International Women's Day: Beyond All Borders

Every year International Women's Day (IWD) is celebrated on March 8 to honor women worldwide. To bring females closer to equity and to expand our rights and our voices globally. From America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East and beyond, IWD events are as wide-ranging as the messages. Her Blueprint commends each hosting organization, partner, or individual who participates. We have reverence knowing so many honor this day designed to make our world better, if not best, for females everywhere.

Celebrating IWD
The United Nations' theme for International Women's Day is to Empower Rural Women: End Hunger and Poverty. The goal falls within a year of launching the new UN Women with more direct funding and dedicated strength to women's rights; as the Commission on the Status of Women continues in New York City; and, with the UN already achieving two of the eight MDG Goals before 2015. Imagine how far-reaching the effect of empowering all women to help end hunger and poverty for everyone.

On March 8, CARE and Gender Across Borders invites bloggers, writers, and humanitarian organizations to Blog for International Women's Day. With over 200 participating blogs, the online event's theme is "Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures." Also, on March 8, the International Museum of Women's annual Gala benefit Art Live Lounge will entertain San Francisco's philanthropists and activists with music, dancing, and cocktails in support of our latest exhibition, MAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe.


Building Bridges of Peace
Women for Women International's Join Me on the Bridge Campaign continues as one of the most riveting IWD events because it encourages women to gather across bridges all over the world to show mutual support for women in conflict zones to stand together in peace.

Last year, 75,000 people joined the campaign, and there were 464 events in 70 countries and on 6 continents. According to WfWI's website, last year saw the first-ever bridge events in Baghdad and Kabul, "where the women took brave steps to show their strong demand for peace and equality." This year events are planned in Antarctica, Iraq, Kenya, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sweden, Poland, UK, US, and once again in Afghanistan. (You can join an event here.)

A View from Afghanistan
In 2014, America plans to pull out of Afghanistan after more than a decade at war. The image of a better, if not best, world for females becomes a hard-won goal when assessing areas of the world where women and children suffer mercilessly during and after conflict.

A recent New York Times article discussed the heart-wrenching deaths of Afghan infants in Kabul. The children, already displaced to refugee camps, died from cold overnight temperatures simply because they did not have winter blankets in their tents. Their deaths were heavily disputed by Afghan officials.

At the time, I was interviewing Noorjahan Akbar in Kabul about her recent development of Young Women for Change (YWC), a new grassroots organization to empower Afghan women and create social change. Young Women for Change formed, says Noorjahan, "because the youth of Afghanistan, who make over 65% of the population, are not mobilized in the struggle for women’s rights and social justice as much as they should be. The idea behind YWC [makes] it possible for youth around the country to be aware and empowered enough to stand up for women’s rights and start a grassroots movement."

After Noorjahan answered questions for me, I replied with thanks and received this email as her auto-reply.

We are losing more kids. Please help. This winter the weather in Afghanistan has been cruel and cold. As a result many children living under tents and families who can't afford to buy wood are dying. Please help them. How you can help? All Afghans and others living in Afghanistan look around you[r] house and if you have warm clothes, blankets, or shoes please bring it to us, so we can donate them.

If Afghan officials are denying infant deaths in refugee camps, imagine the excessive denial and resistance facing NGOs like Young Women for Change. Noorjahan explains that every male and female who come to work for the organization (pictured here) has to fight extremely hard to be there because of cultural norms. Yet, Noorjahan also shares how incredible the need for grassroots advocacy.

"According to Human Rights Council’s report of 2010, 85 per cent of women in Afghanistan face domestic violence," says Noorjahan.

"Violence in schools, harassment in the work place, street harassment and assault and rape are also very common, but often ignored or silenced. The majority of female students in the universities are likely to be harassed or assaulted at least once during their college years. These issues have led to small number of women going to colleges and universities."

Women for Women International reports that in Afghanistan, 85% of women have no formal education. Sweeta Noori, Women for Women International's Country Director in Afghanistan says,"Women in Afghanistan have the courage to move forward - they want support. They want people to stand with them whilst they walk forward, and then let them go."

