Dear Working Group Members, You have sent many suggestions for resources to the Working Group. We have compiled them here for the period 1-7 July 2002. We hope these resources will be useful in your efforts to end violence against women.
Thanks again for all your messages! Warm regards, the Moderators ****************** RESOURCES SUBMITTED TO THE END-VIOLENCE WORKING GROUP 1 - 7 JULY 2002 Contents A. ARTICLES/NEWS 1. Sins of the peacekeepers (Sunday Herald) B. CAMPAIGNS 2. Khatami's advisor on women's affairs defends inhuman punishment of stoning, calls it necessary for "protection of family dignity"/ La Conseillère de Khatami pour les affaires féminines prend la défense du châtiment inhumain de la lapidation qu'elle déclare nécessaire à "la protection de la dignité de la famille 3. CEDAW Briefing (Washington DC, 15 July 2002) C. URGENT ALERT 4. Nigeria: Amina Lawal's hearing ajourned until next month D. PUBLICATIONS 5. First Issue of Women's Human Rights Network's monthly electronic news bulletin ************************************************************ A. ARTICLES/NEWS 1. Sins of the peacekeepers http://www.sundayherald.com/25914 Sins of the peacekeepers July 1, 2002 UN forces are supposed to help rebuild war-ravaged communities. But, as Magin McKenna reports, these workers are also pouring money into a flourishing trade in illegal brothels, rape and trafficking in women They came from the conflicted patches of eastern Europe -- the Ukraine, Romania, Yugoslavia and Moldova. Young, some barely scraping past their teens, they trickled down to Bosnia following promises of jobs as waitresses, barmaids and hotel workers. In Bosnia, the women saw their dreams dissolve. They found themselves working as prostitutes in underground, mafia-owned brothels. Some were raped, some abused. Most lived destitute, sold into a sexual slavery that two lawsuits and one high- ranking United Nations official allege were set up largely to meet the demands of the international peacekeepers, UN and government-sanctioned workers sent to build stability in a nation saddled with civil unrest. To British attorney Madeleine Rees, head of the UN Office for Human Rights in Bosnia, the picture is clear. 'There is absolutely no dispute that the sex traffic market came with the arrival of the peacekeepers. In Bosnia, NGOs [non-governmental organisations] for women brought it to my attention. There was a lot of giggling when all the UN vehicles were parked outside brothels,' she says. Rees's words point at a terrible irony increasingly troubling the international community: that those who enter desperate nations in the name of peace can bring misery and abuse in their wake. On Tuesday and Wednesday Rees testified in the Southampton employment tribunal of former UN human rights investigator Kathryn Bolkovac, an American who is suing DynCorp Aerospace, the British subsidiary of US-based DynCorp. Bolkovac claims that the Virginia-based company, which hires US officers to serve in UN missions around the world, fired her in April 2001 because she consistently reported allegations that UN officers patronised sex clubs where women were held against their will. On Wednesday, the final day of the tribunal, Rees told the court that a prostitute in one of Bosnia's most notorious brothels had identified Dennis Laducer, the deputy commissioner of the International Police Task Force (IPTF) and one of the highest-ranking UN officials in Bosnia, as a client. Rees said she had been prompted to make the allegation -- contained in a leaked internal UN document -- after a 'damning' memo about Bolkovac had been sent by Laducer to UN administrators. 'We had to call his character into question,' says Rees, who believes Bolkovac is a victim of DynCorp and the UN Bosnian leadership's 'boys will be boys' attitude when its male employees break the law after hours, seeking sex from prostitutes and funneling money into brothels and strip clubs driven by a multi-ethnic organised crime network. US and DynCorp officials deny Bolkovac's allegations and say she was fired for forging a time sheet, but Rees insists: 'She just knew too much and wasn't prepared for their action. Everything she has said is true'. Bolkovac arrived in Bosnia from Lincoln, Nebraska, to oversee all UN police investigations of gender issues. Before that she had worked for 20 years as a police officer in the United States. Her jurisdiction in Bosnia formally covered every crime from sexual assault to domestic violence. But she claims that, informally, much of her job revolved around the axis of a seedy sex market operating throughout the region. Her allegations describe a rampant disregard of international human rights workers and a boys'-club mentality that applauded the abuse of women at the hands of those sent to protect them. Bolkovac cannot speak to the press until the tribunal delivers its decision in three weeks, but recently told the BBC: 'I would drive by on patrols and see UN vehicles outside many of the bars and at first, I thought, 'OK, you know, they're having a drink and checking up on things.' But then as reports started coming in from the victims that many of these people were users and abusers, it was quite obvious that was more to it than that.' What sealed her suspicions was a routine raid on a notorious brothel in the Bosnian town of Doboj, where at least five women implicated international peacekeepers. 