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25 Oct 2016 - NPWJ News Digest on FGM & women's rights
NPWJ in the news
L'Alternativa. Nice e l'impegno di Amref per le donne dell'Africa
Radio Radicale, 25 Oct 2016
Incontro organizzato da African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF). Nice Nailantei Leng'ete è una giovane donna keniota, divenuta simbolo mondiale della lotta alle mutilazioni genitali femminili.
Sono intervenuti: Alessandra Longo (giornalista), Ilaria Borletti Buitoni (sottosegretario di Stato al Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali), Nice Nailantei Leng'ete (ambasciatrice eoperatrice dell'Amref Health Africa), Alessandra Longo (giornalista de La Repubblica), Emma Bonino (fondatrice di Non c'è Pace Senza Giustizia), Paolo Briguglia (attore).
Convegno "Why women matter - Promoting gender balance in public life and economic strategies"
Radio Radicale, 21 Oct 2016
L'evento è stato organizzato da Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale. In collaborazione con WE - Women Empower the World (il cui Comitato Esecutivo è presieduto da Emma Bonino, fondatrice di Non c’è Pace Senza Giustizia, e Marta Dassù) , l'Organizzazione per la cooperazione e lo sviluppo economico (OCSE) e Aspen Institute.
Articles
Tunisian coalition party fights for women's rights with gender violence bill
by The Guardian, 24 Oct 2016
After 14 years of sexual harassment at work, Idihar Chaieb finally got her day in court. The widow had been repeatedly propositioned and groped by her boss, who was also a local official in her home town of Menzel Bouzelfa, an hour’s drive from Tunis. When he finally got the message that Chaieb wasn’t interested in his advances, he threatened to destroy her reputation. “I was afraid to speak out. I thought I would be blamed,” she said. Finally, supported by a former teacher, women’s organisations, and her son – and buoyed by the 2011 revolution in Tunisia – Chaieb gathered the courage to sue her tormentor. “I didn’t want compensation, I just wanted him to leave me alone,” she said. To her dismay, however, in March 2015 the judge ruled against her. Chaieb was fired from the company where she had worked for 25 years; her former boss demanded a letter of apology. She was left devastated and destitute. Chaieb’s story is not untypical in Tunisia. Despite its reputation for being the most progressive country in the Arab world on women’s rights, with almost one-third of parliament consisting of female MPs and more than 700 civil society organisations working on gender issues, violence against women and sexual harassment are endemic.
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Argentina's women joined across South America in marches against violence
By The Guardian, 20 Oct 2016
The crowd of women packed into the historic square of Plaza de Mayo in downtown Buenos Aires under the freezing rain was so vast that some had to close their umbrellas to all fit together. “Machismo Kills,” read the hand-painted sign held aloft by one young woman. Tens of thousands of women marched here on Wednesday to protest the growing problem of violence against women in Argentina, a problem so prevalent that the country sanctioned a law four years ago legally defining as “femicide” cases of domestic violence, so-called “honour” killings and other categories of hate crimes against women. The Buenos Aires march was matched by others across Argentina and other South American countries, after women’s groups called for solidarity via social media under the hashtags #NiUnaMenos (“Not one less”, meaning not one more woman lost to male violence) and #BlackWednesday. “This is a march against femicide,” supreme court judge Elena Highton de Nolasco told the press on the eve of the march. “Cases of femicide are growing in number, they are becoming more violent, more perverse – we even had the news today that there have been 19 femicides in the last 18 days.”
Investing in girls could unlock billions of dollars for national economies : U.N. agency
by Reuters, 20 Oct 2016
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - If countries ended forced marriage, child labor, female genital mutilation and other practices undermining girls' health and rights, their economies could be billions of dollars richer for it, a U.N. agency said on Thursday. Around the world, 16 million girls between the ages of six and 11 never start school, many because they are married off or forced to work to help their families financially, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a report. It said developing countries could reap a dividend of $21 billion a year if all 10-year-old girls completed secondary education, echoing studies that show a correlation between improved literacy for girls and higher earnings later in life. "Education is the world's best investment. Whenever a girl's potential goes unrealized, we all lose," Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of UNFPA, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a phone interview. The report comes a year after world leaders adopted an ambitious set of global goals to end poverty and inequality by 2030. One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is targets gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. "How we support girls today will determine what our world looks like. The SDGs give world leaders a real opportunity to get things right," Osotimehin said.
Egypt Court Releases Mother of Suez FGM Girl, Postpones Trial to November
by AllAfrica, 20 Oct 2016
The Suez Criminal Court released on Wednesday the mother of 17-year old Mayar Mousa who died during an Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) operation in May. The court postponed the trial to Nov. 23. The mother, the doctor who performed the operation and the anaesthesiologist were accused of involuntary manslaughter and causing a wound that led to death. The doctor is still at large. Mousa's death sparked anger against doctors and laws that tolerate the practice despite the ban imposed in 2008. Egypt's parliament approved late August amendments to the law against FGM that imposes harsher penalties on the practice. The amendment classifies FGM as a felony instead of a misdemeanour, punishable with imprisonment between five- seven years and up to 15 years in case the operation led to a permanent deformity or death. It also punishes whoever accompanies a female to have the operation with imprisonment between one-three years.
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