To honor Iran’s civil rights movement and the democracy activists who bravely rose up in the summer of 2009, South African nobel laureate and human rights defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu sends a message (in English and Persian) to Iran’s leaders and the Iranian people. The clip above and the text [...]]]> via Lobe Log

To honor Iran’s civil rights movement and the democracy activists who bravely rose up in the summer of 2009, South African nobel laureate and human rights defender Archbishop Desmond Tutu sends a message (in English and Persian) to Iran’s leaders and the Iranian people. The clip above and the text below are provided by the Iranian rights advocacy group, United4Iran.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s Message of Solidarity with the Iranian People

In June 2009, millions of Iranians took to the streets to demand democracy and human rights. On the anniversary of this uprising, Archbishop Desmond Tutu sends a message of hope and solidarity to the Iranian people. Archbishop Tutu is a Nobel Peace Laureate and an avid human rights defender worldwide. He is widely described as ‘South Africa’s moral conscience.’

I am moving to Maputo, Mozambique,  to work in health reporting. Gender Masala will remain in the IPS Gender Portal with a more collective identity,  infused by several  IPS writers.

I like the word transitions: it evokes [...]]]> This is truly a New Year in many ways: Gender Masala and I are in transition in 2010.

I am moving to Maputo, Mozambique,  to work in health reporting. Gender Masala will remain in the IPS Gender Portal with a more collective identity,  infused by several  IPS writers.

Passenger in transit: "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." Marcel Proust. Pic by Claudio Corallo.

I like the word transitions: it evokes change, birth, adaptation, growth.

This has been an exciting journey of discovery of a new medium. As the philosopher George Santayana wrote: “There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar; it keeps the mind nimble; it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor.”

Over seven months, , the pictures got bigger, the voices varied, my style freer. It was intellectually rewarding to look every week at the rich variety of IPS stories on gender and be inspired by them to write a new blog.

I will miss the weekly postings on gender, although I will continue blogging on health issues in Mozambique here:

http://knight.icfj.org/OurFellows/FromtheFieldFellowBlogs/

I want to thank my fellow bloggers, you, the readers, and, most importantly, IPS, for this opportunity to add a spicy mix  to the MDG3 Gender Portal. I enjoyed it immensely and I hope you did too.

Peace in 2010.

“Invitation for a consultancy in conducting a training on enhancing facilitation skills of development practitioners [...]]]>

A collective indigestion of jargon. Photo by Beralpo, Wikimedia Commons

My friend is looking for a job. He finds an ad of the US-based Mercy Corps and calls me for a translation. The ad is in English – sort of – but he can’t figure out what it is about:

“Invitation for a consultancy in conducting a training on enhancing facilitation skills of development practitioners of livelihood enhancement programs.”

What does this text mean exactly, except that we have a collective indigestion of development jargon from NGOs and the UN, from academics and politicians, and that the media is complicit in this masquerading of long words as substance? 

Here are some egregious examples from media houses I write for outside Gender Masala (thus, I will not bite the hands that put food and wine on my table by doing a name-and-shame or I will have to apply for the Mercy Corps job myself and, for my sins, spend my days writing about mainstreaming stakeholder engagement through shared learning platforms).

“Unless the ways in which teachers promote knowledge acquisition improve on a system-wide scale, mother tongue education on its own will not make a difference.”

Promote knowledge acquisition? I think that means teaching. Yes,  teaching methods must improve countrywide for mother tongue education to work.

If pedagogues speak so cryptically, no wonder teachers can’t teach well in  any language.

hHere is one on gender: ”To change these already entrenched values will mean women have to consciously make a paradigm shift in the way they handle themselves.”

How about this one?  “XX  says that the project aims to highlight good practice in jointly identifying and addressing developmental challenges at local community level between young volunteers working in African and European organisations.”

Excuse my coughs, I have just choked on jargon.

If NGOs and the UN  want to (ab)use jargon in their rarified world, so be it.

