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14 Mar 2017 - NPWJ News Digest on FGM & women's rights
Articles
'My vulva cupcakes were confiscated' - a day in the life of an anti-FGM campaigner
by The Guardian, 13 Mar 2017
Smuggling vulva-decorated cupcakes into the Somali region of Ethiopia was one of those moments where I thought: “My work as an anti-FGM campaigner gets me into interesting situations sometimes.” Three years earlier I’d made vulva cupcakes as part of a documentary about FGMthat I’d done for Channel 4. “We need you to bring them with you,” said Sagal Abdi, vice executive director of Maandeeq, when she invited me to an event in Jijiga, the capital of the region, part of 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. Honestly, I was taken aback. I grew up in the UK as part of the Somali diaspora, and I’d assumed the people of Jijiga would not be ready for vulva cupcakes. But Abdi, also part of the diaspora, reassured me that the Ethiopian women had requested them. “Leyla, they watched the documentary and loved the concept of using art for campaigning,” she said. Abdi filled me in on the current status of the women from Jijiga. It was the usual story of inequality, gender-based violence, lack of employment and access to healthcare. But Abdi gave me hope as she described these negative situations. By the end of that phone call I couldn’t wait to meet her. The only snag was, how would I carry vulva cupcakes from London to Jijiga? I am always up for a challenge. I managed to carry the cupcakes, made in London, in my hand luggage all the way to Addis Ababa. I really began to think I was going to pull this off. But just as I was about to embark on my final flight to Jijiga, one of the officers told me to step aside and opened the box. When he saw the cakes staring back at him he made a sound halfway between a gasp and a giggle. “Why would you bring these here?” he asked. “Oh, you know what they are then?” I thought. He said I needed permission to carry them and he needed to investigate. My flight was taking off in 10 minutes, so I sadly had to leave the cakes behind.
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Tanzania: VP - Stop GBV, Indignity On Women
by AllAfrica, 09 Mar 2017
VICE-President Samia Suluhu Hassan has condemned the most oppressive forms of indignity and violence subjected to women, including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and rape, calling upon the public to join hands in ending the vile acts. She made the remarks during a special interview aired through the Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation (TBC) from Dodoma, yesterday, as the nation joined others around the world to mark the International Women's Day. Ms Samia said that violence against women that includes FGM and genderbased violence (GBV) are a major setback to efforts of economically empowering women, urging the public and other stakeholders to own the obligation of ending violence and indignity acts against women. She expressed her satisfaction on steps that are being taken by women all over the country to empower themselves economically, through entrepreneurship as the nation moves towards Industrial economy. The VP added that the major responsibility of the fifth phase government is to improve the working environment for women, especially those in the entrepreneurship sector so they can achieve their objectives.
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International Women’s Day: Calls to Action, Protests and Words of Praise
by The New York Times, 08 Mar 2017
Iceland’s government announced plans to eradicate gender pay disparities by 2022. Four Russian feminist activists unfurled a giant poster outside the Kremlin in Moscow, denouncing the patriarchy (they were arrested). India’s prime minister honored a symbol of rural women’s aspirations for dignity and self-sufficiency — the toilet. The Egyptian authorities said they would allow female prisoners an extra family visit this month. The events were all centered on International Women’s Day on Wednesday, and people and governments across the globe observed it in an outpouring of support for women’s equality and empowerment. But amid the celebrations, protests were brewing. Demonstrations were scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in dozens of cities across France. In Paris, protesters planned to march from the Place de la République to the Opéra Garnier. Unions, student organizations and feminist associations were calling for women to start striking at 3:40 p.m. — symbolically the time of day when Frenchwomen stop being paid, they argue, because of an average 26 percent pay gap with men. With the coming presidential election, the protest organizers unveiled a list of 20 demands, including salary increases, less temporary work and better enforcement of penalties for companies that discriminate against women, including when they are pregnant.
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Report: African women ahead as lawmakers, but face violence
by The Washington Post, 07 Mar 2017
A report on women’s rights in Africa praises significant progress including female participation in many African legislatures outpacing Britain and the United States. But it also points to what it calls “daunting” challenges such as high rates of sexual violence, maternal mortality and HIV infections among women.
The report was released ahead of International Women’s Day on Wednesday. It says “women are more economically active in Africa particularly as farmers, workers and entrepreneurs than anywhere else in the world.”
But the report by the U.N. human rights office, U.N. Women and the African Union investigator on women’s rights said one in three women in Africa have experienced either physical or sexual violence, or both, from an intimate partner or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lifetime.