http://www.undp.org/women/docs/Gender-Equality-Strategy-2008-2011.pdf

The first link above will get you to the United Nations Development Programme page on Women’s Empowerment.  I know we’ve talked about how women’s rights are closely linked with poverty and how girls can be the key to ending a world-wide poverty situation, however, I think this site is great for the sake of gathering information.  I think that we too often believe that there is no way to “strategize” out of poverty and violence, but the UNDP is doing a great job of putting information out there.  I recommend you check out the second link which provides this information in a concise format and will help you to get a grasp on policy that’s happening in the Int’l women’s issues world.

http://www.un.org/en/ecosoc/tvdebate/

“Sexual violence against women is not cultural, it’s criminal. It’s not a women’s issue, it’s a human rights issue. It’s for both men and women to make sure that women have the right to their body,” Margot Wallström, a Swedish politician with a long history in defending women’s rights, told a news briefing in New York, citing the need to end impunity as a priority area. “Women carry half the sky, so they have to be valued that way.”

Ms. Wallström was introduced by Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro who said the new appointment was “a major step” towards protecting civilians subjected to sexual violence not only in conflict but also in post-conflict situations.

“Ending sexual violence in conflict situations remains a top priority for the Secretary-General who has called for increased actions by the international community to prevent violence, to protect individuals, to punish perpetrators, and to provide redress to victims,” she added.

Today’s presentation came just a day after the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) reported that more than 8,000 women were raped in the DRC during fighting between warring factions last year. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Alain Le Roy told the briefing that such abuse was occurring not just in the DRC. “In most of our missions we have this extremely serious question of sexual violence,” he said.

In the DRC the UN is combating the scourge by developing a greater presence on the ground, escorting women going to market or fetching firewood or water, developing early warning systems, and working with local mayors.

“At the same time, it is not enough,” he added, noting that UN peacekeepers in all DRC numbered 20,000 soldiers while just the two war-torn eastern Kivu provinces, where most rapes occurred, had a population of 10 million people. “We cannot be behind… [every] tree.”

Ms. Wallström said the DRC would be one of the first places she would visit, but cautioned that her main challenge would be living up to all the expectations put in her given the breadth of the mandate and its limited length of only two years. “We’ll also have to create some success stories if you ask me,” she added. “It is also obvious where the hotspots are, where everybody expects us to be present and to do as much as we can. Of course, the DRC is the obvious example…

“I will never be able to live up to all these expectations,” she said. But, she added, “of course I feel honoured and humbled and excited. It’s a tough task and the mandate is short, two years, but it is mission irresistible to me at this moment.”

30 June 2010 – From peacekeepers in Darfur escorting women and girls to prevent “firewood rapes” to blue helmets in Kosovo setting up an emergency hotline for at-risk communities and lone women, the United Nations launched today its first compilation of the best practices of its staff to prevent, deter and respond to the use of rape as a war tactic.

“This is practical information to move from words to deeds,” the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Margot Wallström, told the UN News Centre on the sidelines of the launch of the booklet, Addressing Conflict-Related Sexual Violence-An Analytical Inventory of Peacekeeping Practice.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for example, the peacekeeping mission known as MONUC has provided escorts for women to resume trading at the local markets, which has improved their sense of security and their economic development.

In Kosovo, peacekeepers noted that unannounced, random foot patrols and checkpoints kept perpetrators off balance, while in Liberia night patrols have been deployed around camps for the displaced.

“From the moment their boots touch the ground, tomorrow’s peacekeepers will have a reference that explains this issue [prevention of sexual violence] in operational, not theoretical, terms,” Ms. Wallström said of the plastic-covered booklet, which is designed to be easy to read.

Speaking on behalf of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), Major General Abhijit Guha, Deputy Military Adviser to the Under-Secretary-General, said that the nature of conflict requires changes in peacekeeping practices.

“The Analytical Inventory is part of our efforts to adapt to the evolving requirements of peacekeeping and supports our new military guidelines on gender,” he said.

The inventory includes a 10-item checklist of emerging elements of an effective response.

