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	Women as a Force for Change by Nicholas D. Kristof The New York Times   As “women’s empowerment” has become a buzz phrase in the last few years, some people are pushing back. They resent this as the latest fad in political correctness, a liberal mission to troll for support from woolly-minded female voters.   But a few recent incidents have underscored why a push on gender equity isn’t just a mindless fad and why it’s not primarily about political correctness.   Consider Marte Dalelv, the 24-year-old Norwegian woman who reported a rape in Dubai — and then was sentenced to 16 months in prison on charges that included extramarital sex. That was, she said, three months longer than the alleged rapist’s prison sentence. After an outcry, the authorities “pardoned” Dalelv (and also, according to news-media reports, her alleged rapist). That’s the first reason “empowerment” isn’t just a feel-good slogan: profound gender injustices persist —not just in Dubai but also, albeit to a lesser extent, in the United States.   The United States military has a deplorable record of sexual violence within its ranks, with an estimated 26,000 service members experiencing unwanted sexual contact annually. Yet President Obama has so far declined to back the sensible, bipartisan and broadly supported proposal of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to improve investigations of rape in the military and reduce conflicts of interest.   Add to the toxic brew of sexual violence the Steubenville rape case, widespread sex trafficking and laws in many states that give rapists custody rights to children they father. Ariel Castro, the Cleveland man who held three women in his house for about a decade, has already requested visitation with a child he fathered by rape — although a judge declined the request.   The political backdrop is frustration that women aren’t fully represented in decisions that affect them, and that’s a second reason this issue reverberates. That’s why State Senator Wendy Davis of Texas electrified the social media when she filibustered restrictive abortion legislation. It’s not that men favor tougher abortion laws than women (that’s an issue with a negligible gender gap) but that plenty of women feel bullied by out-of-touch male lawmakers.   Anyone thinking that women’s empowerment is a side issue also wasn’t paying attention when Malala Yousafzai, shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban for advocating girls’ education, spoke to the United Nations in July on her 16th birthday. Malala highlighted the third reason to focus on empowering women and girls. It’s perhaps the best leverage we have to fight social ills.   As Malala noted, a powerful force for change in the world is education, especially girls’ education. The United States has invested thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11 and accomplished little; maybe we should have invested more in the education toolbox. Drones and military patrols sometimes reinforce extremism, while girls’ education tends to undermine it.   Change can come not only from a bomb but also from a girl with a schoolbook studying under a tree or in a mosque. She will, on average, have fewer children, be more likely to hold a job and exercise more influence; her brothers and her children will be less likely to join the Taliban.   Likewise, women’s health programs aren’t a chivalrous handout but a cost-effective step toward a healthier society. The Guttmacher Institute reported this week that without publicly financed contraception programs in 2010 the unintended pregnancy rate among teenagers would have been 73 percent higher. And lawmakers want to cut such programs?   A final insight into women as leverage for change came during my annual journey, in which I take a student with me on a reporting trip. The winner, Erin Luhmann of the University of Wisconsin, and I delved into the malnutrition that contributes to 45 percent of all child deaths around the world.   So how do we save those millions of lives? It’s not just about transporting more food to the hungry or about improving agricultural yields in Africa. It’s also about yes empowering women.   In rural Chad, we accompanied World Vision and chatted with local women about why children were malnourished. One factor there, as in much of the world: Men eat first, and women and children take what’s left.   “We know about malnutrition,” one said, but if the meat doesn’t go mostly to the man, she added, “there is trouble in the house.”   Researchers have found that giving women land titles, inheritance rights and bank accounts aren’t just symbolic gestures. Rather, they are strategies to increase women’s influence in household decisions and save children’s lives.   So to those of you who chafe at “women’s rights” as political correctness run amok, think again. This isn’t a women’s issue or a man’s issue, for Malala is exactly right: “We cannot all succeed if half of us are held back.” Visit the related web page
	Rights group urges action over journalist killings by Alertnet, Committee to Project Journalists   Aug 2013   Rights group urges action over journalist killings in Philippines, by Thin Lei Win.   Bangkok:– The Filipino government must act to bring the killers of three local journalists to justice and stop further violence, Human Rights Watch said, adding their deaths underscore the precarious state of media freedom in the country.   Two journalists working for the now-defunct weekly tabloid Aksyon Ngayon in Quezon City, Metro Manila, were killed by gunmen on a motorcycle on the night of July 30. Richard Kho, 47 and Bonifacio Loreto Jr., 59, were talking outside Loreto’s home when the gunmen fired at them at close range.   Two days later, unidentified gunmen shot dead a freelance photojournalist, Mario Sy, 53, in the southern city of General Santos in front of his wife and daughter.   “While the killers and motives are unknown, these and past unresolved attacks on journalists have a chilling effect on media freedom in the country,” said Human Rights Watch in a statement.   