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September 23, 2016

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Gambia’s First Female Presidential Candidate Calls on Jammeh ‘to go’

Gambia’s first-ever female presidential candidate recently said it was time for President Yahya Jammeh “to go”, promising to rejoin the Commonwealth community and set the country on a path to prosperity. Isatou Touray, a development expert and campaigner against female genital mutilation, railed against the “lavish” lifestyle she said Jammeh enjoyed while ruling one of Africa’s poorest nations, and accused him of sowing division between communities. Jammeh is expected to win a fifth-term at the helm of the poor West African nation in the December election. “(Jammeh’s) style is not only flamboyant and lavish, but gross,” Touray told a press conference announcing her candidacy. “It is time for him to go.” She said she would stand as an independent candidate in the polls, and would “steer the Gambia towards a direction that will enable it to respond to the needs and aspirations of the people”, by focusing on welcoming back…

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India: Supreme Court Orders Blocking of Online Pre-natal Gender Testing Adverts

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft will block online ads for gender determination tools in India, following an order by the country’s top court. India’s health ministry told the Supreme Court that the companies had agreed to block 22 key-words relating to pre-natal gender testing. The court had earlier told the companies to adhere to India’s laws or “cease operations” in the country. India has one of the most unbalanced gender ratios in the world. In 1961, there were 976 girls for every 1,000 boys under the age of seven. According to the latest census figures released in 2011, that figure had dropped to 914. The issue prompted India to ban pre-natal sex determination via ultrasound scans in 1994, but many parents still have them done illegally. India outrage over ‘gender test’ remark The petition filed by Sabu George alleged that advertisements and information on pre-natal gender tests and clinics were…

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UN-Women Launches Report Spotlighting Gender Equality in Global Universities

On the sidelines of the 71st United Nations General Assembly, UN Women have recently unveiled a report by 10 global universities that lays out their concrete commitments and charts their progress towards achieving gender parity. The first-ever “HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 University Parity Report” highlights three important imbalances that universities can address: the ratio of men to women represented in university faculty and senior administrative positions; the fields of study selected by young women versus young men; and the number of female students at universities compared with their equal access to academic and professional career tracks. “Each generation of university students that emerges from these formative years of education is a new chance for the world to make progress,” said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, in a press release. “Now that our IMPACT Champions are leading such well-targeted initiatives to tackle current barriers to gender equality,…

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Gaza holds First International Seminar on Gender-based Violence

UN Women, with support of the Government of Japan, recently opened the first international seminar on “Gender-Based Violence in the humanitarian context of the Gaza Strip”. For the first time in Gaza, more than 250 national and international representatives from civil society, humanitarian, development organisations and donors are convening for 2 days to discuss prevention and response to gender-based violence (GBV) in the Gaza Strip. In the presence of Dr. Haifa Al Agha, Minister of Women’s Affairs, Dr. Dubravka Šimonovic, Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, and Mr. Hiroyuki Kajita, First Secretary/ Head of Economic Cooperation – Representative Office of Japan to the Palestinian Authority, the seminar opened with a strong reminder of the responsibility of all actors towards protecting the life and rights of Palestinian women and girls and the need to speed-up progress. “The Seminar comes at a right time” said Dr. Haifa Al Agha in its…

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Demand for Inquiry into Police Abuse of Women May Embroil Mexico’s President

By: Azam Ahmed International human rights officials are demanding an investigation into the brutal sexual assaults of 11 Mexican women during protests a decade ago — an inquiry that would take aim at President Enrique Peña Nieto, who was the governor in charge at the time of the attacks. The demand is part of a multiyear examination by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights into abuses during a 2006 crackdown ordered by Mr. Peña Nieto on San Salvador Atenco, a town in Mexico State where demonstrators had taken over the central square. During the operations, which left two dead, more than 40 women were violently detained by the police, packed onto buses and sent to jail several hours away. The case was brought by 11 women to the international commission, which found that the police tortured them sexually. The women — a mix of merchants, students and activists —…

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