But we journalists should not parrot meaningless words. We  should translate jargon into real and simple language so readers can understand what it means.

* Check this useful list of 200 jargon words banned by the American Association for Local Government.
*  Read here a really interesting IP S story about language and gender.

I feel neither more “good” nor more “patient”. I am a hard-headed woman, as always. Attached to life, as ever!

The day when my friend Pigi, my oncologist, told me that I had breast cancer, I cried desperately. The first thing I did was to phone my [...]]]> Guest blogger: Paola Rolletta, IPS stringer in Mozambique.

I feel neither more “good” nor more “patient”. I am a hard-headed woman, as always. Attached to life, as ever!

Paola Rolletta by Luis Abelard

The day when my friend Pigi, my oncologist, told me that I had breast cancer, I cried desperately. The first thing I did was to phone my partner to tell him this piece of news, of which I had had some premonition. And I understood that premonition really exists.

Curiously, I did not wonder “Why me?”  My reaction was: “This cursed disease has hit me too!”

Perhaps some survival instinct made me articulate my feelings in this way, to ease the pain in my heart.

There are more and more of us, women between 40 and 50 years of age, diagnosed with cancer, most of hormonal origin. I must read more about the disease: until now, I have not allowed myself such reading.

First I said that I couldn’t read more about cancer until I finished this calvary of chemotherapy. Now that I finished the eight sessions, I say that I will wait to read until I have the CAT (computer axial tomography) results.

In a nutshell, I don’t want to cram on cancer because I decided to trust my three doctors, the surgeon, the oncologist and the nutritionist, to save me from this darkness.

In darkness

What shocked me most is the darkness you live through while undergoing chemotherapy.  It is almost like a mirror lysergic acid experience, but instead of colourful hallucinations, they are black, like anti-matter.

Maybe it is the chemicals shot into my body during six months (eight chemo sessions, 4 FEC and 4 Docetaxel, every 21 days) that makes me see the world, inside and outside, so dark.

The darkness weighs more heavily than the hair loss, the nausea and the vomiting. This metaphysical darkness that totally grabs you is devastating: no words, gestures, musical notes or flowers. For a long time, darkness dominated my thoughts and my soul – an unnatural darkness that does not spring from disease-associated pessimism.

To find strength, I tell myself that mine is a chemical pessimism that – I hope, I trust – will save my life.

Photo: Sol de Carvalho

And I hope that radiotherapy next month will be less dark!

Feeding nitro-glycerine to my body

Earlier this year, I wanted to quit smoking and went to the naturopath for acupuncture. In her office by the sea in Maputo, Dr. Fernanda examined me and told me, without mincing words, to have a mammogram right away. Because I smoked and took birth control pills for decades, I was literally feeding a cancer with all that poison, that nitro-glycerine, she said. Just like this. Raw and cruel.

I was so frightened I took the first flight back to my home country, Italy. That saved my life! Dr. Fernanda was right, in her cruel way. Even when I did not have any symptoms, even though I had not felt any lump, she was right.

Cancer is a multi-factor disease but breast cancer is, most cases, of hormonal origin. Why these hormones go crazy and make us develop cancer it is not known yet, but that they are to blame, this is known.  This knowledge is a great leap forward to cure many cancer patients and to prevent the disease.

Ten years ago I read “Illness as a Metaphor” by Susan Sontag while I was working on a documentary on AIDS in Uganda for Portuguese TV.

Ten years later, I re-read it. I tracked it down in the boxes where I stored my books when I moved to Maputo.

In the meantime, Susan Sontag died of cancer. I remember her, wearing a green dress, in a photo taken by her lover Annie Leibovitz.

Every day I repeat to myself Sontag’s call to realism: cancer can be treated with chemotherapy more efficiently than with diets or psychotherapy. Sontag unpacked  beliefs that have fed the popular mythology about cancer up to these days.

