"My husband, who is polygamous and has two other wives, does not want
any of his spouses using contraceptives. So a community health worker told
me that if I had the intra-uterine contraceptive device (IUCD) inserted,
my husband would never suspect anything. But when I visited the health
centre on three occasions, I was told IUCDs were out of stock," said
Atieno.

On her fourth visit, IUCDs were finally in stock, there were no gloves
– as a result, health workers could not insert the device. Atieno
conceived before her next visit to the health centre.

Atieno says she did not want more children because her husband, who is a
cobbler, already struggles to provide for the 13 children he has with his
three wives. Living in a traditional, rural community, she is not privy to
how much money her husband earns, and although they hardly manage to make
ends meet, Atieno and the other wives are not allowed to work to
contribute to the household income.

"My two eldest children, who are aged 17 and 15 years, would have
been in secondary school, but they had to drop out due to lack of funds.
It is a daily struggle finding money to feed and clothe my children, let
alone send them to school," she complained.

Social experts have recognized that lack of family planning is one of the
key reasons for an increase in poverty throughout Kenya. A November 2009
report by United States Agency International Development (USAID) warns
that Kenya will not be able to foster national development at the current
rate of population growth.

If the country wants to achieve universal primary education, food
security, primary healthcare for all and reduction in maternal and infant
deaths, couples have to have smaller families, USAID researchers noted.

The country’s government has also taken notice of the tight link
between poverty and population growth. Dr Boniface K’Oyugi, chief
executive officer of the National Coordinating Agency for Population and
Development (NCAPD), cautioned that Kenya’s rapid population growth
of three percent per year, needed to be reduced by at least a third.

"In developed countries, people are having one or two children, but
here, one woman is having five children and more. If we want to be as
developed as other countries, we urgently need to reduce our population
growth," K’Oyugi said at a meeting at Nairobi’s Hilton
hotel in February.

He called for improved health care provision that includes family planning
services, to help couples to better manage their reproductive health and
pregnancies.

"The decision of the number of children is a personal one. But
smaller families will lead to benefits at the individual, household and
national levels," he explained.

K’Oyugi believes the Kenyan government can learn from Asian
countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore,
which managed to strengthen their economies by actively reducing
population growth rates.

It is, however, important to note that population growth is only one of
numerous factors hampering Kenya’s development. Through the national
poverty reduction strategy 2003-2007, government made clear that good
governance, primary education, gender equality and HIV prevention, as well
as high levels of corruption are other major stumbling blocks to economic
growth.

Still, the size of a country’s population dictates how much budget
is available for services per capita.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, Kenya had 38 million people
in 2008 – an increase of a third since 1999. USAID projections warn
that if this growth rate persists, the number of Kenyans will increase to
82 million by 2040.

"More people means more pressure on the environment, as demands for
food, land, clean water and energy resources escalate. With reduced
resources, there is a real danger of civil strife arising as people
squabble for the scarce resources," K’Oyugi warned.

An increase in the number of people will also boost rural-urban migration,
according to USAID. This will increase the pressure on urban facilities,
in turn creating slums and poverty. Already, Kenya’s informal
settlements are characterized by over-crowding, inadequate shelter, lack
of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation, insecurity, exploitation
and abuse.

The NCAPD is now pushing for family planning to take a central role in the
government’s policy agenda to reduce poverty and transform the
country into a middle-level income country with a high quality of life and
secure environment, as the country’s Vision 2030 policy envisions.

"The aim is to rejuvenate the family planning campaign to the level
where it was in the 1980s, during which time the fertility rate dropped
from 6.7 children per woman in 1989 to 5.4 in 1993 and 4.7 in 1998,"
said NCAPD media liaison officer David Kinyua.

He promised that, in the next financial year starting in June, increased
budgets will be allocated for family planning, but was unable to explain
how much additional money will be spent and where.

Were there any commitments to protect the universality of women's
rights, including sexual and reproductive rights?

Was there any significant progress on the proposal to set up a separate
U.N. agency - officially called a gender entity - for women?

And were there any indications of increased funding for gender-related
issues, including resources to battle sexual violence?

The answers were mostly in the realm of political uncertainty, as the U.N.
Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) assessed the state of women's
rights, 15 years after the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing
approved a wide-ranging plan of action on gender empowerment.

Naisola Likimani of the pan-African Femnet, an advocacy organisation, said
she was emotionally exhausted from two weeks of nonstop meetings.

However, she said, it was good to see that certain issues were now
understood - such as human trafficking, which was no longer seen as an
emerging issue. It was now part of a global space that required attention.

She was pleased the new gender entity had acquired broad support amongst
governments, civil societies and U.N. agencies but expressed
disappointment that the process seemed to be stalled.

"There is foot-dragging and nitpicking about politics. What is
frustrating is that something so important for resourcing women's
rights is being treated like a political issue at the U.N.," she
said.

"That is very frustrating, especially as there have not been enough
resources for gender issues," she told TerraViva.

The speculation that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon would name a new
under-secretary-general to head the proposed woman's entity (one of
the rumoured front runners being former Chilean President Michelle
Bachelet) never came to pass.

