The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will undertake a Review and appraisal of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women (1995) and of the outcome document of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly (2000) during its forty-ninth session from 28 February to 11 March 2005.

From 11 October 2004 to January 2005, WomenWatch, the website of the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality (IANWGE), is hosting a series of online discussions on the critical areas of concern on the Platform for Action and other important issues to provide input into the review and appraisal. The discussions will be facilitated and moderated by UN entities that are members of the Inter-Agency Network on Women and Gender Equality. The discussions can be accessed at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/forums/review/.

A summary of the discussions will be available at the CSW in February 2005 and posted on WomenWatch.

Cited from: United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS)

For more information, please visit the International Law: Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action section of this website.

A new website, Siyanda, has been launched, which focuses on the goal of mainstreaming gender equality. An online database providing gender and development materials, Siyanda also has an interactive section allowing gender practitioners to share resources, ideas, and experiences.

For more information, please visit the Research Gateway section of this website.

Kyrgyzstan acceded to the CRC on 6 November 1994.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child welcomed Kyrgyzstan’s Report and praised the adoption of a National Programme and Plan of Action for the realization of children’s rights. The Committee noted that Kyrgyzstan faces economic, social and political challenges following independence that impact on children. While the Committee recognized the positive measures Kyrgyzstan has taken through legislation and policy to address the Committees concerns and recommendations following the intitial report, it expressed a wide range of concerns and made several recommendations. The Committee showed concern that domestic legislation does not conform to the provisions of the Convention and that the new Children Code is not in compliance with the Convention. The Committee stated concern about the lack of a permanent mechanism to coordinate the multi-disciplinary policies and activities on children’s rights being carried out within Kyrgyzstan.

Among the Committee’s recommendations were: develop a comprehensive system for collecting disaggregated data; ensure implementation of existing laws guaranteeing the principle of non-discrimination; take preventive measures to avoid separation of children from their homes; strengthen the instruments to prevent and combat torture, inhuman, and degrading treatment of children, particularly by police; establish a comprehensive policy for children with disabilities; and carry out a study of children involved in sexual exploitation in an effort to develop a program to prevent it.

Written Replies (44 pages)
Delegation List (2 page)
Concluding Observations (13 pages)

AI Index: ACT 77/078/2004 28 October 2004

Despite promises violence against women continues unabated

Amnesty International welcomes today's open debate in the UN Security Council to assess implementation of Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. The organization urges all governments, the Security Council and the UN system as a whole to take concrete steps to make real the promises of Resolution 1325 for all women living in conflict affected situations.

Adopted in 2000, Resolution 1325 calls for increased protection of women during armed conflict, for an end to impunity for gender-based abuses during and after conflict, and the participation of women at all levels of decision-making related to prevention, management and resolution of conflict. Yet, notwithstanding modest progress in mainstreaming gender considerations in peace-keeping initiatives, violence against women and girls in conflict affected situations continues unabated and most acts of violence are never investigated nor are the perpetrators brought to justice.

The Security Council has before it the first Secretary-General's report on the state of implementation of Resolution 1325. Amnesty International welcomes this report and in particular its emphasis on preventing and responding to gender-based violence in armed conflict. Amnesty International shares the Secretary-General's concern that "thus far, the international community has not been able to prevent acts of violence against women from occurring during armed conflict".

Earlier this year, Amnesty International launched a global Stop Violence Against Women campaign, which aims to highlight the responsibility of the state, community and individual to take action to stop violence against women and girls and end impunity for perpetrators of such violence. Our research to date shows no reduction in this phenomenon. Rather, we are currently witnessing horrific levels of gender-based violence committed with impunity against women and girls in many conflict-affected countries, which the UN Secretary-General said "has reached almost epidemic proportions".

Amnesty International believes that the Security Council and UN system as a whole must do more to integrate the provisions of Resolution 1325 in their work. Since the adoption of Resolution 1325 in October 2000, less than 20 percent of Security Council resolutions include language on women or gender. Together with other NGOs, Amnesty International is urging the Security Council not only to call on the Secretary-General to establish a comprehensive UN-wide action plan, but also to establish a focal point and expert working group in the Security Council to ensure further integration of Resolution 1325 in all relevant areas of its work.

Amnesty International also welcomes the Secretary-General's recommendations on gender-based violence, and urges the Security Council, member states, and United Nations entities to take all necessary measures implement his recommendations:

- to apply increased pressure to parties to armed conflict to cease all violations of the human rights of women and girls,

- to end impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, including sexual and gender-based violations, and

- to conduct gender-sensitive investigations and report findings systematically to the Council.

Sign up to the Campaign "Stop Violence Against Women" at http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacNM4abbdfWbdTh3Ob/

Take action!

Colombia: Women's bodies used as a battleground, http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacNM4abbdfXbdTh3Ob/

Timor-Leste: Five years on, Indonesia still denies justice to victims of sexual violence, http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacNM4abbdfYbdTh3Ob/

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EHRR welcomes articles, book reviews and other contributions on contemporary human rights issues, primarily (but not exclusively) in the areas of law, political science, sociology, and philosophy, covering both the academic and the practical aspects of human rights. For our next issue, we would particularly welcome submissions that focus on the following topics:

• Implementing the Right to Health
• From the Rules of War to the Rule of Law? Iraq at the Crossroads
• The Rule of Law in Central Asia and Former Soviet Union

All submissions should be in English. The contributions must be original, previously unpublished material. Submissions must not already be under consideration for any other publication. The length of submissions should not exceed 8,000 words for articles and 3,000 words for other items (e.g. book/conference reviews), including footnotes.

Submissions exceeding the word limit will be considered only in exceptional circumstances. The initial appraisal of all submissions will be carried out on an anonymous basis; the final decision on the publication of a paper rests with the EHRR's Editorial Board.

Please e-mail your submissions in Microsoft Word format, together with full contact details, to: ehrr@essex.ac.uk, by 1 November 2004. The subject line of your e-mail should include the title of your article.

All submissions have to follow the EHRR style sheet, available on our website, or else they will not be considered for publication.

Visit the Essex Human Rights Review websites: http://projects.essex.ac.uk/ehrr/ http://www.ehrr.org.uk

Cited from and with the permission of the Essex Human Rights Review.

View the full report here.

Compiled from:  "Democratic Republic of Congo: Mass rape leaves a public health crisis." News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, AI Index: AFR 62/02/2004, 26 October 2004.

The John Smith Fellowship Scheme is an intensive, 6-week programme on good governance, democracy and social justice. It is available to promising young leaders from Russia, the Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan. We are currently seeking applications from potential candidates for our 2005 Fellowship Programme, to take place in June/July next year.

Normally, successful candidates are aged between 25 and 35 and in employment at the time of application. Preference is given to applicants working in:

• the political process,
• legal services, especially in the field of human rights;
• journalism/broadcasting;
• government service (including local government);
• NGOs with explicit involvement in furthering democracy, equal rights and social justice, or promoting democratic access, participation and accountability in government.

A high standard of competence in the English language is essential.

Further information on our recruitment criteria, application details and deadlines can be obtained from the British Council website: http://www.britishcouncil.org/jsmithpublic/index.htm.

Country links from this page will give details of the application process in each of our seven Fellowship countries. For further information about the John Smith Memorial Trust, please visit www.johnsmithmemorialtrust.org.

The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly has issued Recommendation 1681, expressing its concern about the rising level of domestic violence against women in Europe, and outlining a plan for a pan-European campaign against domestic violence in 2006. The goals of such a campaign would be three-fold: prevention, victim assistance and increased public information. The recommendation urges Member States to prioritize the issue of domestic violence and suggests ways for government, parliament and civil society to work together on the issue.

Compiled from: Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly website, last accessed 21 October 2004. 

For more information, see the Domestic Violence: Law and Policy: Council of Europe page of this website.

This is a call to acknowledge the diversity and wealth within women’s organizations and movements and to share our hard-won experiences, our knowledge and our best practices. We are seeking essays and case studies from all regions of the world. Those that are selected will receive an honorarium of $1000 USD to be used towards organizational strengthening activities. Selected contributions will also be published by AWID and highlighted at the 10th International AWID Forum on Women’s Rights in Development, October 27-30, 2005, in Bangkok, Thailand.

Two ways to participate

a. SUBMIT AN ESSAY: Send us an essay on a particular issue related to movement building and/ or strengthening women’s organizations. Essays should critically evaluate past efforts and focus on new ways of thinking and organization around these issues.

b. SEND US A CASE STUDY: A case study would describe and analyse a specific example of how women’s organizations and movements are carrying out initiatives to promote organizational strengthening and build women’s movements. We are seeking cases that illustrate how the results were achieved and what important lessons were learned, and that make strategic suggestions for future action by women’s groups globally. Both essays and case studies should focus on one or more of the following issues: Power dynamics and leadership in organizations and movements; Broadening participation / mechanisms of inclusion; Overcoming fragmentation in the movements; Re-politicizing the work and movements; Re-politicizing the work and movements; Feminist principles in action regarding relationships among people and organizations and within the organizations and movements; Fundraising, resource mobilization and sustainability; Sustaining the work of women’s organizations and movements in conflict situations; and Building alliances and partnerships with other organizations or movements.

Who can participate? Participation is open to individuals, women’s groups, organizations or networks that are part of women’s movements or define themselves as feminist, whether or not they are members of AWID. We encourage participation by people from diverse backgrounds, of different ages, areas of work, sexualities, identities, ethnicities, religions, regions, etc. We particularly encourage active participation of women from the Global South and Eastern and Central Europe.

How to participate? Contributions will be accepted in English, Spanish or French only. Essays should be no longer than 15-18 DOUBLESPACED pages, Times New Roman, 12 point. Case studies should be no longer than 10-15 DOUBLE-SPACED pages, Times New Roman, 12 point. Case studies should also include general information about the group / organization / network / collective / coalition / etc., that the Case Study refers to, including its name, specific location, date established, number of members or staff, its reach (local, national, regional, international) and finally its intended beneficiaries. The case study should also explain who were the main players/actors that led, facilitated and were involved in the process described.

