Courtesy of Chihiro Amano

By Suvendrini Kakuchi

Chihiro Amano is an aspiring film director and at just 29 years old, is already an icon in the male-dominated Japanese film world. With less than two percent of female directors in Japan, Amano is daring to break gender barriers. And slowly she is going places.

Speaking to IPS in Okinawa where she is one of two Japanese female directors presenting at the Okinawa International Film Festival, Amano explained her ambition is to become a well-known director on par with her male counterparts. “Striving to get ahead professionally,” she explained,” is probably better to pave the way for more female directors
in Japan.”

Indeed, Amano’s films do not necessarily push women’s rights. Rather, she thinks the way forward is to make a name for herself. “We can be role models to encourage our counterparts to also challenge the norm,” she said.

Amano represents Japan’s younger generation who are more supportive of gender equality in comparison to their parents. Female university graduates, for example, aim for economically independent lives. In contrast, their mothers commonly stopped working after starting a family. Current surveys indicate that more than 50 percent of Japanese
women in their twenties are single and intend to hold onto their careers after marriage.

Japan’s plunging national birthrate, now at 1.3 births per woman, is often cited as the result of women marrying late. The average age of marriage for women stands at 29—much higher than the 23 years registered two decades ago. Yet, despite the breakthroughs, women’s activists point out that many plucky females face an uphill struggle with the lack of opportunities to become leaders in Japan where such positions continue to be a male domain.

As for achieving their dreams in a competitive job market, the going is tough for both sexes and therefore particularly hard on women who also face traditional social role expectations.

Amano is painfully aware of the long road ahead. Leaving a stable job in the corporate world, the soft-spoken film director explained she threw caution to the wind when she wanted to follow her dream. “I just wanted to do films,” she said.

Currently, Amano juggles a part-time job with her film making and lives with housemates to cope financially. But the tradeoff is the pursuit of her art. Amano’s movies have been screened in international film festivals and she has won multiple awards for her skillful and delicate direction.

In Okinawa, her film, “Neverland in Gamagori” is debuting in the Local Origination section—the festival’s special focus this year, now in its fourth. Located on Japan’s southern most island, which has its own distinct language and culture, the festival has earned a reputation for its unique focus on local towns and villages across the world.

Gamagori is a beautiful seaside resort in northern Japan and, like other smaller towns and villages, is fighting against economic decline as the youth leave for the big cities. The film brings to the audience the forgotten ethereal nature of the resort, based on a fantastical adventure of a young local boy.

Hiroshi Osaki, president of Yoshimoto Kogyou company, a leading entertainment conglomerate that co-sponsors the film festival with the Okinawa prefectural government, explains that the annual event is aimed at showcasing the historical uniqueness of Okinawa, which he says has long been sidelined by the richer mainland.

“There is a need to emphasis the often neglected energy of local communities in Japan, and what better way to achieve this goal than to support a film festival that is dedicated to this cause?” he asked.

True to that theme, many of the 300 films shown to packed audiences were selected on the basis of presenting the unique aspects of Asian cities.

Asano says she is grateful to be able to share her film in Okinawa. The island of 200,000 is home to a controversial American military base and represents the only place where Japan fought a bloody ground battle against the United States at the end of World War II.

“Being able to screen at a film festival here means a lot to the Japanese given the traumatic past. I am proud of the opportunity to feature the beauty of lost towns, ” she said.

Female construction workers in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian women have been making headway in traditionally male-dominated fields. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

The film follows Dr. Jawad and two of his patients, 39-year-old Zakia and 23-year-old Rukhsana, both disfigured by their husbands. Courtesy of "Saving Face"

International Women’s Day:

