Honoring, Uplifting, and Supporting Rural Women

Ever since International Day of Rural Women on Oct. 15, we’ve been seeing even more than usual about the incredible women doing the bulk of our world’s rural work, including indigenous women and women in countries around the globe working in difficult conditions. Rural women keep our agriculture, economies, and indeed us running. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, rural women face increasing challenges; including access to health care, increased pressure during the pandemic, medical needs, and more. Still, rural women continue to work on the front lines. We've collected just a few stories about rural women--their amazing and tireless work; the unique challenges they face right now; their initiative and innovation; how they're changing and uplifting the world, and how we might all help support their needs, advocacy, and lives. Read on for more, and keep supporting our rural women and their power and work.

Speakers: COVID-19 Unfolded Opportunities for Rural Women to Act as Agents of Change, from The Nation—“The platform of rural women conference served as a place where voices of the representatives from over 100 districts of the country raised concerns for an inclusive response to manage disasters like the way Corona pandemic played unprecedented havoc with the local communities here in Pakistan.”

In Costa Rica, Rural Women Grow Their Own Businesses, from UNDP—“The recovery from COVID-19 and the safe path to Sustainable Development must have women and nature-based solutions at its centre if we are to emerge stronger and better from the challenges we face as humanity. This involves transforming the social norms of gender imposed by culture, norms that make invisible the role of women as essential agents of conservation, and their leading role in reducing the loss of nature”

Invest in Rural Women, Help Them Build Resilience to Future Crises, Urges UN Chief, from UN News—“Rural women play a critical role in agriculture, food security and managing land and natural resources - yet many suffer from ‘discrimination, systemic racism, and structural poverty,’ the UN chief said on Thursday.”

Opinion: The Name Game: How Women Get Erased in Rural India, from Thomson Reuters—“In rural villages, one can easily find women who have their husband’s name tattooed on their wrist. However, even if her husband’s name is stitched on her flesh, most often a woman does not say his name aloud. Traditionally, a husband is a godly figure and saying his name is considered disrespectful.”

Mobilizing Rural Women for a Food-Secure Future, from Politico—“As the world grapples with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and looks at how to address other pressing challenges such as climate change and feeding a growing global population, it is more important than ever to mobilize the entire rural workforce — especially women — in ensuring a food-secure future.”

EXECUTIVE PERSPECTIVE: 17 Campaigns for 17 Goals – Synergizing Campaigns for Agenda 2030

sustainability.thomsonreuters.com - Just 14 years remain to accomplish the Agenda 2030 and the world still does not know. As we completed the first year of the implementation of agenda 2030 for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, there is a greater need to harmonize campaigns contributing to SDGs. There is massive opportunity for the international development community to work together in solidarity using campaigns to forward SDGs. However, there is more focus on specific goals and targets rather than on the entire Agenda. If we continue to operate in silos, we lose sight of the big picture and end up fragmenting the Agenda, wasting resources and hindering progress. We must bear in mind that the goal of the international community is to ensure the achievement of all 17 SDGs by 2030. Instead of competing for advocacy space and much-needed resources, we must all take ownership of the Agenda as a whole and cohesively work together towards the attainment of the WorldWeWant by the year 2030. The following are good examples of campaigns for 17 goals, increasing collaboration and raising awareness on SDG achievement:

South Sudanese Women Carry Bulk of the Burden in Uganda Refugee Camps

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Lorena Ríos

With their husbands fighting in the civil war or struggling to find work, the South Sudanese women staying in Uganda’s refugee camps often find themselves responsible for supporting their families on their own.

ADJUMANI, Uganda – When violence between government and opposition forces broke out in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, in July, Regina fled to Uganda with her husband and their seven children. After a month in the newly established Pagarinya refugee settlement in northern Uganda, her husband left. “My husband went back because there is no work in the camp,” says Regina, 37, sitting surrounded by her children on a Sunday morning in late September. Since his departure, she has not been able to communicate with him and has not received remittances. “I put my faith in God,” she said resolutely.

The recent clashes in Juba sparked an exodus of South Sudanese fleeing into neighboring countries such as Uganda, where three-quarters of the refugees have headed since July – more than 85 percent of them women and children. Poverty, lack of employment and education, and dependency on unreliable food aid only exacerbate the desperate conditions in many settlements. And often, women find themselves coping with these challenges on their own. With their husbands either staying behind in South Sudan to fight or struggling to find work in the refugee camps, many women have to take on the roles of breadwinner and head of the household on top of their traditional responsibilities.

“The majority of people in the settlement picking wood are women,” says Regina. “I go find firewood and sometimes my daughter comes as well.” For Regina, like many other women staying in Pagarinya, collecting wood is a four-hour task, as cutting trees is prohibited inside the settlement. A Ugandan shop overflowing with firewood and timber sits across from her plot, but Regina can’t afford to buy any. If she wants to cook for her family, she has to wake up at 5 a.m. to find firewood.

