All posts by CPNN Coordinator

About CPNN Coordinator

Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly.

UN Secretary-General calls for global ceasefire

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

Transcript of virtual press conference March 23 by the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19.
 
The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction or faith.  It attacks all, relentlessly.
 
Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world. 


UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

The most vulnerable — women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced — pay the highest price.
 
They are also at the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19.
 
Let’s not forget that in war-ravaged countries, health systems have collapsed.
 
Health professionals, already few in number, have often been targeted.
 
Refugees and others displaced by violent conflict are doubly vulnerable.
 
The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.

(continued in right column)

Question(s) related to this article:

What is the United Nations doing for a culture of peace?

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

(continued from left column)

That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.
 
It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.
 
To warring parties, I say:
 
Pull back from hostilities. 
 
Put aside mistrust and animosity.
 
Silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes.
 
This is crucial…
 
To help create corridors for life-saving aid.
 
To open precious windows for diplomacy.
 
To bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.
 
Let us take inspiration from coalitions and dialogue slowly taking shape among rival parties in some parts to enable joint approaches to COVID-19.  But we need much more.
 
End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world.
 
It starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now.
 
That is what our human family needs, now more than ever.

(Note: The call by Guterres for a ceasefire has been applauded by the belligerents in the Yemen war which gives hope for a ceasefire there.)
 

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, United Nations,

Coronavirus: Ministers urged to divert military spending to tackle pandemic

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from the Peace Pledge Union

Boris Johnson is facing calls to reallocate “defence” budgets towarsd the NHS, social care and community support for people affected coronavirus and isolation.

The Peace Pledge Union  (PPU) said that bombs and guns cannot defend people from a pandemic.

The PPU has repeatedly accused UK governments of endangering the public by wasting money on preparations for war while doing little to prepare for real threats such as climate change or possible pandemics.

The UK government maintains the seventh highest military budget in the world.

The government’s own National Security Capability Review in 2018 listed major outbreaks of disease as one of the most likely threats facing the UK. The threat of pandemics was also identified by the government’s Strategic Defence and Security Reviews in 2010 and 2015.

While some troops  may be involved with tasks such as food distribution, the PPU pointed out that many other UK troops are about to take part in a large-scale NATO training exercise across Europe, which is one of the few major events not to be cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The PPU insisted that the NATO exercise should be immediately cancelled and the costs and people involved reallocated to helping to tackle the pandemic.

(Article continued on the right column)

Question for this article:
 
Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

(Article continued from the left column)

The Peace Pledge Union said that money diverted from military budgets could contribute towards NHS and social care costs as well as initiatives to assist people who are losing their jobs or struggling to pay the rent owing to the coronavirus outbreak, or to support people whose mental health is affected by isolation.

The PPU added that this should mark the beginning of a permanent shift of funding away from armed force and towards measures that really make people safe, tackling problems such as ill-health, poverty and climate change.

Ceri Dare, a Public Health Researcher and member of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), said:

“We could be facing this crisis, which the government’s own assessments told us was coming, with the weapons we truly needed to win: a resilient NHS, local councils funded to fulfil their responsibilities in Public Health, Social Care for disabled and older people. We could have had a society where the people who make our lives possible, the cleaners, the shelf-stackers, the waste collectors, the social care workers, the delivery drivers, were paid and respected for the vital work they do.

“Instead of this, we are armed only with the useless weapons of war. We cannot battle our way out of an pandemic with bombs and guns. The lies of ‘defence’ ring hollow now. We need what we have always needed, to love and care for one another, to work together as neighbours, as communities, as nations, and we need that more than we ever have before.”

Symon Hill, Campaigns Manager of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), added:

“In this crisis, everyone needs support from others, some especially so. This costs money. The government can still divert funds away from multi-million pound weapons and NATO training exercises. Let’s fund things that will really help to make us safe. You can’t nuke a virus.”

(Thank you to Joe Yannielli, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe

China to Expel New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Reporters From Country

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Ken Meyer in Mediaite reprinted according to Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License for non-commercial reproduction with credit to the source site.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that they will expel American journalists from three news outlets — the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal — who are stationed to work in the country.