• On International Women’s Day, the United Nations called for a major international conference in 2015 focusing solely on women. The last one, the 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, adopted a Platform of Action which is still in the process of being implemented: U.N. Aims at Major Global Conference on Women in 2015
• This year’s IWD theme focused on rural women. In light of recent natural disasters and calamities in the Philippines, women farmers are increasingly citing climate change as one of their most pressing concerns: Women Weather Climate Change
• Chile’s “More Women in Power” campaign, organised on the occasion of IWD, is seeking to increase the number of women in public decision-making positions, to move towards “parity democracy”: Campaign Fights “Disgraceful” Under-representation of Women in Power
• On the eve of International Women’s Day, Brazil’s congressional human rights commission approved a bill that requires equal pay for equal work between men and women. If the law passes, companies that fail to comply will be fined: Brazilian Women Are the World’s Happiest
• The Oscar-nominated documentary “Saving Face” – with its focus on a particularly vicious form of gender violence, acid attacks, and its stress on the strength and struggle of survivors fighting back – premiers on the U.S. television channel HBO on IWD: Acid Survivors Fight Back: A Story of Hope Amidst Despair

The organisers of More Women in Power at the launch of the campaign. Credit:Más Mujeres al Poder

#BlogForIWD

• “To be able to realise their full potential in society as women, girls need to be empowered to raise their voices against injustices committed against them and they need a system that will support their quest for justice,” Equality Now writes in Keeping Girls Safe at Home, at School and in Their Communities
• “For developing countries, female migrants are becoming the main export as the labour market demand for a new form of modern-day slavery – domestic servitude – increases in the Middle East,” Simba Russeau writes in How the Kafala System is Failing Domestic Workers in the Middle East
• “I am often caught between what my traditional community expects of me as a woman, and what I want to achieve in a society with a plethora of opportunities,” Melina Lito writes in Women’s Empowerment in Traditional Communities
• “This is the first global initiative that adopts an innovative approach – data collection, organisation and visualisation – concerning [gender and media],” Mapping Global Media Policy writes in Visualising Gender and Media

A female farmer in Northern Philippines struggles to gather sufficient yields as a result of climate change. Credit: Kara Santos/IPS

Gender-Responsive Budgeting

• Tracing the myriad paths of financial support for gender equality and women’s empowerment is no easy task, but nevertheless a necessary one to test whether political commitment is translating into results: Following the Money Trail in Gender Financing
• Saraswathi Menon, director of U.N. Women’s policy division, explains how ‘gender markers’ in budgets hold decision makers accountable: Q&A: How to Analyse a Budget’s Impact on Female Empowerment

Women’s Empowerment

• Devastating as the Tohoku earthquake was, it gave the local women of the remote region an opportunity to come into their own and take on leadership roles in an essentially patriarchal country: Japanese Women Empowered By Tohoku Quake
• What does riding a bike have to do with women’s rights? According to the Chilean feminist group Macleta, which promotes cycling and a gender perspective on public transport, a bicycle is a powerful tool for social change:
  Arab Women Bring Spring to the Screen
• “Arab women are stronger and more powerful than we think, and they do take part in their societies. So we wanted to bring these women to Berlin, let them show their films and we asked the audience to do nothing but hear them out“: Promoting Women’s Empowerment on Two Wheels

“To be able to realise their full potential in society as women, girls need to be empowered to raise their voices against injustices committed against them and they need a system that will support their quest for justice.”

Young girls in the village of Sonu Khan Almani in Pakistan's Sindh province perform most of the household chores, like making bread. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS

In 2001, a 13-year old was abducted twice from her house in Ethiopia, raped and forced to sign a marriage contract with her rapist before she was able to escape the second time.

At the time, both abduction and rape were criminal offences under Ethiopian law, but if marriage was subsequently agreed upon (no matter if it was coerced), the law stated that the husband would be exempt from criminal responsibility for his crimes. Equality Now and our partners took up this case in 2002 and though we were able get the law that enabled kidnappers and rapists to go free by marrying their victims, 11 years later Makeda (not her real name) is still awaiting justice and restitution for the crimes against her. Therefore as we celebrate International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month in the United States, we want to take this opportunity to focus on the human rights abuses  that affect millions of girls around the world and an often complex and lengthy legal process that can prevent them from reaching their potential as fully-functioning, valued members of society.