'Some of these women were describing American men in uniform. They were describing tattoos. They were describing many things which were highly identifiable,' Bolkovac said. She claims she demanded her supervisors take action and reprimand the offenders ... and was fired shortly after. 'This makes people terrified of coming forward,' Rees says. 'They won't go public because, 'Look what happened to Kathy Bolkovac.' We know it happened in Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia and Kosovo ... they have to get a grip.' Bolkovac isn't the only former DynCorp employee to sue the company over claims of being punished after reporting bad behaviour. Ben D Johnston, an aircraft mechanic from Texas, is suing DynCorp for discharging him after he co-operated with a US Army investigation into allegations that DynCorp employees bought and sold under-age prostitutes and, in two cases, videotaped themselves raping them. 'Even the company Christmas party was held at a whorehouse,' Johnston told the Sunday Herald. 'It was a place of sin. [DynCorp] thrived on it. I had a supervisor who got free women when a new person came in because he would take them to a brothel. He was rewarded for buying women and raping them.' On June 21, a Texas district court in Fort Worth -- where a large contingent of DynCorp is based -- ruled that Johnston's case will go before a jury in July, despite requests by DynCorp to dismiss the charges on grounds of insufficient evidence. Bolkovac and Johnston's suits have placed a company that has supported American national security around the world for years in a vulnerable spotlight, raising questions about the accountability of contract workers who break laws while working on behalf of foreign governments. The UN is finding it difficult to make Bolkovac's story, and others like it, go away. In the wake of Bolkovac's claims, other former UN employees and humanitarian workers have brought forth similar allegations. The US Congress heard testimony in April from David Lamb, a former UN investigator, and Martina Vandenberg, chief European researcher for Human Rights Watch. Lamb claimed that the UN was 'passive' and unwilling to uproot the organised crime network which had laid the groundwork for Bosnia's sex trade. Half-hearted UN investigations into the sex industry failed to yield results or implicate international workers caught subscribing to it, he added. 'Whenever involvement of UN personnel surfaced during investigations, support stopped,' Lamb told the US House Committee on International Relations. 'Headquarters went so far as to plan and carry out its own mass raid on brothels without involving or even consulting with the Human Rights Office or experienced investigators, and then publicised false information about the results.' Women forced to work as prostitutes identified six IPTF officers as clients after a raid in Prijedor, Vandenberg says. In other cases, no disciplinary action was taken because the men said they bought the women in order to rescue them. 'I call that the Sudanese slave redemption defence,' Vandenberg says. 'No-one interviewed the women. In one case a woman was purchased by an American IPTF officer. She ran away and reported to police that she'd been living with him for over a month.' Jacques Paul Klein, the head of the UN High Commission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, did not respond to repeated Sunday Herald requests for an interview. He has publicly denied Bolkovac's and Lamb's claims, recently calling Bolkovac a liar on the BBC. Klein's office denies that any UN employees have been sacked for sexual misconduct. 'We have the most aggressive, hard-charging anti-trafficking programme anywhere in the whole region, ' Klein told the BBC in May. In July 2001 the UN implemented a Special Trafficking Operations Programme (Stop) to combat crime in Bosnia and offer assistance to women caught up in the sex trade. Last year, Stop carried out 538 raids and inspections. It closed down 119 illegal sex venues, found 1700 women and repatriated 150. Director Celhia DeLavarene, a former journalist, says only time will measure the operation's success. 'Since I started Stop I attend at least one raid a week,' she says. 