Thursday, March 8, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Taking a stand with women in the Middle East

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 12:30 PM PST

News writer
Amnesty International

People around the world should show their solidarity with the courageous women who were pivotal in uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa, Amnesty International has said.

Ahead of International Women's Day on 8 March, the organization is calling on its supporters to mark the day by sending messages of support to women in the region.

Thousands of individual actions are expected to be taken, with a focus on four countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen – where women remain at the heart of calls for reform, but a broad spectrum of women's rights are still threatened.

In North Africa, which saw momentous events in 2011, political change has yet to translate into real gains for women's rights.

"Across the Middle East and North Africa, women have been an inspiring force for change, standing up against repressive regimes to defend basic human rights and promote reform and equality," said Widney Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty International.

"This International Women's Day, we stand in solidarity with these courageous women, to support them in their struggle for human rights and freedom, and to let them know the world is behind them at this historic moment."

Iran's women played a key role in massive protests around the June 2009 elections, when they advocated for a wide range of human rights reform, including greater freedoms for women.

But the country's women activists continue to pay a high price for their peaceful work.

Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prisoner of conscience and human rights lawyer, is serving a six-year jail sentence, reduced from 11 years on appeal, on charges of "propaganda" and belonging to an "illegal" organization – the Centre for Human Rights Defenders. She denies all charges.

A human rights lawyer who has represented Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi amongst others, she has also been barred from practicing law for 10 years.

Authorities at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison have repeatedly placed her in solitary confinement and blocked her children from visiting, most recently last month.

Amnesty International is again urging Iranian authorities to release Nasrin Sotoudeh immediately and unconditionally.

Due to Saudi Arabia's male-controlled "guardianship" system, women are discriminated against and denied control over their own lives on a wide range of social, personal, and economic issues.

Perhaps one of the most unusual, yet pervasive, restrictions is a de facto ban on Saudi Arabian women driving in the country, even when they hold valid international driver's licenses and freely drive elsewhere in the world.

Last year, women activists re-launched the campaign to protest against the ban called "Women2Drive", which used social media to urge women with international driver's licenses to take to the roads from 17 June 2011 onwards.

Scores of women participated in the action, with many arrested and forced to sign pledges never to drive again. At least one woman was tried and sentenced to 10 lashes for defying the ban.

Although Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah announced women would have the right to vote in municipal elections in 2015, the divisive driving ban has yet to be overturned.

Amnesty International sees the ban as symbolic of the many areas of life where women in the kingdom continue to have their human rights heavily restricted.

The organization is calling on people around the world to share images and messages of solidarity with Saudi Arabian women activists, supporting them in their "drive to freedom".

Since March 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government has overseen a brutal crackdown on dissent that has left more than 6,000 people dead, including more than 200 women and girls.

Thousands of people have been arrested, with many held incommunicado for long periods at unknown locations where torture and other ill-treatment are reported to be rife.

Some women human rights defenders – who have been at the forefront of the peaceful calls for reform – have been forced into hiding, and some have even fled the country.

Through it all, the President's wife Asma al-Assad has done very little to speak out against the brutality of the Syrian government forces, and has appeared publicly in support of her husband.

This image is at odds with the Syrian First Lady's previously widely acknowledged affinity for charities and social causes, including women's rights.

Amnesty International has asked people around the world to take part in a letter-writing campaign to urge Asma al-Assad to use her influence to end the ongoing violence and human rights violations committed against Syrian women human rights activists, who work to protect the future of all Syrians.

Women have helped to create a vibrant civil society in Yemen, something recognized on the world stage last year when Yemeni journalist and women's rights activist Tawakkol Karman was one of three women to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

They were also at the forefront of mass protests calling for political and human rights reform, which led to Yemen's longstanding President Ali Abdullah Saleh signing a power-transfer deal in November 2011.

But even as Yemen is in the throes of political and social transition, discrimination against women is still rife.

Women who took part in last year's protests were harassed, arrested and in some cases beaten for their peaceful activism.

