Harriet Christian who catapulted to fame for expressing her anger over the way Senator Clinton was treated at the Rules and By Laws Committee Meeting of the DNC was on Fox News speaking with Neil Cavuto. Harriet is now supporting Senator McCain openly and pointed out that when she and disaffected Clinton supporters met with Senator McCain in Washington back in June Sarah Palin was mentioned as a possible Vice Presidential. That confirms that Governor Palin has been on the short list all along.

Harriet is also a founding member of a new group called The New Agenda. The New Agenda, through its members and partner organizations, seeks to advance women’s rights. The New Agenda will bring about a systemic change in the way women are treated in the media, by the government, at the workplace, and at home. To achieve our goals, we will empower women by working towards parity in the government and in the workplace. The New Agenda will also formulate an agenda based on core women’s issues which we will promote in a non-partisan fashion. The New Agenda will speak out for the millions of women in this great country who often have no voice. Good on you, Harriet!

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August 25th marked the 15th anniversary of the death of my friend and classmate from Stanford, Amy Biehl. In 1993, Amy was finishing up a year in Cape Town, South Africa. She had won a Fulbright Scholarship to study women’s issues in South Africa and was soon to start work on a doctorate at Princeton. On that fateful day, Amy drove a few friends back to their homes in black township outside Cape Town. After dropping them off, Amy came upon an anti-apartheid march that took their frustration out on Amy. She was pulled from the car and beaten to death.

At Stanford, Amy and I took French together for two years. We were more the casual friends than close friends but we share many long chats in both English and French over this and that. She was a also a diver on the women’s swimming and diving team. Always cheerful and with a smile to share, Amy truly was a joy.

Amy’s story did not end with her sensless death. Her parents did not blame the mob that killed Amy, they blamed apartheid regime. In one of the most unbelieveable acts of true forgiveness, the Biehls even hired two of Amy’s killers to work in the foundation they set up in Amy’s memory, Amy Biehl Foundation. The Amy Biehl Foundation draws breath and inspiration from Amy and her example. It is a creation of family and friends who loved her in life, and is now extended by many hundreds of new friends - young and old - who want to make a constructive difference in their world and who enjoy doing this in Amy’s name. Among its many projects are a high school and women’s vocational training centers.

Tonight some of us from those sweet days on The Farm, as Stanford is affectionally called, met to celebrate the life of our friend. She remains deep in our hearts and we remain determined to carry on with her social justice causes.

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I touched on this story earlier in the week but the story is gaining traction as it gets reported in the world’s newspapers. Here are two reports on the story, first from the New York Times and then from the UK Independent.

The five women were from the village of Baba Kot, Department of Jafferabad, in the province of Baluchistan (southwestern Pakistan) and members of the Umrani tribe. The three young women, all teenagers, had decided to get married before a civil court in the town of Usta Mohammad, going against decision by members of their tribe. The two other women, who were older, were members of their families.

According to information collected by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH — a French based group) affiliated league in the country, their plan was discovered, and on and July 13, 2008, the five women were reportedly captured and transported in a car with provincial government plates to the desert by several men, including Mr. Abdul Sattar Umrani. the younger brother of Sadiq Ali Umrani, the Minister for Housing in the Baluchistan provincial government and a member of the ruling party. Having struck three of the young women, the men opened fire on them, seriously wounding them but not killing them outright. They then covered their bodies with earth and stones, while they were still alive. The two other older women, aged 45 and 38, were then also buried alive for trying to help and rescue the teen-aged victims.

This is Pakistan. Honour killings in Pakistan number in the hundreds annually. Women are buried alive, hanged, stoned or simply beaten to death. Add to this over 3,000 women annually who are defaced and scarred with acid or burnt with kerosene oil. Young girls are often sold by their parents into slavery, sometimes in public. Beyond that there is just simply what’s more common throughout the world, widespread domestic violence.

As I noted earlier, the killings have been defended by politicians from Baluchistan. Reacting to a female colleague’s attempt to raise the issue in parliament, Israrullah Zehri said such acts were part of a “centuries-old tradition” and he would “continue to defend them”. That only sparked further outrage with various women’s groups taking to the streets demanding action against “a heinous crime against humanity”.

Below the fold a report on the state of women’s rights in Pakistan. (more…)

I have written on this subject before but whenever I see a report on the role of women in Rwandan politics and economic life, I will likely highlighted it because it is a success story born out of a horrible tragedy. Rwanda has the participation of women in politics of any country in the world. In the wake of April 1994 genocide, the country was left with a gender imbalance. More men than women were killed so it was incumbent upon the survivors to step up and play new roles in the country’s life. The women of Rwanda have and they are changing the country in far-reaching but not unexpected ways.

