Human Rights

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, from December 18 to December 24, was compiled by Anne Connell and Becky Allen. Japan’s top court upholds century-old surname law Last week, Japan’s Supreme Court upheld an 1896 law requiring married couples to share a surname. The case has been working its way through the Japanese justice system since 2011, when five female plaintiffs filed suit in two lower courts that rejected their claim. The lawsuit was initiated on the premise that the law violates civil rights and discriminates unduly against women, with particularly detrimental effects in professional settings. Although a 1947 revision of Japanese civil code permitted couples to choose whose name is to be shared by both partners, in practice, the husband’s name is adopted in ninety-six percent of marriages today. Many socially conservative voices—both in government and the broader public—staunchly oppose any legal change, viewing it as a threat to Japan’s traditional family structures. Some argue that this decision undermines Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s “womenomics” strategy, which aims to remove legal barriers to women’s economic participation and create legislation that brings more women into the country’s stagnated workforce. Protest in India over release of 2012 Delhi rapist Indian officials reported this week that one of the convicted rapists in the fatal 2012 Delhi gang rape of medical student Jyoti Singh would be released after spending three years in a detention center. In the direct aftermath of the 2012 attack, massive protests broke out across the country, with thousands taking to the streets to express outrage over the brutality of the assault, the failings of the Indian criminal justice system, and the broader crisis of violence against women. While four perpetrators were sentenced to death and one died in prison, the sixth was a juvenile at the time of the attack, just shy of his 18th birthday. His release this week sparked a new wave of protests and civil society activism, resulting in a controversial bill passed on Tuesday that will allow juvenile defendants charged with “heinous” crimes to be tried as adults in the future. Rise in female billionaires in Asia Although most of the world’s wealthiest women have amassed fortunes through inheritance from family dynasties, a growing number of women in Asia are self-made billionaires. A report released this week finds that not only is the rise in female billionaires most rapid in Asia, but more than half of these billionaires are first-generation entrepreneurs. This draws a sharp contrast with the US and Europe, where just 19% and 7% respectively of women tycoons are self-made. Men still vastly outnumber women in the ranks of global billionaires, but the number of female billionaires worldwide has increased seven-fold over the past twenty years, outpacing the five-fold increase in male billionaires. The report cites shifting social attitudes about gender roles, advances in women’s education, and booming economies as potential reasons for the rise. Asia has seen significant gains in girls’ education over the past ten years, including sharp declines in illiteracy, advances in primary education for girls, and an increase in the number of women in university relative to men. Many of the new billionaires are educated women who have taken advantage of accelerated industrial and consumer revolutions in Asia and surging real estate prices.

by Guest Blogger for Women Around the World December 28, 2015 Women Around the World