An international coalition of over 300 non-governmental organisations
(NGOs), mostly comprising women's rights activists, has been pursuing
a global campaign for Gender Equality Architecture Reform (GEAR) in the
U.N. system.

Charlotte Bunch, founding director of the Centre for Women's Global
Leadership at Rutgers University and co-facilitator of the GEAR campaign,
told TerraViva that decisions about gender architecture reform are part of
the system-wide coherence process in the General Assembly.

"So the CSW is not really an arena for formal progress in terms of
the resolution," she said. "However, we do feel there has been a
lot of progress in terms of gaining more governmental support and
attention to this issue during the CSW."

For example, she said, a significant number of countries from all regions
spoke in support of the new architecture in their speeches.

The secretary-general himself called on governments to take action to
create the entity without further delay, she pointed out.

Bunch said the NGO action - holding up a 'GEAR UP NOW!' sign in
the balcony during his speech on International Women's Day on Mar.
3 - was greeted with enthusiastic applause from the audience and a wave
from the U.N. chief.

Natalia Cardona of Social Watch, an international network comprising
coalitions of civil society, said as far as her organisation was
concerned, the CSW was a success because "it captured the dynamism of
women's activism at the highest level."

"There is no other place where women activists can come together and
discuss women's human rights situation from all over the world,"
she said.

However, the space in terms of government accountability and government
accessibility has dwindled since 1995 when the world conference on women
was able to make key advances in terms of women's rights as enshrined
in the Beijing Platform for Action, Cardona told TerraViva.

There is a sense now in the women's movement that this 15th
anniversary of the Beijing Conference was not much of an anniversary.

First, because of the administrative problems associated with hosting so
many events, and the lack of physical space for women who came here with
high hopes to access the U.N. and their governments.

The first blow for women at this CSW came in the form of the rather weak
negotiated outcome document released by governments.

This step, on the part of governments, sucked the energy of what women
felt was a space to advance women's rights.

"Now, some may say that this weakening of CSW has been happening for
years. However, this was an opportunity for governments to engage and
renew their international commitments to women's rights, but instead
they chose the path of avoidance, and women activists felt their needs had
no place to be heard and be taken seriously," Candona added.

Judith Yewoenao, national women's chairperson for Ghana's Health
Services Workers' Union, was optimistic: "This was not just a
talk shop. In other words, we don't come and talk and go home and do
nothing. We will go home and take measures on educating our women and
enlightening them on women's issues."

"What I am saying is that most of the issues that came up here have
to be taken up by governments, because most of them are policy statements
and if governments are able to put down drastic measures to deal with
this, we won't have to keep repeating the same messages over and
over," Yewoenao told TerraViva.

She said women form the greater part of the population in most countries,
and if women are well educated on human rights issues and women's
issues, "then the countries will be a better place to live."

Dr. Hanifa Mezoui, a former senior U.N. official and a professor from
Algeria, told TerraViva it has been 15 years since Beijing and there are
many issues that remain to be explored.

"What does it take to make it better? It is with great despair that
we still haven't met the goal. We still don't have women's
empowerment," she said.

She said the CSW was very successful but there are huge political
challenges ahead.

Bunch said the GEAR campaign's greatest concern now is not whether
the gender entity will be created - but what will be created.

"We have been assured it will be done by the end of the current
session of the General Assembly in September and in time for the summit on
the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)," she said.

But there are still a number of important details to be resolved, she
added.

"We have noted repeatedly that in order for the entity to be
effective - as a driver for the U.N. system on women's rights and
empowerment - it must have a strong country-level operation," Bunch
said.

This requires that it be more than just a coordinating or advisory body
and that it has the capacity to hold the U.N. system accountable for
gender mainstreaming as well as to engage in its own programmatic work at
all levels, Bunch declared.

Since this West African country of 140 million people broke from military
rule and embraced uninterrupted multi-party democracy in 1999, men have
been calling the shots while women, who constitute more than half of
voters (54 percent), only hold marginal elective offices.

"Although it has been a decade of uninterrupted civilian rule,
Nigerian women are still battling political marginalisation where they are
not given the chance to hold political offices," Rabi Musa, a
women’s rights activist told IPS.

"Despite the relative improvement in women political participation
and representation between 2003 and 2007, such improvement does not
reflect women’s numerical superiority," said Musa, coordinator
of the Women’s Right Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA).

Between 1999 and 2003 a total of 15 female parliamentarians, were elected.
This figure marginally improved from 2003 to 2007 and there are currently
26 women are in parliament.

Nigeria is signatory to the United Nations convention to eliminate
discrimination against women but women in the country continue to voice
dissent against their continued domination by men in the realm of politics
and in other spheres.

"We women constitute the majority of voters during elections we are
hardly given a level playing ground to actualise our dreams of active
involvement in the politics of our country through elective offices,"
female politician Maryam Jari told IPS at a political meeting.

"The Beijing conference requires every country that participated in
the conference to reserve 30 percent of positions and offices to women but
in Nigeria we are yet to have even 10 percent," Jari said.

Why marginalised?

Social, cultural and religious factors are largely responsible for the
marginalisation of women in politics in Nigeria, particularly in the
Muslim-dominated part of the country where politics is seen as men’s
exclusive preserve.

