Jane Gabriel is Editor of openDemocracy's 50.50 editorial initiative. She directed more than thirty documentaries for Channel Four Television and the BBC international current affairs series "Correspondent" before joining openDemocracy. Jane was a member of Britain's first all women television production company, Broadside.
Mairead Maguire: "This kind of behaviour and treatment is unacceptable. They questioned
me about my nonviolent protests in USA against the Afghanistan invasion
and Iraqi war. They insisted I must tick the box in the Immigration
form admitting to criminal activities. I am not a criminal, my
nonviolent acts in the USA opposing the war on Afghanistan, and Iraqi,
are acts of conscience and together with millions of USA citizens, and
world citizens, I refuse to be criminalized for opposing such illegal
policies." Read more...
Laureate Mairead Maguire spoke to Jane Gabriel about a new politic she sees arising: one in which ‘deep democracy’ is built by people, one to one, and demanding that the money be taken out of militarism. Listen now.
Every woman at the NWI gathering in Antigua had a way of redefining democracy - from writing the new Ecuadorian constitution to include the rights of nature, to fighting for a place at the negotiating table of the peace talks in Sudan. Jane Gabriel listened to three days of stories,debate and plans for the future.
Activists,
scholars and policy makers from more than thirty countries are
heading for Antigua, Guatemala, this weekend for the Nobel
Women’s Initiative
second international conference ‘Women Redefining Democracy’.
openDemocracy will be covering three days of debate as the women
examine women’s experience of democracy in different contexts,
from both inside and outside the structures of power.
After three years of constant debate, the Karama movement is finding a common
language with which to speak, and a ‘voice' on international platforms. Jane Gabriel spoke to Hibaaq Osman, Karama's founder. Listen now.
Every one
of the hundreds and hundreds of women who are here at the CSW is trying to
build a ‘common understanding', by accurately describing the daily lived reality
in their country or region.
The Arab Women's Network "ROA" meaning ‘Vision', held a session called ‘Occupations in the Arab
region contribute to maintaining Gender Inequalities'. The panel of women from Jordan, Lebanon,
Iraq and Palestine described the impossibility of
working for women's rights and the alleviation of women's suffering in an area
of endless conflict.
On my way
to the canteen I met Margaret Owen who is the director of Widows for Peace through
Democracy, she told me that she every year she swears to
herself that she's never coming back. But this is her eleventh time - so I asked her why she's here
again.
Iraqi women refugees: surviving in Syria. As the months turn into years, more and more women refugees in Damascus are becoming vulnerable to the human trafficking networks. Listen now
Legal reform in Egypt
establishing Family Courts with mandatory mediation ( see Mulki Al-Sharmani: Egypt's
family courts: route to empowerment? )
and the introduction of no fault divorce proceedings known as ‘khola'
is prompting discussion about relations
between men and women in marriage, including women's sexual rights.
A new report produced by the Karama network ‘Refugee
and Stateless Women across the Arab Region: stories of the dream of return, the
fear of trafficking and the discriminatory laws' (pdf) is a ground breaking work written collaboratively by women from Syria, Palestine, Sudan, Egypt,
Lebanon, Jordan, Somalia and Morocco. It combines original research and
personal testimony with historical and political analysis, to call for a
response to refugees that moves beyond relief services to the promotion of
rights. The authors address in detail the particular problems faced by Iraqi
women living in Syria, Egypt and Jordan, Palestinian women living in Lebanon,
Jordan and Syria, Sudanese women living in Egypt and Somalian women living in
‘a nation without a state'.
The theme of this year's CSW is Financing for Women's
Empowerment and Gender Equality. There are dozens and dozens of NGO's here with
ideas about how to demand the resources and there are daily sessions sponsored by
the UN missions, but with only two days to go I haven't found anyone who is optimistic that this
year's CSW will have the slightest impact on women's empowerment.
