16 Days of activism against gender violence, 2009

View complete list of 16 Days of activism against gender violence coverage.

 

Wednesday 1st December

Positive women human rights defenders

Alice Welbourn, 1 December 2010
When the world has come to terms with the reality that HIV is not a morality issue, and that it can affect any one of us, it will be time to recognize the dangerous work of these women
Tuesday 30th November

Should violence against women in the UK be seen as hate crime?

Julia Long, 30 November 2010
Woman-hating continues to occupy a central and too-often unrecognised and unchallenged position within our culture. Julia Long argues that approaches to stop such violence will fail unless they also address issues of endemic cultural misogyny
Thursday 10th December

The wedding dress with attitude

Cassandra Balchin, 10 December 2009
Malians do a good line in combining fashion and public relations for the causes they care about. Fatoumata and Moussa didn’t just decide to get married under Mali’s new family code, they got married in it – literally

The quest for gender-just peace: from impunity to accountability

Yakin Erturk, 10 December 2009
Yakin Erturk reflects on the six years she spent working as the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, and argues that in order to build a gender- just peace, dis-empowering patriarchy and engaging with the feminist agenda of empowering women must be the guiding principle for all peace initiatives.

The human cost of war

Diana Francis, 10 December 2009
Diana Francis finds in an exhibition of quilts and arpilleras made by women from Ireland to Chile, a rallying call to say no to violence, public and private, on any scale; to work for the abolition of war and to transform the culture of violence in which women are objectified and subjugated.
Wednesday 9th December

Domestic violence is not a private family matter

Carolina Gottardo, 9 December 2009
In the pioneering ruling Opuz v Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights recognized for the first time that domestic violence is a form of discrimination against women, and that states are required to eliminate and remedy it. The case also recognized that domestic violence is not a “private family matter” but that it is in the public interest to ensure state protection from it.
Monday 7th December

An unfortunate accident: violence in Ahmadinejad’s Iran

Anonymous, 7 December 2009
In the wake of the contested Iranian election, Ahmadinejad's regime is seeking to silence political dissent through coercion and arbitrary imprisonment - where men as well as women are vulnerable to rape and torture. Women's organizations have actively campaigned against such violence, but analysis of post-election violence must not look at abuse of women in isolation. Instead, it must highlight the way that difference – whether it be political opinion, religion, sexuality, or gender – is being persecuted in Ahmadinejad's Iran.
Sunday 6th December

The power of storytelling

Zainab Magdy, 6 December 2009
Zainab Magdy describes her journey as a young feminist writer in a storytelling workshop in Cairo. “Many people ask me about these storytelling evenings and I tell them very seriously about "patriarchal society" which is killing the person inside each and every man and woman slowly. They don’t usually appreciate it. A few sentences can never tell the story of the woman who remains in a marriage because her husband threatens to keep her children as far away from her as possible. But maybe a story will.

Jack in a Box

Zainab Magdy, 6 December 2009
He liked playing with the Jack in a Box more than any other toy. It had been his favourite since childhood, and he continued to have the same passion towards it until he approached his thirties.
Saturday 5th December

Owner of a Heart

Zainab Magdy, 5 December 2009
Once upon a time, in a place far far away and a time that was neither happy nor glorious in a small town, there was a man who knew the secrets of the earth and plants and who used to heal the hearts of young girls...
Thursday 3rd December

Meeri Piribis: carrying the torch of hope

Jameen Kaur, 3 December 2009
“No more will we let the army decide, the insurgents decide, or the patriarchal structures of our societies that control our lives and our movements. We will act and lead on our needs and our priorities, not theirs”. Jameen Kaur talks to Binalakshmi Nepram Mentschel about her work to end decades of violence in Manipur
Tuesday 1st December

Honour killing: India's continuing shame

Spriha Srivastava, 1 December 2009
The number of love marriages might have increased in India's cities but the reality remains different in many of its villages

When things fall apart

Alice Welbourn, 1 December 2009
Alice Welbourn charts her own personal experiences of what she learnt about HIV, about herself and about others during her early years of living with her diagnosis. She reflects on how traumatic experiences can also be ones of growth and self-knowledge – and how HIV has much to teach us all.

HIV: both the cause and the consequence of violence against women

Silvia Petretti, 1 December 2009
In the UK the number of women living with HIV has been steadily growing since the beginning of the epidemic. Newly diagnosed women were only twenty percent of the new infections in 1996, but over forty percent in 2007. There are now more than 25,000 HIV positive women in the UK, but while government policy fails to address the link between HIV and violence against women, it is left to under-funded and under-staffed support groups to campaign for the human rights of women living with HIV.

The challenges for women of HIV and gender violence

Marion Bowman, 1 December 2009
The hinterland of acknowledging and dealing with the links between gender violence and HIV/AIDS is mostly unexplored and unmapped. Neither the British government's strategy on gender violence nor that on sexual health deal with the link between gender violence and HIV/Aids. This serious policy gap leaves the issue orphaned and suffering the same status as women struggling with the complex interplay of violence, illness, and taboo.
Monday 30th November

Nameless, Genderless: The Meena Bazaar Women

Vanessa Alexander, 30 November 2009
What prevents politicians from discussing national security issues and violence against women in the same sentence? Why do politicians continue to treat gender as a stand-alone issue?
Friday 27th November

There is no honour in ‘honour killing’

Majd Shafiq, 27 November 2009
Islam is more tolerant of male-female relationships than some would have us believe. The issue of ‘honour killing’ is not one of dishonour and immorality, but of disobedience and control. At the end of the day, one has to say what is right is right, and what is wrong is wrong. Honour killings are heinous crimes and are against anything and everything that is holy in this life.
Thursday 26th November

“We have failed. We have nothing to celebrate”

Jameen Kaur, 26 November 2009
There is a growing wave of unrest among young women at the failure of governments to recognise and implement reproductive rights as a human right for all.
Tuesday 24th November

When the global is local: UN Security Council Resolutions on sexual violence are for all of us

Vanessa Alexander, 24 November 2009
Joining the Reclaim the Night march in London last weekend, Vanessa Alexander asks how can we advocate for the adoption of UN resolutions for peace and security for women in war time, when women world wide do not yet experience peace and security in peace time?
Monday 23rd November

Violence against women in the UK: a map of gaps

Marianna Tortell, 23 November 2009
The shift of funding from central to local authorities has led to the loss of essential services and misinterpretation of Equality legislation is further discriminating against women fleeing violence.
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