Nigerian politics is capital intensive as it requires spending large
amounts of money to organise and mobilise support to win an election. In
Nigeria, female candidates rarely receive sponsorship from donors.

Women in Nigeria are not as economically empowered as men. In most
communities women are economically dependent on their husbands who control
family income.
Even where women are allowed to engage in money-making ventures, their
husbands control the purse.
Mairo Usman, a politician in northern Nigeria’s Kano city, said
women’s weak economic base contributes to their political domination
by men.

"Women in Nigeria have far less money than men and even in politics
there is a wide economic disparity between women and men, which gives men
competitive political advantage over women because they are the ones with
money to throw around and win votes," Usman said.

"Those among us that aspire to political office need the financial
support of men who usually prefer supporting their fellow men due to
prevalent male chauvinism that runs through the veins of our men,"
she said.

Politicking is time-consuming with politicians travelling far and wide and
often staying overnight in hotels far from their homes during political
rallies.
Such political rallies are often rowdy and at times violent with political
thugs taking centre-stage, hurling insults and brandishing assortments of
locally made weapons.
Given such scenarios, women politicians are generally seen as promiscuous
in a society that believes women’s role should be confined to
domestic management.

"We are seen largely as lose women because we are politicians who, by
the nature of politics, stay out late at night attending political
meetings and rallies and sometimes sleep in hotels far away from our
homes," Jari told IPS.

"Politics involve intermingling between men and women and our culture
and religion strongly abhor mixing between the two sexes which is viewed
as indication of lewdness," she added.

Aisha Suleiman, a Kano resident, was initially reluctant to join partisan
politics due to the stigma associated with it. She said the unwholesome
attitude of some female political supporters, which portray women
politicians as "uncultured" and "ruffians" put her off
from entering politics.

"The way women political supporters hurl abusive and violent
language, take drugs such as hemp and other stimulants during political
rallies give them an air of irresponsibility," Suleiman said.

The desire to make a difference and change the negative public perception
of women politicians eventually changed Suleiman’s mind and she
entered the political arena.

"If we all stay away and allow such uncultured women to continue
exhibiting their uncouth attitude in politics, we will never be taken
seriously," the 25-year-old Suleiman said.

Mohammed Ali Mashi, head of rights organisation General Improvement of
Persons Initiatives (GIOPIN), said tradition and distorted religious dogma
play a significant role in women’s political marginalisation.

Hard line Muslim clerics mount campaigns on the pulpit and on radio
denouncing women’s political participation as being against the
tenets of Islam.
Mashi faulted such radical clerics, arguing that their views do not
represent true position of Islam.

Mashi believes women are gradually defying such notions and venturing into
politics and contesting elective offices due to sustained public
enlightenment campaigns.
He, however, said more campaigns have to be intensified to minimise the
wide political margin between men and women.

"Since Islam encourages women to seek an education, I see no reason
why society should deprive women political equality with men because they
also have the right to contribute to nation building as men," Mashi
said.

Measures to change the trend

Gender-based NGOs like WRAPA have mounted rigorous sensitisation campaigns
to erase the promiscuity stigma attached to female participation in
politics.
"We are all out to disabuse the minds of the public of the
popularly-held belief that women politicians are flirtatious simply
because they mingle with men and attend meetings in hotels and sleep
there when the need arises," said Musa.

"We wonder why the society doesn’t see men politicians that
sleep at hotels for (political) meetings and rallies as immoral. Why
women? It is very disheartening," she lamented.

The civil society organisation, More Women in Politics, took advantage of
International Women's Day commemorations to address the issue and
discuss some of its own strategies during a conference in Yaounde, the
capital of Cameroon, on Mar. 8.

The Central African country's 2007 legislative and municipal
elections in particular were marked by their low levels of participation.

According to figures published by the minister of territorial
administration and decentralisation, only five million Cameroonians
registered to vote in 2007 out of a total estimated population of 18
million. And 62 percent of those, three million Cameroonians, actually
voted.

The reclaiming of Cameroon's electorate, obviously tired of political
games, is now the battle cry of many political groups and several civil
society organisations in the country.

The More Women in Politics network is part of this same movement. It was
launched by a group of women led by Justine Diffo, a lawyer who teaches at
the University of Yaounde II.

"Women alone account for 52 percent of the Cameroonian population, so
they carry a potentially determining demographic weight that should be
mobilised for a massive registration and greater political participation
electoral process," Diffo told IPS.

"Women must register to vote. But first the need their official
documents. Whereas still today there are women who go about their daily
business without a national identity card," Catherine Abena, Minister
for the Defense of Women and Families, said during the conference.

Guy Parfait Songué, a political scientist and lecturer at the
University of Douala, the economic capital, said that the low
participation of Cameroonians - including women - in the political process
has its roots in the violence of the decolonisation process.

"There was a veritable crisis of citizenship in Cameroon. We must not
forget that the heart of this country was decimated before independence
and during the 10 following years. The nationalists who fought for the
country's independence were decimated by napalm by French settlers.
This has weakened national sentiment," he said.

For the academic, weak political involvement - from both men and women -
in Cameroon is also due to psychological and anthropological causes.

