A UN report released today shows significant progress in treating children with AIDS and preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but not without a call for greater efforts.
In 2005, only 11 percent of women were getting drugs to prevent transmission. Thanks to UNICEF's Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS initiative, 31 percent are now getting treatment. There's also been a 70 percent increase in children who are receiving anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) to 127,000 per year. "That’s enormous progress," says UNICEF Chief of HIV and AIDS Jimmy Kolker.
But obviously more efforts are needed. The report identifies improvements and challenges in four key areas: preventing HIV transmission from mothers to children (PMTCT); providing paediatric treatment, preventing infection among adolescents and young people; and protecting and supporting children affected by AIDS.
The report also addresses how various gender injustices call for women's rights efforts to be embedded within the work being done to decrease the occurrence of PMTCT. Examples include how domestic violence is often a huge barrier to routine testing programs, or the ways that cultural stigmatization prevents many women from seeking PMTCT services. All are addressed in the report, as well as new working strategies to further the progress already made.
Make sure to check out the full report.
HBO is poised to shine a light on the terrible human tragedy of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On Tuesday, April 8 the station will air The Greatest Silence, a ground breaking documentary that exposes the scale and brutality of rape in the Congo (view the trailer). The Enough Campaign and HBO are teaming up to coordinate house screenings around the United States. (Click here to find or organize a screening near you.) The following evening you can join filmmaker, Lisa Jackson; ENOUGH Co-Chair, John Prendergast; and the Director of Public Policy at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Kiersten Stewart in a conference call to discuss the film and discover practical ways that you can end violence against women in the DRC.
In the meantime, you can brief yourself on the situation by reading this chilling Enough Campaign report on sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:
According to the International Rescue Committee's latest study of mortality in Congo, death rates there remain unchanged since the end of the regional war that tore through Africa's Great Lakes region from 1998 to 2004. By the end of this and every month, 45,000 more Congolese--half of them children--will die from hunger, preventable disease, and other consequences of violence and displacement. Congolese women and girls in particular bear the vicious brunt of this crisis. Indeed, eastern Congo right now is perhaps the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl. The sexual violence and rape exists on a scale seen nowhere else in the world as it is part and parcel of the conflict. It mutilates and humiliates. Its nature is brutal and vicious; it defies both description and imagination. Often successful in its intent to destroy and exterminate, rape as a weapon of war is causing the near total destruction of women, their families, and their communities.Read the full report (pdf).
HBO is poised to shine a light on the terrible human tragedy of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On Tuesday, April 8 the station will air The Greatest Silence, a ground breaking documentary that exposes the scale and brutality of rape in the Congo (view the trailer). The Enough Campaign and HBO are teaming up to coordinate house screenings around the United States. (Click here to find or organize a screening near you.) The following evening you can join filmmaker, Lisa Jackson; ENOUGH Co-Chair, John Prendergast; and the Director of Public Policy at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Kiersten Stewart in a conference call to discuss the film and discover practical ways that you can end violence against women in the DRC.
In the meantime, you can brief yourself on the situation by reading this chilling Enough Campaign report on sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo:
According to the International Rescue Committee's latest study of mortality in Congo, death rates there remain unchanged since the end of the regional war that tore through Africa's Great Lakes region from 1998 to 2004. By the end of this and every month, 45,000 more Congolese--half of them children--will die from hunger, preventable disease, and other consequences of violence and displacement. Congolese women and girls in particular bear the vicious brunt of this crisis. Indeed, eastern Congo right now is perhaps the worst place in the world to be a woman or a girl. The sexual violence and rape exists on a scale seen nowhere else in the world as it is part and parcel of the conflict. It mutilates and humiliates. Its nature is brutal and vicious; it defies both description and imagination. Often successful in its intent to destroy and exterminate, rape as a weapon of war is causing the near total destruction of women, their families, and their communities.Read the full report (pdf).
Last week, the United Nations Population Fund joined civil society groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Government in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to launch a campaign raising public awareness about the prevalence of sexual violence in the DRC.
The campaign will run for the next month with a number of efforts including marches, conferences, forums, school events and endeavors to popularize laws against sexual violence.
