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	International Women’s Day - Not one single country has achieved equality by UN Women, agencies   In 2015, International Women’s Day, celebrated globally on 8 March, highlights the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a historic roadmap signed by 189 governments 20 years ago that sets the agenda for realizing women’s rights. While there have been many achievements since then, many serious gaps remain.   This is the time to uphold women’s achievements, recognize challenges, and focus greater attention on women’s rights and gender equality to mobilize all people to do their part.   The Beijing Platform for Action focuses on 12 critical areas of concern, and envisions a world where each woman and girl can exercise her choices, such as participating in politics, getting an education, having an income, and living in societies free from violence and discrimination.   To this end, the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is the call of UN Women’s Beijing+20 campaign “Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity!”   We call on countries to “step it up” for gender equality - Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women   In 1995, at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, world leaders committed to a future where women are equal.   One hundred and eighty nine countries and 4,000 civil society organizations, attended the conference.   Women left Beijing with high hopes, with a well-defined path towards equality, and firm commitments at the highest level. Their hope was that we would see this by 2005.   Today, not one single country has achieved equality. It is more urgent than ever that we define – and stick to – a time frame.   There has been some progress in the last 20 years – although it has been slow and uneven.   Countries have narrowed the gender gap in education and some have even reached gender parity in school enrollment.   They have reduced the toll of maternal mortality and morbidity. Many more women survive pregnancy and childbirth than in 1995.   Many countries have created institutions that address gender inequality. Many have passed laws against gender-based discrimination. Many have made domestic violence a crime. This is all good news.   And yet we are still a long way from achieving equality between men and women, boys and girls.   Implementation of good policies has been patchy. Allocation of the resources needed for effective implementation has been insufficient to fund women’s ministries, gender commissions, gender focal points, and gender-responsive budgeting.   For too many women, especially in the least-developed countries, not enough has changed.   In Africa, 70 per cent of crop production depends on women yet women still own only 2 per cent of the land.   Violence against women continues to blight lives in all countries of the world.   And no country has achieved gender equality.   Women need change and humanity needs change. This we can do together; women and girls, men and boys, young and old, rich and poor.   The evidence is overwhelming of the benefits that equality can bring. Economies grow, poverty is alleviated, health status climbs, and communities are more stable and resilient to environmental or humanitarian crises.   Women want their leaders to renew the promises made to them. They want leaders to recommit to the Beijing Declaration, to the Platform for Action, and to accelerated and bolder implementation.   They want more of their leaders to be women. And they want those women, together with men, to dare to change the economic and political paradigms. Gender parity must be reached before 2030, so that we avert the sluggish trajectory of progress that condemns a child born today to wait 80 years before they see an equal world.   Today, on International Women’s Day, we call on countries to “step it up” for gender equality, with substantive progress by 2020. Our aim is to reach ‘Planet 50:50’ before 2030.   The world needs full equality in order for humanity to prosper.   Empower women, empower humanity. I am sure you can picture an equal world!   Grant Women Land Rights, by Monique Barbut - Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.   Women are not only the world’s primary food producers. They are hardworking and innovative and, they invest far more of their earnings in their families than men. But most lack the single most important asset for accessing investment resources – land rights.   Women’s resourcefulness is astonishing, but they are no fools. They invest their income where they are most likely to see returns, but not in the land they have no rights to. Land tenure is the powerful political tool that governments use to give or deny these rights. We are paying a high price for the failure to grant land rights to the women who play a vital role in agriculture.   Women produce up to 80 per cent of the total food and make up 43 per cent of the labour force in developing countries. Yet 95 per cent of agricultural education programmes exclude them.   In Asia and Africa, a woman’s weekly work is up to 13 hours longer than a man’s. Furthermore, women spend nearly all their earnings on their families, whereas men divert a quarter of their income to other expenses. But most have no rights to the land they till.   Land rights level the playing field by giving both men and women the same access to vital agricultural resources. The knock-on effect is striking. Granting land rights to women can raise farm production by 20-30 per cent in developing countries, and increase a country’s total agricultural production by up to 4 per cent.   This is critical at a time when we are losing 12 million hectares of fertile land each year, but need to raise our food production by up to 70 per cent by 2050 due to population growth and consumption trends – not to mention climate change.   In rural Latin America, only 25 per cent of the land holdings are owned by women. This drops to 15 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa and to less than 5 per cent in western Asia and northern Africa. These are shocking figures, and yet they may be even more optimistic than the reality.   