Elisabeth Bumiller on “tea as a weapon” in Afghanistan

I got the chance to meet NY Times reporter Elizabeth Bumiller at a Women’s Foreign Policy Group event tonight, and she shared fascinating insights from her recent time on the ground in Afghanistan with a US Female Engagement Team (FET).  These Marines (there are 45 total in country) are engaged in winning over the hearts and minds of Afghan women, assessing aid needs while gathering information about the allegiances of the men of their villages.

Bumiller underscored the importance of the FETs’ work, saying, “you can’t win over the population if you’re only talking to half of it.”  And while the female marines have the unique ability to talk to Afghan women – unlike their male counterparts – they also have access to Afghan men, who are apparently prone to “start blabbing” when faced with a female Marine.  While gender bias is deeply ingrained in Afghan society, Afghan men view American women as a kind of “third gender.”

Bumiller’s series on the FETs raises serious questions about the tortured logic of US policy barring women from combat (which bears some similarities to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell).  Read Bumiller’s recent piece here for the full (at times infuriating) context.

In her remarks, Bumiller said she believes that until security improves, allowing NGOs to operate more freely, aid in places like Helmand Province will continue to come through military initiatives like the FETs.  Clearly 45 female Marines can’t have tea with all of the women in Afghanistan’s rural villages and assess their needs; hopefully, though, their groundbreaking work is sowing the seeds for positive changes to come.

In celebration of my new job…

…I dedicate this post to the International Women’s Media Foundation, an organization working to strengthen the role of women in the news media worldwide.  IWMF’s focus on supporting and training women journalists and honoring their bravery is a cause close to my heart, as a former reporter.

One particularly worthy initiative of IWMF is the Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship, which gives women journalists the opportunity to enhance their skills while researching and reporting on human rights and social justice.  The current Neuffer Fellow, Rabia Mehmood Named, who works for Pakistan’s Express 24/7 Television, has tackled topics from women’s rights and freedom of speech to political unrest, terrorism and internally displaced people.

IWMF is preparing now for its annual Courage in Journalism Awards in NYC and LA.  According to its website, “Nominees risk political persecution, physical injury and death in their efforts to expose corruption and champion human rights.”  Find out more about IWMF’s good work here.

Support Justine Masika’s work in DRC

Last night I had the opportunity to attend a small fundraising event for Justine Masika Bihamba, a human rights activist working in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to prevent rape and to support women who have been affected by sexual violence.  Because of her work to help women, Justine has been targeted and threatened; in 2007 army soldiers forcibly entered her house and tortured her children (like the many perpetrators of violence in Congo, these men have gone unpunished, and they continue to threaten Justine).  What Justine wishes for Congolese women is simple: that they are allowed to live free from harm, and that they are valued and treated as human beings.  To promote this vision, she leads the Synergy of Women Against Sexual Violence.

Accomplishing the goal of women’s empowerment in DRC will require herculean effort, as the country has the awful designation as “the most dangerous place on earth for women.”

We can support Justine’s work in a few ways.  First, Amnesty International has started a letter writing campaign on her behalf, so that she can get the protection she needs to continue her vital work – check out the details here.  Second, watch this short video clip about Justine produced by Oxfam America and get inspired.

Justine asked that Americans contact their elected officials and ask them to put pressure on Obama to put pressure on Joseph Kabila, the president of DRC, to stop the violence against women that continues unchecked.  So do that, especially if your representative(s) are invested in human rights issues.  And take some time to learn more about the conflict minerals that are perpetuating conflict in DRC – here’s one recent piece that provides insight on the situation.  The worst part about it is that it’s Western demand for cell phones and laptops that fuels the fight to control the mines…and leads to mass rapes.

Afghan women and girls bend gender identity, push for progress

I’m highlighting two recent pieces on Afghan women and girls, which provide unique glimpses into gender issues in Afghanistan.

