Priorities for the future 4/5

Since the original Treaty of Rome, the EU’s commitment to gender equality has waxed and waned over the years, being stronger in periods of economic growth and labour shortage and withering away in periods of low growth, crisis and austerity (Smith and Villa, 2013). 

Perhaps the high point for gender equality policies was the decision in 2000 to enshrine gender mainstreaming in the Lisbon Treaty, which requires that policies and measures should “actively and openly take into account at the planning stage their possible effects on the respective situations of men and women” (EC, 1996). Subsequently, allegiance towards gender equality has weakened in both EU policies and practice, as analysis of recent EU policy documents shows. Attention to gender issues has become less effective than in previous decades, indicating that social policies remain subordinate to economic ones especially the SGP. 

This differential treatment rests on the neoliberal assumption that the economy and economic policies are wealth-creating or productive while social policies are costly and concerned with redistributing rather than creating wealth, and should therefore be side-lined while policy focuses on the urgent task of dealing with the crisis and restoring growth. In the EU Recovery Plan, for example, neither gender nor equality were mentioned (Bettio et al., 2012). The idea that economic growth can be redistributive or that social policy can be economically productive are consequently overlooked (Perrons and Plomien, 2013) - and yet austerity policies are bad for growth and, as discussed below, have marked gender impacts. 

Given the different roles that women and men play in the economy, they have been affected in different ways by the crisis and austerity. Men were more adversely affected in the initial aftermath owing to their over-representation in the construction and manufacturing sectors, but benefitted more from the subsequent expansionary policies which focused on physical infrastructure.. By contrast, women are badly affected by austerity policies owing to their over-representation in public sector employment, among users of public sector services and welfare claimants.

 This seems to be the broad picture, though the experience of different countries varies. In the UK the coalition government is seeking to do more than meet the EU’s stability targets by completely eliminating the public sector deficit altogether and reducing the level of government expenditure as a proportion of GDP to 35% – i.e. to pre-welfare state levels (HM Treasury 2014). Yet House of Commons research found that in the 2010 budget, 73% of the cuts in public expenditure fell on women (see also WBG 2014). The groups that gain from these policies are those with higher income who are largely immune from state welfare spending and creditors whose incomes depend on a stable economy and low levels of inflation. This deflationary bias has negative effects for employment and the well-being of the majority through depressing demand.

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What implications does this have for the future gender equality agenda? 3/5

Since the original Treaty of Rome, the EU’s commitment to gender equality has waxed and waned over the years, being stronger in periods of economic growth and labour shortage and withering away in periods of low growth, crisis and austerity (Smith and Villa, 2013). 

Perhaps the high point for gender equality policies was the decision in 2000 to enshrine gender mainstreaming in the Lisbon Treaty, which requires that policies and measures should “actively and openly take into account at the planning stage their possible effects on the respective situations of men and women” (EC, 1996). Subsequently, allegiance towards gender equality has weakened in both EU policies and practice, as analysis of recent EU policy documents shows. Attention to gender issues has become less effective than in previous decades, indicating that social policies remain subordinate to economic ones especially the SGP. 

This differential treatment rests on the neoliberal assumption that the economy and economic policies are wealth-creating or productive while social policies are costly and concerned with redistributing rather than creating wealth, and should therefore be side-lined while policy focuses on the urgent task of dealing with the crisis and restoring growth. In the EU Recovery Plan, for example, neither gender nor equality were mentioned (Bettio et al., 2012). The idea that economic growth can be redistributive or that social policy can be economically productive are consequently overlooked (Perrons and Plomien, 2013) - and yet austerity policies are bad for growth and, as discussed below, have marked gender impacts. 

Given the different roles that women and men play in the economy, they have been affected in different ways by the crisis and austerity. Men were more adversely affected in the initial aftermath owing to their over-representation in the construction and manufacturing sectors, but benefitted more from the subsequent expansionary policies which focused on physical infrastructure.. By contrast, women are badly affected by austerity policies owing to their over-representation in public sector employment, among users of public sector services and welfare claimants. 

This seems to be the broad picture, though the experience of different countries varies. In the UK the coalition government is seeking to do more than meet the EU’s stability targets by completely eliminating the public sector deficit altogether and reducing the level of government expenditure as a proportion of GDP to 35% – i.e. to pre-welfare state levels (HM Treasury 2014). Yet House of Commons research found that in the 2010 budget, 73% of the cuts in public expenditure fell on women (see also WBG 2014). The groups that gain from these policies are those with higher income who are largely immune from state welfare spending and creditors whose incomes depend on a stable economy and low levels of inflation. This deflationary bias has negative effects for employment and the well-being of the majority through depressing demand.

By Diane Perrons

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/documents/vision_report_en.pdf

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Gender equality in times of inequality, crisis and austerity 2/5

Contemporary Europe is emerging slowly and unevenly from the deepest recession ever recorded. Following a coordinated and expansionary response to the crisis in 2008, member states experienced a sovereign debt crisis and subsequently, from 2010 - simultaneously yet without collective coordination - embarked on austerity policies to reduce the size of the public sector deficit and debt (Bettio et al 2012). 

To meet the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact’s conditions (SPG), the public sector deficit can be no more than 3% and public debt no greater than 60% of GDP. By 2013, ten member states were still above the deficit guidelines and 16 above those for debt. Potentially of greater potential concern is that public debt is rising in all but two of the countries where it exceeds 60% of GDP (Germany and Hungary), as it is for the EU as a whole (Eurostat, 2014). 

Thus, while the deficit is falling, public debt continues to rise and for this reason austerity policies continue to dominate the policy agenda even though feminist and heterodox economists (Fukuda Parr et al., 2013; Stiglitz, 2012) have demonstrated they are counterproductive for the economy. Such policies also make it very difficult to secure social objectives for inclusion and gender equality. 

 By Diane Perrons

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/documents/vision_report_en.pdf

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ACTION ALERT FOR DR. HOMA HOODFAR IMPRISONED IN IRAN #FREEHOMA

FREE HOMA TOOLKIT IS ATTACHED.

Dr. Homa Hoodfar, a highly respected university professor at Concordia University, Montreal has been arrested and detained in Iran's notorious Evin prison on Monday 6, June 2016. 

Hoodfar, 65, is an internationally renowned and widely published anthropologist who studies a range of issues related to women’s roles and status in Muslim contexts. 

Born in Iran, Hoodfar has been living in Montreal for 30 years. A Canadian, Irish and Iranian national, Professor Hoodfar travelled to Iran in February this year to see her family. Shortly before she was to return home, she was arrested in March, but released on bail. After being interrogated by authorities for months, Hoodfar was once again summoned for interrogation on Monday June 6th and imprisoned without due process. 

It is not clear what the charges against Dr. Hoodfar are. Her arrest is incomprehensible given that she has never been involved in politics of any sort. She is an anthropologist who conducts ethnographic research across the Middle East, as well on Muslims living in the West. Indeed, her research is known to be balanced and several of her studies highlight the opportunities and high status that women have availed of in various Muslim countries, including in Iran. She is very much a patriot when it comes to Iran, and often argues that change must come from within through internal processes in societies and working within religious parametres. For instance, in one of her writings, she showcases women volunteer health workers in Iran, by highlighting how they have “acquired a sense of self-fulfillment and self-worth,” within the religious context of Iran.

Professor Hoodfar is appreciated everywhere for her unprejudiced views of politics and history. She is a great proponent of giving voice to Third-world women, particularly Muslim women. She was among the pioneer scholars to highlight Muslim women’s public roles that have been justified through religious precepts. Her writings have greatly contributed to challenging the essentialised portrayals of Muslim women that was prominent in Western scholarship.  In a ground-breaking book on the Muslim Veil in North America, Prof. Hoodfar writes about the significance of veiling as a visible marker of Islam in the West, as well as an adoptive strategy. 

