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Rainbow Greetings to everyone!
I just finished watching “Iron Jawed Angels” and “The Devil Wears Prada” when I remembered that the Gender Learning Group when some of us were in India for the Global Review Meeting last year we made a commitment of editing and collecting stories for OIYP Voice - March Issue. Indeed, collecting the stories was a big challenge and the time constraint was a big pressure. Nonetheless, we made it and we are happy to share this with you.
This month’s issue will focus on gender and we will feature some updates from our OIYP Action Partners as well as a poem. March marks the International Women’s Month and to some members of the sexual minorities we call this the diversity month wherein gender differences and sexual orientation are celebrated, respected and appreciated. I would truly love to discuss gender and culture on this issue but I would give the explaining to the other members whom I would say would give a very good analysis most especially in Indigenous communities.
Stories for this month’s issue vary in many ways. Here Sharon Diave from Papua New Guinea will tell us her experience working on gender issues in her community in PNG. She made a very good analysis of how the community would accept changes in terms of gender program implementation in relation to Indigenous cultures. Indeed, a must read for every one of us. We also have two stories from Shoma Prasad of Fiji. She will give us an update on her project on empowering women students at the University and her Book Drive for Kids. Constance Walyaro, Kenya will share with us her story on Fighting Poverty and HIV/AIDS in Africa.
I hope you will enjoy and appreciate this month’s edition of the OIYP Voice Newsletter. Thank you so much to the members of the Gender Learning Group. It’s our commitment that keeps everyone inspired.
Patrick Ty – OIYP Action Partner, Philippines
Action Partner News
Read about the work of Action Partners around the world.
Sharing stories of work on the ground.
Shoma Prasad from Fiji sends some updates
Empowering Women at the University of the South Pacific
In March our group known as Emerging Leaders Forum organised an open forum for discussion on the formation of University of the South Pacific’s Women’s Association at the University of the South Pacific, which is the only regional University in the South Pacific.
The Emerging Leaders group comprises of three Oxfam International Youth Partnerships Action Partners, Shoma Prasad, Kajaal Kumar, and Jacky Koroi and other women who were graduates of the Emerging Leaders Forum (ELF) in 2003/2004. From our different experiences at OIYP and ELF we have come together to make a difference.
We are currently working on a number of projects, including the formation of the University of the South Pacific’s Women’s Association. The reason for our involvement in this project is to have an active and empowered group at the University who are able to voice their concerns against issues affecting them, which will enable them to be active citizens in the future. The objectives of the Association are:
· Raise awareness, inform, and engage students on various issues of concern through open forums
· Strengthen student interaction
· Provide support structures to cater for members needs
· To represent the concerns of members to the council
The open forum went very well. We had a lot of work to do at the background and the members of the group attended and coordinated several meetings with the University student’s council and with lecturers, discussing the needs and vision of the association. At last the open forum took place on the 23rd of March at the University campus.
A lot of questions were raised from the crowd such as “will the association promote breaking up of relationships and families at the university”? “Will we be discriminated by other students and lecturers if we join the association”?’ Some of the issues affecting women at USP were identified as: sexual harassment, health issues to do with food on campus, need to do skill building in areas of public speaking, research and assignment writing and above all child care support for mothers.
Speakers at the forum included one lecturer, student representatives from different associations and cultural representative. Through wide student consultation, we now have a draft constitution with a few project activities for the association, which will be tabled in the next council meeting. I would like to add that it has been fun and challenging working on this project and we are 100 per cent sure that the Women’s Association will be elected by the end of April.
Bookdrive for Kup kids
The Kup district is a comparatively undeveloped area in Simbu Province in the rugged Highlands Papua New Guinea. Although coffee is the major cash-crop, poor roads and market infrastructure make it difficult for people to get their produce out to markets. Tribal fighting in recent years has also severely damaged development in the area.
The teachers of Kup Primary School, many of whom are young women, do the best that they can and their students are eager to learn about the outside world. However, the limited resources make doing so much more difficult. The Fiji Women’s Rights Movement met up with the Kup women to discuss young women and leadership, when Executive Director Virisila Buadromo and Young Women’s Officer Anna Padarath visited the Highlands in 2006.
