Argentina: Women face obstacles in access to health care
(Buenos Aires) August 10, 2010 -- Thousands of women and girls in Argentina suffer needlessly every year because of negligent or abusive reproductive health care, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
The 53-page report, "Illusions of Care: Lack of Accountability for Reproductive Rights in Argentina," documents the many obstacles women and girls face in getting the reproductive health care services to which they are entitled, such as contraception, voluntary sterilization procedures, and abortion after rape. The most common barriers to care include long delays in providing services, unnecessary referrals to other clinics, demands for spousal permission contrary to law, financial barriers, and in some cases outright denial of care.
As a direct result of these barriers, women and girls in Argentina often cannot make independent decisions about their health, and many face unwanted or unhealthy pregnancies as a result. Forty percent of pregnancies in Argentina end in abortions, which are often unsafe. Unsafe abortion has been the leading cause of maternal mortality in the country for decades.
Human Rights Watch's report also criticizes Argentina's reproductive health policies for ignoring key constituencies such as women and girls with disabilities.
The Argentine government has recently taken steps to remedy some of the issues highlighted in "Illusions of Care," though some of the policy changes were later retracted. In May, the National Health Ministry created a free call-in number to answer questions about where to find reproductive health care services and register complaints. In July, the ministry announced its intention to make sure that abortions are carried out for women and girls whose lives or health are threatened by their pregnancies, or who have been raped. The day after the announcement, however, the government retracted its statements, noting that it did not intend to guarantee access after all.
The recruitment consultant Egon Zehander reports that the proportion of women members of the Board rooms of FTSE 100 companies has now risen – from 12.2% to 12.6%!
Best news here is that the Combined Code on Corporate Governance has been updated and listed companies have to show ‘due regard for the benefits of diversification on the Board, including gender’ (Independent 16/7).
Board Member Maria Hagberg has sent us the following article from the Board of the Network Against Honour- Related Violence, Sweden
Speaking with a split tongue…
Sweden is often looked upon as the most secular and equal state in the world, but are we going to lose that position?
The time has come for the two biggest parties in Sweden to declare their opinions regarding political Islam. Recently, the Conservative Party added a politician at the fifth place in their list for the region of Västra Götaland, going for Parliament. This man is a well known Islamist and he promotes Sharia laws including polygamy and political Islam. His name is Abdirizak Waberi.
Carl Bildt, our Foreign Minister and a member of the Conservative Party, recently accepted big trade agreements with the theocratic dictatorship of Iran. At the same time there is an absence of political statements concerning , for example, the death penalty of the mother of two children Sakine Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced for infidelity in Iran where they follow conservative sexual moralist rules, only for women, following the Sharia laws.
Within the Social Democrats the Christian Brotherhood movement has grown stronger and in the last election campaign (2006) it had a strong relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden, an association that is now forbidden in, for example, Egypt because of its aggressive promotion of political Islam.
Today the strength of the connection is unclear but obvious are the facts that the Christan Brotherhoodship movement promote Ship to Gaza without questioning political Islam in the shape of Hamas and Hizbollah. In the Palestinian territories “issues” such as homosexuality are “non-issues” meaning that you do not even mention them, and article 340 that excuses honour killing still exists. Regarding these issues there is an obvious lack of statements from both the government as well as the left/green opposition in Sweden.
Now we have a PRIDE festival going on, and the chair of RFSL (National LGTBI association) Ulrika Westerlund proudly declares that RFSL will be more political from now on. At the same time they have denied help to “honour”- threatened LGTBI youth and they also have denied the connection between conservative sexual moral and religious fundamentalism and a political religious approach. Ulrika Westerlund complains about the fact that Iraqi homosexuals are denied asylum in Sweden, but this is declared without questioning their own opinions regarding these issues which make this attitude possible and in fact facilitate it! The fact that young homosexuals are murdered in the streets of Bagdad has to do with the fact that homosexuality is a “non-issue” in Iraq as well as in Iran where they are sentenced to death by hanging.
The Network Against Honour- Related Violence demands a political declaration from the political parties before the elections to Parliament about their views and opinions about religion used as a political ideology and for political purposes.
Amnesty International UK recently issued an appeal for the support of its Manifesto for Motherhood.
Worldwide, one woman a minute dies in pregnancy and at least 80% of these deaths are preventable, says Amnesty.
Amnesty’s manifesto calls for maternal and child health to be at the heart of all health systems and for sexual reproductive rights to be made a reality for women and girls.
Where these measures are introduced, they work. In 1996 the Nepalese government improved access for women to information and services – and maternal mortality rates came down by 58% in the next 12 years.
Amnesty, with a coalition of other organisations, is petitioning national governments to adopt its Manifesto, and invited other organisations to support the petition.
