Congratulation Yvonne on having your article published in the International Psychology Bulletin entitled ‘Gender as an Obstacle to Good Health: Health Related Human Rights Violations and the Girl Child’ Yvonne Rafferty, Ph.D. Pace University. ”Health Challenges Confronting Girls. The double burden of being both female and young consigns millions of girls to the edges of humanity where their safety is rebuffed, their human rights are habitually ignored, and the challenges they encounter accessing the highest attainable standard of health are enormous (Grover, 2011; Grown, Gupta, & Pande, 2005; Murphy, 2003; Rosemann, Vargova, & Webhofer, 2011; United Nations Fund for Women [UNIFEM], 2011). As a result of gender stereotypes, social norms, and widespread discriminatory attitudes and behaviors, girls are all too often deprived of the same fundamental opportunities as boys; they are also less likely than their male peers to have decision-making control over their own lives and bodies; and even vital decisions affecting them are regularly made by their fathers, brothers, and husbands (Levine, Lloyd, Greene, & Grown, 2009; UNICEF, 2010a, 2010b). In addition, access to preventive and curative interventions is problematic, especially for girls who are living in poverty (UNICEF, 2011a; Victoria et al., 2003).” See pages 15 to 24 for the full article.
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Girls as leaders for future youth revolutions to be trained in downtown Manhattan Sunday
Girls’ rights on center stage in advocacy workshop at Pace University for young women attending upcoming 55th annual meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women
New York, NY, February 17, 2011: Girl advocates for change across the world are being trained in New York City this coming Sunday.
Their “boot camp,” conducted by the Working Group on Girls (WGG) at Pace University’s downtown Manhattan campus, will orient them to advocacy techniques, and to topical issues like increasing women’s participation in science and technology and discrimination and violence against girl children.
Over 275 girls and young women between the ages of 16 and 25 from nearly 20 countries will be present, having come to New York to participate in next week’s meetings of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). In the short run, Sunday’s training sessions are to orient and prepare them for those meetings; the longer run tactic is to “strategize for gender equality.”
The participants represent almost 45 non-governmental organizations ranging from the Plan International to Girls Learn International and Girl Scouts of the USA.
Around the world, youth-led rights advocacy efforts are gaining prominence and Sunday’s sessions, from 8 AM to 5 PM, will teach advocacy skills and introduce key CSW themes, presented by prominent girls’ rights advocates.
Media are invited to cover the gathering, which will take place at Pace University’s 1 Pace Plaza building just east of City Hall. The diverse young faces should make a fine photo op. Media admission by press pass. If possible, please reply before coming to the contacts below.
“Meaningful dialogue”
The event will provide a chance to meet and take the measure of several powerful global advocates.
Ms. Michelle Bachelet
At the opening session, at 10 AM, Michelle Bachelet, the President of Chile from 2006 to 2010, will deliver the keynote address. She is now Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women).
At 3:45 PM will come an address by Laymah Roberta Gbowee, Executive Director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa. Gbowee has extensive experience in advocating for gender equality, and has developed and lead workshops on such tools as trauma counseling, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding.
Ms. Laymah Roberta Gbowee
Speeches will be interspersed by workshop sessions for participants. Organizers say the event is designed to help girls from around the world advocate for their own rights and engage in meaningful dialogue on gender equality.
The event, titled “Girls Stand Up,” is a partnership of the Pace University department of Women and Gender Studies and the Working Group on Girls (WGG), a 17-year-old coalition of nongovernmental organizations concerned with women’s issues. The WGG in turn is part of a wider coalition, the NGO Committee on UNICEF.
“The event provides a safe space for girls to connect with one another, share their experiences, and strategize for gender equality,” said Emily Bent, a member of WGG and a PhD candidate at National University of Ireland, Galway.
She added “We believe that girls’ voices, concerns, and ideas need to be heard at all levels of society; and we hope that this event brings visibility to girls’ rights and political agency.”
Orientation Day presentations will focus on the theme for this CSW 55, “Access and participation of women and girls to education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work.” Training also will involve a review of progress on last year’s theme, “The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child.”
Next week’s sessions of the Commission on the Status of Women will be the 55th.
The Working Group on Girls (WGG) and its International Network for Girls (INfG) are dedicated to promoting the rights of girls in all areas and stages of their lives, advancing the rights and status of girls, and assisting them to develop their full potential as women. For more information, visit www.girlsrights.org.
