IWDA partner agency fem’LINKPACIFIC report from the ground in post-cyclone Fiji
Fiji are currently in a state of natural disaster after a cyclone tore through the northern and eastern parts earlier this week, leaving villages in disarray and thousands without shelter.
I have been following “Tomas” away from Fiji, but connected thanks to “new technology” with members of our rural women’s media network. Well as connected as we could be until power outages especially in Vanua Levu, amongst other things, caused disruptions to our communication.
Through fem’LINKPACIFIC’s network’s experiences dating back to the floods in Labasa in 2004, we have become increasingly aware of the innovation of women in disaster preparedness and responses. We have also been aware of not only the impact and disruptions to lives and livelihoods of families, and communities, but also that as a result of the regular climatic battering these communities are experiencing, women and their families not only experience physical damage, but also the emotional trauma of disruptions and displacements.
I am aware that the disaster rehabilitation tends to be a very male dominated process, and would be pleasantly surprised to know if the Department of Women is actually actively engaged in the current series of meetings. It is in fact a global “phenomenon” that gender issues are sidelined in disaster contexts, however, this is not the case in other crisis situations.
In 2000, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1325 (1325), which “stress[es] the importance of [women's] equal participation and full involvement in all efforts for the maintenance and promotion of peace and security” (10) and “[r]ecogniz[es] the urgent need to mainstream a gender perspective into peacekeeping operation.”
The resolution calls for increased representation of women at all decision-making levels in conflict prevention, management, and resolution; attention to the specific protection of the needs of women in “disaster zones” as well as in the ensuing processes, including design, management and review of post-disaster strategies.
Through the resolution, women must be integrated in reconstruction efforts, and local women’s initiatives in maintaining peace and human security must be supported by the U.N. and government officials. In recent times, some aid groups have drawn on 1325 in their calls for a gendered perspective in disaster relief and what is needed now in Fiji is for this connection to not only be articulated, but put into practice.
I am sure the expertise available through our organisation’s rural women’s media network on UNSCR 1325, as well as the local expertise available through women’s civil society, would enable women who have experienced the series of floods, cyclones, hurricanes etc to ensure gender-mainstreaming and female participation in disaster prevention and rehabilitation work.
Congratulations to Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls from fem’LINKPACIFIC!
IWDA is proud to say that Sharon Bhagwan-Rolls, Producer-Director of IWDA partner organisation fem’LINKPACIFIC, has recently been chosen to sit on the UN Expert Panel on the Role of Women in Peace and Security.
Congratulations Sharon! You are an extraordinary activist and voice for not only the women of the Pacific, but for women around the world, and we are delighted that your unwavering commitment to women, peace and security has been recognised in such an environment.
About the new civil society group
The United Nations has invited a newly established group of independent experts to advise on ways to better protect women in conflict situations, and to ensure that their voices are heard in peace processes and that they are included in post-conflict reconstruction and governance structures.
The establishment of the group of experts from civil society comes as the landmark Security Council resolution 1325 on the role of women in peace and security marks its tenth anniversary in 2010.
The expert group will advise a UN High-Level Steering Committee set up by Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro, which is tasked with enhancing the UN system’s efforts to implement the resolution.
Our amazing partners at KWO have released a groundbreaking new report this month called ‘Walking Amongst Sharp Knives: The unsung courage of Karen women village chiefs in conflict areas of Eastern Burma’. The report highlights previously unreported abuses taking place against ethnic Karen women in Burma and is a shocking expose of how women village heads are being targeted for systematic abuse by the military junta.
“This report provides poignant insight into the challenges of women assuming leadership in a patriarchal and militarised society. The KWO hopes that this report will help bring recognition of these brave women for their sacrifices not only at the front line of abuses by Burma’s military dictatorship, but at the forefront of the struggle for gender equality in Burma” (KWO).
Renae Davies – IWDA Program Manager – Thai-Burma Border
The practice of the Burmese Army to execute village heads has led to traditional Karen culture being turned upside-down, with women now being appointed village chiefs as they are seen as less likely to be killed. However, this change has put women in the frontline of human rights abuses. These abuses constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The abuses experienced or witnessed by the women chiefs include:
Crucifixions
People burnt alive
Rape, including gang rape
Many forms of torture, including beatings and water torture
People buried up to their heads in earth and beaten to death
Arbitrary executions
Beheadings
Slave labour
The women chiefs have been deliberately targeted for gender-based violence, including gang-rape. Pregnant and nursing women chiefs have been subjected to forced labour and gruelling interrogation.
Yet despite these abuses the report also reveals the bravery and personal sacrifice of women in challenging injustice and defending their people.