I endorsed the petition on behalf of WWAFE.
Source: Amnesty International UK (
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8.03.10
No doubt most women think about their appearance, and there’s no doubt that male and female political candidates are observed on this count. But women are criticised much more than men and are more often matched against the stereotypes highlighted in advertising, women’s magazines and the newspapers.
On International Women’s Day, women Liberal Democrats launched their Campaign for Body Confidence. They ran a debate with a panel of distinguished speakers including Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue and Convener of the AnyBody campaign.
The debate was attended by prominent figures from the fashion industry and the media, as well as leading activists and campaigners, from the Girl Guiding UK, the eating disorder charity B-EAT, YMCA Central and the Centre for Appearance Research at UWE, to name but a few. Evan Harris MP also was also in attendance.
Dr Helga Dittmar drew attention to the often incredibly distorted images of bodies to which people are subjected. She outlined scientific evidence showing that exposure to such images causes body dissatisfaction and low self-esteem in children.
Laurie Penny made a particularly impassioned contribution on the way in which unobtainable ideals are created.
Caryn Franklyn argues that the fashion industry increasingly uses models of only a very limited range of ages and sizes.
Susie Orbach lambasted the diet industry for constantly bombarding people with the messages encouraging them to lose weight.
New mothers should be given help to maintain healthy attitudes to their bodies which they could pass on to their children. Dr. Linda Papadopoulos, author of a recent Home Office review on the sexualisation of children highlighted the fact that worrying trends towards dissatisfaction with our bodies are the result of pressure from many different directions.
We must empower children by giving media literacy lesson in schools, which include a component about body image. Changing the way society thinks about bodily beauty is vital to the public health of this country. Source: Lib Dem News 12.03.10
Kayan, which means 'Being', is a group of feminists who aim to advance the status of Arab women in Israel.
They believe that women are prevented from advancing into leadership positions due to a low median level of education, traditional gender roles, and sole responsibility for the home.
Israel has 15 independent religious court systems covering family law. Women are still subject to gender discrimination in issues such as custody, alimony and separation of property. Most legal information is published only in Hebrew, which is difficult to understand for many Arab women. Because only one in five Arab women is employed, so most have no financial resources of their own, no pensions, no insurance or savings.
Kayan supports leaders of grassroots women's initiatives from all parts of Israel. During their community organising courses, women develop leadership capacities. The legal department promotes Arab women's rights through legal aid, education and advocacy. They advocate for the realization of laws promoting gender equality and speaks out against crimes such as so-called 'honour crimes' and sexual harrassment. And through workshops, seminars, Arabic guides and one-to-one counseling, Kayan brings information about financial matters and social rights directly to the women who need it most.
"Friends of a Free Iran" intergroup in the European Parliament supports the nationwide uprising where people are chanting "Down with Khamenei, down with the dictator", " Khamenei is a murderer - his rule is illegitimate", "This is the month of blood - Khamenei will be overthrown".
Friends of a Free Iran intergroup in the European Parliament calls on the European Union and the USA to halt political and economic ties with the murderers of the Iranian people. The West must end the failed
policy of appeasing the religious fascists ruling Iran and immediately remove the obstacles they have placed in the way of the popular resistance at the behest of the Iranian regime.
Negotiations and trade with, and appeasement of the medieval regime are futile and will only embolden the mullahs in their suppression and killing of the Iranian people.
Friends of a Free Iran intergroup in the European Parliament (FoFI)
Chair: Struan Stevenson,MEP (ECR)
Women in Yemen face systemic discrimination and endemic violence with devastating consequences for their lives, Amnesty International said in a campaign report on Wednesday.
Their rights are routinely violated because Yemeni laws as well as tribal and customary practices treat them as second-class citizens.
Women are not free to marry who they want and some are forced to marry when they are children, sometimes as young as eight.
Once married, a woman must obey her husband and obtain his permission just to leave the house.
Women are valued as half the worth of men when they testify in court or when their families are compensated if they are murdered.
They are also denied treatment when it comes to inheritance and are often denied it completely.
Women are dealt with more harshly than men when accused of ‘immoral’ acts, and men are treated leniently when they murder female relatives in ‘honour killings’.
Such discriminatory laws and practices encourage and facilitate violence against women, which is rife in the home and in society at large.
Despite this, recent years have seen some positive developments for women’s rights, such as the creation of the quasi-governmental National Women’s Committee (NWC) in 1996 and the appointment in 2001 of a minister of state for human rights, which was upgraded to ministerial level in 2003.
The government has also engaged with intergovernmental bodies and reported to the UN committee overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of All Form of Discrimination against Women, to which Yemen is a party.
