Culture and Human Rights Education

Posted on 30 June 2011 in Education, Human Rights

Community-based health education

Responses to ‘Women’s Human Rights and Culture’ (November 2010) showed an awareness of the role of education in maintaining cultural and religious defences against human rights for women. Many recognized that the manner in which girls are educated can lead them to support the ideas and beliefs that deny them equality as women. This support is then used to reinforce those ideas and inequality further, leaving human rights strategists at a loss to defend even basic human rights for women. One commentator helpfully suggested:

“In countries where the level of education is far from the aspirations of the Millennium Goals, where people are economically distressed and easy to manipulate, where most of the population is still educated by the [dominant religious institution] can we claim any women rights?”

In addition to efforts to improve economic conditions and to implement laws protecting women, education is the key to redressing the cultural denial of women as human beings deserving of rights. But what form should it take – especially when the damage caused by indoctrination in an ideologically unequal education system has already been done?

For me, the answer to this question is evolving, through my work on counter cultural education – not in the developing world, but in Northern Ireland – a part of the UK. There, the dominance of religion on the education system has created a similar situation to that described above. As children, women were taught that sex before marriage, contraception and abortion are always wrong, without question. Yet in their own and their children’s lives, these things are a reality – though one which they understandably fear talking about. As a result, not only are they ill equipped to deal with complex relationship and emotional issues, but they invariably recite the ‘party line’ when asked about the need for legal reform. The politicians then point to this as evidence that no change is required.

Community based education that informs women about such issues accurately and honestly, empowers them to talk about their real feelings and life experiences. It enables them to protect and educate their children in the same way, by promoting knowledge, self-awareness and self-esteem. Northern Ireland has an unacceptably high rate of teenage pregnancies and the number of women travelling for abortions, as well as those accessing abortion pills illegally over the internet, is ignored by educationalists and lawmakers. Projects to engage and inform women about matters dominant figures would prefer to keep hidden, are a start to redressing cultural defences against their human rights.

- Eileen Fegan (Irish Federation)
http://www.efempowermenttraining.com/

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La violence subie pas les femmes migrantes

Posted on 15 June 2011 in Gender issues, Human Rights
An English translation of this post is also available.

Les femmes migrantes venant d’Afrique se retrouvent bien souvent en situation irrégulière. Ces populations se comptent en millions  mais ne bénéficient d’aucune étude sociologique en sciences sociales, les sociologues ne cherchent pas à en constituer un sujet, aussi l’économie de cette population aussi considérable est simplement négligée.

Smaïm Laacher, sociologue au Centre d’étude des mouvements sociaux (CNRS-EHESS) a travaillé sur les violences faites aux femmes pendant les voyages clandestins dans les pays suivants : Algérie, Maroc, France, Espagne. Cette enquête sur plusieurs mois a été réalisée sous l’égide du Haut Commissariat aux Réfugiés des Nations Unies.

Il a pu constater que les femmes subissant des violences dans leur propres pays comme un viol,  pourrait avoir à quelques kilomètres plus loin une qualification différente entrainant un statut autre.    Pourtant quelle est la différence entre un viol dans son pays d’origine et celui commis pendant le voyage de fuite de ce pays donc à l’étranger.  Le premier serait un acte de violence, indépendamment de tout autre motif,  l’agresseur emploie la force pour contraindre, dans le but de violer pour violer. Dans le deuxième cas, à la violence du viol, s’ajoute une persécution  car un motif existe, un motif  fondé sur des causes politiques, idéologiques, raciales,  religieuses. Ces causes renvoient  aux catégories du droit existant, particulièrement pour le droit d’asile.  L’universalisme de cette étude  permet d’extrapoler pour les réfugiés du monde entier (Smaïm Laacher,  De la violence à la persécution, Les femmes sur la route de l’exil, La Dispute, 2010).

La question essentielle est de savoir si la violence faite aux femmes peut s’analyser  en persécution.  Les viols d’épuration, l’esclavage sexuel, les mutilations génitales,  la lapidation, les mariages forcés, la prostitution ne concernent qu’un genre pour l’essentiel, qu’une partie de l’espèce humaine, les femmes.  C’est   un enjeu politique  majeur  car selon la réponse, on inclut ces violences faites aux femmes dans le système légal ouvrant droit à la protection ou on les exclut du droit à la protection. Dans ce dernier cas,   des centaines de millions de personnes dans le monde sont  démunis de droit.  La manière dont on traite l’étranger est d’ailleurs un indicateur fort sur la xénophobie, le racisme d’une société.