It is of deep concern that, following her arrest, Dr. Hoodfar is not being allowed to see her lawyer or contact family and that her relatives have not been able to ensure she has the medication she needs. Dr. Hoodfar suffered a stroke last year and has a neurological illness that needs regular medical attention and treatment.

We therefore request the Iranian authorities to:

·        Provide Dr Hoodfar immediate access to her family and lawyer;

·        Ensure Dr Hoodfar has the medicines she requires for her neurological illness, her condition is monitored and the report shared with her family;

·        Release Dr Hoodfar and return her passport and other essential documents so she can travel back to Canada to continue her treatment there and resume her academic work. 

Women Living Under Muslim Laws, International Coordination Office

PO Box 28445, London, N19 5NZ, United Kingdom

Tel:+44 (0)207 263 0285 - Fax:+44 (0)207 561 9882

Website: www.wluml.org / Email: fatou@wluml.org

http://www.wunrn.com
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/concordia-university-prof-jailed-in-iran-s-evin-prison-family-says-1.3622606
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/08/canadian-iranian-professor-arrested-iran-homa-hoodfar



IRAN - WOMEN’S RIGHTS ADVOCATE CANADIAN-IRANIAN PROFESSOR ARRESTED IN TEHRAN 

Homa Hoodfar, 65, detained after passports and belongings confiscated

Case is latest to involve dual nationals in Iran  

Homa Hoodfar was arrested after nearly three months of repeated questioning. Iran does not recognise dual nationality, and treats detainees only as Iranian, depriving them of consular access. 

Saeed Kamali Dehghan in London and Ashifa Kassam in Toronto – June 8, 2016 

Iranian authorities have arrested a Canadian-Iranian professor of social anthropology, the latest in a string of cases involving dual nationals which has prompted concern over the country’s political atmosphere.

Homa Hoodfar was arrested earlier this week after nearly three months of repeated questioning by the Iranian intelligence service, her sister told the Guardian on Wednesday.

Hoodfar is the latest in the ever-expanding list of dual nationals targeted in recent months. Several Iranian dual nationals from the US, the UK, Canada and France are currently behind bars or facing regular questioning, often accused of espionage or collaborating with a hostile government. 

The 65-year-old scholar travelled to her home country in February, principally for personal reasons, but she also continued her academic research while in the country, her family said. Her trip coincided with parliamentary elections during which a record number of women were elected as MPs, mostly allied with the moderate administration of Hassan Rouhani. 

In March, members of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards raided Hoodfar’s flat a day before she was due to fly to London, where she planned to join her family for the Persian new year and the 70th birthday of her brother. The authorities confiscated her belongings and her three passports, and summoned Hoodfar for regular questioning.

Hoodfar’s family had chosen not to go public until now because they believed the interrogations were the result of a misunderstanding and would soon end, according to her sister, Katayoon Hoodfar. “[Homa] was summoned to Evin prison on Monday where she was told she would face yet another session of questioning but instead she was detained,” she said. 

“We are extremely worried for her health,” Hoodfar’s sister said. “She suffers from a rare neurological illness; she often has very bad headaches.” Hoodfar does not have any immediate family in Iran and the Canadian embassy remains closed. Hoodfar’s lawyer and cousin have been denied a family visit, Katayoon Hoodfar said, and were told that she is banned from having any visitors.

Iran does not recognise dual nationality, and treats detainees only as Iranian, depriving them of consular access.

Hoodfar has repeatedly travelled to Iran in the past but the illness of her husband, who died last year, prevented her from travelling there more recently. Hoodfar’s family believe that she has been arrested by the Revolutionary Guards, which act independently of Rouhani’s government and has sought to undermine his administration on various occasions. 

Canada, under the previous Conservative government, abruptly closed its embassy in Tehran and expelled Iranian diplomats from Canada in September 2012. Relations between Canada and Iran had been strained for years, much of the tension stemming from the torture and death of Iranian-Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi in 2003.

The country’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has said his government intends to reopen the embassy in Tehran, but analysts say it could years before the two countries accredit ambassadors. 

In February, the Canadian government lifted virtually all sanctions against Iran. In announcing the change, Stéphane Dion, Canada’s foreign affairs minister said, “Canada will lift its sanctions but will maintain a level of mistrust for a regime that must not have nuclear weapons, a regime that is a danger to human rights and is not a friend to our allies, including Israel,” Dion said. “We will do this with our eyes wide open.” 

BBC journalist stopped from flying to US over UK-Iranian nationality 

Rana Rahimpour caught by new legislation that means dual citizens of some countries, including Iran, can no longer use visa waiver programme 

Global Affairs Canada, the country’s diplomatic apparatus, said it was aware of Hoodfar’s arrest. “Consular officials and Minister Dion have met with Dr Hoodfar’s family, and remain in close contact with them,” a spokesperson said. “We are working closely with our likeminded allies in order to best assist Dr Hoodfar.” The department said it could not comment further due to privacy considerations. 

Hadi Ghaemi from the New York-based international campaign for human rights in Iran (ICHRI) said Hoodfar’s arrest was “another sign of intolerance and suspicion towards dual nationals who travel to Iran and just want to contribute to their homeland by academic work”.

“These arrests are politically motivated to undermine the opening of the country which is Rouhani’s stated policy,” he told the Guardian. “Ms Hoodfar is a very respected academic who has hugely contributed to the Iranian civil society by her research and trainings.”

“[The arrest] reflects a security and intelligence apparatus out of control in Iran. They are snatching and detaining people without cause and with total impunity, creating a virtual quarantine of Iranian society so that they may more firmly hold it in their grip.”

Family of woman held in Iran for five weeks will be allowed to visit 

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran’s airport on 3 April when she and her 22-month-old daughter were returning to UK 

Read more 

Other dual nationals arrested in recent months include the British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation as a project manager, and British-Iranian businessman Kamal Foroughi. 

American-Iranian businessman Siamak Namazi, was also jailed with no explanation in October after visiting his family. His 80-year-old father, Baquer Namazi, a former Unicef official, has also been arrested and denied access to lawyers. A French-Iranian, Nazak Afshar, who is former employee of the French embassy in Tehran, was sentenced to six years in April. 

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Shahenda Maqlad. Prominent rights activist of peasants from Egypt dies

 Thanks for your  life dear Shahenda Maqlad . 

We have here an interview of 2013  that teach us about their valuable contributions  : 

“Tell us Shahenda, the mother of the saddened voices, what’s the color of Qanater prison? What’s the color of your prisoner? What’s the color of the friends with you who light up the gardens with light? Our country is a big prison and its clothes are made of prison cells”, these are the words Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote to Shahenda Maqlad and Sheikh Imam sang for her when she was imprisoned in 1981 on the charges of belonging to the Egyptian Communist Party under President Anwar El Sadat.

The female Che Guevara of Egypt, the Egyptian Rosa Luxemburg to Kamshish farmers, the Hoda Sharawy of the 1950s, the Rosa Parks to the Egyptian civil rights and students movement, Shahenda Maqlad is our very own symbol of strength, resistance, human rights, and women rights in the history of Egypt, and she, thankfully, is still fighting among us for freedom today, and played an influential role in the January 25th revolution.

