Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Coventry group surveys street harassment

Posted: 26 Nov 2012 05:08 AM PST

How safe do women feel in public spaces?

Coventry Women’s Voices (CWV) launched a survey this week to discover how widespread street harassment is in Coventry, and how safe women feel in public spaces.

CWV together with the Integrated Transport & Logistics Group at Coventry University have set up the survey in an attempt to find out the degree of concern women who live and work in Coventry have about their safety in public spaces.

The survey will measure women's experience of harassment in public spaces in Coventry and the findings will be launched for International Women's Day in March 2013.

Street harassment is something most women will face at some point in their lives.

Indeed the international movement Stop Street Harassment says that around the world between 70-100 per cent of women have experienced some form of harassment in public.

This harassment can include anything from leering, wolf-whistling and sexual comments to groping, masturbation and assault.

Any woman who has experienced this will tell you that it is never a pleasant experience, despite a prevailing opinion among some male street harassers who believe women ‘enjoy the attention’.

Emily May, the founder of  anti-street harassment movement Hollaback! said: ”It stems from a broader culture of gender-based violence.

“To shift that culture it takes people standing up and saying street harassment is not okay.

“Because most people in our society don’t want it to exist.”

Street harassment hit the headlines earlier this year when the UK finally signed up to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence.

The vast majority of media coverage of this zoned in on a couple of sentences in the Covention which pledge to make illegal 'unwanted verbal, non-verbal or physical conduct with the purpose or effect of violating the dignity of a person, in particular when creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment'.

Tabloids, Tweets and talk shows joined the flurry of concern over the fact that this could effectively ban wolf whistling and other forms of verbal harassment.

Shock, horror!

This deflected attention away from the fact that the Convention is aimed at tackling a much broader range of issues, from domestic violence, to rape, to female genital mutilation and forced marriage.

And from the fact that the UK government was painfully slow at signing up to it.

However, if wolf whistling and other forms of street harassment are caught in the far-reaching net of this Convention, then all the better.

Because yes, street harassment – from a whistle, to a leer, to a longer than neccesary stare, to a grope – is "intimidating, degrading, humiliating [and] offensive".

Last year in the lead up to the Olympics, a YouGov poll published by the End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) revealed that over a quarter of women living in London feel unsafe when using public transport.

I reported on this at the time, and when I interviewed women who lived in London, I found that the ’1 in 4′ figure greatly increased when you asked about women’s experiences once off the bus or tube.

The Coventry survey was inspired by the EVAW survey done in London, and hopes to highlight the issue in the city.

Coventry Women’s Voices said: “International studies show that most women experience harassment in public places at some point in their lives.

“Harassment can range from comments to groping, flashing and assault.

“It is rarely reported but can have serious long term effects such as depression, anxiety and a reduced sense of safety that affects what women do and where they go.

“We want to know how women in Coventry are affected by harassment as the first step to tackling this often invisible problem."

To complete the survey yourself, click here.

One year on Iraqi women still suffer

Posted: 26 Nov 2012 03:57 AM PST

Iraqi women are fighting for survival even though the war is now over.

Guest blog from Women for Women International

One year after newly re-elected President Obama announced the official end of the war in Iraq, the country is still in a state of turmoil.

Operation Iraqi Freedom may officially be over but violence has escalated, and women are particularly affected.

Forty years ago Iraqi women and men were equal under the law and women enjoyed many rights similar to those of women in the UK today.

However, since the early 1990s women have seen their rights curtailed, their participation in all areas of society dramatically inhibited, and there has been a sharp decline in female literacy.

And one year after the Iraq War women are even worse off.

Today, women are finding it more and more difficult to go out alone.

The lack of security and policing has led to women being attacked in the streets by people with different political agendas who want to impose veiling, gender segregation and discrimination.

Many women suffer violence at the hands of their fathers, brothers and other relatives; particularly those women who try to choose how to lead their lives.

Four women who are graduates of Women for Women International's year-long holistic training programme of life, business and vocational skills recently made a short documentary film to show us in the UK what life is like for Iraqi women one year after the withdrawal of the troops.

"We wanted to make this film because we want our voices to be heard," says Nihayet, a graduate of the Women for Women International programme and assistant camera operator.

"Iraqi women are strong and they need to know that they have rights and that they can use them to make their lives and those of their families better.”

The film, "Hands of Hope", explores how women can overcome economic hardship and lead change in their families and communities through access to knowledge and resources.

"Our economic difficulties were the greatest challenge we faced," says Zainab.

"But I was able to overcome them because of what I learned during the Women for Women International programme."

Zainab, an Iraqi mother of three, was facing major economic hardship as her husband's low wages were barely enough to cover their basic needs.

Zainab had never had a paid job. The vocational training part of the programme allowed Zainab to realise her potential in tailoring and helped build her self worth.

Now Zainab has started her own sewing business – and is even able to save!

The plight of Iraqi women is serious and the problems mounting.

Women for Women International is launching an urgent appeal for donations to help these women and their sisters in the seven other countries where we work.

And between 25 November and 10 December all donations made to Women for Women International will be matched, pound for pound, by a generous group of supporters.

This means that your gift will benefit twice as many women who are rebuilding their lives after conflict and war.

Please help.

To find out more about our work click here.

To donate, click here.

Thank you.

Eliminate violence against women

Posted: 26 Nov 2012 01:15 AM PST

‘The first step has been taken: the silence has been broken’.

In 1981 women's activists marked 25 November as a day against violence after twenty-three activists from different parts of the world identified the need for ‘an increase in international awareness of the systemic nature of violence against women’ and for this violence to be seen as a violation of women's human rights.

This was ratified on 17 December 1999, when the United Nations General Assembly designated 25 November as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

The date originates from the brutal assassination of three political activists in 1960 – Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa Mirabal – sisters who lived in the Dominican Republic.