Walking forward after war is not a simple act with few steps. It takes many. And, women in Afghanistan have been living in war since October 7, 2001. Yet, Noorjahan reminds war was pervasive even before then.

The [Afghanistan] war has not only made the country unsafe, especially for women, but it has also influenced people’s mindset. Because for over thirty years, due to wars, women were not as active in the social life, now it comes as a shock when women do partake in the society and it causes backlash. In addition, the war has caused Afghans to refuse to think long-term so in our decision making we often focus on now and today, rather than a better future, because we are not sure if there will be a future. Based on this, volunteerism has decreased, and very few youth are willing to work for long-term goals.

In 2011, the Afghan Women's Network launched and ran the Afghan Green Campaign to show women's dedication to being part of the political sphere. Women wore green scarves edged in red and black stripes (Afghanistan's flag colors), into which they sewed messages such as, “Our vote is our future.” Pictured is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who supported the campaign.

What would YWC's Noorjahan say to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about how to improve women's lives in Afghanistan?

I would pledge to focus efforts on empowering women in the grassroots level. This empowerment should be focus on the economical involvement of women. History is witness that when women are part of the economical life of a country, violations of their rights decrease and they are enabled to say no to violence because they can ran their life independently. I believe it is essential to have a government in Afghanistan that will respect women’s rights and put effort into making it safe for all women across the country...

Recently, YWC completed research on street harassment in Afghanistan and is now creating literacy and English language classes for women, posting awareness posters on violence and education for women on the city walls, and launching exhibitions of posters and photos that are about women’s rights. Currently, they are also working on creating a harassment-free, female-only internet café for women in Kabul.

What They Bear. Why They Run.

This week, millions of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a war-ravaged African country, voted in their second ever presidential and parliamentary election.

With a population of over 70 million and one of the highest occurrences of rape in the world, the New York Times reported fear of violent outbreaks due to Congo’s elections because of fraudulent politics and, essentially, DRC's reverse development. “This year the United Nations ranked it dead last of the 187 countries on the Human Development Index.”

The Democratic Republic of Congo is also known to be one of the worst places on earth to be a woman.

In mid-May, a study in the American Journal of Public Health, found that 400,000 females aged 15-49 were raped over a 12-month period in 2006 and 2007. The greatest numbers of rapes were found in DRC's North Kivu. There an average of 67 women out of 1,000 have been raped. At least once. That’s 48 women an hour.

Imagine. Having to go into a forest. The only place. To find food. For your children.
Imagine. Emerging raped. Not once. Not twice. Every time. Any time. Whenever.
Imagine. Returning home. And being raped. By your partner.

According to the Christan Science Monitor, this is daily life for Congolese women. “Rape is becoming part of the culture,” said Michael Van Rooyen, the director of Harvard’s Humanitarian Initiative and an expert on rape in the Congo.

One Man’s Journey for Congolese Women
For two years, Londoner Chris Jackson has lived in absolute dedication to sport, not just as a human rights advocate but also as an athlete and spokesperson for Congolese rape victims. He’s completed myriad heroic athletic acts to raise awareness of the horror women in Congo live every single day of their lives. Rampant and repeated sexual violence. Rape as a weapon of war.

Afghanistan: In Present, Past, and Future

As mounting protests sweep through Egypt and tensions rise across the Middle East, last weekend Bloomberg published U.S., Afghan Study Finds Mineral Deposits Worth $3 Trillion highlighting that the initial deposit of minerals in Afghanistan thought in June 2010 to be worth $1 trillion dollars now totals $3 trillion. The New York Times also reported United Nations and Afhanistan officials were signing a formal agreement to end the, “recruitment of children into its police forces and ban the common practice of boys being used as sex slaves by military commanders.”

