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Greetings sisters,

We are writing on behalf of the Women & Global Migration Working Group.  We would like to encourage global women’s rights advocates to put the UN High Level Dialogue on Migration & Development on your advocacy radar screen!  

The UN High Level Dialogue on Migration & Development, is a UN General Assembly event which will take place at UN Headquarters in New York from 3-4 October, 2013.  The Women and Global Migration Working Group and the Global Coalition on Migration are active in preparations for both the official HLD and a week-long parallel event, the People’s Global Action for Migration, Development & Human Rights (which will take place at the Church Center for the United Nations from 29 September through 5 October). 

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By Marilee Karl, co-founder, Isis International

Isis International stands in solidarity with the garment workers, mostly young women, who lost their lives or were injured when Rana Plaza building in Savar outside of Dhaka collapsed on 25 April 2013. As of Sunday night, 5 May, the death toll had reached over 600, with thousands more injured. This article lists actions that are being taken in solidarity with the families of the victims, with the survivors and with the thousands of other garment workers who toil in exploitative conditions in factories in Bangladesh, producing clothes for American and European clothing brands. Please join in. You can also send information about other actions being taken through messages to the Isis International Facebook page.

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WUNRN
 
PAPUA NEW GUINEA - CALL FOR REPEAL OF SORCERY ACT, END TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
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femLINKPACIFIC: 17April 2013

In the last week the Pacific women’s rights movement has rallied together in their condemnation of the the torture and killing of Helen Rumbali, President of Bana Bougainville Women’s Federation and women’s rights advocate.


On 4 April 2013, four women, including Helen Rumbali, were kidnapped and tortured after being accused of sorcery (sanguma). Three women, Helen’s sister and her two nieces, remain in a local health centre serviced only by nurses and their condition is unknown.....
 
Full Article Follows Below.

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Zainah Anwar

IMOW: You are the founder of Sisters in Islam (also known as SIS) in Malaysia and were at its helm for twenty years before stepping down. SIS exists to bring justice to women as accorded to them by the Quran. What first inspired you to create this organization?

Zainah Anwar: I am one of the eight founding members of Sisters in Islam (SIS) and became its founding Executive Director when we finally set up office in 1998.

SIS began with a question: If God is just, if Islam is just, why do laws and policies made in the name of Islam create injustice? This was the burning question the founding members of SIS confronted when we began our search for solutions to the problems of discrimination against Muslim women justified in the name of Islam.

 

We actually began meeting in 1987 with the Association of Women Lawyers to look at the problems women faced in accessing their rights under the Islamic Family Law. But as we went on, we realized that working with law alone was not enough. So much of the discrimination and anguish women suffered were blamed on Islam, the source of the law.

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Global Network of Women Peacebuilders
 
WOMEN SPEAK  WOMEN ACT
(download pdf here)

  

WHEN?

April 5-10, 2013

 

WHERE?

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo

 

WHY?

 

 The violence between the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the rebel group M23 that escalated last November - the latest in a series of armed conflicts and wars that have affected the country since 1998 - has finally subsided. Peace negotiations between the DRC government and M23 are under way. A Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework, drafted by the United Nations, has been signed by eight African states including Rwanda and Uganda, two countries implicated in the conflict. Yet, despite numerous efforts and resources spent on securing peace and stability in DRC and the region, the incidence of violence against women continues to be on the rise. If the DRC really is becoming more stable and secure, the question is: for whom? It is urgent that women activists gather and examine the Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework, in particular as it relates to violence against women and girls.

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11:16 pm | Monday, March 18th, 2013
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Baileng Mantawil heads a nongovernment organization called Bangsamoro Women Action for Development Initiatives or Bwadi. She is also, she says, a 'child of war.'

Her father is a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and as a child she lived with her family in an MILF camp in Maguindanao. When the government launched a major offensive against the MILF, she and other women members of the family had to disguise themselves and flee the camp, crossing a river and trudging through marsh lands. I think I changed schools about four times during my elementary years, she recalls. But the onset of peace negotiations put an end to her wanderings, enabling her to finish a Computer Science course from the Mindanao State University in Marawi.