Women's Views on News |
- Today is World Day Against Human Trafficking
- Finding finance for gender equality
- Second Northern Ireland abortion appeal fails
- Counting women who want work
| Today is World Day Against Human Trafficking Posted: 30 Jul 2015 04:11 AM PDT
Human trafficking is the movement of a person from one place to another into conditions of exploitation, using deception, coercion, the abuse of power or the abuse of someone's vulnerability. It is possible to be a victim of trafficking even if your consent has been given to being moved. And although human trafficking often involves an international cross-border element, it is also possible to be a victim of human trafficking within your own country. There are three main elements of human trafficking: The movement – recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of people; The control – threat, use of force, coercion, abduction, fraud, deception, abuse of power or vulnerability, or the giving of payments or benefits to a person in control of the victim; and The purpose – exploitation of a person, which includes prostitution and other sexual exploitation, forced labour, slavery or similar practices, and the removal of organs. Children cannot give consent to being moved, therefore the coercion or deception elements do not have to be present. Countries throughout Europe translate and interpret the Palermo Protocol in different ways so the definition of what constitutes human trafficking can differ between nations. The UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC) plays a central role in the UK’s National Crime Agency”s fight against serious and organised crime. The UKHTC is part of the Organised Crime Command in the National Crime Agency (NCA). It works in a coordinated way within the UK and internationally to combat human trafficking and involves a wide range of partners and stakeholders. The aim is to protect the public, target the traffickers and reduce the harm caused by human trafficking. The UKHTC's partners include police forces, the Home Office and other government departments, the UK Border Force, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, international agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and many charitable and voluntary expert groups. The international police organisation INTERPOL is also assisting law enforcement around the globe combat this modern-day slavery. With every region of the world affected by trafficking, either as source, transit or destination countries, INTERPOL is assists its 190 member countries identify and dismantle the organised crime networks which make billions in profits from this illicit trade in human beings. "Men, women and children from around the world are trafficked every day, either forced or tricked into servitude and deprived of their most basic human rights," the head of INTERPOL, Secretary General Juergen Stock, said. "We have a collective responsibility to identify these victims, to ensure their voices are heard and that they receive the support and protection they need to rebuild their lives, and bring those responsible to justice." But while victims may be trafficked for a number of reasons – for sexual exploitation, forced labour or their organs – one consistent aspect is the abuse of their inherent vulnerability. And 70 per cent of human trafficking victims are female. Up to 13,000 victims of modern slavery in Britain are forced to work in factories and farms, sold for sex in brothels or kept in domestic servitude, among other forms of slavery, according to the Home Office. Most come from Albania, Nigeria, Vietnam and Romania. The global industry is estimated to generate $150 billion a year in profits for those who exploit modern-day slaves. How to report human trafficking: In the first instance the point of contact for all human trafficking crimes should be your local police force: call 101. If you have information about human trafficking or have urgent information that requires an immediate response dial 999. If you have information that could lead to the identification, discovery and recovery of victims in the UK, you can also contact the charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. It needs to be stopped.  |
| Finding finance for gender equality Posted: 30 Jul 2015 03:10 AM PDT
The Third Financing for Development Conference (FFD3), held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, earlier this month, has now ended, and what has emerged was a clear recognition of gender equality as a critical element in achieving sustainable development. During the conference, UN Member States adopted the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (AAAA), a global framework for financing for sustainable development, committing to action to achieve economic, social and environmental changes by transforming global finance practices. In particular, States committed to "ensure gender equality and women's and girls' empowerment," and in doing so reaffirming that this goal and the full realisation of human rights are essential to achieving sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth and sustainable development. UN Women engaged intensely in the negotiations of the AAAA, advocating for the inclusion of transformative financing for gender equality, which includes upscaling resources for the implementation of