"Asking people to be involved in politics is tantamount to spurring
them into leadership. But we cannot promote the spirit of leadership of an
individual while refusing to value their potential. It starts in the
family where children's leadership (whether boys and girls) is
prohibited. They are taught fear and doubt instead. You cannot foster the
leadership potential of a child after denigrating them their whole life.
Parents should start by changing their relationships with children,"
Songué explained.

The ministry for the defence of women and families agrees that there is a
real problem. "Women have weak political culture. And texts that
establish gender equality, such as the constitution, are not very well
known or understood," said Jean-Pierre Makanga, the ministry's
deputy director for family rights advocacy.

This is despite the fact that political parties advocate for more gender
parity. One of these is the the Rassemblement démocratique du peuple
camerounais (Democratic Rally of the Cameroon People), the party currently
in power.

"The party rarely follows the rules set by its hierarchy in regards
to integrating women and youth in its candidate list during legislative
and municipal elections," Makanga noted, highlighting the attitude
that hampers women's political participation.

However, the representation of women in political life in Cameroon has
improved slightly due to the feminist advocacy and government efforts.

Quoting the ministry of territorial administration and decentralisation,
Makanga noted that in 1982 there were 336 women in municipal councils as
opposed to 1,651 today. Progress was also registered in parliament where a
woman was elected for the first time in 1957. The National Assembly now
has 10 women MPs out of 180.

But progress is still insufficient, since according Makanga, since its
creation women represented only 8.41 of those in parliament, as opposed to
11.16 of elected officials in municipal councils.

"Women should get involved in associations and groups, and not only
to pay dues, eat, drink and assist each other in difficult times,"
said Songué.

"I'll use every gathering to spread the message: women's
vote is key to choosing representatives and especially in electing other
women," Ngala Esther Ntale vowed. Ntale is an MP and member of the
Social Democratic Front, the main opposition party.

Senate elections are planned this year in Cameroon since President Paul
Biya has announced the establishment of a senate, while the next
presidential election is expected in 2011.

Aware that "elections are a success only if we managed to mobilise a
critical mass of 60 percent of the electorate," the "More Women
in Politics" network intends to take decisive action to mobilise 52
percent of Cameroon women so that the voice of women is now heard more
forcefully, Diffo stressed.

(FIN/IPS/AF/CT/IP/HD/WO/GR/WP/MD/MH/AIT/10)

A candidate’s position on issues like reproductive health, which
has a long history of opposition from the Catholic Church in this mainly
Catholic country, reveals clues regarding his or her capacity for
governance, says Ramon San Pascual, head of the Philippine Legislative
Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD).

"If you see a presidential candidate readily tackling the issue of
(reproductive health) and who has the courage to confront the biggest
institution — the Catholic Church – (this) shows what kind of
governance he or she will have the moment they win the presidency,"
says San Pascual.

Indeed, 15 years after the Beijing declaration on women’s rights
emphasised "explicit recognition and reaffirmation of the right of
all women to control all aspects of their health in particular their own
fertility", this South-east Asian country remains mired in debates
over modern or ‘artificial’ contraceptives, whose use the
Church considers immoral.

Nowhere is this more evident than during the campaign period ahead of
the May 10 presidential election in this country, 85 percent of whose 92
million people are Catholic.

Alongside issues like corruption and the economy, reproductive health
has emerged among the perpetual and controversial talking points in public
forums attended by candidates, especially those gunning for the
presidency.

It is, after all, linked to many Filipinos’ daily concerns about
family planning, cost of living, health, education and options on
reproductive health. "It's important to look at the reproductive
health agenda of the candidates because of the problem of overpopulation
in our country," says Ellen Guanzon, a mother of two.

The Philippines’ population growth rate of 1.90 percent from 2005
to 2010 is still among the highest in East Asia, although this has gone
down from 2.3 percent in the nineties. In a country that has no clear
policy on family planning and population, more than 4,000 babies are added
to its population every day.

In poorer areas, women have as many as six to seven children due to the
lack of access and information to modern methods of family planning in the
last decade. Depending on which government was in power, local clinics
were giving out information about contraception that included condoms or
were instructed to avoid doing so.

Incumbent President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who came to power with the
backing of the Church, has consistently emphasised natural family planning
– including abstinence –and "responsible parenthood"
over modern methods.

Thus far, three of the nine presidential candidates seem to be in
favour of having a legislated policy on reproductive health, San Pascual
says, based on their track records and public pronouncements.

Such a law on family planning, including artificial methods of
contraception, has yet to be passed by Congress eight years after it was
first filed in the legislature. Politicians are generally wary of
offending the Church, which has made no secret of its staunch opposition
to the bill, and losing potential voters that the Church is seen to wield
tremendous influence over.

In favour of the reproductive bill are Sen. Benigno Aquino III,
evangelical Christian leader Eddie Villanueva and former President Joseph
Estrada, who was ousted in a popular rising in 2001, convicted for
corruption and then pardoned.

Those who San Pascual sees as having an open mind and may allow
Congress to debate and decide on the bill as it wishes include candidates
Sen. Jamby Madrigal, Sen. Richard Gordon and activist Nicanor Perlas.

Those he considers as against being against reproductive health
legislation are three other candidates – Gilberto Teodoro Jr, who
the candidate of the incumbent government, Sen. Manuel Villar and town
councillor JC de los Reyes.