Upon their return to Fiji, Anna shared the Kup stories with the 25 graduates of FWRM’s Emerging Leader’s Forum (ELF), an intensive one year leadership programme for young women. Shoma Prasad and Jacque Koroivulanoare part of this group. They worked together with the young women and children of Kup and decided on a book drive as practical support for their counterparts in the PNG Highlands.
The book drive has been very successful and the ELFs have managed to collect a range of quality books that have been kindly donated. Currently they are fundraising to send the books to Kup, with stalls at the monthly ROC Markets in Suva, as well as raffles. The ELFs are also selling feminist t-shirts with all the proceeds going towards the Kup Kids Project.
Constance Georgina Khaendi Walyaro, from Kenya reports back on her work equipping young people to fight poverty and HIV/AIDS using ICTs and business skills.
My OIYP Action Plan involves setting up/enhancing resource centres for community based training programmes that are equipping young people in slum/rural communities across Kenya with skills that they are using to address the major challenges faced in their communities, namely poverty and HIV/AIDS.
Pastoralists are among the poorest and most marginalized groups in Kenya. Women, especially young women, and girls, form the most vulnerable group in these communities. The denial of their economic, social and cultural rights exposes them to greater exploitation and poverty, increased abuse and higher risk of HIV and AIDS.
Most technological innovations affect men and women differently. With the Gender and ICTs 4 Rural Development project -in partnership with Quincey- we are promoting the use of ICTs4D among young rural Maasai women, who have 8th grade or equivalent of basic education in the 15-35 age bracket. We are equipping them with skills - Computers, SME Business skills, ICTs4D, Life Skills (HIV/AIDS, Employability) - that they can use to generate incomes, to sustain themselves and contribute to overall community development.
The reasons why I want to study Gender ICTs for Rural Development: To become a more, mature and developed person; to make changes to causes that are closest to me; because we are in a new world and maybe in some years to come people will be using computers only; because I might get a job somewhere e.g. in an office and without computer certification I cant be employed. Because people always consider ladies less powerful and I would like to prove them wrong by doing things that even men can do. I always hunger for knowledge and desire to make other people achieve. So if I study this course I may also go and teach other people the importance of studying ICTs for Development. -Priscillah Masoi Tenaai, Student, 19 years
March FEATUREs
FAMILIES, COMMUNITIES, NATIONS:
WORKING TOGETHER FOR PEACE AND EQUALITY IN PNG
Action PartnerSharon Diave describes the crossroads that young people in communities in East New Britain face in combining respect for their traditional cultures with youth cultures. She tells how individuals and the community need to face the challenges of gender inequality together and that a positive approach requires every hand and head together in unity.
Brief Description of my community
East New Britainlies between 4 and 6 degrees south of the Equator. It covers a total land area of 15,816 sq kms with tropical rainforest vegetation most parts are covered with rugged mountain ranges.
The estimated population of the province is 210,000 of whom the majority are Tolais. People who live in East New Britain are of Melanesian descent, speaking Austronesian languages of which there are sixteen. "Kuanua" which the Tolais speak is the main language of the Gazelle Peninsula. Of the 210,000 people we have, 70% (147,000) are youth.
The fact that we have sixteen languages contributes very much to the diversity of traditions that is determined by the strong culture we have within individuals and the community as a whole. Our culture is build around the strong beliefs, behaviours and attitudes or (customs and traditions) of people individually and collectively and about how they live and relate to each other in the community. These customs and traditions have been carried on from generations. The introduction of western influence and religious beliefs into our culture has changed so many traditional ways and norms like it used to be in the last century.
Having a mixed culture in place makes it a little difficult deciding especially for the young generation to make choices in life and to adapt to the changes that are taking place. This is associated with the discrimination and stigma that is build around what type of culture one should live up to in the community. Most often it creates differences between families and friends within the communities. The worst of it is that, sometimes it is never accepted by the people within those cultures. For example, some modern Christian believers are too judgmental on what they believe is right about some traditional practices that people should do away with in the community. For instance chewing of betelnut is one traditional practice that most churches do not encourage. Vice versa, a person who doesn’t chew maybe discriminated by his peers from any association he belongs as to why he/she has quit on it. And this applies to other beliefs that they have as well.