“How can any woman feel safe under the Burma Army when even women village heads are openly targeted for abuse?” said Blooming Night Zan KWO Joint Secretary 1 of KWO.
The Karen Women Organization is calling on the members of the United Nations Security Council to support the establishment of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry into war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed by the Burmese military dictatorship.
“These women chiefs are unsung heroes,” said Blooming Night Zan “They are placing themselves not only at the front line of abuses by the Burma Army, but also at the forefront of the struggle for gender equality in Burma.”
The KWO is urgently calling for the Thai government to continue to provide protection to refugees fleeing human rights abuses in Burma. The Thai Army is currently seeking to repatriate over 3,000 Karen refugees in Tak province.
View Walking Amongst Sharp Knives
WLB to give testimonials at International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma
IWDA stand in solidarity with the women of Burma and extend our support and best wishes to our partner organisation, the Women’s League of Burma, who will give testimonials at the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma, in New York on the 2nd of March 2010.
The Tribunal provides a powerful spotlight on the oppression of women of Burma in order to support the development of a just, democratic and peaceful Burma.
A women-directed and women-centered justice and advocacy initiative, the Tribunal is led by the Nobel Women’s Initiative. Judges will hear testimony from several women of Burma who will share their personal stories of surviving human rights violations and crimes under military rule in Burma. Their voices, and the findings and recommendations of the judges, will be directed to the Burmese regime and the international community.
Launched in 2006, the Nobel Women’s Initiative is a strategic vehicle of the women Nobel Peace Prize Laureates to leverage the visibility and prestige of the prize to promote, spotlight and amplify the work of women’s rights activists, researchers, and organisations worldwide addressing the root causes of violence.
Visit http://www.nobelwomensinitiative.org/
Since 1999, the Women’s League of Burma, an umbrella organisation comprising thirteen women’s organisations of twelve different ethnic backgrounds from Burma, has worked for the advancement of the status of women towards a peaceful and just society.
Visit http://www.womenofburma.org/
Newsletter from Cambodia
Greetings! I would like to introduce myself, Ann Wigglesworth, and I’m delighted to have now returned to IWDA as Programs Team Leader, my second time working for the organisation.
In 1996 I travelled to Cambodia to work with the IWDA Cambodia office (now Banteay Srei). At that time we were planning the implementation of an AusAID funded project ‘Food for Change’, a project including ‘Cow Banks’ and agriculture training that was set up to respond to the dire situation of the large numbers of traumatised widows in the aftermath of Khmer Rouge atrocities and ‘killing fields’. According to Thavy, one of our first Cambodian co-coordinators, at the time ‘people were only thinking of how to fill their stomachs’. But the cows became much more than an economic asset, contributing to the healing process for widows by becoming a part of their family. They symbolised hope and renewal.
In the field of international development, it is all too rare to have the chance to revisit communities to observe project impact over the long term. It has thus been an exciting opportunity to return last month to Cambodia and the IWDA supported Banteay Srei projects after 15 years.
In 1996, IWDA Cambodia was a two woman office. Today Banteay Srei is operating at a national level with a strong working relationship with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. In Cambodia Banteay Srei has developed a reputation for having a particularly effective model of community development due to its intensive work in the villages and the integration of official structures in their work. Banteay Srei means ‘citadel of women’ and it was named after a famous and exquisitely carved temple not far from Angkor Wat.
In Samrong village, Siem Reap Province, Ean Pish explained that at the time the project activities started in 1992 there was no possibility that a woman could be chosen as a leader. Now she has been elected as Deputy Village Chief. The work of Banteay Srei has enabled women such as her to take a role in the community and become respected. The village committee now runs the project activities including a cow bank, a rice cooperative, chicken raising, organic vegetable growing and a savings and credit program.
In 1995, Banteay Srei started work in Roung Ampil village in Battambang Province. At that time 18 cows were provided to start the Cow Bank. Now 253 families, previously amongst the poorest, have been beneficiaries of the Cow Bank. Thut Ken and her husband Phaem Sorn describe themselves as ‘a little bit prosperous’ since receiving a cow in 2004. The have 7 children (after 14 pregnancies), and while their tiny house displays their poverty, they now have a cow and two calves, which will bring income to the family. They can also benefit from the Rice Bank. Rice is bought at a low price after the harvest, and sold back to the poor families 6-9 months later at a price which is considerably lower that the seasonal market price, but still allowing a small profit to ensure the Bank is sustainable.
Such Touch in Leang Dai village in Siem Reap Province has had her cow since 1995. She now has four cows of three different generations. She pairs her cow with that of a neighbour to plough their fields. Previously they had to hire cows from rich villagers for ploughing. Such Touch uses the manure from the cows to make compost to grow beans and corn. She sells beans in the market, earning over $25 a harvest. A bumper corn harvest a few years ago enabled her to buy a new piece of land for $300 to extend her plot. She is now no longer one of Leang Dai’s poorest.