In late 2009, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP)
warned the electorate not to vote for candidates who favour the
reproductive health bill. "It would not be morally permissible to
vote for candidates who support anti-family policies, including
reproductive health," said the CBCP's Catechism on Family and
Life for the 2010 Elections.

The election guidelines for Catholics state that contraception is
"morally wrong…endangers the spiritual health of the
marriage" and "impedes the process or possible fruit of
conception", which the Church says should be the point of conjugal
union. Voters who elect pro-reproductive health candidates in the May poll
would become willing accomplices to "evil", they added.

But advocates say that the failure to pass the reproductive health bill
has been detrimental to women’s health.

"Eleven women die every day due to pregnancy and
childbirth-related causes, almost half of all pregnancies are unintended
and one-third of unintended pregnancies end in abortion," says lawyer
Clara Rita Padilla, executive director of EngendeRights Inc, a
non-government organisation promoting women's rights through legal
advocacy.

Asks Padilla: "Will the next president turn a blind eye and not
provide for the proper budget for wide access to reproductive health
information, supplies and services simply because such a stance would take
the ire of the CBCP?"

Already, PLCPD's San Pascual notes, candidates for the 2010 polls
have been careful not to make their statements on reproductive health
issues too strong because of the perceived weight of the Church’s
position among many voters. But he says, "By trying to balance their
agenda so that they will not face the ire of their bishop or parish, they
end up not helping their constituents or giving justice to their job as a
public servant."

Guanzon, a Catholic, says that though she and her husband do not use
artificial methods of contraception, such decisions should rest on couples
themselves. "I am against abortion but I don't agree with what
the Church is saying that pills and condoms are anti-life. These kinds of
methods prevent pregnancy from happening in the first place," she
adds.

A survey by the Pulse Asia polling group, released Friday, shows that
64 percent of Filipinos would vote for candidates who publicly promote
modern methods of family planning and that 75 percent think it is
important for a candidate to include family planning in his or her
programme of action.

The same pre-election survey on family planning also shows that 87
percent believe it is important for the government to allocate funds for
methods of contraception such as birth control pills, intrauterine
devices, condoms and vasectomy.

Almost half of the respondents – 48 percent – disagrees
that the Church should participate in the choice of family planning
methods. Fifty-one percent do not believe that using modern methods is a
sin.

"There has to be a provision for reproductive health because the
only ones who get information and medical services are those who can
afford these," says Kitty Gorospe, a technical assistant with a
background in medical technology. Right now, she points out, poor families
continue to have more children despite their inability to raise them
properly.

Previous governments have had different policies on reproductive
health. During her term from 1986 to 1992, former President Corazon
Aquino, a devout Catholic who had strong Church backing, took the
Church’s position against artificial methods of family planning.

Under her Protestant successor, Fidel Ramos, the number of family
planning programmes rose significantly and more health workers were
employed.

Now they have Article 2 of the Constitution: "Islam is the official
religion of
the state and is a basic source of legislation." Sub-head A says
"No law can
be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam." Under this
Article
the interpretation of women's rights is left to religious leaders
– and many of
them are under Iranian influence.

"The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women's
rights," Yanar
Mohammed who campaigns for women's rights in Iraq says.
"Political Islamic
groups have taken southern Iraq, are fully in power there, and are using
the
financial support of Iran to recruit troops and allies. The financial and
political
support from Iran is why the Iraqis in the south accept this, not because
the
Iraqi people want Islamic law."

With the new law has come the new lawlessness. Nora Hamaid, 30, a
graduate from Baghdad University, has now given up the career she dreamt
of. "I completed my studies before the invaders arrived because there
was
good security and I could freely go to university," Hamaid tells IPS.
Now she
says she cannot even move around freely, and worries for her children
every
day. "I mean every day, from when they depart to when they return
from
school, for fear of abductions."

There is 25 percent representation for women in parliament, but Sabria
says
"these women from party lists stand up to defend their party in the
parliament, not for women's rights." For women in Iraq, the
invasion is not
over.

The situation for Iraq's women reflects the overall situation:
everyone is
affected by lack of security and lack of infrastructure.

"The status of women here is linked to the general situation,"
Maha Sabria,
professor of political science at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad tells
IPS.
"The violation of women's rights was part of the violation of
the rights of all
Iraqis." But, she said, "women bear a double burden under
occupation
because we have lost a lot of freedom because of it.

"More men are now under the weight of detention, so now women bear
the
entire burden of the family and are obliged to provide full support to the
families and children. At the same time women do not have freedom of
movement because of the deteriorated security conditions and because of
abductions of women and children by criminal gangs."

Women, she says, are also now under pressure to marry young in family hope
that a husband will bring security.

Sabria tells IPS that the abduction of women "did not exist prior to
the
occupation. We find that women lost their right to learn and their right
to a
free and normal life, so Iraqi women are struggling with oppression and
denial of all their rights, more than ever before."

Yanar Mohammed believes the constitution neither protects women nor
ensures their basic rights. She blames the United States for abdicating
its
responsibility to help develop a pluralistic democracy in Iraq.