The press release, entitled “China Takes Countermeasures Against US Suppression of Chinese Media Organizations in the United States,” claims that “the US government has placed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese media agencies and personnel in the US, purposely made things difficult for their normal reporting assignments, and subjected them to growing discrimination and politically-motivated oppression.” The announcement goes on to say that the Chinese government will direct a number of retaliatory measures against The New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Voice of America and Time Magazine.

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Question related to this article:
 
Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(Article continued from the column on the left)

The first demand was for all five outlets to provide the government “written form information about their staff, finance, operation and real estate in China.” Most notably, the statement goes on by saying American journalists for The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are all ordered to leave China, along with Hong Kong and Macao, in the next 10 days.

“In response to the US slashing the staff size of Chinese media outlets in the US, which is expulsion in all but name, China demands that journalists of US citizenship working with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of 2020 notify the Department of Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within four calendar days starting from today and hand back their press cards within ten calendar days. They will not be allowed to continue working as journalists in the People’s Republic of China, including its Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions.”

The statement continues by hinting at further “reciprocal measures against American journalists” in response to “discriminatory restrictions” on Chinese journalists.

Last month, China expelled three WSJ journalists over an opinion that called the country “the real sick man of Asia.” The piece focused on China’s failed attempts to stop the coronavirus before it became a global pandemic, and it was decried as “malicious slander” by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

East Asia, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, North America, ,

Federico Mayor pays tribute to Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

A blog by Federico Mayor (translation by CPNN)

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, former Secretary General of the United Nations (1982-1991), architect, among many other important achievements, of the peace processes in Mozambique, with the Community of Sant’Egidio, that of El Salvador and restart Guatemala. In the last two, I participated actively, following his guidelines as Director-General of UNESCO (1987-1999). His serenity and measure were always accompanied by great firmness and decisive action, with great logistical capacity. He was very demanding in the exercise of democratic multilateralism. He believed in the value and strength of the word, of the encounter, of the outstretched hand.


Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

Working with him was a very sobering experience. His clear vision, his conviction that the solution lies in the encounter, in the dialogue, in the mediation and conciliation constitute a luminous legacy that could clarify many challenges, some potentially irreversible, that confront humanity today.

We are in “… times of doubts and resignations in which noise drowns out words”, as Miquel Martí i Pol so beautifully wrote in 1981 (in “L’ámbit de tots el ámbits)”). As Secretary-General, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar was committed equally to freedom of expression and non-violence, but now the voices of the United Nations and its Institutions have been silenced. Now, more than ever – as between Calvino and Castellio – the principle of the word must be defended against the sword. Silencing “the voice of the world” goes against humanity’s interests, encouraging frustration, exclusion, radicalization.

Tireless on the path of reconciliation and concord, his life followed the common thread of his principles. From his time as Secretary-General, it is important to highlight how he made the orgaization effective, which is not easy given its complexity and the historical moment in which he carried out his responsibility with special dedication and a vision for the future. Despite the achievements made, “the majority of humanity still lives in conditions of poverty … and human excesses threaten the environment on which we all depend … There will be conflicts in the world until human aspirations can be more fully satisfied …”, he writes in the introduction to his book “Pilgrimage for Peace”, published in New York in 1997.

His reflections on the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Security Council, relations with the United States and the role of NGOs and civil society could help today to redirect global governance, which is now irresponsibly placed in the hands of plutocratic groups. In the face of deadly invasions based on lies occur, the United Nations System is marginalized and outbreaks of xenophobia, supremacy and racism proliferate, refugee reception is neglected and development cooperation is reduced to shameful minimums.

At the ECOSOC meeting of 7 July 1988 in Geneva on international economic and social policy, I had an opportunity to directly appreciate his unusual ability as the Secretary-General. I participated in the debate with the participation of the United States, the Administrator of UNDP, Greece representing the European Economic Community, the United Kingdom, Germany, Tunisia (on behalf of the Group of 77), Canada, the Executive Director of UNICEF , China, Soviet Union …

(continued in the column on the right)

(Click here for the original Spanish.)

Questions related to this article:

Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

(continued from the column on the left)

Before assuming the United Nations General Secretariat, he had already achieved great successes, such as the one he achieved in 1974 when, as the UN Commissioner, he was able to broker an agreement in Cyprus between the Greek and Turkish leaders.