Items include consultations with all segments of community, particularly women, to hear what they need and how they move; enhanced training starting with the practical and moving to the theoretical; and role modelling to help leave a legacy of security for women and girls.

It also addresses potential ways to mitigate risk, such as working with civil society groups to provide fuel-efficient stoves in Somalia or Darfur to prevent women from having to walk far to collect biofuels. Such stoves would also support environmental sustainability and alleviate some related illnesses, which are part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which world leaders hope to achieve by 2015.

Released by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Stop Rape Now campaign, UN Department of Peacekeeping (DPKO) and the Australian Government, the idea is for the booklet to be distributed to peacekeepers on the ground to be used for training and as an education tool.

“We have to work together as a UN family to move this forward. Stopping the use of rape in conflict areas is not just a matter of time. It requires pro-active measures, political will and military responsibility,” Ms. Wallström told the UN News Centre.

“Acts of sexual violence on this scale are crimes against humanity. To say they cannot be stopped makes no sense. As someone said in today’s launch – what other crime against humanity is inevitable?” she added.

This year’s focus “allows us to strengthen the linkages between gender equality, women’s human rights and non-discrimination as a basis for progress in development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals,” said ECOSOC President Hamidon Ali, referring to the eight goals that world leaders have agreed to try to realize before their 2015 deadline.

In his opening address to the meeting, held at UN Headquarters in New York, Mr. Ali said that while the third goal relates directly to the empowerment of women, “all MDGs are dependant upon women having a greater say in their own development.”

He noted specifically the need for greater cooperation to end violence against women and girls, and the empowerment of rural women as a critical force in reducing poverty and hunger.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in his opening remarks, told government ministers that “until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals – peace, security, sustainable development – stand in jeopardy.”

Mr. Ban noted that this year is a “landmark year for gender issues” with the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – which remains the most comprehensive global policy framework to achieve the goals of gender equality, development and peace – and the 10th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security.

In addition to senior UN officials, the audience heard today from special speakers, including Michelle Bachelet, former Chilean president.

Recalling her own election as the first female Chilean president and the increasing participation of women in the political sphere, Ms. Bachelet called on the international community “to move mountains” to end the persistent injustice the women faced.

Meanwhile, Frances Stewart, Professor of Development Economics and Director of the Centre for Research and Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity at Oxford University, warned that the progress made to date was being threatened by intersecting crises of food security, financial markets, human rights and security, and climate change.

She cautioned that the least progress was being made in the security domain, where despite a decline in wars and violent conflict over the past 15 years, general violence of which women were the prime victims remained unacceptably high.

In addition to the annual ministerial review, the high-level segment of the ECOSOC substantive session will include the Development Cooperation Forum, which aims to strengthen global partnerships for development.

The end result of this week’s discussions will be a “short and action-oriented” ministerial declaration that can be “understood by the man-in-the-street,” Mr. Ali said.

The declaration will serve as a component to this September’s high-level summit convened by Mr. Ban to try to urge world leaders to accelerate progress towards the MDGs ahead of 2015.

“Laws are important, but they’re not sufficient because often traditions are stronger than the implementation of laws,” Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), told a televised debate conducted at UN Headquarters in New York.

She underscored the importance of working with communities to “access the positive values of human rights that any community would have.”

With “value-loaded” issues such as reproductive health, adolescent sexuality and violence against women topping UNFPA’s agenda, “we have to face that they are impacted by culture,” which Ms. Obaid linked to identity.

Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), acknowledged that “cultural diversity is an important aspect of what is happening in the world nowadays,” but stressed that “it should never be an excuse to violate the rights of women.”

Also speaking at today’s debate, launched by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and UN Television and part of the Face to Face series, was Kavita N. Ramdas, who heads the non-governmental organization (NGO) Global Fund for Women.

Culture, she said, is not static, but rather, constantly changing as a result of internal and external factors.

“In almost every culture in the world, women have been held up as the vessels to hold and promote and move forward traditions,” Ms. Ramdas said. “At the same time, culture is far too often used as a veil or as an excuse or the rug under which a series of ills – including violence, abuse and discrimination – are simply swept under.”

