Reporting on Conflict | Media Watch Blog

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A first for UVic! Produced by the International Women’s Rights Project at the Centre for Global Studies, and Rooney Productions, the documentary film, Constitute!, profiles the diverse history of women’s democratic activism in constitution-making in Canada and the world. The film focuses on how citizens across Canada organized and lobbied to ensure that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms would include the equality provisions that came to be Sections 15 and 28, in the newly repatriated Canadian Constitution. Celebrate Person’s Day for 2010 by joining us for the Canada wide preview of the documentary film Constitute!

With guest speakers Donna Greschner, Dean of the Faculty of Law; Marilou McPhedran, Principal of the Global College at the University of Winnipeg, founding mother of LEAF and a noted human rights activist; and Susan Bazilli, IWRP Director and producer of Constitute!

Wednesday, October 13th
7:00 to 9:00 pm
Fraser Building, Room 157
A reception hosted by the Faculty of Law will be held after the panel discussion.
Sponsored by Brown Henderson Melbye, Faculty of Law, and IWRP

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• 31 August 2010
• New York Times
• By Amy Ernst

A recent graduate from Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Amy was volunteering as a rape crisis counselor in Chicago when she learned about the alarming levels of sexual violence in Congo. When Amy told family and friends that she wanted to relocate to the Democratic Republic of Congo, her cousin gave her the email address of Father Charles, a Catholic priest from the war-torn province of North Kivu. Father Charles found housing for her with the Crosiers, an order of monks and priests, and also introduced her to Maman Marie Nzoli, who works with victims of the ongoing war, especially rape victims.

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• August 2010
• Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs

Scholars and practitioners have devoted increasing attention to the roles played by religious leaders and communities, both in instigating and prolonging violent conflict and in negotiating and building peace. In much of the world, formal religious leadership tends to be heavily dominated by men, and so investigations of religion and conflict have tended to focus on men’s perspectives and roles. Women’s engagement in religious peacemaking has received far less attention and their perspectives, needs, and unique leverage are often largely ignored in the design of traditional religious peacemaking initiatives. However, women often play critical roles in conflict situations…. Recent Interviews

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• 14 August 2010
• Globe and Mail
• By Josh Wingrove

Fort McMurray community worker Joanne Roberts began her part of a rotating hunger strike Sun., Aug. 15. The protesters say they won’t stop until they get provincial money for a badly needed women’s shelter in the oil-sands boomtown.

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• 10 August 2010
• Phnom Penh Post
• By Mom Kunthear and Brooke Lewis

THE last time we saw her, Ana, formerly a glamourous young celebrity with a penchant for other women’s husbands, was lying in a hospital bed, stripped of her beauty after being attacked by two jealous wives who poured 5 litres of acid over her face and body.

Fortunately, Ana is a fictional character in a Cambodian soap opera, and she is being touted by the show’s producer as the first television protagonist to become the victim of an acid attack.

Poan Phoung Bopha, producer of Women Tricks, a popular primetime soap opera, said yesterday that she wanted to use Ana to foster a discussion among viewers about acid violence, as the issue is rarely raised in popular culture.

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• 9 August 2010
• Huffington Post
• USA" "Ninety years ago, on Aug. 26, 1920, women finally won the vote after an excruciating yet nonviolent campaign to gain it."
• By Ellen Snortland

“A man of quality is not threatened by a woman for equality.”

That’s a familiar bumper sticker slogan for some of us. Men are crucial to any social movement, especially the gender equality revolution. That’s kind of a no-brainer, right? I especially want men to stand with us for the 90th anniversary of women’s right to vote on August 26.

As some of my readers know, I’ve been a goodwill ambassador for the National Women’s History Project for a few years now. I beat the drum at the beginning of every August to encourage all people — not only women — to mark August 26 in some way. Ninety years ago, on Aug. 26, 1920, women finally won the vote after an excruciating yet nonviolent campaign to gain it.

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• 6 August 2010
• IRIN

KABUL – Former Deputy Health Minister Faizullah Kakar recently completed a study (published in Dari) indicating that rising numbers of women and girls aged 15-40 are attempting suicide in Afghanistan. His findings were presented at a news conference in Kabul on 31 July.

The study, based on Health Ministry records and hospital reports, said an estimated 2,300 women or girls were attempting suicide annually – mainly due to mental illness, domestic violence and/or socio-economic hardship. “This is a several-fold increase on three decades ago,” said Kakar, currently a health adviser to President Hamid Karzai.

Social disorder, loss of loved ones, displacement, food insecurity, poverty, illiteracy, drug addiction, and lack of access to healthcare services – all caused or aggravated by over three decades of war – also played their part, said Kakar.

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• 4 August 2010
• Sabria's Out of the Box
• By Sabria S. Jawhar

I last wrote about pending legislation to ban burqas in Europe more than a year ago when France first proposed laws to make it illegal to wear the burqa in public. Proposed legislation is pending with a final vote set in September.

There is no argument that can persuade me that laws designed to bully women into abandoning their cultural traditions because it makes people uncomfortable are essential in a free society. If a woman chooses to wear the niqab who are we to pass judgment? Lawmakers who argue that banning the burqa is a blow against extremism are naïve and lazy. Band-Aid approaches to fighting extremism are rarely successful. It only serves to pander to the ignorance and unfounded fears of politicians’ constituents.