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, has left us but he remains, as in the verse by Miguel Hernández, who also became invisible on a fateful day, but is always with us: “I’m leaving, I’m leaving, I’m leaving, but I’m staying… ”

In October 1987, he received the Prince of Asturias Award “for promoting Ibero-American cooperation.” In February 1989, the Nehru Prize “for international understanding”.

On January 19, 2000, I participated in Lima, with the “Discourse on Order”, in the tribute paid to the universities of Lima and Salamanca on their eightieth birthday. In these last twenty years, we have been in constant contact and have supported multiple initiatives in favor of multilateralism.

I end with a verse I dedicated to him in 1989:

“We must all build
in a place that is
in the middle of nowhere,
on the brink of the abyss.
Outside the borders
of the prosperous lands,
in the unknown swamps.
(No, you are not unknown,
the ignored swamps
where our past
sinks
progressively,
each day
before eyes that are
indifferent
and distant,
of the helpless
who cannot,
who don’t know,
of the well-to-do
who don’t hear,
who do not want to …).

To preserve memory,
the footprints of men,
their paths past,
to clarify
their steps tomorrow
we must, my children,
my friends,
you whom I do not know,
we must build everything
next to the abyss,
in the place,
rough and unique,
of our future,
and create only wealth
that can be shared”.

People with such a long journey and unusual attitude leave an imperishable mark. One day, they are absent and they become invisible, but what matters most remains: citizens of the world, continue to illuminate the paths of tomorrow and set new directions for future generations.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, United Nations,

The Most Successful Air Pollution Treaty You’ve Never Heard Of

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Elizabeth Moses, Beatriz Cardenas, and Jessica Seddon in the blog of the World Resources Institute

International consensus on cross-border environmental issues has been difficult to achieve, but the 40-year-old Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air-Pollution (or LRTAP as it is known to development professionals) has enjoyed great, if largely unsung, success in the fight against air pollution and climate change. The Convention also led to cleaner air and healthier forests, soils, and lakes in North America, and prevented 600,000 premature deaths annually in Europe.


Scooter-riders with face masks in Hanoi, Vietnam
”

Signed in 1979 by 32 European countries, the United States, and Canada, the agreement initially aimed to tackle acid rain. Over time, it became a model for effective international environmental cooperation, bringing together scientists and policymakers to solve complex transboundary problems. To date, over 51 countries have joined the Convention and a total of 8 protocols or international agreements have been added to address a range of environmental and health problems caused by industrialization, agricultural modernization, and fossil fuel consumption, including ground-level ozone, black carbon, persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, and particulate matter. These agreements are based on scientific assessment that identifies actions required to improve human health and ecosystems.

The Convention has delivered concrete results. Emissions of particulate matter and sulphur dropped by 30–80% since 1990 in Europe and 30–40% in North America. In Europe, these measures have extended life expectancy by a year. Nitrogen oxide releases have also been halved and lead pollution levels in UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) countries have been reduced by almost 80% between 1990–2012.

What Cities Can Learn from the Convention

This success is especially relevant for cities. With industrialization and population growth, air pollution is worsening in many developing cities, where pollution levels can be 4–14 times higher than World Health Organization air pollutant health guidelines. Because non-urban sources could also be major contributors to urban air pollution, many cities will be unable to reduce air pollution through local action alone. The Convention provides scientific tools, models, data, monitoring methods, guidance documents, and best practices so that cities can holistically address air pollution at the local level.

Policies Supported by Science

Unlike other environmental or climate change conventions, the Convention puts scientists in the same room as policymakers. This structure ensures that collaborative working groups, which include technical and scientific expertise across different fields, are linked to the political negotiation and decision-making process. This two-way engagement allows scientific information based on model outputs to define outcomes. Outcomes may involve reaching an agreement on pollution reduction levels, while also ensuring political negotiations and international political processes provide input on priorities for scientific research.

Ongoing interaction between policy makers and scientists has spurred informal communication, which has built trust and resulted in a common base of scientific research and knowledge. The Convention has been successful at fostering neutral, uncontroversial scientific results that can be used to foster good decision-making. Other conventions should take note and follow its lead.

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Question for this article:

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?

