Focus on Energy

New York Times: "Dr. Kees Waaldijk began surgery shortly before 10 a.m. one recent Saturday in a cement-walled operating room in this city near Nigeria's northern border. More than five hours later, orderlies carried the last of four girls to the recovery ward. In the near-90 degree heat, Dr. Waaldijk's light blue surgical garb had turned dark with sweat. What brings the girls to Dr. Waaldijk - and him to Nigeria - is the obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in the West for nearly a century. Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their bowels or urethras, or both. Were it widely available, the United Nations agency states, a $300 operation could repair most fistulas. But Mozambique, with 17 million people, has just three surgeons who consistently perform those operations. Niger, population 11 million, has but six, the organization reported in 2002." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

To support UNFPA's campaign to End Fistula, visit One By One Project. One By One is a volunteer-led initiative that enables people to make a difference by creating giving circles to raise enough money to cover the cost of fistula surgery, post-operative care and rehabilitation for one woman.

To learn more ways to get involved, visit The Woman Tour

"The teenager with flowers in her hair crossed her hands to keep them from trembling and described how she was raped by 10 militiamen. Abducted two years ago when she was 16, Ombeni was kept as a concubine in the forests of eastern Congo. She became pregnant and at nearly nine months gestation, her captors cut her vagina with a machete, leaving the baby dead and abandoning the teenager in the forest. "I laid there for one week," Ombeni said. "Until insects came out of my body." Ombeni was eventually rescued by a woman who was foraging for food and made her way to a clinic for rape victims. She is one of thousands of women who are brutally raped each year in Congo, another layer of degradation in a war that never seems to end. In a briefing before the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday, UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland said rape as a weapon of war was at its worst in eastern Congo and the Darfur region of Sudan." [Read more]

"MADRID, Spain, (UNHCR) - In a precedent-setting decision, the Spanish Inter-ministerial Asylum Commission has given refuge to a 38-year-old woman, who could not find protection from decades of suffering at the hands of her husband whom she had been forced to marry.

"Enhancing the role of female MPs in Bahrain, the UAE, Oman and Kuwait will be the focus of a seminar in Abu Dhabi on Monday. It is taking place at the General Women's Union as part of a regional project to empower women. The project is being spearheaded by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and also aims to establish an Arab women parliamentarians' forum, bring gender issues onto the agendas of Arab parliaments and sow the seeds of equal participation at the national level." LINK

From Reuters AlertNet: "Education, leadership crucial for refugee girls and women, says UNHCR on International Women's Day - The UN refugee agency is marking International Women's Day today with activities involving refugee women worldwide, with a special focus on refugee girls and women in education and leadership.... Meanwhile, a plethora of activities are taking place around the world to mark International Women's Day, ranging from skills training competitions to women's health workshops, seminars on girls' education, discussions on the role of women returnees, and even attempts by men to ease women's burden."

The Washington Post reports: "The Bush administration abandoned an antiabortion initiative on Friday in the face of overwhelming opposition at a U.N. conference on women's rights. The move came at a critical stage in the two-week meeting of 130 countries and 6,000 representatives of women's rights groups, who gathered to assess women's progress in the decade after a 1995 summit on women in Beijing. It paved the way for the unanimous adoption of a declaration reaffirming support for a 150-page platform of action for achieving women's equality that was adopted in Beijing. "

"Ten years after the landmark United Nations women's conference in Beijing, hundreds of delegates and thousands of non-governmental organization (NGOs) representatives will meet at the United Nations for nearly two weeks to review the world's progress towards equality for women." Read More...

From UN Wire: "As American officials seek to quell fears of an Iranian-like theocracy coming into power in Iraq with guarantees that Iraq's leaders will embrace only moderate policies, Swanee Hunt and Isobel Coleman write in the International Herald Tribune that without real rights afforded to women, any claims of moderation are simply "an illusion."