Berniece Johnson, now 19, says poverty led to sex with an older man to pay for fees and a uniform. Pregnancy forced her to quit school altogether. Credit: Bonnie Allen/IPS

At Equality Now, we have long felt that a focus on girls was missing from development circle dialogue, even though statistically the majority of severe human rights abuses of females occur in late childhood and adolescence:

• Up to 50 percent of sexual assaults worldwide are committed against girls under 16.
• Up to one in five girls under the age of 15 experience sexual abuse.
• In the developing world, more than 60 million women aged 20-24 were married before they turned 18.
• Three million girls are at risk of being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) each year.
• Eight percent of trafficking victims are women and girls, with the majority being trafficked for sexual exploitation.
• According to UNICEF, 40-60 percent of known sexual assaults within the family are committed against girls aged 15 years and younger. The perpetrators of violence were those who tended to be close to girls and the most frequent venue of violence was the girls’ home.

For many girls, especially those living in poverty, the emergence of sexuality during puberty generates damaging responses – societies feel free to disinvest in their schooling and personal development while appropriating their labor, sexuality and fertility – that can result in severe, lifelong and often irreversible consequences.  Frequently compounded by the lack of an effective support system and access to education and health services, millions of girls are left without the means to defend themselves against physical, sexual and psychological abuse perpetrated by their families, teachers, boyfriends or strangers.

To be able to realise their full potential in society as women, girls need to be empowered to raise their voices against injustices committed against them and they need a system that will support their quest for justice. Only when these issues are brought out in the open and addressed will we open the door to prevention. In 2008, we created the Adolescent Girls Legal Defense Fund (AGLDF), to put an emphasis on girls’ human rights and the importance of ensuring their access to justice. Through support and promotion of strategically-selected legal cases, AGLDF addresses the most universal human rights violations against adolescent girls in order to remove the common obstacles to justice, thereby reshaping the rule of law.

Schoolgirls in Ecuador. Credit: Gonzalo Ortiz/IPS

To date AGLDF has taken on cases involving:

• Rape, abduction and forced marriage in Ethiopia, that led to a repeal of the law allowing rapists to go free by marrying their victims;
• Teacher rape in Zambia, that led to a landmark judgment of the Lusaka High Court creating government accountability to prevent violence in schools;
• Incest in Pakistan, that resulted in the perpetrator being awarded the highest penalty under the law and a movement to amend the Pakistan Penal Code to properly address incest and sexual violence;
• Child marriage in Yemen, that led to an 11 year old being granted a divorce from  her middle-aged husband and further galvanized the movement for a law banning child marriage in Yemen;
• Female genital mutilation in Kenya that has resulted in the severe penalties for the father and circumciser and will serve as a deterrent for future cases;
• Rape of a disabled girl in Uganda, that we hope will result in a judgment establishing government responsibility to address such cases;
• Sex tourism in Brazil, that will set a precedent on the use of US anti-trafficking laws on behalf of Brazilian girls exploited by sex tourists;
• Gang-rape in Kenya, where we hope to establish police responsibility to investigate cases of sexual violence against girls;
• Rape by police in Pakistan, that we hope will end impunity for police for committing abuses of girls.

A gender sensitisation meeting in India, a country deemed one of the world's most dangerous places for girl children. Credit: Nitin Jugran Bahuguna/IPS

What we overwhelmingly learned, and published in our recent report, Learning From Cases of Girls’ Rights, is that no matter the location or type of abuse, there are five common obstacles to justice that once overcome, can empower girls:

1. They need to know what their rights are so that they can demand them;
2. They need a supportive environment where they are free to speak out without fear of stigma or disbelief;
3. They need assurance, especially girls who are victims of sexual violence, that they will not be re-victimized by the legal system;
4. They need assurance that access to justice will be swift;
5. They need support services that are girl-centered and sensitive to their specific needs with focus on empowering them to make their own decisions.

Establishing legal recourse and precedents that hold the legal system and governments accountable for protecting girls’ rights improves lives. By placing a focus on the prevention of violations by providing girls with rights education and support networks; by challenging gender stereotypes and attitudes through creative use of media, positive role models, voices of girl leaders and awareness raising in communities; and by providing a better response to violations by equipping legal systems to address the needs of adolescent girls and ensuring that girl-centered support services are available, a positive future for girls, one that is “bright, equal, safe and rewarding.”