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A Multi-Pollutant Approach

The introduction of the critical loads concept, implemented through the use of the RAINS (Regional Acidification Information Simulation) model, helped revolutionize the scientific assessments used to make decisions under the Convention. It was a key reason the Convention was able to move from a substance-to-substance to multi-pollutant strategy used in the Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone.

This concept integrates environmental effects of one or more pollutants with emission source data, atmospheric transportation estimates and abatement cost information. As a result, the Convention has created multiple reduction strategy options that are focused on effects instead of specific emission limits. These strategies enable states to focus on different pollutants at different times, and how they affect multiple environmental problems.

This scientific innovation increased state capacity to develop pollution reductions at lower costs and with more flexibility. It also provided states with optimized plans to use in their negotiations and facilitated the ability to secure political and private sector support for emission reduction strategies.

Flexible Enforcement & Transparent Data

The convention’s executive body approaches noncompliance through facilitation and cooperation. The body offers practical suggestions to accelerate emissions reductions. It also makes emission data reported by each party to the Convention publicly available, including historical trends, benchmarks and the strategies and policies they use.

Parties are required to report emissions and projections annually. Countries that haven’t complied with the convention’s emission targets must explain the reasons and problems they faced with implementation. This transparency and access to data has driven progress, strengthened compliance and reinforced incentives to respond to political demands.

Successful International Environmental Cooperation

Many view the Convention as one of the most successful ways of facilitating international environmental cooperation. The convention involves scientific coordination led by the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP). EMEP collects emission data, measures air and precipitation quality and models atmospheric transport and deposition of air pollutants. These data are used to evaluate the quantity and significance of transboundary fluxes (changes to air pollutant composition and concentrations) and any areas that exceed critical loads and threshold levels.

The Convention’s intergovernmental policy collaboration and coordination has simulated broader action on air pollution, including technical and policy ratification support to Eastern European countries. Convention representatives have also engaged with other international and regional agreements and organizations, such as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, regional seas conventions such as HELCOM and OSPAR and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition around the intersectionality of air pollution and other environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

What’s Next?

Considering the success of this agreement, deeper engagement with the Convention Executive Body at the UNECE could help other regions and non-member countries apply these lessons and drive momentum for multi-jurisdictional action. After the Convention’s 40th anniversary, the executive body established a forum for collaboration on reducing air pollution. The goal is that this will promote integrated approaches to address air pollution, aimed at achieving multiple benefits to human health, the economy, ecosystems, and efforts across sectors that improve air quality. 

(Thank you to the Good News Agency for calling this article to our attention>)

global, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

A day without us’: What was the National Women’s Strike in Mexico and why did it take place?

. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . .

An article by Cecilia González in RT.com (Russian television) (translation by CPNN)

Echoing the cry, ‘A day without us’, millions of Mexicans participated Monday March 9 in the National Women’s strike sparked by the wave of outrage over femicides and expanded to a long list of demands of the feminist agenda.


Video about the demonstration on International Women’s Day, Mexico City, March 8, 2020. Photo: Gustavo Graf / Reuters

Following the massive march on Sunday, in commemoration of International Women’s Day, public and private workers were called to leave offices, banks, supermarkets, restaurants, coffee shops, newspapers, shops and all kinds of work centers. The women who joined will also not perform domestic tasks to make their weight visible in the economy and society and to denounce the multiple aspects of gender violence.

A survey published last week by the newspaper El Financiero revealed that the strike had the support of 67% nationwide and that 57% of women intended to join it, demonstrating the progress of the feminist revolution that is now worldwide and that is writing a separate chapter here in Mexico.

In Mexico, 51% of the population and 52% of the voters are women. And they vote more than men. According to official data, in the 2018 presidential elections, which Andrés Manuel López Obrador won, 66.2% of the voters were women.

10 women killed every day

But inequality persists. A study by the International Observatory of Worthy Wages and the National Minimum Wages Commission estimates that Mexicans do work on a daily basis worth around 3,000 million dollars, but only one third of this is paid.

According to the Observatory of Decent Work of the organization Citizen Action Against Poverty, in the country men earn 16% more than women. The wage gap widens to 30% in the public sector.

Inequality is repeated in other areas. Data from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy indicate that there are more women than men in poverty: 27.3 million versus 25 million.

