Courage to Hope - Blog

Spreading Awareness of Abuse in Utah With Hope, Not Fear.

2011-11-10T18:04:00.000-08:00

More often than not we hear the daunting statistics about domestic abuse, but not enough about the hopeful stories.

Last October, many college students in Utah gathered together to spread that much-needed hope in their communities as a part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month with several events.

For example, Brigham Young University hosted a clothing drive for the Turning Point, a local women's and children's shelter. They also had a special candlelight vigil in honor of those who lost their lives to domestic abuse, with inspirational music by Colby Stead.

Another impactful event is the annual Clothesline Project at Utah Valley University. The project reminds us that abuse exists in our community with stories of anonymous victims written on color-coded shirts. Survivors share their voices and guests listen. This breaks the silences and encourages us to become a part of making our world a safer place.

Many of these events raised awareness about this serious issue, but most of all brought the discussion to the table.

In fact, many people don't think domestic violence exists in their hometown--but that's a misconception.

To create dialogue for such a taboo subject, some universities such as Weber State held lectures about abuse. Their Women's Services Center educated guests on "Where Does Domestic Violence Begin."

I'd like to pose the question, where does it end?

What has your community or university done to end domestic abuse? Comment and share your experience with Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

If you haven't joined the movement for peace, find the domestic violence coalition in your state and get involved.

The Lisbon Treaty and the Council of Europe

2011-10-10T09:09:00.000-07:00

by Martyn Bond

The Council of Europe voted unanimously in favour of Kerstin Lundgren's report on the impact of the Lisbon Treaty, but behind the scenes the picture is fractured

In early October, the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe voted unanimously in favour of Kerstin Lundgren's report on the impact of the Lisbon Treaty, but behind the scenes the picture is more fractured and contentious. Lisbon gives the European Union "legal personality" and invites it to subscribe to the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the key legal function of the CoE. Negotiations between the EU and the CoE had almost been concluded and observers expected a signature possibly before the end of the year, soon after the UK takes over the presidency of the CoE - in November.

But out of the blue, the UK delegation tabled a "non-paper" raising a number of larger questions. Delegations now consider these will require much more work, possibly postponing the signing ceremony well beyond the end of the UK presidency next May. All this plays out against the background of serious debate inside the ruling coalition in London. The prime minister and the home secretary have declared that they are personally in favour of the UK denouncing the ECHR, while the deputy prime minister, the Conservative justice minister and the lone Liberal-Democrat junior minister at the Home Office insist the UK will not leave the convention. Continental governments are not used to the UK failing to come to a coherent and unified position, and are duly shocked. Welcome to coalition government.

Lundgren's report starts from the assumption that, after mature reflection, no member state would be against the EU subscribing to the ECHR. After all, they agreed the Lisbon Treaty, so why hesitate now? The union joining would extend the ECHR to cover acts of the bloc and of the member states when acting for the EU, filling a judicial black hole and extending the protection of human rights across the whole range of supranational policies. Her report goes on to invite the European Commission, on behalf of the EU, to sign up to 10 more core CoE conventions: against torture, against trafficking in human beings, protecting children against sexual exploitation and abuse, combating domestic violence, protecting personal data, preventing terrorism, strengthening the criminal and the civil law on corruption and preventing cybercrime as well as promoting social rights by signing the revised European Social Charter. Of these conventions, only one – the Convention for the Prevention of Torture – has been signed and ratified by all 47 member states of the CoE.

In several cases, the commission signing these conventions might well pressure some member states, who have not done so yet, to sign at the same time. The impact of a consistent bloc of member states enforcing respect for the values protected by these conventions would be considerable. It would impact immediately on the other members of the CoE – the 20 states not in the EU which include big payers such as Turkey, Ukraine and Russia. It would drive up standards across the whole region. It would also allow the EU to offer practical and financial support for capacity-building programmes in those states and to expand that offer to the wider European neighbourhood, including the southern littoral of the Mediterranean. It would create a homogenous area of protected human rights across Europe's "near abroad".

These capacity-building measures are the counterpart of monitoring mechanisms, which already ensure that all members of the CoE are informed regularly about the application of convention standards across the continent. Council missions visit and check on the practical application of standards in other member states, often making reports public and always applying pressure to bring practice up to convention norms. For all its integrative potential, the EU's influence is currently weakened because in none of the conventions recommended in the Lundgren report do member states act as one, since not all countries have yet ratified the conventions in question.

There are a number of procedural and administrative questions that the negotiations to date have largely settled. What is the relation between the authority of the European Court of Justice, in Luxembourg, and the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg? How to select an EU judge to sit on the Court of Human Rights? Will this mean enhanced relations between the parliamentary assembly of the CoE and the European Parliament? The legal experts, the parliamentarians and even the non-governmental organisations consulted as "civil society" all agree. Only the UK thinks that what appeared to have been agreed needs to be reviewed again.
Although, one more fundamental issue that the negotiations have not really tackled was endorsed by the Lundgren report with cautious optimism: the perspective of the EU going much further than signing the ECHR and a number of conventions by acceding to the CoE as a full member.

That opens the perspective of a united approach to CoE matters by member states, offering a dominant view within the CoE where they make up a majority of members. The report invites the committee of ministers - the CoE's decision-making body - and the parliamentary assembly to consider this issue further. The report was approved with 58 votes in favour, with none against and only one abstention - by a Russian MP from the Group of European Democrats. The committee of ministers will need to find very good reasons to postpone this discussion, and that could add to the difficulties for the UK presidency.

Martyn Bond is visiting professor of European politics at Royal Holloway University, in the UK, and deputy chairman of the London Press Club

The Whistleblower: Amplifying the Reality of Human Trafficking

2011-08-09T11:02:00.001-07:00

Sexual trafficking. It's hard for people to wrap their minds around the scope of the problem. A new film, The Whistleblower, presents an on the ground retelling of the story of Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz), a Nebraskan police officer who became part of the United Nations police team in post-war Bosnia. Hired by Democra, a government contractor that recruited candidates, she uncovered a trafficking operation that reached to the highest echelons of power.

The movie is structured in a style reminiscent of the 1980s Costa-Gavrasnarratives. The dramatization is based on actual events. Some characters have been merged, with names and timelines changed for the sake of a streamlined plot. One of the anchoring characters is Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave), who was the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bosnia.

Shot in palettes of blues and browns, the facts are laid out as Bolkovac -- who is of Croatian descent -- takes her belief in "doing her job" into the field. After ten years of experience on the domestic violence beat back home, Bolkovac finds herself up against a web of corrupt players ranging from local police and United Nations peacekeepers, to State Department brass and Democra bigwigs.

Bolkovac discovers that the area's bars and clubs are serving as a front to sites where girls from the Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe have been enslaved. Many of the girls being sold to an international clientele are between 12 and 15 years old.

The story's trajectory follows Bolkovac (who served as a story consultant) from her discovery of trafficking corruption, complicity, and cover-ups through her efforts to report her findings--despite files of evidence disappearing and witness tampering. Death threats are the precursor to her being fired, when she gets too close to the truth. The multilayered cover-up finally sees the light of day when she files a wrongful dismissal case against Democra, and feeds the information from her findings to the British press.

Director Larysa Kondracki spent time with her co-writer in Eastern Europe doing background research. There are two key scenes that speak volumes. One is revelatory, the other is searing. In the former, Bolkovac--and the audience--begin to understand the magnitude of what she is up against as she scrutinizes the first photos and bits of information she had pinned to her office wall. The camera pulls back to show how the original findings have grown exponentially. The latter is an indelible image of one of the girls being raped, tortured and killed in front of the others, as an example of why compliance is the only way to survive.

The Human Rights Watch Film Festival showcased the New York premiere of The Whistleblower in June. HRW has done extensive work documenting post-war abuse in the Balkans. Their website article "Bosnia and Herzegovina: Traffickers Walk Free" gives an overview of the material covered in the movie. In addition, they issued a report in 2002 that breaks down their findings into twelve comprehensive sections.

I interviewed Kondracki by e-mail to get additional insights about her vision and aspirations for the movie. She explained that as a Ukrainian Canadian, the issue of sex trafficking was widely discussed within her community. When she read Bolkovac's book, The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman's Fight for Justice, she was overwhelmed by the breadth of the crime of trafficking. She was surprised that a film had not already been made.

What made you decide to do the movie as an indie film? Did you think it would give you more latitude to portray the story as you best saw fit?

To be honest, I didn't see another way. We set out to do it. We spent some time in studios, which was a valuable experience and I think the script was improved when we were there. But ultimately, this was the way that made sense. That's where I have to hand it to the producers. Once we got the project out, we were shooting within nine months.

Do you see the film reaching people about the issue of human trafficking in a way that a news story or article cannot? Are you hoping that the "political thriller" tag will pull people in, which might otherwise be afraid of the subject matter?

Absolutely. Kathy's story is practically a Robert Ludlum novel. Sex, scandal, corruption, governments, international cover-ups. It's something you would usually make up. Our primary goal was to make a good thriller with a great character at the center. Is she going to get the girl? Are they going to get our heroine?

Was it Bolkovac's experience with domestic violence in the United States, combined with how she got a conviction on her first time at bat in Bosnia, that made Madeleine Rees reach out to her?

Yes. That conviction made Kathy really stand out.

How did you decide how far to go with graphically showing the abuse and torture of the trafficked girls?

I wasn't going to make this movie and not be realistic. But I also had no intention of deterring audiences. We tested it several times, and found the right balance. You don't see anything. It's not unlike Silence of the Lambs in a way. It's what's inferred.

How is the United Nations dealing with the film? I understand there was an internal memo that was circulated that advocated a "no comment" policy. Does that suggest that they haven't learned anything from their experience about transparency?
The internal memo left it at the UN being split. But we have learned from sources that they are sticking with a "damage control" policy. I really have no idea what they've learned, and why they aren't seizing the opportunity not only to right these wrongs, but in doing so, to gain some faith from so many cynics that are watching. Show us you want to be the organization you're meant to be. I've written a letter to Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, and we have offered to screen the film wherever and whenever they want. So far...No Comment.

cultureID specifically deals with connecting those doing cultural work with political and social intent/content with audiences. How do you see The Whistleblower within this context?
I genuinely believe that films have one of the loudest voices. And I believe that if we can get this story into public discourse, the State Department and the United Nations will be embarrassed. Hopefully, enough to do something. Look at Guantanamo, extraordinary renditions...I'm not saying that's done with, but at least they aren't snatching people in plain sight out of airports anymore. Same thing here. U.S. tax dollars should not be going to the buying and selling of girls. Period. There's no grey area to that.

This article originally appeared on the site cultureID..

Follow Marcia G. Yerman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mgyerman

American in Bosnia Discovers the Horrors of Human Trafficking

2011-08-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

By STEPHEN HOLDENMore About This Movie Published: August 4, 2011

In the lineage of real-life David-and-Goliath movies in which intrepid seekers of the truth investigate malfeasance in high places, “The Whistleblower” deserves an honorable mention. This earnest film may not be as dramatically coherent or as gripping as “Serpico,” “All the President’s Men,” “Erin Brockovich” and “Silkwood,” to name four much-decorated Hollywood prototypes. But its revelations are, if anything, more devastating and far more immediate than the dirty deeds uncovered in those predecessors.

Enlarge This Image

Cary Fukunaga/Samuel Goldwyn Films

Vanessa Redgrave, who has a cameo role in the film.

The directorial debut of the Canadian filmmaker Larysa Kondracki, this grueling exposé of human trafficking in postwar Bosnia teeters in an uneasy balance between quasi-documentary and fiction. Its most sickening moment shows the rape and torture of a rebellious young prostitute smuggled from Ukraine into a Bosnian backwoods brothel while other young “whores of war,” as one character dismisses human trafficking victims, are forced to watch.

But for all its high-mindedness, “The Whistleblower,” filmed largely in Romania, has a choppy, fumbling screenplay (by Ms. Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan) that lurches between shrill editorializing and vagueness while sorting through more characters than it can comfortably handle or even readily identify.

As Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz), the movie’s slingshot-toting American heroine, marches into a political minefield, she seems strangely immune to danger until near the end of the film. “The Whistleblower” ultimately fizzles by withholding any cathartic sense that justice was done, or ever will be done, once Kathryn spills the beans to the British news media.

When the story begins, she is a police officer and a divorced mother living in Lincoln, Neb. Prevented from transferring to Atlanta to be nearer to her daughter, she impulsively accepts a lucrative job as a United Nations peacekeeping officer in Bosnia in 1999. The blunt, fearless Kathryn embraces her new job with a gusto that immediately raises eyebrows among her cynical co-workers, who look down at the Eastern Europeans they have been charged to help.

Ms. Weisz’s feisty performance is the strongest element of “The Whistleblower.” She imbues Kathryn with the same stubborn-verging-on-fanatical zeal that Rose Byrne (whom Ms. Weisz physically resembles) brings to her character, Ellen Parsons, in the television series “Damages,” with which “The Whistleblower” shares a strain of paranoia.

After demonstrating her mettle in prosecuting a case of domestic violence, Kathryn is offered a job in the United Nations Gender Affairs Office, working with the police to investigate rape, domestic abuse and sex trafficking. Her gumption earns her the admiration of Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave, in a cameo), the head of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, who remains an enigmatic, undeveloped character. The party-loving Kathryn also begins a casual affair with Jan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), a fellow peacekeeping officer.

Kathryn comes face to face with the truth when she journeys to a bar in the countryside, where she discovers a nest of imprisoned young prostitutes who are so frightened that they refuse to talk to her. When she reports back to her smirking boss, Fred Murray (David Hewlett), and he mockingly asks her if she’s “going Columbo,” she realizes that he is part of a conspiracy of silence among her male co-workers. Even Laura Leviani (Monica Bellucci), the chilly head of the repatriation program, is of no help: she insists that bureaucratic rules leave her unable to rescue prostitutes whose passports have been confiscated by their kidnappers.

As Kathryn gathers evidence, including Abu Ghraib-like snapshots of the girls and their johns, a fuller picture begins to emerge of a lucrative, far-reaching operation involving the police and United Nations peacekeepers, many of them protected by diplomatic immunity. The more noise she makes to United Nations higher-ups, the more apparent it becomes that she is viewed as a troublemaking nuisance, and her job is terminated.

The movie concentrates on Kathryn’s efforts to coax two terrified Ukrainian girls, Raya (Roxana Condurache) and her best friend, Irka (Rayisa Kondracki, the director’s sister), to identify their kidnappers. Kathryn recklessly promises Raya protection if she agrees to talk, with dire consequences. Near the end of “The Whistleblower,” a scene is awkwardly inserted in which Raya’s mother discovers that immediate family members sold her daughter into slavery.

Kathryn is so outraged by her discoveries that she has no room for panic. Her lack of caution suggests that only someone blindly immune to intimidation would rattle so many cages without fearing for her life. Some of the horrors in the book Ms. Bolkovac wrote about her experiences, including the fact that many of the trafficked girls were much younger than those shown in the movie, are softened.

Kathryn’s only ally is Peter Ward (David Strathairn, in ominously brooding, conspiratorial mode), an internal affairs specialist who, in the film’s most suspenseful scene, helps her smuggle evidence out of her office.

“The Whistleblower” tells a story so repellent that it is almost beyond belief. Its conclusion — that in the moral quagmire of war and its aftermath, human trafficking and corruption are collateral damage — is unutterably depressing.

“The Whistleblower” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has a graphic rape, brutalization and strong language.

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this review misstated the title of the film at one point. “The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman’s Fight for Justice” is the title of Kathryn Bolkovac’s book about her experiences. The review also referred incorrectly to the film. While the director is Canadian, the movie is a Canadian-German co-production, not a Canadian film.

US, Russia agree on rules for safer adoptions

2011-07-14T13:18:00.000-07:00

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov shakes hands with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, at the State Department in Washington, Wednesday, July 13, 2011.AP

July 14, 2011 at 06:41 | Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Russia ended an ugly dispute over the abuse of adopted Russian children on Wednesday, with Washington signing an agreement that will increase oversight of adopting families to curtail possible maltreatment.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signed the accord in a ceremony in Washington.

Russia has been complaining for several years about cases where adopted Russian children had been abused in the U.S. The "last straw" — as Lavrov had put it — came in April 2010 when an adoptive mother from Tennessee sent her 7-year-old boy unaccompanied on a plane back to Moscow because she did not want to raise him anymore.

Russia threatened to suspend adoptions to the U.S., though it did not in fact do so, and insisted that U.S. officials negotiate a bilateral deal enabling Russian authorities to track the welfare of Russian adoptees more closely.

"We take very seriously the safety and security of children that are adopted by American parents," Clinton told reporters. "This agreement provides new, important safeguards to protect them. It also increases transparency for all parties involved in the adoption process."

The deal stipulates that adoption agencies can operate in Russia only with the authorization of the country's government, except in cases where a child is being adopted by relatives.

Better information will also be provided to prospective parents about the social and medical histories of children.

Once an adoption has been completed, the U.S. agency that made the arrangements will be required to monitor the living conditions and upbringing of the child, scheduling periodic visits by a social worker and sending reports to Russian authorities about the child's development.

In cases where the adoptive parents seek to dissolve an adoption, the agency will be required to notify Russian authorities and the State Department as soon as feasible.

Russia demanded the agreement after the uproar sparked when Artyom Savelyev was sent back from his adoptive home in Tennessee in April 2010.

Savelyev's adoptive mother refused to allow a social worker into the house less than a month before the boy was returned with a note saying she no longer wanted to be his mother because the child had psychological problems.

The incident outraged Russia, for years one of the biggest sources of adopted children for Americans. Over the past six years, adoptions from Russia by U.S. families have fallen steadily — there were 1,092 last year, compared to more than 5,800 in 2004.

Some international adoption proceedings in Russia were slowed in response to the Tennessee incident, though there was no complete halt.

Adoption advocates in the U.S. worried that the U.S.-Russian friction might cause potential adoptive parents to look toward other countries and leave more Russian children at the mercy of underfunded, overcrowded orphanages.

There are roughly 250,000 children in those orphanages. Many of the children who leave them end up in jail, become drug abusers or turn to prostitution or other crime.

Lavrov said the agreement would help counter growing public anger over the fate of Russian children in the United States.

Speaking through an interpreter, he thanked the U.S. for its work toward finding a solution.

Russian officials have claimed that at least 17 adopted Russian children have died in domestic violence in American families.

Earlier this month, local media reported that a central Pennsylvania couple accused of killing their adopted Russian son won't face the death penalty if convicted.

Police say the child had a traumatic brain injury, about 80 external injuries and was malnourished when he died in 2009, but the parents say the boy repeatedly hurt himself and that they provided him with sufficient medical care.

Chuck Johnson, chief executive of the National Council for Adoption, said many of the cases of abuse involved Russian children who were adopted independently, rather than through U.S. adoption agencies accredited by Russian authorities.

Under the treaty, such independent adoptions will be prohibited, and Johnson said he hoped one result would be a gradual increase in adoptions from Russia as officials in Moscow regain trust of the U.S. adoption system.

"For the Russians, their big get is that they will now be able to maintain some type of contact with the child," Johnson said. "That's not been possible in the past... They had no mechanism to deal with cases where there are problems."

State Department officials, in a briefing after the signing, stressed that Russian officials would still have no direct authority over U.S. families or the adopted children, but would have new powers to set conditions for U.S. agencies in how they handle their follow-up monitoring of adoptions from Russia.