"The U.S. occupation has decided to let go of women's
rights," Mohammed
told reporters. "Political Islamic groups have taken southern Iraq,
are fully in
power there, and are using the financial support of Iran to recruit troops
and
allies. The financial and political support from Iran is why the Iraqis in
the
south accept this, not because the Iraqi people want Islamic law."

"The real ruler in Iraq now is the rule of old traditions and tribal,
backward
laws," Sabria says. "The biggest problem is that more women in
Iraq are
unaware of their rights because of the backwardness and ignorance
prevailing
in Iraqi society today."

Many women have fled Iraq because their husband was arbitrarily arrested
by
occupation forces or government security personnel, says Sabria.

More than four million Iraqis were estimated to have been displaced
through
the occupation, including approximately 2.8 million internally. The rest
live
as refugees mainly in neighbouring countries, according to a report by
Elizabeth Ferris, co-director of the Brookings Institution-University of
Bern
Project on Internal Displacement.

The report, titled, 'Going Home? Prospects and Pitfalls For
Large-Scale Return
Of Iraqis', says most displaced Iraqi women are reluctant to return
home
because of continuing uncertainties.

The Washington-based Refugees International (RI) says in a report
'Iraqi
Refugees: Women's Rights and Security Critical to Returns' that
"Iraqi women
will resist returning home, even if conditions improve in Iraq, if there
is no
focus on securing their rights as women and assuring their personal
security
and their families' well-being."

The RI report covered internally displaced women in Iraq's
semi-autonomous
northern Kurdish region and female refugees in Syria. "Not one woman
interviewed by RI indicated her intention to return," the report
says.

"This tent is more comfortable than a palace in Baghdad; my family is
safe
here," a displaced woman in northern Iraq told RI.

The situation continues to be challenging for women within Iraq.

"I am an employee, and everyday go to my work place, and the biggest
challenge for me and all the suffering Iraqis is the roads are closed and
you
feel you are a person without rights, without respect," a 35-year-old
government employee, who asked to be referred to as Iman, told IPS.

"To what extent has this improved my security," she asked.
"We have better
salaries now, but how can women live with no security? How can we enjoy
our
rights if there is no safe place to go, for rest and recreation and
living?"

(*Abdu, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with
Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who reports
extensively
on the region)

"Egypt is one of the most challenging countries for any literacy
programme," a
literacy programme administrator at Catholic relief agency CARITAS told
IPS.
"You can't afford to step off the pedal for a minute."

One in every four Egyptians is illiterate. Despite free education and
long-
running literacy programmes, the number of illiterates has changed little
in
over two decades. Nearly 17 million adult Egyptians can neither read nor
write, according to recent government data.

Development experts prefer to see the glass half full. Ghada Gholam, an
education programme specialist at UNESCO Egypt, has no illusions about the
extent of the problem, but says progress in reducing Egypt's
illiteracy rate
should not be overlooked.

"In percentage terms literacy rates have improved a lot over the past
10
years, though in actual numbers they (illiterates) have increased. And
this is
directly related to population growth," Gholam says. "There are
lots of
successful efforts, but with the increase in the population growth it is
really
difficult to decrease the number of illiterates."

Egypt's population of 80 million is growing at 1.76 percent a year.
The
strongest growth is among the rural poor - those most inclined to chose
immediate financial security over the long-term benefits of education.

Despite free, mandatory education for children ages 6 to 15, parents in
poor
communities often remove their kids from the education system to help work
at home or in the fields.

"School enrolment is free, but parents don't want to spend money
on
transport, private lessons or textbooks," says Ayman Tawdros, who
supervises CARITAS literacy programmes in the southern Egyptian
governorate Luxor. "If the children go to school they can't
work, and they are
perceived as a financial burden on the family."

The dropout rate is highest among girls. Tawdros says parents are less
willing
to invest in their daughters than their sons because they believe that by
their
late teens the girls will likely "marry off and move away."

Education specialists say the pressure on girls increases significantly
after
puberty.

"Once a girl hits a certain age, especially in countries where
there's early
marriage, her chances of being pulled out of school increase," says
Diane
Prouty of the Girls' Improved Learning Outcomes (GILO), a
USAID-funded
project to increase girls' access to quality education in rural
Egyptian
communities. "In addition, girls spend more hours doing housework and
chores than boys, so they have less time to study or sleep."

Women account for 69 percent of illiterates in Egypt.

"Any serious effort to tackle illiteracy starts here," says
Prouty. "The literature
is really clear that girls who go to school have less mother mortality,
lower
infant mortality, more discretionary cash and, importantly, are much more
likely to educate their own family."

National campaigns to eradicate illiteracy became more vigorous following
the creation of the Adult Education Authority (AEA) in 1991. The state
agency
works with educational institutions and various NGOs to eliminate
illiteracy,
with priority to individuals between the ages of 14 and 45. It develops
the
national curriculum and administers literacy exams.

But the numbers are daunting. Educators must teach 1.4 million Egyptians
to
read and write every year just to keep up with the country's
population
growth. Only then can they begin to make a mark on the illiteracy rate,
shaving off one percent for every 700,000 taught.

National campaigns have helped reduce the country's illiteracy rate
from over
40 percent in 1991 to about 26 percent today. Gholam, however, says the
statistics may not accurately reflect the significant progress made by
organisations and individuals working outside the state education system.