All contributions must include a completed summary page form (ATTACHED). Send relevant background information, if you wish, such as relevant dissemination materials, publications, videos, etc.Contributions should be sent no later than January 31st, 2005 to AWID by email to femo-call@awid.org or by postal mail to the following address: Feminist Movements and Organizations (FEMO) Programme, Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) Córdoba 234, Int. 7 Colonia Roma Sur México DF, CP 06700 MEXICO

For more information, please visit the Association for Women's Rights in Development website containing the full text of this call for contributions.

The Bush administration has refused to endorse the plan because of its mention of "sexual rights" (a term the international community has not defined as a consensus), and because it fears the plan could be used to promote abortion. Many countries have assured the Administration that promoting abortion is not the intent of the plan, and that the plan does not promote abortion as a method of family planning. Despite the disappointing refusal to reaffirm support for the UN Women's Rights Agenda, the U.S. ambassador to the UN Economic and Social Council, Sichan Siv, said that the United States is committed 'to advancing the well-being of women and their families,' and that the U.S. is working towards the Cairo plan's goals in various ways. However, alleging that the UN aided China in programs that involved forced abortions (a charge the UN denies), Bush has blocked $34 million in funding approved by the U.S. Congress to assist the UN Population Fund (the principal UN agency implementing the Cairo plan), and has threatened to withhold contributions to organizations that maintain ties with the UN Population Fund, including the World Health Organization and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).

In response to the lack of U.S. funding, the European Union will contribute $75 million to the UN Population Fund this year. The former EU commissioner, Hans Van Den Broek, who is a special EU envoy to the commemoration of the Cairo Plan, is calling for 'less ideology, more reality...' in order to achieve the plan's goals by 2015.

Compiled from: "U.S. Tells U.N. it Backs Population Agenda," Edith M. Lederer, Guardian Unlimited, 15 October 2004.

"Eighty-Five World Leaders Support Cairo Plan, Bush Refuses," Feminist Daily News Wire, 15 October 2004.

"Cairo Plan of Action--Principles," from Global Issues Population at the Millennium Electronic Journal.

This article is reprinted from and with permission from the UN Wire / UN Foundation.

It may seem hard to believe now, but a decade ago in Cairo, as nations met to redefine population policy by putting women and their rights to good reproductive health care at the center of the debate, the question of how to deal with female genital mutilation was a very delicate one. There were both African women and women from Europe and North America who thought that it was not the business of outsiders to condemn a cultural tradition they did not understand.

Ten years later, the climate has changed completely, and African women –and men – have led the way. Across the continent now the practice of genital cutting -- usually slicing off the clitoris of a little girl and sometimes other external genital organs – is being not only condemned widely but also outlawed in some nations. This is not to say that the brutal ritual is not still practiced widely, because it is. But the tide has turned irreversibly against this tradition, however long it may take from place to place to put an end to it.

In two nations – Ghana and Egypt – I met recently with people who have led the battle against FGM, as most people have come to call the practice. How they built their campaigns, taking care to frame the cause within the context of their own cultures, is instructive. Similar stories are being played out in other African countries.

Significantly, women from the global South and North have now found common cause and common ground to discuss the issue without misunderstanding or rancor bred of insensitivity. FGM has begun to appear in industrial countries too, brought by immigrants from Africa, though this is not the primary reason for more North-South partnership. Donor governments have begun to respond. In mid-2004, Italy gave Unicef 1.8 million euros to help in saving girls from the practice. Joint work on the FGM issue reflects a larger, positive trend. That is, that when women can unite across and within cultures to focus tightly on an issue of this magnitude, they can effect real change, and often with the minimum of resources. The experience suggests that women could organize a similarly effective campaign against the spread of HIV-AIDS, which is now a woman’s disease in Africa and parts of Asia.

In Ghana, where FGM was categorically outlawed in 1994, a leading organization in the continuing battle to see the law enforced is the Ghana Association for Women’s Welfare, a nongovernmental organization operating with great dedication out of a room and a half of space in the compound of the Ghana National Commission on Children. GAWW is part of the Inter-African Committee, which has been campaigning since 1984 to eradicate what it calls “negative traditional practices affecting the health of women and children.”

At the GAWW headquarters, Florence Ali, the program director and acting president, and Clare Bandeng-Yakubu and Osman Chilala, who are volunteers, talked about the reasons women give for having girls’ genitals – the clitoris and in many cases the labia – cut off. Although Muslim religious leaders have joined the campaign to teach families that this practice has nothing to do with Islam, FGM is still pervasive in the country’s northern regions, along the border with Burkino Faso, where Muslims predominate.

In those border regions, where the incidence of genital cutting is thought to be as high as 79 percent among girls, people say that an uncircumcised woman cannot perform the ablutions required for worship. There are other myths -- that an uncut clitoris will grow longer and longer, resembling a penis, that a child will go mad if left uncircumcised and, most tragic, that a baby doesn’t feel pain. Girls who are spared in babyhood are likely to be cut between the ages of 6 and 12, the GAWW experts said.

GAWW has matched its extensive community education work with tougher actions, enlisting local police officers to arrest women performing the ritual, for example. School health teachers are asked for assistance in spreading the message that the practice is unsafe and unnecessary, as are traditional chiefs, district politicians and children, who are helped to form clubs against FGM. Brochures with gory illustrations are distributed widely, as is a very useful book of questions and answers about FGM. Publications remind Ghanaians that FGM is a criminal offense punishable by a minimum of three years in prison.

If anti-FGM campaigners in Ghana see their first challenge now as spreading education and getting a good law enforced, women in Egypt are still in a more tenuous place.

In Cairo, I went to see Marie Assad, a social scientist who has worked for decades against the practice of genital cutting in Egypt, were a staggering 90 percent or more of women have endured the practice in girlhood. Assad said that the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, which fired up strong NGO activity in the country, also fueled the first public discussion of genital mutilation. Around the time of the conference, CNN made a graphic, pathbreaking film about the practice in Egypt, as local women’s groups were preparing a conference workshop on the issue.

“What helped us all was that CNN film,” Assad said. “It created such a shock in the country that for the first time the practice was discussed.” After the conference, 50 people turned up for an informal brainstorming session and decided to launch a public campaign. They were backed by several American organizations and UNFPA. the United Nations Population Fund.

“It took us five years, in discussions and writing papers,” Assad said. “We found out we had to produce credible information, and that we had to listen to the people who do the practice. The big decision we made from the very beginning is that we are saying No to any form of the operation when we are talking to the women. We don’t call it ‘purification.’ We call the devil by its name.”

She added that the goal was to put FGM on every agenda involving women as a harmful practice. By 1995, they had organized a meeting within the ministry of health, the beginning of a sometimes up-and-down partnership with government. In that same year, a national demographic and health survey added a question on FGM prevalence. “This was the second shock,” Assad said. “The result came that regardless of education, regardless of class, there was 97 percent prevalency.”

The campaign soon got a significant boost when Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of President Hosni Mubarak, took up the cause. “She had the courage to put it on the agenda,” Assad said, adding that the president’s wife had to be careful “because it became a political issue and a religious controversy.”

Assad said researchers knew the practice predated Islam, but have yet to discover where it originated and how it took root so firmly in Egypt. Over the centuries women, believing the ritual be connected with marriagebility and chastity, became its most fervent advocates.

“Women in the Middle East are the custodians of culture,” Assad said. “So it’s their duty, even if it is painful. They suffer in silence.” As a shifting strategy to meet this reality, she said, the campaign does not seek to condemn women but to inform them, from the grassroots up, about the harm caused by FGM , and by staying silent in the face of its widespread persistence.

In order not to humiliate women untutored in the understanding of the clitoris and its role in sexuality, Assad said, she has adopted a posture of some penance. “We who are educated, because we knew better, we protected our daughters,” she said, and now “we are sharing this knowledge now because we robbed you of the right of knowledge.”

The advocates of ending genital cutting have been backed by some Islamic scholars and a ban has been upheld in the highest court. But the health ministry made what Assad sees as a bad compromise. Genital cutting is forbidden in law unless medically necessary, and this has allowed doctors too much leeway, she said. Who is to say that this practice is needed at all? The battle goes on.

Suzanne Mubarak continues to address the issue through the National Council of Childhood and Motherhood, which she chairs. Around the country, villages are preparing concept papers for further action, helped by the development office of the Coptic Church and the United Nations Development Program. Assad said that progress at village level has been heartening. “we are now working in 60 villages with Christian and Muslim NGOs and the government,” she said.

Hala El Damanhoury, an obstetrician now working full time at the New Women Research Center in Cairo, has learned that, as in other developing countries, a woman’s knowledge of how her body works may be extremely low or nonexistent. What most children in richer countries learn quite early in schools, children, especially girls, in many poor countries are never taught. A dearth of frank discussion in the media about sexuality leaves many young women unaware, for example, of what an orgasm means, and how that sensation is lost in genital cutting. If you can’t read, even what published information exists is out of reach.

“The main problem with women in Egypt is illiteracy, “ said El Damanhoury. “The second problem is health awareness. Women needs skills to increase their incomes and afford to find medical services. Then there is the availability of doctors who will perform services for women, which is very low. You can find doctors who will do genital cutting but not abortion, for example. Even women doctors don’t always help.

“The empowerment of women, the teaching of women, should be the main goals in this country,” she said. “After that, you can do anything you want.”

As for genital mutilation, Marie Assad feels a sense of confidence that the while it may take a very long time to end the practice, there will be no turning back now that basic knowledge in beginning to spread in rural villages and urban neighborhoods.

“We are at the right moment for bringing the issue to the forefront,” she said. “How far we go – that’s a different story.”

Cited from: Priorities Across Borders, A global front against genital cutting, Barbara Crossette, Media Center, UN Foundation, 2004.

In Brazil, a video is making the rounds starring some well known comic actors with a message that’s no laughing matter. Their faces also appear on posters. Their pitch: “Violence against women isn’t funny.” Family planning is fine. Good health care for women is fine. But these services can mean nothing to women who may be abused for trying to use them and who live in fear of violence from not only an intimate partner – a husband or boyfriend – but also a pimp or a male relative.