“What I have gone through made me lose my ambitions but from now I have started a new life full of flying colors. I am glad to have people like you supporting me in times of need.” – Niara, 17, incest and gang-rape survivor

*Equality Now is an international human rights organisation dedicated to ending violence and discrimination against women and girls.

Learning From Cases of Girls’ Rights is available at: equalitynow.org/resources#SV
To learn more about AGLDF, visit: equalitynow.org/agldf
To raise your voice to stop human rights abuses against women and girls, take action at: equalitynow.org/actions.

“For developing countries, female migrants are becoming the main export as the labour market demand for a new form of modern-day slavery – domestic servitude – increases in the Middle East.”

Libyan domestic worker Hawiyah Awal. Credit: Simba Russeau/IPS

“In terms of the number of people going hungry today, more than 60 percent are women and girls and the situation of global hunger always has a gender characteristic to it. That means that the most vulnerable people in society are always going to be in the front line,” journalist, activist and former policy analyst with the advocacy group Food First, Raj Patel told me.

“When there are already burdens of caring for the elderly, kids, the sick, carrying water and finding fuel coupled with the costs of finding food at higher costs with less money to go around and increased demands to find sources of income, women are structurally in a much harder position to make ends meet.”

Recent statistics indicate that women account for nearly 70 percent of the world’s poor.

Women – who have less access to food, water, health care, do not own land, have little political voice, lack basic rights and access to education to better their living conditions – are more vulnerable before any global crisis due to their status before disaster hits.

Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker charged with unintentional homicide in Saudi Arabia. Rafeek's case has garnered international headlines.

As a result, rural women are, at an increasing rate, being forced to migrate.

In search of greener pastures

During the 1960s, women accounted for nearly 45 percent of the total migration – mainly for reunification purposes with their spouses who were already employed abroad.

Today, the global financial crisis has forced millions of people in developing countries into poverty. As a result, the share of women migrating for employment has increased from 35.3 million in 1960 to 94.5 million in 2005.

For developing countries, female migrants are becoming the main export as the labour market demand for a new form of modern-day slavery – domestic servitude – increases in the Middle East.

Currently, there are an estimated 25 million migrant domestic workers in the Middle East. Mainly from Africa and Asia, they provide the bulk of household and cleaning services.

‘I can’t bear living like this anymore’

Before leaving Madagascar, Dima, 19, was told that she would find decent employment and a means to provide much needed funds to pull her family out of extreme poverty. However, it was only several hours after arriving to the home of her new employer in Lebanon that she was confronted with a different reality.

After less than a month of being employed in Lebanon, Dima seized an opportune moment to escape. I met Dima the following day and the story she tells is heartbreaking:

“The male employer picked me up from the airport and when we arrived to the home he told me to take a bath. He insisted that I leave the door slightly open and while I was in the bath he entered and raped me.

He started bragging about never having a Black woman before and his excitement at having a taste. Afterwards, I was forced to bury the scars and so that I could carry on with my household chores. Several weeks later it happened again.

This time he tied my hands to the bed and spread my legs apart and tied each to the bed and raped me repeatedly. Then he invited two male friends over and they also took turns raping me. While the family was getting into the car I started running. I couldn’t bear living like this anymore.”

Kafala

Shantimaya Dong Tamang's bid to earn money as a domestic worker in Kuwait ended with her becoming a quadriplegic. Credit:Sudeshna Sarkar/IPS

The kafala system has cultural and historical roots in the Arab world. It comes from the Bedouin custom of temporarily granting strangers protection and even affiliation into the tribe for specific purposes. For instance, if a stranger were traveling across the desert and happened to wander onto a family’s camp, it would be customary to take him in, feed him and his animals, and allow him to stay as long as he wishes.

Under the modern-day kafala (sponsorship) system, we see the opposite. It’s commonplace for employers to confiscate passports, which can facilitate abuse, advocates argue.