A recent study in Uganda, for instance, shows that even when men and women nominally jointly own land, the woman’s name may not appear in any of the documentation. If a husband dies, divorces or decides to sell the land, his wife has no recourse to asserting her land rights.   Women are grimly aware that without land rights, they could lose their land to powerful individuals at any moment. Where, then, is the incentive to invest in the land; especially if you’re hungry now? Instead, those without rights take what they can from the land before they move to greener pastures. This adds to the unfortunate, yet preventable, spiral of land degradation.   At least 500 million hectares of previously fertile agricultural land is abandoned. And with less than 30 per cent of the land in developing world under secure tenure, there is little hope that these trends will change. The lack of secure land tenure remains a vital challenge for curbing land degradation in developing countries.   Among the rural poor, men are often the main beneficiaries. But granting land rights to both men and women will narrow inequalities and benefit us all.   In Nepal, women with strong property rights tend to be food secure, and their children are less likely to be underweight. In Tanzania, women with property rights are earning up to three times more income. In India, women who own land are eight times less likely to experience domestic violence. The social gains from secure land tenure are vast.   For years, women have dealt with land degradation and fed the world without the support they need. Imagine how granting them land rights could power our future. Let’s mark this year’s International Women’s Day by shouting the loudest for the land rights of rural women.   http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-womens-day http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2015/3/collective-failure-of-leadership-on-progress-for-women http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw/feature-stories   UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon"s message on International Women"s Day   Twenty years ago, when the world convened a landmark conference on women’s human rights, the devastating conflict in the former Yugoslavia prompted deserved attention to rape and other war crimes there against civilians. Two decades later, with girls as young as seven not only targeted but used as weapons by violent extremists, it would be easy to lose heart about the value of international gatherings. But while we have a long way to go to achieve full equality – with ending gender-based violence a central goal – progress over the past two decades has proven the enduring value of the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women.   Since the adoption of its Declaration and Platform for Action, more girls have attained more access to more education than ever before. The number of women dying in childbirth has been almost halved. More women are leading businesses, governments and global organizations. I welcome these advances. At the same time, on this International Women’s Day, we must acknowledge that the gains have been too slow and uneven, and that we must do far more to accelerate progress everywhere.   The world must come together in response to the targeting of women and girls by violent extremists. From Nigeria and Somalia to Syria and Iraq, the bodies of women have been transformed into battlegrounds for warriors carrying out specific and systematic strategies, often on the basis of ethnicity or religion.   Women have been attacked for trying to exercise their right to education and basic services; they have been raped and turned into sex slaves; they have been given as prizes to fighters, or traded among extremist groups in trafficking networks. Doctors, nurses and others have been assassinated for trying to operate in their professional capacity.   The women human rights defenders brave enough to challenge such atrocities risk – and sometimes lose – their lives for the cause.   We must take a clear global stance against this total assault on women’s human rights. The international community needs to translate its outrage into meaningful action, including humanitarian aid, psycho-social services, support for livelihoods, and efforts to bring perpetrators to justice. With women and girls often the first targets of attack, their rights must be at the centre of our strategy to address this staggering and growing challenge. Empowered women and girls are the best hope for sustainable development following conflict.   They are the best drivers of growth, the best hope for reconciliation, and the best buffer against radicalization of youth and the repetition of cycles of violence.   Even in societies at peace, too many girls and women are still targets of domestic abuse, female genital mutilation and other forms of violence that traumatize individuals and damage whole societies.   Discrimination remains a barrier that must be shattered. We need to expand opportunities in politics, business and beyond. We need to change mind-sets, especially among men, and engage men in becoming active change-agents themselves. And we must back up our resolve with resources based on the sure understanding that investments in gender equality generate economic progress, social and political inclusion and other benefits that, in turn, foster stability and human dignity.   This is a vital year for advancing the cause of women’s human rights. The international community is hard at work on establishing a new sustainable development agenda that will build on the Millennium Development Goals and shape policies and social investments for the next generation.   To be truly transformative, the post-2015 development agenda must prioritize gender equality and women’s empowerment. The world will never realize 100 per cent of its goals if 50 per cent of its people cannot realize their full potential. When we unleash the power of women, we can secure the future for all.   Mar 2015   More than 1 in 3 women worldwide experience violence, as alarmingly high levels persist, reports UN, by Somini Sengupta. (NYT)   The evidence is ubiquitous. The gang rape of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi sets off an unusual burst of national outrage in India. US colleges face mounting scrutiny about campus rape. In South Sudan, women are assaulted by both sides in the civil war. In Iraq, jihadis enslave women for sex.   