Polygamy’s Children
I feel sorry for the 436 Texan children who were separated from their polygamist parents earlier this month, for they are the real victims in this raiding of the polygamists compound. Their mothers themselves are victims, as young brides given by their religious leader in a polygamist marriage to much older men. The women are brainwashed to believe in the superiority of the men as preached by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both mothers and children need a re-education program on human rights, citizen’s rights and self-reliance to get out of their blind religious faith which they follow the preaching of an American man, Joseph Smith Jr. from his sudden divine revelations in 1830 when he wanted to take young girls as his new wives. The West Texas incidence reminds me of what Christopher Hitchen said in his book “God is not Great” that religion poisons everything. He has a chapter on “Is Religion Child Abuse?”. To which my answer is yes, as in the recent case, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints has abused the 436 children and their mothers. They are just a small example of millions of children around the world who are psychologically maimed by various religious teachings. Hitchen is right in calling this kind religious practice upon the unformed and undefended minds of the young as a moral terrorism.
Women Outnumber Men in Spanish Government
I want to congratulate the Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero for making the world record by the appointment in his government of more women than men (9 women-8 men). By this last week action, he has broken the world and also his country’s record in the appointment of Carme Chacon, a 37 year-old woman to head the Ministry of Defense. The Prime Minister has also announced, when re-elected for the second term, that the “equality between men and women” is one of the chief goals of his government. Prime Minister Zapatero can also be proud that Ines Alberdi, a respected Spanish sociologist, has just been appointed last week at the United Nations as the new Executive Director of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). The combined work of his action and Ms. Alberdi’s new work with other men and women in leadership role in the Spanish Government will tremendously help us around the world to accelerate the achievement of the goal of gender equality. Spain has given a very good example to all governments on how to lead in taking a common action on the UN Millennium Development Goal of gender equality, beginning with having “gender parity” in appointments to the highest level of the government.
Filed under Gender Issues | Comment (0)Half Of Humankind
I hate to go on and on repeating the old saying that women are not a “special interest group” but are half of humankind. The results of the UN-organized four World Conferences on Women, Equality, Development and Peace, from 1976-1995 had confirmed this is the approach we should take. I am disappointed that in recent discussions with delegates and non-governmental organization representatives who attended this year’s Commission on the Status of Women on the subject of new proposal for strengthening gender equality architecture. They see gender equality and advancement of women as “specific group” issue. As part of UN reform, delegates proposed a set-up of a “special entity” in the UN Secretariat for promotion of action on gender equality and advancement of women. For me, this kind of proposal is the equivalent to creating of a larger “ghetto” to deal with crossed-cutting issue which should be “mainstreamed and integrated” with other political, economic and social development activities. Taking this “Special Group” approach is against the Beijing Platform for Action that was approved by the General Assembly in 1995. Just to get more funds to support gender-specific bureaucratic entity is short- sighted and waste of limited financial resource in the long run. Recent UN evaluation study of “national machinery” for women’s advancement found that “special unit” set up for women’s advancement in government bureaucratic structure is not an effective way to achieve the goal of gender equality. The UN should take lessons from these past mistakes and decentralize the gender equality issues instead of centralized them. Coordination of varies gender structures in the UN system can be done at an already-existed Executive Board for Coordination and its High-level Committee on Programme and Management. A lot of work also need to be done through Human Resource Action Plan of the UN Secretariat to increase the number of women through recruitment and promotion of women at senior political and administrative level to achieve the 50/50 target, set up over a decade ago. For years now, there has been no achievement beyond 36/37 per cent for
women in the Professional and higher categories of staff in the UN. Secretariat. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at this year March 8 Commemoration of International Women’s Day that he was convinced that in women, the world has at its disposal the most significant, and yet largely untapped potential for development and peace. With the help of Deputy-Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro, he could provide leadership to take immediate action, speed up the drive for “gender parity” in the UN, and for “mainstreaming gender equality” in activities of organs and bodies of the United Nations System.
Buying and Selling Sex in 2008
The Governor Spitzer of NY recent resignation from office because of “getting caught in buying sex from a prostitute” has brought the issue of “buying and selling sex” to a global discussion again. This time, there is a bit of a difference, though. Discussions in Internet and other media are more balanced — from the buyer and seller’s perspectives. Stephen Dubner, author of the best selling book “Freakonomics” gave us a call girl’s view of the Spittzer Affair. He, himself, is interested in the economics of prostitution. I recommend that he should also make a study on the economics of “traditional” marriages, which I consider to be another form of “prostitution” (bride price, groom price, dowry system, marriage go-between price etc). If there is an exchange of money, land, cattle, or any other material goods for sex, I call it “prostitution”. I agree with George Carlin’s comment that sex is the only thing that is legal to give but illegal to sell and we should go to the root of the problem instead of swimming on the surface. If we legalize “marriage”, we should also legalize “prostitution” because both are dealing with the buying and selling of sex. And also why should “virtue” be given to what we buy or sell? Sweden and New Zealand are two countries that are ahead in reforming laws to decriminalize prostitution. The law should also protect the rights of sex-workers and wives in traditional marriage, provide health care for prevention and cure of sexually transmitted diseases, make it a legal offense for pimps that profit from sex-industries, and punish parents that sell children to the “traditional” marriage markets. Criminalization of prostitution has not proved successful in stopping prostitution. The focus should be on prohibition of exploiting girl and boy children in sex-trade industry, prostitution or “traditional” marriage arrangement.
