06 Jul 2021 - NPWJ News Digest on FGM & women's rights

Articles

Vicious Mass Rape of Women has become a weapon against the Tigray in Ethiopian war
Global Voices, 05 Jul 2021

In a recent debate in front of the British parliament, Labour Party politician Helen Hayes estimated that at least 10,000 women in Tigray have been raped since the beginning of the war. This past April, Pramila Patten, the U.N. special representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict said it might be months before officials fully know the full scale of the atrocities committed against women and girls in Tigray.  She made those comments at the UN Security Council's open debate on conflict-related sexual violence.

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Peace and women's rights left 'hanging in the balance' in Afghanistan
RTE, 04 Jul 2021

American troops pulled out of their main military base, Bagram in Afghanistan on Friday, as one of the country's top commanders warned the country may descend into civil war without them. The base will be officially handed over to the Afghan government at a ceremony today. But whilst the withdrawal brings an effective end to the longest war in American history, there are serious concerns about the power vacuum and instability left behind.

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Landmark gender equality forum concludes with concrete commitments, plan to advance parity by 2026
UN News, 02 Jul 2021

With the chief of the UN’s gender empowerment agency declaring that women are still “sitting in the corridors when men are inside at the table negotiating peace”, the historic Generation Equality Forum in Paris concluded on Friday with new commitments designed to address that, and other injustices. Close to $40 billion was pledged in new investments, as well as ambitious policy and programme commitments from governments, civil society and others, to help fuel a new global five-year action plan to accelerate true gender parity, by 2026.

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Want gender equality? Then fund the real change-makers: feminist movements
Open Democracy, 02 Jul 2021

The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, produced one of the boldest global declarations on women’s rights to date. Equality in decision-making and the economy, as well as violence against women, were some of the crucial issues that it addressed. But progress in turning those commitments into reality has been shamefully slow. Now, 26 years later, the UN’s Generation Equality Forum (GEF) in Paris aims to build on the legacy of Beijing. Co-hosted by the governments of Mexico and France, the GEF aspires to catalyse political action and funding to make the rhetoric a reality. The opening day of the Forum saw the announcement of $40bn in new commitments to advance gender equality globally. Such financing is sorely needed.

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Austria: Women migrant care workers demand rights
Amnesty International, 01 Jul 2021

New research by Amnesty International has revealed exploitation of women migrant care workers in Austria, with shockingly poor pay, discrimination and excessively long hours, pushing some to the brink of collapse. The vast majority of those who work as live-in carers for older people are women migrant workers from Central and Eastern Europe, who are often subjected to various intersecting forms of discrimination and abuse. Care workers told Amnesty International that unfair wages, lack of sick pay and inadequate breaks were a daily reality even before the pandemic, but Covid-19 made working conditions unbearable.

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#JusticePourLouise Rape Case Shakes Senegal
Human Rights Watch, 01 Jul 2021

The hashtag #JusticePourLouise has been trending in Senegal in recent days, the latest grim reminder of the country’s failure to deal with the scourge of sexual violence in Senegal’s education system. In the latest case, a 19-year-old male student has been detained by police and accused of raping a 15-year-old girl, also a student at the same school. The accused reportedly shared a video about the rape that has been widely shared via WhatsApp and elsewhere. The widespread media coverage has included both condemnation of the rape and the accused, as well efforts to vilify and discredit the survivor’s account of the rape.

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Tanzania: Engage Youth in Fight Against Child Marriages-CDC
AllAfrica, 30 Jun 2021

The involvement of youth in Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Child Marriages fight in rural areas in Tarime district, Mara region is expected to produce good results. Already, Children's Dignity Forum (CDF) a Tanzania's -non-governmental organization (NGO) has started implementing its new anti-FGM and child marriages project by involving youths and other key community groups in the area.

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