One of the main problems especially young people who are at the cross road face is being blamed for all the crimes and social problems that are happening in the community. This ongoing issue has never been addressed fully by the respective cultures we have. One of the reasons which I believe has contributed very much to this is the division that we have in between these cultures. This makes it difficult for young people to learn and be directed to what is accepted in the developing society.
Gender related issues experienced in the community
The division in cultures that we have reflects so much in the social, psychological, economical, political and spiritual working relationships that people are associated with in the community. The primary case being the core of this discussion is made so obvious that gender in relation to all these forms of development is a cause of division between men and women in society. Moreover, the differences that we see in the biological and social construction of a Human Being make him/her vulnerable to these divisions as well as abuse and violation of Human Rights in the society.
All these socially constructed relations to gender have been learnt according to the cultures, religious and economical factors over history. The possibility of these unfixed, continuous changing relations involved in the gender-based roles, stereotypes, bias, inequality, sensitivity and violence is that it can be changed.
Changes people would like to see
The main changes that we would like to see in our communities are equal treatment, opportunities and responsibilities that fully build respect despite of being men or women or whatever cultural believes that we have. At the same time depressing all the forms of violence, discrimination and stigma associated with all those gender-based inequalities in the society.
Most importantly we need to maintain within the society what are our values individually and collectively (culturally). If we have respect for our own values as well as others we will create peace for individuals to enjoy their lives fully and free from indiscretion while allowing justice to be prevailed in our communities.
How this may happen
The fact that we belong to a society that is made up of families, communities, nations and one world; it needs cooperation and sharing of resources and services to meet our needs and wants individually and collectively. Whether this is done locally or globally, it needs every hands and heads together in unity to make it a better place to live.
To participate in creating a change regarding gender-related issues for my community, we would require more training and awareness to be carried out. To sustain this initiative, the community itself needs to undergo these trainings in order to take the ownership and responsibilities over things for change. A common ideology over programs and projects most often, people take it from outside and do not feel part of it. As a result changes take place but they do not last.
Likewise, when there is educational awareness on gender, it needs to be inwardly built within individuals so that they claim ownership over the changes that are needed for them to incorporate. Thus, I would recommend that our communities need to really undergo community development approaches. In so doing, the community themselves will be clear of their needs and problems, what resources and capacity they already have that they can contribute and what they don’t have which they can seek elsewhere. With this understanding, they can work together to organise for positive changes that will involve everyone. Thus promoting a society that is just, supports equal participation and self-reliance.
FEMINICIDE VIOLENCE: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY IN MEXICO
Action Partner Gail Aguilar writes an account highlighting the gulf between protective legislation and the lived reality of targeted and extreme gender based violence that continues with apparent impunity in the daily lives of women in Mexico. She tells of the struggle to ensure that the new legislation to protect women’s human rights becomes more than lip service and filters through to all levels of the justice system with the vigilance of all community members.
In Mexico, there were celebrations and events for the International Women’s Day. However, public opinion questioned if it’s really a day to celebrate when some gender based violence events have taken place across the country: sexual violence, murders and abductions of women and girls in many cities and rural areas of Mexico.
This phenomena is known as “feminicide”, because it is a murder beyond the privation of life. In a feminicide a woman or a girl becomes less than a human, whose bodies can be destroyed and treated as objects in cruel and inhuman circumstances. In a feminicide, a woman is killed just by the fact that she is a woman, a vulnerable human being. According to the reports of the previous Commission integrated by Federal Mexican deputies known as the “Feminicide Special Commission”, the concept of femincide includes also the lack of investigation by federal and state authorities to prosecute these crimes.
This concept has been also recognized by different international institutions. The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe has taken into account in its report and conclusions:
The Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is preparing a report on the “disappearance and murder of a great number of women and girls in Mexico, which have taken place since 1993 and are referred to as “feminicides”.
Ms Vermot-Mangold concludes that the “women were killed because they were women” (para.7) hence the use of the term “feminicides”. She states that “[e]veryone admits that the social fabric of these two cities (Juarez City and Chihuhua)…is all but in tatters” (para.8).[1]
Since 1998 many institutions, commissions and prosecutor’s offices had been created by the government to prevent, eliminate and punish the violence against women. The recent one (February 2006), is a Federal Prosecutor’s Office to investigate, attend and prevent related violent crimes against women in Mexico.