The treaty is not retroactive. Parents and agencies with adoption applications pending in Russia will be able to complete them under prior procedures.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/russia/detail/108584/#ixzz1S73S9e7C

UN: Police, courts and judiciary fail women

2011-07-06T09:47:00.000-07:00

More than half the world's working women are trapped in insecure jobs, often without protection from labor laws.Today at 08:09 | Associated PressUNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than half the world's working women are trapped in insecure jobs, often without protection from labor laws. Some 600 million women live in countries where domestic violence is not a crime. And just 28 countries have parliaments where at least 30 percent of the lawmakers are women.

These are some of the key findings in the first report issued by the new U.N. agency, UN Women, entitled "Progress of the World's Women: In Pursuit of Justice," which was released Wednesday.

While 139 countries and territories now guarantee gender equality in their constitutions, the report said millions of women in many countries are still deprived of economic resources and access to public services and all too often "are denied control over their bodies, denied a voice in decision-making and denied protection from violence."

"For most of the world's women the laws that exist on paper do not always translate into equality and justice," it said. "In many contexts, in rich and poor countries alike, the infrastructure of justice — the police, the courts and the judiciary — is failing women, which mainfests itself in poor services and hostile attitudes from the very people whose duty it is to fulfill women's rights."

In the 169-page report, UN Women called on governments to repeal laws that discriminate against women, provide more funding to support innovative services such as legal aid and specialized courts to ensure that women can access the justice system and make certain that there are female police, judges and legislators.

While women have achieved greater economic empowerment through laws that prohibit discriminatory practices, guarantee equal pay and provide for maternity and paternity leave, the report said 53 percent of working women — 600 million in total — are in vulnerable jobs such as self-employment, domestic work, or unpaid work for family businesses which often lack the protection of labor laws.

It said women are still paid up to 30 percent less than men in some of the 117 countries that have laws guaranteeing equal pay in the workplace.

UN Women stressed that laws must be enforced if women are to achieve equality, but pointed to many barriers.

"In the developing world, more than one third of women are married before the age of 18, missing out on education and exposed to the risks of early pregnancy," the report said.

Domestic violence is now outlawed in 125 countries but 603 million women live in countries where it is not a crime — and even where there are laws, the report said, "millions of women report experiencing violence in their lifetimes, usually at the hands of an intimate partner."

UN Women urged governments to learn from countries that have taken practical steps to make justice accessible to ordinary women.

It cited South Africa's "one-stop shops" that bring justice, legal and health care services together, women's police stations in Latin America that have led to an increase in the reporting of gender-based violence, Congo's mobile courts which are bringing justice to women in rural areas where sexual violence is high, and legal aid to women in countries from Pakistan and Mexico to Fiji and Kyrgyzstan.

The report also noted that in countries with steep increases in women's representation in parliaments — such as Rwanda, Nepal and Spain — progressive laws on women's rights have often followed.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/world/detail/108085/#ixzz1RLQMpBHq

The worst places in the world to be a woman - CBSNews

2011-06-15T07:55:00.001-07:00

Afghan women head off to an engagement party leaving a curtained local beauty parlor October 17, 2010, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

(Credit: Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

For the fairer sex, most places in the world present a special set of burdens that menfolk cannot imagine, even if they created them.

A new survey highlights the places around the world where it is especially bad to be a woman, produced by the recently launched TrustLaw website, a product of the Thomson Reuters Foundation that is aimed at being "a global centre for free legal assistance and a hub of news and information on anti-corruption issues, good governance and women's legal rights."

The survey was conducted among gender experts on five continents, and they rated each country's overall danger to women, as well as health threats, sexual violence, non-sexual violence, cultural or religious factors, lack of access to resources and trafficking.

Afghanistan tops the list, as it is in general one of the world's most dangerous places. Congo, Pakistan, India and Somalia rounded out the top five.

While Afghanistan was cited for its overall level of violence, there are a host of other factors that caused TrustLaw to put it atop the list. One in 11 women there have a chance of dying in childbirth; Some 87 percent of women are illiterate; and as many as 80 percent of girls face forced marriages.

Congo was put atop the list because of the staggering level of sexual violence in the country - a product of many years of war and humanitarian disasters. As many as 400,000 women are raped there annually.

As many as 1,000 women are killed annually in Pakistan in so-called "honor killings." Additionally, families defending their "honor" there are also known to attack women with acid to disfigure them, stone them to death, or simply beat them. The widespread practice of arranged and forced marriages also present a hurdle to personal freedom for women there.

India, while a rapidly developing country, still places great cultural burdens on women. In addition to incredibly high rates of human trafficking and prostitution involving women, especially girls, foeticide (the killing of fetuses) and infanticide with females is incredibly high there. As many as 50 million females are reported to have gone missing because of the practice in the last century.

Finally, Somalia, another generally very dangerous place, rounded out the top five. Somali women's minister Maryan Qasim told TrustLaw: "The most dangerous thing a woman in Somalia can do is to become pregnant. When a woman becomes pregnant her life is 50-50 because there is no antenatal care at all. There are no hospitals, no healthcare, no nothing. Add to that the rape cases that happen on a daily basis, the female genital mutilation that is being done to every single girl in Somalia. Add to that the famine and the drought. Add to that the fighting (which means) you can die any minute, any day."

The survey's authors suggest that a lack of access to economic, health and educational resources posed just as great a threat to women around the world as anything else.

Elisabeth Roesch, who works on gender-based violence for the International Rescue Committee, told TrustLaw: "When you actually allow women and girls to express themselves, these are the problems they cite: 'We can't go to school. We can't make enough money to support our families. We can't access the local health clinic, either because our husband won't allow us or it's inaccessible.' These are real problems."

“Human rights start with children’s rights”

2011-05-31T08:34:00.001-07:00

The head of the UNICEF mission in Ukraine speaks about the priorities of the state, the Soviet heritage and destroying stereotypes

By Oksana MYKOLIUK, The Day


	YUKIE MOKUO

Unfortunately, there are particularly entrenched problems linked to children’s rights protection and child abuse in Ukraine. The state has to change the whole system, bring down stereotypes and cultivate humanity in people so that the younger generation doesn’t suffer. Ukraine has only made its first steps toward eradicating child abuse, a problem that was hushed up for years. On May 24-25 an international conference focusing on children’s rights violations was held in Kyiv. It was organized by UNICEF and the Council of Europe, together with the assistance of the Ukrainian government, and attended by nearly 200 foreign experts. Its title was “Child Abuse Counteraction: From Separate Actions to Complex Strategies.” The Day before its opening The Day interviewed the head of the UNICEF mission in Ukraine Yukie MOKUO.

Judging from the name of the conference, it will be focused on creating new approaches in governmental strategies, aimed at tracking cases of child abuse and preventing them?

“The conference will address questions related to child abuse counteraction. When we talk about child abuse we have to know that it concerns not only physical punishment. Of course, physical abuse also matters, but there are also issues connected to the child’s social and emotional development. Especially for children brought up in orphanages and unable to grow in a family environment. It’s a burning issue in terms of social protection, not only in Ukraine but in other countries, too. It’s all about services provided to children and caring for them. We believe that the more children stay in orphanages, the more they are abused. We shouldn’t, however, forget about the existence of child abuse at home, both physical and psychological. Our society is also contaminated with such forms of child abuse as sexual exploitation, trafficking of children and child prostitution. So, when talking about the conference we say that we try to embrace the issues related to child protection with a complex approach. This event is of extreme importance for the Ukrainian government since Ukraine will preside over the Committee of Ministers in the Council of Europe from May to November this year. It’s the first conference held within the framework of the Ukrainian presidency in the Council of Europe.

“UNICEF is glad that the Ukrainian government has prioritized the question of children’s rights protection. The conference will be attended by nearly 200 experts from 23 countries of Western and Eastern Europe. They account for half of the attendance; the other half is made up of government representatives. We’ll have the UN mission (the representative of the Secretary General for Violence Against Children) and the CoE mission (the Deputy Secretary General).

“The UNICEF regional director, supervising the 23 countries of this region, will be also present. I’d like to emphasize that Ukraine promised to make children’s rights protection a priority during its CoE presidency. We want to draw attention to these questions and we want the Ukrainian government to be ready to ratify international conventions. There’s the European Convention No. 201 protecting children from sexual exploitation. There’s also the Hague Convention on international adoption, which was not ratified by Ukraine. Both of them are being worked on by the corresponding parliamentary committees and I hope that the government will ratify them. Then we will be able to say that the Ukrainian government is ready to make certain steps.”

	Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day

	YUKIE MOKUO

Why do you think is it that we can’t eradicate domestic and social abuse for so many years and how does the situation in Ukraine compared to Europe?

“Unfortunately, child abuse exists all over the world. We might have an impression that abuse escalates as the media talk about it more and more. However, we understand that the situation is quite the opposite. Traditionally, family abuse has been hidden. UNICEF concentrates on social awareness improvement not only in the family but also among teachers, doctors and social workers. The more they know about the problem the better this problem will be dealt with. It’s essential that society has its eyes open to identify cases of abuse and inform the corresponding services about them. The role of teachers, doctors, nurses and social workers that come into contact with children is crucial as they are able to see a child’s problems and understand that a child is abused. In my opinion, Ukraine has made progress in this sphere. We have improved the report system and raised awareness. However, it’s not enough and I think that governmental institutions and society have to make efforts to resolve this complex of problems. The problem of child abuse is insufficiently covered in Ukrainian society compared to other European countries. Thus, Ukraine needs better mechanisms of reporting cases of child abuse.”

What kind of mechanisms?

“The awareness of people working in governmental institutions, not only in the social sector, but in law enforcement agencies as well. As for the legislative basis, there are certain problems there. At present we’re working on several amendments in the cooperation with the Verkhovna Rada. The sexual exploitation of children and child prostitution are examples of this. We’re talking about the children aged 16 to 18 that are at risk of child prostitution. Currently, they have to pay a fine but their clients are not answerable. The UN Convention includes an optional article on abuse, prostitution and sexual exploitation. It provides that any adult engaging in a sexual act with a minor is fully answerable for this. This norm doesn’t exist in Ukraine. It’s only an example. The law itself doesn’t work. We have to enforce the role of social assistance. For example, if a child is in an environment where they have to provide sexual services, we have to find a reason for this in their education and family. This way we have to protect children not only through legislation but also through social assistance that will prevent them from doing such things. Here we address the question of the social security of Ukrainian families since a lot of them live in poverty, suffer form unemployment, and have members addicted to drugs and alcohol. Of course, these problems affect their children.”

Child abuse is common in Ukraine’s orphanages. Are you going to cover this issue at the conference and what’s the UNICEF’s position?

“As for this system, we strongly protect children’s rights to grow in families. The problem of children raised outside of families is topical for many countries of the region. We can see that there are a lot of cases of child abuse in such institutions but we don’t have exact numbers. We don’t have exact statistics about how many children have been abused, in this way or another. Examples abound but we don’t have the exact statistics. Once I was invited to Shuster’s talk-show to discuss the topic of children living in orphanages. There were people there who grew up in such institutions but were successful in life. So those people could have said something good about orphanages. I was shocked that those people spoke about the abuse they experienced. Even successful people pay attention to the abuse they suffered from in orphanages. So, we are aware of such cases, but we don’t have any statistics. It can be easily explained. Let’s look at foster families. How do they build relations between parents and children? They have to care about their children, love and protect them, but they also have to provide an environment where children will grow and develop social skills. An important role is attributed to social services, that have to help. If we look at orphanages where children differ from our children a lot, they lose lots of opportunities for their development: not only in terms of social skills, but also in what regards cognitive and emotional ones. We need a powerful independent monitoring mechanism to be able to understand the level of abuse and violence in orphanages. The former powerful Soviet social security system proved to be tenuous from the point of self-repayment, profitability and efficiency in the new Ukrainian reality. The social security system has to be reformed to be able to address modern challenges. The institutions where children are [currently] kept are the heritage of the Soviet system, which has to be reformed.”

Will the questions related to children’s rights protection be resolved faster after the position of a children’s ombudsman is introduced in Ukraine?

“We rightly praise Nina Karpachova, who deals with questions related to human rights protection efficiently. Of course, in her office there are people dealing with questions of children’s rights protection, too. We see the possibilities and potential to bolster the Ukrainian ombudsman’s position to be able to better react to children’s rights violations and to protect [the children]. It’s not about just dealing with individual questions. I believe that the Ukrainian ombudsman can more actively participate in resolving problems with us, so as to be able to solve the systemic questions concerning child abuse, to reform the orphanage system and to replace it with alternative forms of family education. We think that we’re able to activate cooperation with the Ukrainian ombudsman. Ideally, UNICEF is supporting the idea to delegate the children’s rights protection issues to a children’s ombudsman. However, it’s closely related to the context of the country. Ukraine has to make its own decisions. The issue is to introduce a powerful mechanism of children’s rights protection monitoring in the South of Ukraine.”

What do you think about the transformation of the Ministry of Youth, Family and Sports into a Department at the Ministry of Education and Science?

“I’ve already expressed my opinion on behalf of UNICEF to the Ukrainian president and government. I also spoke about it during a session of the Verkhovna Rada last December. Certainly, UNICEF respects the decision of the Ukrainian government as it represents a sovereign state. UNICEF fully accepts this decision, aimed at transferring the functions of that ministry to the Ministry of Education. However, we strongly recommend that during this reform the main functions concerning children’s rights protection be preserved. We know about the presidential decree issued a month ago, ordering to transfer to the Ministry of Social Policy the functions related to the protection of children, women and families. The government is still working on determining these functions’ structure. Our organization will gladly cooperate with the Ukrainian government to perform those functions during the process of reform. We have the Department for Adoption and Protection of Children and the Department for Family and Gender Policy. Merging those two departments with the Ministry of Social Policy might be a good idea since one institution will perform all the functions. It might be an advantage.

“The next question is of a great importance. If a family experiences a difficult situation, it’s unemployed, poor or a mother raises three children on her own, such a family needs to have social protection (consultancies, legal assistance, etc.), and financial support as well. Such families in crisis should receive the whole ‘assistance package.’ If such families aren’t sufficiently protected they risk becoming asocial, which can lead to child abuse.”

Don’t you think that in half a year, when Ukraine’s presidency in the EC finishes, the Ukrainian government will lose interest in children’s rights?

“I hope that the Ukrainian government will assume specific obligations in front of the international community as you have the best opportunity to demonstrate the changes in the sphere of human and children’s rights protection. I’ve been working here for two years now and I see that you have good resources and an educated society. I don’t think that the Ukrainian government will do a foolish thing and miss this opportunity. It’s a real chance for Ukraine to show its strong points. However, work has to be done not only at a governmental level. It has to develop into specific government obligations to pursue this or that policy. This will cause certain budget expenditures directed at the protection of children. UNICEF is ready to provide its technical help any time. I hope that we’ll cooperate in future as well.”

http://www.day.kiev.ua/210321

Seeking an end to child abuse in Eastern Europe

2011-05-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

Delegates from Corvallis’ Sister City in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, are in town this week to meet with representatives from local agencies that work for the welfare of children and families — specifically to gain skills in recognizing and diagnosing child abuse.

The visitors include Zita Batori Tartsi, the president of the Sisters City Association of Uzhhorod, and delegates Volodymyr Bashkiryev, Svitlana Khvust and Valentyna Shevchuk. In Uzhhorod, they are social workers, psychologists, therapists and educators working to help families cope with issues ranging from domestic violence to the long-lasting trauma of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown.

Both Batori Tartsi and Bashkiryev work in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Uzhhorod National University.

Simply acknowledging the problem of child abuse and domestic violence in Ukraine is a step in the right direction, Batori Tartsi said.

“A hidden problem of abuse in orphanages; it is our pain,” she said.

Wednesday morning, the members of the delegation listened intently to presentations by the director and staff of the Old Mill Center for Children and Families.

Executive director Steve Golston spoke to the delegates about the center’s relief nursery program, which offers assistance to at-risk families by pairing childcare with parent education programs.

“At-risk families — families with high stress — are more likely to have abuse problems,” Golston said. Those risk factors include drug and alcohol abuse, mental health issues for either a parent or child, teenage parents, single mothers, families living in poverty, parents who were sexually or physically abused as children, financial difficulties such as unemployment, no family support or living in an unsafe area.

“If any of these factors exist in a family, the possibility of child abuse goes way up,” Golston said. “The idea is intervention before child abuse occurs.”

The goal is the interruption of these problems from one generation to the next,” explained Cindy Bond of the Old Mill Center.

The delegation, which arrived May 11, has been busy soaking up as much information about child welfare and education as possible. Wednesday the group met with staff members from the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence. The group also has visited the Department of Human Services’ Child Welfare Program, the Children’s Farm Home, the Parent Enhancement Program, the Benton County Courthouse and Parole and Probation. Additional visits to ABC House, Court Appointed Special Advocates and Community Outreach are planned before the visitors depart Sunday.

The delegates plan to use their experiences to help create violence-prevention programs in Uzhhorod and enhance existing educational programs to reach out to at-risk children.

Contact city reporter Nancy Raskauskas at 541-602-0539 or nancy.raskauskas@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter @NancyR10.

Turkey to hand over chairmanship of Committee of Ministers to Ukraine

2011-05-09T08:25:00.001-07:00

Turkey will hand over chairmanship of Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to Ukraine on May 11.

A statement by Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Turkey would hand over chairmanship to Ukraine at a ceremony to be held on the sidelines of the 121st Ministerial Session of the Council of Europe that would take place at Ciragan Palace Hotel in Istanbul on May 10-11, 2011.

Turkey assumed the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on November, 10 2010.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will host the ministerial meeting to be attended by foreign ministers of 47 member and 5 observer states of the Council of Europe.

At the end of the meeting, "Istanbul Declaration" on the future of the organization and the role of the Council of Europe in maintaining the democratic stability in Europe as well as the principles, binding commitments and efficient monitoring mechanisms it has been representing in this regard, is to be adopted.

In the margin of the Ministerial Meeting, the ceremony of opening for signature of "Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence" will take place at Ciragan Palace.

Turkey to Sign International Treaty on Violence against Women

2011-04-20T08:29:00.001-07:00

The Turkish Foreign Ministry will sign an international treaty designed to prevent and combat violence against women during a meeting of the Council of Europe Ministers on May 11 in Istanbul.
The Council of Europe’s convention sets out standards for states to act with integrated policies to tackle gender-based violent crimes and promote international cooperation. Governments ratifying the treaty will have to take necessary legislative or other measures to ensure criminalizing acts such as domestic violence, violence in public places, sexual harassment, forced marriage, “honor” crimes, rape and genital mutilation.
The convention proposes the establishment of state-wide telephone help lines that would operate around the clock to provide confidential advice to anonymous callers.
The treaty defines “domestic violence” as all acts of physical, sexual, psychological or economic violence that occur within the family or domestic unit or between former or current spouses or partners, whether or not the perpetrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim.
The draft text also calls for specific monitoring mechanisms to check implementation of the convention.
Turkey will also host a conference on the reform process of the European Court of Human Rights between April 26 and 27 in İzmir. The conference will include a preliminary assessment of the impact of Protocol No. 14 and will study the achievements made by the reform process launched by the Interlaken conference in February 2010 and reflect upon further ideas for improvement prior to May 11.
Turkey, which has held the six-month rotating presidency of the European Council, will hand over the presidency to Ukraine on May 11.