Ainsi des femmes sont agressées, violées pendant le parcours d’un pays à l’autre. Certains prétendent que la Convention de Genève de 1951 ne s’applique pas à ces femmes, déjà  persécutées chez elles. Si on leur donne une protection, les états craignent qu’elles se disent toutes violées et  persécutées. L’idéologie dominante actuelle affirme que la violence  n’est pas de la persécution.  Ainsi, la violence subie dans son pays d’origine ou à quelques kilomètres de la frontière du pays d’accueil,  si elle est bien la même, aura des conséquences juridiques différentes. Humainement, la femme subira le viol puis une exclusion d’une vie normale. Lors du voyage, les femmes violées sont désormais  « sales »,  elles  ne peuvent plus se mélanger aux autres femmes « propres », elles sont repoussées par tous,  leur réputation les précède et les poursuivent. Elles deviennent bien souvent des prostituées car une union légitime leur est interdite.

Si les Etats ne veulent pas séparer la violence de la persécution c’est que la violence n’a pas recours à un motif, elle peut se déployer sans raison, comme un effet de la souveraineté du plus fort. Alors que la persécution a recours aux catégories du droit, à la différence.  Nos efforts doivent porter sur la reconnaissance de la persécution dont ces femmes sont trop souvent victimes.

Anne Nègre
Vice présidente IFUW

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Violence encountered by migrant women

Posted on 15 June 2011 in Gender issues, Human Rights
This is a translation. The original French version is also available online.

Migrant women from Africa often find themselves in a precarious situation. This group numbers in the millions but has not yet benefited from any sociological study. Sociologists have not considered these women as a subject of interest, and the considerable economic power of this group is simply neglected.

Smaïm Laacher, sociologist at the Centre for the Study of Social Movements (CNRS-EHESS), has studied the violence carried out against women during their clandestine travel in Algeria, Morocco, France and Spain. This months-long study, completed with the support of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, found that an assault, such as rape, carried out on a woman in her own country could be classified differently a few kilometers away, resulting in a different legal standing.

Yet what is the difference between rape in the country of origin and rape committed abroad while fleeing one’s country?  The first is an act of violence. Regardless of any other motive, the aggressor uses force in order to constrain, with rape as the ultimate objective. In the second case, persecution is added to the violence and this persecution is based on political, ideological, racial or religious motives. These motives can give recourse to existing categories of law, particularly the right to asylum. The universality of this study allows us to extrapolate for refugees worldwide (Smaïm Laacher, De la violence à la persécution, Les femmes sur la route de l’exil, La Dispute, 2010).

The essential question is whether violence towards women can be considered persecution. Rape as ethnic cleansing, sexual slavery, genital mutilation, stoning, forced marriages and prostitution predominantly affect only one gender – only half of the human species – women.  This is a major political issue. Depending on how we answer this question, we might cover this violence against women in the legal system. We extend to these women the right to protection or we exclude them. If we exclude these women from protection, then hundreds of millions of people in the world are deprived of rights. Moreover, the manner in which we treat foreigners is a strong gauge of xenophobia or racism in a society.

Some claim that the Geneva Convention of 1951 does not apply to these women who are assaulted and raped en route from one country to another and who are already persecuted at home. If we give them protection, States fear that all these women will claim to have been raped and persecuted. Current dominant ideology affirms that violence is not persecution. Therefore, a violent act carried out in the country of origin will have different legal consequences than the same act carried out a few kilometers from the border of the host country.

On a human level, a woman endures rape and then exclusion from a normal life. When migrating, raped women are considered “dirty”, they can no longer mix with other “clean” women, they are rejected by everyone, their reputations precede and pursue them. They often become prostitutes, as a legitimate union is forbidden to them.

If States do not want to separate violence from persecution, then violence does not need a motive. It can be deployed without reason as a result of rule by the strongest, unlike persecution which has recourse to legal categories. Our efforts must focus on the recognition of persecution, of which women are too often victims.

Anne Nègre
IFUW Vice-President

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Women, Education and Information Communication Technologies (ICT)

Posted on 1 June 2011 in Education, Gender issues, Internet

Information Communication Technologies (ICT) use is increasing in the classroom, and not only in Europe and North America. While Denmark is making plans to equip all of its high school students with iPads, Uruguay has managed to provide all children and teachers in the public primary school system with free personal laptops in just three years. The impact of this growing trend towards technology in school on women and girls was highlighted at a workshop on ICT and education held at the 2011 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

Ambassador Laura Dupuy called Uruguay’s decision, which cost the equivalent of $260 per child, a ‘social investment’. It is an investment which is already paying dividends. Moreover, as Uruguay has almost universal enrolment rates for primary education, these benefits are being spread equally among girls and boys.  Not only have schools reported higher self-esteem and greater levels of independent research among students, a follow-up survey found that 87% of the children had taught their family members to use the laptop as well. In particular, it was found that mothers were using the laptops to look up health and nutritional information. Plans by the government to increase the amount of free educational software and information available will therefore have a key impact on families, and on women.