Filed under Gender Issues | Comment (0)Sufficient Financing For Gender Equality
The importance of sufficient financing for gender equality and women’s empowerment cannot be overstated. During the last ten years, 50 countries have launched the gender-responsive budgeting. But changes in budget policies and allocation are slow, with very little measurable impact. This week, representatives of member governments of the United Nations come together in New York to participate in the 52nd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women. The discussions focus on
financing for gender equality and empowerment of women. They identified that a big obstacle to achieving gender-targeted financing is the lack of a political will by political leaders, the majority of which are men. “Men just turn off when they hear the term gender equality believing it meant women fighting only for their representation not equally representation of both men and women” says one delegate. Most politicians are not gender-sensitive; they sometimes claimed that they could not include gender in their projects because women and men must be treated equally and that gender inequality is not an obstacle to development. The false assumption that men and women act the same way as economic agent and benefit equally from the provision of public goods has produced the “neutral” character of Government budget. This false belief is another obstacle to gender-sensitive budgeting. Without being able to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights, and without access to adequate sexual and reproductive health services, women stand little chance of having the same opportunities as the men. Investment in reproductive health is key to a sustainable social and economic development, and to the protection and promotion of human rights. What gender-sensitive financing really aimed at are the reform of a country’s public sector finance and the fairer distribution of wealth. It is important, therefore, for governments to examine all policies from tax laws to general budgets through a “gender –lens” in order to ensure that the gender perspective is mainstreamed across budget procedure, law drafting and other major project from the very beginning. This will require the Ministry of Finance of each country to develop a national system of “gender-budgeting” in order to establish coherence between economic and social policies to achieve a long-term objective of gender equality, democracy, and sustainable development.
Women and Decision-making
Two months ago, the United Nations Division for the Advancement of Women invited me to participate in an online Seminar on “ Women and Decision-making”, a follow-up to the Platform of Action of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995. The global community stressed the importance of women assuming positions of power and influence because despite the widespread movement for democracy, women were largely underrepresented in most governments especially in ministerial and other executive bodies. I learnt from discussions that the situation of women’s participation in decision-making has not changed much. Also from my own observation, today, the majority of women still remain outside most important decision-making arenas that effected their political, economic, and social lives, except in Scandinavian countries. But Dianne Lockwood, a participant of the UN seminar from Australia, surprised me of the progress in her country. In cultivating women leaders, she said that change happens because her government has a genuine commitment to gender equality. She reported that in the last decade, there had been considerable effort by Australia’s Federal Government to increase women’s leadership role. Now women hold one third of all Commonwealth parliamentary positions that give clout where it counts. Australian women hold 12% of all executive managerial positions in the private sectors, 35% of senior executive positions in the Public Service, and have 34.3% of all seats on government-controlled boards and bodies. Last year, the Australian government provides about 180 rural young women with leadership and role model opportunities through mentoring and leadership program pilots. Grants have been given to increase women’s leadership in sports and several key forums and “think thanks” to give women a voice. In addition, women were given a chance to have input into government policy through four National Women’s Secretariats funded by the government. I want to say that the progress in Australia happened because of many years of action taken by the women themselves, combined with efforts by the non-governmental organizations in lobbying their government to achieve the goal of equal participation of women and men in decision-making in the country. For me, women’s equal participation in decision-making is not only a demand for simple justice or democracy but also a necessary condition for women’s interests to be taken into account.
Filed under Gender Issues, United Nations | Comment (0)Banazir Bhutto, Pakistani Women’s Flawed Icon?
I could not agree more with Emily Wax’s piece in the Washington Post this week, “Pakistani Women’s Flawed Icon”. By the way that the late Prime Minister Banazir Bhutto had conducted her life, it is true that she was a brave woman, and political leader, but she had raised expectation for advancement of women in a Muslim society, and largely failed to fulfill them. Internationally, she was a controversial figure among feminists and democratic social activists. She went to the UN-organized International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, talking about women’s rights and family planning, but she did little, while in power, in following through with action in her country. She became pregnant one after the other while in office, that many people made a joke about her in that PPPP stands for “Pakistan Perpetually Pregnant Prime Minister”, rather than her leadership in the PPPP, a Political Party, the Peoples Party of Pakistan. She had taken many risks of putting her own life on the line when out speaking in the public places under warnings. She did not take these risks for women’s right in Pakistan, or for democracy. In a feudal way, she did it for her own and the Bhutto family’s place in the political history of Pakistan. I am sorry that, in the end, she had to pay with her own life to achieve that ambition.