In 2010, Banteay Srei is still working in many of the same villages, but has extended the range of activities. IWDA, with a grant from AusAID over the past 3 years, supported a project to combat violence against women. Two people, one man and one woman, are trained to reduce domestic violence in each community through counseling, community education and advocacy. In all villages we visited, the incidence of violence against women has reduced dramatically since they started work.
The cow banks, rice banks, pig and chicken raising, vegetable gardening and credit programs still continue, but now these are run by the village themselves, coordinated by a Community Faciliator (CF) elected by the village. Banteay Srei is now planning to phase out completely from many of these villages to concentrate its efforts in new communities. It is really exciting to see how Banteay Srei’s work is truly sustainable and is clearly reducing poverty as well as strengthening the role of women in decision making at family, village and Commune, and Provincial levels. In this 20th year of partnership with Banteay Srei and in IWDA’s 25th year, we are proud to have catalysed a lasting change in so many Cambodian communities.
IWDA would like to congratulate partner organisation the Palaung Women’s Organisation (PWO) on their groundbreaking report “Poisoned Hills: Surging Opium Cultivation under Government Control in Burma” which was released yesterday.
The research reveals that opium cultivation, and addiction, in Burma’s northern Shan State has been increasing rapidly over the last three years in areas under the control of the ruling military government.
PWO’s findings highlight the structural issues underlying the drug problem in Burma and follow a 2006 report ‘Poisoned Flowers’ which examined the devastating impacts of spiralling drug addiction on women in Palaung areas of Burma.
In the introduction to their recent report, PWO state
“we have been motivated in this research by the suffering of women in our communities whose lives continue to be devastated by the addiction of their husbands, sons and fathers. But we know that the drugs being grown in our areas are being exported far and wide…where they are inflicting the same suffering. We hope that the spotlight we can shine on our isolated area will better inform efforts of all stakeholders to address the drug scourge in Burma that is affecting communities both at home and beyond our borders.”
How do we better address gender in Pacific water and sanitation initiatives? Vanuatu
Research project: Making the invisible visible – Vanuatu case study report
The research project ‘Making the invisible visible’ explores the strategies, steps and activities that are working to promote gender equity in, and through, water and sanitation program in the Pacific. The Institute for Sustainable Futures (ISF) and the International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) are currently undertaking research funded by AusAID to investigate gender outcomes in water and sanitation initiatives in the Pacific with partner NGOs.
The study has focused on two Pacific case studies that incorporate gender strategies and support community decision making processes: World Vision’s Participatory Hygiene and Sanitation Transformation (PHAST) initiatives in rural Vanuatu and Live and Learn’s water governance and sustainable communities’ projects in Fiji.
The intention is for the research to build on existing strengths and be a learning process for all involved. This report presents the research methods and findings of the Vanuatu case study. Gender equality outcomes identified by participants in Vanuatu communities are summarised below. These were the outcomes on which women and men placed particular value and importance.
Positive changes in gender relations at the family and/or household level
Reduction in violence at the household level
Positive changes in gender relations at the community level
Women’s inclusion in decision making processes in their community
Women’s labour in collecting water reduced and their practical need for water, hygiene and sanitation facilities satisfied
The next stage will be the development of guidance material for NGO practitioners in March in Vanuatu.
A newly formed leadership group for young Solomon Island women between the ages of 15-29 was formed early 2009.
The group is named Girls 4 Change and undertakes a variety of activities, events, awareness campaigns and community education.
To watch an interview with Girls 4 Change, please see One Television.
Please note, IWDA does not necessarily endorse all the information contained in the newsletter, it is provided as an intended source of reference.
International Women’s Development Agency (IWDA) is committed to collaborating with project partners and stakeholders to promote and support dialogue in relation to women, gender and development. As part of our ongoing strategy to advocate for best practice in the sector, we are pleased to bring you E-Gender – a mechanism for Australian and international readers to share information on their gender and development work, both nationally and internationally, as well as sharing international resources and items of interest.
Thank you for your feedback to date, and we encourage your ongoing input in this initiative. IWDA is keen to feature information about resources, events and opportunities in Australia and invites you to contribute. Please send information to be included to egender-items@iwda.org.au
I have been following “Tomas” away from Fiji, but connected thanks to “new technology” with members of our rural women’s media network. Well as connected as we could be until power outages especially in Vanua Levu, amongst other things, caused disruptions to our communication.
Download the Vanuatu case study