'We never, ever came across the International Police Task Force.' That doesn't mean the IPTF has been innocent of the charges. Rather, DeLavarene thinks, the officers learn of impending raids through widespread leaks within the local police departments. Stop doesn't use weapons and must rely on local police for help with raids. Often these police are clients themselves. Testimony taken last week from one 21-year-old woman freed from a Stop-raided brothel named three local police officers taking bribes from brothel owners and forcing the young women to have sex with them. 'They haven't been successful,' Rees says of Stop. 'You don't deal with trafficking by closing night bars. We've driven it underground and now it's much more difficult to trace. You don't get the people you need to be getting.' DeLavarene disagrees: 'Rees has no right to say that. She has never asked to come on a raid and see the work we are doing. We work at night and we try to save the girls.' For 15 years Agnes Callamard, director of the Geneva-based Humanitarian Accountability Project, has traced patterns of sex trafficking in war-torn regions. She says stories of abuse following the arrival of peacekeepers mirror those of the troubled regions to come before and after Bosnia: Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Kosovo and East Timor. Next to be hit, Callamard fears, will be impoverished, bombed-out Afghanistan. 'I imagine in the name of good, the women and girls are considered the price worth paying for it,' Callamard says. 'In the name of the peace process we are willing to accept certain problems like sexual abuse, prostitution and trafficking. 'This conspiracy of silence needs to be challenged -- denial is not an option. The future of humanitarian work will require a much stronger self-regulatory framework.' Eyewitness: 'THESE WOMEN ARE RAPED, ABUSED AND BEATEN' Since 1999 Iana Matei has been running a tiny, low-budget shelter in Romania to rehabilitate a small number of the women who unwittingly fall into southeastern Europe's sex slave trade. Matei knows them as 'survivors' -- while the rest of the world calls them sex traffic victims. At any given time she has 12 such women, who have been rescued from brothels in countries from Bosnia to Saudi Arabia, living with her in two cheap three-room flats in Pitesti. Matei's shelter is the only one of its kind in Romania. It attempts to place the women back into society, smoothing out the scars left by rape, starvation and other abuse the women have endured in the brothels. 'When they come back to Romania, their mentality is that they are whores,' Matei says. 'Sometimes they are so humiliated, it's beyond belief.' Sometimes it is a schoolmate, a relative or a friend of the family who offers the women a job. Sometimes there is an ad in the paper promising high pay for babysitters or waitresses in Italy, Greece or Germany. But every time there is the promise that they will make more money than they could doing the same work in Romania, the Ukraine or Moldova. These girls know about sex trafficking, but think it won't happen to them, Matei believes. So they leave their homes -- often fleeing abusive husbands or fathers -- and make their way to western Europe. The men they trust to take them there have a different agenda. In covert checkpoints -- forests, abandoned buildings or houses -- the women are stripped of their passports and possessions and are sold to mafia owners of bars and brothels. 'They are locked up,' says Matei. 'They have no freedom of movement, no medical assistance. They are raped, physically abused and forced to drink alcohol. In Bosnia, the girls told me that if they didn't smile enough they were beaten.' By the time the women make it to Matei, they see themselves as the pimps see them -- nothing more than negotiable merchandise. They have a hard time trusting authority because they see local police and international humanitarian workers taking bribes from the bar owners and forcing them to have sex with them too, Matei explains. Using grants from humanitarian organisations in the United States and Europe, Matei gives the women the skills they will need to rebuild their lives. They are taught trades such as hairdressing and undergo countless therapy sessions that aim to remove the guilt and humiliation they experience. Over three years, Matei has had a high success rate. Only five women have been trafficked again. The international community is organising task forces and conferences to form anti-trafficking policies, but Matei is fed up with what she deems too much talk and not enough action. The latest figures show that 200,000 southeastern European women were trafficked in 2000. 'We are just talking about trafficking when the latest report shows the number of girls increased last year,' Matei says. 'Girls from the ages of 15 to 18 are being trafficked more than last year. 