Others experienced intimidation from male relatives, who are pressured by the authorities to "assert control" and curtail their women family member's human rights activism.

In Yemen, discrimination against women is reflected in family law, a traditional exercise of male authority, and a lack of respect for women's personal integrity when it comes to preventing domestic violence and delivering justice to its victims.

Amnesty International has launched a letter-writing campaign calling on Yemen's transitional authorities to consult with and work with women human rights activists to bring an end to discriminatory laws and practices, including violence against women, in the country.

"We should support women across the Middle East and North Africa who continue to fight for human rights, and more specifically their right to participate in the political process on an equal footing as change unfolds in the region," said Brown.

This article originally appeared on Amnesty International’s site.

South Korea’s president seeks compensation for “comfort women”

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 11:00 AM PST

Ellie Watmuff
WVoN co-editor 

South Korea has called on Japan to compensate Korean “comfort women” who were forced into working as sex slaves for Japanese servicemen.

It asked Japan to “resolve urgently” the issue, which took place during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the country.

Up to 200,000 women are thought to have suffered, although there are only 63 registered survivors left.

During a speech to commemorate the 93rd anniversary of Korea’s 1919 uprising, president Lee Myung-bak last week urged Japan to make amends, saying "the issue …is a humanitarian matter that must be resolved more urgently than any other pending issue.

As most of the victims were approaching old age and “have lived with excruciating emotional pain and suffering for their entire lives”, he said they deserved an apology.

Although Japan apologized in 1993 and established a compensation fund, some victims rejected it because it was funded through private contributions.

This is not the first time Lee has raised the issue. He asked Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Nada in December to hold bilateral talks to discuss compensation for the elderly victims.

On December 13 some “comfort women” and their supporters erected a bronze statue of a young girl in traditional Korean dress in front of the Japanese embassy in the capital, Seoul, as a mark of protest.

Japan remains equally resolute, however, with the prime minister saying the “comfort women” issue had been settled by a 1965 treaty, in which Japan offered $800 million in grants and soft loans to Korea.

Lee seems committed to resolving the issue and last week sent letters of encouragement and gifts of honey and nutrient cream to the  women, in which he said:

"The government will continue showing its profound interest in you and doing everything that it can”.

In his address, Lee said he hoped Japan would “not evad(e)..the historical truth, which is needed to work closely as a genuine partner”, suggesting that future good relations between the two countries may hang on the issue.

Clare’s Law’: giving women the ‘right to ask’

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 09:00 AM PST

Aisha Farooq
WVoN co-editor 

The UK Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced this week that women will have the right to check out if their partner has a history of violence.

The scheme will be piloted in four areas of England and Wales.

Police forces in Greater Manchester, Gwent, Nottinghamshire and Wiltshire will run a 12-month trial of the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme from this summer.

Known as 'Clare's Law', it follows a lengthy campaign by the father of Clare Wood, Michael Brown, after she was brutally murdered by her ex-boyfriend, George Appleton, in February 2009.

Wood had met Appleton via Facebook and was subjected to months of assault before he strangled her and set her on fire.

Officers knew of Appleton's three previous convictions for harassment but current legislation prevented them from warning Wood, although she contacted the police for help.

Her father welcomed the introduction of the scheme, saying that had it been in place when his daughter was still alive she could have made an “educated decision” about Appleton.

May is confident that the pilot scheme will help reduce the number of domestic violence incidents in the UK, which currently result in two deaths per week of women at the hands of current or former partners.

“The government is committed to ensuring that the police and other agencies have the tools necessary to tackle domestic violence to bring offenders to justice and ensure victims have the support they need to rebuild their lives," May said.

But the scheme has received a mixed reaction from workers in the domestic violence sector.

Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge (which provides support for abused women and children), wrote in the Guardian:

"It is another way for the government to sound tough on domestic violence while actually doing very little."

Arguing that new laws are unnecessary, she said that the police need to “perform their basic duty” and improve their response rate to calls from victims.