Despite the many gains women have made in education, health and even political power in the course of a generation, violence against women and girls worldwide "persists at alarmingly high levels," according to a UN analysis that the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to present to the General Assembly.   About 35 per cent of women worldwide - more than 1 in 3 - said they had experienced violence in their lifetime, whether physical, sexual, or both, the report finds. One in 10 girls under the age of 18 was forced to have sex, it says.   The subject is under sharp focus as delegates from around the world gather to assess how well governments have done since they promised to ensure women"s equality at a landmark conference in Beijing 20 years ago - and what to do next.   Since the Beijing conference, there has been measurable, though mixed, progress on many fronts, according to the UN analysis.   As many girls as boys are now enrolled in primary school, a sharp advance since 1995. Maternal mortality rates have fallen by half. And women are more likely to be in the labour force, though the pay gap is closing so slowly that it will take another 75 years before women and men are paid equally for equal work.   The share of women serving in legislatures has nearly doubled, too, though women still account for only 1 in 5 legislators. All but 32 countries have adopted laws that guarantee gender equality in their constitutions.   But violence against women - including rape, murder and sexual harassment - remains stubbornly high in countries rich and poor, at war and at peace. The United Nations main health agency, the World Health Organisation, found that 38 per cent of women who are murdered are killed by their partners.   Even as women"s groups continue to push for laws that criminalise violence - marital rape is still permitted in many countries - new types of attacks have emerged, some of them online, including rape threats on Twitter.   Where there are laws on the books, like ones that criminalise domestic violence, for instance, they are not reliably enforced.   The economic impact is huge. One recent study found that domestic violence against women and children alone costs the global economy $US4 trillion ($A5.18 trillion).   "Overall, as you look at the world, there have been no large victories in eradicating violence against women," said Valerie Hudson, a professor of politics at Texas A&M University who has developed world maps that chart the status of women. The vast majority of countries, by her metrics, do not have laws that protect women"s physical safety.   In some cases, the laws on the books are the problem, women"s rights advocates say. In some countries, like Nigeria, the law permits a man to beat his wife under certain circumstances. But even when laws are technically adequate, victims often do not feel comfortable going to law enforcement, or they are unable to pay the bribes required to file a police report.   Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of the UN agency for gender equity and women"s empowerment - known as UN Women - said that for the laws to mean anything, governments around the world have to persuade their police officers, judges and medical personnel to take violence against women seriously.   "I am disappointed, I have to be honest," she said about the stubborn hold of violence against women. "More than asking for more laws to be passed, I"m asking for implementation."   According to Equality Now, an advocacy group that tracks laws pertaining to women, 125 countries specifically criminalise domestic violence. But so-called wife-obedience laws still remain in some places. In some others, rapists can get off the hook by marrying those they assault.   Yasmeen Hassan, the group"s executive director, said that governments need to be reminded that they committed to making their laws fair for women. Cultural differences cannot be an excuse, she said. "It"s always a cop-out for governments to not do what they signed up to do," she said.   The new round of global development targets that governments around the world will have to agree to later this year, known as Sustainable Development Goals, includes a separate requirement for women"s equal rights, including how they protect their female citizens from violence.   The latest UN report draws attention to the rise of "extremism and conservatism," and without naming any countries or groups, it argues that what they share is a "resistance to women"s human rights". The assaults and abductions by the Islamic State have brought new urgency to the issue.   Hudson, the academic, said the persistence of violence in so many forms is in part because it can establish domination against women of all kinds, for a broad range of personal and political purposes. A husband can just as easily beat his wife if she is a high school dropout or a college graduate. An entire territory can be claimed if fighters rape the local women - or take them as sex slaves, as is the case of the Islamic State.   "I think violence against women is so darn useful," she said. "That"s why it"ll be so hard to eradicate."   Violence can start before birth. Sex-selective abortions, have been reduced in some countries, as in South Korea, but are higher than ever in other places, like India, and are going up sharply in places like Armenia.   Harassment is commonplace. In the United States, 83 per cent of girls aged 12 to 16 said they had experienced some form of harassment in public schools. In New Delhi, a 2010 study found that 2 out of 3 women said they were harassed more than twice in the last year alone.   Violence against women is often unreported. For instance, a study conducted in the 28 countries of the European Union found that only 14 per cent of women reported their most serious episode of domestic violence to the police.   "Violence against women has epidemic proportions, and is present in every single country around the world," said Lydia Alpizar, executive director of the Association for Women"s Rights in Development,. "Yet it is still not a real priority for most governments."   