Nobel Women's Initiative

An unprecedented number of women ran in the latest elections in Guatemala, which wrapped up on Sunday. The list of nine candidates for president included Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

"We are the voice of the thousands of silenced people, who have no room (in the system) and who only take orders," said Menchú Tum. She emphasized the fact that she is a woman, specifically an indigenous candidate, in a country that is “‘machista,’ racist and excludes people."

Over fifty organizations, legal academics and professionals – as part of the August 12 Campaign – have sent letters to President Obama asking that he lift the abortion restrictions on humanitarian aid for girls and women raped and impregnated in armed conflict from accessing abortion information or services.

Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Nobel Peace Laureate and Laura Reyes are two indigenous women running for office in the upcoming Guatemalan presidential election.   Systemic violence and abuse of women prevails in the country, and the political involvement of these indigenous women is a call for gender inclusion, and recognition of indigenous rights.

Yesterday Saudi News reported that a Saudi woman is to be tried for driving in what she says was a medical emergency. Police arrested the unnamed 35 year old woman in the city of Jeddah. She was later released with the help of her father who acted as her male guarantor. 

Iranian Intelligence Officials continue to hold women’s rights defender Maryam Bahrman in prison under interrogation – despite an order for her release from other government officials. Bahrman was arrested on 11 May 2011 for charges relating to her women’s rights activities – including her membership in the “One Million Signatures Campaign” calling for legal equality in Iran.

UPDATE: UN declares drought in Somalia as full fledged famine.

Women in the horn of Africa are facing disastrous circumstances in an environmental turned humanitarian crises.  East Africa is facing its worst drought in 60 years, affecting over 10 million people.   

Mothers and their children have been arriving in the thousands to full refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya.  The refugee camp, Dabaab, in Kenya is operating at over four times its capacity and receiving 1300 more people daily, according to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR).

The United Nations General Assembly is about to adopt a crucial resolution on the creation of a new UN gender equality entity. We must act now to ensure that the resolution will be adopted before the end of the current General Assembly by 14 September 2009, and that the new entity can really make  a difference to women’s lives around the world.

Join the global GEAR Campaign and send the following letter to the Foreign Minister and the UN mission of your country, urging your government to support the creation of the strong new UN gender equality entity.

To learn more about GEAR, click here.

A feminist approach to peace-making and maintenance recognizes that war not only disproportionately affects the lives of women, but that women are too often inadequately represented in the bodies, processes, and even language in which decisions about war (and peace) are made. The Nobel Women's Initiative works to shape and influence the ways that notions of security and human rights are conceived, to position gender justice and equality as central, if not crucial, to any discussion on how peace can be realized and human rights protected.

In 2008, The United Nations passed Security Council Resolution 1820, which condemns the use of rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflict and post-conflict situations.

The issues of gender equity and justice for women and girls is a priority within the Nobel Women's Initiative's broad mandate to advance human rights since, after all, women's rights are human rights.

As part of this, we support and stand in solidarity with women around the world who are demanding their human rights:

• Iranian women who fight for their equal political rights against a repressive regime. Sister Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi  (2004) has been courageously fighting for the human rights of Iranian women for over fifteen years. Her activism and publications  bring the world's attention to the work being done by Iranian women, who have been pressuring the government since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 to recognize their rights to civil action and freedom of expression. One of the many campaigns Ebadi supports, the One Million Signatures Campaign, is a landmark grassroots effort created in response to the Iranian government's violent repression of women's rights activists. The campaign aims to gather a million signatures from supporters around the world to demand an end to discriminatory laws against women. Since 2006, many women campaigners have been arrested and imprisoned for their participation in the campaign. Read why Shirin Ebadi believes thecollection of signatures should continue  with even greater determination, despite these setbacks. Take Action for women's rights defenders in Iran. Also visit the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.
  

• Burmese women who declare rape a weapon of war and call for its end. In 1991, Daw Aang San Suu Kyi was recognized for her long and vocal defense of human rights in Burma with the Nobel Peace Prize. For her struggle for democracy, she has spent most of the last 19 years under strict house arrest by the military government there. We support Suu Kyi and the many other Burmese women who call for democracy and an end to human rights violations.  Learn more about the current situation in Burma and Take Action.

• Girls and women in Darfur who are displaced because of warfare and the world's unwillingness to act; who have been targets of sexual violence as the crisis in Darfur escalates. Learn how you can Take Action against the atrocities in Darfur.

• Girls and women in the DRC who have been targets of sexual violence. Since 1996, sexual violence against women and children in the eastern part of the DRC has been used to torture and humiliate women and girls and destroy families. Learn what V-Day is doing to end sexual violence in the eastern DRC.
  

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