Senzokuhle carers look at Hidden from View photo exhibition at Eshowe, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa (c) Cedric Nunn
By an Amnesty International staff member,
South Africa has made great progress in combating the HIV epidemic in the last three years. Yet people in rural communities, particularly women, still struggle to protect their health because of poverty and discrimination.
The beautiful and lush hills of northern KwaZulu-Natal belie the realities of the people living there. Remote, extremely poor with high food insecurity and alarming levels of HIV infection. Nearly 40 per cent of women attending antenatal clinics are HIV positive.
People are at risk because of their isolation. Roads, where they exist, are bad. In households where most families do not have enough money for food, money for transport simply does not exist. Continue reading ‘Hidden From View – HIV and women in rural South Africa’
(c) Amnesty International
By Jeremy Bloom Campaigner, Central America Team,
Hace cinco días, lanzamos una acción nueva e emocionante – llamando a nuestros miembros e activistas en las redes sociales a enviar un fax a la Fiscal General de Guatemala de parte de la defensora de derechos humanos Norma Cruz.
Anoche, hablamos con Norma, dirigente de la organización de derechos de la mujer Fundación Sobrevivientes, quien ha recibido reiteradas amenazas de muerte por su labor de apoyo a las víctimas de la violencia contra la mujer y el enjuiciamiento de los responsables.
Y las noticias son buenas, parece que las autoridades realmente están prestando atención. Continue reading ‘¡El fax esta saturado! Y nuestra llamada por la libertad de expresión escuchada’
Norma Cruz is a human rights activist known for her work on violence against women in Guatemala. (c) Amnesty International
By Jeremy Bloom Campaigner, Central America Team,
Five days ago we started an exciting new faxjam action – calling on our members and social media supporters around the world to send a fax to the Attorney General of Guatemala on behalf of human rights defender Norma Cruz.
Last night we spoke to Norma Cruz, the leader of the women’s rights organization Fundación Sobrevivientes, who has received repeated death threats because of her work supporting victims of violence against women and calling for those responsible to be prosecuted.
And the news is good, it seems the authorities are really taking notice. Continue reading ‘Faxes Jammed! And our call for Freedom of Expression heard’
There were 170 women and girls in Mapanique raped by the Japanese army on 23 November 1944. 68 are still alive and fighting for an apology and reparations. (c) Paula Allen
By Azmina Dhrodia, Programme Assistant – Gender, Sexuality and Identity Programme
I received my first ‘A’ grade for an essay during my second-year university Global Politics class. I think the outrage my essay topic provoked in me might have something to do with the high grade. I had written about the continuing injustice faced by women subjected to sexual slavery and enforced prostitution by the Japanese Imperial Army before and during World War II who are euphemistically known as ‘comfort women’. What most upset me was that 73 years after the events, the survivors were still waiting for an official apology, adequate compensation and reparations. I wrote that essay seven years ago – and have even more of a reason to be upset today. Still not much (and by far not enough) has changed for those women and the many others around the world who have experienced and continue to experience similar human rights violations.
Today I am working on women’s rights at Amnesty International and campaigning for the same rights so vehemently demanded by the survivors of crimes which were perpetrated generations before my time. It is depressing to see that today the survivors and their supporters are still challenging the Japanese government, that they have still not received the apology and reparations they deserve. Continue reading ‘Women’s fight for justice continues’
Demonstrating against the abortion ban in Nicaragua, 28 September 2011 (c) Fondo Centro Americano de Mujeres
By Stephanie Schlitt, Amnesty International’s Researcher and Policy Advisor on Gender
Today, at the United Nations General Assembly, the UN’s expert on the right to health, Anand Grover, will present a ground-breaking report. The report exposes how states are putting women’s and girls’ lives and health at risk through criminal laws and other misguided legal restrictions that deny girls and women access to sexual and reproductive health information and services and the ability to make decisions about their sexual and reproductive lives.
The report concludes that restrictions on abortion and contraception, the criminalization of pregnant women’s conduct (such as making drug use when pregnant a criminal offence), as well as restrictions on access to information on sexual and reproductive health violate girls’ and women’s rights to sexual and reproductive health. This report supports earlier UN expert findings that such laws place states in breach of their international human rights obligations. Continue reading ‘Rights – not criminalization – for girls and women, says UN health expert’
