Call for Applications

The Women PeaceMakers program is an eight-week residency for women leaders who want to document, share, and build upon their unique peacemaking stories. Selected peacemakers will receive roundtrip airfare, housing, and a small stipend to cover expenses for the eight-week residence (September 18 - November 11, 2006) at the University of San Diego in southern California.

The Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice is pleased to announce the 2006 Women PeaceMakers Program is now accepting women peacemaker and peace writer applications for the Fall program. You will find all the program details and the down-loadable application at <http://peace.sandiego.edu/programs/women.html>.

The Women PeaceMakers Program invites four women who are on the frontlines of peacemaking and human rights activism to participate in an eight-week residency program to document their unique stories. The residency program will take place from September 18 - November 11, 2006.

Each peacemaker will: (1) have assistance in documenting her development

as a peacemaker and

the work she is doing

(2) share her vision and work with new communities

(3) explore peace-building with other women on the frontlines of

peacemaking

(4) take part in a two-day international conference focusing on

women's impact on peacebuilding policies when they participate more equally with men in governmental, corporate, military and peacemaking decision-bodies

(5) have a beautiful setting for a needed respite

Women from anywhere in the world who have assumed the leadership role in peace and conflict resolution with an emphasis in human rights in their own society or our global community are invited to apply for this unique residency in San Diego. Peace Writers will help each peacemaker document her unique peacemaking experience.

Applications are available NOW on-line (<http://peace.sandiego.edu/>).

Application deadline is June 2, 2006.

Published in: UN Announces Closure of Refugee Office in Uzbekistan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 20 April 2006.

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

Muñoz emphasizes the importance of girls completing the education cycle as well as being assured equal access, and discusses the differences between equal access and total equality.  Other highlighted themes include: girls' education and the economy; universal primary education and its impact on gender balance; sex education; girls in situations of marriage, pregnancy, or motherhood; and girls in armed conflict situations.  Finally, Muñoz provides 25 recommendations to country governments that will support the goal of ensuring the human right to education of girls.

Compiled from: "Girls' Human Right to Education", United Nations Association of Australia, 7 April 2006.

Published in: Court Throws Out Suit Against NGO, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 12 April 2006.

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

The Global Fund for Women has released a new resource entitled "Women's Fundraising Handbook." It is directed towards non-profit NGOs that focus on womens rights issues and who need to find financial resources. The handbook addresses the need to empower women to search out these resources, where they can be found, how to raise money for a start-up organization or a small project and tips to keep in mind along the way.

Compiled from: "Women's Fundraising Handbook," Global Fund for Women, 14 April 2006.

NEW YORK, April 11, 2006-The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) today released six groundbreaking case study summaries on Gender and Reparations, in advance of the publication of a comprehensive book on the topic in late 2006. Following several years of intensive research on reparations, these case studies are the first of their kind that aim to close a significant gap in the literature on reparations by focusing attention on the voices and needs of women victims.

The ICTJ hopes that the insights offered by these case studies-which provide a gendered analysis of reparations discussions in Guatemala, Peru, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste-will impact the way reparations programs are crafted and carried out throughout the world.

"What we've found is that in spite of some important signs of progress, women are still often marginalized in reparations programs because the programs fail to take their specific needs into account," said Ruth Rubio-Marin, ICTJ project manager and editor of Engendering Reparations-the book that will feature the case studies. "This is becoming an increasingly salient point as more countries with a legacy of human rights abuses are turning to truth commissions and reparations as a way of recognizing and compensating victims."

Despite a notable trend towards incorporating gender concerns into the field of international justice, this research presents the first-ever attempt to articulate a gendered analysis of reparations. By drawing on six unique country experiences, the summaries raise a broad range of questions and provide concrete suggestions for designing reparations measures and policy choices that are flexible and informed by previous failures as well as best practices.

Rubio-Marin emphasizes that this kind of research is crucial to making reparations measures more effective for a huge population of victims who remain on the margins of well-intentioned but lacking programs. "If we don't ask questions about the role that gender plays in experiences of violence and programs for redress, we not only undermine the fundamental goals of justice that should inspire reparations programs, but we also miss a crucial opportunity to prevent the ongoing suffering of women victims."

The ICTJ's Work on Gender and Reparations

The ICTJ has been doing research on reparations since 2002 and will soon announce the publication of a landmark volume on this issue. With generous funding from Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the ICTJ started its Gender and Reparations Research in December 2004, when it first brought together a group of worldwide experts in New York to discuss which country contexts and thematic issues would best represent the topic to be addressed in a two-year research project. In June 2005, authors of the project met to discuss their work and to identify common trends. These case study summaries are the first product of this global collaboration and the prelude to Engendering Reparations: Recognizing and Compensating Women Victims of Human Rights Violations, due to be published later this year.