The 75 year old icon spent her life fighting against feudalism in the 1950s, faced the war on Egypt in 1967, lead farmers struggle in 1975, was imprisoned at least 3 times in 1970s and 1981, shared the fight back in the 1990s against more neoliberal policies, mobilized with Kefaya movement and protested for the fall of Mubarak throughout 2000s to finally witness and play a leading role in the Jan 25 revolution. Her first political achievement came as young as the age of seventeen in 1955, when women were granted the right to vote for the first time. She mobilized the women of her village of Kamshish in Munofia governorate going door to door urging women to register to vote.“When I was young I was eager to know about socialism because my dad always told me that this country won’t be fixed unless socialism is established, so I wanted to know what socialism is. He told me when you get older you will know”, she tells us with a cheerful smile as she recalls the past.

Maqlad comes from a middle class family born to a socialist police officer father, and the eldest sister to four brothers and a young sister. Her father raised his children on the principle of equality between sons and daughters, “My father was really progressive for his times, he truly believed in the equality between men and women, and treated us this way unlike others who believed it the slogan but never applied it”, she says. When Kamshish farmers were in the midst of the fight against feudalism, Maqlad’s father sent to President Gamal Abdel Nasser during the revolution saying, “Either you free the farmers of Kamshish or you detain me with them”. Her father had the most influence on her activism and belief system to always fight for what’s right no matter how anyone may judge her choices. With teary eyes she recalls a telegram her father once sent her saying, “To Shahenda; defend your principles until death”.

With a strong socialist spirit at home and growing up during revolutionary times, Shahenda Maqlad was destined to have an unconventional marriage with her revolutionary counterpart martyr Salah Hussein. Not only was he her cousin who left his family when young to go fight in Palestine and returned to lead the armed struggle of farmers against feudalism in early 1950s, he was also the love of her life and the second most influential person in her life. “My dad passed away and I was engaged to a police officer, but I loved my cousin Salah Hussein, who was always being prosecuted for fighting feudalism, so I escaped and broke the engagement to go marry Salah”, she reveals to us. “After I married Salah, my work began in fighting with the farmers against feudalism in Kamshish, our small village. I ran for elections in National Union (Itehad Qawmi) for our local union when the farmers elected me”, Maqlad says. The fierce couple lived and had three children fighting for a better Egypt and for the peasants of their Egypt, who were promised under Nasser to own land after land reform, but in Kamshish the Feki family was untouchable and the land was not redistributed until five years after the armed struggle in which Salah Hussein was imprisoned, and many were killed. The fight for more radical change in land reform continued into the 1960s, but this time with Maqlad in the lead until the Feki family assassinated Salah Hussein.

This devastating moment for Maqlad made her even more determined to continue what Hussein has started, which is to fight until the farmers reach victory. While she continued to enter elections for the National Union and won; the state was keen to not allow her to get too powerful by never exceeding the local level.“Every election I entered I won, then after we were able to form political parties under Sadat I was one of the founders of Tagmoa Party, and I got imprisoned 3 times on charges of being a communist or belonging to the communist party and inside prison I was imprisoned again, after we got our release order and all of the detained got freed, they kept me and Farida El Nakash”, she gives us a brief history of her political struggles and achievements. In the 1970s, Maqlad was banned from ever running in her governorate of Munofia, and when she went to protest this verdict to Mahmoud Salem, who was the prime minister back then, she asked him, “What are the charges against me exactly? And he just said ‘because people love you’”, she says.

Shahenda Maqlad entered elections three times, once in Alexandria and twice in Kamshish, “until 1984 when I told myself I will never enter elections again until these oppressive laws are changed; they haven’t changed election laws until now”, she explains her disbelief in the electoral process.

“I always had no doubt that the revolution was coming, and that the people will rise and this is even under Sadat. People always told me take off the black wardrobe and I told them never unless the revolution happened or Sadat died”, Maqlad expresses her strong belief in the power of the people. While she sits and sips her coffee with tears that come and go as she remembers moments that changed her life, she tells us about her life story. Maqlad recalls one of the best expressions describing Egyptian people and how she felt when the revolution erupted after long life struggle, “Salah used to always tell me ‘Egyptian people are like underground water, you don’t see it moving, but all of sudden it bursts’, and this proved itself true with the January 25th Revolution, but my heart was filled with fear because any traditional revolution has an organized leadership to guide it, but Jan 25 was very spontaneous, so I was uncertain of its future, but even with this I still have no doubt that people will prevail in the end.”

Upon the recent political upheaval in Egypt, Maqlad was subjected to violent discrimination at the December Itahadiya clashes when the Muslim Brotherhood forcefully attacked the peaceful sit-in in front of the Presidential Palace. Maqald was present when Brotherhood members raided the tents and attacked people, “I saw them coming and attacking everyone including Nawara Negm, so I stood up and started chanting ‘La ilaha ila Allah, El Ikhwan are the enemies of God’ and all of a sudden I was astonished to have this guy silence me with his hands over my mouth”, she describes. Thousands of people took to the streets protesting the massacre including Maqlad, who saw a woman carrying Maqlad’s picture, so she shook hands with her and the women told Maqlad, “I went down to the streets because when I saw that man put his hand on you, I got furious and I wanted to cut his hand”, Maqald tells us with tear eyes of joy.

When we asked her what she thinks of ongoing targeting of women to break the revolution using sexual terrorism as a tool to scare women from going to Tahrir her answer was “we have to fight back and be determined that no one will get us our rights, we have to make our voices heard and our present, visible for the whole world to see that they don’t scare us and we will win in the end”.

NOVEMBER 3, 2013 BY GIGI IBRAHIM

http://whatwomenwant-mag.com/2013/11/03/shahenda-maqlad/
http://www.cronicaviva.com.pe/egipto-fallece-destacada-activista-por-derechos-de-los-campesinos/
http://www.mojazeg.com/egypt/277925/

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Gender equality in times of inequality, crisis and austerity: towards gender-sensitive macroeconomic policies. 1/5

“Equal pay for equal work is a founding principle of the European Union, but sadly is still not yet a reality for women in Europe.” Former EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding made this remark on European Equal Pay Day - February 28 2014 - 59 days after the start of the year. 

She chose this date to mark the end of a period in which, given the gender pay gap (16.4% - EC, 2014a), women effectively work without pay. This gap is one indicator of an unequal world in which, for instance, a CEO of one of the FTSE 100 firms in the UK would only have to work one and a half days to earn the annual salary of an average social care worker (High Pay Centre, 2014). These gaps reflect both rising inequality and the persistence of gender inequality - conditions that result from the pursuit of neoliberal economic policies and associated priority given to the economy over society. 

The scale of contemporary income and earnings inequality has generated widespread public concern, demonstrated by activist movements such as Occupy, and is now evident among more orthodox world leaders, some of whom have called for a more inclusive form of capitalism to ensure political and social stability and economic growth. 

In 2014, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, pointed out that inequality is returning to levels not seen since the onset of the 1929 recession; Pope Francis tweeted that inequality was “the root of social evil”; and European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker said that “it is not compatible with the social market economy that during a crisis, ship-owners and speculators become even richer, while pensioners can no longer support themselves” (EC, 2014b). 

By contrast, gender inequality has not aroused the same degree of public interest, even though women continue to be disadvantaged in the labour market, underrepresented in decision-making and are more likely than men to experience domestic violence (EC, 2014c). Indeed, women are, as Lagarde put it, “underutilised, underpaid, under-appreciated and over-exploited”. What makes this situation in Europe surprising is that there have been five decades of equality policies. 

So why have gender equality policies not been more effective and what scope is there for such policies in times of austerity? This essay addresses these questions and argues that only by ensuring that the economy serves societies rather than vice versa will it be possible to realise the EU’s objectives for sustainable and inclusive development and make it more likely that gender inequality will be resolved.