Reports of the Reinserta organization, meanwhile, conclude that the courts impose an average of five years imprisonment more on the Mexican women than on the men.

Violence is rampant. Last year, there were 51,146 complaints of sexual violence against women in the country, an increase of 19.1% compared to 2018. The trend continues to rise. Also in 2019, in Mexico 10 women are killed every day. Three years ago, the average was seven women killed.

That is why femicides became this year’s central theme of public conversation in Mexico and had a full impact on President López Obrador’s political agenda.

The National Women’s strike began to germinate in social networks following the shocking murders of Ingrid Escamilla, a 25-year-old girl who died stabbed and skinned, and Fatima, a seven-year-old girl who was found lying in a bag, with signs of torture.

(article continued in right column)

(Click here for the original article in Spanish or click here for a translation to French)

Questions related to this article:

Protecting women and girls against violence, Is progress being made?

(article continued from left column)

When the crimes occurred, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero was involved in a controversy over his proposal to eliminate the classification “femicide” and replace it with “aggravated homicide.” The intention, according to him, was to improve the investigation and delivery of justice, but feminist organizations warned that this eliminated the gender component in the murder. The president rejected the initiative, but at a press conference he was upset and warned that he did not want to talk only about femicides because he also planned to promote the raffle of the presidential plane.

Critics of the López Obrador government and opportunism of the right

Mobilizations against femicides increased. The president responded with a diatribe against violence to women with inane phrases such as “protect the lives of all human beings”, “it is cowardice to attack women”, “women must be respected” and “punish to the guilty. ” He presented no specific strategies, policies or objectives. He later spoke of “a deep crisis of values,” of “decay” and that “only by being good can we be happy.” He called for “continuing moralizing, purifying public life” and blamed the femicides on neoliberalism.

With each statement he irritated the feminist groups more and more, but the president was even more surprised when he asked them to make their protests peaceful and no longer paint doors and walls of public buildings.

It was at those times that the collective Brujas del Mar reacted to the social unrest and through Twitter called for the Strike on Monday. The adhesion was immediate and massive.

In response, López Obrador denounced the opportunism of his “adversaries”, the “neoliberals”, “the conservatives” and “the right”, who supported and promoted the day only to criticize the government, as the case of the historic and right-wing Party Action National who promoted the Strike, but he continued his rejection of abortion even though it is one of the main feminist demands.

The political opposition tried to sell the idea that the strike was against López Obrador, although feminists are struggling against much more than just the government. Although the president showed some signs of understanding the women’s movement, he continued to make unfortunate responses. He announced, for example, that the presidential plane raffle would be held on March 9, that is, on the same day as the Women’s Strike. There were so many criticisms that he had to change the date.

The president’s reactions could explain, according to a survey published last week by the newspaper El Universal, that women’s support for his government has declined by 24.6% over the past 12 months.

One of the few achievements on the gender agenda that López Obrador can boast is that he is the only president who has appointed a cabinet with gender parity. In fact, in the midst of the political crisis unleashed by femicides, last week these ministers met together for the first time and said that the president does understand feminism and that women’s rights are a priority.

On Friday, however, López Obrador refused to define himself as a feminist. “I am a humanist,” he said.

Beyond the political disputes, the Strike managed to talk about femicides, abortion, inequitable salaries, lack of childcare, cultural pressures, generalized misogyny in the media, in social networks, in homes and harassment in the workplace..

Aggressions against women have been made more visible and discussed more than ever, but it is clear that there is still much work to be done to eradicate gender inequality and violence in the country.

Latin America, WOMEN'S EQUALITY

Chile changing: transgender student leader lends voice to renewed protests

. WOMEN’S EQUALITY .

An article by Natalia A. Ramos Miranda from Reuters (reprinted by permission)

As the long southern hemisphere summer holiday draws to an end this month, students in Chile are returning to college – but not always to classes. Many are getting ready to head out into the streets and breathe new life into the protests that rocked the country last year.


Emilia Schneider

Organizers of marches to mark International Women’s Day on Sunday are hoping to attract large crowds. Last year, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 attended the one in Santiago.

