Everybody on the ground wants peace
"Everybody on the ground wants peace"
Mairead Maguire is currently travelling on board the MV Rachel Corrie delivering aid to Gaza. Read the Nobel Women's initiative call for the safe passage of MV Rachel Corrie.
Liberia: Women Peacekeepers and Human Security
In her second report from Liberia Kristen Cordell looks at the impact of the all female Indian police unit working in Monrovia.
The deployment of female peacekeepers has recently become recognized as not simply "desirable, but an operational imperative." In the words of Rachel Mayanja UN Assistant Secretary-General, "without women's participation in peace efforts there can be no peace and security."
One highly visible
step to including women in peacekeeping operations has been the all- women
police unit serving as part of the United Nations
Peacekeeping Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). 130 Indian policewomen currently
make up the Formed Police Unit (FPU) in Liberia, the third such unit to be
installed post conflict. The primary function of the group is to provide
security within the city during public events with high profile leadership. I
spent time with the group during my recent work with the UN in Liberia. I found
the experience nothing short of inspirational.
No Help for Sex
Kristen Cordell reflects on the countrywide effort in Liberia to stop sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers.
Last month the UN Security Council unanimously approved Resolution 1888, reaffirming the UNs commitment to ending rape as a tool of war. The UN Mission in Liberia is leading efforts in six countries in Africa to check its own staff on a highly visible and challenging part of the problem: sexual exploitation by UN peacekeepers.
“Deal with your demons, and you will be free”
A disease of homosexuals, junkies, minorities; the myths surrounding HIV are parasitic, feeding off the vulnerability of those who have already been consigned to the margins of society. They are woven into a fictitious world where the sick and healthy are discrete and identifiable categories, and where membership in each is determined arbitrarily by race, sexual orientation, and gender.
They are the myths that the Sophia Forum is seeking to dismantle. Initiated in 2005, the Forum is a voluntary women's network based in UK exploring how HIV affects women at home and abroad. In its panel discussion on October 1st entitled "In Sickness and In Health: Women and HIV in 2009", the Sophia Forum drew attention to the acute need for gender specificity in understanding a condition that effects not merely homosexuals or the "socially marginal", but an estimated 30,000 women in the UK every year.
A disease of homosexuals, junkies, minorities; the myths surrounding HIV are parasitic, feeding off the vulnerability of those who have already been consigned to the margins of society. They are woven into a fictitious world where the sick and healthy are discrete and identifiable categories, and where membership in each is determined arbitrarily by race, sexual orientation, and gender.
They are the myths that the Sophia Forum is seeking to dismantle. Initiated in 2 5, the Forum is a voluntary women's network based in UK exploring how HIV affects women at home and abroad. In its panel discussion on October 1st entitled "In Sickness and In Health: Women and HIV in 2 9", the Sophia Forum drew attention to the acute need for gender specificity in understanding a condition that effects not merely homosexuals or the "socially marginal", but an estimated 3 , women in the UK every year.
Iran: Players or Pawns?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a man of many labels; Iran's ‘everyman' crusading for the nation's downtrodden, champion of the Muslim world, self-fashioned historian with an amnesic grasp of 20th century events and, most recently, vote rigger of questionable skill. To date however, Ahmadinejad's reputation has not been readily associated with women's rights. His recent decision to nominate three female cabinet ministers has consequently aroused surprise and suspicion in many camps.
Those of us with a voice to speak
On 30 June 2009, Mairead Maguire was taken into custody by the Israeli military along with twenty others, including former U.S. Congress member Cynthia McKinney.
Journalist Zhila Bani Yaghoub arrested
Iranian journalist Zhila Bani Yaghoub and her husband Bahman Ahmadi Amooyi were arrested in Iran over the weekend after government forces reportedly raided their home. Yaghoub is a veteran journalist who has worked to promote women's rights in Iran. She spoke recently at the Nobel Women's Initiative conference on 'Redefining Democracy' held in Guatemala.
The Nobel Women's Initiative issued a statement saying:
The Iranian Nightmare
These past days have been a
nightmare. I and my fellow Iranians have been watching the small amount of
democracy present in Iran
erased within a day. Everything we hear from Iran is heartbreaking but more than
anything, I have been anxiously watching the international media. Although some
reports are accurate, many huge mainstream media sources still frame the events
in a way that really feels as if they are twisting the knife in our wounds.
What media does in this situation can make a difference in saving lives in Iran. If those
in power in Iran
realize that the western media has become sympathetic to them, they will be as
brutal as they desire. I'm asking you to please use all your resources and
connections to raise awareness about a few things and spread the word.