 By Diane Perrons

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/files/documents/vision_report_en.pdf

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Elderly women living alone: an update of their living conditions

CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

 To avoid increases in gender disparities and in poverty risks, it is necessary to assess the potential gender impact of changes in pension and welfare systems.

 Addressing the specific needs of women living alone asks for the individualisation of social rights, irrespective of household and marital relations both in pension and assistance policies and developing integrated policy packages, dealing with all the different aspects of lone women’s living conditions. The involvement of local communities and local actors (usually municipalities, charities and NGOs) in policy design and implementation and guaranteeing the continuity of interventions are also important to sustain the creation of extended support services and networks at the local level.

 As for pension systems, it is suggested to strengthen universal, residence-based or flat rate minimum pensions indexed to wages and pension credits for unemployment and training periods; provide public subsidies to support access to occupational and individual supplementary pensions by women and other groups usually less involved in these schemes; provide adequate pension credits for care periods; adopt unisex life tariffs in both public and private funded pension schemes; provide specific pension credits for atypical and part-time employment and support flexible retirement provisions; adopt individual rather than family related pension entitlements.

 Policies to reduce gender gaps in the labour market and active ageing policies are also needed to guarantee gender equality in old-age living conditions through the adoption of a gender mainstreaming approach to labour market and active ageing, with a focus on measures supporting the reconciliation of market and family work and revising cultural models on gender roles. Multi-sector and intergenerational active ageing strategies should be strengthened to reduce the risk of isolation and improve the conditions of women (and men) living alone also addressing empowerment initiatives to promote active engagement.

 European Institutions could play an important role supporting a stronger integration of a gender equality perspective in pension and welfare policies and active ageing strategies both at the EU and national level. 

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/519219/IPOL_STU(2015)519219_EN.pdf

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Neglect of older persons’ needs

Globally, many politicians neglect long-term care (LTC ) needs of older persons and assign a very low priority to public support provided through social protection – despite the dramatic ageing of the world’s population (PNUD et al., 2014) and the growing number of older persons with physical or mental incapacities in need of LTC. However, currently, very few countries provide such protection or are planning related reforms to offer public support for LTC. Also in the recent discussions around the post 2015 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), LTC has not been considered as an issue to be addressed with high priority.

One of the reasons the need for LTC is disregarded relates to the perceived availability of “free” care provided primarily by female family members. Stereotypes that female family members can and should take over the full burden of providing LTC are widespread and exist in countries of all regions, developed and developing. However, these viewpoints ignore that LTC requires by far more than compassion for relatives:

 LTC requires professional and skilled workers to provide quality services, as well as coverage of the related expenditure.

 It also requires funds that empower and enable persons in need of LTC, for example to develop enabling living environments.

 Family care involves significant costs due to foregone income of caregivers and associated risks of impoverishment due to a lack of social protection during times of care, for example in case of sickness, accident or old age.

Politicians should also be aware that the number of potential family care givers will shrink due to demographic ageing, growing female labour market participation and the impact of reversing early retirement policies. Thus, while the role of families in providing informal care will remain important, such approaches are not sufficient in the context of demographic ageing and might involve in the longer term higher costs in the form of lost income and productivity than if comprehensive public support was provided through social protection schemes and systems.

The neglect of making public LTC solutions available can also be interpreted in the context of discrimination and negative attitudes towards older persons: Ageism is a global phenomenon that is sometimes even laid down in regulations and legislation, for example higher costs or unfavourable conditions of certain insurance policies for older persons or being refused for specific medical services due to age (Naish, 2012).

Negative myths about older persons can even be found in text books for health and LTC workers that often ignore the potential of health and functional capacity improvements of older persons and under-report positive developments that can be achieved by providing adequate quality LTC services including prevention for older persons.

The situation is aggravated by the fact, that the training and skills development of formal LTC workers is often at very low levels compared to e.g. health workers (Colombo et al., 2011). Thereby the dependency and functional incapacities of older persons are likely to increase and a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs. In the worst cases, ageism results in abuse and violence against older persons in need of LTC, both in institutions and when receiving home-based care. Reasons often relate to a lack of adequate training and skills and result from perceived excessive demands (OHCHR, 2014). It is estimated that in Europe alone at least 4 million older persons experience such abuses every year (WHO Euro, 2011).

Finally, in many countries a cultural aversion to LTC exists, as it is understood as institutional care only while ignoring other forms of care, such as home-based services. In these countries, it is regarded as dishonorable if family members do not take care of older relatives. In Algeria, for example, a study among 115 people (the majority younger than 35 years) revealed that none of the respondents supported the idea of sending their parents to a care institution (Paranque & Perret, 2013).

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---soc_sec/documents/publication/wcms_407620.pdf

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Right to sexual and reproductive health indivisible from other human rights

The right to sexual and reproductive health is not only an integral part of the general right to health but fundamentally linked to the enjoyment of many other human rights, including the rights to education, work and equality, as well as the rights to life, privacy and freedom from torture, and individual autonomy, UN experts have said in an authoritative new legal commentary*.

Yet, the experts from the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) note, “the full enjoyment of the right to sexual and reproductive health remains a distant goal for millions of people, especially for women and girls, throughout the world.”

The commentary, adopted by CESCR’s 18 independent members, highlights the numerous legal, procedural, practical and social barriers people face in accessing sexual and reproductive health care and information, and the resulting human rights violations.

“For example, lack of emergency obstetric care services or denial of abortion often lead to maternal mortality and morbidity, which in turn constitutes a violation of the right to life or security, and in certain circumstances, can amount to torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” the experts say in their commentary.

The experts’ guidelines, known as a General Comment, concern Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which refers to the right to the highest attainable standard of health.

“As a Committee we have spoken before about the right to health, but we thought that given, for example, high maternal mortality rates around the world or harmful practices that women and girls especially go through, like female genital mutilation and early child marriage, it was important to specifically address the issue of sexual and reproductive health,” said Committee member Heisoo Shin.

The General Comment codifies the Committee’s views on this issue to give States that have ratified the Covenant a clear understanding of their obligations and to highlight to government officials, legal practitioners, as well as civil society, where policy, laws and programme may be failing and how they can be improved.

“I think, for example, that governments have not allocated enough attention and resources to tackle maternal mortality. In 2016, we should not see women dying as they give birth because of insufficient facilities or because of lack of attention or because they are poor,” Ms.Shin said.

The General Comment details the importance of sexual and reproductive health for men and boys, but also highlights how the issues are indispensable for women’s right to make meaningful and autonomous decisions about their lives and health. It notes that gender-based stereotypes play a role in fuelling violations of the right to sexual and reproductive health, including assumptions and expectations of women as men’s subordinates and of women’s role as only caregivers and mothers.

The General Comment also pays special attention to other groups of individuals who may face particular challenges and multiple forms of discrimination.

“People with disabilities need more attention and extra sensitivity to their situation; we see examples of doctors and nurses not treating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people equally; adolescents can be afraid to go to the gynaecologist because they are not supposed to have any sexual encounter; taboos around sex also affect the ability of single women in many countries to access services,” said Ms.Shin. 

The General Comment details the obligations of States regarding sexual and reproductive health, including:

• An obligation to repeal, eliminate laws, policies and practices that criminalise, obstruct or undermine an individual’s or a particular group’s access to health facilities, services, goods and information;
• An obligation to ensure all have access to comprehensive education and information that is non-discriminatory, evidence-based and takes into account the evolving capacities of children and adolescents;
• An obligation to ensure universal access to quality sexual and reproductive health care, including maternal health care, contraceptive information and services, safe abortion care; prevention, diagnosis and treatment of infertility, reproductive cancers, sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS.