gender equality commitments and strengthening support for gender equality and women's empowerment institutions. UN Women will now work with a group of Member States to implement an Action Plan on Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment, to ensure that the gender commitments that were included in the agreed text will be turned into actions. During her four-day mission to FFD3, UN Women's executive director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka contributed to official sessions such as the official opening and as a panelist on Roundtable 2 on "Ensuring Policy Coherence and an Enabling Environment at all Levels for Sustainable Development" – you can watch the archived webcast here – as well as several other meetings and side events. She also engaged with key government officials and stakeholders in order to promote enhanced gender-responsive planning and budgeting and targeted investments towards gender equality institutions and programmes. In each and all of the meetings she emphasised that the inclusion of gender-responsive financing in the AAAA was critical if sustainable development was to be achieved for all. UN Women organised three high-level side events with key stakeholders to join forces in harnessing support for strong gender equality commitments in the AAAA, and UN Women's deputy executive director Lakshmi Puri launched the Action Plan on Transformative Financing for Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment with a select group of Member States. Puri also spoke at the UN-Women-supported Women's Forum and the Civil Society Forum 10-12 July, where she emphasised the important role of civil society in influencing global agreements and keeping their governments accountable, saying: "we have to work together to push our common agenda forward". At the start of the conference, Puri contributed to one side event linking financing of gender equality to human rights and economic justice, and at another side event organised by the Global Migration Group on remittances and the contributions of the diaspora to financing sustainable development. "With these tools, we know WHAT needs to be done and HOW it can be done," said Letty Chiwara, UN Women's Representative to Ethiopia, the African Union and UNECA, as she delivered UN Women's statement at the plenary on 16 July 2015 – which you can see on the archived webcast here. "New and existing commitments on gender equality require unprecedented and transformative financing, in scale, scope, ambition and quality, from all sources and at all levels." Throughout her meetings, Mlambo-Ngcuka emphasised that the AAAA was a critical element in the move from policy to practice. "We need to move from side events to the plenary. From Women’s Ministries to [being] the responsibility of Heads of States," she said during the International Business Forum on 14 July. And although the AAAA is a key document for the implementation of the SDGs, she stressed that previous commitments are already in place. In the Political Declaration adopted this year in March at the 59th Commission on the Status of Women, Member States pledged to take concrete action to accelerate implementing the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action through significantly increased investment to close resource gaps, including through domestic resources and official development assistance. Mlambo-Ngcuka emphasised that, starting from the 60th session of the Commission on the Status of Women, UN Women will start tracking progress on the implementation of the SDGs, the AAAA, as well as all other relevant commitments in order to achieve Planet 50:50 and "ban the term gender inequality by 2030".  |
| Second Northern Ireland abortion appeal fails Posted: 30 Jul 2015 02:00 AM PDT
The Court of Appeal in London last week rejected an appeal against an earlier ruling about Northern Irish women being allowed abortions free on the NHS. The appeal was brought by a young woman known as 'A', who had travelled to England and had to pay for a termination, and her mother known as 'B'. It followed a ruling last year which said that women from Northern Ireland were not legally entitled to free abortions from NHS England. Unlike in the rest of the UK, abortion is illegal in Northern Ireland except in 'highly exceptional circumstances' but even for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or for pregnancies where the foetus has a fatal abnormality – although this last is something which the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) is seeking to change. In the appeal, the claimant's mother said that she had had to part-raise the £900 for her 15 year-old daughter to have the abortion, in October 2012. And not only was this appeal rejected, but the Court of Appeal also refused the women leave to take the matter even further and appeal to the Supreme Court. In last year’s ruling, Mr Justice King ruled that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's mandate to provide comprehensive health services in England did not extend to providing services "to persons who are ordinarily resident in Northern Ireland". However he recognised that differences between the legal stances on the issue in Northern Ireland and England had "not surprisingly" led to a "steady stream" of pregnant women travelling to England to access terminations. Figures