Human Rights & Security

Globalization—as a political, economic and cultural trend—continues to have a mixed impact on women. Although it is strengthening promotion of gender equality around the world, it is also in many cases widening the gulf between rich and poor, accelerating environmental degradation and increasing the workloads of women and girls. The expanding global marketplace is increasing women’s employment opportunities but also producing jobs that may be temporary, unsafe or exploitive. Furthermore, economic reform programs imposed on developing countries by international financial institutions have often eroded critical services, such as public health and education programs, thereby increasing the caregiving burdens of women and girls. While globalization has opened up new avenues for some women, it has also led to increased hardship for others.

LATIN AMERICA: Women's Rights Laws - Where's the Enforcement?

Teaser:

Advanced new legislation and constitutional reforms on women's rights are paving the way for equal opportunities for women in Latin America and the Caribbean. But application and enforcement remain a distant goal.

Editorial:

In Latin America today, the constitutions of nearly every country recognise the international or regional treaties and conventions that require the adoption of equality and non-discrimination provisions. And all countries in the region have institutions dedicated to promoting gender equality.

But while the laws stipulate the design of plans and programmes by different state agencies, they provide little clear direction with respect to the material support needed to translate the good intentions into reality.

Furthermore, governments put only relative importance on the issue, as shown by the weak influence and limited budgets of the women's agencies responsible for applying the laws, says the report, which warns that in the face of the slightest oversight, the progress made could be rolled back.

Source:

IPS

URL:

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50560

Date:

March 5, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

SRI LANKA: Water Woes Fall on Women’s Shoulders

Teaser:

A water crisis has a grim impact on Sri Lanka’s women, whose long list of household chores includes securing and managing the family’s water supply. In rural areas, that can include ensuring a steady source for the family’s crops.

Editorial:

Water expert Kusum Athukorala, chairwoman of the Colombo-based Network of Women Water Professionals (NetWater), says that the impact of scarce water resources on women is at the heart of the water issue. A shortage, she says, "makes their life harder and more so because they are not part of the decision-making process".

Just about 35 percent of Sri Lanka’s 20 million people receive pipe-borne water provided by a state agency. The rest get their supply from wells, rivers or streams. Water for agriculture, mainly rice farming, is provided through a system of canals channeled from rivers and streams.

Source:

IPS

URL:

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50599

Date:

March 9, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Women, Health & the Environment

Submitted by kpeterson on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 1:41pm

This special issue of Our Planet, published by the United Nations Environmental Programme, underlines women's unique vulnerability to environment-related health problems, from water and sanitation issues to ones of indoor air pollution.

URL:

http://www.unep.org/ourplanet/imgversn/152/images/Our_Planet_15.2.pdf

UNDP Resource Guide on Gender & Climate Change

Submitted by kpeterson on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 1:32pm

This Resource Guide on Gender and Climate Change presents principal conceptual and methodological advances on gender relations in the context of climate change, with the overall objective of providing guidelines for actors, practitioners and consumers in this relatively new programme area.

URL:

http://content.undp.org/go/cms-service/download/asset/?asset_id=1854911

Green Jobs: Improving the Climate for Gender Equality, Too

Submitted by kpeterson on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 1:23pm

Climate change is not gender neutral.

Women are increasingly being seen as more vulnerable than men to the effects of climate change because they represent the majority of the world’s poor and are proportionally more dependent on threatened natural resources. What is more, women tend to play a greater role than men in natural resource management – farming, planting, protecting and caring for seedlings and small trees – and in ensuring nutrition and as care providers for their families.

URL:

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---gender/documents/publication/wcms_101505.pdf

Climate Change Excacerbates Gender Inequality

Teaser:

The negative fallout from climate change is having a devastatingly lopsided impact on women compared to men, from higher death rates during natural disasters to heavier household and care burdens.

Editorial:

A 2007 Human Development Report, issued by the U.N. Development Programme, points out that women are particularly affected by climate change because they are the largest percentage - accounting for about 70 percent - of the poor population.

Amy North, a researcher working on gender, education and global poverty reduction initiatives at the Institute of Education in the University of London, told IPS climate change is also exacerbating existing gender inequalities, with a devastating effect on the quality of life of poor women and girls.

Source:

IPS

URL:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50613

Date:

March 9, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

Iraqi Refugees: Women’s Rights and Security Critical to Returns

Submitted by kpeterson on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 1:00pm

The Iraqi refugee crisis is far from over and recent violence is creating further displacement. Iraqi women will resist returning home, even if conditions improve in Iraq, if there is no focus on securing their rights as women and assuring their personal security and their families’ well being.

URL:

http://www.refugeesinternational.org/policy/field-report/iraqi-refugees-womens-rights-and-security-critical-returns

Africa's Success Stories in Gender Empowerment

Teaser:

Whenever gender empowerment is a topic of international discussion, countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America are invariably singled out for their success stories in politics, education, health care or civil liberties even as Africa is mostly left out of political reckoning - and wrongly so.

Source:

IPS

URL:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50625

Date:

March 10, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

KENYA: Proposed Constitutional Amendment Sets Back Women’s Rights

Teaser:

The Kenyan Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) has been castigated by various women’s rights organisations for diluting the language in the draft document

Editorial:

The PSC deleted numerous sentences referencing basic human rights, including the right to social security and right to health, including health care services, reproductive health care and emergency treatment. It excluded Kenyan’s right to education, inclucing the right to free and compulsory pre-primary and primary education as well as available and accessible secondary and post-secondary education. Rights to housing, food and water were also taken out of the document.

Lawyer Catherine Mumma terms this as a particularly big loss for Kenyan women who often bear the burden of providing for their families.

Source:

IPS

URL:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50635

Date:

March 11, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

IPS: Iraqi Women Bear Double Burden Under U.S. Occupation

Teaser:

"The status of women here is linked to the general situation," Maha Sabria, professor of political science at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad tells IPS. But, she said, "women bear a double burden under occupation because we have lost a lot of freedom because of it.

Editorial:

Sabria tells IPS that the abduction of women "did not exist prior to the occupation. We find that women lost their right to learn and their right to a free and normal life, so Iraqi women are struggling with oppression and denial of all their rights, more than ever before."

Yanar Mohammed believes the constitution neither protects women nor ensures their basic rights. She blames the United States for abdicating its responsibility to help develop a pluralistic democracy in Iraq.

Source:

IPS

URL:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50642

Date:

March 12, 2010

Affiliate:

Associated Issues & Expertise:

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