As the crucial importance to national development of birth control and good reproductive healthcare for women sink into the thinking of governments and societies around the world, attention is turning in many places to the men who buck the trend. They may be individuals prone to domination and violence in any culture, or they may be boys and men who grow up in milieus casually demeaning of women. Call them macho or misogynist or just uneducated about the place of women in the contemporary world and in all major religions, where beliefs may have been warped by militants. Whatever the source, the behavior it is being tackled in the developing world with new organizations and some redirection in older institutions such as churches, mosques, the schools, parliaments and the courts.

The national campaign to stop violence being launched this year in Brazil is a joint effort by men’s organizations and feminist groups – not always friendly partners in the past – backed by Ecos, a research organization in gender and sexuality.

“We’re actually talking about a movement, not a campaign,” said Bendito Medrado of the Program in Support of the Father, or Papai in Portuguese, which means “Dad.” Papai is based in the northeastern Brazilian city of Recife, one of two areas where women say a machismo culture still defines a male image. The other region is in the south, where a cowboy tradition and conservative social mentality come together to the detriment of women. Medrado was among a group gathered one Saturday in May at in the small boardroom at Ecos headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, to strategize the next moves in the anti-violence drive. He and others were pleased that Brazil seemed ready for this movement and was already ahead of most of Latin America in serious work on other women’s issues.

With a considerable amount of equality written into Brazil’s 1988 constitution and new family laws that give women broad rights, Brazilians were focused reducing on domestic violence by the early 1990s, said Jacqueline Pitangui, a former president of Brazil’s National Council on Women”s Rights and a leader on gender issues for several decades. “Brazil got domestic violence included as a human rights issue at the Vienna conference on human rights in 1993,” she said. Within the country, the government has created centers for women who are victims of sexual violence, she said.

In Sao Paulo, Sandra Unbehaum, the director of Ecos, said that the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing the following year produced “a real comprehension of what women’s issues mean.” In Brazil, the results of these conferences only underscored what strong local feminist organizations had already been demanding, with considerable success. “Those international conferences were turning points,” Unbehaum said. Brazil’s 1997 family planning law, which opened the way for a range of previously forbidden procedures, including sterilization, was a direct outcome of Cairo, Pitangui told me.

“Brazil seized the Cairo and Beijing agendas right away,” Medrado said. “Men should support women.” Papai has extended that mandate to a sustained effort to stop violence against women,a fundamental and crippling violation of their rights. Medrado, a social psychologist, and others are also researching and writing about men and masculinity to better understand the roots of their behavior and the cultural factors (including the role of media) that may reinforce it.

In Ghana, Fred Sai, a former adviser to the World Bank on public health and a founder of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana, says that the unequal position of women that makes them vulnerable to abuse may start with early marriage, which weakens a girl’s heath and denies her education and a chance of employment early in life. According to UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, projections for the 2000-2005 period, Ghana has a fertility rate of 78.2 per thousand for women between the ages of 15 and 20. That is more than double the rate in Egypt and higher than Brazil. For comparison, the figure is about 17 per thousand in the Czech Republic “The threat of violence ensures that women will defer to and comply with men’s decisions about sexual behavior and contraceptive use,” Sai wrote in Adam and Eve and the Serpent, a book based on a series of lectures he gave at the University of Ghana in 1994. This may be reinforced, he said, by a legal requirement that a woman have spousal consent for family planning.

“And sadly, violence by only a few men may be sufficient to keep many women in fear,” he said. “If one woman in a village is beaten by her husband for using contraception, many other women may become reluctant to raise the subject in their own homes.”

Sai is also concerned that the trokosi system, under which a pre-pubescent girl is given to a local deity to atone for a sin committed by someone in her family, institutionalizes abuse of women because the girl is often forced to serve as a sexual slave to the priest in charge of the deity’s shrine.

In 1998, trokosi was outlawed, but still persists in some areas. Ghana’s National Population Council, which has made a survey of the places where it exists, is demanding that the government enforce the law, monitor shrines and seek a culturally effective way to replace the system – with, for example, the offer of an animal or other gift -- and not a girl -- to a deity.

In every country where AIDS is a threat, there is concern that the rapid spread among women of the virus that causes it can be linked in numerous cases to the women’s inability to protect herself because of the possibility of abuse.

A study in South Africa found in 2004 that women who were beaten by male partners are significantly more likely to become infected with the virus that causes AIDS than women who do not report violence. The study, whose findings were published by the British medical journal The Lancet, concluded that women who face violence were 48 percent more likely to be infected. If the women were also financially dependent or dominated emotionally by a partner, the figure rose as high as 52 percent.

The assumption drawn from the study was that men who abused women also imposed risky sexual practices on their partners or forbade women from introducing protective measures, such as the regular use of condoms. The abuse of woman and girls is a reality in both developing and industrialized countries. Sex trafficking, for example, often brings girls still in their teens from poor countries to richer ones, where young virgins fetch a premium price in the sex trade. In several countries on several continents I have listened as health officials described treating little girls as young as three who had been sexually violated, often within their extended families. Young boys are also victims of the international sex trade or of abuses closer to home.

In Ghana, Richard Turkson, the executive director of the National Population Council, said that in stopping the spread of AIDS by men through casual sex, which brings the infection home to monogamous wives, “The problem that we are facing now is behavior change.” He said that the council has hired a consultant to look for new strategies. “Behavior change is incredibly slow,” Turkson said. “We are wondering whether the message and the material that we have are appropriate.”

Internationally, violence against women has become a debilitating part of refugee life and the fallout of vicious civil wars that kill many more civilians than combatants. Several United Nations agencies, including the UNFPA, Unicef, the World Health Organization and the office of the High Commissioner for Refugees have waged a difficult battle to make women’s reproductive health, including the provision of emergency contraceptives (the“morning after” pill) for rape victims an integral part of relief work.

The United Nations peacekeeping department has also been forced by anti-trafficking advocates to face the ugly reality that its peacekeeping missions become magnets for prostitution and sometimes centers of trafficking. In Liberia, for example, young women from Morocco and eastern Europe have been found in brothels and clubs around troop bases. In East Timor, there were Thai prostitutes.

Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Security Council – prodded by advocates for women’s rights inside and outside the organization – have ordered peacekeeping officials to stop these practices and to incorporate experts in human rights and women’s issues among mission staffs. Reports from the field say progress has not been very good in most places. This sets a tragic example in devastated countries hoping to rebuild.

When the new International Criminal Court was established by a conference attended by a majority of U.N. member nations, it was able to enshrine sex abuse as a war crime, building on groundbreaking work done in ad hoc war tribunals set up in the 1990s for the Balkans and Rwanda, which convicted men for crimes against women . It may take a long time to completely erase the notion that “boys will be boys.” But those who harbor such ideas can longer act on them with impunity without the possibility – even if still remote in too many cases – that they will some day pay the price with a criminal conviction.

Cited from:  Priorities Across Borders, For many women, violence shuts out hope, Barbara Crossette, Media Center, UN Foundation, 2004.

This article is reprinted from and with permission from the UN Wire / UN Foundation.

It was evident in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development that while a majority of delegations agreed to a profound shift in population policies away from counting people to empowering women, most also understood that there had to be room to accommodate distinct national priorities and cultural differences. Since those momentous days in Cairo a decade ago, what is also emerging is a global patchwork of coalitions and alliances no two really the same that are proving to be the best and most appropriate way to get things done.

People in diverse cultures all over the world, and the international agencies and nongovernmental organizations helping them tackle reproductive health challenges, have been devising a fascinating array of partnerships to fit their own political, religious and cultural environments.

The message seems to be: If it works, go for it. There is a growing confidence in local solutions, with outsiders playing valuable but limited supportive roles. These partnerships seem to hold the promise of real sustainable progress Some of the ad hoc coalitions are not new. Indeed, in countries that were already making significant changes in womens rights and womens health before Cairo, these forces were already in play a generation or more ago. Often, Cairo gave them the muscle and the action plan they needed to prod governments and overcome reticence about speaking out publicly on sensitive or embarrassing topics.

In Brazil, for example, a strong urbanized womens movement they have no hesitation in calling themselves feminists took advantage of political turmoil and the end of military rule in the 1980s to lobby successfully for changes in laws governing family life and for broad guarantees of equality in a new constitution. Now Brazilian feminists work with a range of other groups and institutions.

They have begun cooperating with recently created mens organizations trying to reduce domestic violence through changes in behavior and attitudes toward women, an area in which Brazilians feel confident that they have taken a lead in Latin America. Brazilians are proud to say that they raised the issue of domestic violence as a violation of womens rights in 1993 in Vienna at the international human rights conference. Within the country, ending family violence is constitutionally a duty of the state, which recognizes women and men as equal partners in a marriage.

Feminists work with local authorities, too. In Rio one example is Cepia, a womens rights NGO that trains police officers and health workers in the handling of sexual abuse victims. It also focuses on teens, where birthrate are soaring, said Cepias founder, Jacqueline Pintagui.

For many teenagers who have nothing, she said in a conversation in Rio, it is something to be pregnant. Later in the town of Pirai, a young woman who had recently given birth to twins told me that she got pregnant just because she wanted to try motherhood.

The hierarchy of the Catholic Church has not been an ally of womens rights groups, Pitangui said, adding that in Rio the Catholic leadership opposes not only abortion but also emergency contraception the morning after pill and condom distribution. But women are confident that if the church can impede some developments, it can no longer stop the movement for a more liberalized reproductive health system, Pitangui said.

In Ghana, reproductive health and safe sex programs have not met organized resistance from major religious organizations, Christian or Muslim. Campaigns to abolish traditional customs harmful to girls have also not been blocked. In fact, in Ghana religious leaders have become an important part of the solution, not the problem, say health and population experts.