'I would say the problem is getting worse.' -------------- B. CAMPAIGNS 2. Khatami's advisor on women's affairs defends inhuman punishment of stoning, calls it necessary for "protection of family dignity" In response to a criticism by Ms. Laurette Onkelinx, the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor, over punishment of women by stoning in Iran for "adultery" and "corruption," Zahra Shojaii, Khatami's advisor on women's affairs, strongly defended this inhuman punishment and said: "Stoning in Islam has been introduced with the intention of preserving family dignity." (state-owned Ressalat daily, July 6, 2002) Ressalat wrote: "In her meeting with Zahra Shojaii, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor of Belgium criticized the practice of stoning as a punishment in Iran. But Zahra Shojaii countered her criticism with a firm defense of stoning." The strong "defense" of stoning women in Iran by Khatami's advisor on women's affairs is clearly yet another indication that once again all factions within the mullahs' religious dictatorship share the same view on discrimination against women and misogyny. Contrary to their propaganda, there has not been any improvement at all in the state of women in Iran during five years of Khatami's presidency. In this period, 23 stoning sentences have been meted out, and 16 of the victims have been women. At this very moment, there are four women - Shahnaz, Sima, Ferdows and Ashraf - waiting to be stoned to death. Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran July 9, 2002 ***** La Conseillère de Khatami pour les affaires féminines prend la défense du châtiment inhumain de la lapidation qu'elle déclare nécessaire à "la protection de la dignité de la famille". En réponse aux critiques de Mme Laurette Onkelinx, la vice première ministre et ministre du travail belge, sur le châtiment des femmes par la lapidation en Iran pour "adultère" et "corruption", Zahra Chodja'i, conseillères aux affaires féminines de Khatami, a vivement pris la défense de ce châtiment inhumain en affirmant: "La lapidation en Islam a été introduite avec l'intention de préserver la dignité de la famille." (Quotidien gouvernemental Ressalat, du 6 juillet 2002) Ressalat écrit: "Dans une rencontre avec Zahra Chodja'i, la vice première ministre et ministre du travail de Belgique a critiqué la pratique de la lapidation comme châtiment en Iran. Mais Zahra Chodja'i a répliqué à ses critiques par une virulente défense de la lapidation." La virulente "défense" de la lapidation des femmes en Iran par la conseillère de Khatami pour les affaires féminines montre une fois de plus clairement que toutes les factions dans la dictature religieuse des mollahs partagent le même point de vue sur la misogynie et la discrimination contre les femmes. Contrairement à leur propagande, il n'y a eu aucune amélioration dans la situation des femmes pendant les cinq années de présidence de Khatami. Pendant cette période, 23 condamnations à la lapidation ont été prononcées et 16 des victimes étaient des femmes. A l'heure actuelle, il y a quatre femmes - Chahnaz, Sima, Ferdows et Achraf - qui attendent d'être lapidées à mort. Commission des Femmes du Conseil national de la Résistance iranienne Le 9 juillet 2002 ---------- 3. CEDAW Briefing (Washington DC, 15 July 2002) Dear CEDAW Supporter: In the past, your organization has supported the ratification of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), also known as the Treaty for the Rights of Women. In the recent months, there has been a lot of exciting activity surrounding ratification, including a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing and a scheduled committee vote for July 18th. The State Department has also identified CEDAW as a Category III Treaty which means that it is classified as "generally desirable and should be approved." Though we have the support of the State Department and many Senators, there are still strong forces that oppose this treaty. We must continue to push the Administration and the Senator to support this crucial treaty. We need your help to do this! What can you do? GET UP TO DATE AND GET INVOLVED! Please attend a briefing on Monday, July 15, 2002 from 1:00-2:00pm at the Amnesty International Office, located at 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington DC on the 5th floor. At this event you will learn about the work being done on the treaty and what you and your organizations can do to be involved in the efforts to finally ratify CEDAW. You can also visit www.womenstreaty.org, which has timely and detailed information and links for you to take action directly. For more information please call Sarah Albert at 202-347-3168 or <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. ---------- C. URGENT ALERT 4. Nigeria: Amina Lawal's hearing ajourned until next month OMCT Appeals Case NGA 250302.3 VAW Third Follow up to Case NGA 250302 VAW VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN Torture The International