One of the loudest and most influential voices pressing for change is Emilia Schneider, a transgender, feminist and militant leftist who is the leader of the Student Federation of the University of Chile (Fech), the country’s oldest student union.

The Fech is known for its role in demonstrations for free education between 2011 and 2013 that brought Chile and its student leaders global attention. But it was caught on the backfoot in October last year when civil disobedience over public transport fare hikes spiralled into weeks of widespread violence and demonstrations over inequality and elitism.

The protests were Chile’s most profound unrest since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1990. They cost the economy millions of dollars, at least 31 people died, more than 3,000 were injured, and 30,000 were arrested.

Now, the Fech is joining in, and has endorsed the protesters’ demands for deep societal changes.

“We are the sons and daughters of neo-liberal Chile and the shortcomings that came with it,” Schneider, a 23-year-old law student, told Reuters this week in an interview at the headquarters of the Fech.

(Article continued in right column)

Question for this article

Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement?

Prospects for progress in women’s equality, what are the short and long term prospects?

(Article continued from left column)

“We had seen years of protests in this country but the demands had not been heeded,” she said, citing the highly privatised provision of services such as health, education and pensions that had sparked a “sense of discomfort that built up over years.”

Schneider said she has benefited from a Gender Identity Law that allows people to legally change their name and sex and took effect in December last year. The passing of the law caused shockwaves in the historically conservative and predominantly Catholic country, where divorce was legalized just 16 years ago and abortion is allowed only in extreme situations.

She argues that her gender change was only made possible by her privileged position as a student leader and the support of her liberal family. Many like her still face job insecurity, discrimination, and patchy access to health services, she said.

Schneider has a potent link to the country’s dark past: her great-grandfather was General Rene Schneider, a well-known figure in Chile who opposed plans for a military coup in 1970 and was killed by a far-right group.

Older Chileans lived through the chilling effect of the 1973-1990 dictatorship but younger people protesting had less “fear of participating in politics,” she said.

President Sebastian Pinera has sought to address protesters’ grievances by sacking his most unpopular ministers and introducing new laws to improve salaries, pensions and healthcare. He also backed a growing clamour for a new constitution to replace the incumbent drafted during the Pinochet regime.

But many remain dubious about his ability to push the laws through a divided Congress and, if he does, how much change they will really bring.

Schneider has turned her organization’s focus to lobbying for influence over the new constitution and specifically the participation of more women in the drafting of the new text if it is approved in a referendum on April 26.

“We want a feminist constitution,” she said, “one that guarantees sexual and reproductive rights, gender equality and greater participation by women and those who do not conform to traditional genders.”

Chile may be changing, she said – but not fast enough. “We have to keep seeking new policies to generate fresh changes,” she said. “Protests alone will not get us there.”

Latin America, WOMEN'S EQUALITY

A crucial moment for women’s rights in Afghanistan

. WOMEN’S EQUALITY .

An article by Heather Barr in Human Rights Watch

This is a moment of both fear and hope for Afghan women — and an urgent time for the world to support their hard-won rights. The Feb. 29 deal between the US and the Taliban could pave the way for a peace that Afghans desperately seek. But there are huge risks for women’s rights in this process.


Women walk along a street in the old part of Kabul on February 29, 2020. Women across the country are nervous about losing their hard-won freedoms in the pursuit of peace.  © 2020 WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images

Women have suffered deeply during Afghanistan’s 40 years of war, and they desperately long for peace. They have also fought ferociously for equality in the years since the fall of the Taliban government and have made great progress. Today there are women ministers and governors and judges and police and soldiers, and Afghanistan’s parliament has a higher percentage of women than does the US Congress.

But Afghan women’s rights activists have faced resistance from the Afghan government — and lack of support from international donors — as they fought for their rightful place at the negotiating table for peace talks. This exclusion, combined with the Taliban’s relentless discrimination against women and girls, increases fears that women’s rights could easily be a casualty of this process.

The US-Taliban deal is focused on foreign troop withdrawal and preventing Taliban support for international terrorism attacks. It also triggers “intra-Afghan” talks between the Taliban, the Afghan government, and other factions, which are slated to start March 10. But women’s rights were not included in the Feb. 29 deal. Zalmay Khalilzad, the lead US envoy to the talks, repeatedly said that women’s rights — and other issues relating to human rights, political structures and power sharing — should be resolved through the subsequent intra-Afghan talks. This has been a source of frustration to activists.