Hans Laugesen, Senior Educational Policy Officer of Denmark’s Teacher’s Union, painted a more mixed picture of ICT’s impact on female education. He noted that ICT use in the classroom allowed teachers to better accommodate different learning styles and speeds within the same group, benefitting for example girls who are quiet or children of immigrant parents who have language difficulties. He also drew the audience’s attention to one way which ICT use in learning might disadvantage girls: online tests. When in Iceland and Denmark, the OECD’s PISA test, or Programme for International Student Assessment test, was switched to an online test, despite the same questions being asked, boys suddenly did much better while the girls’ performance decreased.

Both the examples of Uruguay and of Denmark/Iceland suggest that the introduction of ICT into learning environment can have unintended consequences for women and girls, whether good, as in the laptop scheme, or potentially harmful, as in the case of computerised testing. Educational decisions which appear to actively disadvantage girls should be discouraged, until the reasons for negative outcomes have been understood and overcome.

Have any studies been done on the impact of ICT on girls in your country? Have there been any pilot programmes to increase use of ICT for girls in your country? Do you think ICT in education has positive or negative effects on girls?

Signy Allen, IFUW Intern

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Gendering human rights: Adjusting our language regarding “harmful practices”

Posted on 18 May 2011 in Advocacy, Gender issues, Human Rights

Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - UN/DPI Artwork: Octavia Roth

Words shape gendered social-cultural and relational thinking. The expression “harmful practices” is often used to refer to gender-based violence. Using the expression “human rights violations” instead of “harmful practices” enacts a rights-based educational approach.

By verbalizing and visibilizing “practices” – a word that means the usual way of doing things – into a human rights “violation” framework, shifts perceptions. Decoding language and perceptions turns such “practices” into “violations”. This helps remove the misogynistic discrimination and stigmatization women and girls suffer because of gender-blaming or blaming-the-victim that occurs globally.

When we refer to acts of gender-based violence, such as harassment, acid burning and domestic sexualized torture, as “human rights violations” and not merely “harmful practices”, we shift these into the human rights framework. For example, sexualized torture is a violation of Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and of General Recommendation 19/7(b) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Both state that no one shall be “subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

Naming the human rights instruments that address the human rights violations delivers these instruments into the awareness of everyday living, immediately introducing people to a rights-based educational experience. This can translate how women and girls think about the violations they suffer, counteracting gender-based discrimination, stigmatization and devaluation as illustrated by an African woman who, after hearing me, a Canadian, talk on non-state torture (NST), said:

“Don’t stop talking … about atrocities that happen to women in your country … which I thought only happened to African women … I thought that there must be something wrong with us … with me as an African woman.”

A rights-based educational approach decodes socio-cultural relational misogynistic cover-ups and challenges the minimization of gender-based violence. For example, in Bangladesh, “eve-teasing” is a coded term that covers up or diminishes misogynistic bullying and harassment of girls, often preventing them from attending school [1]. Using a rights-based approach, “eve-teasing” can be considered a human rights violation under article 19 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Acid burning [2], and domestic sexualized torture [3], can be situated as forms of NST under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) thereby claiming women and girls’ human right not to be subjected to torture.

All human rights are women and girls’ human rights – there must not be gender-biased exceptions.

Jeanne Sarson, Canadian Federation

Jeanne Sarson has been a Member-at-Large of the Canadian Federation since 2009.  She is a grass root supporter and human rights defender, researcher, published author and educator focused on the human rights violation of non-state torture in the private sphere. With a colleague she manages the website: www.nonstatetorture.org

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1. IRIN. (2011, April 22). Bangladesh: When sexual harassment leads to suicide
2. Nowak, M. (2010, September 15). Side-event: Acid burning attacks – victimization, survivors, support. Paper presented at Strengthening the Protection of Women from Torture and Ill-treatment. Women’s UN Report Network, Worldwide Organization for Women and NGO Committee on the Status of Women-Geneva.
3. Nowak, M. (2010, February 5). Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. A/HRC/13/39/Add.5.
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