Every day I repeat her words in the introduction: illness is the night-side of life, a more onerous citizenship.

The disease that has hit me contains, paradoxically, an element of reassurance: every day I must face a new day, a daily routine. Suffering serves as a mediator between my will to live and all that is threateningly unknown. But the unknown is part of life itself.  It is life.

Yet CEDAW – Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women – has likely impacted on her life and her daughters, if [...]]]> Ask the woman sitting next to you in the bus, train, plane, taxi-brousse or donkey cart what is CEDAW, and most probably you will draw a blank look. C’est quoi?

Yet CEDAW – Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women – has likely impacted on her life and her daughters, if she has any, in many ways, from pension and inheritance rights to the passport they hold.

Quilt made by women of Kyrgztan. (Unifem)

CEDAW, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly 30 years ago today, is the global Bill of Rights for Women, the first international human rights treaty devoted to gender equality.

Through its 30 articles, CEDAW has boosted women’s rights worldwide in many ways.

Some examples:  new constitutional guarantees for women in Thailand; land- owning rights for women in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan; changes to the law of evidence to benefit women in the Solomon Islands; and reproductive health rights in Colombia.

India outlawed sexual harassment in the workplace, Mexico tightened its domestic violence laws and Morocco passed a new family code in 2004.  Read more here.

Today CEDAW turns 30 and is the world’s most widely ratified treaty, with 186 signatory countries.

But there is no time to rest on laurels.

Attempts by conservative forces – from Washington to Jerusalem, from Riyadh to Jakarta – to erode CEDAW are underway, primarily in the field of women’s reproductive rights, nationality, family rights and relationships.

Several countries have failed to ratify the treaty – Iran, Nauru, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, Tonga and the United States, although the Obama administration has indicated it will.

Twenty-two countries have signed and ratified but reserve the right not to implement certain provisions.

Some are minor: Australia does not want to send women soldiers into combat.

Others are more threatening: the United Arab Emirates wants to keep its unequal inheritance laws based on Shariah, and Algeria, its Family Law.

Worldwide, the treaty’s implementation is uneven. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Palestinian women suffer abuse and denial of basic human rights at the hands of Israeli settlers and soldiers. The right to family reunification is particularly ignored.

Nevertheless, in three decades, CEDAW has truly changed the world for women, for those who fly on planes and for those who ride donkey carts alike. Equality is our right.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

Why today? Because it’s the last of the 16 Days against Violence against Women, arguably the best known global campaign of the women’s movement, and also Human Rights Day.

Today, Sahrawi activist Aminatou Haidar starts her fourth week of [...]]]> Let’s do a quick review of women and violence in the news in the last weeks.

What's in the news on Human Rights Day?

Why today? Because it’s the last of the 16 Days against Violence against Women, arguably the best known global campaign of the women’s movement, and also Human Rights Day.

Today, Sahrawi activist Aminatou Haidar starts her fourth week of hunger strike at Lanzarote airport in the Canary Islands. She is so weak she has to be transported to court by wheelchair or stretcher. Last week, the head of UNHCR called on Spain and Morocco to resolve her issue on humanitarian grounds.

The award-winning Haidar is known as the Sahrawi Gandhi for her non-violent protests for the independence of her desert country, the Western Sahara, ruled by Morocco since 1975. 

In November, the Moroccan government unlawfully withdrew her passport and deported her when Haidar returned from receiving the prestigious Civil Courage Prize in New York. In 2008 she received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award.

On the other side of the world, in the Philippines, on 23 November, the eve of 16 Days, 22 women were massacred along with 35 men. The women were raped, sexually mutilated and shot in their private parts. The mass murder was instigated by a local politician-warlord and carried out by his militia. Among the victims were the wife and sister of a rival political candidate and two women lawyers who worked for him.

Believing that the Muslim tradition of respecting women would protect them from clan violence, the group was going to file papers for the candidate, along with a group of journalists. Among the 57 killed were 30 thirty media people, journalists, technicians and drivers. This is the largest single killing of journalists in history.