Ukraine Educators Visit America

2011-04-20T08:28:00.000-07:00

Purchase Image

A group of social workers and educators from the Ukraine taste some bread made by students in the cooking class at North Valleys High on Monday. The group, which is part of the International Visitor Leadership Program, was invited to become acquainted with American practices of providing social services to youth. Left to right is Volodymyer Nay, Nadiia Lakymiv, Lelyzaueta Onyshchenko and Oksana Vozniuk. / RGJ

Written by

Michael Martinez
mmartinez@rgj.com

FILED UNDER
Local Life

In the Ukraine, about 90 percent of the students attend school regularly, according to statistics compiled by UNICEF.

Dropouts are not acceptable. Students are required to wear uniforms in most cases. And truancy: If you don't want to be picked up by police and returned home to your parents or to a detention center, go to class.

So what did a group of Ukrainian educators and youth social service workers stand to gain from a visit to Washoe County schools Monday?

"You have youth services outreach families and counseling for domestic violence," said Nataliya Yeremenko, the head of social services in Kreminna is the Ukrainian state of Lahansk.

She spoke through U.S. state department interpreter Alex Tsiovkh, who also is professor at the University of Kansas.

"We want to see and hear the best practices of what people, agencies and services in the United States do with these issues you face here in the United States and adopt them back home, and to take those best practices and adapt them," Yeremenko said.

Yeremenko and a handful of her colleagues visited a about four campuses Monday, including North Valleys High School, where Principal Jeana Curtis, vice principal Josh Reddig and school district police Chief Mike Mieras took them on a tour of classrooms.

Prior to the visit, Curtis and Reddig talked about the school's policy Project Respect which emphasis "respect, responsibility, loyalty, honesty and courage everywhere on campus."

Reddig said since 2008 when the program -- culled from input by administration, teachers, staff and students at the school -- was implemented, behavioral referrals to the office have declined.

He said teachers use enrichment periods at the school, also reserved for tutoring and other activities, to remind students of these expectations.

The contingent of Ukrainian visitors got to witness the policy in effect in various classrooms.

"We've had many interesting, positive and pleasant impressions because we've been able to communicate and exchange ideas with new people," Yeremenko said.

"We've learned many cultural traditions that differ from those we have in the Ukraine, so we are able to better characterize people in the United States."

International Women's Day celebration

2011-03-18T10:37:00.001-07:00

Each year, around the world, International Women’s Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8.

Tassie McDonald, Silen David, Lucy Stephen, Flora Matthew and Lency Pedro celebrate International Women’s Day at the Tagai Secondary Campus morning tea.

Hundreds of events occur not just on this day but throughout March to mark the economic, political and social achievements of women.

And while the day is often seen as a day just for women, this was not the case at Tagai TAFE on Thursday Island.

The Mura Kosker Sorority joined with the TAFE to a different slant on their morning tea celebration by inviting men and boys from the TAFE to join in showing their support for women.

Speaking at the gathering, LJ Shibasaki said the day was about the boys appreciating women in their family and their lives, and acknowledging all the work they did for them.

“Hopefully when you go on to have your wives and daughters, you will be appreciative of what they do for you,” she said.

Lena Passi Women’s Shelter service manager Georgina Binjuda said it was important for teachers and students to show leadership in stamping out bullying in schools and among young males.

“Bullying can lead to domestic violence in later life,” Ms Binjuda said.

“At Lena Passi, we are running the Getting On program among 15- to 25-year-olds to help combat this.

“We are also working on a music DVD for the under 15s with an anti-bullying message.”

The Lena Passi Getting On program received a highly commended award in the Indigenous category of the Queensland Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Awards in 2009.

The first IWD events were run in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland in 1911 and attended by over one million people.

100 years on, IWD has become a global phenomena celebrated across many countries, and is an official holiday in approximately 25 countries including Afghanistan, Russia, Ukraine, Cambodia and Zambia.

Battered Women and European values

2011-03-17T08:47:00.001-07:00

Vadim Kastelli shot a film about domestic violence ... in the land of Amazons and militant Cossack wives

By Anna SLIESARIEVA

	Photo replica by Kostiantyn HRYSHYN, The Day

	FIANCES (FROM THE CYCLE OF WORKS “MAZEPIANA”) BY RENOWNED UKRAINIAN GRAPHIC ARTIST SERHII YAKUTOVYCH

For anybody committed to European values, violence against women is a barbaric act. Incidentally, in Ukraine, a country known for its Amazons and militant Cossack wives, this “tradition” should be seen as alien, too. Obviously, it was brought here by some other culture, some other civilization...

Let’s recall that the first prize in this year’s World Press Photo Contest was awarded to the portrait of an Afghan girl, Bibi Aisha, who was mutilated by her own husband and father. This photo was taken by Jodi Bieber and it shocked the entire world, including Ukrainians, who are probably unaware that one in five Ukrainian women suffers from domestic violence, but is too ashamed to talk about it. To get this problem to surface in public debate, director Vadim Kastelli (known primarily as one of the authors of the film NATO: Friend or Foe) has addressed the issue in his documentary Battered Women. The film tells the stories of three Ukrainian women who have become victims of domestic violence. At the end of the road, one of them was barely saved by doctors, the other killed her tormenter, while the third found the inner strength to leave her abuser. Psychologists and lawyers, local and foreign experts analyze the situation, while celebrities unexpectedly tell their tales in this documentary.

Having learned the sad statistics, one understands why Kastelli chose this topic. One in five Ukrainian women experiences domestic violence, which makes for almost 4,600,000 casualties.

“Our statistics differ little from global ones,” Kastelli assures. “When we say that women are beaten everywhere, in housing projects as well as in palaces, it seems only a phrase, but we talked to pop stars and actresses, and they admitted to having suffered from violence, too.”

Of course, the issue exists not only in less than affluent countries like Ukraine. But some European nations formally recognize domestic violence as a crime, not a private matter, and perpetrators receive psychological treatment.

“European countries have long understood that open discussion is needed to overcome this phenomenon. When the social mechanisms in question function normally, where a woman knows that she can call the police and they will answer her call, where public bodies react to violence, where an abusive husband is publicly condemned and can be fired from his job – there a woman has it much easier. We have to go that way, outlined by the civilized nations of Europe,” Kastelli maintains.

Practice shows that Ukrainian women are embarrassed to publicly admit that they are victims of domestic violence.

“We have the infamous saying ‘an unbeaten woman is similar to an unriveted scythe.’ It is something that lies really deep in us,” Kastelli explains. “The situation was exacerbated during the Soviet years, when any private initiative was destroyed, while passivity was the norm.”

However, now Ukraine has special shelters for abused women and a helpline where one can ask for help. In addition to temporary housing, the victims get psychological, legal, informational assistance and other support. Nor should we forget about the number “102” [the Ukrainian police help line – Ed.].

“You cannot say that violence against women is a Slavic trait. Poles are Slavs all the same, but their situation is much better, especially after the country joined the EU. Any steps toward civilization are an improvement,” the director emphasizes.

Kastelli’s film will soon premiere on the First National TV channel.

COMMENTARIES

Nina POTARSKA, historian, political scientist and social activist:

“The problem of violence against women can not be separated from its cultural, political or economic context. The economic context is the most important. The economy is the core of the issue, other layers come later on; they include cultural policy and general gender ignorance of society, understatement of the importance of gender problems, stereotypical female images in the media space, reflecting sexism and depict the women’s role as secondary as compared to men.”

Nadia PARFAN, the Visual Culture Research Center at the National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy:

“The defenselessness of women is, above all, a social problem, because violence against women is widespread, principally, within lower-status, poorer groups with unstable economic situations. Their cultural level is a result of their situation. The government has shown a lack of interest in protecting its citizens. Commercial media do not set educational objectives and only produce stereotypes ... To understand that the problem exists, one needs education, one must be interested, read, think about it...”

Olena Shevchenko, chairman of the NGO Insight:

“Of course, this complex problem is worth discussing; it is very poorly covered in the media, as it is not considered a pressing issue. So the public remains mostly uninformed about the shocking statistics of violence against women and the reasons for it. These reasons are rooted in gender inequality. Personally I have more confidence in the power of civil society, which is united, demands its rights be respected, and achieves its objectives. We so often hear talk about political will, as though the powers-that-be will decide to give us some rights, but this will is usually only political rhetoric.”

http://www.day.kiev.ua/206766

Ukraine's topless protesters attract fame and feminist fury

2011-03-09T07:46:00.000-08:00

Femen's protests catch the eye

A group of women's rights activists in Ukraine regularly bare their breasts to protest a host of issues. Their topless demonstrations garner international attention, but provoke criticism within feminist circles.

The Ukrainian women's rights group Femen regularly resorts to staging topless demonstrations - no matter whether it is raining or freezing cold outdoors.

"Using bare breasts is a public relations stunt, a shock tactic that unfailingly draws peoples' attention," Femen's leader Anna Huzol told Deutsche Welle.

But she stressed that the ultimate goal was to protect human rights in the entire country. "We are defending our rights and want women to take an active role in fighting for them," she said.

The movement, which was founded three years ago, has about 300 members in Kiev alone. One of the 30 women willing to bare their breasts during public appearances is economist Olexandra Shevchenko, who has denied that the women strip merely to show off their breasts.

"We want people to see our breasts and then read the slogans we've written on our posters and banners," she said.

Feminists remain critical

Femen's members have targeted sex tourism and domestic violence in Ukraine - but their eye-catching protests do not always meet with other feminists' approval or support.

Scantily-clad Femen activists take to the streets"Femen's activities give the impression at home and abroad that Ukrainian feminists are rabid women who show off their breasts," the head of the women's organisation 'Women's Network', Lajma Hejdar, said.

Sex tourism to Ukraine is in fact a problem, and it is on the increase as the 2012 European Soccer championship draws closer, according to Oksana Kis, a social scientist from Lviv. But, she says, the Femen activists discredit the most honorable ideas by the way they act.

"They take off their clothes for too many random issues, including the spread of swine flu," she told Deutsche Welle.

Other activists claim the movement portrays an undesirable image of Ukraine.

"Our country is like a giant distorting mirror, everything becomes unrecognizable," said Aljona Semenova, a gay rights campaigner. "These young women, who use their naked body to protest against all sorts of things, distort feminism in Ukraine."

Symbolic protest

But Huzol is convinced that the bare-breasted protesters have become a symbol for Ukraine, like the Klitschko brothers or soccer player Andrij Schewtschenko.

She adds that Femen also enjoys international backing and has received many letters of support from abroad.

"Contrary to those boring women who argue that we are harming Ukraine's standing, people abroad understand how cool it is to have such a movement in our country and that it is strong, courageous and effective," she said.

The number of women who join the Femen movement, meanwhile, has been on the rise. The women self-finance their protests - mainly by selling Femen souvenirs.

Author: Olga Wesnianka / db
Editor: Rob Turner

100th anniversary of International Women's Day

2011-03-08T09:41:00.001-08:00

Kyivpost.com March 8, 2011

The head of the new U.N. women's agency said Tuesday there has been "remarkable progress" since International Women's Day was first celebrated a century ago but gender equality remains a distant goal because women still suffer widespread discrimination and lack political and economic clout.

Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said in a statement marking the 100th anniversary that the pioneering women who launched the commemoration to promote better working conditions, the right to vote and hold public office, and equality with men, would probably look at the world today "with a mixture of pride and disappointment."

It was discrimination against women that brought over one million women and men from the socialist movement onto the streets for rallies in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on what was originally called International Working Women's Day on March 19, 1911.

The day became popular in Eastern Europe, Russia and the former Soviet bloc, and eventually spread around the globe. In some regions, it lost its political flavor and became an occasion for men to express their love for women with candy and flowers while in other regions, women's struggle for human rights and political and social equality remained the focus.

In 1975, during International Women's Year, the United Nations began celebrating March 8 as International Women's Day. Two years later the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a day for women's rights and international peace. This year, events are being held in many countries to mark the 100th anniversary.

"The last century has seen an unprecedented expansion of women's legal rights and entitlements," Bachelet said, pointing to virtually universal voting rights for women, major inroads for women in professions from which they were banned, laws penalizing domestic violence in two-thirds of the world's nations, and U.N. Security Council recognition of sexual violence as a deliberate tactic of war.

But Bachelet, who became the first executive director of UN Women in January, said that despite this progress, "the hopes of equality expressed on that first International Women's Day are a long way from being realized."

Girls are still less likely to be in school than boys, almost two-thirds of illiterate adults are women, and every 90 seconds a woman dies in pregnancy or due to childbirth-related complications despite the knowledge and resources to make births safe, she said, and women continue to earn less than men for the same work and have unequal inheritance rights and access to land.

Despite some high-profile advances, Bachelet said, only 28 women are heads of state or government and just 8 percent are peace negotiators. Last week, the Inter-Parliamentary reported that while the number of women in legislatures reached an all-time high of 19.1 percent in 2010, "the target of gender balance in politics is still a distant one."

Cracking the glass ceiling also remains an uphill struggle for women in business, especially getting into boardrooms and heading major companies.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said in a report Monday that women farmers also face serious discrimination.

Giving women the same tools and resources as men, including better access to land, technology, financial services, education and access to markets could reduce the number of hungry people in the world by up to 150 million, the report said.

Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, said equal rights are advanced when girls can avoid child marriage and enjoy equal access to education, both men and women can plan their families, and pregnant women no longer fear losing their jobs.

Read more: http://www.kyivpost.com/news/world/detail/99179/#ixzz1G1nDqEkT

100th anniversary of International Women's Day

2011-03-08T09:40:00.003-08:00

The Jewish Chronicle - FSU Jewish women take women s case to U N D C

2011-03-07T08:24:00.000-08:00

The Jewish Chronicle - FSU Jewish women take women s case to U N D C

Project Kesher
Project Kesher activists Elena Kalnitskaya, Svetlana Yakimenko, Olga Krasko and Vlada Bystrova pose outside a U.N. workshop in New York on Feb. 25. " title="Project Kesher
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Project Kesher
Project Kesher activists Elena Kalnitskaya, Svetlana Yakimenko, Olga Krasko and Vlada Bystrova pose outside a U.N. workshop in New York on Feb. 25.

When Elena Kalnitskaya of Ukraine talked about her organization’s women’s empowerment projects at a United Nations conference last week, she was presenting the face of social progress in her country.

And she was doing it as a Jewish woman -- not unusual, perhaps, for an American participant in international gatherings, but worth a second look when the representatives in question are from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

Kalnitskaya and her three colleagues are from Project Kesher, a Jewish women’s organization that promotes human rights and women’s concerns in the former Soviet Union. They are the only representatives from the former Soviet Union at the weeklong conference. And, Kalnitskaya notes, Project Kesher is the only Jewish group standing up in an international forum for the rights of women of all ethnicities and faiths in a half-dozen Russian-speaking countries.

“That’s important because when people ask who we are, we say we’re Jews, and we’re here representing our countries,” said Kalnitskaya, 47, who lives in the eastern Ukraine city of Makeyevka.

Kalnitskaya spoke to JTA by Skype on Feb. 25 as she was wrapping up three intense days of meetings at the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women, which brought delegates from more than 4,000 nongovernmental organizations to U.N. headquarters in New York to discuss civil society, human rights and the advancement of women around the world.

She had spent the day in a workshop on women and technology, where she talked about Project Kesher’s computer training and job skills program. The program has helped more than 17,000 people, mostly women and girls, in the organization’s 17 computer centers throughout the former Soviet Union.

It’s been a long haul for Project Kesher, which started in 1989 as a partnership between Jewish women in North America and the Soviet Union focused on bringing American activist models to bear on issues including domestic violence, human trafficking, women’s health, anti-Semitism and intolerance in the soon-to-be-independent countries behind the Iron Curtain.

In its two decades, the group has gained the respect of political leaders in the region, a development that Illinois-based Executive Director Karyn Gershon attributes to the nonsectarian nature of its work.

Project Kesher activists in Belarus who work to gain access for more women to the country’s sole mammography machine are helping all women, not just Jews, Gershon points out. That’s also true of the tolerance-building projects the group runs in Ukraine, a country plagued by xenophobia and rising violence against non-Slavs.

The activists are motivated to do this work because of the Jewish values they learn through the organization’s Jewish education programs -- education dedicated to inspiring tikkun olam, or work to repair the world’s ills -- a relatively new concept in the former Soviet Union.

“We have a seat at the table now,” Gershon said, noting that Project Kesher works with the Russian Parliament, or Duma, as well as with top government officials in Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia on health and social issues. “They see that the Jewish community is not insular.”

At the United Nations, Kalnitskaya and her colleagues are trying to share their most successful models of empowerment with women from Third World countries facing the same struggles against illiteracy, sexual violence and job discrimination, which have been heightened by the global economic crisis.

Olga Krasko of Belarus outlined Project Kesher’s job training success at a workshop on women and financial literacy.

“Women from Haiti and Ghana came up to me and said how much they appreciated hearing about our methodology, learning how we started,” said Krasko, of Polotsk. “Today it’s useless to talk about ending domestic violence and sex trafficking if we don’t empower women with legal and financial knowledge.”

“Here are women from Africa, Asia, learning from Jewish women from the FSU, picking up their models,” Gershon added. “We get 5,000 hits a week on our website, people downloading our materials, using our models. Worldwide, people are picking up that there are Jewish women doing this humanitarian work -- and it’s not just American Jews but Jews from the FSU.”

Project Kesher is set to co-host a U.N.-sanctioned panel March 3 examining women’s strategic use of technology to build civil society and promote gender equality.

“We’ll share our experience beginning from 20 years ago, when people in Russia didn’t even have telephones,” said Svetlana Yakimenko, the group’s Moscow-based director. “Today our information is immediately available on our website, we have virtual offices and we Skype our meetings.

Also this week, Yakimenko and her colleagues are hitting the Hill, meeting with U.S. State Department and congressional figures to talk about American support for civil society initiatives in the former Soviet Union.

“The thousands of women in Project Kesher want our voices to be heard by American decision-makers,” said Yakimenko, noting that when the group’s American leadership visits the FSU, they meet with government officials in those countries together with their local colleagues.

“It’s important for political leaders in Belarus to meet our American women,” said Krasko. “And when we tell Russian government leaders that we are representing the women of Russia at the United Nations, they listen to us.”