It is not against any religion to create happiness in this world and in the hereafter, said Hafiz Ahmad J. Saeed, who directs reproductive health programs for the Ahmadiya Muslim Mission in Accra. He said his work has been helped substantially by the shift of emphasis from birth control to family planning. “For a religious person, talking of birth control is not acceptable,” he said. “You don’t control birth, you plan it.”

“There is no verse in the Holy Koran which is against planning a family,” he said. “We don’t have a problem at all talking about family planning issues. There are no inhibitions. There is no taboo.”

The moderate Ahmadiya Muslims of the Accra region have been holding large rallies to take messages about reproductive health and AIDS prevention to people outside the capital. Ahmadiya leaders say they have attracted as many as 50,000 people to outdoor meetings, where the messages are direct: genital mutilation is not Islamic, AIDs victims deserve our compassion and “Don’t shift the blame on God.”

Mission leaders say that one of their biggest challenges, especially in remote areas of the north bordering Burkina Faso, is to persuade Muslims to abandon the philosophy that any setback – including AIDS – is the will of God. The mission is working with UNFPA to organize workshops on modern medicine in an Islamic context. It also cooperates in programs devised by the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana, part of the International Planned Parenthood Federation.

Dr. Mubarak Osei Kwasi, an epidemiologist with the Ahmadiya mission, says that he is often called upon to clarify teachings and dispel rumors about modern medicine, including vaccines. As in nearby Nigeria, some grassroots Islamic leaders in Ghana had been preaching that polio vaccine was a Western plot to sterilize Africans. Mubarak says that people will believe the vaccine is safe “if the message comes from us.”

At Young & Wise, an offshoot of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana that is devoted to taking messages of abstinence and safe sex to boys and girls as young as 10, Delah Banuelo, the project officer, said that his organization is invited to a variety of churches and mosques to talk about reproductive health. Religious leaders are a valuable part of the mix in changing attitudes and behavior in Ghana, he said.

So, perhaps surprisingly, is the army. After basic military training, young Ghanaians are encouraged to opt for a period of national service in social institutions. Young & Wise has such a volunteer, Peter Dakurah. The Center for Pregnant Teens is Kumasi is also helped by volunteer servicemen.

In Egypt, an African nation with a Middle Eastern culture, pioneers have been drawn traditionally from a more secular elite that in many ways poses a threat, not an opportunity for partnership, for Islamic conservatives on whose turf women’s rights activists work among the poor. As in Brazil, strong women, acting as individuals or in informal groups, have led movements for an end to genital mutilation, for fewer restrictions on abortion and for more women-friendly health services in general.

In Egypt a unique “old girl” network has played a role. Among the women who have succeeded in bringing changes in law and practice are a core of graduates of the American College for Girls in Cairo (now Ramses College) where Thoraya Obaid, the executive director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, was also a student.
“It was not only the knowledge the college gave us,” said Mona Zulficar, an American College graduate who is now one of Egypt’s most prominent and successful international corporate attorneys. “It was also the building of character. It made us independent-minded and able to think for ourselves.”

As a lawyer, Zulficar has been active and influential in challenging Islamic conservatives who would limit women’s rights by citing shariah law. An expert on family and citizenship laws, she took on a male-dominated establishment on its own turf, using Islamic law itself to find justification for a woman’s right to initiate divorce, for example. Like women in Brazil, Egyptian feminists have used the courts effectively and made inroads into government, particularly the ministry of health. They have found allies among officials and in Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of the President.

“Shariah and politics were once only a man’s world,” Zulficar said. “No more.”

Laos, in a landlocked backwater of Southeast Asia, is still a nominally communist country just beginning to break the habit of leaving everything to central planning. There are no local NGOs in Laos yet, so there outsiders such as the UNFPA or regional partners of the International Planned Parenthood Federation have been working with the Lao Women’s Union, a government-appointed body. Slow but steady progress in women’s reproductive health in Laos shows signs of invigorating the women’s union and strengthening the position of the most innovative of its officers.

The absence of local NGOs is a limiting factor in the development of grassroots women. There is only so much government agencies, however decentralized in recent years, can do on limited budgets. Self-help is not yet encouraged.

This situation cannot last, least of all because Laos knows that it could face a growing AIDS crisis because of the high incidence of the disease in neighboring Vietnam and Thailand, both exporters (and now importers) of prostitution and because large construction projects and more road traffic in Laos bring in migrants looking for sex locally, putting young Lao women at risk.

Officials on the National Committee for the Control of AIDS, which works across relevant government departments, say that they are very concerned about the growing mobile population. The government-run national radio has introduced a weekly call-in show to talk about these issues, and is introducing HIV-AIDS awareness programs in schools. A storefront youth center has opened in the Laotian capital, Vientiane, to provide information, counseling and some contraceptive supplies.

The African experience has shown that nongovernmental organizations are often critical to the success of reaching truck drivers and other itinerant laborers. Independent groups are a multiplier factor when resources are scarce. If the fear of AIDS has made plain talk about sex possible for the first time, as officials say, it may also lower barriers to the formation of private groups with expertise to offer. Many Lao men and women are learning to work with such groups from outside the country – Planned Parenthood Australia and Population Services International, based in Washington, D.C., are two.

John Deidrick is PSI’s representative in Laos, and he is hopeful. He has plenty of condoms to sell at low cost or give to the government to distribute free. He still gets help from the United States Agency for International Development because the organization has not run afoul of the “global gag rule” that bars American assistance to organizations that are thought to be in any way involved with abortions.

Laos, he said in a conversation in Vientiane, has no red light districts, gargantuan massage parlors or gay bars, so the sex industry is not large in any organized sense as in Thailand. The problem of AIDS is still manageable. While there are no local NGOs in the field yet, there are enough international ones willing to help.
“We have a great opportunity here,” Diedrick said. “This is one country where the NGOs and the government can make an intervention before it’s too late.”

In Ghana, Richard Turkson, executive director of the National Population Council, links the importance of decentralized government – something to which Laos has also committed itself – to the indispensability of local partnerships. Quoting the scholar Ali Masrui, he says that “Whereas the Western world is looking for a path to the moon and beyond, we in Africa are still looking for a path to the village.”

Although many African NGOs “exist only in a briefcase” and need strengthening, Turkson said, they should be encouraged to build bridges to government programs, as religious leaders and some private businesses are beginning to do.

“The ICPD dwells on partnerships as a key to sustainability,” he said. “Donor funding won’t be there forever. Partnerships with NGOs are very important simply because NGOs are able to reach populations. They can be innovative. They don’t shy away from controversial topics. They are not afraid of the soap box. We need them.”

Cited from: Coalitions At Work, Barbara Crossette, Media Center, UN Foundation, 2004.

Twenty-nine new notebooks from the New Tactics in Human Rights Project, a project of the Center for Victims of Torture, are now available online. These notebooks are written and shared by experts who have used innovative tactics to respond to an urgent human rights situation and are available in PDF. Additional notebooks will soon be added in Spanish and in Turkish.

For more information, please visit the Advocacy Tools: Developing an Advocacy Strategy section of this website.

For this year’s Annual Conference WIDE returned to Bonn, where 157 participants from 33 countries gathered to exchange ideas, experiences and strategies. As in 2003, the participants were an ebullient mix of first-time attendees and familiar faces. With some self-styled ‘WIDE dinosaurs’ and many young women from so many countries and cultures, the conference bubbled with energy and wisdom, intellectual riches and a keen sense of commitment, struggle and anger in the face of hegemonic capitalism, militarism and fundamentalisms.

In its work on the intersections and interactions between development and trade policies, WIDE stated a growing lack of coherence between two different global governance and rights regimes which impact national policies, the chances for gender justice, women’s rights and livelihoods.

This is on the one hand the human rights framework adopted by the UN and elaborated in various conventions, plans of action and development programmes, on the other hand the commercial and corporate rights codified in free trade agreements, be it multilateral, regional or bilateral agreements.

Although women’s economic, social, and political rights have been spelled out in CEDAW, the BPfA and other UN-documents, they are under attack, and it gets increasingly difficult to implement them in the context of neoliberal globalisation, an unequal development between and within countries, and the WTO-regime which expands its mandate.

The conference was preceded by an informative and empowering capacity-building day, which consisted of four seminars turning women’s eyes on the WTO; poverty eradication and the roles of poverty reduction strategy processes (PRSPs) and the MDGs; the trade and development policies of the EU; and the key UN instruments for gender equality, CEDAW and the BPfA.

• Summary of the conference
• Capacity building day

To order a copy of the conference report (8 Euro plus portage and packing) please contact Nerea Craviotto at info@wide-network.org. The URL for this record is: http://www.eurosur.org/wide/home.htm

New research has emerged regarding accountability in women's human rights. In her article, "The Principle of Accountability," Donna J. Sullivan of Women's Human Rights Net (WHRnet) covers the nature and functions of accountability for women's human rights and traces the core features and forms of accountability.

Compiled from:  "The Principle of Accountability," Donna J. Sullivan, Women's Human Rights Net, September 2004.

If you live in the following states: MI, CA, IL, WI, MO, ME, KS, MI, MS, OH, MN, NH, CT, VA, FL, NJ it is especially important that you call or email your Senators and Representatives today!

Selected Representatives and Senators from the states listed above will be meeting next week to resolve differences between Senate and House bills meant to respond to the 9/11 Commission's Report. The Senate bill, S. 2845 is a bipartisan measure that the 9/11 Commission has endorsed and does not include the harmful and divisive anti-immigrant provisions in House-passed bill, H.R. 10. These provisions will not improve security and should not be considered in the context of national intelligence reform legislation. Please contact your Representative and Senators today!

Click Here to TAKE ACTION NOW!

Call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for your Member of Congress. Use the phone script below as a guide.

Forward this email to five friends.

Background: H.R. 10 is dangerous for battered immigrant women because it significantly expands the "expedited removal" process by allowing immigration officials to remove, without a hearing, anyone who entered the U.S. without permission and who has been in the U.S. for less than five years. This would mean that women who are here legally would be deported before they have a chance to prove why it is legal for them to be here. This is particularly problematic for battered immigrant women because batterers could more easily threaten their families with deportation if they sought protection. In addition, this provision could enable abusers to avoid prosecution for their crimes by getting their victims deported without any recourse or ability to seek help from police or victim services.

