Equal rights for women worldwide: May 2015

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Marcela Turati

A freelancer for the magazine Proceso and founder of the “Journalists on Foot Network,” Marcela Turati became a journalist because she thought it was “a way to change things.” She specializes in covering violence, especially cartel-related violence, focusing on its victims and its impact on Mexican society with the aim of increasing awareness of this issue. It was not an easy choice in what is the western...

Thursday, May 28, 2015

May 28, International Day of Action for Women’s Health

May 28, International Day of Action for Women’s Health Our Health, Our Rights, Our Lives! End Violence Against Women in ALL its Forms On May 28 International Day of Action for Women’s Health, women’s rights activists and allies advocate worldwide for women ’s comprehensive health and well-being, particularly their unmet sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). This May 28, we call on governments...

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Solange Lusiku Nsimire

The only newspaper editor in the eastern Kivu region who is a woman, Solange Lusiku Nsimire is very proud of Le Souverain, a monthly that does investigative reporting, and continues to pursue its founder’s goal of producing an independent publication that reflects a range of opinions. “When we denounce embezzlement, inter-communal tension or the working conditions in mines, we do it for everyone, in the...

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani

A journalist, writer and translator, Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani is the founder and editor of the Feminist School website and one of Iran’s leading women’s rights advocates. For the past 20 years, she has tirelessly used her writing skills to condemn discrimination and abuses against women and to promote change in Iran. She is also one of the founders of the campaign for “One Million Signatures” to a petition...

Friday, May 22, 2015

Farida Nekzad

Co-founder and former editor of the Pajhwok Afghan News agency, Farida Nekzad has spent the past 12 years being threatened by media freedom’s enemies, who have repeatedly tried to kidnap or kill her. While investigating female journalist Zakia Zaki’s murder in 2007, she received phone calls and emails promising her the same fate. They just reinforced her determination to defend freedom of information and...

Thursday, May 21, 2015

Hla Hla Htay

Hla Hla Htay began working as a journalist in Burma under the military dictatorship and has been an Agence France-Presse reporter since 2004. She was the first reporter to get photos of Naypyidaw, the new capital that the paranoid generals had secretly begun building. She covered the bloody crackdown on the “Saffron Revolution” in 2007 and the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis the following year, when the military...

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Brankica Stanković

Brankica Stanković has headed Insajder – Serbian TV station B92’s flagship investigative TV programme – ever since its creation in 2004, paying a high price for daring to expose corruption and shed light on the links between the criminal underworld and Serbian politicians and businessmen. The threats against her have grown with the passing years, to the point that a four-member police detail has accompanied...

Sunday, May 17, 2015

Khadija Ismayilova

Investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova has specialized in covering Azerbaijan’s most taboo subject – corruption and conflicts of interest at the highest government level. To shut her up, a sex-tape was used in a blackmail attempt in March 2012 but, far from putting a stop to her reporting, she re-issued her most important articles. Ismayilova gives as good as she gets in her relations with a regime...

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Nhat Chi Mai

The flower known as Chi Mai. May 16, 1967 . Nhat Chi Mai immolated herself in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, to protest the war. "I offer my body as a torch to dissipate the dark to waken love among all people to give peace to Vietnam." Viet Nam – It was Sister Mai’s wish for all religions to band together in hopes of creating peace throughout the world Sister Mai's self-immolation...

Friday, May 15, 2015

CARE & DIGNITY – MAJOR WOMEN’S CHALLENGES TO ECONOMICS & HUMAN RIGHTS

I am honoured to be invited to give the Pamela Denoon lecture for 2015. Pamela was an active feminist in all her activities. With her significant involvement, the Women’s Electoral Lobby was very effective in Australia, and the same organisation was of major support and comfort to me in New Zealand in my parliamentary years. Pamela studied politics and sociology, read widely in feminist theory and...

Thursday, May 14, 2015

The Folly of Farring Pregnant Girls from School in Sierra Leone

Pregnant girls are now barred from school in my country Sierra Leone. The government has decided that as schools reopen this week for the first time since the vicious Ebola outbreak that has claimed over 10,000 lives – and plunged our country into fear, lock downs, economic and emotional pain – pregnant girls should simply stay away. According to Dr. Minkailu Bah, the Minister of Education, Sierra Leone...

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

NGO RESOLUTION ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA

We, the participants of the Forum on the Participation of NGOs in the 56th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the 30th African Human Rights Book fair held in Banjul, The Gambia from 16th to 19th April 2015; Recalling the African Union’s theme for the year 2015 of Women Empowerment and Development in the Realisation of Agenda 2063; Acknowledging that the Maputo Protocol...

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Advancing Tax Justice Through Human Rights

Taxation can play a critical role in advancing or impeding human rights enjoyment, while the norms and mechanisms of human rights offer powerful tools for tax justice advocates. With the aim of building bridges between these communities, a major international strategy meeting, ‘Advancing Tax Justice through Human Rights,’ took place in Lima, Peru, on April 29-30, co-organized by the Center for Economic...

Monday, May 11, 2015

The Costs of Maternal Mortality to Families and Communities

The loss of a mother harms her surviving family members, and her children’s health, education, and future opportunities. • Maternal death is linked to high neonatal mortality: of the 59 maternal deaths in the study, only 15 babies survived the first 60 days of life. • Surviving children in some cases were withdrawn from or forced to miss school, because economic disruptions made it difficult...