Filed under Gender Issues, World Affairs | Comment (0)Preference For Sons - Girls Gone Missing
Preference for sons has long been part of Asian’s culture and tradition based on believing in male-superiority in society. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) alerts us that one of the most alarming change in Asia’s population dynamics in recent decades has been a dramatic increases in the proportion of males within its local populations. There is now an average of 120-130 male born for every 100 female born per year in India and China and similar trend in other countries. At the Fourth Asia Pacific Conference on Reproductive and Sexual Health and Rights, held in Hyderabad, India, two months ago, UNFPA presented the study “Sex-ratio Imbalance in Asia: Trends, Consequences, and Policy Responses”. After analyses of the consequences of the growing gender imbalances in the population of four studies conducted in India, China, Viet Nam and Nepal, the participants came to a conclusion that gender discrimination, son preference and the resultant unequal status of women and girls have contributed to an increasing demand for sex selection services. As a way forward, they recommended that governments and civil-society organizations should take priority action to eliminate sex selection. I agree that sex selection, with assistance from new ultrasound and amniocentesis technology, can lead to the problem of “Girls Gone Missing” through the abortion of female fetus. But I disagree with their way forward recommendation to elimination sex selection altogether. Stopping the abortion of female fetus, as practiced by a small group of women in the population, is not the same as stopping all the people from sex selection/services and access to information and technology. It is wrong for the participants to encourage governments and civil society organizations to take action against the right of parents to have the freedom to choose the size of their own family, the sex of their child, and the use of modern technology to improve the quality of their own lives. I have been working for years in population information, education and communication field in programs and projects where sex selection information was provided freely to parents along with information on family planning methods. We should keep the free flow of information to the people, especially, when we see success such as the Thailand Family Planning Program, which is based on the provision of unrestrictive information makibg use of available modern technologies. Authoritarian force must not be used by anyone to solve the problem of missing girls in the population. Instead we should use persuasive methods and give advice on appropriate technology for sex selection, while at the same time, provide gender equality and human rights education for all people from childhood to adulthood. Parents will then be able to make their own free choice about the number and sex of their children based on knowledge and understanding of the equal value of the male and female child. Without change in respecting women’s integrity and their right to be in charge and control of their own body, authoritarian government and religious authority will not succeed in stopping the women to abort female fetus from their own body.
Filed under Gender Issues, Thailand, United Nations | Comment (0)Dignity and Justice For All
In six days, we will be celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And yet last month we heard disturbing news on human rights abuse in Saudi Arabia.. a 19 years old girl, identified as “Qatif girl”, has to spend six month in jail and suffered 200 lashes because she was gang raped. This action by the Saudi Court is violence against women. I join friends in the Human Rights Watch around the world to urge the Saudi King Abdullah to void the verdict and drop all charges against “Qatif girl” and other rape victims. Human rights issues include women’s right, arbitrary detention, and discrimination on the ground of sex. On 10 December, the Human Rights Day, Ban Ki-Moon, the United Nations Secretary-General will ask all of us around the world to take part in the campaign to celebrate 60 years that the world has come together to recognize the importance of respect of civil and political rights of each person, including economic, social and cultural rights. There are many ways for all of us to join in this campaign and bring about dignity and justice to women and men, no matter where they live. There are more than 50 ideas for commemorating the Universal Declaration of Human Right. Any of us can pick and choose to act from them as suggested by the human rights educators from five continents at their 1997 meeting. We can celebrate 2007 Human Right Day by joining force to help the Saudi woman fights gang rape ruling.
Filed under Gender Issues, United Nations, World Affairs | Comment (0)Political Wives and Daughters
Congratulation to Cristina Kirchner, wife of former Argentinean President, who succeeds in the election campaign, becoming the first elected female President of her country. She follows the footsteps of many wives and daughters who have gained position of political power from family association with their husband or father. President Gloria Magapagal-Aroyo of the Philippines and past President Corazon Akino, former Indian Prime Minister Indhira Gandhi, Pakistani President Banazir Bhutto, Bangladeshi Presidents Sheikh Hasina and Khalida Zia, are good examples of women who gained leadership positions by this family-connection route. If Hilary Clinton wins in the next election and becomes President of the United States, she also follows this traditional women’s route to political power. Many people believe that this could only happened because we have a change of society’s attitude, and that in today’s world, women are equally accepted as leaders like the men. I happen to disagree with this view. History has shown us that ancient societies accepted the wives and daughters as leaders and rulers when the husband or father died. There really is nothing new in this phenomenon. Queen Nefertiti and Hatshepsut of Ancient Egypt, Catherine the Great of Russia, Queen Victoria of England, to name just a few, took this path to power. I think that evidence of a real change in public acceptance of women in power can come only when women are recognized as leaders on their own ability and capability. I can see some progress towards gender equality in the election success of the Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, Finland President Tarja Halonen, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. They all came to power based on their own individual ability and effort and not on family connection of their father or husband.
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