CSW 60 Fri18

 

Today's Reports

Empowering of Women in Religion on 2030 development Agenda
UNESCO centre for global education, Association of Muslim Women

2016-03-18          Janine Donaldson

Brief Summary of presentation of information made?
(NB: This section seeks to factually report what was said in the presentation. No inference should be drawn in terms of Salvation Army position or policy from this section)

5 P’s, walk with women to enable, people, planet, power, partnership & prosperity.

• Recover value of women/ many religions have discounted women or given masculine viewpoints.
• Need to recognize femininity of God. God in the feminine would look like a mother’s love wanting all to live in peace and harmony.
• True Islam believes in the rights of all women. That is equality and empowerment for all

Concluding remarks based on a sustainable planet neds people who have faith.

What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
The interlocking fo the 5 P’s (as above) was helpful.

Weblinks for More Information
www.trueislam.com

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issing Children: Disappearances, Abductions & Exploitations
Ariel Foundation International

2016-03-18          Eirwen Pallant

Brief Summary of presentation of information made?
(NB: This section seeks to factually report what was said in the presentation. No inference should be drawn in terms of Salvation Army position or policy from this section)

Corinne Dettmeijer – Dutch National Rapporteur on Trafficking in Human Beings and Sexual Violence against Children

•             1 in 5 children who go missing end up as sexually exploited (of both sexes)

•             Affects children of all ages and all nationalities

•             Need 3 elements to combat – anticipate and prevent child disappearance, find as soon as possible, prevent repeat disappearance

Anticipation & Prevention

•             ¾ of children who go missing in the USA and are possible victims of trafficking come from institutional care or foster homes

•             Child runs away to traffickers 5 times on average before they recognize that they are being trafficked. They are still victims whatever their behavior.

•             Relationship of trust is key to combatting the deceit and manipulation of the trafficker

•             Train care workers to spot signs of involvement with traffickers

•             Peer leaders can be effective working with carers

•             Mapping of victims social contacts including social media contacts prior to any crisis

•             Police can recognize signs of vulnerability

•             Debate on whether secure facilities have any place in child care to keep safe – are used in Netherlands 

Find as soon as possible

•             Time is critical if in hands of trafficker

•             Team already prepared for this occurrence and organized and know how to proceed

•             Teams to monitor sites advertising sexual services such as ‘backpage’ in USA

•             Countrywide alerts to disappearance such as amber alerts in the states – advantage of rapid information over large area, disadvantage of risk of public labelling and stigmatization

•             Use of google and Microsoft facial matching technology to trace

Recurrence Prevention

•             Depends on :- where they are running from

                              Where they are running to

                               Why are they running?

•             After immediate care needs dealt with (physical/psychological)the aim is to extricate from the tie to the trafficker

•             Post recovery establishment of what happened and future risk assessment by interview with child

What is the hold on the child? (threats to family, shame and embarrassment involving film documentation of forced sex, in love with trafficker, blackmail after forced to commit criminal acts)

 Knowledge and trust can break the chains

It is the fundamental right of every child to be protected

Julie Ward, Member of the European Parliament for the North of England

•             250, 000 children reported missing in Europe annually

•             1 child per week goes missing for a long time

•             Trail of a child goes cold at borders and better border monitoring is needed

•             Refugee crisis has increased the dimensions of the issue- tackling the problem complicated by :-

          Increased vulnerability of migrant children

          Scared host communities

          Right wing media portrayal of refugees as young men and not women & children (reality 55% women, unknown % are children). Women and children invisible in camps

•             Member States are responsible for action in regard to missing children but common action is needed.

•             Parliament works through standing committees but not enough committees to deal with everything. NGO/CSO intergroups fill in the gaps. Recently established first children’s rights intergroup

•             Mainstream children’s rights across Parliament by designating 1 person on each committee to have responsibility for seeing issues from a child right’s perspective ( as is done with gender streaming)

•             MEPs can take action on legislation, tabling relevant reports to educate & promote children’s rights, work with NGOs/CSOs

•             Work with UN agencies

Cecilia Anicama, Special Representative to the UN Secretary General on Violence against Children

•             Child disappearance is a global problem

•             Advocates globally against all forms of violence against children in all places

•             ½ of all children in the world are exposed to some form of violence

•             Need to start early in life of child by building and supporting parents and families

•             Need to provide systems to prevent re-victimisation when child reports violence