In an interesting study by scholar Hayeon Lee, she argues that one of the reasons employers exert tight control over their workers is due to widespread stereotypes about the oversexualisation of Asian and African women:

“For example, although Cynthia, a Lebanese woman in her thirties working for an international organiaation, is conscientious in terms of the Filipina live-in maid’s treatment and workload, she does not allow the maid to have a day-off outside the house. She tells any Filipina live-in maid who works in her home, ‘The minute you decide that this is not your priority – working and making money for your family – and your priority is finding somebody, you tell me, you [must] leave.’

It is convenient and economic for recruitment agencies to discourage madames to allow live-in maids to have a day-off outside the house: There is a three-month guarantee period for the customers, and if anything goes wrong, it is the agency that pays. And many madames, who pay up to US$2700 to hire a woman from the Philippines to work in their home, are not willing to risk losing their ‘investment’ after hearing stories of Filipina women sleeping with men, getting pregnant, running away, and bringing disease to their home. Furthermore, the kafala (sponsorship) system, along with domestic workers’ exclusion from the labor law, ties workers to their Lebanese employer, creating a legal dependency of the former on the latter. Such an arrangement delegates near absolute power to the employer to dictate her relationship with the live-in maid (Longva 1997:91-94). The negative sexual stereotypes of Filipina women often legitimiae this control.”

Creating their own social networks

Despite the fact that they are left to fend for themselves due to little or no protection from labour laws, their governments or recruitment agencies, these women have created their own informal networks and makeshift community spaces.

Community leaders not only turn their homes into shelters for younger women but also act as social workers by providing emotional support.

However, until the proper mechanisms are put in place to ensure that women traveling to the region are guaranteed their rights, a good place to start might be to honour the kafala‘s original cultural tradition of offering the newcomer a real peaceful place of refuge.

*Simba Shani Kamaria Russeau is a North Africa-based correspondent for IPS. An award-winning multimedia storyteller, documentary photographer, blogger, DJ and spiritual ruckus maker, Simba is also the founder of Taste Culture and the 24/7 campaign.

“I am often caught between what my traditional community expects of me as a woman, and what I want to achieve in a society with a plethora of opportunities.”

Bolivian Quechua leader in meeting on women's access to land. Credit: Franz Chávez/IPS

Women wearing the traditional Hijab attend the Commission on the Status of Women conference at U.N. headquarters. Credit: Bomoon Lee/IPS

When I think about what we, as a global community, can do to inspire or educate young girls in a positive way, I think the hardest thing to teach is how to reconcile between what is expected from women in traditional communities and what modern day society expects. As an ethnic woman who maintains very strong tries to my cultural community and who advocates constantly the need for our cultural traditions to transcend generations as a way of maintaining our cultural identity, I am often caught between what my traditional community expects of me as a woman, and what I want to achieve in a society with a plethora of opportunities.

As someone who also works on increasing women’s participation in social and political life, I find myself advocating for women’s participation and women’s status in the same traditional communities that I come from. Time and time again, I am faced with the same questions:

How do I maintain my cultural identity while at the same time participating in social and political life? How do I reconcile two notions that can, at times, be very contradictory?

This kind of identity reconciliation is a constant battle and struggle – one that is not often covered in the pages of popular media. But it is one that I believe many young, ethnic and immigrant women face. While there is no easy answer, we can begin with teaching by example. Positive role models and reinforcing messages of empowerment and agency can help guide any future women’s activist and leader. She must understand that she has the power to shape her own identity and write her own life path. Finally, we must include men and boys in educating our families and larger communities.

*Melina Lito is the Women, Peace & Security programme director at Global Action to Prevent War.

“This is the first global initiative that adopts an innovative approach – data collection, organisation and visualisation – concerning [gender and media].”

Gender and Media Sunburst. Credit: Mapping Global Media Policy

To mark International Women’s Day, the Mapping Global Media Policy project invites you to visit the Mapping Gender & Media database. This archive provides access to information concerning individuals, organisations, policy documents and other resources that are relevant to Gender-oriented Communication Governance (GoC_Gov) in the trans-national context.