A vast swath of minerals and resources. War. Child soldiers. Is this Congo or Afghanistan? Women for Women International’s Factsheet for the upcoming 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day cites that 75% of civilians killed in war are actually women and children. Yet, Women for Women International (WfWI) exists to help women and children survivors of war rebuild their lives and has been on the ground in Afghanistan and Congo implementing programs since 1993. This year the organization is hosting their second call to action in a campaign called Join Me on the Bridge. Held on March 8, 2011 to mark the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, women will gather all over the world on bridges in that shared call for peace.

This year also marks the ten year anniversary of September 11, 2001, the day which provoked the War on Terror and initial invasion of Afghanistan. Late last year, after Afghanistan elections took place and the US announced plans for a 2011 slowdown and 2014 pullout, myriad articles focusing on Afghanistan were published by mainstream news sources reflecting life for the Afghanistan women and children who remain alive.

In Nicholas Kristof's What About Afghan Women?, the New York Times reporter and human rights advocate shares that although less women wear the full burqa, they keep them on hand “just in case.” Kristof also shares that most women he interviewed, “favored making a deal with the Taliban — simply because it would bring peace. For them, the Taliban regime was awful, but a perpetual war may be worse.”

“Oppression,” Kristof says, “is rooted not only in the Taliban but also in the culture.”

Nancy Hatch Dupree, cofounder of The Louis and Nancy Hatch Dupree Foundation, which is dedicated exclusively to “nation building through information sharing and to raise awareness and broaden knowledge about the history and culture of the people of Afghanistan throughout the United States,” has spent most of her life studying Afghan culture.

Recently honored as archivist of the year, Dupree was quoted in 2009 by the Global Post commenting on the U.S. Military and diplomatic approach in Afghanistan. “They make strategies for people who they don’t talk to... They sit behind the fortress with razor wire walls... They don’t seem to realize the strategy has to be about the people,” Dupree said from her home in Kabul.

Last November, Canadian Journalist Sally Armstong’s To the Women of Afghanistan made an outright call for Afghanistan women to push for rights.

Women of Afghanistan, it is time to go to the barricades.

Now is the hour to claim your rights. Negotiations are under way in earnest; the Taliban are at the table, so are the warlords and bandits, tribal elders and the president. There’s not a woman in sight. Yet everyone knows you are the ones who can yank Afghanistan into the 21st century.

You’ve been denied everything from human rights and jobs to health care and education. You refer to your illiteracy as being blind because as one woman said, “I couldn’t read so I couldn’t see what was going on.”

Education of children in Afghanistan has been vehemently disrupted by the war as well as Taliban violence. According to It Takes a Village to Raise a School, published last September, New York University Professor Dana Burde cited a CARE report that shows community-based schools are less terrorized than the 1,000 schools bombed since 2006 that have left less than one percent of Afghan girls in some southern provinces in school and active education. Suicide bombers target girl's schools more often.

In December, National Geographic’s Afghan Women posed the questions: “Why do husbands, fathers, brothers-in-law, even mothers-in-law brutalize the women in their families? Are these violent acts the consequence of a traditional society suddenly, after years of isolation and so much war, being hurled into the 21st century?”

BIG IDEAS: War. What is it Good For?

Kavita Ramdas and Isabel Allende /
Credit S. Smith Patrick

While perusing Jezebel recently, I was completely annoyed to read about a conservative pundit who was bemoaning the “feminization” of the Medal of Honor in the U.S. military. Bryan Fischer laments,

“When we think of heroism in battle, we used to think of our boys storming the beaches of Normandy under withering fire, climbing the cliffs of Pointe du Hoc while enemy soldiers fired straight down on them, and tossing grenades into pill boxes to take out gun emplacements. That kind of heroism has apparently become passé when it comes to awarding the Medal of Honor. We now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them. So the question is this: when are we going to start awarding the Medal of Honor once again for soldiers who kill people and break things so our families can sleep safely at night?”

(Emphasis mine.) Normally I would dismiss this kind of commentary for what it is: inflammatory and irrelevant...