Read more:The Jewish Chronicle - FSU Jewish women take women s case to U N D C

Alcohol kills more than AIDS and TB

2011-02-16T07:47:00.000-08:00

"Alcohol is taking a heavy toll on national economies and health – destroying lives by way of domestic violence and road accidents, prompting other forms of violence including child abuse, and compromising business productivity"

Alcohol is a ‘contributor’ to hiv infection. While inebriated, people’s judgement is impaired and they do things they normally would not do.
They can be forgetful about such vital matters as condom usage. These two factors – a lack of inhibition and carelessness while overindulging in alcohol – has led to the spread of HIV where it otherwise might not have gone.
But what of the use of alcohol itself?
This week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) shed a revealing light on the dangers posed by alcohol use.
Most startling, alcohol causes nearly 4 % of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or man-made causes such as violence committed towards people. WHO has noted that as formerly poor people rise out of poverty, one of the results is they purchase and consume more alcohol.
Rising incomes have triggered more drinking in heavily populated countries in Africa and Asia, including India and South Africa, and binge drinking is a problem in many developed countries. Out of control binge drinking mixed with opportunity for sex is a deadly combination in the age of AIDS. Alcohol is taking a heavy toll on national economies and health – destroying lives by way of domestic violence and road accidents, prompting other forms of violence including child abuse, and compromising business productivity because of some workers’ absenteeism from the job. But despite this, “alcohol control policies,” as the WHO calls these, “remain a low priority for most governments.”
In a report released this week entitled, “Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health,” the WHO finds that about 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol related causes.
Youth are the population demographic most in danger of contracting HIV. Just as they become active sexually, they are at the age to start drinking. The connection between alcohol abuse and dangerous sexual activity that leads to AIDS is noted in the WHO report. "The harmful use of alcohol is especially fatal for younger age groups and alcohol is the world's leading risk factor for death among males aged 15-59," the report found.
Binge drinking, which the WHO links to AIDS-inducing risky behaviour, is now prevalent in Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Ukraine, and rising elsewhere, according to the WHO. Men are four times more likely to be heavy drinkers than women. Amongst all drinkers the number of heavy drinkers or binge drinkers is quite high, over one in 10. “Worldwide, about 11 % of drinkers have weekly heavy episodic drinking occasions, with men outnumbering women by four to one. Men consistently engage in hazardous drinking at much higher levels than women in all regions," the WHO report said.
Last year in May, the health ministers from all of WHO's 193 member states agreed to try to curb binge drinking and other growing forms of excessive alcohol use through higher taxes on alcoholic drinks and tighter marketing restrictions.
One of the most effective ways to curb drinking, especially among young people, is to raise taxes, the report said. Setting age limits for buying and consuming alcohol, and regulating alcohol levels in drivers, also reduce abuse if enforced. This week as the WHO report was released, word came from Swaziland’s ministry of finance that a heavier tax on alcoholic beverages is imminent. It’s not just AIDS that is a worry for drinkers.
The WHO found that alcohol is a “causal factor” (that is, it is the reason why a person contracts a disease) in 60 types of diseases and injuries. Drinking alcohol has been medically linked to cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, poisonings, road traffic accidents, violence, and several types of cancer, including cancers of the colorectum, breast, larynx and liver. Evidence of alcohol’s linkage to these diseases has been gathered in recent years. It’s no longer anecdotal that women who drink heavily can develop breast cancer. The proof is there. What keeps Swaziland from suffering even more from alcohol related problems is that the population is less able to purchase expensive alcoholic beverages than people living in developed countries.
The heaviest drinking occurs in the developed world. Alcohol abuse is the highest in Russia.
However, homemade and home brewed alcohol is a cheap and available alternative, and 30% of the total consumption of alcohol in the world comes from the home brewing of illegal and traditional drinks.
There is no word yet from the ministry of finance whether there would be a tax on the commercial sale of home-brewed tjwala and buganu.
Alcohol has health benefits
We must distinguish between normal consumption of alcohol and binge drinking or alcohol abuse.
The WHO points out that light to moderate drinking can have a beneficial impact on heart disease and stroke. A glass of red wine, for instance, is known to reduce the risk of heart disease. “However, the beneficial cardio-protective effect of drinking disappears with heavy drinking occasions,” states the WHO report.

16 February, 2011 with James Hall
http://www.observer.org.sz/index.php?news=21187

Metro - A tribute in their honour

2011-02-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

Knowing someone who has been touched by domestic violence makes performing the leadrole in Ghosts Of Violence for Anya Nesvitaylo that much more emotional.

The 27-year-old Ukrainian-born ballet dancer said she hopes the audience will see the underlying message and not just the dancing.

“I really enjoy it because this performance has this mission to open people’s minds and see what’s going on behind closed doors, what’s going on with some families,” Nesvitaylo said yesterday after rehearsal.

The ballet, premiering in Ottawa at the NAC Feb. 15, captures the memories of women who have been killed by their partners.

“I think it’s our tribute to their spirit and their endurance,” said Nesvitaylo.

The New Brunswick Silent Witness Committee approached artistic director and choreographer, Igor Dobrovolskiy, to create the ballet on the taboo subject.

“The theatre can make a difference, it’s a strong medium that can send messages for the audience who will remember the pictures and music with this subject,” Dobrovolskiy said.

Metro - A tribute in their honour

War's overlooked victims

2011-01-15T23:42:00.000-08:00

Rape is horrifyingly widespread in conflicts all around the world

SHORTLY after the birth of her sixth child, Mathilde went with her baby into the fields to collect the harvest. She saw two men approaching, wearing what she says was the uniform of the FDLR, a Rwandan militia. Fleeing them she ran into another man, who beat her head with a metal bar. She fell to the ground with her baby and lay still. Perhaps thinking he had murdered her, the man went away. The other two came and raped her, then they left her for dead.
Mathilde’s story is all too common. Rape in war is as old as war itself. After the sack of Rome 16 centuries ago Saint Augustine called rape in wartime an “ancient and customary evil”. For soldiers, it has long been considered one of the spoils of war. Antony Beevor, a historian who has written about rape during the Soviet conquest of Germany in 1945, says that rape has occurred in war since ancient times, often perpetrated by indisciplined soldiers. But he argues that there are also examples in history of rape being used strategically, to humiliate and to terrorise, such as the Moroccan regulares in Spain’s civil war.

As the reporting of rape has improved, the scale of the crime has become more horrifyingly apparent (see table). And with the Bosnian war of the 1990s came the widespread recognition that rape has been used systematically as a weapon of war and that it must be punished as an egregious crime. In 2008 the UN Security Council officially acknowledged that rape has been used as a tool of war. With these kinds of resolutions and global campaigns against rape in war, the world has become more sensitive. At least in theory, the Geneva Conventions, governing the treatment of civilians in war, are respected by politicians and generals in most decent states. Generals from rich countries know that their treatment of civilians in the theatre of war comes under ever closer scrutiny. The laws and customs of war are clear. But in many parts of the world, in the Hobbesian anarchy of irregular war, with ill-disciplined private armies or militias, these norms carry little weight.
Take Congo; it highlights both how horribly common rape is, and how hard it is to document and measure, let alone stop. The eastern part of the country has been a seething mess since the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In 2008 the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian group, estimated that 5.4m people had died in “Africa’s world war”. Despite peace deals in 2003 and 2008, the tempest of violence has yet fully to subside. As Congo’s army and myriad militias do battle, the civilians suffer most. Rape has become an ugly and defining feature of the conflict.
Plenty of figures on how many women have been raped are available but none is conclusive. In October Roger Meece, the head of the United Nations in Congo, told the UN Security Council that 15,000 women had been raped throughout the country in 2009 (men suffer too, but most victims are female). The UN Population Fund estimated 17,500 victims for the same period. The IRC says it treated 40,000 survivors in the eastern province of South Kivu alone between 2003 and 2008.
“The data only tell you so much,” says Hillary Margolis, who runs the IRC’s sexual-violence programme in North Kivu. These numbers are the bare minimum; the true figures may be much higher. Sofia Candeias, who co-ordinates the UN Development Programme’s Access to Justice project in Congo, points out that more rapes are reported in places with health services. In the areas where fighting is fiercest, women may have to walk hundreds of miles to find anyone to tell that they have been attacked. Even if they can do so, it may be months or years after the assault. Many victims are killed by their assailants. Others die of injuries. Many do not report rape because of the stigma.
Congo’s horrors are mind-boggling. A recent study by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and Oxfam examined rape survivors at the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a town in North Kivu province. Their ages ranged from three to 80. Some were single, some married, some widows. They came from all ethnicities. They were raped in homes, fields and forests. They were raped in front of husbands and children. Almost 60% were gang-raped. Sons were forced to rape mothers, and killed if they refused.
The attention paid to Congo reflects growing concern about rape in war. Historically the taboo surrounding rape has been so strong that few cases were reported; evidence of wartime rape before the 20th century is scarce. With better reporting, the world has woken up to the scale of the crime. The range of sexual violence in war has become apparent: the abduction of women as sex slaves, sexualised torture and mutilation, rape in public or private.

In some wars all parties engage in it. In others it is inflicted mainly by one side. Rape in wars in Africa has had a lot of attention in recent years, but it is not just an African problem. Conflicts with high levels of rape between 1980 and 2009 were most numerous in sub-Saharan Africa, according to Dara Kay Cohen of the University of Minnesota (see chart). But only a third of sub-Saharan Africa’s 28 civil wars saw the worst levels of rape—compared with half of Eastern Europe’s nine. And no part of the world has escaped the scourge.
The anarchy and impunity of war goes some way to explaining the violence. The conditions of war are often conducive to rape. Young, ill-trained men, fighting far from home, are freed from social and religious constraints. The costs of rape are lower, the potential rewards higher. And for ill-fed, underpaid combatants, rape can be a kind of payment.
Widespread, but not inevitable
Then consider the type of wars fought today. Many recent conflicts have involved not organised armies but scrappy militias fighting amid civilians. As wars have moved from battlefields to villages, women and girls have become more vulnerable. For many, the home front no longer exists; every house is now on the front line.
But rape in war is not inevitable. In El Salvador’s civil war, it was rare. When it did occur it was almost always carried out by state forces. The left-wing militias fighting against the government for years relied on civilians for information. You can rape to terrorise people or force them to leave an area, says Elisabeth Wood, a professor at Yale University and the Santa Fe Institute, but rape is not effective when you want long-term, reliable intelligence from them or to rule them in the future.
Some groups commit all kinds of other atrocities, but abhor rape. The absence of sexual violence in the Tamil Tigers’ forced displacement of tens of thousands of Muslims from the Jaffna peninsula in 1990 is a case in point. Rape is often part of ethnic cleansing but it was strikingly absent here. Tamil mores prohibit sex between people who are not married and sex across castes (though they are less bothered about marital rape). What is more, Ms Wood explains, the organisation’s strict internal discipline meant commanders could enforce these judgments.
Some leaders, such as Jean-Pierre Bemba, a Congolese militia boss who is now on trial for war-crimes in The Hague, say they lack full control over their troops. But a commander with enough control to direct soldiers in military operations can probably stop them raping, says Ms Wood. A decision to turn a blind eye may have less to do with lack of control, and more with a chilling assessment of rape’s use as a terror tactic.
Rape is a means of subduing foes and civilians without having to engage in the risky business of battle. Faced with rape, civilians flee, leaving their land and property to their attackers. In August rebel militias raped around 240 people over four days in the Walikale district of eastern Congo. The motives for the attack are unclear. The violence may have been to intimidate the population into providing the militia with gold and tin from nearby mines. Or maybe one bit of the army was colluding with the rebels to avoid being replaced by another bit and losing control of the area and its resources. In Walikale, at least, rape seems to have been a deliberate tactic, not a random one, says Ms Margolis.
At worst, rape is a tool of ethnic cleansing and genocide, as in Bosnia, Darfur and Rwanda. Rape was first properly recognised as a weapon of war after the conflict in Bosnia. Though all sides were guilty, most victims were Bosnian Muslims assaulted by Serbs. Muslim women were herded into “rape camps” where they were raped repeatedly, usually by groups of men. The full horrors of these camps emerged in hearings at the war-crimes tribunal on ex-Yugoslavia in The Hague; victims gave evidence in writing or anonymously. After the war some perpetrators said that they had been ordered to rape—either to ensure that non-Serbs would flee certain areas, or to impregnate women so that they bore Serb children. In 1995, when Croatian forces over-ran Serb-held areas, there were well-attested cases of sexual violence against both women and men.
In the Sudanese region of Darfur, rape and other forms of sexual violence have also been a brutally effective way to terrorise and control civilians. Women are raped in and around the refugee camps that litter the region, mostly when they leave the camps to collect firewood, water and food. Those of the same ethnicity as the two main rebel groups have been targeted most as part of the campaign of ethnic cleansing. According to Human Rights Watch, rape is chronically underreported, partially because in the mostly Muslim region sexual violence is a sensitive subject. Between October 2004 and February 2005 Médecins Sans Frontières, a French charity, treated almost 500 women and girls in South Darfur. The actual number of victims is likely to be much higher.
Tacit approval
In the Rwandan genocide rape was “the rule and its absence the exception”, in the words of the UN. In the weeks before the killings began, Hutu-controlled newspapers ran cartoons showing Tutsi women having sex with Belgian peacekeepers, who were seen as allies of Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front. Inger Skjelsbæk, deputy director of the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, argues that Hutu propaganda may not have openly called for rape, but it certainly suggested that the Hutu cause would be well served by the sexual violation of Tutsi women. Jens Meierhenrich, a Rwanda-watcher at the London School of Economics, says that even if high-level commanders did not tell men to rape, they gave tacit approval. Lower-ranking officers may have openly encouraged the crime.
Out of Rwanda’s horror came the first legal verdict that acknowledged rape as part of a genocidal campaign. After the conviction of Jean Paul Akayesu, a local politician, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said systematic sexual violence, perpetrated against Tutsi women and them alone, had been an integral part of the effort to wipe out the Tutsis.
For combatants who know little about each other, complicity in rape can serve as a bond. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone, most of whose members say they were kidnapped into its ranks and then raped thousands during the civil war, is a case in point. Ms Cohen argues that armed groups that are not socially cohesive, particularly those whose fighters have been forcibly recruited, are more likely to commit rape, especially gang rape, so as to build internal ties.
For the victims and their families, rape does the opposite. The shame and degradation of rape rip apart social bonds. In societies where a family’s honour rests on the sexual purity of its women, the blame for the loss of that honour often falls not upon the rapist, but the raped. In Bangladesh, where most of the victims were Muslim, the use of rape was not only humiliating for them as individuals but for their families and communities. The then prime minister, Mujibur Rahman, tried to counter this by calling them heroines who needed protection and reintegration. Some men agreed but most did not; they demanded sweeteners in the form of extra dowry payments from the authorities.
In Congo, despite the efforts of activists, rape still brings shame to the victim, says Ms Margolis: “People can sit around and talk about the importance of removing the stigma in the abstract, but when it comes to their own wives or daughters or sisters, it is a different story.” Many are rejected by their family and stigmatised by their community after being raped.
There is little prospect of justice for the victims of rape. Mr Akayesu is one of the few people brought to book for rape in war. Though wartime rape is prohibited under the Geneva rules, sexual violence has often been prosecuted less fiercely than other war crimes. But the Balkan war-crimes court broke new ground by issuing verdicts treating rape as a crime against humanity. The convictions of three men for the rape, torture and sexual enslavement of women in the Bosnian town of Foca was a big landmark.
But in Congo the court system is in pieces. There have been fewer than 20 prosecutions of rape as either a war crime or a crime against humanity. The American Bar Association, which helps victims bring their cases to court in eastern Congo, has processed around 145 cases in the past two years. This has resulted in about 45 trials and 36 convictions based on domestic legislation, including a law introduced in 2006 to try and address the problem of sexual violence. Those who work with the survivors of rape in Congo have mixed feelings about the 2006 law. It has pricked consciences and made people more aware of their rights, concedes Ms Margolis. It creates a theoretical accountability that could help punish perpetrators. But for women seeking justice, it has yet to have much impact. “There is still a glimmer of hope in people’s eyes when they talk about the law. But the judicial and security systems need to be improved so that it can be applied better, or people may lose confidence in it,” Ms Margolis says.
Huge practical problems beset the legal system in Congo, says Richard Malengule, head of the Gender and Justice programme at HEAL Africa, a hospital in Goma. People have to walk 300km to get to a court. There is no money and no training for the police. Even if people are arrested, they are often released within a few days, in many cases by making a deal with the victim’s family or the court. Those that go to jail often escape within days. Many prisons have no door—or corrupt guards.
Enduring effects
Given the parlous state of Congo’s judiciary, raising the number of prosecutions may not help. Some want more international involvement. Justine Masika, who runs an organisation in Goma seeking justice for the victims of sex crimes, says Congolese courts must work with international ones in prosecuting rape. But “hybrid” courts require some commitment from the local government; Congo’s rulers do not show much commitment to tackling rape. The International Criminal Court is investigating crimes, including rape, in Congo but gathering necessary evidence is hard.
Raising global awareness is another avenue; it helps lessen the stigma. Various UN resolutions over the past ten years have highlighted and condemned sexual violence against women and girls and called on countries to do more to combat it. But worthy language will not be enough.
Worse, the UN has faced criticism for failing to protect Congolese civilians from rape. In the Walikale attack, one UN official worries that the body is not meeting its obligations to protect civilians. He accepts that in remote places it is hard for peacekeepers to reach civilians, but insists that this does not justify the UN’s failure in Walikale. He is dubious, too, about the investigations into the incident. “All these interviews, these investigations, what have they achieved? The survivors are interviewed again and again and again? Where does that get them?”
Without the presence of the UN, atrocities would be even more widespread, says Mr Malengule. But in the long term, he says, more pressure must be put on Congo’s government to tackle rape. At present, one aid worker laments, it just gets a lot of lip-service. The government would rather Congo were not known as the world’s rape capital, but it shows little interest in real change.

Even when wars end, rape continues. Humanitarian agencies in Congo report high levels of rape in areas that are quite peaceful now. Again, it is hard to assess numbers. Figures for rape before the war do not exist. A greater willingness to report rape may account for the apparent increase. But years of fighting have resulted in a culture of rape and violence, says Mr Malengule. Efforts to reintegrate ex-combatants into society have been short and unsuccessful, with little follow-up to assess results. Add to that the dismal judicial system, and the outlook is grim.
It is bleaker still when you see how long rape’s effects endure. Rebels seized Angelique’s village in 1994. They slit her husband’s throat. Then they bound her between two trees, arms and legs tied apart. Seven men raped her before she fainted. She does not know how many raped her after that. Then they shoved sticks in her vagina. Tissue between her vagina and rectum was ripped, and she developed a fistula. For 16 years she leaked urine and faeces. Now she is getting medical treatment, but justice is a distant dream.

http://www.economist.com/node/17900482?story_id=17900482?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/ar/rape#footnote1

Battery in Private

2010-12-23T14:01:00.000-08:00

Russia Has No Legal Mechanism for Prosecuting Domestic Abuse.

The government considers violence against women in their homes as a strictly private matter, unless the victim sustains medium to severe injuries.

Yekaterina Vinogorova, a 39-year-old mother of three, finally fled her 15-year-long marriage after her husband broke her nose and ribs and covered her in bruises. “He would have these periodic outbursts of jealousy. The last time he beat me up so badly I simply walked out, but he carried on following me. Once he slashed the tires on my car. He was stalking me everywhere,” she said.

For three months Vinogorova and her children were given refuge at Moscow’s shelter for victims of domestic violence until she could move in with her parents, where she remains almost two years on. The paycheck she gets at a Moscow beauty salon is just about enough to support herself and her children, but the situation with her husband is far from resolved.

Vinogorova is prosecuting him in court for the assault. Still, Russia has no legal mechanism for imposing restraining orders even though persuasive research shows that women are most at risk when leaving their partners. She always gives police statements when she is harassed by him, but with little success. Since she left him, he has attacked her father to convince her to return, vandalized her car by tearing out the battery and wires under the hood and finally burnt down their country home. “The trouble is none of this can be proven and the police aren’t interested,” she said, adding that he refuses to hand over her and her children’s passports.

“People like this get some kind of gratification from all this. He’s actually living with another woman now, but apparently this doesn’t make him want to leave us alone. And it all continues unpunished. I just don’t know how this is going to end. When I go out, I make sure I keep checking around me. Who knows what’s on his mind and no one’s there to protect me. The police do nothing.”

Yekaterina’s case is not entirely typical—she was, at least, fortunate enough to make it to a shelter. “They helped me a lot. I lived there with my children for three months. They had lawyers and psychiatrists, and it was all free,” she said. Russia has just 23 of these local government-funded shelters, clearly too few for a largely ignored social issue which claims a staggering 14,000 women’s lives a year, according to government statistics cited by this year’s UN report titled “End the Silence.”