Yet I have grown to hate the burqa. I hate the burqa because it serves no logical purpose in Western society. The intent of the clothing is to draw attention away from the woman, but in the West it only attracts unwanted attention.

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• 3 August 2010
• Daily Times
• By Mahtab Bashir

ISLAMABAD: Participants here at a seminar on Monday called upon the government to fulfill its obligations under the UN resolution 1325 to ensure protection of rights of women during conflicts and wars.

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• Originally published 27 July 2010
• All Africa
• By Phillip Kurata

Ariane Inkesha has a vision that 50 years from now Africa will have been transformed by education.

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• 24 June 2010
• Canadian Bar Association

VANCOUVER – The establishment of a Public Commission on Legal Aid (Public Commission) is announced today in British Columbia. The Public Commission is a joint project of the Canadian Bar Association – British Columbia Branch, the Law Society of British Columbia, the Law Foundation of British Columbia, the British Columbia Crown Counsel Association, the Vancouver Bar Association and the Victoria Bar Association.

The goal of the Public Commission is to engage the people of British Columbia regarding legal aid in the province through a series of cross-provincial Commission Hearings that will commence in September of 2010. Upon completion of the hearings, a comprehensive written report will be prepared and delivered to the governments of British Columbia and Canada.

The president of the Canadian Bar Association – British Columbia Branch, James Bond, notes several reasons behind the formation of the Public Commission. “There are simply not sufficient legal aid services available for British Columbians who need them. Funding which was cut several years ago has never been restored, and government funding has largely remained static in recent years. In addition, economic factors have had an adverse effect on other funding sources, while demand for legal aid services has increased,” says Bond. “There is a recognition however, that unless government hears that the people of British Columbia consider legal aid a priority, it is unlikely that the difficulties which legal aid programs have faced over the last two decades are going to change.”

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• 8 June 2010
• Forbes
• By James Epstein-Reeves

Just a few decades ago, “CSR” meant customer service representative. My, how things have changed!

Corporate social responsibility is now a profession. Business schools feature CSR curricula while the popularity of sustainability professional organizations such as Net Impact have exploded. Even CSR-focused think-tanks and trade media have proliferated: The Corporate Responsibility Officers Association joined the ranks of Ethical Corporation which followed Business for Social Responsibility that stood on the shoulders of the Center for Corporate Community Relations (now the Boston College Center on Corporate Citizenship).

It wasn’t always so. CSR, as we now know it, sprung out of the apparel industry’s use of sweatshop and child labor. There are two pivotal events that changed the expectations of business to evaluate the social and environmental impact of its supply chain: the exposure of Nike’s business model and Kathie Lee Gifford’s clothing line.

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• 12 May 2010
• Israel21c
• By Karin Kloosterman

An Israeli-American academic has initiated a program that may both advance disadvantaged women from Israel and Jordan and build peace among nations.

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• 6 May 2010
• Common Ground News Service
• By Asma Asfour

RAMALLAH – It is not easy for a Palestinian woman to say that she wants to work against violent extremism in the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

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• 4 May 2010
• IPS
• By Gonzalo Ortiz

Seventeen-year-old Miriam Toaquiza is the only occupant of the teenage mothers’ ward in the public hospital in this Andean city. Beside her in the bed is Jennifer, her newborn baby.

She is relaxed and smiling, in spite of having to stay in hospital longer than expected because of a postpartum complication.

“Are they looking after you all right, dear?” asks Julio Guerrero. “Yes,” she replies. “Have they charged you for any medicines or for anything they have given you?” “No,” she says. “Has anybody asked you to pay for anything at all?” he asks again. “No, it’s all free, because of the free maternity programme,” she says cheerfully.

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• week of May
• World Vision Report

Recently the upper house of India’s Parliament agreed on something rather contentious – a quota system for women in government. According to the bill, a third of the Parliament seats will be reserved for women. The bill has moved to the lower house, but support there seems likely.

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• 30 April 2010
• Radio Free Europe
• By Golnaz Esfandiari

I wasn’t surprised when I read the comments by Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi in which he claimed that women who don’t dress modestly lead men astray and even cause earthquakes. In fact, I was amused, thinking he was being was unusually imaginative in his reasoning.

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• 30 April 2010
• UN Dispatch | NPR
• By Mark Leon Goldberg

Michel Martin of National Public Radio spotlights UN efforts to combat rape as a tactic of warfare. She interviews Margot Wallstrom, the Special Representative for Sexual Violence in Conflict–the first person to hold the position. “If we can ban cluster bombs, we can ban rape as a weapon of conflict.”

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• 29 April 2010
• Canadian Charger | originally published in The KW Record, 27 April 2010
• By Liz Monteiro

KITCHENER – More than 200 people attended the session — Let Us talk: An Open Discussion on the Niqab ban — organized by a grassroots group of concerned Muslim women. The group wanted to raise awareness in the community about the ban and bring people together to talk openly about how to support one another.

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• 29 April 2010
• Jordan Times
• By Laila Azzeh

AMMAN –– A majority of Jordanian women consider cultural traditions as the main cause of violence against women (VAW), according to a study issued on Tuesday.

“Violence Against Women: Breaking the Circles of Silence”, a case study compiled by the Arab Women’s Organisation of Jordan, in cooperation with the EU, revealed that 12 per cent of women consider misinterpretation of religion to be the main cause for such violence.