The Taliban remain deeply misogynistic. Their 1996 to 2001 regime was notorious for denying women and girls access to education, employment, freedom of movement and health care, and subjecting them to violence including public lashing or execution by stoning. Taliban rhetoric and conduct has moderated somewhat in subsequent years, with some Taliban commanders permitting girls to attend primary schools, typically in response to community pressure. But the Taliban also continue to carry out violent attacks against girls’ schools and block women and girls from exercising many of their basic rights, and remain deeply opposed to gender equality.

(Article continued in right column)

Question for this article

Prospects for progress in women’s equality, what are the short and long term prospects?

Is peace possible in Afghanistan?

(Article continued from left column)

In February, a Taliban leader wrote, “[W]e together will find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women that are granted by Islam — from the right to education to the right to work — are protected.” Skeptics noted the comma separating women from equal rights, and that from 1996 to 2001 the Taliban also argued that women were enjoying all rights “granted by Islam.”

The Afghan government has been an unreliable supporter — and sometimes even an enemy — of women’s rights. The administrations of both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani have frequently brushed aside women’s rights. Both have mostly rebuffed activists’ demands for women to have full participation in the peace process, as provided under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. Foreign donors have been more willing to engage in photo ops and grant agreements than to expend political capital to press for Afghan women to be in the room, at the table, during negotiations.

Lack of clarity about the intra-Afghan talks and the designated negotiators has further heightened fears about the implications for women’s rights. Political infighting following the disputed Afghan presidential election has delayed the appointment of the government negotiation team. Pressure to divvy up these roles among power brokers threatens to squeeze women out. The absence of clear information about what country will host the talks and who will facilitate them prevents women’s rights activists from lobbying for including women.

A fight over whether a release of prisoners will move ahead is muddying the waters further and calling into question the timeline for the intra-Afghan talks. Meanwhile, violence, reduced ahead of the deal’s signing, threatens to escalate again.

Several years back it was common to hear Afghan feminists argue that there should be no negotiations with the Taliban — a group that refused to recognize women’s full humanity. Today those calls are all but gone. Even the staunchest women’s rights activists have mostly accepted that there is no path to peace in Afghanistan but through negotiations with the Taliban.

But protecting women’s rights needs to be one of the key objectives of this process, and for that to happen, women need to be at the negotiating table. Governments increasingly recognize that the role of women in peace processes is not just an afterthought, but critical to sustainable and implementable peace accords. The Afghan government and all its international partners need to back Afghan women, who are in the fight of their lives.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, South Asia, WOMEN'S EQUALITY,

Thousands of women march in Chile again

. WOMEN’S EQUALITY .

An article from Prensa Latina

Thousands of women marched again this Monday [March 9] in the capital , Santiago, and other cities of Chile, as part of a general strike called by the 8M Coordination and supported by social and student organizations.


A group of Indigenous woman demonstrate during a march in Santiago on International Women’s Day [Martin Bernetti/AFP] 

In Santiago, the women concentrated at midday in the emblematic Plaza de la Dignidad from where they later left to demonstrate along the southern path of the Alameda on a route that ended at the Plaza Los Heroes, passing in front of the Palacio de La Moneda.

(Article continued in right column)

Question for this article

Do women have a special role to play in the peace movement?

Prospects for progress in women’s equality, what are the short and long term prospects?

(Article continued from left column)

Although without the massiveness of Sunday’s huge demonstration, which concentrated around one million people, the thousands of participants on this Labor Monday did clamor with equal force for social change in a macho and patriarchal society, and equal rights and opportunities.

During the march, they denounced the injustices they are victims of, since Chilean women receive more than 20 percent less salary than men for equal work, as well as lower pensions, and instead must pay more to access bank loans, health insurance and pension insurance, just to cite a few examples.

Closely guarded by a strong police contingent with armored water and gas throwers, the protesters also chanted slogans demanding the resignation of President Sebastian Piñera and in favor of the option to approve a new constitution in the plebiscite called for April.

Many also expressed in posters and slogans the need to extend gender parity to other areas of the country’s institutions and not only to the constituent convention that will draft the new constitution in case the Apruebo option wins.