Sample Phone Script:

"As a constituent, I am calling to urge you to support the bi-partisan Senate 9/11 bill, S. 2845, and oppose the divisive and dangerous anti-immigrant provisions included in the House bill, H.R. 10. One provision of the House bill has particularly dangerous consequences for women and children seeking assistance and safety from domestic violence. This provision significantly expands the "expedited removal" process by allowing immigration officials to remove, without a hearing, anyone who entered the US without permission and who has been in the U.S. for less than 5 years. This would mean that some women who are here legally would be deported before they have a chance to prove why it is legal for them to be here. This is particularly problematic for battered immigrant women because batterers could more easily threaten their families with deportation if they sought protection. In addition, this provision could enable abusers to avoid prosecution for their crimes by getting their victims deported without any recourse or ability to seek help from police or victim services. Please support the Senate 9/11 bill!"

Thank you for taking action on this critial issue!

Cited from: Action Alert: Urge Congress to Support the Bipartisan Senate 9/11 Bill!, Family Violence Prevention Fund, last visited 18 October 2004.

Fatima and Zuhra Sultanovas are twins. Local legend has it that twins have similar destinies. The sisters' history suggests that the legend may come true. They married - on the same day - twin brothers named Hasan and Hussein. Six years have passed and they have both given birth to two children.

But domestic violence forced Zuhra to return to her father's home, while her sister Fatima was harassed by a neighbour. Later, Zuhra's husband made her have an abortion in her fifth month of pregnancy.

"I was in shock for several weeks," Fatima told IRIN in the northern Tajik city of Khujand. "I could not get away from the idea of committing suicide. I was looking for an easy way of death: I thought of plunging into the river or hanging myself - anything not to live in this world. But my parents stopped me and I am very grateful to them for their moral support."

The twin sisters dared to go against the generally accepted view that only death can wash away disgrace. Fatima and Zuhra made up their minds to fight for their human rights and to get justice. They saw an advert in a newspaper for the Gulrukhsor Crisis Centre, called the hotline and were advised what to do. Then they applied to a court.

An official of the city's prosecuting authorities, Said Babev, had this advice for female victims of violence: "Immediately apply to a court for a medical examination and do not lose your torn clothes. This will all serve as material evidence. Unfortunately, our society and even our investigative bodies gossip about such things... I advise women that, regardless of these prejudices, they should trust in the law and apply to law enforcement bodies."

Many abused women driven to suicide

Unfortunately, many desperate women still choose the ultimate protest - suicide.

But now there are several crisis centres set up by NGOs where women victims of violence can apply for help, either through hotline numbers or directly.

According to data from the crisis centre run by the Women of Science of Tajikistan Association, in 2002-03, 47 per cent of all registered incidents of violence against women related to sexual violence by their husbands or others, while 51 per cent were cases of psychological cruelty, according to the director of the association, Muhiba Yakubova.

Experts say that two-thirds of women are exposed to domestic violence. In 2002-03, about 90 women committed suicide. In the period 2001-04, 344 women took their own lives and 433 were murdered by their partners.

Along with poverty, some observers link growing violence against women in Tajikistan with the aftermath of the civil war of the 1990s, that led to the death of at least 50,000 people while 1.2 million became refugees or were internally displaced. Women, as ever, suffered disproportionately during and after the conflict.

"Apart from a general deterioration in the position of women, which one should expect during a civil war, women were specifically targeted by the Islamists in the Tajik conflict factions on 'moral grounds'. Islamic behaviour and dress code were brutally enforced, thus degrading and dehumanising women. Moreover, forced marriages and human trafficking - mainly of young girls - became more acceptable during the war," Sergei Andreyev, a research fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, told IRIN.

Another consequence of the civil war, albeit indirect, is the increasing participation of Tajik women in drug trafficking: they are used as "mules" since they are least likely to attract scrutiny by law-enforcement bodies.

But some traditional religious scholars, like Mirzomuhiddin Homidzoda, blame women daring to venture from the home for an upsurge in violence against them "If the woman is a true housewife and is busy with raising her children... she will bring up worthy and well mannered members of society. But alas, these days women are more independent than men. Women are trading in the market, working as labour migrants and businesswomen... In my opinion, all this leads to violence."

Cruelty against women may be on the increase

Anecdotal evidence suggests that cruelty against women has recently become worse, with mothers-in-law treating their daughters-in-law as servants with no human rights.

"I've been married for three years and feel that I have been sold as a slave," said Malika, barely holding back the tears. Although she works every day from early in the morning until late at night she is constantly accused of being lazy.

"I am sure that neither the prosecutor's office, the police nor my relatives can help me. Family quarrels never get punished by the law. And I cannot apply to a court because my relatives would judge me. My husband and mother-in-law would laugh at me. Sometimes I feel that I have no human rights at all and that the only option is suicide. In such a case, society would blame me for everything, saying that my husband was good, my family was friendly, everything was all right for me," Malika said.

The executive director of the Gulrukhsor Crisis Centre in Khujand says: "The more society becomes civilised, the more the methods of violence will become contrived. Domestic violence exists and one can say that accusations by husbands and mothers-in-law have become more caustic. That is why domestic violence drives women to suicide."

The victims of violence apply very rarely to the legal system. This is for cultural reasons and because they do not believe that their rights can be defended in such a manner. Most think that the only way out is to commit suicide.

Little help from the legal system

The state judicial system has been ineffective in aiding the victims of violence. Human rights organs do not respond to cases of violence and related suicides. The Gulrukhsor Crisis Centre has decided to help such women. The case of the Sultanovas sisters prompted them to organize the training of lawyers to defend victims of violence.

Recently, suicide cases have become even more tragic. Victims kill not only themselves but also their children. In September 2003, the inhabitants of Kulob city were shocked by a tragic case in which the victim burned herself together with her two children. Although her elder daughter managed to escape, they could not rescue the mother and her younger daughter. The reason for the suicide appeared to be the financial plight of the family, with the children hungry most of the time. Their father had gone to Russia and not sent anything back for two years.

In another case, in April of this year, a 22-year-old woman living in Khujand town plunged into the Syrdar'ya River from the dam at Kayrakkum power station together with her six-month-old daughter.

But the Sultanovas sisters got to court. Zuhra won her case and her husband was imprisoned for two years.

"In the near future we are going to set up temporary refuges at the crisis centre for those women who have undergone violence and have nowhere to go," Muhiba Yakubova of the Women of Science of Tajikistan Association says. Such refuge centres are already active in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and other CIS countries.

Published in: Our Bodies - Their Battle Ground: Gender-based Violence in Conflict Zones: TAJIKISTAN: Civil war has left one in three women victims of domestic violence, United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network, 15 October 2004. 

The material contained on this Web site comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post any item on this site, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All graphics and Images on this site may not be re-produced without the express permission of the original owner. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2004.

For more information, please see the Tajikistan section of this website.

The NGOs are calling for the strengthening of certain provisions of the draft treaty in order to ensure that the treaty designs a "comprehensive framework for the protection and assistance of trafficked persons and witnesses."  The NGOs want to ensure that the European Convention against Trafficking recognizes trafficking as a human rights violation and requires states to meet several requirements. Among the desired requirements are: prompt and accurate identification of trafficked persons by trained individuals; no prosecution of victims for illegal entry or residence in a country, or for illegal activities resulting from their situation as a trafficked person; access to assistance and protection services; a process of granting victims permission to legally remain in the country during a 3-month Reflection and Recovery Period; a further 6-month renewable and permanent residence permit for trafficked persons; and the assurance that they will not be returned to any country where their life or safety is at risk. 

For the complete text of Amnesty International's and Anti-Slavery International's recommendations, click here.

Compiled from: "120 NGOs Stress that the Draft European Convention against Trafficking must be strengthened," Balkan Human Rights Digest, Press Release 28 September 2004.

For more information, please visit the Trafficking in Women: Council of Europe portion of this website.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign originating from the first Women's Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women's Global Leadership in 1991. Participants chose the dates, November 25, International Day Against Violence Against Women and December 10, International Human Rights Day, in order to symbolically link violence against women and human rights and to emphasize that such violence is a violation of human rights. This 16-day period also highlights other significant dates including December 1, which is World AIDS Day, and December 6, which marks the Anniversary of the Montreal Massacre.

The 16 Days Campaign has been used as an organizing strategy by individuals and groups around the world to call for the elimination of all forms of violence against women by:

• raising awareness about gender-based violence as a human rights issue at the local, national, regional and international levels
• strengthening local work around violence against women
• establishing a clear link between local and international work to end violence against women
• providing a forum in which organizers can develop and share new and effective strategies
• demonstrating the solidarity of women around the world organizing against violence against women
• creating tools to pressure governments to implement promises made to eliminate violence against women

Since 1991, approximately 1,700 organizations in 130 countries have participated in the 16 Days Campaign!

Every year, the Global Center composes a Campaign theme in consultation with women's human rights advocates worldwide and then circulates an announcement for the campaign as widely as possible. Over the years, Campaign themes have included: "Violence Against Women Violates Human Rights" (1991/1992), "Democracy without Women's Human Rights . . . is not Democracy" (1993), "Awareness, Accountability, Action: Violence Against Women Violates Human Rights" (1994), "Vienna, Cairo, Copenhagen and Beijing: Bringing Women's Human Rights Home" (1995), "Demand Women's Human Rights in the Home and in the World" (1997), "Building a Culture of Respect for Human Rights" (1998), "Fulfilling the Promise of Freedom from Violence" (1999), "Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Campaign" (2000), "Racism and Sexism: No More Violence" (2001), "Creating a Culture That Says 'No' to Violence Against Women" (2002), "Violence Against Women Violates Human Rights: Maintaining the Momentum Ten Years After Vienna (1993-2003)" (2003), and 2004:

"For the Health of Women, For the Health of the World: No More Violence"

If you have suggestions for a future 16 Days Campaign theme or would like to receive future announcements, please contact the Global Center.