•             Progress since 2009 – An increased number of nations has adopted and implemented legislation to stop violence against children

•             Inclusion in the SDGs of targets and indicators specific to children a victims of violence, human trafficking and sexual violence and exploitation

Other presenters gave stories of children’s experiences and emphasized need to hear the child’s voice.
What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
•             Child disappearance is a global problem

•             Many disappeared suffer trafficking, abuse and exploitation

•             Time is critical in finding them – strategies and systems to facilitate finding them quickly should be in place

•             Some children are at vastly increased risk, especially children in care, and migrant/refugee children

•             Relationships of trust are key to combatting the manipulation of traffickers and exploiters

•             Every child has a fundamental right to be protected whatever their behavior

•             There are people in positions of  power or government who are allies and will be happy to work with us to prevent  the abuse of children in any form
Weblinks for More Information
srsg.violenceagainstchildren.org

 www.juliewardmep.eu  

 Ageism & Widowhood: focusing on the forgotten
International network for the prevention of Elder Abuse, HelpAge International, Widows for Peace

2016-03-18          Eirwen Pallant

Brief Summary of presentation of information made?
(NB: This section seeks to factually report what was said in the presentation. No inference should be drawn in terms of Salvation Army position or policy from this section)

Presentations from UK, Hungarian and International perspectives

UK

•             Must be seen in context of deeply ageist society. Media portrayal of elderly as people to be ridiculed

•             Survey of 2000 older people in Europe revealed feelings of exclusion, alienation, devaluation, stereotyped and 2nd class citizens

•             Compounded by gender discrimination, gains made in gender equality must not be lost as women get older

Hungary

•             Elder population grew up under Communism. View youth as good times and distortion of memories of communism. Interaction of individual and societal changes.

International

•             Not all widows are elderly

•             Widows often discriminated against in developing world. Many have no inheritance rights to husband’s property and no livelihood options.

•             Can be cause of intergenerational poverty

•             Parallel tribal and national laws, local level tradition and tribal laws prevail ignoring national laws.

•             Widows in developed world often have inadequate pensions Families can be great source of strength & power for widows

•             Poverty can be as much social as material

•             Local community organisations based in the communities, such as churches are sources of widow and elderly support
What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
•             The elderly population is growing and has needs that need addressing

•             When considering the elderly and widowhood the heterogeneity of this group must be considered. Different sub groups have very different needs and should be defined within each context.

Tried but not Tired : African Women Working for Peace
Akina Mama  wa Afrika (AMWA)              

2016-03-18          Eirwen Pallant

Brief Summary of presentation of information made?
(NB: This section seeks to factually report what was said in the presentation. No inference should be drawn in terms of Salvation Army position or policy from this section)

Presentations from 7 African women representing AMWA, Congolese Women working for Peace, African Global Fund for Women, Transitional Justice, Africa Women’s Development Fund

•             “Women do not want to be in the corridors of power but in the room sitting at the Table “   

•             Women’s platform launched in 2014. Is intentionally holistic and focuses on women in politics, GBV, livelihoods and clean energy. Donors not yet engaging with the platform.

•             African feminism has always been present, need to make sure it is not disregarded

•             Discrimination in the home is still present. Women are expected to work outside the home but still look after the home and serve the men, then they are told they are too busy and do not have time to become involved in other things. Unfair distribution of work still persists.

•             Male attitudes to women still include seeing them as servants, sex objects and incubators for the next generation

•             The African patriarchal system has challenged the implementation of international laws

•             Need to find strategic ways of working including monitoring, holding to account with evidence and shadow reporting and networking. 

•             Too much emphasis is placed on the conflict and not enough on conflict prevention and recovery.

•             Conflict occurs in places where there are resources present. The political economy is in conflict.

•             Strategies for peace:-

Early warning systems

Addressing presence of arms

Leadership training for decision making

Supporting community dialogues

Access to resources for justice for women

Economic activity support

•             Roots and results of conflict are multiple and comprehensive plans are needed to address them

•             Women are usually the last to leave the area of conflict as they are needed to run the everyday activities

•             Amnesty programmes (as in Uganda) can benefit the perpetrators but not the women victims

•             Before amnesty women want acknowledgment of the crimes committed, apology from perpetrators and from State for failure to protect.