Secretariat of OMCT has received new information concerning the case of Amina Lawal who was sentenced to death by stoning by a Sharia court in Katsina State in Nigeria. New information According to information received, the hearing of the appeal of Amina Lawal, who was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning, began in Northern Nigeria. The four judges of the Sharia Court have, after hearing from her defense counsel on 8 July 2002, adjourned the case until next month. Brief reminder of the Situation The International Secretariat of the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) is deeply concerned by the sentencing to death by stoning of 30 year-old Amina Lawal. According to information received from reliable sources, on Friday 22 March 2002, a Sharia court at Bakori in Katsina State sentenced Ms. Lawal to death after she confessed to having had a child while divorced. The man named as the father of her baby girl reportedly denied having sex with her and the charges against him were discontinued. In those Northern Nigerian states that apply Sharia law, pregnancy outside of marriage constitutes sufficient evidence to enable a woman to be convicted of adultery. Under the applicable procedural rules, Amina Lawal had 30 days in which to appeal her sentence. On 3 June 2002 the Sharia court at Funtua in Katsina State, Northern Nigeria ordered the conditional release of Amina Lawal until January 2003, to allow her to return to her village in order to care for her 6 month old daughter. The court had stated that the decision in relation to her conditional release is independent of the decision in her appellate hearing which is expected to be handed down on 8 July. Action requested Please write to the Nigerian authorities urging them to: i. guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of Ms. Amina Lawal and her family; ii. ensure Ms. Amina Lawal the right to a fair trial and allow her effective access to legal representation. iii. take all necessary measures to secure respect for the rule of law in Nigeria which includes respect for the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment, such as the practice of corporal punishment; iv. guarantee women their human rights, including their right to be free from discrimination and their right to be free from torture and inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; v. ensure in all circumstances the full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with national and international standards. Addresses: His Exellency Olusegun Obasanjo, President of the Republic, The Presidency, Federal Secretariat Phase II, Shehu Shagari Way,Abuja; Fax: 234 9 523 21 36 (press office), Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Alhaji Sule Lamido, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maputo Street , Zone 3 Wuse District, Abuja, Nigeria ; Fax: 234 9 523 02 08. Kanu Godwin Agabi, Minister of Justice, Ministry of Justice, New Federal Secretariat complex Shehu Shagari Way, Abuja, Federal Capital Territory, Nigeria; Fax: 234 9 523 52 08. Alhaji Uman Musa Yar'adua, Governor, Office of the Military Administrator, Katsina, Katsina State, Nigeria. The Embassy of Nigeria in your respective countries. Geneva, 10 July 2002 Kindly inform us of any action undertaken quoting the code of this appeal in your reply. -------------- D. PUBLICATIONS 5. First Issue of Women's Human Rights Network's monthly electronic news bulletin Dear End -Violence Moderator, We would like to request you to post in your list the first release of Women's Human Rights Network's monthly electronic news bulletin. WHRnet News brings subscribers the latest in WHRnet News, Alerts, Interviews, Critical Perspectives and Web Highlights. We also invite your list members to visit the newly renovated site at <www.whrnet.org>. Thank you so much. --Maria Carolina Rodriguez Bello For WHRnet ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------- ******************************************************************************* WHRnet-News -- Issue No. 1 -- July 5, 2002 A Global Link to Women's Human Rights News, Views and Advocacy ******************************************************************************* NEWS Woman Judge Is Candidate for High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson's term as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights ends in September 2002, and the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice is initiating a campaign supporting the only woman candidate for the post. Please see http://www.whrnet.org/archive/news/july_4_02.htm#news1 for more details. Swaziland Women Face a Hard Path to Equality Recent news about banning women from wearing trousers and the continuing centuries-old view of women as men's property demonstrate that women in Swaziland face a long social, political and cultural battle for equality. Please