There are a number of ways to become involved in the 16 Days Campaign. If you are interested in participating as an individual, you can join an already existing student, community, national or international organization and help them coordinate activities for 16 Days -- or take action on your own! If you are part of an organization or institution, introduce the Campaign to your partners and encourage their participation and support. You can participate by,

• Educating your community about violence against women using circulars, posters, banners, speak outs, interviews, editorials, or articles to get information out!
• Organizing a tribunal, rally, panel, film festival, workshop, etc. with a focus on violence against women.
• Exchanging messages of support and solidarity with individuals and organizations coordinating activities for 16 Days!

The Center for Women's Global Leadership makes a number of resources available for those who would like to plan a 16 Days Activity in their community. These include:

• an annual Campaign Announcement which includes suggestions for action based on the current theme
• a Take Action Kit which contains information on the Campaign, including a list of suggested activities
• an on-line posting of all previous International Calendars of Campaign Activities which describe activities coordinated by organizations in the past.

All of these resources can be obtained by contacting the Center with your request (see contact information below) or by visiting us on-line at http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu.

Contact the Center for Women's Global Leadership and we will send you the names, fax numbers and e-mails of other individuals and organizations coordinating 16 Days activities. This will enable you and other participants in the campaign to exchange letters of solidarity and support and where possible work together in the future.

If you organize an activity for 16 Days, send a brief description with dates of your planned activities, your name and your contact information to the Global Center so that we can post the information to the International Calendar of Campaign Activities. Once the calendar has been compiled, we will send copies to participating organizations. The calendar will highlight your efforts as part of a broader movement for women's human rights and provide you with examples of activities and strategies used by other individuals and organizations during the Campaign.

For more information about the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, please contact: Center for Women's Global Leadership, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, 160 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8555 USA; ph: (1-732) 932-8782; fax: (1-732) 932-1180; e-mail: cwgl@igc.org, website: http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu.

In a statement marking the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the UN Committee overseeing the Convention recently noted that no country in the world has achieved full equality for women.

While certain countries have made great progress since the adoption of the Convention in 1979, many states party to the Convention continue to uphold discriminatory national laws, for example. Even in those countries, which have implemented laws to promote equality, informal discrimination persists.

The Committee also voiced concern about the increasing problem of trafficking of women and girls and the escalation of violence against women. Although violence against women is now considered a public concern, the practice continues in all countries, particularly in those faced with economic and political upheaval.

Further, the Committee expressed its disapproval of the underrepresentation and in some cases, absence, of women in politcal and civic life in countries that are party to the Convention.

Despite such examples of ongoing discrimination towards women, Deputy-Secretary General of the Committee, Louise Frechette, told a rountable at UN Headquaters: "The Convention remains the most solid global tool in the network for true gender equality in the home, the community and society; and for freedom from discrimination, whether perpetrated by the State or by any person, organization or enterprise."

The Committee pointed to positive steps taken by states to promote equality and eliminate discrimination against women including: Bangladesh's Constitutional Amendment to increase the number of seats reserved for women in the national parliament; legal reform prohibiting employment discrimination against women in Latvia; a new national ministry dedicated to the promotion and development of women in Angola; the opening of university-level gender studies centres in Kyrgyzstan; the development of eductional scholarship programs for women in Ethiopia; and the appointment of two women judges to Argentina's Supreme Court of Justice.

While many states have maintained reservations to key provisions of the Convention, limiting the Convention's positive impact in those places, a number of states have withdrawn either all or part of their reservations.  France, Ireland, Lesotho and Mauritius are examples of such countries leading the way toward a stronger, more meaningful CEDAW.

Compiled from: 

"UN committee for women's rights treaty says no country has reached full equality," UN News Service, www.un.org, 13 October 2004.

"On Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Women's Rights Convention, Committee Notes: Progress but Full Equality Still to be Achieved," Press Release, News, www.un.org, 14 October 2004.

13 October 2004

News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International

AI Index: AMR 23/048/2004 13 October 2004

Colombia: Violence Against Women -- Scarred Bodies, Hidden Crimes

The commander of the paramilitaries raped me. ( ... ) You have to keep quiet ... If you talk, people say you were asking for it ... I came to Medellín.... When the army comes, I start thinking that it’s going to happen to me all over again. Like a nightmare that never ends ... , Testimony given to Amnesty International.

(Bogotá) By sowing terror and exploiting women for military gain, the security forces, army-backed paramilitaries and the guerrilla have turned the bodies of thousands of women and girls into a battleground, said Susan Lee, Director of Amnesty International’s Americas Programme today as it launched a new report on Violence against Women in Colombia.

(Full report online at http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacKkiabaLOibdTh3Ob/ )

The report brings together the testimonies of women who have survived sexual violence at the hands of the various armed actors and whose voices have rarely been heard. The stigma of sexual violence, and the fear that surrounds it, has prevented many women from speaking out.

"With this report we hope to give a voice to the thousands of women survivors whose experiences of sexual violence remain hidden behind a wall of silence fuelled by discrimination and impunity," said Ms Lee.

Sexual violence against women, including rape, forms an integral part of Colombia’s 40-year-old armed conflict and the evidence uncovered by Amnesty International suggests that it is widespread.

Rape and other sexual crimes, such as genital mutilation, are frequently carried out by the security forces and the paramilitaries as part of their terror tactics against communities they accuse of collaborating with guerrilla groups. Afro-descendent, indigenous and peasant women, shantytown dwellers, and the internally displaced are at particular risk.

"Women and girls are raped, sexually abused and even killed because they behave in ways deemed as unacceptable to the combatants, or because women may have challenged the authority of armed groups, or simply because women are viewed as a useful target on which to inflict humiliation on the enemy", said Ms Lee.

Women have been sexually abused after being kidnapped by guerrilla groups and paramilitaries or while being detained by the security forces. Guerrilla groups have also forced their female combatants to have abortions and use contraception.

"Paramilitary and guerrilla groups seek to intrude into even the most intimate aspects of women’s lives in areas under their control by setting curfews and dress codes, and by humiliating, flogging, raping and even killing those who dare to transgress," said Ms Lee.

Because of culturally-entrenched gender stereotyping, guerrilla and paramilitary groups have also violently targeted groups they deem to be socially "undesirable", such as sex workers, lesbians and gay men, and those suspected of carrying HIV/AIDS.

The Colombian authorities, and the general public, have for too long ignored the scandal of sexual violence, viewing it as a "private problem". Cases are rarely recorded in official statistics or in autopsy reports, and are even more invisible if they are related to the armed conflict.

The state has been unwilling to bring those responsible to justice. When a case is investigated, the treatment of victims by the authorities is often degrading and the perpetrators are very rarely identified, and even less so punished. Medical treatment for survivors is almost non existent for those who cannot afford it.

"Women survivors of sexual violence are punished again and again. Not only have they been sexually abused but they are often rejected by their family, humiliated by the legal system, refused medical care, and rarely see their attacker brought to justice", said Ms Lee.

Many women’s organizations in Colombia have sought to fill the gap by providing medical assistance and advice to women survivors. Many of these organizations find themselves the target of the armed actors because their work is seen as helping the "enemy".

The Colombian government has a responsibility to prevent and punish violence against women. Despite repeated recommendations by the United Nations and other international bodies, there is little evidence to suggest that the government has taken sufficient measures to end such abuses and bring perpetrators to justice, whoever they may be.

Government policies continue to drag civilians further into the conflict and to exacerbate the scandal of impunity.

"This impunity is the cornerstone of the ongoing human rights crisis in Colombia. The Colombian state is failing in its duty to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish and eradicate sexual and gender violence and is sending out a message that such behaviour is tolerated or even condoned," said Ms Lee.

"All sides in the conflict must publicly denounce gender-based violence and issue clear instructions to their forces that violence against women will not be tolerated and that those responsible will be held accountable and brought to justice," concluded Ms Lee.

Background Information

Amnesty International visited Colombia in 2003 and 2004 to carry out research into sexual violence against women in several areas of the country. During the visits, Amnesty International conducted direct interviews with survivors, witnesses, activists and organizations working on cases of sexual violence and those which provide assistance to victims. This report is based on first-hand accounts by survivors.

This report is part of the organization’s International Campaign to Stop Violence against Women, launched in March 2004.

For a full copy of the report: "Colombia: Scarred bodies, hidden crimes, sexual violence against women in the armed conflict," please see: http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacKkiabaLOibdTh3Ob/

Women's bodies used as battleground, take action! Visit http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacKkiabaLOjbdTh3Ob/

Sign up to the Stop Violence Against Women campaign, visit http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacKkiabaLOkbdTh3Ob/

For media materials, please see: http://amnesty-news.c.topica.com/maacKkiabaLOlbdTh3Ob/

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PRESS RELEASE OF THE EUROPEAN WOMEN'S LOBBY-ENCLOSED AND HEREUNDER

Date: 12/10/04- for immediate release

Press release

ONE WOMAN IN FIVE IN THE EU HAS EXPERIENCED FAMILY VIOLENCE, IS THAT WHAT M.BUTTIGLIONE CALLS "PROTECTION"?

While the debate over statements made by Commissioner Designate Buttiglione for Justice, Liberty and Security continues, the European Women’s Lobby would like to correct the somewhat distorted view of family life that has been given by M. Buttiglione in his statement that "the family exists to allow women to have children and be protected by their husbands".

"Unfortunately, the home and the family cannot be said to be the safest place for women in Europe. In the EU at least one in five women experience violence by their intimate male partner and 95% of all acts of violence against women take place within the home", stated Lydia la Rivière-Zijdel, EWL President.

Violence against women is the most serious violation of women’s human rights and fundamental freedoms and has been recognised as such in the European Constitutional Treaty where a Declaration has been introduced that calls on Member States to take all necessary measures to prevent and punish domestic violence and to support and protect the victims.

While the world prepares to celebrate the 10-year adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action in 2005, it is important to recall that women in Europe and around the world do not want protection from individual men. Women want equality in all areas of life, respect for their fundamental rights and freedoms, including sexual and reproductive rights and expression of sexual orientation, and justice before the law.