The capital, with its real population way in excess of ten million, has only one shelter, the “Hope Center,” which has 35 beds, said Elena Korsakova, its director. NGO workers consider the 14,000 deaths a year a conservative estimate even though it equates to the number of soldiers the Soviet Union lost in its decade-long abortive campaign in Afghanistan. Put otherwise, one woman is killed by her partner every 40 minutes, meaning that Russian women are three times more likely to be abused within the walls of their own home by their partners than they are even on the streets, a report by ANNA, Russia’s leading domestic violence NGO working trying to curb violence against women, found this year.

What’s more, in Russia domestic violence is as likely within the walls of the elite Rublyovka mansions as it is in the apartments of its bleak single-industry cities. “This problem transcends any social strata or social group,” said Marina Pisklakova-Parker, the director of ANNA. “It doesn’t depend on education, income or other forms of social status. It happens in every type of family. It’s everywhere. But still it is not discussed.”

Suffering in silence

Russian pop diva Valeria brought domestic violence into Russia’s headlines when in 2005 she documented ten years of quietly suffering beatings from her husband, the man who managed her superstar music career. But this was a rare public glimpse into domestic violence, and the anguish of its victims more often goes unheard in a matter that is socially perceived as a private affair. “In society, domestic violence is not considered bad behavior,” said Pisklakova-Parker. “When nobody says you cannot beat your wife, then everybody who does it assumes they have a right to do it. There is only silence. Society says ‘it’s okay, it’s not a crime’.” In his State of the Nation address this year, President Dmitry Medvedev delivered a wide-ranging plan to protect women and children to halt the population crisis because of the forecasted drop in women of child-bearing age, but he made no mention of the violence at home killing 14,000 women a year.

Out of Russia’s three mainstream pollsters, the Public Opinion Fund, VTsIOM, and Levada, only the latter could provide any statistics on domestic violence, and even that poll dated back to 2006. That year, 26 percent of Russians said that domestic violence is “very widespread” in Russia, 45 percent said “quite widespread” and 19 percent said “not widespread,” according to Levada. The rest were “not sure.”

Muddled numbers

Moreover, statistics are unreliable because of the backwardness of the government’s approach to domestic violence. No distinction is drawn between crimes against different genders, meaning that Interior Ministry statistics on domestic violence are inaccurate. There are also a raft of ambiguities in the Interior Ministry data issued to the public. Speaking at an event organized to prevent future domestic violence in 2008, the police said that there were over 200,000 domestic violence crimes committed by people when drunk, but also said that there are over 250,000 people suffering from alcoholism. “Are these alcoholics among the domestic violence offenders, or are these two different categories?” asked this year’s ANNA report that tried to make sense of the data to pinpoint problematic areas.

In post-Soviet Ukraine, NGO workers say that as many as 70 percent of women are victims of domestic violence. But accurate country-comparisons are tricky. What sets Russia apart is the shocking death toll, which stems from deficient government measures to nip cases in the bud before they escalate. “We have only criminal articles, meaning that intervention can be carried out only when the injuries are medium or severe or in the case of murder,” said Pisklakova-Parker. “Because of the nature of domestic violence, by the time women are suffering medium injuries it is too late. The level of danger is already very high.”

“It’s difficult to assess how Russia compares with other countries, but in Russia there are more frequent cases of domestic violence ending in death because there is no state-level system for helping women, said Larissa Ponarina, the deputy director of ANNA.

Alexei Parshin, a lawyer who does pro bono work for the victims, said that one of the main legal challenges is the lack of a legal mechanism to impose restraining orders. “If a lover, civil partner, or husband continues following a woman, there is no legal mechanism to limit his interaction with that woman,” he said. “We have a witness protection program, but this law is not used for crimes of this gravity.” Significantly, there is no specific article in the criminal code against domestic violence, meaning that acts of domestic violence are seen in the same light as simple assault.

Punishments usually amount to little more than fines and do not take into account the relationship between the assailant and the victim (sometimes as straightforward as one of economic dependence), and the psychological trauma thereby caused. “In some situations, criminals are due a jail sentence but we can’t get it because jail sentences aren’t stipulated for fighting. I think sentences need to be made tougher,” said Parshin. “If there was a law on domestic violence, then we could give more serious terms, or at least suitable terms which, in the case of a repeated offense, would be made appropriately serious.”

Pisklakova-Parker agreed. “We don’t have legislation that says ‘no,’ you cannot do it. Even when cases get to court, sentences are very light. The first time a person gets sentenced, it counts in their favor because they are seen as a responsible person.” Domestic violence falls awkwardly between cracks in legislation: it should qualify as “torment” under Article 117 of the Russian Criminal Code because of its repeated and systematic nature, and should therefore be punishable by three years in prison, argues this year’s shadow report by ANNA. But in Russian law, battery inflicted during an argument and arising from personal hostility cannot qualify as “torment.”

Not a crime

Against this backdrop of silence, backward legislation and the statistical vacuum, some contend the problem is evolving. In November The Moscow Times cited “women’s rights advocates” who claimed that more children are being beaten and killed by fathers taking revenge against their mothers. The ANNA report recounted a brutal murder in Tatarstan of a five-year-old boy by his father, who stabbed him to death to “settle a score” with his wife, whom he suspected of infidelity.

Ponarina was reluctant to confirm a possible pattern. “We haven’t had to deal with any of these kinds of cases. There probably are cases like this, but I can’t say for sure that this is a trend. Of course, children are manipulated in order to somehow manipulate women and victims of domestic violence. As for the trend of murder, I just can’t say.”

Vinogorova is currently in court with her husband over rights to see the children. “He’s demanding in court that we allow him to see the children. I explain that I cannot just sit back and allow a person like him to see them. I have to protect my children. They themselves are scared after all this,” she said.

An army of one

Even if women do manage to escape dependence on their partners, pressing charges is a complex process, which lawyers and NGO workers agree favors the defendant. Under Russian law domestic violence cases are not handled by the state, and victims must act as the prosecutors themselves because violence at home is seen as a private affair that the state should not encroach on. “Just imagine for a moment how few women have a legal education and know what to do or even how to write statements. If it’s a trial, it is the woman who has to prosecute. If you then bear in mind that this woman has been living with the defendant for several years or even many years, or that they have children together, it’s clear that it’s going to be really difficult. On top of that, she has to prosecute someone she is scared of,” said Parshin.

After negotiating with the Federation Council in spring of this year, NGO workers thought that they had won a breakthrough when the government appeared to have agreed to draft a better approach to deal with domestic violence. Pisklakova-Parker said the government was still working on it, but there are still major disagreements between the government and the NGO sector. “The Russian government’s position was that we do have legislation that covers domestic violence. They referred to the Criminal Code, where articles cover physical abuse regardless of where it takes place (either at home or in public). They don’t really understand what domestic violence is,” she said.

Perhaps stuttering political will on this subject will gain momentum after president Medvedev launched his campaign to protect women and children to halt the population drop in his State of the Nation address. Parshin said that over his five years of working personally in the field, there were noticeable steps being made in the right direction, and held out optimism. “Ten years ago, no one even admitted there was a problem,” he said. “Now, years later, there is more awareness thanks to the work of rights workers—people like Pisklakova-Parker. They’ve done a lot for this problem to be heard and recognized. Domestic violence is a problem everywhere in the world, but elsewhere they got onto it earlier so more has been done about it. We recognized it only recently and the approach to this question is already changing.”

By Tom Balmforth

http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=Culture+%26+Living&articleid=a1293034376

Almost 70% of women suffer from domestic violence in Ukraine

2010-11-26T11:25:00.000-08:00

According to the Kyiv Health Center, 35-50% of women get to hospitals with physical injuries as victims of domestic tyranny.68% of Ukrainian women are subject to bullying in the family. They suffer from domestic violence more often than from robberies, rapes and car accidents. combined.

According to the City State Administration, over nine months of the year, 5,123 women, victims of domestic violence, approached various bodies and establishments of Kyiv for help. At the same time, a part of the affected women does not apply to the police due to the fear of publicity and revenge.

See http://www.nrcu.gov.ua/index.php?id=148&listid=134198 for more information.

16-day campaign against gender violence kicks off in Ukraine

2010-11-26T11:23:00.000-08:00

The annual All-Ukrainian Campaign ‘16 Days against Gender Violence’ kicks off today to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

A press release from the EU Delegation to Ukraine said the campaign would continue for the next ten days until December 10, following a yearly tradition.

As part of the campaign, the EU-funded ‘Equal Opportunities and Women’s Rights in Ukraine Programme’ is organising a number of activities in the Ukrainian media, including a wide-scale information campaign with day TV shows series Easy To Be A Woman.

A press conference with the Minister of Family, Youth and Sports earlier this week highlighted the joint activity of the Government of Ukraineand international organizations, including the EU Delegation and the UN Office in Ukraine,on the elimination of this problem, as well as about specific activities of the Campaign in 2010.

A series of TV shows on domestic violence and its elimination have been organised jointly with the National TV Company of Ukraine and are being aired between 22 and 26 November on the First National Channel, the press release said, including a programme list for the shows.

The EU is at the forefront of the struggle to end violence against women, supporting third countries in their efforts to counter what is “probably the most widespread human rights violation of our time”, High Representative Catherine Ashton said today in a statement marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

Promotion and protection of women’s rights figures highly in EU external policy, an EC press release said. It is systematically discussed between the EU and its partner countries, in particular in the context of EU human rights dialogues and consultations, and dedicated Sub-Committees on democracy and human rights. EU Guidelines prioritise women's rights in EU human rights policy in third countries and provide guidance on the way the EU reacts to specific individual cases of human rights violations. (ENPI Info Centre)

see http://enpi-info.eu/maineast.php?id=23310&id_type=1&lang_id=450 for more information.

United Nations Elects Executive Board of New Agency for Women’s Empowerment

2010-11-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

Member States today took the next step in enabling the newly-created United Nations agency on gender equality and women’s empowerment to begin its work by electing countries to serve on its Executive Board.

The elections, held in the 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), will enable the new Board to come together prior to the official establishment on 1 January 2011 of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).

The 41 board members were selected on the following basis: 10 from Africa, 10 from Asia, 4 from Eastern Europe, 6 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 from Western Europe and 6 from contributing countries.

Elected from the African Group were Angola, Cape Verde, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Lesotho, Libya, Nigeria and Tanzania.

Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Republic of Korea and Timor-Leste were elected from among the Asian States.

Estonia, Hungary, Russia and Ukraine were elected from among the Eastern European States, while Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden were elected from the Western European and Other States.

In addition, the Council elected Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada and Peru from the group of Latin American and Caribbean States.

The Council also elected Mexico, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Spain, United Kingdom and United States from among the “contributing countries,” for three-year terms beginning today.

The 35 members elected from the regional groups will serve two-year and three-years, beginning today, as determined by the drawing of lots.

Chosen to serve two-year terms were Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, El Salvador, Estonia, France, India, Italy, Lesotho, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Russia, Tanzania and Timor-Leste.

Angola, Cape Verde, China, Congo, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Grenada, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Peru, Republic of Korea, Sweden and Ukraine were selected to serve three-year terms.

Headed by former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, UN Women is the merger of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI), and the UN International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (UN-INSTRAW).

The new agency was established on 2 July by a unanimous vote of the General Assembly to oversee all of the world body’s programmes aimed at promoting women’s rights and their full participation in global affairs. One of its goals will be to support the Commission on the Status of Women and other inter-governmental bodies in devising policies.

It will also aim to help Member States implement standards, provide technical and financial support to countries which request it, and forge partnerships with civil society. Within the UN, it will hold the world body accountable for its own commitments on gender equality.

In carrying out its functions, UN Women will be working with an annual budget of at least $500 million — double the current combined resources of the four agencies it comprises.

Reprinted from UN News.

The Women’s Perspective: Breaking the Silence on International Crimes Against Women - Pembroke, MA - Pembroke Mariner & Reporter

2010-10-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

The Women’s Perspective: Breaking the Silence on International Crimes Against Women - Pembroke, MA - Pembroke Mariner & Reporter

Some readers may find the following facts and information disturbing and difficult to read, and for that I apologize. However, it is crucial that we acknowledge the realities of what is happening to millions of women all over our world on a daily basis. The torture, suffering, shame, and hopelessness that women endure at the hands of oppression must end.

At least 1 in every 3 women globally has been beaten, forced into sex, slavery, trafficking and multiple forms of abuse. That means that as you sit safely in your own environment reading this article, women are being tortured all over the world. They are being stripped of their humanity. Their souls and spirits are being violently stripped away through physical, sexual, emotional, psychological and financial abuse at the hands of monsters. These monsters view women as being subservient, worthless whores who are disposable commodities. These monsters derive from all different cultures and backgrounds. They are living within our global communities in epidemic proportions, including the United States.

My mission is to never stay silent on such issues. It is an ugly subject to discuss, one that many shy away from. However, that is exactly why it must be discussed. We must remove the stigmas, shame and secrecy that are attached to violence against women. The more we talk about it, the more exposed the subject becomes.

Violence against women is not a gender issue; it is a human right issue. Women deserve the same opportunity to achieve equal economic, social, cultural and political rights. They deserve to live without fear. Living free from violence is a human right. Women should be able to live safely in their communities without becoming victims of violent crimes.

It should be every women's human right to achieve free will, receive an education, obtain financial stability, marry, bear children, have control over their own bodies, become politically involved, and enjoy religious and culture freedom as every human being should. Women should be creating and thriving throughout our world not surviving and recovery from inhumane atrocities forced upon them.

In an effort to acknowledge the "elephant in the room", I have decided to outline some of the most abhorrent crimes against women on a global level.

While there is no doubt that we are all aware at least on some level that there are terrible things happening to women, I am quite sure that it is not possible to grasp the true horror of this subject without examining it fully. Some examples of the torturous practices worldwide include bride kidnapping, honor killing, bride burning, acid attacks, female genital mutilation, human trafficking, and ritual servitude. While most of these atrocities occur in other parts of the world, our own United Stated has experienced them as well.

Bride kidnapping is a common practice in countries like Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. What happens is that when the time comes for a man to be married in Kyrgyzstan, a man or his family will pick a woman and she will be kidnapped. The prospective husband and his male relatives or friends abduct the girl and take her to the man’s family home, where the older women of the family try to convince the victim to accept the marriage. Some families will keep the girl hostage to break her will; while others will let her go if she remains defiant.

The kidnapped woman’s family may also become involved in the process, either urging the woman to stay if the marriage is believed to be socially acceptable or advantageous for the prospective bride and her family, or opposing the marriage on various grounds and helping liberate the woman.

In countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda, the act of bride kidnapping is quite brutal, where the man kidnaps the woman and proceeds to rape her. The family of the woman either then feels obliged to consent to the union, or is forced to do so when the kidnapper impregnates her, as no one else would marry a pregnant woman.

An honor killing is defined by Amnesty International as “a punitive murder, committed by members of a family against a female member of their family whom the family and/or wider community believes to have brought dishonor upon the family.” Honor killings may occur when a woman refuses an arranged marriage, being the VICTIM of a sexual assault, seeking a divorce even from an abusive husband, or committing adultery. Any behavior that is deemed “dishonorable” to the family is therefore justified whereas the act would otherwise be deemed murder. UNICEF has reported that in India, more than 5,000 brides are killed annually because their marriage dowries are considered insufficient. As of 2004, honor killings have occurred within parts of various countries, such as Albania, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, Germany, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Uganda, United Kingdom and the United States.

Another practice that is seen is known as bride burning. This act is a form of domestic violence practiced in parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other countries located on or around the Indian subcontinent. In these cases, a man or his family douses the wife with some type of flammable liquid, usually gasoline or kerosene. She is then set on fire, eventually leading to her death.

Acid attacks are a violent phenomena that primarily occur in Afghanistan. Perpetrators of these attacks throw acid at their victims (usually at their faces), burning them. The consequences include permanent scarring of the face and body as well as potential blindness.

Perhaps the most recognizable facet of these crimes is that of human trafficking.

Since the fall of the iron curtain, the impoverished former Eastern bloc countries such as Albania, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine have been identified as major trafficking source countries for women and children. Young women and girls are lured by the promise of money and work and then reduced to sexual slavery, sent to other countries never to be heard from again.

It is estimated that 2/3 of women trafficked for prostitution annually come from Eastern European countries; three-quarters have never worked as prostitutes before. The major destinations are Western Europe (Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK and Greece), the Middle East (Turkey, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates), Asia, Russia and the United States. An estimated 500,000 women from Central and Eastern Europe are working in prostitution in the EU alone.

Ritual servitude occurs mainly in parts of Ghana where traditional religious shrines take human beings, usually young virgin girls, as payment for services, or in religious atonement for alleged misdeeds of a family member—almost always a female.

These shrine slaves serve the priests, elders and owners of a traditional religious shrine without remuneration and without their consent, although the consent of the family or clan may be involved. Those who practice ritual servitude feel that the girl is serving the god or gods of the shrine and is married to the gods of the shrine.

If a girl runs away or dies, she must be replaced by another girl from the family. Some girls in ritual servitude are the third or fourth girl in their family suffering for the same crime, sometimes for something as small as the loss of trivial property.

As disturbing as these facts are, there is still hope for change around the world. Currently there is a piece of legislature in the U.S. aimed at making violence against women and girls around the world an unexceptable crime. The biparitsan International Violence Against Women Act will enhance our government's ability to respond to victims of international crimes against women as previously mentioned.. In addition, it would provide aid and resources to women groups around the world working to end such horrific violence providing; prevention programs, building women and childrens educational, financial, political and social realities into a thriving future filled with possibilities.

Please never stay silent about such social issues. Silence is the killer. Just by informing friends and family members about these crimes against women throughtout our world (including the U.S.) is being part of the solution. Let's help turn millions of women and children's pain into power! For more information please refer to Amnesty International.

By Gretchen Jones

GateHouse News Service

Posted Oct 11, 2010

Sources: Amnesty International, listverse.com, V-day, Human Trafficking.org

Fight club

2010-09-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Imagine the Girl Guides with racier uniforms accessorised with pickaxes, chains and scythes and what have you got? Answer: a women's youth movement sweeping Ukraine

By Sally Howard
Published: 7:00AM BST 12 Sep 2010

It's 5.30am and dawn is breaking in the Carpathian Mountains. Morning mist garlands the mountaintops as the sun rises over a view that's as old as the hills: headscarved babushkas push carts of hay by hand, white-tailed eagles circle drowsily above and the air is scented by the ancient spruces of Europe's last stretch of virgin forest. Only the rumble of cargo trains driving west to Hungary disturbs this bucolic scene. That and the peals of three bikini-clad girls as they jump into the frigid Dniester, the fast-flowing river that courses south across the length of eastern Ukraine to the Black Sea.

Katya Rebrova, 22, Yulia Serafiniora, 20, and Daria Rodnar, 15, have been up since 4.30am, practising a peculiar martial art involving weapons that closely resemble agricultural scythes; the curved blades slice though the crisp morning air as they swivel and high-kick with blurring speed. Their dress, before they strip for their daily pre-breakfast dip, is similarly exotic to Anglo-Saxon eyes – the baggy tight-ankled trousers of the traditional Cossack warrior teamed with cropped sports tops and swinging plaited hair. It's a striking mixture of ancient and modern that embodies the Asgarda, a new women's movement that – against steep odds – is attracting attention in Ukraine, where 80 per cent of the unemployed are women and domestic violence is common.