Vivien Blackledge, head of Women's Aid in Blackburn, however, welcomed the scheme saying that it would allow women to make 'informed choices’.

“Porn is an obsession with female pleasure” says woman porn director

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 07:00 AM PST

Polly Trenow
WVoN co-editor 

Anna Span (real name Anna Arrowsmith) is an English pornographic film director who speaks widely about sex, pornography and feminism.

She spoke to WVoN about her views and why she believes women enjoy porn.

You said your moment of inspiration came when you realised you weren't angry about the existence of the porn industry but were  jealous that men's sexuality was catered for. What did you feel was lacking for women?

That was 1988 so everything was lacking for women in this country!

You didn't even have the Chippendales – although I actually wrote my dissertation at St Martin's about how the Chippendales aren't what women want – and [women] didn't have porn magazines.

I remember [British actress] Margi Clarke bringing out a programme about sexuality on television and it was very soft.

But regardless of whether people agree with the sex industry I believe the female libido is worth catering for.

Currently companies are spending money in order to make [porn] for women because there is a market out there.

Without that appreciation of the market there is a disavowing of the female libido and this perpetuates the idea that we’re in [sex solely] for the love, which I find quite insulting really.

What was your first experience of porn?

The first thing I ever saw was, ironically, some images in a gutter when I was 11, walking home from school. There was a woman in leopard skin clothing and of course as school girls we went crazy!

Later I think I stumbled across some copies of the [UK tabloid the Daily] Sport that my brother had in his room. But the first time I used porn was when I was with my boyfriend at the time.

And that was when you started to form the idea that you didn't think women's sexuality was being catered for in pornography?

Yes, I didn't know anything about pornography. It was exciting, I enjoyed it and I certainly didn't do it because I wanted to please the boyfriend.

When I was 22 I bought “Women on Top” by Nancy Friday and I think that was very key. It's a book about women's fantasies and there was absolutely everything in there, it helped me accept my sexual being, it was very useful to me.

I think it also helped me realise that I was bisexual. I don't know when I owned up to myself about that. There wasn't a “coming out” – it sort of gradually dawned on me that i fancied women as well.

Did these experiences feed into your desire to make porn for women?

For me, like a lot of people, making porn was a kind of naughty dream job that I would have liked to do in a parallel life.

I got into [London art college] St Martin’s when I was 24 and I started to think about making porn. In my final year at college I wrote my dissertation – “Towards a New Pornography” – on porn and I made a sex film.

My first film was quite experimental, although the blokes couldn’t get it up, but there were also people peeing etc so it wasn’t soft!

Do you think you been driven by having a greater interest in sex than the average person?

I don't know. How do you compare? They say that men think about sex every seven seconds. Well, I think about sex a lot and I enjoy it, I still do.

There is no history of abuse in my life and if you met my family you'd wonder how they spawned me because they're very middle class and very average. We're certainly not a sexually overt family.

When I read Women on Top there were women admitting to having sexual imaginations from when they were very young and I did too. But I developed a guilt about this imagination in my teenage years.

Do you judge your films to be successful if you find them arousing? 

Yes, to a certain extent. With porn it's like catching a live dance, a performance, and you have to film it as well as you can, so it's always a matter of compromise.

It's not like mainstream cinema where you can map out everything in advance and you can get actors with acting skills. How it goes on the day is how good the film will be so there is a lot of chance involved.

You just have to get very good at managing the last minute things when people don't turn and up and you have to recast etc.

Do you watch your own films?

I couldn't watch them for sexual reasons because first and foremost they are work – they are my pieces of art. I also don't watch British porn. I do watch pornography for gratification but I have to watch [films] where I know that I won't know the people in it.

It's important to be driven by what turns you on but you can't forget that you are making a product that requires a level of technical knowledge. You have to know how things edit together.

A lot of bad porn is probably made by blokes who get completely carried away and think “I really fancy this bird” and forget to pay attention to the camera angles and stuff like that.

Are there cultural differences between the UK, US and European porn scenes?