For more information, contact Colette De Troy at the Secretariat of the European Women’s Lobby: centre-violence@womenlobby.org tel. +32 (0) 2 217 90 20

With more than 4000 member organisations in all EU Member States, the European Women's Lobby is the largest coalition of women’s organisations in the EU.

As the report is prepared, the current Special Rapporteur, Dr. Yakin Erturk, invites NGOs to contribute their responses. The HIV pandemic cannot be effectively addressed without dealing with gender, as violence against women is both a cause and consequence of HIV and AIDS. Considering that VAW and HIV are both epidemics of crisis proportions and longer-term development and human rights issues, what do you believe to be the most critical interventions to be implemented in order to remedy:

1. Women’s particular vulnerabilities to HIV.
2. Particular kinds of stigmas experienced by women with HIV.
3. Constraints on women's access to medical care and justice.

Please include the name of your organisation, the country in which you are located, a website address if you have one, and a few sentences of description about your main activities. Send responses to Sara Nordstrom, 16 Days Coordinator, at snordsy@eden.rutgers.edu by October 15. Reponses will be forwarded on to the office of the Special Rapporteur.

The Commission of the European Communities has recommended to the European Council and the Parliament that negotiations begin toward membership in the European Union for Turkey. Recognition of political reforms -- in Turkey’s human rights record, its economy and its judiciary system -- contributed to the decision that moves Turkey forward on the path to EU membership.

The decision to pursue membership will require the consent of all 25 member states when they meet in December. Membership negotiations may take as long as a decade, with no guarantee of the outcome. Turkey would be the first largely Muslim country in the primarily Christian European Union.

Compiled from:

Europa/European Commission website, Press Release IP/04/1180, 6 October 2004, complete text here

Commission of the European Communities, Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament, Recommendation of the European Commission on Turkey’s progress toward accession, Brussels, 6 October 2004, complete text here (PDF, 19 pages)

Elaine Sciolino, "Europe Union Gives Turkey a First, Tentative Welcome", The New York Times, 6 October 2004.

Take action to help Amnesty International USA protect an increasing number of women and girls trafficked into Kosovo who are experiencing rape, beatings and abduction. In a recent report Amnesty International established that trafficking in Kosovo has increased since the July 1999 deployment of the international peacekeeping force led by NATO (KFOR) and the establishment of the United Nations civilian administration (UNMIK). Please see Amnesty's website to learn more about the issue and take steps toward remedying this grave problem in Kosovo.

Compiled from:  "Take Action:  Protect the Rights of Women and Girls Trafficked in Kosovo," Women's Human Rights Online Bulletin, Amnesty International USA, 6 October 2004.

The amendment is a part of a larger initiative to ensure that American service members do not continue to contribute to the problem of human trafficking. Currently, new arrivals to duty receive instruction against participating in prostitution and human trafficking and the military is collaborating with South Korean law enforcement agencies. In addition, officials are in the process of developing a training program for service members that will explain trafficking, the Department’s policy on it and the possible legal repercussions for violation of the policy. Further, the military the ways in which it might restrict servicemen from frequenting businesses where prostitution and like activities take place. Finally, the military is making efforts to make on-base military life more tolerable by providing more evening and weekend education programs, band concerts, sports leagues and chaplain services.

Compiled from: "Anti-Prostitution Rule Drafted for U.S. Forces," Pauline Jelinek, The Washington Post, 22 September 2004.

By signing the International Convention Against Trafficking in Women then-Czechoslovakia agreed not to pass future legislation supervising prostitutes, something the new bill has proposed in order to regulate legal age of prostitutes and their frequency of medical checks.

The government, which gave the go-ahead for the bill in April, is set to discuss the Czech Republic's repealing its commitment to the international treaty on Wednesday.

Cited from:  "Prostitution bill will require Czech Republic to Repeal Commitment to 1958 Treaty,"  Jan Vellinger, Radio Prague, News, 4 October, 2004.

Compiled from:  "Rwanda:  Rape Survivors Find No Justice," Human Rights Watch, News, Women, 30 September 2004.

SSRC Eurasia Program

2005 Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships Competition

The Eurasia Program of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is currently offering a number of fellowships at both the predoctoral and postdoctoral levels for the 2005-2006 academic year for research, writing, training and curriculum development on or related to any of the New States of Eurasia, the Soviet Union, and/or the Russian Empire. These fellowships are funded by the U.S. Department of State under the Program for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (Title VIII). New online applications and supporting materials are now available on the SSRC website at www.ssrc.org/fellowships/eurasia. The electronic application submission deadline is November 9, 2004 at 9:00 p.m.

Fellowships will be offered in the following categories:

Predissertation Training with and without Language Component--for students in the early stages of a doctoral program;

Dissertation Write-up--for graduate students who expect to complete writing their dissertation during the 2005-2006 year;

Postdoctoral Research--for recent PhD recipients and junior faculty wishing to undertake new research or complete existing projects; and

Teaching--for faculty members wishing to create and implement significantly revised or wholly new university courses.

Additional information can be found at: http://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/eurasia/, and questions may be addressed to the Eurasia Program Staff: eurasia@ssrc.org. Please periodically check our website for additional information, including details and application materials for our upcoming dissertation development workshop and other events.

Eurasia Program Fellowships
Social Science Research Council
810 Seventh Ave 31st Floor
New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-377-2700/Fax: 212-377-2727

PRESS RELEASE: International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights

Group Alerts OSCE Governments of Continuing Violations Ahead of Rights Meeting

Vienna, 4 October 2004 - The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF) today published a set of interventions on human rights violations in the participating States of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which are submitted to the OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting to be held on 4 to 15 October 2004 in Warsaw. 

The IHF is concerned, for example, about:

Democratic elections:

• Many recent elections in the OSCE region have been riddled with irregularities. In addition, there are serious concerns about the upcoming elections in Ukraine, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan: it appears that in all these countries the elections will fall short of international standards for democratic, free and fair elections.
• The presidential election campaign in Ukraine has been biased due to government support to one candidate and the use of public funds to promote him. Supporters of opposition candidates have been intimidated and threatened. 

Minority rights:

• In Turkmenistan, the official policy appears to gradually but forcefully assimilate the minorities. Only ethnic Turkmens are hired in the public sector.  
• In Russia, those perceived Caucasian or "Gypsy" background, face daily threats as potential terrorists.[1]
• Turkey has been slow to implement the newly adopted improvement in minority policies and continues to fall seriously short of international standards.
• In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Roma women have reportedly been sterilized without full and informed consent. The governments have failed to deal adequately with the problem.
  

Freedom of expression and media freedoms:

• In many countries, journalists can still be imprisoned under libel charges for legitimate criticism of the government or public officials, also when their information is proven correct. These countries include Belarus, Hungary, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Serbia-Montenegro, and Spain.
• In Russia, Central Asian OSCE states and Croatia, among other countries, outspoken journalists are attacked and even killed. At least 15 journalists have been killed in Russia since 2000 in connection with their work.
• In Russia, scientists and journalists reporting on sensitive issues face "spy charges" and long prison terms. During the Beslan tragedy, Russian authorities attempted to curtail all independent reporting about it.
• In Kyrgyzstan, it appears that opposition leader Felix Kulov will remain in prison beyond next year's presidential elections because documents that would have proven the length of his pre-trial detention have "disappeared" from his file. This development again confirms the political motivation of his imprisonment.

Human rights defenders:

• Human rights defenders are being harassed, ill-treated and arrested in many countries. In Chechnya, 13 activists have been killed in the past four years and 141 ill-treated.[2]

Freedom of religion:

• In the aftermath of the March/April bomb blasts in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, numerous devout Muslims were arbitrary arrested, tortured and charged with terrorist acts without sufficient evidence.
• In Bulgaria and Macedonia, authorities have sided unacceptably with specific religious communities in inter-religious disputes.
• In France and some other countries, regulations have been adopted to prohibit the wearing conspicuous religious symbols, a measure that mainly affects Muslim women.
• Jehovah's Witnesses face harassment almost throughout the region: they are not allowed to register as a religious community and are subjected to physical assaults and discrimination. In Armenia, despite a new law on alternative civilian service, more than 20 Jehovah Witnesses remained imprisoned as of August for conscientious objection. In Moscow, Russia, a court in June banned their activities outright.

Discrimination against Muslims in the EU:

• Muslim minorities have come under growing pressure in the OSCE region particularly in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the United States. The problems include negative stereotyping and media reporting, inflammatory statements by politicians, discrimination in many sectors of life, hostility against veiled Muslim women, physical attacks, stop-and-search by the police and increasing arrests and house searches.

Independence of the judiciary and fair trial:

• The first trials against suspected perpetrators of the March and April blasts in Taskent, Uzbekistan, have been riddled with serious violations of international fair trial standards.
• Turkey has adopted reforms of the judicial system and legislation but many of them have not been implemented. For example, while some abusive legal provisions have been abolished under international pressure, prosecutors have used others with similar content to restrict freedom of expression.
• In the United States, people being held as enemy combatants can now challenge their detention in US federal courts. The decision, however, does not automatically change the legal status of detainees in Guantánamo and other US bases: hundreds remain detained without charges.

Death penalty:

• Following the Beslan tragedy, there have been voices demanding lifting of the moratorium on the death penalty as an anti-terrorism measure in Russia. In any case, the moratorium can be lifted as soon as jury courts are introduced throughout Russia. This would mean that people could be sentenced to death by a criminal justice system that is still far from meeting the minimal international standards.
• The United States belongs to the last eight nations in the world that execute offenders who were under the age of 18 at the time they committed a crime. Executions of mentally ill inmates also continue in the US.

Torture, ill-treatment and police misconduct:

• In Kyrgyzstan, the Criminal Code was amended in late 2003 to prohibit the use of torture, but it remains common practice. The torture methods include beatings, hanging victims up by their limbs, insertion of sharp objects under their finger and toe nails, pulling out finger and toe nails with pliers, forcing victims to stand for long periods of time in uncomfortable positions, and "elephant," i.e. placing a gas mask on the head of the suspect and closing the air filter.