Today 48% of the Rwandan parliament’s members are women and the Constitution now requires at least 30% of the seats be reserved for women. In Rwanda’s 80 seat Chamber of Deputies, 39 are women. This has had far-reaching political consequences because female lawmakers have very different legislative priorities. Rwanda’s investment has increased four-fold in education and health care over the past ten years. Rwanda now spends more per capita on education in sub-Saharan Africa than any other country except for Botswana.

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The abuse of women in the Islamic world is well known but no where it does it approach the level found in Pakistan. The above women had their faces burnt with acid or kerosene oil. Often the assailant is a spouse or a family member, sometimes a jilted male. Generally they involve some perceived slight of honour. The number of annual cases in Pakistan (and to a lesser extent in Afghanistan) runs over 3,000. Smile Again is a non-profit based in Lahore dedicated to help female survivors of acid and kerosene oil burns in Pakistan by providing them essential first-aid treatment, appropriate medical attention and reconstructive surgery, psychological/ psychiatric support, shelter and vocational training as well as to create social awareness and sensitivity, working towards the complete eradication of this heinous crime.

But in Pakistan women are not just disfigured over “honour,” they can be killed. Stoning women alive is not uncommon nor burying them alive. But it is rare to have the practice defended by members of the Pakistani government. From Pakistan’s Daily Times:

The killing of women for honour is a demand of the tribal traditions, Balochistan Senator Israrullah Zehri informed the Senate on Friday.

Zehri was responding to Senator Yasmeen Shah’s statement in which she had drawn the House’s attention towards reports that five women had been buried alive in Balochistan in the name of honour. She called it a sheer violation of human rights.

Zehri asked the members not to politicise the issue, as it was a matter of safeguarding the tribal traditions.

Leader of the Opposition in Senate Kamil Ali Agha condemned the killing of women in the name of honour and demanded the issue should be referred to the Human Rights Standing Committee of the House.

(more…)

Here is news from Latin America.

Honduras Becomes ALBA’s Sixth Member
ALBA stands for Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas or Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. Honduras today joined the group becoming its sixth member. The group was founded by Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Cuba’s Fidel Castro in December 2004 with the goal of encouraging intergration in Latin America along leftist lines. The group has not met with much success and still retains undefined goals. Other members of the group include Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.

Brazil’s Bid to Host the Olympic Games in 2016
With the Olympic Games in Beijing now a memory and London the host for the games in 2012, the race is on for the rights to host the games in 2016. The Olympic Games have never been held in South America and only once in Latin America (Mexico City in 1968) but Rio de Janiero hopes to secure the games with its bid. Rio de Janiero recently up its chances of hosting the games with very successful and organized Pan American Games held there last year. The video below is part of its bid promotion.

Mexico City’s Abortion Struggles
When Mexico City’s government made abortion legal last year, it also set out to make it available to any woman who asked for one. That includes the city’s poorest, who for years resorted to illegal clinics and midwives as wealthy women visited private doctors willing to quietly end unwanted pregnancies. But helping poor women gain equal access to the procedure has turned out to be almost as complicated as passing the law, a watershed event in this Catholic country and in a region where almost all countries severely restrict abortions. More from the New York Times.

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‘A thin girl could be blown away in the wind, people think she is a stick and she will never find a husband.’

Mauritanian women have traditionally aspired to gain excess weight, which symbolizes beauty and wealth as well as hastening the onset of puberty, but norms are changing as awareness spreads about the health risks associated with obesity. The practice is called gavache from the French practice of fattening geese for foie gras.

In particular, critics are speaking out about the health problems suffered by girls who are fattened at a young age through force-feeding. Over the course their lives, Mauritanian women “risk developing serious cardiovascular problems, hypertension, gall bladder problems and diabetes.” Barely into their 40s, fattened women are dying from obesity-related diseases. Mauritania is one of those rare countries where male and female life expectancy does not differ much. 54.1 years for women and 54.9 years for men. I have seen other statistics that point a life expectancy of 64 years in Mauritania but those discount the infant mortality rate. Thus a Mauritanian. child who survives his or her fifth birthday can expect to reach 64 years on average.

More on the practice of force-feeding young girls in Mauritania below the fold. (more…)

Mauritania is an Islamic state in north west Africa trying to confront a rape crisis. Often the victims are young girls. Statistics are hard to come by since rapes have largely gone unreported though that is beginning to change. Prior to 2003, survivors of rape in Mauritania were thrown in jail while the perpetrators went free. Hardly the environment where you would want to report a rape.