Europe has the most relaxed censorship laws which means if you’re going to to do anything “different” it’s going to be in Europe. There’s a lot of pissing, crapping and animal porn which I don’t agree with.

In America, it’s all about “acts”. They involve [sexual] acts like “creampie” or “bukkake”. This goes in fashions.

In the UK porn is still hardcore but it’s a bit more happy. You know, we have this history of [British comedian] Benny Hill and [UK porn director and actor] Ben Dover always having a laugh. There is a bit of humour in UK porn but the really extreme stuff comes from America.

Last year you took part in the debate, “this house believes that pornography does a good public service” at the Cambridge Union. You went up against anti-pornography activist Gail Dines and won. Why do you think you won? 

We always win! I have been doing [debates] for 12 years and I have never lost one. There is a group of us that do these debates and the only one we’ve lost was in Dublin – but there was someone very charismatic in the opposition.

We win because our argument is logical.  Anti-porn argument is a moral panic based on hail and brimstone tactics and people don’t fall for that. It was close in Cambridge though, closer than we’re used to, but Gail Dines had been lecturing all afternoon so she had an advantage on us!

You call yourself a feminist. Why do you think so many feminists are so angry about porn?

I think because it’s about power. I think the leftwing is in denial about power. They have an egalitarian, almost communist, ideal. But this hasn’t given women equality.

Women and men are different, they have different powers. Men have the power of physical strength, women have fertility power. Power is something that excites us – it’s a huge part of all our lives.

It’s inevitable that sex will be about power. I don’t separate porn from the rest of life. To try to deny power dynamics is at best naive but actually really damaging.

Does this mean you think domination and submission are based in the biology of gender?

I wouldn’t say that. I’m not an essentialist. I was very influenced by [French psychoanalyist] Jaques Lacan who said whatever gives you pleasure gives you power.

Say a women is a submissive – though we find this politically problematic – and she couldn’t admit to it, then Lacan would say that she disempowered herself. If she did what gave her pleasure she would feel much more power.

Men and women can both be masochistic and domineering. Within us there are natural leaders and others who are not. There are powerful men who want to be dominated in the bedroom and I think women are encouraged to be submissive but throughout history there have always been women who aren’t.

These women have been, if not the protagonist, the dominant antagonist and use the power they have been afforded to the maximum.

I don’t think sex determines domination. Education at school level is important to dispel some of these ideas. For example, that testosterone is linked to aggression when really it’s linked to assertiveness.

We should be able to play with power, to have fun with it. Pornography allows us to do this. For example, BDSM [bondage, domination, sad0-masochism] is all about role-play power dynamics. All my films are role-play too.

How is your feminism compatible with what you do?

In the 60s and 70s feminists felt like they had to separate sexuality from the rest of human behaviour. This was because things like sexual harassment in the workplace were acceptable. So [feminists] had to say sex had its own set of rules.

Now the laws have changed and people like me who grew up in this changed world felt like our freedoms have been restricted.  Men and women know now when sex is ok and when it isn’t.

We want to regain our freedom and and blur the boundaries again.  We don’t want to burn bras, we want to reclaim the side of ourselves which we think is playful and fun.

All movements work in spirals so in 1988 Feminists Against Censorship started and around that time Scottish Women Against Pornography starts and pornography splits feminism.

But there are lots of different types of feminism. I’m a liberal and [Gail Dines] is a Marxist. I wouldn’t get on with a Marxist at any level.

It is sexist in itself that society thinks there should be one type of feminism. The media took a quick glance and said ok this is what feminism is – leftwing and socialist – and now they don’t challenge that.

You wouldn’t expect a leftwing man to agree with a rightwing man. We need to see feminism as a parliament where there are different views and everyone has the right to say what they want.

And when Gail Dines says that I’m not a feminist she only shows her ignorance in saying there can only be one type of feminism.

You said that you wanted to make porn because you felt men’s sexual needs were catered for in a way that women’s weren’t. Do you think then that porn represents male desires or does it define them?

Different men are different. Some people like pornography and some people don’t. I’m always meeting men who don’t like porn and women who do.