Latin America, WOMEN'S EQUALITY

Protests and celebrations mark Women’s Day, despite threats

. WOMEN’S EQUALITY .

An article by Adam Geller in PBS

From the streets of Manila to a school in East London, people around the world marked International Women’s Day on Sunday with calls to end exploitation and increase equality.


Women chant slogans as they protest during the International Women’s Day in Baghdad, Iraq, March 8, 2020. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani – RC2PFF9MY13Z

But tensions marred some celebrations, with police arresting demonstrators at a rally in Kyrgyzstan and separatists detonating a bomb during a ceremony in Cameroon. No one was hurt in the attack.

“In many different ways or forms, women are being exploited and taken advantage of,” Arlene Brosas, the representative of a Filipino advocacy group said during a rally that drew hundreds to the area near the presidential palace. Protesters called for higher pay and job security, and demanded that President Rodrigo Duterte respect women’s rights.

In Pakistan, women rallied in cities across the country, despite petitions filed in court seeking to stop them. The opposition was stirred in part by controversy over a slogan used in last year’s march: “My Body, My Choice.”


Women of General Confederation of Labour (CGT) attend a protest demanding equality on International Women’s Day in Paris, France, March 8, 2020. Photo by Pascal Rossignol/Reuters.

Some conservative groups had threatened to stop this year’s marches by force. But Pakistani officials pledged to protest the marchers. The rallies are notable in a conservative country where women often do not feel safe in public places because of open harassment. The main Islamic political party, Jamaat-e-Islami, organized its own rallies to counter the march.

One of the largest demonstrations occurred in Chile, where crowds thousands flooded the streets of the capital with dancing, music and angry demands for gender equality and an end to violence against women.

“They kill us, they rape us and nobody does anything,” some chanted.

National police estimated 125,000 took part in the capital and nearly 35,000 in other cities, but organizers said the crowds were far larger.

Many demanded that a proposed new constitution strengthen rights for women and thousands wore green scarves in a show of support for activists in neighboring Argentina, which is considering a proposal to legalize elective abortion.

(Article continued in right column)

Question for this article

Prospects for progress in women’s equality, what are the short and long term prospects?

(Article continued from left column)


Women demonstrators chant slogans and gesture during a march on International Women’s Day in Algiers, Algeria March 8, 2020. Photo by Ramzi Boudina/Reuters.

Thousands of women also marched in Madrid and other Spanish cities, despite concern over the spread of the new coronavirus.

A massive banner reading, “With rights, without barriers. Feminists without frontiers” in Spanish was carried at the front of the march in the capital.

Spanish health authorities said did not put any restrictions on the march, but recommended that anyone with symptoms similar to those of the coronavirus stay home.

At a school in East London, meanwhile, the duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, joined students in listening to speeches about women labor activists, and urged both girls and boys to respect the contributions of women every day of the year.

“For young men … you have your mothers, sisters, girlfriends, friends in your life — protect them. Make sure they are feeling valued and safe,” she told the students.

But safety was in short supply at some events to mark the day.

The detonation of explosives triggered panic at a ceremony in Bamenda, an English-speaking town in the northwest of Cameroon. Suspicions focused on separatists who had vowed to disrupt the events. No one was killed or wounded.

Police in Bishek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan, detained about 60 people after a group of unidentified men broke up what authorities called an unauthorized rally.

Demonstrators had gathered in the city’s main square to express support for women’s and children’s rights. But unidentified men barged into the gathering. Police said people from both sides were detained, but news reports said they were primarily women. They were released several hours later, after about 10 had been charged with resisting police, the Akipress news agency reported, citing an attorney.

(Editor’s note): Photos are available on the Internet from countries around the world, including:

Indonesia, Pakistan, Iraq, Australia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, Spain, Philippines, Switzerland, Thailand, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and Bangladesh, in Al Jazeera;

Brazil, Spain, Chile, Syria, Belarus, United Kingdom, Russia, France, Pakistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland and Australia in The Guardian;

Italy, France, Chile, Serbia, Spain, Belgium, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Philippines, United Kingdom and Malaysia in the Irish Times

global, WOMEN'S EQUALITY