Picasso Fish
July 21st,2010 Painting of the Week |
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Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C)
I did not know much about Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) until I met an Egyptian doctor, Nawal El Saadawi in 1976. She told me how she was forced to be circumcised as a child. I was shocked to hear about that, but did not know how it was done. Then, later in 1980, I was appalled when I read th details in Part One of her book, The Hidden Face of Eve, the “Mutilated Half”, and horrified to think that millions of girls have to go through the pain that my friend, Nawal, had to endure one night as a child at the age of six when she was forced out of her bed. This is what she wrote:
“ I felt something move under the blankets, something like a huge hand, cold and rough, fumbling over my body, and simultaneously another hand as cold and rough, and as big as the first one was clapped over my mouth to prevent me from screaming. They carried me to the bathroom. I don’t know how many of them. All I remember is that I was frightened, and that there were many of them, and that something like an iron grasp caught hold of my hands, arms and thighs. I was unable to resist or even move. I remembered the icy touch of the bathroom tiles under my naked body, and unknown voices and humming sounds interrupted now and again by a rasping metallic sounds which reminded me of the butcher when he used to sharpen his knife before slaughtering a sheep for the Eid. My blood was frozen in my veins. I thought the thiefs were going to cut my throat. I was unable to see. As though the hands were seeking something below my belly, I felt my thighs had been pulled wide apart, and that each of my lower limbs was being held as far away from the other as possible, gripped by steel fingers that never relinguished their pressure. Then suddenly the sharp metallic edge seemed to drop between my thighs, and there, cut off a piece of flesh from my body. I screamed with pain depite the tight hand held over my mouth. The pain was like a searing flame that went through my whole body. I did not know what they cut out of my body. I called out to my mother for help. But the worse shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes, it was her. I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of those strangers, talking to them and smiling at them, as though they had not participated in slaughtering her daughter just a few moments ago. They carried me to my bed. Then I saw them catch hold of my sister, who was two years younger, the same way that they had caught hold of me a a few minutes earlier. I cried out with all my might NO! NO! “.
I look at Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) as a violent crime, committed by older women (with full consent of the men) against human rights of young girls ages 4 -14 in the name of “tradition”, or a rite of passage from girl to womanhood. For the last two decades, I have been active in the network of the women’s movement. We carried out international awareness-creation campaign to stop such a harmful practice aiming to control over female sexuality and reproduction in male dominated societies. In 2010, I think that we have achieved some successes in changing attitude and behavior after helping to organize four United Nations World Conferences on Women. But I realize that I am quite wrong. Success in breaking the silence globally, Yes. But it does not stop it from being practiced. Just looking at some recent statistics, we cannot protect some three million girls each year who are at risk of FGM/C even with full support from various United Nations programs and funds. There is an estimation of between 70-140 millions of girls and women who are today suffering from the psychological and physical health consequence from the cut. I read from the most recent UNICEF report that some sixty percent of these girls and women live in sub-saharan Africa. Forty per cent live in the Middle East, North Africa, and Yemen. We have not gone very far from where we started the campaign three decades ago. Last week, I read the new Human Rights Watch Report on Kurdistan/Iraq that a 17 year-old Kurdistan girl was dragged by her mother, and sister-in-law, (the same way as Doctor Nawal El Saadawi into the bathroom to cut out part of her vagina. FGM/C practice is illegal in the U.S. and the EU countries, but it is still widely practice by Africans, Egyptians, and Arab immigrants. This shows us that just having a law against it, is not enough. To stop this kind of abuse of girls, we need to increase our efforts in human rights education, advocacy campaign for women’s health, and communication programs through all the media to reach adult women and men. Parents’education is important. UNESCO, WHO, UNCEF and UNFPA must give more resources to projects for sex, reproductive rights and health education and to training programs on FGM/C for health professionals and social workers to stop the practice once and or all while at the same time helping the victims.
Universe Image
We live in an amazing time!
To be able to see images of the Universe right in front of our eyes from a computer screen is a delightful surprise and a rich experience. I am awestruck by just looking at the map of the Universe of Europe’s Planck Telescope sent out last week for the World to see. The Planck view of the sky is different from those we saw at other wave lengths. The Planck telescope gives us an opportunity to see a much wider and longer span of the universe combining the spread of the milky ways, fluffy gas and dust in constant motion and the shining lights of billions of stars. Also a stunning image is the microwave view of the sky with the combination of gamma ray, x-ray, visible hydrogen, far-ir, microwave and radio. I want to thank the European Space Agency for sharing with the world and with me the new knowledge of the universe which we all are part of.
Women’s Economic Empowerment/Gender Equality
The quickest way to achieving the goal of gender equality is to give opportunity to qualified women to compete for jobs in government structure and United Nations projects and private enterprises. Empowering grass-root women to earn income in microeconomic activities to improve family livelihood is not enough, even if it can help to end poverty in some quarters. These two-prongs program interventions have to go together, hand in hand.
This week, after discussions and debates, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will adopt a ministerial declaration and recommendation to the General Assembly High-level Plenary Meeting on the Millennium Development goals. The UN and governments’review of progress since the adoption of the 1995 Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action on Women, Equality, Development and Peace has shown that women are still far behind the men in economic development. And their social status is still secondary to that of the men in most societies. Women performed 66 percent of the world’s work but earned just 10 percent of its income are statistics being quoted. Sixty percent of the poorest people in the world are females. Human rights of women and girls are not recognized by many communities within the UN member countries which had adopted the Beijing Platform of Action fifteen years ago. Many countries allow the men who are perpetrators of violence against women in the home and in society to get away with impunity. Law enforcement authorities and government leaders are slow to implement the Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security.