Earlier in November, Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, along with two less well-known bloggers, a woman and a man, were detained and beaten up by authorities in Havana. They were on their way to a peaceful march.

Is this cause for despair? No. These examples of violence unleashed against women in politics and media only reaffirms our commitment to denounce these crimes and seek justice.

The media now has a better tool to do this job. On 25 November, IPS presented its new handbook on reporting on women and violence. User-friendly, with an agile layout, it covers a wide spectrum of issues, from cyberstalking to trafficking, with story examples, discussion points, fact checks and additional resources. Download it here.

Do it now! No time to lose!

Email your support for Aminatou here or at:  todosconaminatou@gmail.com

And do whatever you can do to end violence against women and protect human rights defenders wherever you are.

Marie Mendene  is an extraordinary activist from Cameroon and one of the first African women to say publicly that she lives with HIV, in the 1990s, when AIDS was a disease of shame and blame.

This is one of my favourite photos about AIDS [...]]]> We share the wish of Marie Mendene Owono:  SEND AIDS AWAY.

By M. Sayagues

Marie Mendene  is an extraordinary activist from Cameroon and one of the first African women to say publicly that she lives with HIV, in the 1990s, when AIDS was a disease of shame and blame.

This is one of my favourite photos about AIDS in Africa. I took it at Sunshine, her NGO in Douala, in 2003, before antiretroviral treatment became widely available. Only a few Cameroonians in cities could get the life-saving pills.

The day I took the photo, Marie had queued for seven hours and  received only half of her monthly ARV pills. She was understandably upset about the poor logistics and delivery of medicines. AIDS magnified all the inadequacies of health systems.

That was then. Today, nearly three million people in Africa are on ARV treatment. This seemed like a dream then, but activists were campaigning hard to make it come true.

Marie had a clear vision of activism. “We should go beyond the begging bowl and the appeal to compassion, beyond the stage of being used to do prevention and awareness, and become part of real-decision making around AIDS,” she told me.

Marie is to the right in the pic, with a fellow activist.

The UN has finally decided to stand up for women!  A decision to create a new agency for women was taken by the General Assembly on September14.

Our colleague Thalif Deen, IPS bureau chief in New York, was the first and only journalist to report it for the [...]]]> Guest blogger:  Ann Ninan, IPS Gender Editor

A breakthrough for us as well? M. Sayagues

The UN has finally decided to stand up for women!  A decision to create a new agency for women was taken by the General Assembly on September14.

Our colleague Thalif Deen, IPS bureau chief in New York, was the first and only journalist to report it for the first several hours.

But this blog is not to crow about our scoop.

I’m quite excited by the prospect of a new women’s agency with money and political power. No longer will the world’s feminists have to lobby from the outside to put their views on the table. They have now won admission to the high table.

Any one of those bright, articulate, activist women can emerge to lead the agency. The reality is likely to be less rosy. But chances are that, because it’s new, it will be less under the thumb of the old boy network.

You think I’m a romantic? What the hell, there is no harm in dreaming, is there?  I like to think that there was no way that the General Assembly could have once again shelved the plan for a new women’s agency.

It’s 14 years since Beijing. All the small and big things that governments were forced to accept around women’s rights (CEDAW, MDG, etc.) made it impossible for any country to block the efforts of myriad initiatives (from small grassroots groups to reforms in government policies even if they started as mere tokenism) and to politicise the cause of gender equality.

I do see great hope in the increasing presence of women in politics – Liberia, Japan, India, wherever you look, even Iran (new ministers) and the Gulf (Saudi Arabia has made a few small concessions to women!).

Of course, there is a backlash too – more violence against women worldwide.

As IPS gender editor,  I am sure we will keep track of the new agency as it will be a key player achieving the MDG3 goal – gender equality.

Well, hope springs eternal!