There are 1,100 rape cases reported each month in the DRC. Additionally, victims of sexual violence are often left with little to access to help. Yakin Erturk, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, says not only that the justice system is in "deplorable conditions," but that victims often have to pay access to the courts, which she describes as "a major obstacle to justice."
The United Nations has called out the Sudanese government for committing mass rapes of women and girls in Darfur in a new report released today.
The UN high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, released the report stating that President Omar al-Bashir's administration is providing help and support to the Arab janjaweed militia, who are responsible for looting at least three towns, raping girls and women and killing at least 115 people last month. Over 30,000 people have been displaced as a result as well. Via the UN's News Centre:
The report describes extensive looting during and after the attacks, and catalogues 'consistent and credible accounts' of rape committed by armed men in uniform. 'These actions violated the principle of distinction stated in international humanitarian law, failing to distinguish between civilian objects and military objective,' the report concludes.
On Friday, the day before International Women's Day, a UN Committee expressed concern about "wide racial disparities" in sexual and reproductive health in the United States, reports RH Reality Check.
Remarks were made concerning this issue at the end of a two-week session in Geneva, Switzerland, where the UN reviewed the nation's observance of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), a human rights agreement which requires countries to take pro-active measures to address racial inequalities.
While a number of issues were addressed concerning racial discrimination in the U.S., such as racial segregation in schools and discrimination in the criminal justice system, there was also a focus on severe reproductive health disparities between women of color and white women. Among those were these findings by the Center for Reproductive Rights:
- African-American women are nearly four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, 23 times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS and 14 times more likely to die from the disease.
- American-Indian/Alaskan Native women are over 5 times more likely than white women to have chlamydia and over 7 times more likely to contract syphilis.
- The unplanned pregnancy rate among Latinas is twice the national average; and Latinas are much more likely to contract human papillomavirus, the infection that leads to cervical cancer.
UN Dispatch is pleased to announce that Feministing's Vanessa Valenti will join the Dispatch team and offer posts on global women's issues. Welcome aboard Vanessa!
As Saturday marks International Women's Day, there are numerous efforts happening to increase awareness around the status of women across the globe. One of these is the "Handbook for the Protection of Women and Girls" a new publication released today by the UN Refugee Agency that is designed to promote gender equality using a rights -- and community -- based approach.
Replacing the UNHCR's 1991 "Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women", this document acknowledges and condemns "a massive culture of neglect and denial about violence against women and girls," develops strategies to address the challenges that women and girls face as well as sets out international legal standards in the area.
Perhaps most importantly, the handbook not only lays out strategies to ensure the protection of women and girls, but also pushes for gender equality "through targeted actions to empower women and girls in the civil, political and economic sectors."
Click here for the handbook in full.
--By Vanessa Valenti
We've known for a long time how bad the situation in the Central African Republic is for women and girls there. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which has an open investigation into crimes committed during CAR's 2002-2003 civil war, has even said that the number of suspected rapes far exceeds the number of extra-judicial killings during that war. Still, it is a shock to the conscience to see a statistic like this:
Over 15 per cent of women and girls in the violence-ridden north of the Central African Republic (CAR) are victims of rape and other forms of sexual violence, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today. Reports coming in on a weekly basis describe such incidents as two 12-year-old girls being raped while searching for firewood in the bush and a 13-year-old girl assaulted on her way to sell palm oil at a market. "Sexual violence is a disturbingly common feature of the insecurity in the north of the Central African Republic," said UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes. "We must ensure that those responsible are brought to justice."Read more. And visit Amnesty International to learn more about war against women in the C.A.R.
The United Nations' Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) kicked off its 52nd session yesterday; this year's theme is financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women and the emerging issue is gender perspectives on climate change.
In the session's opening address, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke out against violence against women, noting that "at least one out of every three women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime." Ban also announced the launch of a new campaign to battle global violence against women, which will run until 2015.
I've been lucky enough to go to past CSWs when I was working in the international women's rights arena, but (sadly) I won't be there this year. What's great, however, is that you can follow along on the CSW website and see what's happening - whether it be panels, statements or NGO events.
Another great place to find out info on CSW and its happenings is the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO) (my old stomping ground), who are heavily involved in the process and give great updates.
Too often, American feminists forget about the all-important work being done on the international level by groups like WEDO and others. So please, check out all of the info on CSW and get involved!
If you want to know more about CSW and its history, click here.