28th May: International Action Day for Women’s Health

May 28^th marked the International Action Day for Women’s Health; Women’s Health Victoria released a media statement to call for access to affordable contraception for Australian women to prevent unintended pregnancies.

This is in line with the campaign launched by Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights. WGNRR in a recent post points to the negative repercussions regarding the confiscation of the contraception Depro Provera in Sri Lanka. Illegal smuggling of the drug has placed women in increased danger of health complications; due to the drug not being kept in proper conditions and being administered by unqualified doctors.

XXXVI Congress: London 9th – 13th September

A message from Lyda Verstegen, IAW President:

“IAW members are invited by All Pakistan Women’s Association – UK to attend the 2013. Congress which will be held at the Great Hall in the historic precinct of Lincoln’s Inn.

Theme: SAFETY, CHOICES, VOICES : POST-2015 WOMEN’S
DEVELOPMENT GOALS

The IAW Board will meet on the 8th and 14th September.

It is a long time since the Alliance had its headquarters in London and many years since a Congress was held there so I hope that IAW Affiliate and Associate member organisations will be well represented and that many of our Individual Members will also be able to attend.”

Read more about the coming congress here

Local Events: Human Rights and Arts Film Festival

The sixth Human Rights and Arts Film Festival will open tomorrow at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne and run until 23^rd May 2013. IAW Melbourne has found some must sees:

Words of Witness – During the Egyptian uprising, social media was the weapon of choice for a new generation. In Words of Witness, filmmaker Mai Iskander (Grabage Dreams, HRAFF 2010) follows Heba Afify, a budding online journalist reporting from the frontline of the revolution.

– Taxi Sister and Red Wedding – Taxi Sister: There are 15,000 taxi drivers in Senegal; only 15 of them are women. Taxi Sister follows one of them, Red Wedding: In the remote place where 48-year-old Sochan Pen now grows rice, there was once a killing field. On the eve of her son’s wedding, Sochan breaks her silence about her own past when, at 16, she was forced to marry a soldier as part of the country’s genetic engineering.

 

and 30% (Women and Politics in Sierra Leone) as apart of the International Shorts

Be sure to check them out!!

In Focus: Nawal El Saadawi

Nawal El Saadawi. Photograph: Felix Clay

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we take a look at women in Egypt, it would be a crime not to highlight the astonishing Nawal El Saadaw; a self-empowered leading Egyptian feminist, sociologist, medical doctor and militant writer on Arab women’s problems. She is one of the most widely translated contemporary Egyptian writers, with her work available in twelve languages.

Having endured her own personal wounds from the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of six, she has spent the past 60 years campaigning for an end to the barbaric convention. She has written 47 books tackling problems faced by women in Egypt, including Women and Sex in 1972, for which she lost her job as director of public health for the Egyptian Ministry of Health. She is founder and president of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights and at the age of 80 she was among the 50,000 protesters who took to Tahrir Square in the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Her strength and courage to continue in the front line on the war against oppression is remarkably inspirational.

Have a look at an Interview with Nawal El Saadawi and Riz Khan’s interview – Mother of the revolution.

 

 

What’s the situation for women in Egypt?

Photo: The Guardian, Amr Nabil/AP

According to the Egypt Deputy Prime Minister, delivering the Egyptian country statement to the UN Commission on the Status of Women in New York in March, the Egyptian woman’s “heroism inspires the world”! Certainly they have voted increasingly in post-revolutionary Egypt and the account stresses they are “full fledged citizens”.

This is not a view that is shared by all; recent protests opposing the new constitution drafted by current president Mohamed Morsi and increased gang related sexual violence would suggest that Egypt has taken a giant step backward. According to The Guardian report ‘Muslim Brotherhood backlash against the UN declaration on womens rights’ by Patrick Kingsley the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most powerful political factions in Egypt, has also criticized the 2013 UN CSW draft Agreed Conclusions demanding global standards to prevent violence against women saying it would “contradict established principles of Islam, undermine Islamic ethics and destroy the family… [and] would lead to complete disintegration of society”.

Despite this we can share the official Egyptian view that the set up of a regional office for UN Women in Cairo is a positive step.