The sisters were assassinated on the orders of the ruler at the time, Rafael Trujillo: it  has been estimated that Trujillo’s authoritarian rule, which lasted from 1930-1961, was responsible for the death of more than 50,000 people, including 20,000 to 30,000 in the infamous Parsley Massacre in 1937.

The Mirabal sisters were members of a group called The Movement of the Fourteenth of June, opposing Trujillo's regime and named after the date of a massacre which Patria had accidently witnessed.

Minerva and Maria Teresa were incarcerated and tortured on several occasions.

In 1960, the Organization of American States (OAS) condemned Trujillo’s actions and sent observers to the country. Minerva and Maria Teresa, imprisoned at that point, were freed, but their husbands remained in prison.

On November 25, 1960, Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa and their driver Rafina de la Cruz, went to visit Patria and Minerva’s husbands. On the way home, they were stopped by Trujillo’s henchmen.

The sisters and the driver were clubbed to death. Their bodies were put in their Jeep, and the Jeep was run off the road so it would look like an accident.

Their tragic deaths inspired the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign set up in 1981, just one strategy which aims to build awareness about gender-based violence and facilitate networking among women leaders working in this area.

Each annual campaign starts on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Gender-Based Violence, and runs until 10 December, Human Rights Day – and that date was chosen to emphasise that gender-based violence is a violation of human rights.

For as Amnesty International (AI) has so succinctly put it: ‘Violence against women is a global outrage.

‘The experience or threat of violence affects the lives of women everywhere, cutting across boundaries of wealth, race and culture.

‘In the home and in the community, in times of war and peace, women are beaten, raped, mutilated and killed with impunity.’

AI published a book in 2004, called ‘It’s in Our Hands’, which explored the relationship between violence against women and poverty, discrimination and militarisation.

The book also highlighted the responsibility of the state, the community and individuals for taking action to end violence against women.

And now, this year, in her message for 25 November, UN Women’s executive director Michelle Bachelet is calling for bold action and decisive leadership to galvanise efforts to end the pandemic of violence against women and girls.

She pointed out that the silence has been broken; that one hundred and eighty-seven countries have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); that knowledge of the root causes of violence has increased, and that women, men and young people continue to mobilise in huge numbers against violence.

And she acknowledged that there are countless organisations whose members work tirelessly to support survivors and, in many countries, policy-makers have taken decisive action: to date 125 countries have laws that penalise domestic violence, a huge step forward from just a decade ago.

But, she said, it is not enough: we all must do better to protect women and prevent this pervasive human rights violation.

With up to seven in ten women suffering physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime and 603 million women living in countries where domestic violence is still not a crime – she is right: it is not – yet – enough.

Click here for more information about the 16 Days of Activism and events around the world.

Wal-Mart, women and America’s excluded workers

Posted: 26 Nov 2012 12:55 AM PST

There has been plenty of media coverage for the nationwide Wal-Mart workers’ strike on 'Black Friday.'

Over 1000 different protest groups in 46 states were reported to have walked out in protest against poor wages, bullying, anti-union threats and expensive health-care plans, which they claim keep Wal-Mart employees in poverty.

Absent from strike reports, however, is that 70% of Wal-Mart's hourly workers are women, and are disproportionately affected by Wal-Mart's poor labour conditions.

In 2011, 1.5 million female employees brought a class-action law-suit against the superstore chain but the litigation was dismissed in the Supreme Court.

During the hearings, though, evidence revealed a host of damaging accusations.

For example, female employees held two-thirds of the lowest-level jobs, only one third of management jobs, and were paid on average $1.16 less an hour than men in the same jobs, even when the women had more seniority and better performance ratings.

The suit failed not because the allegations weren't credible but because the presiding judges felt that 1.5 million women did not constitute a single 'class' of people.

Discrimination that relegates women to the worst positions repeats itself across various industries in the US.

The legal wage for restaurant employees, 66 per cent of whom are women in the US is $2.13 (just over £1.30), with workers being expected to earn tips to make up the difference to the national minimum wage of $7.25.

Such situations exacerbate the already-existing gender pay gap whereby US women only earn 77 cents to every dollar earned by their male counterparts.

A study by Restaurant Opportunities Center Ltd found that food servers, 71% female, are almost three times as likely to be paid below the poverty line than the rest of the general population.

Perhaps most shockingly, female restaurant workers file sexual harassment complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission at 5 times the rate of the rest of the female workforce.

This pattern repeats itself with domestic workers, a group who are predominantly women of colour.

They are excluded from many of the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act such as minimum wage, sick pay, time off and overtime.

Home carers, again a predominantly female group, are also not eligible for minimum wage due to archaic legislation that still deems them 'companions' rather than employees.

The Obama administration announced plans to close this legal loophole in 2011, but has yet to do so.

Critics were sceptical about the impact of the Wal-Mart protest and as well they may be since the superstore giant still saw the usual holiday crowds surging through its doors.

However it’s worth noting that Wal-Mart workers coordinated a trans-American protest that grabbed the global media's attention and even drew support from congressmen in Florida and California who joined the picket lines.

This is certainly not an achievement to be sneezed at in these apathetic times.

The simple fact that Wal-Mart workers dared to organise in the face of a company reported to be viciously anti-union shows how strongly they feel about their treatment.

And when workers who have been systematically denied rights band together, they can achieve change.

Domestic workers successfully campaigned for a Bill of Rights (enshrining the right to overtime, paid days off, compensation, rest days and protection against harassment and discrimination) which was introduced in New York in 2010.

If Wal-Mart does change its ways, the millions of women working at its stores across the US can claim a victory.

Women who are systemically relegated to the 'bottom of the pile' by embedded gender discrimation.