Using art to change the world
Posted on
August 24, 2010 .
By Naoko Sakokawa,
Photographer and author
As a child I lived on a beautiful island called Tanegashima, or flower seed island, which is located close to the south most part of the Kyushu island. I was brought up there with lots of other relatives and led a serene and happy childhood even though my parents worked hard as farmers and we were economically not as rich as people in the big cities in Japan. (more…)
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¿Femicidio, feminicidio? El genocidio necesita un nombre en América Latina
Posted on
August 16, 2010 .
Por Diana Cariboni
Mi pregunta fue por qué en algunos países se llama femicidio y en otros feminicidio al asesinato de mujeres por razón de su sexo. Las feministas reunidas en San Salvador, en un taller organizado por el Comité de América Latina y el Caribe para la Defensa de los Derechos de la Mujer (Cladem), me mostraron que no era cuestión de una palabra u otra, sino una polémica no zanjada.
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A female”hibakusha” speaks out
Posted on
August 9, 2010 .
peace parade. New York. May 2010
by Toshiko Hamamako
Thank you for asking me to write about myself. I am happy to share my experiences.
Actually, it is only recently that I have begun to talk about my life as an atomic bomb survivor from Nagasaki. I am now 66 years old but I got the courage to talk to others only about two years ago. Till then I have kept the fact that I am an atomic bomb survivor just within my family. (more…)
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Japanese women are tackling gender discrimination
Posted on
July 26, 2010 .
Gender expert and representative of Human Service Centre, a non profit organization.
By Junko Fukazawa
As a women`s rights activist the fight for equal rights for women alongside men in Japan has been a rocky road. But today I must say, we have come a long way towards achieving our goal. Let me explain by telling the readers about progress made on eradicating domestic violence. (more…)
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Women and War
Posted on
July 13, 2010 .
Suvendrini Kakuchi
Rajini and Japanese trainer.
Rajini, 32, lives in a one room tin shack with her mother, younger sister and a mentally handicapped younger brother. Hailing from Jaffna, Sri Lanka`s northern peninsula that was the centre of the now ended thirty-year old ethnic war in the country, the young woman symbolizes both the suffering of innocent civilians during conflict as well as the other amazing side of destruction—enduring courage and determination to survive despite all odds. (more…)
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Football and development
Posted on
June 23, 2010 .
Guest post by Zukiswa Zimela, IPS Africa
Growing up as a little girl in rural Bizana in the Eastern Cape of South Africa I had no interest in soccer. I spent most of my time playing house, baking mud pies to nurture my stick children I had lovingly wrapped in plastic blankets. This was perfectly normal and acceptable because I learnt how to be a “proper girl” the traditional way.
(more…)
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Hot, humid and deathly - Writing about health in Mozambique
Posted on
May 18, 2010 .
Life is frail in Mozambique. Credit: Mercedes Sayagues
Guest blogger Mercedes Sayagues
The health page was laid out late at night last week. I had a headache so I went home around 7 pm to lie down. Around 9:30 the editor called: our turn for layout.
It was unbearably hot and humid. The newsroom is in the basement of an old house. The proofreader was sitting on the steps to the garden. “Catching fresh air?” I asked. (more…)
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Celebrating Resolution 1325…now for implementation
Posted on
May 10, 2010 .
Kudzai Makombe
With the 10th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 coming up in October, the UN is under a lot of pressure to implement the resolution. (more…)
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Self Help Mayhem
Posted on
May 4, 2010 .
Kudzai Makombe
My collection. Photo credit: Trevor Davies
As I struggled to find something interesting or at least a bit fun to write about this week while using little distractions to avoid the inevitable putting of pen to paper, something landed in my email in box that made me go “aha!”. ‘How deep is your love for you?’ the email questioned and offered to provide the answers in a one day self help seminar. Here was another opportunity at self improvement that many of us are fascinated with and possibly even addicted to at the moment.
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How do we stop society killing women?
Posted on
April 26, 2010 .
Kudzai Makombe
In sub-Saharan Africa, married women are at high risk of contracting HIV. Photo credit: Petr Kratochvil www.publicdomainpictures.net
A good friend sent me an interesting academic article last week that got me quite excited. Entitled ‘Shona Womanhood: Rethinking Social Identities in the Face of HIV and AIDS in Zimbabwe’, the article really hit home on an issue that we all know is out there for most African women; the cultural definition of a “good woman” as a married woman with children, and the impact this has at a time when the highest HIV infection rates are among married women, for well known reasons related to definitions of masculinity in our cultural contexts.
The author, Pascah Mugwini, writing in The Journal of Pan African Studies (vol.2 no.4, June 2008), points out that Shona women outside marriage are much safer from infection than those within because “there are no constricting cultural norms barring her from negotiating safer sex once she decides to have it”. He also points out that there is more stigma now in having been widowed as a result of HIV than there is in being a single woman.
(more…)