• In Romania, several cases have been reported this year of brutal ill-treatment of children by police officers for minor wrongdoings. In addition, 17 patients died of malnutrition and hypothermia in the Poiana Mare psychiatric hospital between 1 January and 20 February 2004.
• Swedish government has circumvented the principle of not returning people to countries where they may face torture by relying on "diplomatic assurances" of the receiving country.

International humanitarian law:

• Numerous violations on internationally accepted human rights standards and humanitarian law continue in Chechnya, including arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions, torture, "disappearances," and extrajudicial killings of civilians. The perpetrators have been the military, the FSB or other Russian law enforcement agencies, all with impunity. Russian military have also bombed civilian objects. Chechen fighters have killed "collaborators," taken civilians hostage, and used "suicide bombers" against innocent people. One of the few Russian Federation officials, who attempted to take measures to put an end to impunity for atrocities was Rashid Ozdoev, a deputy prosecutor of Ingushetia. In March 2004, he was arrested by the FSB and "disappeared." Violence has increasingly spilled over to Ingushetia.

Freedom of assembly and association:

• In Azerbaijan, 33 demonstrators arrested in the after-math of the October 2003 presidential elections were still in detention in mid-September 2004. Some of them have been subjected to torture. There are strong allegations that at least some of them are political prisoners.
• In Belarus, new regulations and practices have dramatically restricted the operation of organizations linked to the political opposition and independent NGOs, the formation of independent trade unions, and the right to peaceful assembly. The wave of threats to and liquidations of NGOs affects the whole of Belarusian civil society.

***

The interventions (88 pages) are available at www.ihf-hr.org or can be ordered from the IHF Secretariat, office@ihf-hr.org.

For more information: Aaron Rhodes, IHF executive director, mobile: +42-676-635 66 12.

 Justice Initiative, 28 September 2004

For immediate release

New York, September 28, 2004—Access to public information is increasing worldwide, but many countries are lagging far behind, said a new study.

The pilot survey monitoring freedom of information was released by the Open Society Justice Initiative on September 28, designated "Right to Know Day" by global FOI groups.

Conducted in Armenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Peru and South Africa, the survey marks one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to test the limits of government transparency. It involved the submission of 100 information requests to 18 different public institutions by a range of actors in each country. On average only 35 percent of requests for information were fulfilled. Many requests not explicitly rejected were simply ignored—in total, 36 percent of requests submitted resulted in tacit or "mute" refusals.

"New access to information laws in many countries provide a strong foundation for transparency of public bodies, but still fall short of what can fairly be termed open government," said James Goldston, Executive Director of the Justice Initiative. "In just over a decade, more than 40 countries worldwide have adopted freedom of information laws. This study shows that, even once a law is adopted, effective implementation remains a major challenge."

Interviews with government officials revealed a number of common obstacles in enforcing FOI laws. These include a lack of political will at senior levels to encourage transparency, inadequate information management, insufficient training of public officials, and an excess of bureaucratic obstacles to timely information release.

In some countries it proved near impossible to submit requests for information orally or without filling out an official form. Persons belonging to vulnerable or excluded groups, such as disabled individuals or ethnic minorities, were less likely to receive positive reactions than journalists or NGOs submitting the same requests.

A surprise result was that short timeframes for official responses, far from posing an obstacle to information release as some feared, appear to improve the chances of positive reactions. Peru, the country with the highest rating of the five, also permits the least time to officials to respond: seven working days.

The initial results and recommendations can be accessed by clicking the icon next to this press release.

Right to Know Day is marked by freedom of information advocates across the world as part of a wider campaign to promote knowledge about and use of the public's right to access information held by government. This is the second year that the date, chosen because the global Freedom of Information Advocates Network was founded on this day in 2002, is celebrated by non-governmental organizations worldwide. The range of activities in 2004 includes awards for "most open government body" (and booby prizes for closed institutions), TV advertisements and media campaigns, new reports on the state of access to information in a number of countries, and the holding of training workshops and seminars. More information can be found at http://www.foiadvocates.net

Contact Helen Darbishire: helend@justiceinitiative.org

On 23 September 2004, Slovenia ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (OP-CEDAW). Slovenia succeeded to CEDAW on 6 July 1992.

For more information, please see the Slovenia section of this website.

Croatia acceded to the CRC on 12 October 1992.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child welcomed Croatia's Report and noted that several of the concerns and recommendations based on its initial report were addressed by domestic legislation. The Committee welcomed the establishment of the Council for Children to monitor the National Action Programme for Children and praised Croatia for passing domestic laws in order for Croatia’s legislation to be inline with international human rights standards.

While the Committee recognized the positive measures Croatia has taken, it expressed a wide range of concerns and made several recommendations. The Committee showed concern about the lack of disaggregated data on the resources allocated for children at the national and local levels and on the situation of children, especially vulnerable groups. Among the Committee’s recommendations were: give priority to the assistance provided to families in order to prevent placement of children in alternative care; promote family based assistance and establish quality standards of foster care; strengthen the instruments to prevent and combat domestic violence by undertaking a comprehensive study on violence and strengthening education; take measures to accelerate the elimination of child poverty; ensure access to education to vulnerable groups; and take measures to reduce the difficulty for refugee and internally displaced children to access education and health care.

Written Replies (85 pages)
Delegation List (1 page)
Delegation Statement (6 pages)
Concluding Observations (14 pages)

For more information, please see the Croatia: Reporting Schedule section of this website.

Brussels, 1 October 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Some form of go-ahead next week by the European Commission for Turkish entry talks now appears a foregone conclusion.

However, two draft progress reports prepared by the European Commission suggest that uncertainties abound, and that any decision is likely to come with extensive conditions and qualifications attached to allow more skeptical member states to support it.

The European Commission's annual progress report on Turkey praises democratic reforms undertaken since 1999 and accelerated in the past two years. However, it does not clearly say Turkey now meets the so-called Copenhagen entry criteria dealing with democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. Instead, a number of areas are identified where Turkey is clearly at odds with what are described as "modern" European standards.

Thus, the recognition that constitutional reforms have shifted the balance of civil-military relations toward civilians comes with the caveat that conflicting legal provisions allow the military to continue to enjoy a degree of autonomy.

Turkey's new Penal Code, adopted a few days ago, receives wide praise for abolishing the death penalty and enshrining women's rights.

The Penal Code also outlaws torture. The report notes there was a marked decline in reported instances of torture in 2004 as compared with 2003. However, an increase in claims of torture was recorded outside of formal detention centers.

An EU fact-finding mission returned from Turkey last month and concluded that Ankara is seriously pursuing its policy of zero tolerance on torture. Again, however, the mission reported that "numerous cases" of torture and ill treatment of detainees still occur.

Similar conclusions are evident in other key judgments. Reforms are praised, but continued contrary practices are noted.

Thus, the report says there have been a significant number of cases where nonviolent expression of opinion is still prosecuted and punished. Books were still being banned and writers put on trial in 2003. 

In the field of human rights and the protection of minorities, the report recognizes the introduction of two constitutional reforms and eight legislative-reform packages since 1999. Turkey has adopted a number of human rights treaties since 1999. It executes some judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, but -- again -- not others.

Human-rights-monitoring bodies have been set up, as have specialist training programs at the the Interior and Justice ministries, as well as police. However, implementation of human rights reforms is said not to be uniform across the country.

Turkey is criticized for not having signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. It receives praise for having allowed TV and radio broadcasts in minority languages, such as Kurdish, Arabic, Bosnian, and Circassian. However, it is noted that harsh restrictions exist limiting their length.

The report notes that Turkey constitutionally guarantees the freedom of religion, but adds that non-Muslim communities continue to encounter difficulties. Thus, Christians are said to occasionally still be subject to police surveillance.

The second report analyzes the potential impact of Turkish membership on the EU. It proceeds from the assumption that Turkey would not join before 2014. That date marks the start of the new EU multiannual budget cycle.

The assessment appears to be that most of the EU's current policies -- above all, farm support and regional aid -- will need to be radically rethought so that they do not prove ruinously costly.

The study says a Turkish accession would be different from all previous enlargements because of the country's population, size, and geographical location.

The annual cost of farm support to Turkey is estimated to top 11 billion euros ($13.6 billion) – or more than 10 percent of the EU's current budget.

Long transitional periods are predicted for the free movement of workers, and a potentially permanent "safeguard" measure may become necessary to allow other EU member states to lock out Turkish labor if their markets suffer ill effects.

Another major challenge is said to be the future management of the bloc's external borders, as well as dealing with migration and asylum issues once Turkey joins. Fighting organized crime, terrorism, and the trafficking of human beings, drugs, and arms will also present significant new challenges for the EU.

Turkey's membership in the visa-free Schengen area is said not to be a "short-term" prospect after accession. This means that border controls would remain in place.

Opportunities for the EU could arise in the form of heightened security for the bloc's energy supplies. Turkey would provide direct links to the Caspian countries, as well as the Persian Gulf.

The clearest positive potential for the EU emerges in the field of foreign policy. As a country with a Muslim majority and a strategic position, Turkey could valuably enhance the EU's role in the wider Middle East. It could also serve as an important model for reform.

However, the report says that, in practical terms, Turkish and EU policies are still often at variance regarding Iraq, the Caucasus, and relations with the Muslim world.

Turkey could also become a channel for stabilizing EU influence in the South Caucasus. Much is said to depend on Turkey's willingness, though. In particular relations with Armenia will need to improve. The study says reconciliation must be achieved over the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 and 1916, which are widely called genocide. Turkey must also contribute to the easing of tensions in the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan concerning Nagorno-Karabakh.

The study says Turkey could also help the EU to stabilize Central Asia.

Published in: Ahto Lobjakas, Turkey: EU Reports Pave Way for Qualified Approval of Entry Talks, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1 October 2004.

Copyright (c) 2004. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org.

For more information, please visit the International Law: Enlargment of the European Union section of this website.