Education

She Made Herself Malala

I had the honor of meeting Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai and her father this past summer, during their visit to the United States. Malala became an internationally-known activist, after surviving being shot in the head when the Taliban attacked her for speaking up in support of girls’ education in the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Last week at CFR, I screened the powerful new film about Malala and her fight for girls’ education, “He Named Me Malala,” and hosted Meighan Stone, the president of the Malala Fund, to discuss the fund’s work. Like the famous civil rights leader Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat and move to back of the bus during an era of racial segregation in the United States, Malala refused to be silenced by Taliban leaders who enforced a harsh code of gender discrimination against women and girls. As Malala stated in a speech she gave at the United Nations Youth Assembly, “There’s a moment when you have to decide whether to be silent or stand up.” Malala decided to stand up and fight. Indeed, in 2013, a year after the attack, Malala and her father began the Malala Fund, an organization that works to empower girls and advance their access to education. As I have written before, educating girls has clear benefits, first and foremost for girls themselves, but also for a variety of development indicators, from decreasing poverty to reducing extremism. For decades, research has demonstrated that girls’ education is correlated with increased female participation and productivity in the labor market and growing economies. Moreover, educated girls are more likely to marry later, have smaller families, and have reduced incidences of HIV/AIDS. Thus, not only are these benefits for the girls themselves, but later for their own children, who are then more likely to be healthy and productive. Educating girls has the power to mitigate those factors—including oversized youth populations, mass poverty, and limited economic opportunity—that create the environments where extremism tends to thrive. Given the clear benefits of girls’ education, the rise in attacks on girls’ schools and female students and teachers—from the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan to Boko Haram in Chibok, Nigeria—is particularly worrisome. That’s why, in her UN speech, Malala said, “Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful weapons.” The Malala Fund works to support various education programs in a number of countries and advocates for policies that advance girls’ access to education. The work of the fund reflects the refrain from Malala’s UN speech: “One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world.” In 2013, the organization provided former girl domestic laborers with free education in Pakistan. The Malala Fund has also supported training in information technology in Kenya; funded a program in Sierra Leone to support the educational needs of girls affected by the Ebola crisis; and provided funding for educational programs for Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. In Nigeria, the Malala Fund has provided kidnapped girls, who escaped from Boko Haram, with counseling services and full scholarships to secondary school as well as funds to the Nigerian Centre for Girls’ Education. On a trip to Nigeria in 2014, Malala met with parents of the abducted girls and with the President of Nigeria at the time, Goodluck Jonathan, to press his government to do more to secure their release. The fund also has a social action and advocacy campaign, resources for students, and discussion guides and curriculum based on the film. Malala says she was an ordinary girl born to extraordinary parents in the Swat Valley in Pakistan. While her father named her “Malala,” she made herself Malala. At age 11, she began to blog anonymously about her experience living under the Taliban for the BBC and eventually, demonstrating remarkable courage, she came out publicly to object to their ban on girls’ education. In response, the Taliban shot her, which she miraculously survived. After a long recovery process, rather than express resentment, Malala speaks of “the importance of light when we see darkness.” Her story, her struggle, and her success have helped bring girls’ education to the forefront of development and foreign policy more broadly. Last year, the Obama Administration launched Let Girls Learn, which focuses on community-based programs to eliminate the barriers to education that adolescent girls face. But there is more the United States, other governments, and international institutions can do. International education has been discussed as part of the foreign policy agenda in recent years. In fact, one of President Obama’s 2008 campaign promises was to create a global education fund. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan also spoke out in favor of investing in education abroad, writing in Foreign Affairs, “Education has immeasurable power to promote growth and stability around the world. Educating girls and integrating them into the labor force is especially critical to breaking the cycle of poverty.” Yet the promised increases in funding for education abroad have not yet materialized. In both 2011 and 2013, the House of Representatives introduced the Education for All Act, a bill that would increase U.S. aid for education to $3 billion per year. But the bill has never passed, and congressional appropriations for education abroad has been unsteady. The United States should support education—specifically girls’ education—abroad (and, of course, at home) not only to empower and benefit girls around the world, but also to reduce poverty and improve stability in strategic regions and to enhance U.S. national security interests.

