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15 September 2020 - NPWJ News Digest on FGM & Women's Rights
Articles
Why Liberia Just Declared Rape a National Emergency
Global Citizen, 14 Sep 2020
President George Weah released a statement on Sept. 11 that declared rape a national emergency in the country, according to Al Jazeera. He also introduced the first set of new measures to address the increase in violence against women. The measures include designating a specific prosecutor to handle rape cases and setting up a national sex offender registry. He is also creating a national security task force to handle sexual and gender-based violence and is allocating $2 million to address the issue.
Moving Beyond the Numbers: What the COVID-19 pandemic means for the safety of women and girls
ReliefWeb, 14 Sep 2020
In order to make effective policy and programming decisions, governments, policymakers and donors must go beyond the numbers and aim for a more comprehensive understanding of dynamics driving pre-existing violence against women and girls and how the current environment exacerbates these risks. The increased threat to women and girls is predictable based on patterns of abuse and violence that existed before the COVID-19 pandemic. Quarantine and confinement measures increase the risks of GBV and, as a result, will worsen the severity of the violence experienced by women and girls.
Op-ed: A month after the blast, let's rebuild Beirut as the Arab region's first feminist city
UN Women, 09 Sep 2020
While we mourn for the people dead and still missing, for those injured and for the neighbourhoods that have now changed beyond recognition, we must not romanticise the Beirut we lost. Lebanon before 4 August was one where inequalities were rife and evident, and always insufficiently addressed. It was a country already debilitated by layers of disaster – economic collapse, government corruption, environmental crisis, sectarian divisions, poverty and, most recently, the Covid-19 pandemic.
UN: Houthi rebels in Yemen recruited teenage girls
Al Jazeera , 09 Sep 2020
UN-backed investigators have found evidence that rebels in Yemen recruited nearly three dozen teenage girls - some said to be survivors of sexual violence - as spies, medics, guards and members of an all-female force. The findings came in the third and latest report on Wednesday by the "group of eminent experts" commissioned by the Human Rights Council to investigate alleged rights violations by all sides in the war since September 2014. The devastating conflict in the Arab world's poorest country has spawned what the United Nations calls the world's greatest humanitarian crisis.
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Kenya: State Reinforces Measures to Eradicate FGM
All Africa , 09 Sep 2020
The government has come up with more stringent measures in the fight against Female genital Mutilation (FGM). Key on the agenda is revision of the eradication of FGM Policy to align it with current realities, developments and the Constitution. The Ministry of Public Service and Gender has also developed focused interventions to address FGM in key sectors such as health, education, security, access to justice and public information while emphasising participation as human rights approach to empowering girls and women.
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