The General Comment states that ideologically based policies or practices, such as the refusal to provide services based on conscience, must not prevent people from getting care, and that an adequate number of health care providers willing and able to provide such services should be available at all times in both public and private facilities. 

“Even in one country, there are wide differences, between different generations, between urban centres and rural areas, differences between men and women, so you cannot say there is always one position, and even culture changes over time,” said Ms Shin. “The ultimate goal should be what is best for people to enjoy the right to sexual and reproductive health.”

- UN experts

GENEVA (8 March 2016) 
 http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17168&LangID=E#sthash.dGpOvQiH.dpuf

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WOMEN AND GIRLS: CATALYSING ACTION TO ACHIEVE GENDER EQUALITY

The five proposed core commitments are aligned to all Core Responsibilities outlined in the Secretary General’s Agenda for Humanity:

• Commitment 1: Empower Women and Girls as change agents and leaders, including by increasing support for local women’s groups to participate meaningfully in humanitarian action.

• Commitment 2: Ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductiv rights as agreed in accordance with the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development and the Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome documents of their review conferences for all women and adolescent girls in crisis settings.

• Commitment 3: Implement a coordinated global approach to prevent and respond to gender-based violence in crisis contexts, including through the Call to Action on Protection from Gender-based Violence in Emergencies.

• Commitment 4: Ensure that humanitarian programming is gender responsive.

• Commitment 5: Fully comply with humanitarian policies, frameworks and legally binding documents related to gender equality, women’s empowerment, and women’s rights

http://www.wunrn.org/pdf/gender.PDF

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Bibata Ouédraogo

Bibata Ouédraogo is an activist committed to the promotion and protection of women’s rights, including sexual rights and reproductive rights and the right to maternal health in Burkina Faso.

Bibata Ouédraogo is an activist committed to the promotion and protection of women’s rights, including sexual rights and reproductive rights and the right to maternal health. Her work focuses on community outreach on HIV/AIDS, maternal health, violence and discrimination against women, FGM, forced marriage, early.

Bibata Ouédraogo is the president of the Ouahigouya branch of AFEDEB, a women's association for the development of Burkina Faso. Ouahigouya is a town approximately 180 km from the capital Ouagadougou. The association covers 15 sectors surrounding Ouahigouya and nine of the 36 villages of Ouahigouya.

Bibata Ouédraogo is a former teacher. She is married and mother of six children. Her passion for human rights has led her to continue working despite her retirement from teaching in 2013.

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Malaika

Malaika ran away from home to avoid being married off by her parents. When she was picked up by the police they told her to go back to her mum and dad, she told Amnesty International:

“I was 15 when my parents wanted me to marry an old man of 75. He is older than my father and already has three wives and daughters of my age. The day that I had to be introduced to the old man I told my parents that I did not agree with their choice and that I wanted to finish my education. They told me that I had to marry the man they had chosen and that I had no choice but to accept.”

Today in Burkina Faso women and girls are not always free to choose when they marry, and who; when they have children and how many – this has to change.

Burkina Faso has the sixth highest rate of early marriage in Africa, with 52% of girls married by the age of 18 and nearly half already mothers at that age.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/news/press-releases/burkina-faso-elections-cannot-ignore-women-s-crisis-0?ac=featuredquote&utm_source=web&utm_medium=feature&utm_campaign=MBMR

https://www.planusa.org/docs/state-worlds-girls-2015.pdf

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WOMEN MIGRANTS 5/5

After this excursion through different models of gendered mobility between ENP countries and the EU, we now come back to our initial question. What are the limits of ENP policies regarding female migration across the eastern and southern Mediterranean? To date the ENP framework does not seem to have taken significant steps to promote a safe and autonomous migration specifically for women from the ENP to the EU. The cases of Moroccan fruit pickers in Spain and Ukrainian domestic workers in Poland show how women’s labour opportunities are predominantly characterised by temporariness, difficult working conditions and poor legal protection. There is a transnational hierarchy that confines women to care and domestic work, or to the seasonal agricultural sectors, which are all variably located across a continuum of illegality, exploitation and invisibility. In both the countries of origin and destination women suffer from economic and structural disadvantages. Migrant women come into sight as transnational figures more suitable to find work in flexible (agriculture) or gender-biased (domestic and care) labour markets. At the same time, they are far from being prospective full citizens in the countries of destination; on the contrary, they are destined to short periods of stay, invisibility and to being on the margins of social and civil entitlements. The type of circular migration they are embedded in, moreover, allows for the welfare costs to be totally upheld by the country of origin. 

From the perspective of ENP frameworks and categorisations, migrant women do not seem to fall into the category of the economically rewarding working migrant “who sends remittances,” nor into that of the entrepreneur who facilitates trade across the borders, nor finally into that of the cultural mediators that spurs innovation amongst his/her diaspora fellow members. 

The case of Moldovans in Italy might be seen as the exception to this overall view, but the specific connotation of the employment available to these working women in the Italian home care sector (thus very isolated, badly remunerated and socially stigmatised) prevents them from becoming transformative social actors, either in the country of origin or of destination. It is also a sector where migrant women cannot generally  fulfil their aspirations by capitalising on their education and the work experience they have accumulated in the country of origin, resulting in their gradual deskilling. Domestic work, in general, comes into sight as a significantly double-edged job opportunity for migrants, as far as it offers employment on the fringes of an EU labour market, in a sector characterised by lack of rights and by a scarce economic and social mobility. 

It is on these grounds that we formulate the following policy recommendations to improve conditions for migrant women in the ENP area:

•  1. Enhance mobility partnerships for permanent work (i.e. along the lines of the Moldova-Italy agreement, not the Morocco-Spain agreement) between all countries of the European Neighbourhood and the EU member states;
•  2. Avoid limitations to the employment of migrant women in which their family situation is used as a parameter for assessing their suitability for the work; 
• 3. Promote the entrance of women in non-traditionally precarious and flexible labour sectors. This can be done, for example, by facilitating the recognition of their previous study and work careers in the countries of origin;
• 4. Facilitate labour employment for those who have arrived in Europe as family migrants and who also have an interest in being economically active, which can also favour their integration into the country more generally; 
• 5. Finally, promote the active role of women as transnational actors between ENP countries and the European Union, by designing specific policy tools for gender mainstreaming in this field.

 Such provisions would help the EU to meet its proclaimed interest in enhancing gender equality in neighbouring countries. At present, the EU is not always critical of the gender biases of migrants’ countries of origin, but, rather, reproduces strong gender stratifications and inequalities in its ENP approach to migration. To embrace the recommendations above would help to overcome the current gender blindness in ENP migration policies which seem to position migrant women along a geographical and gendered hierarchy of care and domestic work, or low paid and gendered and racially constructed seasonal agricultural work, which reifies their roles as “carers with extra work burdens” rather than as workers. This could be a first step to dismantle the gendered (and racialised) material and discursive devices that structure women’s mobility across the eastern and southern Mediterranean.

http://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iairp_22.pdf

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WOMEN MIGRANTS:MOLDOVAN WOMEN IN ITALY 4/5