I am joining the Asgarda – the name derives from Asgard, the city of the gods in Norse myth – at the focal point of their year, a two-month-long summer camp. Here, girls and women from across the country meet to study history, life skills and the aforementioned Cossack martial art, Bojovyj Hopak, where not only scythes but Japanese chained nunchucks and pickaxes are regularly wielded. The Girl Guides was never like this.

The drive here, earlier in the week, had taken me deeper and deeper into silent, thickly forested mountain terrain – three hours from Ukraine's second city, Lviv, but almost another world. I had arrived to an unusual scene. Besides a wooden cabin, the group's founder, Katerina Tarnouska, a 36-year-old single mother, was pacing the length of a line-up of seven- to 10-year-old girls like a dyspeptic squadron leader, urging them to punch their small fists into the air towards invisible assailants, or drop to their hands and knees for press-ups.

A former PE teacher, Tarnouska is a formidable presence – handsome Slavic bone structure and wheatish skin accented by a tattooed bicep bearing the insignia of the Ukrainian National Movement (a centuries-old resistance movement to Ukraine's many occupiers). Yet her 200 followers clearly dote on her rousing brand of girl power. Between issuing imperious orders she told me that her charges were heirs to the Amazons: the proud warrior women first celebrated by the Ancient Greeks, said to have hailed from Scythia, to the east of modern-day Ukraine.

Tarnouska set up the Asgarda in 2004 amid the heady days of the Orange Revolution – the youth-led regime change that brought the pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency and launched the career of the glamorous economist Yulia Tymoshenko, who became Ukraine's first female prime minister in 2005. Though this period was a catalyst for a national optimism that in part persists, many of its real gains have now been lost, especially for women.

In February 2010 Yushchenko's government – dogged by corruption scandals and blamed for an economic crisis – was voted out in favour of Viktor Yanukovych, whose government has pursued reactionary politics with brio, clamping down on media freedom and – famously – justifying his all-male cabinet with the line, 'Reforms do not fall into women's competence.'

Yet, in forming the Asgarda, Tarnouska was motivated not by politics but a desire to empower Ukrainian women. 'I wanted girls to gain confidence to be themselves, and not just quiet wives working, working and swallowing all the time their own dreams – the lot of our mothers and grandmothers under the Soviets,' she explains. 'As a nation, too, we're unsure of ourselves, our national identity and history having been suppressed for so many years, or rewritten to fit the communist ideal.'

The way to counter this epidemic of lost confidence, Tarnouska felt, was to remind Ukrainian girls of their nationhood, of powerful figures in history such as the Cossacks. This warrior race flourished for four centuries and was fêted for its strength, martial skills and fearless independence in the face of the Russian tsars (as well as for its prodigious vodka intake). For many modern Ukrainians the Cossacks have become emblems of a golden era, when Ukraine was free from Moscow's control.

There's certainly no lack of confidence among the girls here today. Now in its fifth year, the summer camp is an opportunity for older members such as Katya, Yulia and Daria to be joined by younger girls, from seven up, who come for two-week courses in 'Asgarda skills'.

Lessons are diverse, ranging from yoga and handicrafts to martial arts and Ukrainian national dance. The older girls receive masterclasses from visiting experts – including Volodymyr Stepanovytch, a Soviet former karate master – and the younger girls are taken on afternoon excursions to historical sites. Prayers are also an integral part of camp life, held before meals and bedtime, a non-denominational giving of thanks for food and the opportunity to learn. Asgarda membership is free, although those who can afford it pay about 150 Ukrainian hryvnia, or £9, a day for the camp's bed and board.

I pull up a chair with Katya, Yulia and Daria one evening. Over cups of sweetened black tea, Katya talks excitedly of her dream of training in film and, eventually, being part of developing a viable Ukraine cinema. 'There is nothing on our screens that helps our self-image as Ukrainians,' she says. 'Freedom of the press improved after the revolution, but now it's going back to the way it was, promoting Russian ideologies. And our films are the worst action movies produced by the USA – with pointless violence and swearing. I want to propose an alternative that helps children to learn something of our Ukrainian history. There's so much to be proud of, but we never see it reflected back on our screens.' The hubris of youth, perhaps, but expressed so gutsily you suspect she'll achieve it.

The others, too, have big ambitions – Daria wants to work to battle the culture of corruption in local politics, and Yulia hopes 'to be a mother and a career woman, but also – always – an Asgarda'. She and Katya are both in relationships. What do their partners make of the girls' commitment to the group? 'My boyfriend is proud of me,' says Katya. 'Mine too,' says Yulia, 'he sees the Asgarda as part of a development of Ukrainian national pride and he also practises martial arts.' None of the girls sees a tension in wanting to marry and start a family and also be members of the Asgarda. 'Although I understand it might be hard work to have a family if I have ambitions too,' says Katya.

I ask the girls what they have gained from their time as members. 'One of the sad facts of modern Ukrainian life is sexual violence, and this worried me as a teenager,' says Yulia, who has been an Asgarda for five years. (Indeed, 49 per cent of Ukrainian women have suffered domestic violence, according to a recent report by the European Union and UN Development Programme.) 'I joined the Asgarda because I wanted to protect myself. Then I saw that I was developing in confidence, and becoming a strong woman, and I don't think I understood how much I'd been holding myself back.'

Daria, a member since she was nine, nods enthusiastically. 'I joined precisely because I wanted to find my confidence. There are a lot of problems among young people in Ukraine: drugs, unemployment and promiscuity. I saw the Asgarda as a positive alternative. My parents say they noticed a huge difference in me as soon as I joined.'

The girls' eclectic costume is detailed in the Asgarda manual, an eccentric tome that runs from traditional sewing techniques to self-defence with an umbrella (the salient point being, it seems, to jab at the assailant's crotch). The loose-fitting trousers (similar to harem pants) are a nod to the Cossacks but – importantly – practical fighting wear. Embroidered white shirts – which the girls wear for competitions and formal gatherings such as their annual winter performance of martial arts in Lviv – also bear a rich cultural significance using symbols such as the kalyna berry, said to confer prosperity and luck.

A combination of sports and traditional attire is the preferred daywear for most Asgarda at camp, although a few girls work a racier fantasy-warrior look of leather wrist-straps and skirts. Make-up is minimal, shoes are flat for practicality, and hair is worn plaited in the traditional Ukrainian style, or sometimes shaved by way of an initiation ritual. To understand how much of a statement this aesthetic is you need only walk a few minutes around any modern city in Ukraine. The clothing favoured by most young women is tight and bright, with bunion-inducing heels.

Ekaterina Stupak, a 34-year-old former government worker living in Kiev, explains the provenance of the 'Ukraine look' as she sees it: 'It's everywhere and it's seen as trendy,' she says. 'You go into a government office here and the women have these long painted nails, heels and miniskirts. My idea is that it comes from competition. After the Soviet regime the gender balance was skewed as so many men had been sent to Siberia, or killed in pogroms, particularly in the west of Ukraine, where resistance to the regime was strongest.'

Ukrainian popular culture seems to bear this out. The current must-see television show is a documentary series called Svitske Zhyttya, or Posh Life, where rich Ukrainians – mainly industrial oligarchs or children of politicians – showcase their lavish lifestyles and flamboyantly dressed model wives. The message to young Ukrainian women is clear: the ultimate prize is to snare a moneyed man. This priority is expressed, too, in the Kiev nightclub scene. Strip shows are integral to every city nightclub, with chains such as Pink Unicorn offering striptease alongside a diet of Western and Ukrainian dance music. Young women go 'oligarch hunting' – dressing up to the nines to prowl around these venues or Kiev's well-heeled shopping districts during the day. They walk back and forth,' says Stupak, 'swaying their hips in these tall heels'.

'It's sad, but many women feel they have little choice but to pursue a rich man,' says Anna Hustol, from the Ukrainian 'female rights group' Femen, which has made headlines with direct actions such as 'Ukraine is not a brothel', a demonstration against sex trafficking and sexual tourism to Ukraine. 'Endemic gender discrimination means women in Ukraine get lower salaries, fewer opportunities to move up the career ladder and even fewer opportunities to get a good job or a good education. This is seen in the stark fact that unemployment rate of women is very high compared with men with the same educational background.'

Gender relations in Ukraine are indubitably strained. Yet the existence of groups such as Femen and the Asgarda shows how far Ukrainian women have come in breaking free from the constraints of the Soviet regime, under which feminism was despised as 'bourgeois ideology'.

Indeed, a few days spent with the happy, politicised and ambitious young women of the Asgarda made me wonder if British girls too wouldn't benefit from such a regime. With many young British women aspiring to the Katie Price lifestyle, perhaps a movement that empowered girls to be martial artists, rather than sex objects, would be a useful antidote.

After a pathetic attempt to master a few scythe skills, I ask the Asgarda what they'd say to young women in Britain. 'To believe in themselves,' says Daria, 'and that women are as strong as men.'

'You are not just a housewife or a girlfriend or an object to look at,' Katya adds, 'you are a person and you can choose your own path.'

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/ready+high+heels+fight+domestic+violence/3504648/story.html

Colts help fight domestic violence

2010-08-15T17:26:00.000-07:00

This is kind of a cool idea... I didn't think that the 8 phones sitting in a drawer in my parents' kitchen could be put to better use :)

Sunday, August 15, 2010 11:00 AM
Cell Phone Gameday Collection
View Gameday Collections Section

On Sunday, August 15, the Indianapolis Colts are teaming up with the Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (ICADV) to collect cell phones and monetary donations prior to kickoff of the Colts vs. 49ers game. From 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., volunteers will be stationed outside each Lucas Oil Stadium gate. Fans are encouraged to bring any new or used cell phones that they no longer need to donate for victims of domestic violence. All phones will be re-programmed and used as 9-1-1 emergency phones for women and children in the Indianapolis area.

44% of Ukrainians...

2010-08-10T09:30:00.000-07:00

The EU delegation is against violence in Ukraine

44 PERCENT OF UKRAINIANS ARE VICTIMS...

The heads of the European Union delegation to Ukraine and Ukraine’s Ministry on Family, Youth, and Sport welcomed the start of the new social campaign “I’m against violence!”, aimed at uniting over 200,000 people in the entire country for a public protest against all forms of domestic violence, reports the EU delegation to Ukraine. The campaign will be continued on billboards and in the Internet, and also with outdoor publicity activities. Volunteers will participate in national festivals, they will work on beaches and streets of big cities, where they will encourage others to wear the symbol of the protest — a pink bracelet with the words “I’m against violence!”

In August, 200,000 of these bracelets (and also a big amount of virtual bracelets, which social networks users in the Internet can attach to their photos) will be distributed. The pink bracelet is a bright symbol called to bring up the only simple message: I refuse to be a victim, I refuse cruelty and tolerating cases of cruelty in my own family or among my friends.

“All countries of the world face the problem of domestic violence. But it depends on the attitude of the society whether a victim will be able to find help and the offender will be punished according to the law. In Ukraine gender stereotypes and the opinion that violence is a solely family affair is deeply entrenched in society. The European Union, together with the government of Ukraine, work to change the attitude to domestic violence,” stated Jose Manuel Pinto Teixeira, the head of the EU delegation to Ukraine.

Statistics show that about half of Ukrainian women suffer from some form of violence at home. It’s extremely difficult to get precise figures due to the wall of silence surrounding this problem. The number of domestic violence victims in Ukraine is much bigger than that of other crimes or car accidents taken together. The worst is that this problem involves not only adult women. Many of those who are cruel to their partners treat children in their family the same way.

Many victims never appeal for help. And even those who dare to break the wall of silence very often don’t know who to go to. As Svitlana Tolstoukhova, the deputy minister of Ukraine’s Ministry on Family, Youth and Sport, pointed out: “Within the framework of the campaign a wide-range informational work among the Ukrainian population will be held, and practical measures will also be taken to help victims of violence. As of today, over 20 centers for social and psychological assistance, and eight rehabilitation centers for victims of domestic violence work in all Ukraine. Moreover, within the campaign framework, information materials with practical advice to victims of violence will be distributed.”

http://www.day.kiev.ua/305397

Ukraine Update

2010-08-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

Today, after 17 months of fundraising, 100+ donors, 50+ volunteers, 27,000 miles traveled, 19 ATM withdrawls and 1 sacrificed faux Jimmy Choo purse (ripped out the lining to stash the cash I was carrying).... the women's center in Kiev, Ukraine finally has funding for 3 new programs and 2 specialists serving 7,000+ victims of domestic violence.

Thanks to so many of you who made sacrificed much more than my faux purse to improve the quality of life of thousands of Ukrainian women and families.

Ex throws woman out of sixth-floor window in Girona

2010-07-07T14:15:00.000-07:00

A WOMAN has lost her life after being thrown from a sixth-floor window by her ex-partner in Girona today.

Olena K, 37, originally from Ukraine, died instantly from the impact, emergency services reveal.

Her former boyfriend, Hafid C, 33, a Moroccan national, has been arrested.

They are said to have argued some time this morning in their home on the C/ Riu Ser, leading the accused to end his former girlfriend's life.

The road was blocked off from 10.20hrs to 14.30hrs today.

Mayoress of Girona, Anna Pagans, has expressed her condolences to the family and her disgust at the crime.

Olena is the third fatal victim of domestic violence in the province of Girona this month alone.

http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/18280/ex-throws-woman-out-of-sixth-floor-window-in-girona

Walk a Mile In Her Shoes

2010-04-08T00:40:00.001-07:00

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes:
A little discomfort will make the difference!

Saturday April 10th, 2010
University Mall, Orem, UT
Begins at 8:00 AM

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes asks men to literally walk one mile in a pair of women's shoes, while raising fund for The Center for Women and Children in Crisis (www.cwcic.org). It is not easy walking in these shoes, but it is a fun opportunity for men to educate the community about a very serious subject. So challenge your buddies and help get the community to talk about something that's difficult to talk about: sexual violence. Registration is only $5.

Why Walk? One in three women has experienced sexual assault in her lifetime. One in six boys are sexually assaulted by the time they are 18. That means someone you know, someone you care about has been a victim of sexual assault. So walk for your daughter, your son, your wife, your mother, your niece, your nephew, your colleage, yourself!

Of course, women are welcome to walk - the men might need a little support along the way!

More Questions? Contact: Lindsee Anderson, 801/380-9714 or lindsee.anderson@gmail.com

Why gender equality and women's empowerment must lie at the heart of EU external action?

2010-03-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

BY EUROPEAN UNION DELEGATION TO BARBADOS & THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN

Originally published: March 08, 2010 03:55:00 PM
Last updated: November 30, -0001 01:54:24 AM

Fifteen years after the groundbreaking Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing in 1995, the international community has clear legal norms on the prohibition of discrimination and the active promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment.

These norms are accepted in all countries of the world as part of human rights law. The international community is also equipped with bodies that can effectively monitor the implementation of women's rights. This is the case of the UN Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (the 'CEDAW Committee') and the recently-established Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on violence against women in conflict situations.

However, implementation is slow in many countries of the world. From a new 10-country study on women's health and domestic violence conducted by the World Health Organisation, it appears that between 15% and 71% of women reported physical or sexual violence by a husband or partner. Between 4% and 12% of women reported being physically abused during pregnancy. Every year, about 5,000 women are murdered by family members in the name of honour each year worldwide. Under these conditions, women's rights mechanisms remain under-exploited, and the possibility for individual victims to submit complaints to the UN, for example, is unknown to most women. These are key challenges for the EU human rights policy in third countries. And we must also lead by example in our EU internal policies.

On the eve of the International Women's Day, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission Catherine Ashton said:

"International Women's Day provides a great opportunity for each one of us to reflect on our responsibility for working towards the eradication of gender inequality. This is very much true also in international relations, where all must play their part in reaching this common goal. Sustainable peace and security cannot be achieved without the full participation of women. Unfortunately, the persistence of constitutions and laws that blatantly discriminate against women still undermines the development of countries around the world. Violence against women has direct negative consequences on women's access to education, job and on to their participation in the public life. The impact of the marginalisation of women is not only at the expense of women, but runs counter to the overall empowerment of local communities. There remains a huge amount to do in all parts of the world."

"This is a global challenge of the highest order, to deliver gender equality and empower women, within Europe and beyond. That is why the EU will continue to put pro-active work in this field at the heart of our policies, both internal and external. Heads of EU Delegations throughout the world have just received clear instructions in this respect", she added.

Background

In December 1977, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming a United Nations Day for Women's Rights and International Peace to be observed on any day of the year by member countries, in accordance with their national traditions.

The EU has a long-standing commitment to promote gender equality; already in 1995, for instance, it played a leadership role at the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Since then, the EU has sought actively to integrate the priorities and needs of women and men in all its key policies, notably in external assistance. Annually almost 35% of the European Commission's development aid is spent on projects that have a gender dimension. A forthcoming “EU Action Plan on Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Development” will aim at strengthening the coordination of activities in this field by EU institutions and individual EU Member States.

This gender mainstreaming strategy is reinforced by specific measures, programmes and projects to support the empowerment of women. The EU closely monitors women's rights and gender equality in third countries, including issues such as discriminatory laws and women's participation in public life. In 2008, the EU adopted new Guidelines on violence and discrimination against women and girls, which foresee regular reporting from EU Member States’ embassies and EU Delegations in third countries. As a way to implement these Guidelines, the EU urges third countries to enhance the fight against impunity and to support the protection and reintegration of victims, in close cooperation with civil society organisations and with defenders of women's rights. This includes protection against traditional practices that are harmful, such as female genital mutilation. The implementation of these Guidelines involves the work, as of today, of some 90 EU Delegations and EU Member States embassies in third countries.

This first-hand information forms the basis for constructive discussion with third countries' governments in the framework of human rights dialogues and consultations as well as in ad hoc conferences, such as the follow-up meetings of the 2006 Euromed ministerial conference on 'Strenghtening the Role of Women in Society'. Most recently, a meeting at the ministerial level was held in Marrakesh on 11-12 November 2009, in the framework of the Union for the Mediterranean.

The EU is an active actor in the international implementation of UN Security Council resolutions 1325 of 2000, 1820 of 2008, and the most recent 1888 and 1889 of 2009: these resolutions concern 1) the protection of women from violence in conflict and post-conflict situations and 2) women's participation in peacebuilding. The work of the Union in this area is guided by the “EU Comprehensive Approach for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 and 1820 on women, peace and security”.

This policy document, which was adopted by the Council of the EU on 8 December 2008, presents a vision of the role and obligations of a regional actor such as the EU in protecting women in conflict situations and in facilitating their pro-active role as peace-builders. The EU has been instrumental to ask the UN to organise, in October 2010, a ministerial review conference of resolution 1325. By then, the EU aims at achieving concrete results on the implementation of its policy on women, peace and security.

Election observation is another relevant tool to promote women’s role and participation in post-conflict or conflict-prone societies. Reports of EU electoral observation mission systematically include a comprehensive analysis of women’s participation as both voters and candidates as well as a set of recommendations.

Various financial instruments provide support to NGOs working in third countries on women’s rights. The European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) includes the equal participation of men and women as a core goal of its Objective 2 on “strengthening the role of civil society in promoting human rights and democratic reform, in supporting the peaceful conciliation of group interests and consolidating political participation and representation”.

