It seems appropriate on International Women’s Day and the day of the Wyoming caucus to begin by honoring the Equality State for electing the United States’ very first female governor, Nellie Ross.
Unfortunately, around the world and even within the USA, there is still a long way to go in the struggle for equality and human rights. From domestic violence to genital mutilation to child slavery, many women’s daily reality is one of constant suffering.
Violence against women and girls continues unabated in every continent, country and culture. It takes a devastating toll on women’s lives, on their families, and on society as a whole. Most societies prohibit such violence — yet the reality is that too often, it is covered up or tacitly condoned. — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, 8 March 2007
Let’s consider some of the facts.
1. Two-thirds of the world’s 799 million illiterate adults ages 15 and over are women.
Lack of access to education has serious consequences.
As unschooled adults, these girls will be less likely to have a say socially and politically and to be able to support themselves. Women’s rights and access to land, credit and education are limited not only due to legal discrimination, but because more subtle barriers such as their work load, mobility and low bargaining position in the household and community prevent them from taking advantage of their legal rights. These problems affect their children: Women earn only one tenth of the world’s income and own less than one per cent of property, so households without a male head are at special risk of impoverishment. These women will also be less likely to immunize their children and know how to help them survive. http://www.unicef.org/...
2. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime — with the abuser usually someone known to her.
In a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 50 percent of women in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Tanzania reported having been subjected to physical or sexual violence by intimate partners, with 71 percent in rural Ethiopia.
Only in one country (Japan) did less than 20 percent of women report incidents of domestic violence [7]. An earlier WHO study puts the number of women physically abused by their partners or ex-partners at 30 percent in the United Kingdom, and 22 percent in the United States.
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3. More than 130 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation, mainly in Africa and some Middle Eastern countries, and two million girls a year are at risk of mutilation.
(Source)
In Iraq in particular, the situation for women today is increasingly dire.
Since the US invasion, Iraqi women have been targeted with unprecedented levels of abduction, rape, domestic abuse, and sexual slavery. The escalation of violence curtails all aspects of women�s lives. Women say they are afraid to leave their homes, even to obtain food, water, or medical treatment. Girls are being kept out of school and many women are now forbidden by their families to be in public without a male escort. Domestic violence is also on the rise, with women's organizations reporting a sharp increase in battering, forced marriage, and "honor killings," in which men murder women relatives who have been disobedient or survived rape, thereby "dishonoring" the family.
Back in 2000, an unprecedented gathering of world leaders created what are known as the Millenium Development Goals, which were intended to address some of the issues faced by women, as well as other global challenges, beginning with extreme poverty. Unfortunately, while worthy in themselves, these goals did not go nearly far enough. As the human rights organization MADRE rightly points out, the focus is entirely too narrow—targets and indicators that measure change in numbers of girls and boys educated, for example, but not the quality of education received. Nor the root causes that create that disparity in the first place.
"...The MDGs call for change, but not for creating the conditions to make real change possible. To address the root causes of the problems that the goals are supposed to rectify, we need to grapple with precisely those phenomena that the MDGs take for granted. These include policies that have increased poverty and inequality around the world (such as free-trade agreements, wage freezes, and hostility to worker organizing) and subordinated human rights to "national security" as defined by the Bush Administration."
The question is raised: should the goal be equality, or justice?
In fact, at a moment when the rights of both women and men have been badly eroded by such policies, we can see clearly the limitations of pursuing gender "equality." To whom should women be equal? Should women in Colombia demand "equality" with male co-workers who are being killed for union organizing? Should Rwandan women who are HIV-positive seek "equality" with Rwandan men who are denied high-priced AIDS medications? The real goal is not equality, but justice; and one of the best ways we have of ensuring justice is the fulfillment of human rights.
In my mind true equality will only possible when justice is in fact first achieved. And what does justice mean to me? On the most basic level, it means that the Nicaraguan women I know and love--and their counterparts around the world--are no longer violated, abused, rejected, silenced, discriminated against, or killed on the basis of their gender. It means the rights to choose how to dress, work, learn, organize, speak, lead, and (whether or not) to reproduce are fully protected under law.
Even better, it means that the full contribution of women to all areas of society--in the home, the workplace, and the community---is welcomed, acknowledged, celebrated, honored.
So today, International Women's Day, let's do more than hail the past accomplishments of women around the world. Let's speak up for all women who live in perpetual cycles of violence and whose voices are ignored, belittled, or silenced.
Let's do something to make a difference in their (OUR) future. And if you already are, thank you.