The summaries are available on ICTJ's website www.ictj.org.

About the ICTJ

The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) assists countries pursuing accountability for past mass atrocity or human rights abuse. The Center works in societies emerging from repressive rule or armed conflict, as well as in established democracies where historical injustices or systemic abuse remain unresolved.

In order to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation, government officials and nongovernmental advocates are likely to consider a variety of transitional justice approaches including both judicial and nonjudicial responses to human rights crimes. The ICTJ assists in the development of integrated, comprehensive, and localized approaches to transitional justice comprising five key elements: prosecuting perpetrators, documenting and acknowledging violations through non-judicial means such as truth commissions, reforming abusive institutions, providing reparations to victims, and facilitating reconciliation processes.

The Center is committed to building local capacity and generally strengthening the emerging field of transitional justice, and works closely with organizations and experts around the world to do so. By working in the field through local languages, the ICTJ provides comparative information, legal and policy analysis, documentation, and strategic research to justice and truth-seeking institutions, nongovernmental organizations, governments and others.

Published in: ICTJ Previews Groundbreaking Work on Gender and Reparations, International Center For Transitional Justice, Press Release, 11 April 2006.

A new report entitled Violence against Women in the Family: "Its not her shame" by Amnesty International looks at the state of domestic violence in Albania. It is one of a series of reports published by AI as part of its Stop Violence Against Women Campaign. The report outlines the social context in which these abuses occur, as condoned by the society through the concept of "tradition."  Amnesty International criticizes Albania for not holding up to its international obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The report outlines the ways in which the Albanian government can protect women from domestic violence, as well as ensure that those who perpetrate it are held accountable. Currently, Albania lends little or no support to the work of women's NGOs that address this problem and provide places of sanctuary for women that have suffered this human rights abuse.

Compiled from: Albania: Violence against Women in the Family: Its not her shame, Amnesty International, March 30, 2006. 

Cover Page  
(PDF, 1 page)
Summary  
(PDF, 3 pages)
Report  
(PDF, 66 pages)

EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev on April 11 that Chisinau should concentrate on essential reforms rather than on membership in the bloc, international news agencies reported. "Moldova has made quite important advances on the economic, political, and also structural-reform side," Ferrero-Waldner said in an April 11 meeting with Tarlev. These advances have resulted in Moldova being included in the EU's GSP Plus scheme, the bloc's equivalent of "most-favored-nation" status, which eases access to the European market. Ferrero-Waldner added, however, that "a lot of effort" still needs to be invested in reforms in the area of human rights, minority protection, and the rule of law. Ursula Plassnik, foreign minister of Austria, which currently holds the EU presidency, said Moldova must "manage its expectations in a responsible way." BW

Published in: EU Tells Moldova to Focus on Human Rights, Rule of Law, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 11 April 2006.

Copyright (c) 2006. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

Turkey's government and civil society sectors are slowly beginning to address the practice of honor killing, or murdering women for disgracing a family's "honor" by allegedly having an affair, an extra-marital pregnancy (often the result of rape), being seen in public with a man, or even not showing modesty in their dress. However, as Turkey works to gain acceptance into the European Union, improving its deeply flawed human rights record has become a priority, and honor killings have begun to attract more attention.

Under the new Turkish penal code approved last year, those guilty of honor killings are now eligible for life sentences, a steep improvement from the prior norm of showing leniency, and giving only a couple years in prison, for those convicted of honor killings. However, because the ideas surrounding honor killings are so embedded in the culture of the deeply patriarchal societies where they occur, scholars like Aytekin Sir, an expert on honor killings at Diyarbakir, Turkey's Dicle University, see such legal measures to be merely the first step towards eradication of honor killings.  For example, he reports that that judges often rely on their own sense of justice, rather than that of the law, to assign punishment, and so the stricter sentences for perpetrators of honor killings have been largely negelcted. Furthermore, families have found ways of circumventing the tougher punishments and still retaining their sense of "honor" by pressuring young women to commit suicide or having children engage in honor killing because of the lighter sentence they will receive. 

Civil society has become more active on the issue of honor killings, as well, creating greater public awareness. The Turkish press has increased its coverage of honor killings, and the phenomenon is appearing in more books, plays, and films. In particular, a women's group called Ka-Mer has been active in creating safe shelters and telephone hotlines for persecuted women and protecting women by settling them in different parts of Turkey with new identity information. The group works in southeastern Turkey, home to a Kurdish majority, where half of women are illiterate and many are entirely dependent upon their husbands or fathers for financial support. Ka-Mer and other experts say that poverty and lack of education are the two most common factors linking honor killings. One study has shown that uneducated women are as likely to believe in honor killings as are men, making the education of women a vital component to fighting the practice of honor killings.