•             Land justice needed for children born of women who were raped – have no fathers, so no inheritance

•             Remind men of traditional norm of protection of women to address victimization  of women who have been raped, not judgement  by men of the woman for her inability to prevent the rape they suffered

•             Need for community based response but holding Governments to account is paramount

•             African & Western feminism has same aim of gender equality but differences in approach. In Africa the man is not seen as the breadwinner as in the western community, and women are not relegated to the background as wives or mothers so different approach

•             Western feminism is seen as preaching to Africa and is seen as condescending.

What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
•             Women internationally want, are capable of and deserve to have a voice in every part of life

•             Women often suffer disproportionately during conflicts and they want a voice in preventing them

•             Mutual respect is needed in every sphere, including relationships of Western/African dialogue

Weblinks for More Information
akinamamawaafrika.org

It Takes two to Tango:  How can Women’s organisations work with Men’s organisations
Men Engage Alliance

2016-03-18          Eirwen Pallant

Brief Summary of presentation of information made?
(NB: This section seeks to factually report what was said in the presentation. No inference should be drawn in terms of Salvation Army position or policy from this section)

Presentations from Breakthrough (US), WIIG (Nigeria),MARC- Men Advocating for Change (US), ABAD (presenter origin Middle East perspective) Mosaic and Sonde (both South Africa)

•             Create respectful partnerships 

•             Ending GBV not just role of governments, starts with people in local communities

•             Response to GBV of incarcerate and punish needs to be debated as to effectiveness  

•             Deeper and longer term engagement with men is necessary. Need to build understanding that affects them and they are also stakeholders.

•             Entry point to men’s engagement-how do masculinity norms affect you?

•             Powerful change agent- men’s story of how women’s issues affected them and their response to that

•             Can be times when working with mixed groups can be counterproductive, eg. Men respond better to men initially. Women’s groups tend to start with statistics but men report causes alienation    

•             Each community works differently (Nigerian perspective). Some communities can only access through men, others directly. Each community requires different model of working.

•             Working with women only can create suspicion with men, and prevents accountability as an entire community

•             Informal  learning based approach is less threatening to men

•             Need to respect the community culture, listen to both men & women, but need to be careful not to shrink the space for women’s voices when working in mixed group

•             Have to approach African communities from WE perspective rather than I

•             Cannot prioritise rights of one group over another

•             Work from grassroots in the community rather than from tribal chiefs down

•             Criticisms and concerns among women’s groups to working with men’s groups include diversion of funding for women to men in addressing the issues, losing women orientated political spaces both literally and metaphorically and focus drift from women to men in addressing the issue.

•             Cost to men of traditional masculinity norms does not equate to sex discrimination against men

•             Benefits of gender equality to both men & women

•             Social norm for men emphasises  men’s privilege, power and violence

•             Western dependence on militarism for security echoes masculinity dominance

•             Segregation of women’s and men’s groups working for gender equality reinforces gender division

•             Gender discussion occur at individual level but not yet at organizational level

•             Networks can prove powerful, need to be open for both men & women’s groups

•             Trust and credibility of both gender organisations are interlinked

•             Male victims of GBV badly provided for

•             Need ways of monitoring changes on the ground

•             Stimulus for working together as explicit partnership – women love partners and don’t want to leave them but need change and asked service providers to help their husbands

•             Strategise together with shared values

•             Learnt joint voices stronger than individual

•             Need to respect the relationship environment not just the victim

•             Gender equality includes advocacy for men as in parental leave allowance

•             Recognition of own power and privilege in working relationships

•             Listen to each other to plan for solutions

•             Masculinity norms and power/privilege are seen as a continuum but they need to be recognized separately

•             Need to acknowledge grey areas – eg men just as drunk as women when consent for sex given but man considered responsible

•             The LGBTIQ community needs to involved in the discussions

•             If men are not included a negative response from men should be expected

•             Discussion on ‘powerful powerless’ is this a suitable term for men who feel powerless who then act violently towards women. Powerless is relative term and women that are assaulted are more powerless.

•             Behaviour change is a long term process. Social norms cannot be expected to change overnight

•             Religious communities need to be involved if faith is not to become a barrier
What was of particular significance to share with The Salvation Army globally?
•             Achievement of gender equality requires men and women to work together not just individually but also at an organizational level

•             Individual and organizational relationships need to be respectful, self- aware and trustful.

•             Working together can improve effectiveness of action, needs mutual recognition and shared strategising
Weblinks for More Information
Menengage.org