see http://www.whrnet.org/archive/news/july_4_02.htm#news5 for more details. Honduran Lawmaker Calls for Investigation into Child-Sex Trade Hondura's lawmaker Doris Gutierrez has called for the formation of a high-level congressional commission that will look into the trafficking of Honduran children who end up as sex workers abroad. Please see http://www.whrnet.org/whrnet/archive/news/may_29_02.htm#news2 for more details. Women in Malaysia Protest Discriminatory Policy More than 70 women's organizations protested against the Terrangganu state government's plan to enact a policy that requires rape victims to come up with "four Muslim men of good character" to prove the crime. Please see http://www.whrnet.org/whrnet/archive/news/june_19_02.htm#news3 for more details. Ayesha Imam Receives Humphrey Freedom Award Ayesha Imam, current head of BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights in Nigeria, is the winner of the John Humphrey Freedom Award for 2002. Please see http://www.whrnet.org/whrnet/archive/news/june_19_02.htm#news6 for more details. ************************************************************************ ACTION ALERT Letter Writing Campaign: Gender Justice and the ICC Support the campaign for fair representation of women judges, prosecutor and deputy prosecutors in the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC, which became operational on 01 July 2002, will try individuals for crimes of war, genocide and crimes against humanity, as well as gender crimes, such as sexual slavery, rape, forced prostitution, and other forms of sexual violence that are used as weapons of war. See http://www.whrnet.org/whrnet/campaigns_iccletter.htm for more details. ******************************************************************************* PERSPECTIVE The Hard Path to Equality, by Aster Zaoude, Senior Gender Adviser at United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York Despite achievements made in advancing women's rights, Aster Zaoude says "no country in the world can claim to have fully achieved gender equality." In this article, Zaide tells why and points to two possible approaches to achieve gender equality. See http://www.whrnet.org/whrnet/persp_azaoude.htm for complete article. ******************************************************************************* INTERVIEW Farida Shaheed from Shirkat Gah, Pakistan and Women Living Under Muslim Laws International Solidarity Network (WLUML) This interview provides a critical assessment of the politics of fundamentalism. Farida Shaheed defines the forces called 'fundamentalism,' explains how they take root and why they are anti-women, and suggests ways to counter all forms of fundamentalism. See http://www.whrnet.org/whrnet/interviews_fshaheed.htm for complete interview. ******************************************************************************* WEB HIGHLIGHTS - RECOMMENDED SITES TO VISIT Women's Rights are Human Rights http://www.unhchr.ch/women Set up by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, this site gives readers a menu of basic information on the "women's rights as human rights" framework, as well as latest news, conferences, documents and other information arising from the United Nations' work to promote and protect women's rights. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- South-South Movements http://www.isiswomen.org/pub/wia/wia301/index.html Visit Isis International-Manila's web site to view articles from the latest release of the Women In Action Magazine, which carries the theme "South-South Movements." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Global Fund for Women www.globalfundforwomen.org Global Fund for Women will be giving out more than 400 grants amounting to US$4.5 this year. Visit this site to find out more about how you and your organization can be recipients of financial assistance for projects committed to women's equality and female human rights. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Social, Economic and Environmental Sustainability from a Gender Perspective: 14 Issues To Tackle http://www.eurosur.org/wide/UN/Joburg1.htm Outlines topics from a gender perspective that will be discussed in the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa from 26 August to 04 September 2002. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Female Genital Mutilation Prevalence Rate http://www.who.int/frh-whd/FGM/FGM%20prev%20update.html This site provides the World Health Organization's latest estimates on the occurrence of female genital mutilation in African countries. ***End-violence is sponsored by UNIFEM and receives generous support from ICAP*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe end-violence OR type: unsubscribe end-violence Archives of previous End-violence messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/end-violence/hypermail/