In future, the EIDHR should also provide opportunities to support NGOs activities to implement the EU Guidelines on violence and discrimination against women and girls. The thematic programme Investing in People also contains a separate financial envelope for funding NGOs actions in the area of promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. The Stability Instrument is currently used to integrate a gender perspective into EU activities in the area of conflict prevention, for instance through support to training, research and capacity building activities implemented by specialised NGOs.

The European Commission works closely with international inter-governmental organisations working for the protection of women’s rights. In particular, in April 2007, the European Commission jointly with UNIFEM and the International Training Centre of the International Labour Organization (ITC-ILO) - launched the EC/UN Partnership on Gender Equality for Development and Peace: this programme seeks to build capacity of relevant actors and improve accountability for gender equality in 12 focus countries: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Honduras, Indonesia, Kyrgyz Republic, Nepal, Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Suriname and Ukraine.

Ukraine participating in European convention combating violence against women and domestic violence

2010-02-25T15:35:00.000-08:00

Ukraine participating in elaboration of European convention combating violence against women and domestic violencePhoto: change.org

Ukraine participating in elaboration of European convention on combating violence against women and domestic violence

Two days ago at 18:01 | Interfax-Ukraine

Ukraine is participating in a fourth plenary sitting of the Council of Europe Ad Hoc Committee on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CAHVIO), which is taking place in Strasburg, France from February 22 through February 24, 2010, the press service of Ukraine's Justice Ministry has reported.

Justice Minister Mykola Onischuk said the Ukrainian delegation, consisting of representatives of the Justice Ministry, is participating in the discussion and assessment of a new draft of the European convention on combating violence against women and domestic violence.

The future convention, which is being elaborated at the initiative of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is aimed at creating effective mechanisms to tackle gender violence.

The Council of Europe Ad Hoc Committee on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence was created under the aegis of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The committee includes representatives of member states of the Council of Europe, as well as international and European organizations.

The Facts About Domestic Violence

2010-02-21T13:24:00.000-08:00

The Facts on Reproductive Health and Violence Against Women

Violence against women and girls is a global epidemic that affects the health and economic

stability of women, their families, and their communities. Violence affects every aspect of

women’s lives – from their personal health and safety, to the safety of their families, to their

ability to earn a living. While domestic violence is a global problem, women in developing

countries face particular challenges. Intimate partner violence against women has serious

consequences for maternal mortality and child survival in addition to having detrimental effects

on a nation’s social and economic growth.

• The United Nations Development Fund for Women estimates that at least one of every

three women globally will be beaten, raped, or otherwise abused during her lifetime. In

most cases, the abuser is a member of her own family.1

• Sexual violence is a pervasive global health and human rights problem. In some

countries, approximately one in four women and girls over age 15 may experience sexual

violence by an intimate partner at some points in their lives, and rates of sexual abuse by

non-partners range from one to 12 percent over the course of a woman’s lifetime.2

• A 2005 World Health Organization study found that of 15 sites in ten countries –

representing diverse cultural settings – the proportion of ever-partnered women who had

experienced physical or sexual intimate partner violence in their lifetime ranged from 15

percent in Japan to 71 percent in Ethiopia. At least one in five women reporting physical

abuse had never before told anyone about it.3

• In the same study, four to 12 percent of women who had been pregnant reported having

been beaten during pregnancy, and more than half of these women had been kicked or

punched in the abdomen during pregnancy. Women who reported physical or sexual

violence by a partner were also more likely to report having had at least one induced

abortion or miscarriage than women who did not report abuse. 4

• Violence and the threat of violence against women contributes to the spread of

HIV/AIDS. Numerous studies indicate that violence dramatically increases the

vulnerability of women and girls to HIV/AIDS by making it difficult or impossible for

them to abstain from sex, get their partners to be faithful, or use a condom. Women

account for half of all people living with HIV worldwide, and nearly 60 percent of HIV

infections in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last 10 years, the proportion of women among

people living with HIV has remained stable globally, but has increased in many regions.5

• The U.S. State Department reports approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across

borders around the world each year, which does not include the millions of people

trafficked within their own countries. Worldwide, four in five trafficking victims are

women and girls, and up to half are minors.6

The Facts on International Gender-Based Violence

• An estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the

consequences of female genital mutilation or cutting, with the majority of these instances

taking place in Africa and the Middle East.7

• Sexual violence and rape have been used during armed conflict to torture, injure and

degrade women, and have been a feature of recent conflicts around the world, including

those in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Darfur region of Sudan, Rwanda, and the

former Yugoslavia. In 2008, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution

that declares rape and sexual violence to be weapons of war, and demanded an end to

sexual violence against civilians in armed conflicts around the world. The resolution

says, in part, that sexual violence is being used as “a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate,

instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate” civilians in certain ethnic groups and

communities. 8

• Domestic and sexual violence in the United Kingdom costs the country £5.7 billion per

year, including costs to the criminal justice system, health care costs, housing and the loss

to the economy.9 In the United States, the health care cost of intimate partner rape,

physical assault and stalking totals $5.8 billion each year, nearly $4.1 billion of which is

for direct medical and mental health care services. Lost productivity from paid work and

household chores and lifetime earnings lost by homicide victims total nearly $1.8

billion.10

1 United Nations Development Fund for Women. 2003. Not A Minute More: Ending Violence Against Women..

Retrieved on December 4, 2008 from http://www.unifem.org/resources/item_detail.php?ProductID=7.

2 García-Moreno et al. 2005. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against

Women. World Health Organization. Retrieved on December 4, 2008 from

http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/.

3 García-Moreno et al. 2005. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against

Women. World Health Organization. Retrieved on December 4, 2008 from

http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/.

4 García-Moreno et al. 2005. WHO Multi-country Study on Women’s Health and Domestic Violence Against

Women. World Health Organization. Retrieved on December 4, 2008 from

http://www.who.int/gender/violence/who_multicountry_study/en/.

5 The Global Coalition on Women and AIDS. 2006. Quick Facts. Retrieved on December 9, 2008 from

http://womenandaids.unaids.org/.

6 U.S. State Department. 2007. Trafficking in Person’s Report, Released by the Office to Monitor and Combat

Trafficking in Persons. Retrieved on December 5, 2008 from

http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/82902.pdf.

7 World Health Organization. 2008. Female Genital Mutilation Fact Sheet. Retrieved on December 5, 2008 at

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/index.html .

8 United Nations Security Council. June 19, 2008. United Nations Security Council 5916th Meeting, Resolution

1820. “Security Council Demands Immediate and Complete Halt to Acts of Sexual Violence,” Retrieved on

December 5, 2008 at http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sc9364.doc.htm.

9 Walby, S. 2004. Women and Equality Unit. “The Cost of Domestic Violence.” Retrieved on December 10, 2008

from http://www.equalities.gov.uk/research/WEU_2004_Walby-costdomesticviolence_(2).pdf.

10 Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. 2003. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Retrieved January 9, 2004 from

http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/pub-res/ipv_cost/IPVBook-Final-Feb18.pdf.

Where It All Began - Video

2010-02-16T10:49:00.001-08:00

Nation stepping up efforts to combat domestic abuse

2010-02-15T10:32:00.001-08:00

Tetyana Rudenko, an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe domestic abuse project coordinator

February 11 at 22:22 | Kateryna Grushenko

The good news is that Ukrainians – with the help of non-governmental organizations and more effort from law enforcement – have started combating the long-ignored problem of domestic abuse. The bad news is that, although domestic abuse may not be more widespread than in other countries, the victims in Ukraine are unprotected still by weak legislation, enforcement and awareness.

Police in the nation of 46 million people registered 93,000 domestic violence perpetrators in 2009, triple the number of 2003. More than 90 percent of the cases, as they are worldwide, involve women and children who are victimized by men. But the increase detected in official numbers is taken not as a sign that the problem is increasing, but rather that families are more actively reporting abuse and seeking help from authorities.

“Domestic violence is not on the rise in Ukraine, but it’s starting to show its true face, and both victims and those helping them are teaming up more effectively to combat it,” said Oleksandr Musienko, senior inspector of the social security department at the Interior Ministry.
Domestic violence is defined as deliberate actions of physical, sexual, psychological or economic abuse against one member of the family by another that causes moral, physical or psychological damage.

Overall, the number of registered cases is much smaller than in the United States, with 300 million people and 5.3 million of cases of domestic abuse registered annually. America, however, has a longer tradition of officially reporting these cases than in Ukraine, where many instances go unreported.

Activists and law enforcement officers are stepping up efforts to encourage victims to speak out and promise to push legislation to protect them – hopeful signs that a long-ignored problem is finally being confronted.

Surveys show that 68 percent of women say they have been victimized. The trauma leads some victims to commit suicide. Nearly 1 in 4 murders stem from domestic violence. Often, the perpetrators get away with a small fine of Hr 70 ($9).
But society is slowly becoming more responsive to victims.

“In previous years, victims had to run away and hide while the violator didn’t realize his fault, and had full command of family property,” said Gennadiy Mustafaev, a psychologist at Kyiv’s Desniansky center for family and women affairs.

A law on the prevention of domestic violence was adopted in 2001 and amended in 2008. It allows police to issue an official warning to suspect and to detain the perpetrator until a court hears the case. The violator, however, can return home after paying a small fine. Shelters have popped up in recent years giving abused women and children shelter for up to three months.

In many cases, alcohol and drugs are used by the male abusers. “Many of the perpetrators have a problem with alcohol and substance abuse, and end up selling family property, sometimes even apartments,” Mustafaev added.

The amended version of the law excludes victim behavior from the mitigating circumstances, closing the “she provoked me” loophole that the perpetrators often used.

“Accepting that ‘she provoked me’ [as a mitigating circumstance] is like accusing someone who had his cell phone stolen of keeping it in the wrong place or forgiving rape if the girl was a wearing a mini-skirt. It won’t be tolerated anymore,” said Tetyana Rudenko, an OSCE domestic abuse project coordinator.

Prior to 2001, no law on domestic violence existed and perpetrators had the status of “hooligans” rarely punished even for disorderly conduct. “The law is still far from perfect and we are assisting Ukraine to adopt the international experience,” said Rudenko.

During a recent conference, she produced examples of how Austria and Spain tackled their domestic abuse problems.

In Austria, if a policeman arrives on a domestic violence call, he or she can confiscate the keys to the house from the abuser and issue a restraining order for 7-10 days, prohibiting the accused perpetrator from approaching the house. In Spain, special courts deal with domestic violence and family matters. But experts are cautious on whether such solutions help or trigger further problems in Ukraine, where the police and courts are themselves notoriously corrupt.

“I’m not saying that these practices should be immediately applied to Ukraine, but the approach when the rights of the victim are prioritized is crucial,” said Rudenko.

Starting in 2010, correction programs for domestic violence perpetrators aimed to modify their abusive behavior will kick in on the national level. They are designed to substitute ineffective punishments, such as a small fine or public service, with psychotherapeutic group trainings and individual visits with psychologists.

Ukraine’s law enforcement officials are also starting to notice that improved training, teaching police on how to better deal with domestic abuse cases, can also make a difference. And so, they recently launched a two-room training room in Dnipropetrovsk, where officers test strategies with actors who imitate families experiencing domestic abuse problems.

“One of the two scenarios goes like this: A father returns home drunk, curses, picks on the family members, and it all blows up into a big fight. Then, neighbors call police, two officers arrive and try to handle the situation,” said Musienko.

The lessons learned from this center and as well as generally known methods, Rudenko said, will soon be disbursed via video-based training materials.

Kyiv Post staff writer Kateryna Grushenko can be reached at grushenko@kyivpost.com

Powerful Sand Art Video

2010-01-17T14:06:00.000-08:00

This video shows the winner of 2009's " Ukraine 's Got Talent", Kseniya Simonova, 24, drawing a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II. Her talent, which admittedly is a strange one, is mesmeric to watch.

Meeting with Shelters

2009-11-30T18:46:00.001-08:00

While in Ukraine we spent four days meeting with different shelters throughout Kiev and western Ukraine. Not only was I impressed and moved by the women who had come to the shelters to take control of their lives and hope for something better, but I was deeply moved by the Ukrainian workers who gave so much of their time, talents and professions to helping these women. Social workers, therapists, psychologists and other professionals were dedicating their lives to helping combat domestic violence...some for absolutely no financial gain whatsoever, and all of the others for the most minimal salaries.

They greeted us with graciousness and professionalism as we worked together to discover what programs and other needs Courage to Hope could facilitate.

Ukrainian Host Family

2009-11-30T18:33:00.001-08:00

While in Ukraine we were hosted by a family with 8 kids.... an unheard of number for Eastern Europe. The family is part of a new kind of foster program in Ukraine, aimed at getting kids out of under-funded orphanages and into homes. This family brought in seven children who were each victims of domestic violence...some were younger than a year when they were finally taken away from their abusive parents.

In Ukraine...right now.

2009-11-28T02:09:00.001-08:00

At this moment I am at an internet cafe in Donetsk, Ukraine. I have been here with Jesse and Kristy for almost a week already and have been having a remarkable experience. I cannot go into great detail right now, since the light is falling and work needs to be done--but this trip has been amazing. Today we are meeting with our fourth center director. We have traveled all around the country and have seen the opportunity to assist these wonderful directors who are trying to do so much with what little the government has given them.

Currently, I am less than 100 yards from the birth of Courage to Hope. It was here, at this very place exactly 3 years ago that I met a victim of domestic violence. It was here that I saw the blood drip from her hopeless face. It was here that she told me she had nowhere to go. It was here I realized the severity of domestic violence in Ukraine. --and it was here I realized we could make a difference.

How grateful I am that we have come here to see the hope that lies ahead! Through partnering with these determined directors, we can give these women--as well as ourselves--the Courage to Hope.

Abused by their own children

2009-11-23T19:24:00.000-08:00

By Denise Winterman
BBC News Magazine

Beaten and abused, but what if the bully is your own child? Many parents are living in fear of their children, but are too ashamed to ask for help, says a leading British charity. Why?

Threatened with a knife by a 14-year-old girl - it could be a disturbing headline from any national newspaper. But what if it happened in your own home and the teenager wielding the weapon was your own daughter?

Parents are regularly being threatened, abused, even beaten up by their own children, says a UK parental guidance charity. Many have reached the point where they are afraid to be left alone in the house with them.

ONE MOTHER'S STORY
“ One minute we can be sitting down watching television, the next [my 14-year-old daughter] flies out of her seat, switches off the telly and launches into a torrent of abuse. She calls me names like 'cow' or 'bitch'. She's trashed the house several times and has even hit me and her younger brother and sister. When she's calm, she's a loving, lovely girl. But I am always treading on eggshells, frightened of her and at my wits' end. It's like living with an abusive partner - I just don't know what to do next. ”
Chrissie (picture posed by model)

New figures from Parentline Plus reveal its helpline received three calls a day on average last year from parents suffering verbal or physical abuse. For some it has been going on for years. (See box, right, for the story of one threatened mother.)

It says such aggression is more common than people think, but many parents don't ask for help because they feel ashamed.

The range of abuse includes hitting, punching, shoving, punching holes in the wall and spitting, as well as having homes and possessions destroyed during rows.

"It's shocking how many parents are frightened of their children, but there's a lot of shame surrounding the issue and they don't speak out," says Valerie Outram, of Parentline Plus.

"It's like domestic violence was 20 or 30 years ago. It's hushed up, brushed under the carpet and no one talks about it."

Most of the violence is perpetrated by children aged 13 to 15, according to the organisation. But some parents call up about children as young as three, or grown-up offspring in their late 20s.

Mothers are the main target, making up 91% of callers. They are women of all ages and from all sections of society. But perhaps the most shocking finding is that daughters are more likely to be abusers than sons.

'Meltdown'

Tracy, who does not want to use her real name, had a knife pulled on her at home by her 14-year-old daughter.

"She started getting aggressive when she was around 11 or 12 and things just escalated," she says. "She switches in seconds from being fine to screaming and shouting. Her eight-year-old brother started doing the same. There are times when I have just been in meltdown, with no idea what to do."

It is difficult to know the true extent of parental abuse, as much of it goes unreported and is not spoken about, according to Professor Kevin Browne from Birmingham University, who has researched the issue.

AGE OF CHILDREN PROMPTING CALLS FROM ABUSED PARENTS

0-3 years 2% of calls

4-6 years 4%

7-9 years 5%

10-12 years 15%

13-15 years 35%

16-18 years 26%

19-21 years 7%

22-25 years 4%

26 and over 3% Source: Parentline Plus

Embarrassment contributes to this silence says Suzie Hayman, a Relate-trained counsellor and author of Teach Yourself Parenting: Your Teenager.

"It's shame that [explains why] the situation is so out of control and sometimes shame about the reasons why," she says. "It stops people telling their wider family and talking to anyone."

It is also a "neglected" and "under-researched" topic academically, according to Mr Browne. But what research has been done suggests it is relatively widespread and "is a problem too large to ignore". Studies also back up much of the helpline's experience.

Society finds it hard to accept such abuse exists, says Mr Browne. He says some psychologists suggest this is because "the less powerful are taking on the role of the more powerful". Often family believe the parent must have "deserved it" in some way, he adds.

But others argue that having problems coping with your child isn't a taboo any more. There is more discussion of such behaviour and more help than ever before.

Anonymous

"I would question the suggestion that it is taboo," says consultant clinical psychologist Elie Godsi, author of Violence and Society: Making Sense of Madness and Badness.

"These days it's easy to label a child as having a problem if they don't do what they're told. Help is out there and parents come forward. The real issue here is being able to talk about the way people aren't coping without blaming anyone, but still holding them responsible.

"Behaviour in children is learned from the adults around them, copied and reinforced by parents who cannot cope. They give their children rubbish boundaries."

“ It is a taboo subject to talk about parents who suffer abuse from their children... for some parents it can turn into a vicious cycle which can continue for years ”
Jeremy Todd Parentline Plus chief executive

But Mr Godsi acknowledges that what isn't really talked about is the extent of aggression that is perpetrated by girls.

"Having an aggressive daughter is still a taboo," he says. "It still carries a stigma."

That girls are more likely to behave this way is not a surprise to some. Not because they are getting more violent, but because of the way they deal with issues.

"Boys and girls feel the same but have different ways of acting out when they are distressed and upset," says Ms Hayman. "Boys self-destruct outside the home by doing things like drinking or joy-riding. Girls do it in more intimate ways like arguments with parents."

In a lot of cases the reason for such aggression is obvious. The parent might have been abusive to the child in the past or the youngster may have witnessed violence in the home. Age is also an issue, with the teen years often creating a lot of issues.

'Don't matter'

But Parentline Plus is keen to counter generalisations. Mr Browne agrees that, while there is evidence that children who are aggressive to their parents have often been victims of abuse themselves, not every case is so easily explained.

One of his studies found just over half of the youngsters who said they had been violent towards their parents had not been on the receiving end of such aggression from them.

But there is always a reason, however hard it is to identify, say childcare experts. And, whatever it is, parents always feel judgement will fall on them which is why they will ring an anonymous helpline but not ask family for help, says Parentline Plus.

"People feel conflicted. They think they are supposed to love their children unconditionally," says Ms Outram. "They think they don't matter and only the child does, but they do matter. Getting them to realise that is the point at which you start tackling this problem."