And we don’t have clear figures on how many men are watching pornography. That said, any business that wants to be successful has to respond to what customers want.

When I first started I was asked if I had done research into whether women wanted porn and I hadn’t because [women] will come back and say they don’t want [porn] because they haven’t been shown stuff they might like. So I blindly went ahead and did it. Luckily it worked out!

I think [porn] does affect people’s sex lives but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The anti-porn movement say that porn pressurises people and that women feel pressure to do, for example, anal sex. But women are also feeling free to do anal sex.

The first time I ever tried [anal sex] was when I was 18 and at that time it was such a shameful thing to do – if someone found out then you were labelled and you can’t say that now. Yes there are people who feel pressurised to do things but this isn’t because pornography exists.

Why are their so few female orgasms in pornography?

Porn spends its whole time looking at women enjoying themselves, saying ‘I love it’. But if men didn’t care about the women’s experience then porn would all be rape and negative for the women but it isn’t. So is that about female pleasure or male pleasure?

[US film scholar] Linda Williams wrote a book on pornography, ‘Hardcore’, and she talks about the difficulty of seeing the truth of pleasure. Porn is always trying to get at the truth of pleasure. That is what the money shot is about – it cannot be faked, it is real [pleasure].

But with female orgasms this is never going to happen – unless she ejaculates you’re not going to have a hardcore moment for women. You’ll never be able to see that female enjoyment is true.

It’s difficult to see a woman orgasm – in my films I make sure the woman always cums before the bloke but even as a director, sometimes women will cum and sometimes they won’t and how can I know?

Petra Joy [another director of porn for women] says that all her women come. I don’t because all of porn is performance. Pornographers are not saying this is real sex – everything is faked.

And whether you [script] the female orgasms is whether you’re making a feminist statement or not. And I certainly do. But porn is an obsession with female pleasure – I think there is more emphasis on female enjoyment in porn than is initially perceived.

What do you think would make a difference now to encourage women to engage with pornography?

I think what’s missing is an understanding that there is [porn] out there that is not misogynistic or derogatory. I’m using [the anti-porn movement's] language but what some people think is misogynistic is just viewed too simply.

People don’t know how to watch porn. Like Gail Dines, she doesn’t understand that if someone enjoys having their head put down a toilet then they don’t feel degraded.

We learnt how to watch and understand the news and I think people need to learn how to watch porn. It has its own rules and if you don’t know you them won’t understand it fully and you might get unnecessarily upset.

So can you tell us what projects you’ll be working on this year? 

I’m working on a project called weconsent.org which is a forum for people across the sex industry – from sex workers, sex researchers and porn stars to people who work in sex shops.

It’s a site for people to have a voice to support the industry so policy makers, journalists and students can hear, from the horses mouth, people’s experiences from around the world.

Weconsent.org will be online soon.

Women artists reconfigure the signs of power

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:00 AM PST

Emma Caddow
WVoN co-editor

"The Deconstructive Impulse: Women Artists Reconfigure the Signs of Power" is an exhibition currently showing at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), in the US.

The exhibition, curated by Nancy Princenthal and Helaine Posner, is an unusual collection in that all the artists are women.

The Deconstructivism art movement took place through the 1970s and 80s, a reaction to the growing influence of the mass media and popular culture on Western society.

As its name suggests, it dissected and analysed those ideas projected in popular culture to reveal the biased attitudes to gender, race and class embedded in its mass media.

“The Deconstructive Impulse” examines the feminist contribution to the movement, often using humour to do so.

A good example is Dara Birnbaum’s “Wonder Woman”. Using a clip from the 1979 classic TV show, we watch a looped Lynda Carter spin in her star-spangled leotard and deflect bullets using her gold bracelets.

Highlighting the subtle manipulation by the advertising and entertainment media, Birnbaum spotlights the messages being communicated.

Posner says that many of the female artists “used imagery from television and commercial advertising to critique a culture that often exploited or excluded women”.