Figures 3 and 4 show how Moldovan women’s presence in Italy, although not being the most significant in terms of numbers (fewer than Ukrainians or Moroccans), offers some interesting elements in support of the argument of this article. In 2010 Moldovan emigrants were estimated at 21 percent of the country’s population, with about 20 percent of them in Italy.34 Italy is today the most important destination for women from Moldova: since the early 2000s their numbers have steadily grown, reaching today the 100,000 mark (see Figure 4). This is an interesting case of highly gendered migration which, contrary to the example above of Ukrainians in Poland, is mainly based on permanent migratory projects and the opportunity for formal access to the labour market. The permanent character of this migration finds evidence in the work of Pia Pinger who emphasised how the persistent poverty of Moldovan families is a deterrent for migrant women who want to return, given the lack of opportunities open to them back home.35 For Pinger, it is important to consider that Moldovan women migrating to countries such as Italy need longer periods of work before they are able to compensate for the economic efforts that have served to finance their initial emigration.36

 It goes without saying that the expansion of the private market for home care service has had a deep impact on labour opportunities for Moldovan women in Italy and so on the level of immigration.37 Italy is one of the European countries where the private market of home-based elderly care provided by migrant women has been established for the longest time – since the end of the 1970s – and where it has grown extensively: today, 88.6 percent of the Italian private service sector is made up of women and 81 percent by migrants.38 It is relatively easy for foreigners to access this job sector, in comparison with what happens in other countries. Regularisations are the main gate of access in the context of Italian migration policy, and indeed domestic and care workers have received special treatment in the regularisation of 2002, with the extension of the applications deadline. In 2009 the government took further special measures to favour these workers with an ad hoc regularisation. This has resulted in a general increase in the official numbers of foreigner workers in this sector. Finally, it is important to consider that, in the yearly allocation of quotas for migrants, the government always assigns a relatively high number of permits to prospective care and domestic workers from specific countries of origin, included Moldova. 

More generally, the arrival of Moldovan women in Italy has been clearly facilitated by specific government provisions. Indeed, official data on Moldovans’ presence in Italy have boomed after the government’s launch of a regularisation process for undocumented migrant workers in 2002: with 29,471 applications, their (official) presence in Italy has multiplied five times.39 Again in 2009, at the time of a regularisation directed only to undocumented workers in the care and domestic sector, Moldovans have been incredibly active by submitting 26,605 applications.40 Furthermore, Moldova and Italy have established a bilateral agreement for workers’ recruitment, which was signed in 2003 and renewed in 2011.41 There is therefore an ad hoc quota for Moldovans in the yearly state decree which regulates the quotas for new foreign workers in Italy. Between 2002 and 2010, more than 27,000 Moldovans entered Italy through these quotas, without counting those that, as domestic workers, could also apply for the 290,000 vacancies in the quotas for this sector.42 More recently, in 2008, Moldova signed a visa facilitation agreement with the whole European Union which was followed by a visa exemption for Moldovans entering the Schengen area for short stays, starting from 28 April 2014. It is thus an open question as to how this last facilitation will affect the movement of Moldovan women to the EU and Italy in particular. The case of women’s migration from Moldova and Italy thus stands in opposition to the three cases that we have previously illustrated. Without forgetting the ample margins of undocumented migration that still persist between Moldova and Italy, as well as the difficult conditions in which regular migrants perform their jobs in the home care and domestic sectors, it is nevertheless important to reflect upon the way this case can serve as an example for other countries There is no doubt that the legal and permanent employment in the domestic sector offers women the opportunity for an autonomous type of mobility, in which they can potentially engage in an activity independently from their husbands or fathers’ will. It allows them to earn a living and take on the role of breadwinner for their transnational households, which they are often able to reunify in Italy. The less precarious legal conditions allow for better conditions of employment, and, under these conditions, domestic work may provide a working and living space that can be relatively safer for women than the conditions they face in factories or agriculture. However, the field of domestic work in Italy is still often low paid, with precarious working conditions, a lack of rights and, in some cases, subject to sexual and physical abuse. Moreover, workers complain that such work does not allow them to climb the social ladder towards more rewarding occupations, more in line with their educational backgrounds.

32 Marta Kindler and Monika Szulecka, “The Economic Integration of Ukrainian and Vietnamese Migrant Women in the Polish Labour Market”, in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2013), p. 649-671.
33 Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck, “Care Chains in Eastern and Central Europe: Male and Female Domestic Work at the Intersections of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity”, in Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4 (2013), p. 364-383.

34 World Bank, Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011, 2nd ed., Washington, World Bank, 2011, http://go.worldbank.org/QGUCPJTOR0; Ummuhan Bardak (ed.), Labour Markets and Employability. Trends and Challenges in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union, 2011, http://dx.doi.org/10.2816/14590.
35 Pia Pinger, “Come Back or Stay? Spend Here or There? Return and Remittances: The Case of Moldova”, in International Migration, Vol. 48, No. 5 (October 2010), p. 142- 173, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.2009.00562.x.
36 See Dennis Görlich and Christoph Trebesch, “Mass Migration and Seasonality: Evidence on Moldova’s Labour Exodus”, in Kiel Advanced Studies Working Papers, No. 435 (May 2006), http://hdl.handle.net/10419/4012.
37 Sabrina Marchetti and Alessandra Venturini, “Mothers and Grandmothers on the Move: Labour Mobility and the Household Strategies of Moldovan and Ukrainian Migrant Women in Italy”, in International Migration, Vol. 52, No. 5 (October 2014), p. 111-126
38 Italian Ministry of Labour, Secondo rapporto annuale sul mercato del lavoro degli immigrati, July 2012, http://www.governo.it/backoffice/allegati/68685-7839.pdf.
39 ISTAT, Permessi di regolarizzazione concessi in base alle leggi n. 189/2002 e n. 222/2002 per area geografica e principali paesi di cittadinanza, per sesso al 1° gennaio 2004, 2004, http://demo.istat.it/altridati/permessi/2004/tav4.13.pdf.
40 Italian Ministry of Interiors, Colf e badanti, i dati riepilogativi al 5 luglio, 12 July 2010, http://www1.interno.gov.it/mininterno/export/sites/default/it/sezioni/sala_sta mpa/notizie/immigrazione/0076_2010_07_12_colf_badanti.html_1728265669.html.
41 Marta Giuliani, Franco Pittau and Antonio Ricci (eds.), Visa Policy as Migration Channel in Italy, Rome, EMN Italy and IDOS, 2012, http://www.emnitaly.cnr.it/eng/wpcontent/uploads/2015/02/Visa-Policy-as-Migration-Channel-2012-.pdf.
42 Sabrina Marchetti, Daniela Piazzalunga and Alessandra Venturini, “Costs and Benefits of Labour Mobility between the EU and the Eastern Partnership Countries Country Study: Italy”, in IZA Discussion Papers, No. 7635 (September 2013), p. 67, http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/papers/viewAbstract?dp_id=7635.