Some media are framing the protests as "people whose candidates didn't win
are now angry". This is not true. People (including myself) are not angry
because Mousavi didn't win. We are angry because we feel the election was
stolen. We are in the streets to defend our right to decide a president (at
least out of the 4 we could choose from). We are angry because something has
happened that is changing our system fundamentally.
The allegations of fraud are portrayed as only brought up by Mousavi or only the reformists. But the other conservative candidate, Mr. Rezaei, has in fact filed a complaint about this election as well, asserting that the vote counts don't make sense. So this is not a complaint among two candidates, or two sides. This is about committing electoral fraud.
Some call the peaceful protests "riots." People are not rioting.
Yesterday's protest which ended in killing of innocent people was a
"silent" protest. People were walking in complete silence for the
majority of the march. We are not hooligans. We are citizens who are very aware
of what is happening and we will not stay quiet.
Protesters are portrayed as pro-western and young. While most are young, and
many might be interested in improving relations with the west, this is an
inaccurate generalization. In pictures of large protests you can see older
people, and you see many who seem more religious. It's really not about the
west.
If Iranian state media (currently completely in the hands of
a certain political segment) post any news in this regard, most mainstream
media regurgitate it exactly, amplifying their voice and making it resonate all
around the world. Often it is propaganda that gets amplified which is carefully
crafted with the aim of crushing the protests.
Most Iranians have no doubt that the results are fraudulent. A president with
24 million votes, does not face such persistent protests with people, whole
families even, coming out in the face of blind violence. If you cheat a whole
nation people will not accept it.
Maybe there is a subconscious attitude among western spectators that thinks Iranians can not take the results of a democratic
election if it's not who they liked most. But we are not savages, in fact that
is exactly why people are in the streets. If the right to vote was taken away
in the US or Europe, everyone would be protesting. That's why Iranian
people are coming out day after day after day.
Iranian Elections 2009: A New Spring?
From the stone carving adorning the War Museum in Tehran, two women, chadors wrapped tightly around them, stare grimly ahead. Their lips are contorted into determined frowns. One wields a rifle.
The great African housewife
I am back from Guatemala, from this exciting, spiritually-connected gathering: a great dance, party, food, and robust conversations at an invigorating meeting. It’s so exciting that I keep smiling to myself remembering the energy in the room, the sisterhood, the fact that as women race, colour, region, affinity, language never matter. For us it was about how to make a difference and truly redefine “Democracy”. As I transit in Texas, my realities hit again and I leave dreamland.
Hope's reflections
Many of us travelled on the same flight from Houston to La Aurora International Airport. Our entry into Guatemala was grand. We were welcomed by Erin Allison and the other organisers.
There was a comfortable minibus waiting to take us to our hotel, Casa Santa Domingo in Antigua city. Six of us, an ‘assorted' group of sisters, enjoyed the unknown landscape, and each other's company. A few of the sisters already knew each other but the others were meeting for the first time. We easily fell into a conversation that took us from the personal introduction to the introduction of our organisations. We shared our hopes and excitement for the conference and located ourselves in it. Before we went to our different rooms, we agreed to meet at the end of day two, go into town and explore pubs, restaurants, the remarkable history of Antigua; its taste, texture and smell.
Flying with Hope
WOMEN'S STRUGGLES FOR DEMOCRACY ON THE OUTSIDE
This presentation is based on an airplane conversation between Hope Chigudu, other sisters and a man (fellow passenger) who introduced himself as Tino.
Tino: My name is Tino. Since we took off, I have been listening to the conversation between you and your friends. I could not help it. You are loud; everyone on this plane has been listening to you. You keep talking about the conflicts scourging the African continent and then your desire for democratic participation. Let me provoke you; if democracy were a woman, or feminist, what would she do?
For democracy to flourish, it has to be a culture as well as a process
Behind the high walls of a hotel in Antigua, the tranquil colonial capital of Guatemala, as the more than 100 women participants moved into the third day of “redefining democracy” some 40 miles away in the modern capital Guatemala City, democracy did a little redefining of its own. It was precipitated by an event unusual even for Guatemala: the distribution at the funeral of a murder victim of a video in which the deceased, a respected lawyer, accused the president, his wife and his secretary of organising not only his own murder – he was shot on the streets of Guatemala City while riding his bicycle on Sunday - but the murders earlier in the year of two of his clients.
The priveleged ones
It’s Time to Return to the Hotel Brochure
Day Three. One of the plenary speakers, I can’t remember who it was, told the delegates, ‘We are the privileged ones’. People nodded and you could see that this struck a chord. I have been wondering exactly what it meant. The most obvious reading belongs to the same family as the jesting remark made by Jane Austen’s Elizabeth when she suggests that she fell in love with Darcy when she first saw his lavish ancestral home, Pemberley.






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