Creating a new UN bureaucratic gender entity, separated it out from the mainstream UN structure, is not going to be of much help in accelerating progress towards gender equality when the World at the present is in economic down-turn. Many donor countries are not in a position to increase their contribution to program specifically target change only for the women and not for the men. Empowerment of women cannot be achieved without men changing and supporting them from: fathers, sexual partners or husbands, sons, and male co-workers.
Since the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) coordinates the work of 14 UN specialized agencies, 10 functional commissions, 11 development funds and programs, it should make sure that the gender mainstreaming work, which has already begun, has adequate budget and resources for activities at headquarters and in the fields.
First Female Australian Prime Minister
On the 24th of June, Julia Gillard, 49, became the first woman ever to hold the position of Australia’s Prime Minister. She won unanimously in yesterday’s vote by the Labor Party for her to replace Kevin Rudd. With her experience in Australian politics, (served as Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy leader of the Labor Party 2007-2010), the members of the Labor Party seemed to have more confidence in her leadership of the country than in the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, whose popularity had fell down to only 30% in the recent poll among the voters. Her family comes from a small coal mine town in Wales, England. It is also the first time that an immigrant takes a leadership position as a head of government. In 1966, her parents moved from England to Australia and settled in Adelaide. She studied there and graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of law degree. She is not married but lives with her partner, a hairdresser,Tim Mathieson. They have no children. In her radio interview before becoming the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard said that she never really saw herself as aspiring to be at home caring for kids. She explained that she was never treated by her parents on the basis that the natural progression of her life would be to leave school to get married and to have kids. Whilst wanting that sort of happiness for her, her father and mother always thought that career was important, achievment was important, having a job was important. And she emphasized that her parents always urged her to think about the biggest dreams that she could think of, not the smallest dreams. In the sworning in ceremony as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia, Julia Gillard said that she intended to lead a government that is focused each and every day on meeting the needs of working families around the country. I think we can look forward to a big cultural, social and economic change in Australia under her vibrant leadership for many years to come.
Face-Covering: A Security Issue
I for one, do not feel safe in bus or airplane when sitting next to a person wearing face-covering. I also do not like walking pass a woman (or a man in disguised) wearing black burqa moving around like a mobile tent towards me. Because she, or he, could turn out to be a thief, a robber or a potential terrorist. People wearing ski masks to cover the face belongs only on the snow-covered mountain, I don’t want to see any of them in public space such as in the city park, the street, or near a bank at any shopping mall. A woman in burqa does not belong in the driver’s seat of a car. Also they should not be allowed to go in the train or bus station or airports because we don’t know whether they carry some kind of explosives underneath their clothes. I do not have any problem with people who want to have freedom to wear whatever they like. But wearing face-covering is not the case of “people’s choice in garment”. Covering faces- hiding the identity, should not be looked at as an exercise of individual right or freedom. They are actions in violation of the safety rights of others people in public space. Wearing burqa or total face covering therefore is a threat to human security. It should be banned totally in the “security concerned” world that we are now living in. Country should enact a law to protect the safety of the majority of people, not to safegard the cultural right of the few. Religion has nothing to do with covering the face of women. It is the subjugation of women in patriachy. If the women themselves enjoy covering-up their face and body, they should be free to do that in the private space of their own home. I want to congratulate Barcelona for being the first Spanish city to bar face-covering in public building. Barcelona City Mayor, Jordi Heren, said that all dress that impedes identification: burqa, motorcycle helmets and ski masks, are banned in the municipal buildings of his city. We will see another positive change next month when the French parliament puts the Burqa Ban law into force. When the law is put into force, all women in France will be forbidden to wear a garment that designd to hide her face. Any woman who breaks the ban will be fined 150 Euros. She will also be sent to attend a course to learn the value of French citizenship on equality, liberty and fraternity. In the Italian city of Novara, the authority adopted a decree last January to ban wearing burqa in public. Italian police had been reported to fine a woman 500 Euros for wearing a burqa in the street. Switzerland, the Netherlands and Australia are having a nation-wide public debate on “face covering” and “public safety” issues. I am certain that their parliaments will follow that of France and Belgium to enact law to ban face-covering in streets, public buildings and gardens and sports complex on the ground of public safety and national security.
Celebrate Biodiversity and Nature’s Restoration
Communities and people all over the world are organizing public education activities for the World Environment Day 2010. They set up exhibitions and make plans for media communication events on the theme of biodiversity and preservation of nature. The Darwin Centre, an extension of the Natural History Museum in London, organizes interesting activities that we can participate at “Nature on Line”. Scientists and educators put up display and audio-visual programmes to stimulate public interests in their past and present scientific researches on the variety of species of animals, plants and other life forms living deep on the ocean floor and on the vast landscape.Their exhibition, the “Deep” (28 May -26 September 2010), shows numerous forms of creatures living on the ocean floor that we have not seen before. At an international level, UNEP launched recently the Dead Planet: Living Planet Report to focus on biodiversity and ecosystem restoration for sustainable development. The report draws our attention to thousands of ecosystem restoration ongoing projects set up in cooperation with governments and environment institutions around the world. These noteworthy projects include restoration of water flows to rivers and lakes and improvement of soil stability and fertility vital for agriculture. Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director said that mis-management of natural and nature-based assets undercuts development on a scale that dwafs the recent economic crisis.I find the report interesting reading. It gives us a tool for our use in organizing community education and communication programmes for the years to come. Investors will find this report useful as well for developing new businesses in restoration of natural and nature-based utilities to cope with the new global demands and needs, at the same time a boot-up of the economy.