released last month by the UK's Department of Health revealed that 802 women from Northern Ireland travelled to England to have an abortion in 2013. However other sources argue that the figures are much higher as many of the women who travel from Ireland give English addresses when asked. Grainne Teggart, from Amnesty International NI, said up to 2,000 women leave Northern Ireland every year to access termination of pregnancy services. A reality, she added, “that is a damning indictment of the executive’s failure to prioritise women’s healthcare.” And the London-based Abortion Support Network, which provides financial help for women who are travelling from Ireland to the UK for abortions, believes that the numbers are increasing. "Since we've started [in 2009] we've seen the number of people [from the whole of Ireland] contacting us go up by 520 per cent," Mara Clarke, founder of the Abortion Support Network, said. "I think the abortion law in Ireland is completely unfit for purpose. Ireland exports its abortion problem," she added. The rejection of this appeal comes at a time when an increasing number of diverse actions are being undertaken taken to protest Northern Ireland's abortion laws. One of the more recent has been 200 people picketing the main police station in Derry claiming they had procured abortion pills for other women and girls and inviting police to arrest them. The women were protesting after an unnamed woman was charged for procuring the medication for her daughter to induce an abortion. In another legal campaign a Northern Irish woman, Sarah Ewart, backed by the NIHRC, started legal action after she was forced to travel to England for the termination of a foetus diagnosed with anencephaly and which would never have survived birth. Ewart has spoken publicly about her ordeal in an attempt to have the law changed. “I am an ordinary woman who suffered a very personal family tragedy, which the law in Northern Ireland turned into a living nightmare” she explained. “I was told that my baby was likely to die before being born or shortly afterwards. All I kept thinking was – ‘our baby has no brain, she cannot live’. “I simply could not face it, but the law in Northern Ireland meant I had no option but to go to England and take myself away from the care of the doctors and midwife who knew me." And activists are calling for the authorities to drop the criminal charges against the mother doing what she could to support her daughter, and the authorities in England to drop the charges for abortion for women from Northern Ireland using the hashtag #DropTheCharges. How much longer can Northern Ireland ignore its women?  |
| Posted: 30 Jul 2015 01:09 AM PDT
A new TUC analysis published earlier this week of Labour Force Survey (LFS) data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found that the official figures used by the government do not give the full picture of all people seeking work. In particular, the number of women seeking work is understated. The headline unemployment count is important but not a sufficient measure alone, said the TUC. It counts only people who have very recently applied for a new job and are immediately available to start, and not others who want work. The 'want work' count is more comprehensive. It adds to the unemployment count those who say they want work, but who have not recently applied for a job, or whose circumstances do not allow an immediate job start. In the past three years, between January-March 2012 and January-March 2015, the headline unemployment figure fell by more than 800,000, from 2,633,000 to 1,827,000. However, in the same three years, the number of other economically inactive people who want work hardly moved from 2,371,000 to 2,298,000. During the same period, the number of economically inactive women seeking work actually increased slightly, from 1,363,000 to 1,379,000. Although the unemployment rate is higher for men, it is the reverse for the measure of economically inactive people who are seeking work. The unemployment rate for men is 990,000 and for women it is 815,000. However, there are 1,379,000 economically inactive women seeking work, compared to just 920,000 men. The full 'want work' count – the combination of the unemployment count and economically inactive people seeking work – is 4,103,000 people. Of this, 2,194,000 are women, and 1,910,000 are men – a difference of 284,000. Remarking on this, the TUC’s General Secretary, Frances O'Grady, said: "Six years on from the recession, the culture of low expectations on jobs and pay is well past its sell-by date. "Reducing the claimant count alone is not good enough if there is still an additional two million people who want a job but don't have one. "The government should be especially concerned about the lack of progress for women with caring responsibilities who want to work. "There are nearly 300,000 more women looking for work than men, and the gap is not closing. "Given the number of women who work in public services, there's a big danger that cuts due to be announced in November will mean major job losses, along with a reduction in family friendly job vacancies and a further rise in the number of women seeking work." The full TUC analysis on economically inactive women who want work can be found here.  |
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