The road towards elimination of this practice is uphill, with increased honor killings due to large-scale migration to cities and accelerated fighting between Kurdish rebels and Turkish forces in the southeast, but recent developments show that Turkey is at least on the path towards addressing honor killings.

Compiled from: "Turkey Faces Battle to Stamp Out Honor Killings", Gareth Jones, Reuters Alertnet, 7 April 2006.

From March 30-31 of this year, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) presented its report The Assault on Human Rights Defenders in the Russian Federation, Belarus and Uzbekistan to the “OSCE Conference on Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions” in Vienna. This report expresses concern over the recent increase in persecution of NGO’s and human rights organizations in the Russian Federation, Belarus and Uzbekistan. Dismayed by the minimal efforts of governments and international organizations in preventing this escalation in violence, the report warns against the rapid erosion of protection for human rights, democracy and freedom in other parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

The report notes that in recent years, the Russian Federation has exerted increasing control and pressure on human rights groups. Arbitrary laws make it difficult for human rights organizations to register. Following the passage of a bill in January 2006 aimed at restricting human rights activities, both the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Russian Human Rights Research Centre, along with ten other human rights organizations, were charged with espionage by Russian authorities. Human rights groups have experienced threats, arrests, searches, abductions and even killings, especially in the Northern Caucus.

Labeling Belarus as the “the worst country in Europe in terms of their respect for the rule of law, democracy and human rights,” the report notes that many human rights activities are prohibited by Belarusian law. NGO’s are targeted for harassment or criminal proceedings for engaging in human rights activities that are protected under international human rights law. Prior to March 2006, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee (BHC) maintains it was unjustly charged with tax evasion. As the single legally registered independent human rights organization remaining in Belarus, the BHC is threatened with dissolution and its leaders face criminal charges.

Following the Tashkent bombings in 1999 and the Andijan massacre in May 2005, the Uzbek government has increased “anti-terrorism measures” in order to silence and shut down NGO’s and humanitarian workers who provide information about human rights violations in Uzbekistan. Outspoken human rights workers are routinely placed in psychiatric institutions and treated with psychoactive drugs, a “treatment” dating back to the Stalinist era. Women human rights activists and their families in particular are subjected to psychiatric confinement, beatings and politically motivated trials.

The full report can be viewed on the IHF website: http://www.ihf-hr.org/documents/doc_summary.php?sec_id=3&d_id=4221  

Compiled from: “The Assault on Human Rights Defenders in the Russian Federation, Belarus and Uzbekistan,” International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, 30 March 2006.

5 April 2006

Two and a half months after the Czech Public Defender of Rights (“Ombudsman”) published a ground-breaking report on enforced sterilization of Romani women in the Czech Republic, the government has implemented no part of the Ombudsman’s recommendations.  With the release of the English translation of the report in March, Czech, European, and international civil society members urge the Czech government to take action on ensuring the rights of all Czech women by implementing the measures suggested by the Ombudsman.  Currently, sterilization victims suffer without due remedy and all Czech women remain at risk of enforced sterilization.     

Compiled from: Czech Report on Coercive Sterilization of Romani Women Published in English Translation, European Roma Rights Centre, 14 March 2006.

The report entitled "The EU's Responsibility at the WTO: Environment, Gender, and Development" has been published by the non-governmental organizations Friends of the Earth Europe and Women in Development Europe. The goals of the publication, as stated in the foreword, are to stimulate and promote civil society dialogue between the global North and South on matters of EU trade policy and WTO decisions. Based partially on a public hearing of the same name on November 9, 2005, given by the same organizations, the report utilizes professionals from various NGOs and government bureaus to discuss various issues of gender and social justice and environmental sustainability. Recent WTO actions, such as those taken at the Hong Kong ministerial meeting in December 2005, are called into question as promoting a "one-size-fits-all liberalization scheme" that proves to be detrimental for many groups, including women, as it increases women's double burden and doesn't take into account social justice measures or environmental protection. Issues diverse as gender-fair governance, environmental sustainability, biosafety, and human rights are addressed in the report, which was published under the patronage of the European Parliament's Intergroup on Globalization.

Compiled from: The EU's Responsibility at the WTO: Environment, Gender, and Development, ed. Mandy Mcdonald, Women in Development Europe. March 2006.