Whilst my own experiences of this issue are not as extreme as some of the cases mentioned, I can definitely relate to the problem. I am now 35 and regularly had to watch as my older brother would verbally and physically abuse both myself and my Mother when we were growing up in the mid 1980s. My father died when I was a year old, which left my Mother to bring up me and my older brother who was 5 at the time of my father's death. Despite having very little money, my Mother always made sure that neither of us went without, and as far as I am concerned she did an exceptional job in what were very difficult circumstances. However, this kindness didn't stop my brother from turning into a very nasty and abusive person from the age of around 12 or 13 onwards (a trait he has continued even now that he is approaching 40) when he began to get very aggressive and start punching and abusing both me and my Mother. It would usually start when he couldn't get what he wanted, and he would start screaming at my Mother and would literally grab her, bend her over and hit her several times as hard as he could on the back. My own childhood was littered with these incidents - as well as incidents when he would turn his anger on me and do the same type of thing, which eventually escalated into times when he would pin me down and spit in my face, as well as one particular time when he stabbed me in the shoulder with a metal nail file (something which I kept from my mother and only admitted to her around a year ago - a revelation she found devastating as she felt it was her fault for not being a better mother). Many is the time when my brother would go on one of his screaming tirades and my mother would just grab me and we would flee the house for 10 or 15 minutes until he calmed down. I remember after one incident when my mother had just completely had enough, and not knowing what to do ended up phoning both the Samaritans as well a nearby orphanage. My brother overheard who she was phoning and apologised, but it wouldn't be long before the abuse started up again. Mercifully, as he grew older the physical abuse against my mother lessened, and whilst the verbal abuse continued, he would take his anger out on items around the house and would punch holes in walls, kick through some of the interior doors and just generally destroy anything he could lay his hands on. In our case, his abuse towards us was not as a result of being abused himself, and I have the upmost sympathy for the parent who was threatened with a knife by her own daughter. I thank God that, excluding the incident with the nail file, the abuse that my mother and I suffered never reached such a frightening and dangerous level. Scott, Glasgow, Scotland

My daughter is 5 and from a very early age, I could see a vast difference in her temperament compared to her older brother. She is a loving sweet child but the slightest thing can have her screaming, punching, kicking, biting and trashing her room and there have been times I have just sat on the stairs and sobbed and my son has sat and hugged me. I spoke to the GP and I talked to school and all were very helpful and kind. She is much, much better than she was but still sometimes goes into a rage, it always ends with her in floods of tears and most of the time, she can't remember the horrible things she has said to me - that she hates me, wishes I was dead, that she had a different mummy - it breaks my heart. She has sobbed in my arms and said she doesn't know why she gets so angry and that she can't help it. I am dreading her reaching her teens. I didn't know an organisation like this existed and will definitely give them a go Maddy, Manchester

Our daughter who was abusive and violent is one of five- the others were never violent or aggressive towards me. Our difficult daughter was treated the same as the others. Her behaviour was largely caused by large mounts of weed. We managed to hang on to her and now she is a wonderful daughter again. We went through 8 years of hell starting when she was about 13. I know I didn't always cope with it and must have contributed to the problem but I really resent the idea that these situations are always caused by bad parenting. Carol, Blackburn

We as a family have been suffering from this for the last 5 years. We often feel like we don't matter, and the case is even with Social Services. Once they got involved, it really didn't make a difference, as they are only for the child, and not the parents. We feel outcast and often we don't discuss it. Life has been very hard on us for the last couple of years, and it has even started to affect our other children! Claire, Aylesbury

The article omits the prime culprit in this pandemic: the Social Services. Children know full well that if parents try to discipline them, they only have to report it to the Social Services and the whole family will disintegrate. The only solution is putting the offending child into care and obtaining a restraining order against the child from coming anywhere near the parental home. anon, London

Is this right that 2% of calls from abused parents were being abused by a 0-3 year old. Sorry but they need to get a grip, These are called tantrums...... This is not parental abuse and no survey should make out it is, Modern parents need to realise life is not a Janet and John Book and sometimes life is hard and children lash out. Ian, Bath

My mum is in a similar situation. My younger sister is very depressed and socially anxious, and as a result relies on my mum heavily from an emotional point of view. She's threatened suicide on several occasions and doesn't have any friends or social life. This also means that my mum bears the brunt of her outbursts, and whilst it's usually verbal/emotional I have also seen scratches on her etc. It's a very painful and difficult situation and trying to handle it requires a very fine balance between protecting mum without tipping my sister over the edge or making her feel worse than she already does. This article was helpful as I wasn't aware how widespread this was, or of the existence of Parentline Plus. Thanks. Helen, Wiltshire

Now that parents are no longer allowed to smack their children it is no wonder they are turning more feral. My cousin pulled a knife on his father, thankfully his brothers stopped him. This attitude has only come from his mother spoiling him rotten and not teaching him any boundaries. Unfortunately this will cause him to have little success in life and probably end up with him in prison. Stephen, Cardiff

I disagree that it is mainly children who have witnessed abuse. As a teacher I have seen Parent abuse on many occasions. It has, in my experience, ALWAYS been because the mother is a single parent, quite a weak character, with no back-up. Each of the children in question would never have dared behave with me as they did their mothers because they knew that under no circumstances would I tolerate it. They respected me but not their parents.

The lack of strength of character of the parent would seem to be one of the main causes of the abuse. Loz, London

I used to beat up my dad when I was 17. I'm really ashamed of it now, and we barely speak to each others. Whenever he would say no to something, e.g. when I asked for the permission to drink milk, beer, or simply to go to the movies, I would get in such a rage I couldn't quite control my actions. I feel terrible for all the things that happened back then, and I think that restricting my own son's access to violent movies and video games will make him a better person. Perhaps restoring corporal punishment in schools would also give the kids a sense of respect for their elders. Legrand, paris franc

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8366113.stm

Published: 2009/11/23 11:02:26 GMT

Business Cards and Beyond...

2009-11-20T15:54:00.000-08:00

“A great victory is the end result of many smaller triumphs.” –I’m sure someone said it sometime

Today’s triumph: business cards.
Tomorrows victory: traveling to Ukraine.

It seems like such a small thing…business cards. But to me, it is more than just a piece of paper, it is a culmination of hundreds of hours of choosing a name, developing a tag line, formulating a mission, utilizing social media, designing a website and logo, coming up with responsibilities, growing to a 600+ organization actively participating with two domestic violence shelters in Utah County and four in Ukraine.

It represents the triumph of existing for one year. It represents the victory of authenticity.

So Kristy Ashworth, Jesse Moore (our photographer…check out his stuff at www.iconmemories.com) and I are going to Ukraine tomorrow. It will be a grueling 24-hour trip there. We are visiting four shelters and then an action packed 10 days. We are going to be donating funds and supplies that we have collected over the last year and bring it all together.

This victory is because of your triumphs. Thank you so much for your support and wish us good graces as we travel to Ukraine to get our feet on the ground!!

Yours truly,

Zack Oates
Founder & President
Courage to Hope

Don't Do Nothing

2009-10-15T23:29:00.001-07:00

We watched this video at our meeting this week and everyone was pretty impacted by it... I wanted to share it with everyone so they could see as well. Domestic violence is a huge problem, and when we do nothing we only fueling the problem. Stand up for what you believe and what is right.

--
Rob Moncur

One Year Later...

2009-10-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

Recently in an article about BYU Alumni, I was asked what is the greatest accomplishment of Courage to Hope.

This question made me stop and really think.

One year ago this month I was walking home thinking about changing the world. I thought of how many problems there are and didn’t know what to do. I thought back into my life and how much I love the Ukrainian people. I called Amnesty International and asked the country director of Ukraine if there was a need for an organization to help battered women’s shelters. She was thrilled at the idea.

A board of directors was formed, fundraisers held, support solicited, a trip planned (in November), shelters partnered with and eyes opened. But now, a year later, what is our greatest accomplishment?

In the words of Autumn Buys, the author of the BYU article, “the organization’s greatest strength [is] its philosophy, rather than its philanthropy.” Courage to Hope has not and will never seek to just do good alone; but standing behind existing organizations, we can focus on our philosophy of collaboration and localization—basically, we ask the locals “what can we do?” From there, we can help them develop greater goals that individually would be near impossible.

So one year later, I am proud to have an organization that remains true to her roots of unity and as such will grow strong.

-Zack Oates

Founder & President

Research

2009-09-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

On the family research front we are making great progress! I just started a PhD program under one of the nations leaders in domestic violence research and we are learning and gathering information that will help those victims of domestic violence. It is important to understand that Courage to Hope does not want to tear apart families, we only want to provide safety and protection, with the hope that we can improve family life in the future. The problem is real, it is big and it needs to be addressed.
There was a large domestic violence conference held in California a couple of months ago that I had the privilege of attending. When discussing world reports of domestic violence they were able to generalize many of the findings, but often excluded Ukraine from the mix for various reasons. We are trying to learn as much as we can, about domestic violence and the special circumstances of our Ukrainian project. We are excited with the progress taking place and continue our passion to help others!

Cultural Acceptance of Domestic Violence

2009-09-22T22:36:00.000-07:00

Olya and Kristy in Utah, December 2008.

Domestic violence in Ukraine is an epidemic, and it will take more than a quick-fix Band-aid to resolve this issue. One of the main goals of Courage to Hope is to assist Ukrainian organizations to stop the generational plague of domestic violence. Individuals will lead better lives, families will be strengthened and the country will progress as violence and alcohol abuse become less socially acceptable.

I was sitting with my good friend, Olya, having lunch at Christmas time. We had met two years before in a small town in Northern Russia. I asked about her family, and she recounted that her mother and father were having troubles with their marriage again. Her father had started drinking heavily again, and he had become violent towards his wife. I was in shock at how calmly Olya told me this story. I asked, “why doesn’t your mother just leave or kick him out? Can’t she go to a relative’s home?” Olya explained that her mother does have relatives in the city where she could go, but it wouldn’t be acceptable. The culture breads an attitude of “you signed up for this.” If a woman is being beaten by her husband, then it is her fault for choosing a bad husband, and she doesn’t have any room to complain. Not even her immediate family would allow her safe refuge.

Domestics violence is a cultural norm, and generations of people are taught to turn their heads and “mind their own business” when they see others being abused. This cycle must stop. It’s not enough to pity women and children who are in abusive situations. We need to do something about it. I’m involved with Courage to Hope because I have seen what domestic violence does to families, and I have many friends who live in cultures where it is still acceptable. So, we ask for your help: help us help them. Help us give them the means to stop generational patterns of abuse.

International Women's Day - Memories

2009-03-09T00:10:00.000-07:00

International women’s day.

A glorious holiday to support women all around the world. I have many fond memories of women’s day in Ukraine and how big that holiday is. The cards, chocolates, flowers and parties make mothers’ day in America look like grandparents’ day. There was an outpouring of love and affection to women everywhere.

Earlier today, I had the opportunity to call a dear friend of mine in Ukraine (picture above) and wish her and her daughter a happy women’s day. Even after two years, I think daily still of the relationships that I gained in Ukraine and the people I came to love so dearly. They are more than just friends to me; they are a part of my family.

How blessed we are to have such wonderful women in our lives and to be able to learn from their natures as caring individuals. Let us each cultivate a greater sense of admiration for the women in our lives.

Zack Oates

Director Courage to Hope

From Chelsea Bennett

2009-02-04T16:45:00.001-08:00

Why am I involved with Courage to Hope? I see women who are battered and suffering in my profession; to see a woman bruised and desperate for the slightest symbolism of hope has changed me, changed my perspective on life, my own abilities and my desire to reach out. I know there is a vital need for change and hope for those women who suffer. Being part of an organization like Courage to hope is life changing for all those who are involved, it is truly altruistic and with a group of young, capable, passionate students I recognize our reach is limited only by our dreams.
My name is Chelsea Bennett and I am completing my Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy at Brigham Young University. I will begin working on my PhD in the same field in another part of the country starting this Fall. I completed my bachelors of science from Brigham Young University in Marriage, Family and Human Development. Throughout my schooling I have had the opportunity of studying internationally and recognizing the needs of others. One internship in particular provided the research needed for many of the laws and regulations on families and marriage within the United States. I have participated in many different research projects in the last six years evaluating and obtaining information of healthy family functioning. I have also had the privilege of spending hundreds of hours providing therapy to couples, individuals and families. I have researched and studied abuse, violence and women focuses. Finally, the more I learn the more I have a burning desire to help.

From Kristy Ashworth

2009-02-03T12:29:00.001-08:00

I got involved with Courage to Hope because I believe that this organization can really make a difference. I've always been interested in international development and humanitarian work, and every time I heard about things like this a little light would flash on inside of me, and I would think to myself, "I wish I were the kind of person who would do something like that." In 2004 I took my first leap outside my comfort zone and moved to Kiev, Ukraine where I volunteered teaching English. This experience changed my life. I fell in love with Eastern Europe, and caught a glimpse of the power of service and love.

I returned to Eastern Europe a year later to serve a mission in Moscow, Russia, where I worked very closely with families and young women, almost all of whom had been affected by drug and alcohol abuse or domestic violence. I listened to hours and hours of personal accounts of the dangers and set-backs these women face because of the social acceptance of substance abuse, domestic violence, and corruption.

Domestic violence is a plague that haunts every culture in every nation in the world. I am grateful for Courage to Hope because it has given me the chance to take a stand and use my passion and resources to help women who suffer. Some of my best friends live in cultures where domestic violence is socially acceptable, and I am grateful to be doing my part to give them a better life.

From Nat Harward

2009-02-01T11:37:00.001-08:00

I am involved with Courage to Hope because I believe we can actually make a difference in many lives in many communities around the world. I believe it is possible to diminish violence against women, that there are rising generations of boys ready to treat women with respect, and that there are rising generations of girls ready to shed old stereotypes and seize new opportunities. I'm committed to Courage to Hope because Courage to Hope is committed to teaching and supporting the people who pioneer change. And I believe that no woman should live her life in total subjection and fear, stripped of individuality and personal expression.

At my first Courage to Hope meeting, I watched Zack tell a group of 20 people about encountering a victim of domestic abuse. As I considered the hopeless situation of this woman and many others, I looked around the room and realized that even a small band of people can unite to a common goal and affect change so that one day all women may have the courage to hope for a better life.

From Rilee Buttars

2009-01-31T14:02:00.001-08:00

Why I want to be involved with Courage to Hope?

Well, I guess its because I am an extremist, an extremist with a myriad of ambitions. Not many people think its possible to combine communications with development and activism. "Opposite sides of the spectrum" they say. This year I began the journey as a copywriter in the creative track of the advertising sequence. I've quickly come to realize this introduction automatically deems me as "the creative type", all stereotypes included. I hate stereotypes. I'm not one-track minded, and quite honestly, feel suffocated by the expectation to fit into any mold. With that said, I end this preface with one connecting thought:

Some of us know how we came by our fortune and some of us don't, but we wear it all the same. There's only one question worth asking now. How do we aim to live with it? (Poison Wood Bible.)

I don't know why I was blessed to be born in the US, to a middle-class family and given the ability to attend a univesity etc. But I do know that I have the power to do something, and for me that something is using my talents and education for a better cause than selling people things they never knew they needed or wanted.

Yet, I do believe in the power of communications, the power of words and images, the power of speaking out, the power of dreaming, and yes, the power of women.

I was once asked to describe my life goal, and I explain it with two words: categories and mattering. I fit into three very distinct demographics. I am an LDS American woman. As such, I want to go out beyond the bubble and beyond the security to stand up against the oppression, negative perception, and stigma tagged to each of these traits.

Secondly and in short: life is about mattering. If at the close of the day you cannot say you personnally mattered to someone then the day was for naught. The path of international development, NGO's, and fighting domestic violence may be the extreme of this simple thought, but what else would you expect from a highly opinionated, passioanate, energetic extremist.

OR, you can just put it this way:

Because it feels right!

From Zack Oates

2009-01-31T13:53:00.000-08:00

It was almost 21.00 on a chilly fall night in Donetsk, Ukraine. And there she stood—dripping with blood.
I was living in Ukraine at the time participating in humanitarian work and was on my way home when I saw her. I still don’t know her name, I still don’t know where she lived, and I still don’t know if she survived through the night …I just know how helpless I felt.
When I asked her what happened, her dodgy eyes locked onto mine, “My husband.” Her nose was broken, her eyes black, her body shaking and nerves burnt on fear. She was at a bus stop and I asked her where she was going, “Home,” came the chilling response. Wait, I thought, Home?! Back to your husband? I implored her to not return.
With a hopeless gaze she said, “Where else am I supposed to go? I have nowhere, nowhere else to go.”

I looked around for something or someone to help. A police officer stood 10 feet away with no intention of doing anything. The woman then limped onto the bus and left...
I was changed forever.
Courage to Hope is the organization created to answer her question.

It is my hope that we will be able to continue to strengthen the rights of women across the world through the facilitation of international support. Come, let us join together and combat that which is given every human: the right to love, life and hope.

Courage to Hope - Blog

Spreading Awareness of Abuse in Utah With Hope, Not Fear.

The Lisbon Treaty and the Council of Europe

The Whistleblower: Amplifying the Reality of Human Trafficking

American in Bosnia Discovers the Horrors of Human Trafficking

Cary Fukunaga/Samuel Goldwyn Films

US, Russia agree on rules for safer adoptions

July 14, 2011 at 06:41 | Associated Press

UN: Police, courts and judiciary fail women

The worst places in the world to be a woman - CBSNews

“Human rights start with children’s rights”

The head of the UNICEF mission in Ukraine speaks about the priorities of the state, the Soviet heritage and destroying stereotypes

Seeking an end to child abuse in Eastern Europe

Turkey to hand over chairmanship of Committee of Ministers to Ukraine

Turkey to Sign International Treaty on Violence against Women

Ukraine Educators Visit America

Written by

Michael Martinezmmartinez@rgj.com

International Women's Day celebration

Battered Women and European values

Vadim Kastelli shot a film about domestic violence ... in the land of Amazons and militant Cossack wives

Ukraine's topless protesters attract fame and feminist fury

A group of women's rights activists in Ukraine regularly bare their breasts to protest a host of issues. Their topless demonstrations garner international attention, but provoke criticism within feminist circles.

100th anniversary of International Women's Day

100th anniversary of International Women's Day

The Jewish Chronicle - FSU Jewish women take women s case to U N D C

Alcohol kills more than AIDS and TB

Metro - A tribute in their honour

War's overlooked victims

Rape is horrifyingly widespread in conflicts all around the world

Battery in Private

Almost 70% of women suffer from domestic violence in Ukraine

16-day campaign against gender violence kicks off in Ukraine

United Nations Elects Executive Board of New Agency for Women’s Empowerment

The Women’s Perspective: Breaking the Silence on International Crimes Against Women - Pembroke, MA - Pembroke Mariner & Reporter

Fight club

Colts help fight domestic violence

44% of Ukrainians...

Ukraine Update

Ex throws woman out of sixth-floor window in Girona

Walk a Mile In Her Shoes

Why gender equality and women's empowerment must lie at the heart of EU external action?

Ukraine participating in European convention combating violence against women and domestic violence

Ukraine participating in elaboration of European convention on combating violence against women and domestic violence

The Facts About Domestic Violence

Where It All Began - Video

Nation stepping up efforts to combat domestic abuse

February 11 at 22:22 | Kateryna Grushenko

Powerful Sand Art Video

Meeting with Shelters

Ukrainian Host Family

In Ukraine...right now.

Abused by their own children

Business Cards and Beyond...

Don't Do Nothing

One Year Later...

Research

Cultural Acceptance of Domestic Violence

International Women's Day - Memories

From Chelsea Bennett

From Kristy Ashworth

From Nat Harward

From Rilee Buttars

From Zack Oates

Michael Martinez
mmartinez@rgj.com