Women's Views on News |
| Posted: 03 Apr 2014 07:30 AM PDT
In recent years, states and international organisations – including the United Nations – have been increasingly using peacekeeping operations (PKOs) personnel and private military and security companies (PMSCs) to provide support for a wide range of military, security and political purposes. In 2001 "Kathryn Bolkovac, a UN International Police Force monitor, filed a lawsuit in Britain against DynCorp for firing her after she reported that Dyncorp police trainers in Bosnia were paying for prostitutes and participating in sex trafficking. "Many of the DynCorp employees were forced to resign under suspicion of illegal activity. But none were prosecuted, since they enjoy immunity from prosecution in Bosnia." Despite the exposure of the conduct of DynCorp in Bosnia and Herzegovina however, there have been continued reports of PKO personnel and employees of some of these PMSCs perpetrating serious crimes including human trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse, and rape. The existing texts dealing with accountability for these actors, such as the Montreux Document, the International Code of Conduct and the UN's Zero Tolerance Policy, are an attempt to create a set of standards, but since they are not legally binding, they remain largely ineffective. The result, says the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), is a culture of impunity – and people getting away with serious crimes including human trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse, and rape. There is an urgent need to tackle this state of affairs, and stop perpetrators escaping justice. Engagement in criminal behaviour and the impunity that follows also threatens long-term post-conflict recovery and stability. Most of all, this culture of impunity must be addressed to demand and ensure accountability from those who claim to work in the name of peace and security for the international community. Which is why WILPF has started a project called 'Paths to Justice' to address these issues and demand accountability from that international community. The project started with two international legal conferences, where the different complexities, legal issues and obstacles were researched and discussed. These discussions are to form the foundation of WILPF's future work, outline the basic legal structures and provide key recommendations. To read the Outcome Document of the International Conferences, click here. Working from this Outcome Document, the project will continue its monitoring and advocacy efforts at International Human Rights Mechanisms, developing materials to raise awareness and connecting the diverse partners in the field. To better understand the myriad of problems facing WILPF's peacekeeping accountability system and what you can do to help change things, click here.  |
| Querying guidance on Sharia wills Posted: 03 Apr 2014 05:07 AM PDT
Campaigners are demanding the Law Society tear up a practice note on 'Sharia-compliant wills' which they believe will lead to more discrimination against women and children born outside of marriage. The guidance says: "The male heirs in most cases receive double the amount inherited by a female heir of the same class. "Non-Muslims may not inherit at all, and only Muslim marriages are recognised. “Similarly, a divorced spouse is no longer a Sharia heir, as the entitlement depends on a valid Muslim marriage existing at the date of death." The practice note goes on to advise lawyers to 'amend clauses which define the term ‘children’ or ‘issue’ to exclude those who are illegitimate or adopted. The Law Society says that its practice notes 'represent the Law Society’s view of good practice in a particular area'. "You are not required to follow them, but doing so will make it easier to account to oversight bodies for your actions. "Practice notes are not legal advice," the note reads. The Lawyers Secular Society has issued a petition urging the Law Society to withdraw its 'discriminatory' guidance, which, it says, legitimises discrimination against women, non Muslims and 'illegitimate' and adopted children. A protest is planned for 28 April at 5.00pm. In a statement the Lawyers Secular Society said: "Although the Law Society's practice note does not change the law, it does undermine, for example, the way adopted children, children born out of wedlock, and children who are deemed to be of another faith are viewed. "At the very least this practice note undermines the dignity of these children; at the worst it starts to slowly undermine the legal protections rightly afforded to them." The Lawyers Secular Society is also concerned that the note may lead to different rules being applied to Muslims, or people assumed to be Muslims, who die without having made a will. It adds: "Ultimately, this guidance contributes to the ongoing legitimisation of discriminatory Sharia law practices as alternatives to egalitarian and secular English and UK laws." Gita Sahgal, of the Centre for Secular Space, one of the organisations supporting the campaign, described the publication as 'very frightening'. "It steps outside [the Law Society's] remit. It is bad advice and it undermines equality which solicitors have a duty to uphold. "In British law you have enormous scope to dispose of your property as you like. You can favour one child over another. What is peculiar is that the Law Society feels it needs to direct people to do so. "Sharia-compliant smacks of Islamic fundamentalism," she said. The Law Society’s president Nicholas Fluck said it currently had no plans to issue any further faith-based guidance and that reports that they were promoting Sharia Law were inaccurate and ill-informed. “We live in a diverse multi-faith, multi-cultural society. The Law Society responded to requests from its members for guidance on how to help clients asking for wills that distribute their assets in accordance with Sharia practice. "Our practice note focuses on how to do that, where it is allowed under English law." But Sahgal believes the Law Society has been lobbied by fundamentalist lawyers who want to bring in Muslim personal laws by the back door. "Political Islam is already operating Sharia courts which the British state has not challenged. They rationalise extremely out of date practices which no one needs to observe in this country. "The Law Society should apologise for such a mistaken judgement. If they keep this the Jewish, Christian and Hindu fundamentalists will not be far behind demanding guidance on all sorts of issues," she said.  |
| Posted: 03 Apr 2014 01:35 AM PDT
Former Downing Street adviser now a strategy consultant for campaigning organisations, Kirsty McNeill has put together a list of 10 films she reckons will change how you think about politics. From campaigning Chinese children to how the advertisers helped topple Pinochet, these 10 films have a lot to say about power. And, she said, they're all true – inasmuch as they either use real footage or are based on true events. 1) Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story 2) Please Vote for Me 3) The Lady 4) Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom 5) Milk 6) Amazing Grace 7) Page One: Inside the New York Times 8) No 9) Game Change 10) The War Room She suggests getting the bad news out the way first, pointing out that the political strategists on the right are really really good at what they do: but if you want proof, look no further than Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. Take everything you think you know about dirty, divisive, dishonest politics and make it 100 times worse, and then watch it win time after time after time. While Boogie Man offers no lessons in what the left should be prepared to do, it offers plenty of insight into what it can be up against. Equally terrifying is Please Vote for Me, a documentary following three Chinese eight year-olds invited to participate in a democratic election for class monitor for the first time. Within hours they are double dealing, planning smear campaigns and bribing classmates with presents and offers of promotion. If you need to cheer yourself up after those, both The Lady and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom are about people whose world-shaking activism has been combined with a very deep pride in being politicians, while Milk covers the savvy mix of pavement politics and coalition building which lay behind the success of one of the first out gay elected officials in America. There are similar insights in to the role of unexpected alliances to be found in Amazing Grace, but the main lesson of that film is that individual politicians really can change things if they set their minds to it. If you need more evidence of that, look no further than Labour justice spokeswoman Jenny Marra's recent success in Scotland, with a mission William Wilberforce himself would back. Then there’s four films that should be added to the list for everybody interested in the role of communications in campaigning. Page One: Inside the New York Times will let you see for yourself how distinguished journalists are processing government spin, online disruption and the crisis of trust in their industry. No charts the tensions between the practitioners of advertising and of activism in the successful campaign to rid Chile of General Pinochet. Game Change reveals the danger of accruing a long term liability for the sake of a short term headline. And The War Room covers one of the most successful campaign frames ever in a way profoundly relevant to next year's general election when "it'll still be the economy, stupid".  |
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