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NEWS & LETTERS,
August-September 2002
Women Worldwide by Mary Jo Grey
Waves of anti-government protests across Saudi Arabia
followed the horrific deaths of 14 girls in March in a fire at a girls’ school
in Mecca. The deaths, and severe injuries to dozens of other students, were
caused when religious police forced those without robes and head scarves back
into the burning building. Details of the uprising, only now leaking out,
revealed that thousands of demonstrators--mainly women--protested in the streets
across the country. Some even removed their veils. Police made mass arrests,
hunting down leaders, beating women and children with sticks and firing rubber
bullets.
* * * Hundreds of unarmed Nigerian women--from 30 to 90 years
old--occupied a multi-million dollar ChevronTexaco oil facility in Escravos,
Nigeria in July. Holding 700 workers inside, they demanded jobs and aid for
their poverty-stricken village. Their week-long negotiations ended with the
threat of a traditional and powerful shaming gesture--removing their clothes.
The company agreed to hire at least 25 villagers, as well as build schools,
water and electrical systems. The women, some with babies tied to their backs,
greeted the agreement with singing and dancing on the company docks.
* * * A unity during the past year between U.S. Christian
fundamentalist groups and Islamic fundamentalist nations has worked to restrict
the expansion of reproductive rights in United Nations documents and activities.
At the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children in May, that unholy
alliance succeeded in denying all reproductive health services to children and
teens because they might include abortion. The Bush administration gave its
support to the alliance, saying it shows that it “shares many social values
with Islam.”
* * * Northern Kentucky Right to Life organization is urging a
local health board to reject the use of federal funds to finance family planning
services, charging that “contraceptives cause abortion.” Some board members
called the statement “scientifically flawed” and “extremist.” Rejection
of funding would seriously jeopardize access to reproductive health services to
women throughout northern Kentucky.
* * * The Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice is demanding
fair representation for women in the election of judges to the International
Criminal Court. Only one woman has ever served as judge on the International
Court of Justice in its more than 80-year history. The 34-member International
Law Commission had no women in its 55 years of existence until two women were
elected late last year. The ad hoc tribunals looking at war crimes, including
mass rapes and rape camps, in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia had, at most,
three women serving at any one time among the 14 permanent judges. --Information from We!, Isis International |
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