by Catherine Powell December 23, 2015 Women Around the World

Human Rights

Assessing Fifteen Years of the Women, Peace, and Security Agenda

Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to the advancement of women and U.S. foreign policy interests. This article is from Melissa Guinan, a 2014-15 Fulbright scholar researching women, peace, and security. Guinan is now special assistant to the president of the Council on Foreign Relations. In October 2000, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, which sought to promote women’s participation in all aspects of conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and post-conflict reconstruction. In October of this year, government officials and civil society representatives came together at the United Nations to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the resolution with a packed slate of events, including the release of a Global Study, numerous civil society and academic events, and an open debate on October 13, 2015 that included the passing of a new resolution on women, peace, and security (WPS). Resolution 2242, passed unanimously, reaffirmed many of the goals that resolution 1325 laid out fifteen years earlier---promoting women’s participation in formal international peace and security processes, respecting human rights and humanitarian law, supporting local women’s groups, and incorporating a gender perspective into peacekeeping operations—and it proposed new areas of work. In the past, activists have harshly criticized deficient levels of funding and minimal consultation with civil society as symptomatic of actors’ lack of commitment to the WPS agenda. Resolution 2242 promotes two important new tools in these funding and consultation areas. One new tool is the Global Acceleration Instrument, developed under the initiative of civil society organizations and announced in the open debate by UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. The resolution recognized the instrument as an “avenue to attract resources, coordinate responses and accelerate implementation.” The Global Acceleration Instrument will direct funding to women’s organizations working on WPS and has received initial pledges from member states. Resolution 2242 advances a second tool: a new ability for the Security Council to convene meetings of relevant experts as part of an Informal Experts Group on Women, Peace, and Security, a measure recommended in the Global Study. Chloé White of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security argues that the Informal Experts Group “will be an integral part of ensuring” that the incorporation of WPS concerns across all country-specific issues on the Security Council’s agenda “is meaningful and effective.” Despite the seemingly clear progression of the policy agenda from UNSCR 1325 to UNSCR 2242, the latter is not the second resolution on WPS—it is the eighth. Between 2008 and 2013, the Security Council passed six other resolutions, often called “follow-on resolutions.” Four of these address sexual violence in conflict, a sub-theme of the WPS policy area that has received the most sustained high-level attention, if unfortunately not transformative funding, commitment, or action. The other two, plus Resolution 2242, focus on furthering the broader goals originally stated in resolution 1325. The resolutions build on each other, ostensibly pushing the agenda forward, hypothetically requiring indicators and reports, and amplifying the parallel development in many countries of national action plans to implement resolution 1325. Diplomatic actions like these resolutions can refocus high-level debate, provide political momentum, and attract media attention. Just as the development of a national action plan can catalyze a process of internal review and commitment to the WPS agenda on the national level, the negotiation process that leads to a resolution can offer an important stocktaking of the progress on WPS. Security Council resolutions, importantly, can provide backing and legitimacy to activists on the ground and can set international norms, but they still are not an end in themselves. Women remain underrepresented in peace processes and in politics, and with each successive resolution on WPS, the concern over slow progress becomes more obvious. Furthermore, member states disagree on the priorities within the agenda, as evidenced in the open debate statements immediately following the passage of the latest resolution. Divides between the global north and global south on how to approach WPS create challenges in an under-resourced policy area. For example, as the Global Study suggests, states in the European Union focus heavily on representation of women in the security sector and prevention of sexual violence in external conflicts, while countries in the global south prioritize economic empowerment and local and community-level needs. So while new resolutions and concrete policy innovations like the Global Acceleration Instrument and the Informal Experts Group are welcome additions to the stockpile of tools to address WPS issues, member state governments should back their verbal commitments with concrete actions — or eight more resolutions will pass and remain only words.

by Guest Blogger for Women Around the World December 21, 2015 Women Around the World

Human Rights

Women Around the World: This Week

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering December 11 to December 18, was compiled by Anne Connell. Landmark elections for women in Saudi Arabia The December 12 elections marked the first time in Saudi history that women voted and ran for office. Women made small but significant gains in representation: of the 6,800 candidates competing for 2,106 seats, 979 were women, and only 20 of these women won seats. Elected women include a British-trained scientist, the Vice Chairwoman of the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce, a local business leader, and a social worker. Candidates overcame sizeable obstacles to reach elected office: they were forbidden from using photos on campaign materials, conversing with men while campaigning in public, or driving to polling places. In a country with the highest rates of social-media use in the world—over five million Saudis use Twitter—online platforms proved to be a valuable resource for women in sidestepping highly restrictive policies. Many female candidates ran social media campaigns and used networking channels like WhatsApp and Telegram to converse with voters about the election process and voter registration. Indictment for rape as a war crime in Rwanda This week, a wanted architect of the Rwandan genocide, Ladislas Ntaganzwa, was captured by UN forces in eastern Congo and indicted on charges of genocide and rape as a crime of war. The precedent of rape as a war crime was set by the special tribunal created to respond to the 1994 Rwanda genocide, now hearing its final claim. During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, Ntaganzwa allegedly organized mass rapes and killings of civilians, including an attack on a church where thousands had sought refuge. Following the genocide, he was one of the estimated two million ethnic Hutu Rwandans—many of them perpetrators of the genocide—who fled to Congo, fueling years of political unrest and brutal violence in the eastern provinces of the country. Dozens of active armed groups have since vied for control of resources and territory in the region. Ntaganzwa’s case will be heard in the Rwandan court system. Rise in female police officers in Ukraine The Ukrainian police force—once synonymous with corruption and notorious for brutality against the Euromaidan protesters in 2014—is undergoing major changes. Spearheading the efforts are two women: Eka Zguladze, deputy interior minister, and Khatia Dekanoidze, national police chief. The revamped Patrol Police that hit the streets of Kiev in July has 2,000 officers, and another 2,500 are now training for deployment in Odessa, Lviv, and Kharkiv. Soviet-relic training programs have been overhauled and the recruitment of female police officers has increased dramatically—women make up one-quarter of the officers. It will take years for the country to bring the program to scale and see the full effect of a reformed, mixed-gender force, but the number of emergency calls requesting police help has quadrupled since the summer, suggesting that public trust in the police is already on the rise. Ukraine’s reforms may provide a regional example for how to increase women’s recruitment, hiring, and deployment in police forces, a key tenet of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 framework to advance women’s participation in peace and security processes.