"It's very easy to get statistics for children in schools and
those in formal
learning- you can follow and track them," she says. "But
informal learning is
very difficult to track. Literacy is not only taught by the government; it
is also
taught by civil society, peers and family members."

Literacy campaigns are utilising informal learning, encouraging university
students to instruct their peers and literate family members to teach
their
relatives. But some say the government needs to show stronger commitment
to mandatory education, stiffening the punishment for parents who fail to
register their children or withdraw them from school.

The current penalty for taking a child out of school is a 1.80 dollar
fine,
though it is rarely enforced.

"We must break the cycle of illiteracy that starts with parents
deciding not to
educate their children," says Heba Youssef, a primary schoolteacher.
"Children who grow up illiterate are less likely to improve their
economic
situation than those who can read and write. And they are less likely to
educate their own children."

"People here face a daily struggle to make ends meet and to find
water and food for their families. During the dry season it is worse, as
the few crops we plant die, making food expensive," she complained.
"Women have to walk many miles a day in search of that precious
liquid – water."

The fact that Kenya's political parties have been struggling to
rewrite the country’s Constitution since February 2008 in an effort
to end post-election violence and improve justice means a lot to Mutuku,
despite the fact that she fails to understand the document’s legal
jargon. She believes the new Constitution will oblige government to ensure
her family’s access to food, shelter, water and health care.

"The issues that preoccupy my mind are the daily struggle to provide
food for my family and for my children to go to school. While there is
free primary education, there are not enough teachers in our area, and so
parents are forced to pay 100 Kenyan Schilling ($1.3) per month for
private teachers," Mutuku says.

This is a lot of money for Mutuku, a domestic worker, and her husband, who
works as a casual labourer. Between the two of them, they earn about $100
a month, which is hardly enough to sustain their family.

If the Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC), which was established to
manage the Constitution review process, has its way, Mutuku’s family
will never be able to hold government accountable for access to their
basic human rights.

The PSC has been castigated by various women’s rights organisations
for diluting the language in the draft document, prepared by a Committee
of Experts (COE). The initial COE document guaranteed social and economic
rights through the Constitution, but the PSC changed the language of the
Bill of Rights, leaving the onus of ensuring those rights to parliament.

The PSC deleted numerous sentences referencing basic human rights,
including the right to social security and right to health, including
health care services, reproductive health care and emergency treatment. It
excluded Kenyan’s right to education, inclucing the right to free
and compulsory pre-primary and primary education as well as available and
accessible secondary and post-secondary education. Rights to housing, food
and water were also taken out of the document.

Lawyer Catherine Mumma terms this as a particularly big loss for Kenyan
women who often bear the burden of providing for their families: "The
chapter on the Bill of Rights as drafted by the COE was one of the major
gains for the women of this country. (A) woman who walks for many hours in
search of a hospital and collapses with her baby on the back due to lack
of food does not care about the legal jargon in the Constitution. She
wants to hear that the government will ensure she has access to basic
human rights."

Speaking at a one-day workshop – organised by several women’s
organisations in Nairobi in February to review the COE and PSC drafts
– Grace Maingi-Kimani, acting executive director of non-profit
organisation Federation of Women Lawyers Kenya said the PSC overstepped
its mandate by reviewing the Bill of Rights.

"The PSC did the unthinkable and recommended the deletion of the
state’s obligation to domesticate international human rights
instruments. They also deleted the provision on social and economic rights
and relegated to parliament the sole power to decide through legislation
when and how the rights and standards can be applicable in national
context," Kimani explained.

Pricilla Nyokabi, executive director of women’s rights group Kituo
cha Sheria, agreed that parliament should be left no option but to
reinstate the rights in the draft.

"Entrenching these rights in the constitution would obligate the
government to ensure equal provision to all citizens. Should the
Constitution state that every person has the right to these services, one
can enforce the right where they are not provided for," noted
Nyokabi.

PSC chairperson Mohammed Abdikadir, however, says constitutions should be
lean documents that cover the broad principles and values that guide a
state. Additional details should be formulated as statutes.

Human rights activists remain skeptical. "Can we really leave (our
human rights) to members of parliament who are always bickering? No, we
cannot trust them with such fundamental rights," stated women’s
rights activist Miriam Wanjiku.

Currently, the latest draft of the Constitution is reviewed parliament,
which has 30 days to debate the document and decide if it will be passed.
Parliamentarians need a two thirds majority to alter the wording of the
draft.

To prevent the document from being passed as is, a grouping of
women’s rights organisations, including FIDA Kenya, Urgent Action
Fund, Centre for Rights Education and Awareness, Africa Woman and Child
Feature Services, have handed a memorandum to parliament, demanding that
the initial document drafted by the COE be retained.

"The women of Kenya demand explicit recognition of their rights in
the regional and international human rights instruments that Kenya has
ratified," the memorandum states.

(IPS/

“The men thought we were coming to teach their wives to be promiscuous. It wasn’t easy. We had to, over time, make them see that spacing children was for the good of the family and would help the men also.”

Educating the community about family planning was one of many challenges Nse faced trying to improve the situation for women in Akwa Ibom State, in the southern-most part of Nigeria. But she was determined.

