RIGHTS: Palestinian Women Suffer as Israel Violates CEDAW

Posted by admin on November 5, 2009

By Mel Frykberg

Amna Salman Rabaye, 31, was assaulted by an Israeli settler while seven months pregnant. Credit:Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH, Nov 5 (IPS) - Palestinian women continue to suffer abuse and denial of basic human rights at the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

This is in flagrant violation of Israel’s obligations as a signatory to the UN Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). CEDAW is the first international human rights treaty devoted to the rights of women.

According to the Convention, discrimination against women represents a violation of the principles of equality and human dignity, and is considered an obstacle to the participation of women, on an equal footing with men, in the political, social, economic and cultural life of their country.

The Convention obliges all state parties to take appropriate measures, legislative and non-legislative, to prohibit all forms of discrimination against women. More »

Nobel Women’s Initiative and IPS Team up to get Women’s Views onto Op-Ed Pages

Posted by admin on June 3, 2009

Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai wants to ensure that African states meeting in Addis Ababa this week let the International Criminal Court get on with its job. The people of Darfur, especially the women and children who have borne the brunt of violence, deserve to see justice done. The IPS Columnist Service responded to a request from fellow MDG3 grantee the Nobel Women’s Initiative to circulate Dr Maathai’s Op-Ed, co-authored with two other Nobel Laureates Wole Soyinka and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to major newspaper in Africa and globally. More »