Sarah Charlesworth’s "Verbs” reproduces The New York Times’ front page from 1978, but extracted everything except its verbs and images.

"By making selective changes" Posner said, "she is talking about how newspapers might manipulate our understanding of the news."

Deconstructivism wasn’t led by women artists, but a lot of issues they addressed were motivated by feminism.

Female artists were able to join in the Deconstructivism movement because it allowed them to take up a critical viewpoint of the commercial market, including the fine art market, where women had been grossly under-represented.

Posner and Princenthal hope the exhibition will make the contributions made by female artists to Deconstructivism better known.

“Younger generations of women artists have been the beneficiaries of all the work that was done previously” says Posner.

The curated show displays work from leading American female artists such as Cindy Sherman, Susan Hiller, Barbara Kruger, Judith Barry, Mary Kelly, Adrian Piper and Martha Rosler.

It also displays work from the Guerrilla Girls, a group of 100 or so anonymous female artists who tour the world pulling publicity stunts to raise awareness of how little women feature in the art world.

“The Deconstructive Impulse” came out of research showing that the percentage of women who have had one-person museum or gallery exhibitions was only about 20 percent.

You can buy Princenthal and Posner’s book “The Deconstructive Impulse” online.

Visit the CAMH website here.

African albinos hunted for their ‘magical powers’

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 03:00 AM PST

Emma Caddow
WVoN co-editor

Growing numbers of albino Africans are being killed for their 'magical powers'.

Albinism is a genetic condition that causes a lack of pigment, affecting the eyes and usually the skin.

In parts of East Africa, shamans or 'witch doctors' believe that albinos' body parts can bring great wealth or luck.

Three years ago in Tanzania, a group of men broke into Mariamu Staford's home.

“In the middle of the night," she said, "a group of men stormed in and said: ‘We are going to cut your arm off, and if you scream we’ll cut the other arm off’.

‘And then they started to chop my right arm off. And because I was screaming, they also started to do the same with the other.”

Her unborn baby died from the trauma.

Her arms would be used to create a witch doctor's 'potion', to be sold on the black market to the highest bidder.

One albino limb can fetch anything between $500 to $2,000. Tanzania's per capita income is $442 a year.

Since 2007, 64 people with albinism have been murdered  in Tanzania for their body parts.

Fourteen others have been mutilated, including a 13-year-old girl whose right arm was severed as she lay sleeping next to her mother.

The US government published a resolution in 2010 "recognizing the plight of people with albinism in East Africa [most notably Tanzania] and condemning their murder and mutilation".

The resolution included a number of stories of murder or mutilation, including that  of Vumilia Makoye, a 17-year-old woman with albinism from Kenya, who was killed by two men in her home who sawed off her legs in May 2008.

Two mothers of children with albinism were attacked by gangs who were searching for the children in Eastern Tanzania in November 2008.

“I was always hearing these tales, people here believe that albinos do not die, they disappear so I was always wondering how I am going to disappear,” Staford said.

The resolution accuses government officials in rural areas of East Africa of conspiring with the witch doctors to maim or murder Africans with albinism.

Hundreds of albino women and children fear for their lives in rural East Africa, whilst simultaneously being shunned by society.

This minority does not have access to any information about protecting themselves from excess sunlight, and most have no access to medical treatment for skin cancer.

The average albino in East Africa dies of skin cancer before they are 30.

You can learn more through the organisation, Under The Same Sun, which offers educational grants about disability and poverty, as well as educating, advocating and raise awareness about albinism in Tanzania.

Girl power – Pacific Island style

Posted: 07 Mar 2012 01:10 AM PST

Helen Thompson
WVoN co-editor

Associated with a younger generation of feminists who embrace their gender in positive ways, the term "girl power" has been in common currency since the early 1990s.

In the US non-incorporated territory of Guam in the Western Pacific, this concept has been translated into Island Girl Power.

A youth programme for girls from seven to 14, it teaches them to develop positive self esteem and avoid risky behaviours such as drinking and smoking as well as teen pregnancy, dating violence and suicide.