It will be very uncomfortable to describe how some days after the creation of one of this Prosecutor’s Office a female body appears few miles away at the entrance of this governmental Office in Juarez City.
Recently, Mexico has adopted a new law: The General Law to Access a violence-free life for Women which establishes the “feminicide violence” described as the extreme form of gender based violence against women, a result of their human right’s violation in public and private confines, conformed by a set of misogynous conducts and social and state impunity which may conduct to homicide and other forms of death by violence.[2]
Again, it will be very uncomfortable to describe how in recent days (after the approval of the new law) an elder-Indigenous-woman died as a result gang rape committed by military officials.
The message was clear: not institution or law, at this time, can achieve the right to live and die free of violence. Specific domestic laws and institutions regarding gender based violence are not yet enough and truly effective to decrease these crimes.
What about the international principles and treaties which enforce to respect human dignity?
An evolutionary interpretation of International Human Rights treaties in domestic law should be to protect the individuals beyond the State voluntarism, in these cases, it’s urgent that Mexican Courts adjudge International Human Rights Law principles and redress the victims for all the terrible treatment they have been subjected by the authorities when there is no effective punishment.
Also it’s urgent to keep working in the know how for implementing projects and actions included in some other international instruments as. The Model Strategies and practical measures on the elimination of violence against women in the field of crime prevention and criminal justiceaccording its Compendium and Resource Manual.
In Mexico, women and girls who were victims of violence where invisible in the justice system. Now they’re visible, but the Mexican criminal justice system it’s not yet his allied to escape from victimization.
When the civic culture of human rights change, when Mexican lawyers and judges understand that laws are an instrument for social change; when the feminism will be understood inside the governmental institutions just as a perspective to achieve gender equality and not to be understood as an “eternal fight between women and men”; when unexplainable, non logical, cruel and inhuman events won’t emerge suddenly after the creation of a new governmental institution or law; when the solidarity with the victims across the country could be seen as something familiar to us… it can be said that as a society we have grown up and we can face in a realistic approach - the celebration of the International Women’s Day in Mexico.
SILENCE
By Shafiq Mian Action Partner, Pakistan
Too many women in too many countries
Speak the same language of silence
My grandmother was always silent –
Always aggrieved
Only her husband had the cosmic right
(or so it was said)
to speak and be heard
They say it is difficult now
(After all, I am always vocal and my grand mother thinks I talk too much)
But some times I wonder
When a woman gives her love,
As most women do, generously –
It is accepted
When a woman shares her thoughts,
As most women do, graciously
It is allowed
When a woman fights for power,
As all women would like to,
Quietly or loudly,
It is questioned.
And yet, there must be freedom
If we are to speak.
And yes, there must be power –
If we are to be heard.
And when we have both (freedom and power).
Let us not be misunderstood.
We seek only to give words
To those who can not speak
(Too many women in too many countries)
I seek only to forget the sorrows
Of my grandmother’s silence.
Resources
1) http://www.un.org/womenwatch/
This is a really useful site that provides access to a range of interesting and thought provoking articles and links. The priority theme of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) was “the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child.” Other great resources on this site include financing for equality and the empowerment of women.
2) http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/gender/index.htm
If you would like to read some stories and case studies, or to browse through the free issue of the Gender and Development journal, an informative resource for everyone working in development policy, practice and research, then you should take a look at this site. The links journal is also full of interesting articles.
3) http://www.unfpa.org/gender/empowerment.htm
The UN Populations Fund covers issues such as health, education, economic, political and technological empowerment and HIV/AIDS. There is also information on women’s role in relation to preserving natural resources and the environment.
The Association for Women’s Rights in Development homepage - this site offers access to a range of thematic programs covering issues such as gender equality and new technologies, women’s rights and economic change, women’s rights and fundamentalisms and young women and leadership.
Endnote
A closing thought to inspire you this month.
The main changes that we would like to see in our communities are equal treatment, opportunities and responsibilities that fully build respect despite of being men or women or whatever cultural believes that we have.
Sharon Diave, PNG
‘ The contents of this newsletter do not reflect the views of its subscribers or Oxfam Australia.
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