A global policy-making body, the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to gender equality and the advancement of women. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide. For more information visit: http://www.unwomen.org/how-we-work/csw/
For 103 years, Pace University has produced thinking professionals by providing high quality education for the professions on a firm base of liberal learning amid the advantages of the New York metropolitan area. A private university, Pace has campuses in New York City and Westchester County, New York, enrolling nearly 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in its Lubin School of Business, Dyson College of Arts and Sciences, School of Health Care Professions, School of Education, School of Law, and Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems. www.pace.edu
Contacts:
Rucha Kavathe, member, WGG, kavathe.rucha@gmail.com
Mary Ann Strain, Co-Chair, WGG, mstraincp@gmail.com
Related Articles
- Agenda for Girls Stand Up! (thewgg.wordpress.com)
- Action for Girls (thewgg.wordpress.com)
- SAVE THE DATE! Girls Stand Up! Orientation Day for CSW 55 (thewgg.wordpress.com)
- Ms. Michelle Bachelet to Deliver Keynote at “Girls Stand Up!” on February 20 in New York (thewgg.wordpress.com)
- NEWS RELEASE: Girls as Leaders for Future Youth Revolutions to be Trained in Downtown Manhattan Sunday
Agenda for Girls Stand Up!
GIRLS STAND UP!
CSW 55 – Youth Orientation
February 20, 2011 – Pace University
Agenda
8:00 am – 9:00 am
Registration
9:15 am
Welcome
- Stephen J. Friedman, President of Pace University
9:30 am
Orientation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)
10:00 am – 11:00 am
Keynote – Ms. Michelle Bachelet – Executive Director, UN Women
11:15 am – 12:15 pm
Workshop – Priority Theme
- Access and participation of women and girls in education, training, science and technology, including for the promotion of women’s equal access to full employment and decent work
12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Lunch
1:30 pm – 2:15 pm
Workshop – Review Theme
- The elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child
2:15 pm – 3:30 pm
Workshop – How to be an advocate at the United Nations
3:45 – 5:00 pm
Ms. Leymah Roberta Gbowee – Executive Director of the Women, Peace and Security Network – Africa and Youth Speakers
5:00 pm
Departure
Action for Girls
A new issue of Action for Girls, a publication of the Working Group on Girls of the NGO Committee on UNICEF (WGG) is available on-line.
Articles in this issue include:
Girls Stand Up!
Girls Stand Up! will be an exciting opportunity for girls who are attending the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in February. This orientation day, on February 20, at Pace University in Manhattan, is designed to introduce the girls to the workings of the CSW to give them the opportunity to become familiar with this year’s themes and to develop advocacy skills for doing the work of the CSW.
The keynote speaker will be Ms. Michelle Bachelet, the head of UN Women. After a series of workshops, the participants will also hear Leymah Roberta Gbowee. Ms Gbowee is the subject of the award-winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell.
Ensuring Safe Migration for Girls
The feminization of migration is being increasingly recognized and discussed. Many proposed strategies to help migrating women in vulnerable situations urge the adoption of a gender perspective in the creation of migration policies to protect women and to advance their status.
VGIF Promotes STEM
The Virginia Gildersleeve International Fund sponsors projects empowering girls in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in Fiji and India.
Doris Schapira, Founding Member of WGG, Retires
WGG Recommendations for CSW 55
Read the February 2011 issue of Action for Girls at: http://www.girlsrights.org/Newsletter.html
Related Articles
- Ms. Leymah Roberta Gbowee to Address “Girls Stand Up!” in New York February 20. (thewgg.wordpress.com)
- SAVE THE DATE! Girls Stand Up! Orientation Day for CSW 55 (thewgg.wordpress.com)
- Ms. Michelle Bachelet to Deliver Keynote at “Girls Stand Up!” on February 20 in New York (thewgg.wordpress.com)
Ms. Leymah Roberta Gbowee to Address “Girls Stand Up!” in New York February 20.
Leymah Roberta Gbowee, the Executive Director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa will address the participants of Girls Stand Up! Orientation for Girls and Young Women attending CSW 55 on the importance of girls’ rights for the human rights community.
Read more about Girls Stand Up!
In 2002, Leymah Gbowee was a social worker who organized the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. The peace movement started with local women praying and singing in a fish market. She organized the Christian and Muslim women of Monrovia, Liberia to pray for peace and to hold nonviolence protests. Dressed in white to symbolize peace, and numbering in the thousands, the women became a political force against violence and against their government.
Under Leymah Gbowee’s leadership, the women managed to force a meeting with President Charles Taylor and extract a promise from him to attend peace talks in Ghana. Gbowee then led a delegation of Liberian women to Ghana to continue to apply pressure on the warring factions during the peace process. They staged a silent protest outside the Presidential Palace, Accra, bringing about an agreement during the stalled peace talks.
Leymah Gbowee and Comfort Freeman, presidents of two different Lutheran churches, organized the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), and issued a statement of intent to the President: “In the past we were silent, but after being killed, raped, dehumanized, and infected with diseases, and watching our children and families destroyed, war has taught us that the future lies in saying NO to violence and YES to peace! We will not relent until peace prevails.”
Their movement brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003 and led to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in Liberia, the first African nation with a female president.
Leymah Gbowee is the central character in the 2008 documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The film has been used as an advocacy tool in post-conflict zones like Sudan and Zimbabwe, mobilizing African women to petition for peace and security.
Related Articles
- SAVE THE DATE! Girls Stand Up! Orientation Day for CSW 55 (thewgg.wordpress.com)