskind at our two New York City events today. Both events are free and open to the public.

Our Bodies Are Still Trembling: Haitian Women's Fight Against Rape Event Series:

12 pm-1:30 pm

The Church Center for the United Nations

777 UN Plaza (corner of 44th Street and 1st Avenue)

6 pm-8 pm

206 Furman Hall, New York University

245 Sullivan Street (corner of Sullivan Street and 3rd Street)

For more information, click on the thumbnail below to view our flyer. We hope to see you there!