Rounding out the panellists at the event was Kwame Anthony Appiah, professor at Princeton University, who underscored the dynamism and lack of homogeneity within cultures and questioned the reliance on culture as the answer to all problems.

“Very often, people say, ‘it’s our culture,’ as if that’s supposed to settle the question,” he said. “First of all, it’s not always clear what our culture is, but second, even if it is, it’s up for change.”

The focus of this year’s high-level ECOSOC segment, which kicked off on Monday, “allows us to strengthen the links between gender equality, women’s human rights and non-discrimination as a basis for progress in development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs),” said the body’s President Hamidon Ali, referring to the eight goals that world leaders have agreed to try to realize before their 2015 deadline.

For his part, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told government ministers at the high-level segment opening that “until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals – peace, security, sustainable development – stand in jeopardy.”

He noted that this year is a “landmark year for gender issues” with the 15th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – which remains the most comprehensive global policy framework to achieve the goals of gender equality, development and peace – and the 10th anniversary of Security Council resolution 1325 on women and peace and security.

By:  Pam Belluck

In a controversial change to a longstanding policy concerning the practice of female circumcision in some African and Asian cultures, the American Academy of Pediatrics is suggesting that American doctors be given permission to perform a ceremonial pinprick or “nick” on girls from these cultures if it would keep their families from sending them overseas for the full circumcision.

The academy’s committee on bioethics, in a policy statement last week, said some pediatricians had suggested that current federal law, which “makes criminal any nonmedical procedure performed on the genitals” of a girl in the United States, has had the unintended consequence of driving some families to take their daughters to other countries to undergo mutilation.

“It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm,” the group said.

But some opponents of female genital mutilation, or F.G.M., denounced the statement.

“I am sure the academy had only good intentions, but what their recommendation has done is only create confusion about whether F.G.M. is acceptable in any form, and it is the wrong step forward on how best to protect young women and girls,” said Representative Joseph Crowley, Democrat of New York, who recently introduced a bill to toughen federal law by making it a crime to take a girl overseas to be circumcised. “F.G.M. serves no medical purpose, and it is rightfully banned in the U.S.”

Georganne Chapin, executive director of an advocacy group called Intact America, said she was “astonished that a group of intelligent people did not see the utter slippery slope that we put physicians on” with the new policy statement. “How much blood will parents be satisfied with?”

She added: “There are countries in the world that allow wife beating, slavery and child abuse, but we don’t allow people to practice those customs in this country. We don’t let people have slavery a little bit because they’re going to do it anyway, or beat their wives a little bit because they’re going to do it anyway.”

A member of the academy’s bioethics committee, Dr. Lainie Friedman Ross, associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, said the panel’s intent was to issue a “statement on safety in a culturally sensitive context.”

Dr. Friedman Ross said that the committee members “oppose all types of female genital cutting that impose risks or physical or psychological harm,” and consider the ritual nick “a last resort,” but that the nick is “supposed to be as benign as getting a girl’s ears pierced. It’s taking a pin and creating a drop of blood.”

She said the panel had heard anecdotes from worried doctors.

“If we just told parents, ‘No, this is wrong,’ our concern is they may take their daughters back to their home countries, where the procedure may be more extensive cutting and may even be done without anesthesia, with unsterilized knives or even glass,” she said. “A just-say-no policy may end up alienating these families, who are going to then find an alternative that will do more harm than good.”

Currently, more than 130 million women and girls worldwide have undergone female genital cutting, according to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. It is mostly performed on girls younger than 15 in countries including Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. Consequences can include severe complications with pregnancy, childbirth and sexual dysfunction.

The academy’s statement acknowledged that opponents of the procedure, “including women from African countries, strongly oppose any compromise that would legitimize even the most minimal procedure.”

Dr. Friedman Ross said, “If you medicalize it and say it’s permissible, is there a possibility that some people will misunderstand it and go beyond a nick? Yes.”

But she said the risk that people denied the ceremonial procedure, usually on the clitoris, would opt for the more harmful one was much more dangerous.

And the statement said that, “in some countries where FGC is common, some progress toward eradication or amelioration has been made by substituting ritual ‘nicks’ for more severe forms.”