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Happenings

High-Wire Act Ahead for Trump’s New Women’s Rights Envoy

In the spring of 2018, Chinese diplomats strong-armed United Nations bureaucrats into blocking a prominent ethnic Uighur activist from entering U.N. headquarters on unsubstantiated charges of terrorism, but Kelley Eckels Currie wasn’t having it. Currie, then a senior appointee at the United Nations under U.S. President Donald Trump, tracked down the activist, Dolkun Isa, marched him to the U.N. entrance, and demanded he be allowed into the building for a conference on indigenous peoples. When U.N. security still barred his entry, Currie got Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations at the time, to take her case directly to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, who granted Isa a grounds pass for the day. “If Mr. Isa were in fact an actual terrorist … do you seriously think we would be inviting him into this country and giving him free rein to travel about?” she would later tell a gathering…

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Australia Refuses To Sign On To UN International Women’s Day Statement

The Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) has called out the Morrison government for failing to sign on to a United Nations International Women’s Day statement calling for better abortion access for women. The motion was proposed by Finland and Mexico and broadly called for greater accountability for human rights violations against women and girls. The statement proposed greater implementation of ‘policies and legislation that respect women and girls’ right to bodily autonomy’. This included guaranteed universal protection of women’s sexual and reproductive health, comprehensive sexuality education and access to safe abortion. The HRLC says Australia was not one of the 57 countries who signed on. The centre’s Legal Director Edwina MacDonald was at the session in Geneva. She’s called the decision ‘extremely disappointing’. No government can truly support gender equality and human rights without supporting access to safe abortions and reproductive rights. Australia was elected to a seat on the UN Human Rights Council in…

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International Women’s Day: Women Advancing in The South African National Defence Force

According to Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula the national defence force today has six female major generals and 46 women in the rank of brigadier general. Speaking at an International Women’s Day event at AFB Zwartkop, where she interacted with mainly junior female officers from the four services, the Minister highlighted the achievement of 7 SA Infantry Battalion’s Lieutenant Colonel Tiisetso Sekgobela. She is currently commander of the South African battalion of the Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) attached to the UN MONUSCO mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Mapisa-Nqakula said the advancement in terms of female flag and general officers in 22 years was good but more needed to be done to ensure “our armed forces are fully representative of the men and women of South Africa and reflect the demographics”. Twenty-two years ago there was a lone female major general in the SA National Defence Force…

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Asia News

New Generation of Women Step Up in Indonesia’s Looming Election

Indonesian voters have yet to directly elect a female president, but more high-profile women than ever are leading parties and running for office as the political ground shifts in the world’s third-largest democracy. Megawati Soekarnoputri, the daughter of Indonesia’s founder, chief of the country’s largest political party and former president (she was appointed), remains the most influential politician. Her move to veto President Joko Widodo’s first choice of a running mate underscored her stature as the kingmaker. There are also two of former dictator Suharto’s daughters and the daughter of former president Abdurrahman Wahid wielding considerable political clout in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. While incumbent Widodo is pitching for better representation of women in politics — he has eight females in his cabinet holding important ministries such as a finance and foreign — his challenger Prabowo Subianto says he believes more in output than tokenism. With women marginally outnumbering…

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Rural Women Support Traditional Council to End FGM

The Liberia National Rural Women Structure (LNRWS), which has a membership of over 77,000 across the country, has agreed to support the National Traditional Council of Liberia in order to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). FGM, or female genital cutting, as practiced in Liberia, was customarily practiced by most ethnic groups prior to the outbreak of civil war in late 1989 and has continued since. Some estimates are that in rural areas, approximately 50 percent of the female population between the ages of 8 and 18 had undergone this procedure before the civil war began. It was practiced within some but not all of Liberia’s ethnic groups. At a recent press conference in Monrovia, Madam Kebbeh Mengor, president of LNRWS, said it is important that the international community has finally taken the right path to work with key players in order to end the practice of FGM across the country.…

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Asia News

Deloitte to Provide Education, Skills Training to 10 Million Girls, Women by 2030 in India

Professional services firm Deloitte said it will provide education and skills training to 10 million girls and women in India with an aim to equip them to find a meaningful work. The exercise will be carried out under its global initiative World-class, Deloitte said in a statement. The initiative aims “to support 10 million girls and women by 2030 through education and skills development,” it said. It said that globally, the World-class initiative seeks to prepare 50 million people to be better equipped for the future of work, in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Deloitte’s World-class programme in India will focus on improving girls’ retention rate in school, higher educational outcomes, and skills development for women to access employment, it added. Under the initiative, partnerships will be launched with organisations such as Katha and Pratham. These organisations are working to improve the learning outcomes of millions…

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Saudi Arabia Names First Woman Envoy to Washington

Saudi Arabia on Saturday (Feb 23) named a princess as its first woman ambassador to the United States, a key appointment as the fallout over journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder tests relations between the allies. Princess Rima bint Bandar replaced Prince Khalid bin Salman, the younger brother of the powerful crown prince who was appointed Vice Defence Minister in a flurry of late-night royal decrees announced on State media. The reshuffle comes as Saudi Arabia seeks to quell an international outcry over Khashoggi’s murder last October in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, which strained relations with its key ally Washington. After initially denying they knew anything of Khashoggi’s disappearance, the kingdom finally acknowledged that Saudi agents killed him inside the consulate, but described it as a rogue operation. Princess Rima faces hostile US lawmakers who have threatened to take tough action against Saudi Arabia over the brutal killing amid claims that…

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