http://endviolence.un.org/ http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/end-violence-against-women http://www.thelancet.com/series/violence-against-women-and-girls http://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/protected-persons/women http://library.witness.org/product/guide-to-interviewing-survivors-of-sexual-and-gender-based-violence/ http://www.unfpa.org/resources/reporting-gender-based-violence-syria-crisis-journalists-handbook http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2014/violence-against-women-eu-wide-survey-main-results-report http://www.msf.org/article/international-womens-day-surviving-sexual-violence-during-adolescence http://www.amnesty.org/press-releases/2015/03/global-backlash-against-womens-rights-is-having-devastating-toll/ http://www.hrw.org/news-all/681   http://www.womendeliver.org/vote-for-your-favorite-journalists-delivering-for-girls-and-women http://en.rsf.org/women-journalists-commitment-and-05-03-2015,47647.html http://www.ipsnews.net/2015/03/world-misses-its-potential-by-excluding-50-per-cent-of-its-people/ http://www.ipsnews.net/news/gender/ http://www.mercycorps.org/articles/who-are-worlds-toughest-women http://www.trust.org/spotlight/Beijing-20-Will-women-ever-gain-equality/?tab=showcase http://www.trust.org/spotlight/women-and-climate-change/?source=fiSpotlights http://noceilings.org/#stories   http://one.org/international/take-action/poverty-is-sexist/#section-4 http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/some-inspiring-videos-ahead-of-international-womens-day-on-sunday-but-first-the-policy-paper/ http://www.developmenthorizons.com/2015/03/are-gender-constraints-main-roadblock.html http://www.actionaid.org/what-we-do/womens-rights http://www.awid.org/ http://issuu.com/awid/docs/wmm_final http://reliefweb.int/topics/gender   http://plan-international.org/girls/ http://www.girleffect.org/the-girl-effect-in-action/girl-declaration/ http://www.care.org/work/womens-empowerment http://www.unicef.org/gender/ http://www.wfp.org/focus-on-women http://www.mg.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/womens-empowerment.html http://www.unfpa.org/news/international-women%E2%80%99s-day-marks-20-years-progress http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=50283#.VQDhdI6pX-Y
	Land rights defenders are increasingly the target of repressive measures by Karim Lahidji, Gerald Staberock The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders   Paris-Geneva, December 2, 2014   Land rights defenders are increasingly the target of repressive measures, says the Observatory in a new report published in The Philippines, Mexico, and South Africa, and which will be presented tomorrow in Geneva at the United Nations Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights.   The pressure on land has become unbearable and mobilisation for the respect of the economic, social and cultural rights of affected communities has become a high risk activity.   “This Report shows the daily struggle conducted by land rights defenders, often confronted to “economic predators” greedily supportive of unbridled development. Land rights defenders often live in isolated areas, far from actors of protection. These factors facilitate acts of violence against them, the level of violence being proportional to sky-rocketing profits”, declared Karim Lahidji, FIDH President.   Between 2011 and 2014, the Observatory documented 43 assassination cases targeting land rights defenders and the judicial harassment of 123 defenders, sometimes together with their arbitrary detention. These figures only reflect a small fraction of the real picture. All regions in the world are concerned, Asia and Latin America being the most affected.   The Observatory found that authors of repression are often the police, the military, private security agents and “henchmen”. Their objective being to silence dissenting voices likely to slow down investment projects.   In addition to violence, numerous States also use judicial harassment and arbitrary detention to intimidate defenders. Thanks to laws that violate fundamental freedoms or in violation of their own laws, they jail any person deemed to be a nuisance. “Terrorism”, “misleading propaganda”, “infringement to State security”, “public unrest”, there are many abusive charges which can result in heavy prison terms.   “Land rights defenders speak for millions of victims. When a defender is jailed or killed, thousands of victims are silenced”, declared Gerald Staberock, OMCT Secretary General.   Land rights defenders are often powerless when they face physical attacks and arbitrary arrests. According to the Observatory, 95% of violations against them remain unpunished today.   Judicial bodies in countries where such violations occur are characterised by a lack of independence, resources and expertise. Regarding the possibility of prosecuting business corporations responsible for human rights violations, the legal battle – if any – is often lengthy, perilous, unequal and costly.   At the heart of the problem lies the issue of the participation of individuals and communities affected by the development policies and investment projects.   The Observatory calls for meaningful consultations that ensure the direct participation of populations affected by the projects and the recognition of land rights defenders as the legitimate spokespersons in order to prevent conflicts and put an end to serious human rights violations.   Furthermore, it is necessary to strengthen the capacity and independence of domestic judicial systems, including in States hosting the headquarters of business corporations, in order to allow defenders to access justice and seek redress in the event of human rights violations.   The Observatory also recommends to strengthen international law in order to trigger effectively the responsibility of business corporations when the latter commit human rights violations and to guarantee the adequate protection of land rights.   http://www.fidh.org/International-Federation-for-Human-Rights/human-rights-defenders/annual-reports/16546-land-rights-defenders-the-forgotten-victims-of-unbridled-development http://wearenotafraid.org/en/ Visit the related web page
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