A programme within the Ayuda Foundation, Island Girl Power has operated since 2002, growing from a small Saturday club to one that advocates for girls in local schools, territorial government and regional Pacific agencies and NGOs.

In its tenth year, Island Girl Power now offers activities such as cooking lessons, ukulele classes, reading and writing programmes, academic tutoring, jump rope, lawn mower and engine maintenance, Capoeria Mandingo (Brazilian self-defence) training and a strong presence in the annual Liberation Day parade.

Carlotta Leon Guererro, executive director of the Ayuda Foundation, said:

"If you can start at age seven to 14 to build up the self-esteem of girls and keep them strong, they have a better chance at a healthy and happy life and creating a healthy and happy family."

Along with a regular menu of activities on Saturdays and after school, Island Girl Power offers strong prevention messages to tackle some of the significant problems Pacific Island girls in Guam face.

Juanita Blaz, director of Island Girl Power since 2003, says: "We have some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy, very high suicide rates, smoking rates, and alcohol-consumption rates are also really high in Pacific and Guam."

She also explains that Island Girl Power helps girls with dating violence, a serious problem among teen girls in Guam, drug and alcohol abuse, sexualized images of girls in the media, exploitation and human trafficking.

This grass roots programme does not receive funding from the State or Federal governments or granting agencies.

Instead, Blaz, herself in an unpaid position, relies upon volunteers, corporate in-kind donations, rummage sales and fundraisers like the annual pancake breakfast.

While more significant funding is available from companies that produce and distribute beer and cigarettes, Blaz will not accept donations from these potential sponsors in order to maintain the ethos of the clubhouse.

As a youth programme, Island Girl Power differs from other organizations like Girl Scouts and Girl Guides in significant ways.

"Our Pacific Island people [use] word of mouth networks and so if you don't put yourself out there and let them know who is running the program, they're not likely to bring their daughters to you,” says Blaz.

Given that Pacific Island families tend to be larger than Western families, she says that parents are often dependent on older daughters to look after younger siblings and so the challenge of Island Girl Power is to persuade these parents to extend their childhoods a little longer and allow them to attend the clubhouse activities.

Blaz also points out the importance of keeping the clubhouse an affordable option for families with multiple daughters and to reinforce that all girls are welcome, regardless of community standing, ethnic identity and family name.

The success of the programme can be measured in the 722 girls who have attended Island Girl Power in the last seven years, and the countless others who have participated in workshops and school programs Blaz and her volunteer staff offer.

Regional agencies have also formally acknowledged the success of Island Girl Power.

In 2010 the Secretariat of Pacific Communities officially recognized the work of Island Girl Power and awarded the programme their annual Pacific Human Rights Award.

This regional recognition has generated the potential for the Island Girl Power model to be developed in other Pacific Islands, such as Fiji, Solomon Islands, Palau and Yap.

The challenges of running a grass roots programme such as Island Girl Power are many.

Blaz lists the struggles she faces with facility maintenance, transportation for girls, and funding for an expansion project that would increase the capacity of the clubhouse as well as funding for salaries.

The biggest challenge, though, is not being able to reach enough island girls.

Blaz says: "[It's hard to hear] about the sexual assaults on the news, about abductions, atrocities happening to young girls, about suicide and whether we knew them or not, you just feel like you're not doing enough."

Despite her desire to reach more girls, Blaz and Island Girl Power are making a difference to the lives of island girls.

One young girl wrote in a recent writing workshop that: "It's a place where you can be yourself and where you can have a lot of loving sisters [who] treat you with respect."

Hearing these kinds of testimonials points to the potential of Island Girl Power to transform the lives of Pacific Island girls.

Blaz also testifies to the importance of her work in her own life.

"I can honestly say my life is better, my outlook on the island is drastically improved because I have hope.

“I run a self-esteem program and some of that is rubbing off on me!"

For more information or to donate to Island Girl Power contact Juanita Blaz at guamislandgirlpower@yahoo.com or visit the website.