“The whole thing started when I witnessed the celebrations in my community attached to burials,” she said. “I noticed that about half of the girls between 12-18 years of age were pregnant. I had a discussion with my sister and I told her that there is a need to address this issue because if we lose this age bracket, we’ll run into problems.”

She and her sister quickly moved into action by going to churches and offering to provide free skills training for the girls. The first group they worked with was made up of pregnant teens, disadvantaged youth, school dropouts and girls who had been forced into marriage.

“We started training [girls] in small skills like making soup from palm oil, using ground nuts to make snacks, and teaching sewing/typing skills,” she said.

The program was a success. Nse’s sister decided to continue helping people through politics, but Nse decided to pursue her passions for social work, community service and girls’ education. Nse became a volunteer for the Community Partners in Development, then became a program manager and ultimately headed the organization.

The organization offers diverse programs in micro credit, women’s political empowerment, and support for refugees. However, its main activities center on reproductive and sexual health.

They work with youth, sex workers, those in the prison community, and road transport workers to educate them on safe sex and STI and HIV/AIDS prevention. Nse is particularly proud of a program called “Make We Talk” (slang for “let’s talk”), which has succeeded in getting more youth to seek HIV/AIDS counseling and testing.

Nse attended CEDPA’s Global Women in Management program in 2008, with funding from the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Women’s Economic Opportunity Initiative. She had just accepted the position of executive director at her organization and was feeling the pressure that comes with a leadership position.

“I discovered I had expectations from everywhere,” she said, “from my colleagues in the office and even more expectations from the Board of Trustees.”

In the workshop, Nse and her fellow participants improved their skills and abilities in leadership, strategic communication, fundraising, advocacy, financial management, project management and building partnerships.

She says the workshop has improved her skills, especially in leading and managing.

“If I had had the training before I came, I would have done so much differently,” she said. “The workshop has given me skills to package myself differently as a leader.”

CEDPA is celebrating it’s 35th Anniversary by profiling 35 women throughout the year. You can read more here.

For more than 35 years, Shirin Ebadi, winner of the award in 2003 and
co-founder of the Nobel Women's Initiative, has worked as a lawyer
and activist within Iran and around the world in defence of the rights of
women, children, refugees, religious minorities and political prisoners in
her country.

Since the disputed Iranian presidential election last year, she has been
forced to remain abroad. "But despite the use of force and violence
to disperse crowds, and the awful images of abuses we have all seen in
Tehran, women were present in high numbers on the streets, because they
want their voices to be heard," she says.

Q: Women's rights activists have been working very hard in
recent years to achieve equal status under Iranian law. Is the huge
presence of women on the streets a part of this battle?
A: Over 63 percent of the university students in Iran are female, and a
huge number of the professors in universities in Iran are women. Numerous
doctors, lawyers, CEOs, and engineers in Iran are women. Women have had
the right to vote over 50 years ago, they have been members of parliament.
However, notwithstanding the high level of the status of women in Iran,
after the revolution very bad laws were passed, discriminatory laws were
passed against women.

I will give a few examples of what happens. It happens that the life of a
woman is worth one half of that of a man. This means that if a woman and a
man get on the street and they're injured for whatever reason, the
damages paid to a woman are a half of that paid to a man. Testimony of two
women in courts equals testimony of one man. A man can marry four wives
and divorce four times on the basis of no excuse, but divorce can be very
difficult for a woman.

These laws have generated dissatisfaction in women with the government,
and that's why whenever opportunity comes up they protest. And one of
the opportunities that came out for the opposition of the people was the
election result.

In the videos and the pictures of protests you see how many girls and
women are on the streets, and as you know the video of Neda's
assassination (27-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan, who was shot down by a Basij
sniper as she exited a car on her way to a protest) became a symbol of
these movements. Neda means 'voice' in farsi, and this is like
the voice of this movement coming out of the throat of this woman.

Q: Is it possible to reconcile the social and political
advancement of women with the Islamic doctrine?
A: Yes, (Muslim) women can be leaders, and this is not just my word, a
number of high-level clergy in Iran have reiterated this, as for example
the Ayatollah Sane. And let's not forget the examples given by other
Islamic countries, like Indonesia for example, where 25 years ago the
president was a woman, Bangladesh, and Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan.

That's not the situation in Iran, where according to the law the
president and also the supreme leader has to be a man.

Q: Compared to its neighbouring countries, the feminist movement
in Iran looks very vibrant.
A: The feminist movement is stronger in Iran than in the neighbouring
countries, and the reason for this is the historic social activity of
women in Iran, and the work of civil society. The feminist movement is in
the homes of all Iranians who believe in equality. The high number of
women in universities shows that women are better educated than men; do
you think that in this society women can accept the fact that their life
is considered half of that of a man?

Q: Some women who have come here at the CSW in New York to testify
violence and abuses in their countries, like the women from Burma, have
put their lives in danger to come. You are basically doing the same thing,
what is your strongest motivation?
A: You have to pay a cost for everything, freedom and democracy have their
own prices. If one only thinks of his own security or the security of his
family, then we won't have democratic societies.

Q: You have been tirelessly calling for international action to
stop government crackdown on your country's opposition, and even
recently at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. What expectation do
you have?
A: That human rights will not be overshadowed by the nuclear issue in
Iran.