Rotator OCtober 24th cont....

Guest Speaker  Pres Keith introduced Lucy Attride Stirling, Executive Director of Amnesty International Bermuda.  Thanking her for stepping in at the eleventh hour to fill the speaker slot.  Our scheduled speaker was unable to board her flight in NY due to not having a machine readable passport.  A reminder for us all.

 

Lucy told us that over the last decade there have been significant advances in the protection and promotion of women's rights as a result of campaigning by the women's movements.  International human rights law treaties have been introduced to challenge Violence Against Women, such as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, the United Nations Declaration on the Eliminations of Violence Against Women and the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.  The inclusion of rape as a war crime and crime against humanity in the statutes of international criminal tribunals exemplifies these standards, which represent a commitment.

 

In many parts of the world, some groups - often supported by the state -- use culture, religion and ethnicity, to undermine the gains made by women's rights activists and to reassert women's "essential" nature and the imperative for them to return to their "traditional" roles.  In the international arena this is evidenced by the actions of, among others, the United States, the Holy See, China and some member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, particularly in their attacks on sexual and reproductive rights.  The impact is devastating.  For example, as more and more women die of HIV/AIDS in Africa, women are told they are responsible for their own health ("Abstinence, Be Faithful, Condom use") even as states and non-state actors argue against sexual rights.  Another issue adopted by Amnesty International as a gross violence against women is Female Genital Mutilation.  In many countries in Africa, the Middle East, and in India, this practice, imposed on girls sometimes as young as 5 year-olds, goes unchallenged by the local governments.  In many Islamic countries, women "found guilty" of adultery, are sentenced to death by stoning.  At the moment there are seven cases in Iran where women, who had been found guilty of killing their husbands and adultery, have been giving prison sentences for the killing of their partners, and once their prison sentences is completed, then death by stoning for the "crime" of adultery.

It is for these reasons that in the next cycle of the Stop Violence Against Women campaign, Amnesty International will focus on implementation.  The aim will be to "Make Rights Real".  The emphasis will be on pushing governments to actually introduce legislation and policy changes, and enforce and implement them effectively.

The purpose of this campaign will centre around three critical values:

?         Equality (women need to be recognized as fully equal before the law, but a focus on implementation will underscore the need to strive for women's equality in practice as well as law ).

?         Accountability (states have not been sufficiently challenged to move from reform on paper to true accountability - each part of the state apparatus with which women must interface when seeking protection from or redress for violence must be held to account).

?         Empowerment (Amnesty International will continue its work with women Human Rights Defenders, partnerships with women's nongovernmental organizations, and is committed to ensuring that women define the priorities and assess the effectiveness of implementation projects).

 

Director Gwyneth gave the thanks of the club to Lucy Attride Stirling for a very eye opening presentation.