However, other reforms are urgently needed. Amnesty International is calling for an end of discriminatory laws and violence against women.
Amnesty International Press Release
25 November 2009
(Washington DC) – Forty human rights and advocacy groups have sent a letter to U.S Secretary of State Hilary Clinton calling for restoration of sexual and gender-based violence programming as a priority issue for U.S. policy on Sudan.
The expulsion of 16 relief organisations took place after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges on March 4, 2009. Many of the expelled groups were doing work related to the protection and treatment of rape survivors, including emergency assistance for injuries, documentation of injuries, access to HIV/AIDS prophylactic treatment, and pregnancy testing, as well as psychological and social support. These programs were severed after the expulsion, and have yet to be restored.
Secretary Clinton introduced the Obama administration’s Sudan policy review on October 19, 2009. The review did not directly address care of victims of sexual and gender-based violence despite the scale of sexual violence during the conflict, and the continued danger of attacks both within and around UNHCR camps in Darfur and eastern Chad.
The ongoing danger of rape and sexual violence facing women and girls in Darfur and Eastern Chad necessitates both protection and treatment services for the displaced Darfuri populations. A recent report by Cambridge-based Physicians for Human Rights, Nowhere to Turn: Failure to Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women, found that as many rapes were reported at the Farchana refugee camp in Eastern Chad, as were reported from attacks in Darfur.
Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights Watch, added, “In Darfur’s pervasive climate of impunity, women and girls havelittle or no hope of redress for these crimes”.
The Central America Women’s Network (CAWN) and the Honduran Women’s Studies Centre (CEMH) spoke out against woman-killing in Mexico and Central America at three events on the 25th – 27th November:
Femicide – a hate crime against women Violence against women is one of the most serious problems confronting Latin America today. Every day, somewhere in the region, hundreds of women and girls are beaten, raped or sexually assaulted, tortured, mutilated or subjected to other physical or mental cruelty.
At the furthest extreme of violence is the crime known as femicide or feminicide (femicidio or feminicidio in Spanish). Femicide first hit the international headlines in the 1990s when the mutilated bodies of raped and murdered women began to be discovered on waste ground outside the town of Ciudad Juárez, on the Mexico–US border. Since then, these violent woman-killings have spread throughout Mexico and Central America like a forest fire. The figures tell a shocking story:
In Honduras:
A femicide occurs every 48 hours.
In Guatemala: The number of femicides recorded rises every year.
437 women were murdered in 2008 alone, 473 up to 15 October 2009.
In Mexico: Between January 2007 and July 2008 1,014 femicides were registered.
42% of these crimes were committed by a person known to the victim
The State response – turning a blind eye?
Yet, on the whole, the region’s governments do not pursue or punish this crime. They do not even enforce their own legislation. Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala have all passed laws making violence against women and femicide a crime, yet they are still failing to guarantee women’s safety or to create an environment in which women can live without the daily threat of violence.
Adequate legislation is of course a step in the right direction, but without enforcement it is meaningless. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported in 2006 that, despite the gravity of the situation, States have yet to fulfil their obligation of due diligence in the prevention, investigation, legal prosecution, sanction and reparation of femicide/feminicide.
In the long term, only real social and cultural change will end the long and terrible history of discrimination and violence against women and girls just because they are female.
For more information visit www.cawn.org.
[CAWN press release, 20th November 2009]
An Amnesty International Press release published on 24 November 2009 documents the physical, psychological and sexual abuse women face in the family in Tajikistan.
"Women in Tajikistan are beaten, abused, and raped in the family but the authorities tend to reflect the societal attitude of blaming the woman for domestic violence. They see their primary role as mediator, to preserve the family rather than protect the woman and to safeguard their rights," said Andrea Strasser-Camagni, Amnesty International's expert on Tajikistan.
"The traditional Tajik family values, reinforced after the break-up of the Soviet Union, impose further discrimination on women by narrowing their identity to that of wife and mother, or pushing them into the lowest paid sector of the job market."
Violence against women, and especially in the family, is widespread in Tajikistan. One-third to one-half of women have regularly been subjected to physical, psychological or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or their in-laws.
"Women are being treated as servants or as the in-laws' family property. They have no one to turn to as the policy of the authorities is to urge reconciliation which de facto reinforces their position of inferiority. This experience of violence and humiliation in the family makes many women to turn to suicide," Andrea Strasser-Camagni said.
Education is a key factor in developing girls' empowerment and providing an escape route from violence and poverty. However, girls drop out early from schools; instead, they enter into early and often unregistered or polygamous marriages, all of which increase their dependency on their husbands.
Although Tajikistan has ratified relevant international human rights treaties, it is falling short of its international obligation to protect and fulfil women's rights.