Mapping Gender & Media is a thematic section of a broader archive devoted to Mapping Global Media Policy. It is work-in-progress, but a good starting point to focus on the gendered dimensions of communication policies and broader governance processes.

This is the first global initiative that adopts an innovative approach – data collection, organisation and visualisation – concerning this specific topic.

Mapping Gender & Media allows to visualise archived data in different ways:

• listing, searching and exploring single profiles
• filtering the overall thematic section according to levels of action, themes and relevant policy processes
• exploring connections and disconnections amongst profiles through network visualisations.

For information, comments and suggestions, please contact: Claudia Padovani, DSPGI, University of Padova (claudia.padovani@unipd.it)

* Mapping Global Media Policy is an independent project initiated by the Global Media Policy Working Group of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), hosted and supported by an academic consortium led by Media@McGill, a research and public outreach hub based at McGill University (Canada), and including University of Padova (Italy) and the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at Central European University (Hungary).

Opening of the fifty-sixth Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Credit: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

Rural Women

• Echoing one of the priority themes of CSW this year, IPS correspondents report from India and Bangladesh in this two-part series: “Rural Women Are Leading the Way – Will the World Follow?” Read part one. Read part two.

• “We suffer from vaginal inflammation and dropped womb (prolapse) because we are running around all day gathering firewood, drying it out, lugging water, cooking, checking on the crops, feeding the animals, and taking care of the kids,” a community leader of rural women in Peru‘s northern coastal region laments: Peru: Time to Adapt to Climate Change Impact on Women’s Lives

Credit: Naimul Haq/IPS

• How a group of smallholder farmers are coping with the unusual weather patterns caused by climate change deep in rural Plumtree, Zimbabwe: Farmers Tackle Water Problems Fuelled by Climate Change

Gender-Responsive Budgeting

• Gender budgeting is another focus of the meeting and IPS reports from Warsaw in Little Money to Promote Gender Equality in Eastern Europe.

• The phrase “financing for gender equality” may sound dry, but it lies at the heart of some of the most intractable problems faced by women around the world today: Q&A: How to Reverse the ‘Feminisation of Poverty’

• An interview with Liane Schalatek of the Heinrich Böll Foundation in North America looks at one dimension of this issue: Climate Funding Needs Gender Equity.

Women Leaders

• A new U.N. report shows that although 40 to 50 percent of members of political parties globally are women, only about 10 percent hold positions of leadership: Women Still Trapped Below Glass Ceiling of Party Politics

Credit: Richard Mulonga/IPS

• Is Senegal, an overwhelmingly Muslim West African country, ready to be governed by a woman? Two Women Among 14 Candidates for President

Flashpoints

• Violence, torture and other forms of cruel treatment are on the rise for women in the highlands of Papua New Guinea: Q&A: Where Abusing Women Is ‘An Accepted Norm’

• In India, the alarming case of Baby Falak comes in the wake of a new study indicating that the South Asian country is the world’s most dangerous place for girl children: India’s Girl Child Struggles to Survive

• For over 90 years, a law in Argentina has allowed women who become pregnant as a result of rape to have an abortion. However, hospitals often refuse to carry out the procedure, instead referring the women to the justice system: Argentine Women Refused Legal Abortions in Cases of Rape

The IPS MDG3 programme 2009 – 2011 Communicating for Change: Getting Voice, Visibility and Impact for Gender Equality has come to an end.

We would like to thank all of you who have worked with us and inspired us with your work, ideas and energies in defence of women’s equality and empowerment.

IPS has learnt a lot from the MDG3 project. Its legacy will stay with all of us, above all IPS reporters who will keep bringing gender perspectives and telling women’s stories.

Here you can find a Summary and Highlights publication about the IPS programme and some of our partner organisations. It portrays the main areas of our work and we would be happy to share more on any interesting aspect you might find. We look forward to finding ways to work with many of you in the future, through new partnerships and initiatives.