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WOMEN MIGRANTS: UKRAINIAN WOMEN IN POLAND 3/5

While Algerian and Moroccan migrant women live mostly in a few EU countries – France, Spain and, in the case of Moroccans, also Italy – Ukrainian women are present in a wider spectrum of destinations in the European Union (see Figure 3). Their numbers are particularly high in Italy (168,000 in 2013) as well as in Germany and Poland (about 140,000 in each country). However, we decided to take the case of Ukrainians in Poland as to allow for comparisons with the other three cases under study. The long tradition of migration of Ukrainian women to Poland must be understood against the background of the economic decline of the country, since the 1990s. In this context, women have taken the role of breadwinners required to support often unemployed husbands and school-age children.25 The mobility between Ukraine and Poland has very often taken the shape of temporary migration, facilitated by historical ties, geographical proximity and favourable policies for border crossing.26 From the policy point of view, the present situation is the last stage in a complex evolution of different arrangements. Flows between 1945 and 1989 were entirely regulated by state apparatuses, were mutual agreements and the result of diverse mobility programmes within the COMECON framework (e.g. tourism, student exchanges, cross-border employment, military dislocations, etc.) During the 1990s, and especially after the non-visa agreement of 1996, increasing mobility between Ukraine and Poland developed.27 This is also the time of the so-called suitcase traders who were very active across the Ukraine-Poland border from the mid-1950s.28 This regular movement between the two countries was virtually halted in 2003, when Polish migration policy had to adjust to the standards of the European Union, which required the introduction of visa requirements for non-EU nationals. At present, the legal framework for the entrance of Ukrainians is relatively liberalised: in 2006 Poland decided to gradually liberalise the legislation on employment of third country nationals. This was achieved, on the one hand, by facilitating the issuing of work permits, and, on the other hand, by expanding the catalogue of nationalities who, under certain conditions, are allowed to take employment in Poland without necessarily holding a permit, as in the case of EU eastern neighbours including Russia. In 2008, the Agreement on the Local Border Traffic with Ukraine was concluded, which facilitated the mobility of people living on the Ukrainian border, including the many women who were seeking employment in the expanding domestic and care sector of Polish cities. The reduction in the number of those counted as Ukrainians (although born in what was formerly Poland), together with the fact that the entrance of these Ukrainian workers was not registered after 2008, might explain why the official number of Ukrainian women migrants is decreasing (see Figure 4). Yet it is a matter of fact that their presence in the domestic and care sectors, as well as in Polish society more generally, has increased. In relation to the temporary migration, which characterised the mobility pattern of this group, scholars have argued that migrants from Ukraine have little interest in, or the possibility of, settling in Poland because of economic, legal and cultural constraints. Their aim is, rather, to improve their living conditions at home. For this reason, Ukrainian migrants perceive their migration as a temporary activity, additional to their work at home. This has resulted in a lasting phenomenon of temporary trips and repeated mobility. Some of the Ukrainian domestic workers circulating to and from Poland make use of tourist visas in order to enter the country and work irregularly.29 They are generally live out and do cleaning jobs. Polish scholars point to the risks related to the undeclared character of this work, the structural conditions of the sector and the limited opportunities for mobility within it.30 Ukrainian circular migration has been defined as “incomplete migration,” characterised by short-termism and the unstructured departure of individuals in search of immediate profit rather than being a structured project.31 Along the same lines, Marta Kindler and Monika Szulecka have emphasised the importance assigned by Ukrainians to the ties with their country of origin as a result of the obstacles that they face in the host country.32 Thus we believe that the case of Ukrainian women in Poland is an example of the negotiations taking place around women’s work on the borders of the EU, with the formation of a gendered and ethnicised labour force to be employed in the lowest strata of the European labour market. While Polish women still engage in temporary and permanent migration to Germany, the United Kingdom and other western European countries where they mainly take up domestic and care work in private households, Ukrainian women are doing the same in Poland.33 The overlapping of these different circuits of women’s mobilities denotes the increasing stratification of labour markets opportunities for migrant women. If gendered occupations such as domestic work still play a major role, this is however split into jobs with different entitlements from the point of view of rights and labour conditions. Women on the borders of the EU, as in the case of the Ukrainians, are included in a hierarchical way in this market compared with women holding citizenship from a member country, by being allowed to enter into it only in the most precarious and invisible way, namely as flexible, undocumented privately hired service workers.

25 Suzanne LaFont, “One step forward, two steps back: women in the postcommunist states”, in Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 34, No. 2 (June 2001), p. 203-220; Jacqui True, Gender, Globalization, and Postsocialism. The Czech Republic after Communism, New York, Columbia University Press, 2003.

 26 Aleksandra Grzymała-Kazłowska and Marek Okólski, “Influx and Integration of Migrants in Poland in the Early XXI Century”, in CMR Working Papers, No. 50 (November 2003), http://www.migracje.uw.edu.pl/publ/233; Agata Górny et al., Immigration to Poland. Policy, Employment, Integration, Warsaw, Scholar, 2010. 

27 Krystyna Iglicka and Agnieszka Weinar, “Ukrainian Migration in Poland from the Perspective of Polish Policies and Systems’ Theory”, in Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Vol. 6, No. 3 (2008), p. 356-365. 

28 Dariusz Stola, “Two Kinds of Quasi-Migration in the Middle Zone: Central Europe as a Space for Transit Migration and Mobility for Profit”, in Claire Wallace and Dariusz Stola (eds.), Patterns of Migration in Central Europe, London and New York, Palgrave, 2001, p. 84-104, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2292616. 

29 Krystyna Iglicka, Katarzyna Gmaj and Wojciech Borodzicz-Smoliński, Circular Migration Patterns. Migration between Ukraine and Poland, San Domenico di Fiesole, European University Institute, 2011, http://hdl.handle.net/1814/19720.
30 Marta Kindler, “The relationship to the employer in migrant’s eyes: the domestic work Ukrainian migrant women in Warsaw”, in Cahiers de l’Urmis, No. 12 (June 2009), https://urmis.revues.org/853. 31 Marek Okólski, “Recent Trends in International Migration. Poland 1997”, in CMR Working Papers, No. 19 (October 1998), http://www.migracje.uw.edu.pl/publ/329.
 32 Marta Kindler and Monika Szulecka, “The Economic Integration of Ukrainian and Vietnamese Migrant Women in the Polish Labour Market”, in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2013), p. 649-671.
33 Ewa Palenga-Möllenbeck, “Care Chains in Eastern and Central Europe: Male and Female Domestic Work at the Intersections of Gender, Class, and Ethnicity”, in Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Vol. 11, No. 4 (2013), p. 364-383.

http://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iairp_22.pdf

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WOMEN MIGRANTS: MOROCCAN WOMEN IN SPAIN 2/5

Moroccan women are by far the largest number of female migrants from the ENP area to the EU (Figure 2), residing mainly in France, Italy and Spain (Figure 3). In particular, the numbers of women born in Morocco and who live in Spain has significantly increased from the year 2000, accounting today for 312,000 women, compared with only 57,000 in 1990 (see Figure 4). This tendency can be inscribed in a more general feminisation of the long history of international migration among the Moroccan population. While in the 1950s and 1960s Moroccan migration was predominantly a male experience, the economic crisis of the mid-1970s and the closing of borders brought a structural change in migratory flows and in the composition of the Moroccan “communities” abroad. Already in the year 2000, a survey by the Fondation Hassan II pour les Marocains résidant à l’étranger revealed that about 65 percent of Moroccan men abroad lived with their spouses and children, which is strikingly different from the situation in the 1970s when 90 percent of Moroccan migrants were men living alone.20 If marriage reunification is one reason for the increased feminisation of Moroccan migration to Spain, other factors relate to the changing realities of women’s life in Morocco. On the one hand, women are facing increasing levels of poverty and are often the solely responsible for supporting their children and households,21 with migration becoming one of the few available solutions. On the other, due to their higher levels of education and the improvement of their legal status, Moroccan women are less tolerant towards gender discrimination and see migration as a viable and possible exit. Moroccan women in Spain find employment primarily in the paid domestic and service sectors, in hotels or restaurants.22 Next to these is employment in the agricultural sector. Since 2006, in a scheme promoted by a mobility partnership between the Morocco and Spain, women have been able to undertake seasonal work as fruit pickers.23 Moroccan women are recruited in the areas of Fès, Mohammedia, Agadir and Dakhla; they have to be between 18 and 40 years of age, and have young children – which in theory means they will wish to return home at the end of season. The number of women joining this scheme has grown from 1,800 in 2006 to 17,000 in 2009. In the Spanish province of Huelva, where the cultivation of strawberries is concentrated, Moroccan women represent 60 percent of all pickers. Employers seem to prefer Moroccans to other foreigners because they are “docile, good workers and submissive,” in the words of the coordinator of the employment scheme.24 Moreover, this mobility scheme only partially satisfies the needs of migrants households (given the temporariness and the low pay that characterised seasonal pickers’ employment). Moroccan women who wish to find more permanent and remunerative jobs in Spain are still predominantly directed towards the domestic and service sector, where exploitation tied to and reinforced by undocumented migration is very widespread. The previous example clearly shows that bilateral arrangements do little to enhance women’s autonomous mobility between ENP countries and the EU. Rather, the promotion of this type of circular migration contributes to perpetuate a process of racialising and gendering, where migrant women can easily turn into an exploitable workforce, whilst these forces them into a transnational market of care and cheap flexible work. Although seasonal work and domestic/service work may represent new opportunities in comparison with the traditional scheme of family reunification, they still do not offer an empowering alternative for working women