The first, an article in the New York Times, covers the taboo phenomenon of Afghan girls who live as boys until puberty and/or marriage.  Some families who have only daughters have apparently resorted to disguising their youngest daughters as sons, because, as Jenny Nordberg reports, “families without boys are the objects of pity and contempt.  Even a made-up son increases the family’s standing, at least for a few years.”  There are economic benefits for these families as well.  For instance, it is easier for their daughters masquerading as sons to go to work in the market and supplement the family’s income, particularly in households run by single mothers.  There are benefits for the child as well.  Daughters living as sons can more easily attend school, go to the market without an escort, and are afforded other freedoms which girls are typically denied.

One woman interviewed for the story, a Member of Parliament who encouraged her youngest daughter to dress like a boy after her husband threatened to take a third wife to produce a son, explained how she introduced the idea.  “Do you want to look like a boy and dress like a boy, and do more fun things like boys do, like bicycling, soccer, and cricket?  And would you like to be like your father?”  The answer: an unhesitating yes.

There is a cruel irony here – because girls are devalued in Afghan society, their parents are willing to disguise them as boys to save face.  While living as boys, these daughters get to experiences freedoms that they would never have known without bending their gender identity.  Then, once they are deemed of marrying age, they are forced to switch back, plunged into the crippling limitations of an Afghan housewife.  One woman who lived as a boy until her late teens described it as being born again.  “Not a day goes by when she does not think back to ‘my best time,’ as she called it,” Nordberg writes.  “Asked if she wished he had been born a man, she silently nods.”

On a more positive note, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon’s article in The Huffington Post, focuses on Afghan women “scaling up their own ambitions,” even as the US narrows its goals for the country.  She highlights the first Afghan National Army’s Candidate School class for women, where “29 young women in olive-green uniforms study finance and logistics.”  Afghan women entrepreneurs are making gains as well, forming partnerships with Kate Spade and accessing foreign markets.

Tzemach Lemmon writes that these women “have faith that the world will stand by Afghanistan as the nation’s women serve their country on an ever-larger scale.”

These women are pioneers, to be sure, and deserve our full support.  However, in order for all Afghan women to reach their ambitions and full potential, there must be a fundamental shift in the way girls are regarded in Afghan society.  Only when girls are valued as full human beings, entitled to the same education and opportunities as their brothers, will they be able to assume their rightful place as fully contributing members of their communities.

MDG progress report: Women left out

This week, world leaders are gathered in New York for the Millennium Development Goals summit, to assess progress made so far and to chart the course for the next five years.  For those unfamiliar with the MDGs, they lay out an ambitious agenda including the following goals:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;

2. Achieve universal primary education;

3. Promote gender equality and empower women;

4. Reduce child mortality;

5. Improve maternal health;

6. Combat HIV/AIDs, malaria, and other diseases;

7. Ensure environmental sustainability; and

8. Develop a global partnership for development.

On some of the goals, significant progress has been achieved, as Jeffrey Sachs discusses in a New York Times editorial on Friday.  Sachs writes, “I recall how the Millennium Development Goals were initially greeted with cynicism – as unachievable, pie-in-the-sky, a photo-op rather than a development framework.  Cynicism has been replaced by hope, born of experience, commitment and breakthroughs.”  Sachs focuses specifically on great strides made in Africa to combat poverty and disease.

I agree with Sachs that “the Millennium Development Goals themselves deserve a lot of credit by providing a powerful organizing framework and a bold but realistic time horizon.”  However, when it comes to the MDG that is centrally important if we are to achieve the rest – the promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment – we have a long way to go.

The UN News Centre today features the story, “Many women and girls left out of development gains.”  According to UNIFEM’s latest findings, four critical action areas must be prioritized to empower women: increased public services so that women and girls can access education, healthcare, and adequate nutrition; the creation of decent livelihoods for women through jobs and land rights; more women’s leadership and voices in decision-making; and ending the daily violence many women and girls face around the world.

