"OPPONENTS OF GIRLS' RIGHT TO EDUCATION VIOLATE ISLAM"

UNITED NATIONS: “Those who deny women and girls their right to education, violate Islam,” Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Masood Khan told a UN audience. He said the religion was for all men and women without discrimination.

He observed that the terrorist attack on Malala Yousufzai showed that “the forces of darkness” were afraid of the education that gave courage to girls to stand up for their rights.

“Those who do so (deny girls’ education) violently, violate the right to life and the right to education,” he said while addressing a Unesco-sponsored discussion on the “Importance of education and sports in preventing gender-based violence” held at the UN Headquarters on the sidelines of the current session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

The Director-General of Unesco, Irina Bokova, presided. Emphasising that education is enlightenment, emancipation, empowerment and development, Mr Khan said Pakistan had always given priority to education for girls and boys, for men and women.

“In education lies the redemption of a nation and the entire international community. The attack against Malala was as evil as it was showed that the forces of darkness are afraid of the education that gives courage to girls as young as Malala to stand for their rights against all odds,” the Pakistani envoy added. He said Pakistani women parliamentarians, with the support of all political parties, were creating new legislative and administrative space for women’s education.

Masood Haider - March 6, 2013

http://dawn.com/news/790599/

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NEW NGO COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF WOMEN - LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

The Committee of NGOs from Latin America and the Caribbean on the Status of Women – CSW- was created along with those from 4 other regions of the world, with the goal of strengthening regional processes to influence gender equality and the women’s empowerment agenda. One of the principal activities of this new body is to organize forums for sharing and discussion that bring women’s concerns to governments’ attention during the regional meetings of the United Nations. 

The Committee represents non-governmental organizations of women from Latin America and the Caribbean in the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), which was created in 1946, is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), and is “the principal global policy-making body dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.”

The Advisory Council of the Executive Committee of Organizations includes for the first period Mabel Bianco  of FEIM-Argentina (co-president), Lana Louise Finikin of Sistren Theatre Collective-Jamaica (co-president), Aidé García of CDD-México (vice-president), Delores Robinson of ASPIRE-Trinidad and Tobago (vice-president), Susana Chiarotti of CLADEM (treasurer), Rocío Rosero of REPEM LAC and ACDemocracia-Ecuador (secretary), Tarcila Rivera of Centro de Culturas Indígenas del Perú (member), and Dorotea Wilson of Red de Mujeres Afrolatinoamericanas, Afrocaribeñas y de la Diáspora and Colectiva Mujer (member).

The representatives of these organizations with consultative status in the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) are feminists with a long history of defending women’s rights in the United Nations Committee for the Decade for Women, now known as the Committee of NGOs on the Status of Women, and of which they will be constituent members. 

The foundational objectives of the CoNGO are to provide “a forum for information-sharing and profound discussions on issues and policies related to women under consideration by the UN and on other relevant studies on women, and with regard to specific programs in the context of Latin America and the Caribbean,” as well as “to work to incorporate a gender perspective in Latin America and the Caribbean through the UN system,” among other goals. 

The first official meeting of the Committee of NGOs took place on 16 October, in the city of Santo Domingo, on the occasion of the XII Regional Conference on Women in Latin America and the Caribbean.  From this initial meeting, it will go on working and will inform on the activities. People interested in contacting with it can do it through: 

FEIM: feim@feim.org.ar
REPEM LAC: repem@repem.org

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