In the same week, broadcast journalist Ces Drilon received text messages threatening to “erase” her, HRW added, urging the government of Benigno Aquino to take action.   “Unless the government brings people who attack journalists to justice, these killings are not going to stop,” Phelim Kine, HRW’s deputy Asia director, said in the statement. “President Aquino needs to realise that this problem won’t go away on its own.”   Journalists in the Philippines have long been targeted for their work. The worst incident was in November 2009 when 58 people, including more than 30 reporters, who had accompanied a family as one of its members filed election papers for the post of provincial governor were massacred in the southern Philippines island of Mindanao.   The International Crisis Group (ICG) called the attack “one of the worst acts of political violence in modern Philippine history, and the largest number of journalists slain on a single day ever, anywhere in the world.”   If last week’s deaths are related to the reporters’ profession, they would bring the number of Filipino journalists killed in connection with their work this year to six, putting the Philippines “among the world’s deadliest countries for media personnel, alongside Syria and Pakistan,” said Reporters Without Borders.   The Committee to Project Journalists says 73 journalists have been killed since 1992 but local groups say the number is higher.   http://www.trust.org/item/20130809101540-v57od/?source=dpagehead   Tanzanian journalists self-censor for fear of attack, harassment, by Kizito Makoye.   Dar Es Salaam:- Conditions for journalists are worsening in Tanzania, with reporters increasingly being harassed, attacked and censoring their work out of fear of reprisal, a study has found.   Afraid of offend the authorities and worried about their safety, journalists are failing to report the whole story on topics like corruption and political and civil unrest, said the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based non-profit organisation that defends press freedom around the world.   The Tanzanian media has not been able to operate independently for the past eight years due to insecurity and fear of reprisals, the CPJ said in a report entitled The Invisible Plight of the Tanzania Press.   “The rise in attacks against the press, set against a backdrop of repressive media laws, is sowing self-censorship among Tanzanian journalists, especially those working in rural areas. Public protests against the government in rural places have gone uncovered as a result of this fear,” said the report.   As an example, the CPJ cited press coverage of recent protests against the construction of a gas pipeline in the Mtwara region. It said the demonstrations and perceptions that police used excessive force to disperse the crowds went under-reported.   “The police barred journalists from covering open court trials of protesters accused of instigating violence,” said Mohammed Tibanyendera, chairman of the Tanzania chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, in the report.   The report called for Tanzania to bring in new legislation on the media that meets international standards for press freedom and to scrap repressive laws. Authorities have traditionally relied on a web of anti-press laws to keep journalists in check, the report said.   Some local journalists suggested the mere existence of such laws made their work difficult.   “Fear of closure is enough to keep us quiet,” said veteran journalist Tido Mhando, CEO of Mwananchi Communications, which publishes three private papers, according to the report.   The CPJ said the government had routinely used the 1976 Newspaper Act to ban publications it deems seditious. Although Tanzania has signed the Open Government Partnership Initiative, a U.S.-led multilateral effort to promote transparency, it has so far not made any commitment to pass legislation on access to information, it added.   The CPJ report, compiled by Tom Rhodes, documented 10 serious attacks and threats on the press in the past year, including the brutal killing of veteran TV journalist Daudi Mwangosi in September 2012. It also mentioned an attack on the chairman of the Tanzania Editors Forum, Absalom Kibanda, in March, in which unknown assailants chopped off his finger, pierced his left eye and removed several of his teeth and finger nails.   The report said attacks on journalists call into question Tanzania’s international image as a place of good governance, transparency and democracy.   “Few in the international community seem aware that the Tanzanian leadership has become so thin-skinned or that press conditions have declined so much,” it added.   Tanzania has been losing ground in the global press freedom rankings. In the 2013 World Press Freedom Index, it fell 36 places from the previous year and is now ranked number 70 out of 179 countries surveyed.   The report also warned that attacks on journalists undermine independent news coverage at a time when the country’s main opposition party, Chama Cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (CHADEMA) is making what the CPJ described as real inroads against the ruling party, which has dominated Tanzanian politics since independence.   But police officers are not the only people reporters have to worry about. Sometimes they need to be wary of other journalists.   “Politicians are dividing journalists against one another. Since many journalists are not financially stable, it’s easy for officials to destabilise them,” said Neville Meena, secretary-general of the Tanzania Editors Forum, in the report.   As tensions increase, the level of distrust among journalists has also risen. Local journalists freely tell stories of colleagues hacking their computer files or conspiring with police against them.   http://www.trust.org/item/20130809145951-roewi/?source=dpagehead Visit the related web page
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