The Special Rapporteur on the human rights aspects of the victims of trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Sigma Huda, released a report on the state of this human rights abuse on 20 February 2006. The report is entitled Integration of the Human Rights of Women and a Gender Perspective.

The report, which is composed of three main sections, identifies factors influencing trafficking in persons and looks at the impact demand has on this process. The first section describes the activities of the Special Rapporteur during the time period of January-December 2005. The second section examines the link between human trafficking and the demand for commercial sexual exploitation, and the final section consists of conclusions and recommendations from the Special Rapporteur. The report emphasizes methods used to target demand side trafficking as used by intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. The report concludes by addressing paths for education and advocacy.

Compiled from: "Integration of the Human Rights of Women and a Gender Perspective," Report of the Special Rapporteur on the human rights aspects of the victims of trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Sigma Huda, Commisions on Human Rights, United Nations, 20 February 2006. 

 Integration of the Human Rights of Women and a Gender Perspective  

Brussels 24-02-2006. Women in the EU earn 15% less than men and progress has been slow in closing gender gaps with men, according to a new European Commission's report. The 'Report on equality between women and men 2006' calls on EU countries to provide better ways to help women deal with home and work pressures. It will be submitted to the European leaders at the Spring European Council on 23/4 March.

The report found that difficulty in managing a work/life balance means that many women leave the labour market. Their employment rate, at 55.7%, is 15% lower than men's. Women who do work are often confined to a limited number of sectors - more than 40% work in education, health or public administration, compared to less than 20% of men. Part time work accounts for over 32% of women's jobs, but just over 7% for men. Women earn 15% less than men partly because they are concentrated in lower paid professions. And women still fill relatively few top posts. On the positive side, the report found more than 75% of new jobs created in the EU in the last five years have been filled by women.

Vladimir Spidla, EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, said more needs to be done to address gender inequality. 'It's not acceptable that half of the EU's population still gets a worse deal than the other half. We need commitments at the highest levels to close the gender gap. This is not just an equality issue, but is fundamental if we are to reach the targets set out in the Lisbon strategy, which is designed to boost Europe's economy.'

Work-life balance tensions, combined with stereotypes and gender-biased pay and evaluation systems continue to hold women back in the job market. Women account for just 32% of managers. Only 10% of members of the boards and 3% of CEOs of larger EU enterprises are women.

The lack of a good work/life balance has not only adversely affected women's position in the labour market, but has contributed to lower fertility rates - which also impacts on the EU's economy. The report invites EU Member States to help both men and women to balance work and private life, such as through more and better childcare, innovative and adaptable working arrangements or better equality policies. It also urges them to reduce employment and pay differences between men and women and to make full use of EU Structural Funds in addressing gender issues.

The EU made advances in promoting gender equality in 2005 with its proposal for new European Institute for Gender Equality last year, which will raise awareness of gender issues while more EU gender equality legislation also came into force last year leading to the creation of new national gender equality bodies. The European Commission will present on March 3 a 'Roadmap for equality between men and women' Communication in the coming days, which will set out concrete actions designed to help bridge the gender gap. The launch of the roadmap will lead up to this year's International women's day on March 8.

Compiled from: "Report on Equality between Men and Women 2006, " European Commission, Press Release, 24 February 2006. See the full report.

Women's Dialogue International Magazine is published in Tbilisi, Georgia by the Gender Media Caucasus Journalists Association, with support by National Women Program Open Society Institute. The magazine appears in Russian.

The CaucAsia Electronic Magazine features gender journalism for the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Russia.

Click here for the link to the February issue and all CaucAsia magazines (English)

Compiled from: New Issue of Women's Dialogue International Magazine, Tbilisi, Georgia, Resource Net Announcements, Association for Women's Rights in Development, 29 March 2006.

The United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations held meetings at the end of March to address the small number of women in peacekeeping missions that hold uniformed posts. The meetings brought together representatives from womens organizations, women that hold peacekeeping positions with the UN as well as military and police officials from states that contribute as well as those that host peacekeepers in an attempt to address this issue.

Compiled from: UN to attempt to boost the number of women in peacekeeping uniforms, UN News Centre, 27 March 2006.

HumanTrafficking.com is a website for research and training dedicated to the fight against human trafficking. It was launched by Polaris Project, a grassroots organization. In addition to being home to the largest online database on trafficking, the site also provides a feature called Anti-Trafficking Toolkit. Within this feature are training materials and information specifically aimed at assisting those involved in the struggle against human trafficking such as law enforcement officials, service providers, attorneys, academics and community members. Another key feature of the site is its large collection of survivor testimonies.