Fulfilling the goal of gender equity will require a sustained, seemingly gargantuan effort, one which I hope the new entity UN Women, under the leadership of Michelle Bachelet, is ready to undertake.  But the annual budget UN Women has been given, $500 million, is not enough to attack gender inequality globally.  That’s why it’s so important that gender equity initiatives be seamlessly incorporated across all the MDGs, and why folks like Sachs should carefully examine the progress made toward reaching the MDGs through a gender lens.  If the goal of women’s empowerment is not met, we’ll fall short on all the other goals, too.  And the consequences of failing are too great for anyone to afford.

Former President of Chile to head UN Women

This week, Ban Ki-moon announced that former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet has been selected to head the United Nations’ new entity, UN Women (aka UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women).  This is a huge opportunity to advance the agenda of women’s rights around the world – let’s hope that UN Women takes an aggressive approach to its work!  Read more about this new entity at http://www.unwomen.org.

The heroines of Liberia

The women of Liberia played a crucial role in ending the civil war there through nonviolent protests, pressuring then Liberian president Charles Taylor to attend peace talks and forcing a resolution to the long, bloody conflict (ultimately leading to the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf).  While I knew a bit about Liberian women’s contributions to the peace process, I had no idea of the extent of their courage until I watched Pray the Devil back to Hell, the outstanding 2008 documentary chronicling their heroic work.

During the height of the civil war, Christian and Muslim women banded together and held large demonstrations in Monrovia, taking their demand for peace to the ruthless Taylor.  With violence raging around the country, their only weapon was their sincere conviction that they could achieve an end to the war by mobilizing thousands of women.  To me, the most impressive moment in the documentary came when members of the Liberian women’s coalition traveled to Ghana to demonstrate at peace talks between Taylor and the LURD rebel forces.  After the first several weeks of the talks, negotiations were going nowhere, so the women formed a human chain around the negotiating room, forcing the men to stay inside until they agreed to forge a peace agreement expeditiously.  Their bold move worked!

If you’re interested in learning more about the movie, visit http://www.praythedevilbacktohell.com – and put it in your Netflix queue today – these women will inspire you!

Women’s issues ARE serious issues

Women matter.  They make up half the world’s population, and yet in many regions, they are marginalized, enslaved, and even killed, simply because of their gender.  In their book, Half the Sky, Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn present gut-wrenching stories of women who face sex trafficking, gender-based violence, and maternal mortality.  Make no mistake – these women are victimized, but they are not victims; rather, they are survivors, in many cases empowered to help others as a result of their own incredible ordeals.  Yet, their struggles are often framed as “women’s issues,” cast aside by leaders and policy makers as an afterthought.

As Kristof and WuDunn write, “The unfortunate reality is that women’s issues are marginalized, and in any case sex trafficking and mass rape should no more be seen as women’s issues than slavery was a black issue or the Holocaust was a Jewish issue.”

They continue, “…These days, the ‘serious issues’ are typically assumed to be terrorism or the economy.  But the moral issue of the subjugation of women isn’t frivolous today and more than slavery was in the 1790s.  Decades from now, people will look back and wonder how societies could have acquiesced in a sex slave trade in the twenty-first century that, as we’ve seen, is bigger than the transatlantic slave trade was in the nineteenth.  They will be perplexed that we shrugged as a lack of investment in maternal health caused half a million women to perish in childbirth each year.”

Without increased gender equality, there can be no real long-term stability (either in terms of security or the economy); communities and nations allowing only half of their citizens to make meaningful contributions are destined to stagnate.  The question is, are we willing to do something about it?  Are we willing to listen to women’s voices and to stand alongside them to fight for their rights when they are violated?  Are we willing to work for a world in which women are valued, counted as full human beings?  I know I am.

I plan to use this space to explore the way that women are changing the world, and the struggles they must overcome to do so.  If this area of focus is of interest to you, I strongly encourage you to read Half the Sky – it will absolutely change the way you view your world.  And please help me make this a place for discussion and intellectual debate, not just a place to collect my ramblings.