Through the efforts of four mid-wives who began speaking out after hearing repeated stories of sexual assault and abuse, Mauritania has been forced to confront the issue of rape. With United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) support, the first statistics on sexual violence in Mauritania are now being collected, and a centre was established to respond to the multiple needs of survivors. Breaking the taboos surrounding the discussion of rape was the first step in addressing the problem. Local imams lent their support to the effort, convincing government officials, judges, the police and members of the community that protecting women and easing the suffering of those who are most vulnerable was a religious obligation. In the last year in Mauritania’s capital, Nouakchott, the number of reported sexual assaults tripled. It is believed, or at least hoped, that is more from an increase in reporting than from an increase in rape but without proper statistics, it is hard to tell.

From All Africa:

The Mauritanian government says it is trying to increase prosecutions of rape cases but poorly trained judges working with murky, outdated legal texts make for slow progress.

The penal code, which is heavily based on Sharia or Islamic law, does not give a precise definition of sexual violence, said lawyer Bilal Ould Dik, so a judge’s personal point of view can strongly sway his conviction decision.

“Rape convictions are very rare [in Mauritania] because we are working with such unclear legal texts,” he told IRIN. As a result, “rapes often just end with a settlement between the family of the perpetrator and the victim”.

And, according to Dik, many judges automatically label sexual abuses as voluntary sexual relations occurring outside of marriage, known as the crime of ‘zina’ in Mauritania.

“For many judges, the rape victim is 50 percent responsible for what has happened to them,” said Zeinebou mint Taleb Moussam, chairwoman of non-governmental organisation (NGO) Mauritanian association for the health of mothers and children (AMSME).

While the number of reported rapes in the capital Nouakchott has tripled from 25 to 75 in the past year, according to Ahmed Seyfer head of child protection for UNICEF, next to none of the perpetrators were punished.

(more…)

Worldwide there are approximately 27 million slaves, more than at any time in history. Across the world, the majority of these slaves are women and often they are girls as young as five. In Nepal, thousands of young girls are sold into slavery each year by their desperately poor parents. If the girls are lucky, they will be sold to a wealthy family in Kathmandu; if they are not, they may end up in a brothel in India.

One California woman, Olga Murray, is working to end slavery in Nepal and she has set up a non-profit that is doing amazing work. Her non-profit is called the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation.

The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF) is a U.S. based nonprofit organization devoted to bringing hope to the most destitute children in the beautiful but impoverished Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal. With a personal touch, we provide them with what should be every child’s birthright - education, housing, medical care, and loving support. Empowered to reach their potentials, these children blossom, enriching the world we all share.

Because dollars go far in Nepal, we can literally change lives for pennies a day. Our partners in this work are private foundations and individuals around the world and non-governmental organizations in Nepal. NYOF was founded by Olga Murray in 1990.

For $50 USD, you can save the life of a young Nepalese Girl. For $100 USD, you can save a life and send that life to school for a year.

New Coverage of Olga Murray
ABC News with video.
San Francisco Chronicle.

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Cross-posted from The Global Sociology Blog. My post, my views.

Via Context Crawler, thanks to a new article in the American Sociological Review, we should revisit the zombie meme of Opt-Out, the already-debunked idea that women are leaving the workforce to return to homemaking responsibilities. It is a meme that won’t die (hence, the zombie part) because it seems to validate the social conservative and “family values” crowd that women REALLY belong at home with their children and if everyone understood and abide by that, the entire society would be better off.

The correlated belief is that the family is the base institutional structure of society, which has not been true in several centuries, as Stephanie Coontz has aptly demonstrated. But then, social conservatives and “family values experts” are never really bothered by facts and truth. After all, they still maintain that abstinence-only program and virginity pledges work, despite the evidence.

But back to the Opt-Out myth.

According to sociologist Christine Percheski, the author of the ASR article, debunks the myth:

“Despite anecdotal reports of successful working women returning to the home to assume child care responsibilities, less than 8 percent of professional women born since 1956 leave the workforce for a year or more during their prime childbearing years, according to the study,

Percheski’s research shows that the number of women with young children who work full-time year-round has increased steadily, growing from a rate of 5.6 percent of women born 1926 to 1935 (referred to as the “Baby Boom Parents” by Percheski), to 38.1 percent of women from Generation X (born 1966 to 1975). More professional Generation X mothers of young children were working full-time year-round than their counterparts in any previous generation.

Percheski finds that among mothers of older children (those age 6 to 18), full-time employment is the norm for professional women of Generation X.”

(more…)