20 Abdelkrim Belguendouz, “Maroc: genre et migrations entre hier et aujourd’hui”, in CARIM Notes d’analyse et de synthèse, No. 2010/67 (2010), http://hdl.handle.net/1814 /15286. 21 Khadija Elmadmad, “Femmes, migrations et droits au Maroc”, in CARIM Notes d’analyse et de synthèse, No. 2011/01 (2011), http://hdl.handle.net/1814/15586. 22 Mohamed Khachani, “Genre et migration au Maroc”, in CARIM Notes d’analyse et de synthèse, No. 2011/12 (2011), http://hdl.handle.net/1814/15616. 23 Chadia Arab, “La migración circular femenina marroquí en Huelva: impacto y cambio”, in OBETS. Revista de ciencias sociales, Vol. 5, No. 2 (2010), p. 165-174, http://hdl.handle.net/10045/16095.
24 Abdelkrim Belguendouz, “Maroc: genre et migrations entre hier et aujourd’hui”, cit.

http://www.iai.it/sites/default/files/iairp_22.pdf

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WOMEN MIGRANTS:ALGERIAN WOMEN IN FRANCE 1/5

 Since the year 200, the pattern of Algerian emigration as a whole has changed.16 Along with the traditional emigration of intellectuals and students, there is now increasing emigration of women: women represent 42 percent of the 4.5 million people who were born in Algeria and are today resident in France. As Figure 4 shows, Algerian women in France outnumber other female presences from the ENP area in the EU, with a sharp increase in numbers from the year 2000. This feminisation of migration in the Algerian context can be explained in the face of the changing configuration of mobility, which is no longer driven by strictly economic reasons but that is also a reflection of the desire to pursue other goals, within a context of social mobility and cultural and economic transnational interconnections. Reasons for migrating may go beyond the simple need for work, but reflect the need to fulfil a variety of projects. Examples include university students who increasingly participate in scientific networks, members of civil society associations taking part into Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, but also women engaged with transnational trade circuits, such as trabendo, popularly called the “biznasiates,” that is the “business women”.17 Hocine Labdelaoui shows how Algerian women in France are increasingly taking on the role of reproducers of the Algerian national community living outside the national territory.18 This is part of a wider political attempt to promote a moral discourse that encourages the incorporation of the diaspora into the homeland and, thus, to increase their investments back home. Migrant women therefore have a pivotal role in the symbolic and physical reproduction of the nation’s identity and collectivity abroad. The reproduction of certain gender ideologies, and the perpetuation of specific gendered roles within the communities abroad, are then also part and parcel of keeping diasporas linked to their communities of origin and explain the contradictory gendered laws enacted by the Algerian government. For example, the government has eased patriarchal control over the migration of women by, for example, making sure that women no longer require the authorisation of their male guardian to leave the country. However, at the same time the Algerian state has kept the clause that fathers, not mothers, have to authorise a child’s passport registration, thus perpetuating the principle that citizenship rights are predominantly male prerogatives and enhancing the cultural construction of women as legal minors.

 The large number of Algerian women in France also reflects a dynamic and complex situation. On the one hand, it results from the classic pattern of reunification with a spouse who migrated earlier; on the other, this data reflects the increasing erosion of the patriarchal orders that limit women’s ability to exercise their desires and choices.

16 Hocine Labdelaoui, “Genre et migration, en Algérie”, in CARIM Notes d’analyse et de synthèse, No. 2011/12 (2011), http://hdl.handle.net/1814/15597.
17 Ruba Salih, “The Relevance of Gender in/and Migration”, cit.
18 Hocine Labdelaoui, “Genre et migration, en Algérie”, cit.
19 Ali Mebroukine, “Migrations, genre et relations international. Le cas d’Algérie”, in CARIM Notes d’analyse et de synthèse, No. 2011/07 (2011), http://hdl.handle.net/ 1814/15592; Rafik Bouklia-Hassane, “La feminisation de l’immigration d’origine algé- rienne: Un état de lieux”, in CARIM Notes d’analyse et de synthèse, No. 2011/20 (2011), http://hdl.handle.net/1814/15617.

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Clara Barton, Humanitarian visionary

Humanitarian visionary

 Clara Barton (1821-1912) taught school and worked as a clerk in the U.S. Patent Office. With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, at the age of 40, Barton embarked on her life's work and vision. During the Civil War she began to assemble and distribute supplies to Union soldiers. Knowing that nurses were urgently needed at the battlefield, she went into the field. At the famous battles of Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Fairfax Court House, Fredricksburg, Antietam, and the Wilderness, she assisted the surgeons in stitching up wounds and in bloody amputations. Clara Barton gained national acclaim as “the angel of the battlefield.” After the war she coordinated a national effort to locate soldiers who were missing in action. 

Also at that time, she was responsible for establishing the first National Cemetery at Arlington, where she personally marked twelve thousand graves. 

 Barton threw herself into relief work in Europe and was impressed with the International Red Cross. Although not permitted to work with the International Red Cross because she was a woman, she volunteered as an independent relief worker in Strasbourg, France, during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). She was restricted to only providing aid to civilians because the German government would not permit her to assist its soldiers. 

 On May 21, 1881, many dignitaries (including Frederick Douglass) joined Barton at her own modest residence in Washington, D.C. to develop the American Association of the Red Cross, which later became the American Red Cross. Created to serve America in peace and in war, during times of disaster and national calamity, Barton’s organization took its service beyond that of the International Red Cross Movement by adding disaster relief to battlefield assistance. She served as the organization’s volunteer president until 1904. Today, the organization’s actions, guided by its dedication to humanity and a desire to promote mutual understanding, friendship,cooperation, and lasting peace amongst all peoples, follow these fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.  Barton also lobbied tirelessly for the United States ratification of the Geneva Convention, also known as the Treaty of Geneva. On March 1, 1882, President Chester A. Arthur signed the treaty. The Senate ratified it on March 16, 1882. The United States was the 32nd nation to sign the document, agreeing to protect the wounded during wartime. 

http://www.biography.com/people/clara-barton-9200960
https://www.deomi.org/downloadableFiles/WHM_2001.pdf

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Law on Domestic Violence Prevention and Control of Vietnam.

This Law regulates the prevention and control of domestic violence, protecting and assisting the victims of domestic violence; the responsibilities of individuals, families, organizations, institutions in domestic violence prevention and control and dealing with the breach of the Law on Domestic Violence Prevention and Cotrol.

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---ilo_aids/documents/legaldocument/wcms_177877.pdf

The  specific stipulations and guidance on implementing this Law:  http://www.moj.gov.vn/vbpq/en/lists/vn%20bn%20php%20lut/view_detail.aspx?itemid=10654

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