by Guest Blogger for Women Around the World December 18, 2015 Women Around the World

Energy and Environment

Why the Paris Agreement Is Good News for Women and Girls

Voices from the Field features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to the advancement of women and U.S. foreign policy interests. This article is from Ambassador Cathy Russell, U.S. ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues. Climate change is anything but an equal opportunity challenge. Discrimination keeps women from land rights, personal documentation, and access to credit and education. Cultural beliefs make women targets of trafficking and gender-based violence, particularly in times of conflict and crisis. Traditional gender roles put women on the front lines of growing food, collecting water, and gathering fuel for their families. These are just some of the many reasons why the effects of climate change—drought, desertification, erosion, and flooding—will continue to hit women and girls harder than anyone else. Simply put, climate change is important to women—but women are also important to climate change. If the world’s efforts to limit it are going to succeed, women need to be a full and equal part of the solution. That’s why the historic Paris climate agreement between nearly 200 countries is good news for everyone. The deal builds on the understanding that women can do a tremendous amount to confront climate change. For example, the preamble calls for gender equality and women’s empowerment, and the sections of the agreement detailing adaptation and capacity-building efforts specifically call on countries to adopt gender-responsive approaches. These references to gender are not perfunctory—they acknowledge that the approaches that empower women are those that have the best chance of effectively addressing climate change. As President Obama said at the opening of the climate change negotiations last month, we need our actions “to be big enough to draw on the talents of all our people—men and women.” The negotiations themselves illustrated just how far we have to go before we fully tap the incredible resource that is the world’s women. While women like Christiana Figueres, the UN’s top climate change official, and an impressive array of country negotiators and civil society actors demonstrated the kind of expertise and diplomacy women bring to the table, neither national delegations nor bodies established under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have achieved complete gender balance. The international community knows it has a gender problem. The UN now counts the number of women who are involved in negotiations and encourages parties to support the full and equal participation of women. But we can and will do more to empower women in climate change efforts. The United States will continue to advance the status of women and girls and ensure their full and equal participation in action on this issue. Part of those efforts includes an acknowledgement that, while the Paris agreement is a critical step forward, it is by no means the end of international efforts to address climate change. As the agreement is implemented, and as national contributions are strengthened, future efforts will benefit from gender-responsive approaches to mitigation and more attention to ensuring technologies and financial resources are generally accessible to all elements of the population. That’s why we will continue our work empowering women in climate change efforts. We will build on the agreement’s unprecedented inclusion of women as partners by supporting women at all levels, from the decision-making table to grassroots projects. And we will continue to work with governments, with community leaders, and with civil society to ensure that everyone understands that including women as we chart a course for our planet is not optional. It’s mission critical.

by Guest Blogger for Women Around the World December 17, 2015 Women Around the World