According to research by Molly Kellogg of the U.N. Women’s Peace and Security team in Uganda, the country’s limited resources for meeting the most basic protection services inside the settlements “compound the burden of violence South Sudanese women refugees bear.” Furthermore, U.N. Women found that in Kiryandongo refugee settlement, 68 percent of women refugees suffer from psychological trauma. “The breakdown of structures, forced displacement of people and separation of families have increased the prevalence of gender-based violence in the refugee settlements,” writes Kellogg in the report, which is not yet published.

Uganda’s progressive policy towards refugees grants them one 98 foot by 98 foot (30m by 30m) plot of land per household. However, this is not enough for women to feed their families and pay for school fees. To make enough to support their families, women often have to work in the fields around the settlements – making as little as 2,000 Ugandan shillings ($0.60) for a full day’s work – and sell a portion of their food rations.

In Ayilo refugee settlement, a few kilometers away from Pagariyna, a group of about 50 women gathers to talk about the trauma brought on by years of war and displacement. Even though most of them have been refugees since civil war broke out in South Sudan in 2013, none of them have yet reached self-reliance. “Our husbands don’t work, they stay at home,” says one of the women in the group. “Men are embarrassed to work in the fields since it is ‘women’s work.’”

The title of “refugee” is only for women, one of them says, to which the group quietly cheers, lamenting the precariousness of life in displacement and the challenges of carrying out their traditional roles as well as the added responsibility of ensuring the survival of their families.

With her husband fighting in South Sudan, Christine, 29, from Western Equatoria, relies on her children to help make ends meet. She has been living in Boroli refugee settlement in Adjumani district with her four children and five foster children since 2014. “My husband doesn’t get a salary,” she says. “He hasn’t earned anything in five months and we don’t have land to cultivate in the settlement.”

To pay for her children’s school fees, Christine sells food rations and works in the fields for about $3 a day. Her children help her pick groundnuts. And still, she can only afford school for one of her children at a time. At the moment, she’s sending her five-year-old son because he is the strongest, she says: “He doesn’t cry as much.”

Back in Pagariyna, Regina sits under the only tree in her plot and watches as people return to their plots after Sunday service. “I want to go to church, but I can’t,” she says. “I have to cook for the children.” Nearby, one of her children, a toddler, is chopping wood, letting the axe fall on a tree branch twice his size.

Reporting for this story was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation as part of its Africa Great Lakes Initiative.

Better Nutrition for Women and Girls Is Crucial to Achieve the SDGs

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Steve Godfrey

The U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals make up an ambitious new agenda. But Steve Godfrey of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition writes that unless there is investment in improving the nutritional health of women and girls, many of the goals will never be realized.

The Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals adopted last year during the 70th U.N. General Assembly set a new course for nutrition and human development. For the first time, the international community is committed to “ending malnutrition in all its forms,” as opposed to “halving” malnutrition, as stated in the Millennium Development Goals. This means that we have the opportunity to improve the health and lives of an estimated 800 million people who remain undernourished and of the billions of people who suffer from micronutrient deficiencies or obesity. It is a radical new agenda.

Women and young children are often those most affected by the negative consequences of undernutrition. Around half of all pregnant women in developing countries are anemic, which contributes up to 20 percent of all maternal deaths. In many developing countries, women and girls traditionally eat last and have lower quality food, which often leads to poorer nutritional intake. And when a crisis hits, women are generally the first to sacrifice their food consumption to protect the health of their families.

Women account for over 40 percent of the world’s labor force. Yet malnutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies, can diminish women’s earning power through low energy levels, illness and increased absence from work. It is estimated that tackling anemia alone could lead to increased productivity of up to 17 percent.

Moreover, many adverse health outcomes associated with malnutrition are determined by the health and nutritional status of women and adolescent girls. Without the proper nutrients from pregnancy through to the age of 2 – the critical 1,000 days – infants suffer long-term health and economic consequences. Poor nutrition before and during pregnancy is a major determinant of stunting – meaning that a child does not reach its full potential height – which also has lifelong effects on physical and mental development. Currently, a little less than 160 million children are stunted globally.

At the same time, women are leaders in the fight against malnutrition. First, supporting women to breastfeed exclusively for the first six months of a child’s life, and to continue breastfeeding along with adequate complementary foods until at least age 2, is the best nutrition intervention for mothers and their babies. Breast milk provides the essential nutrients needed for healthy development, as well as the antibodies that help protect infants from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhea and pneumonia, the two primary causes of child mortality worldwide. Exclusive breastfeeding, where this is possible, is also beneficial to the mother and is known to reduce risks of breast and ovarian cancer later in life.

Second, women are the world’s primary food producers. Giving women farmers more resources could bring the number of hungry people in the world down by 100-150 million people. What’s more, when women have greater control over household income, they are more likely to prioritize spending on nutritious foods, improving nutrition for the entire family.

Finally, focusing on women’s empowerment is considered to be one of the best ways to improve nutrition. Education is a proven and important means of achieving gender equality, the effects of which are felt throughout families and communities. This includes better nutritional outcomes. A 2011 hunger and malnutrition report estimated that mothers with 10 or more years of education were less likely to have underweight or stunted children. Educating girls not only increases their earning potential, but may also delay the age of marriage and childbearing, which has a positive impact on childhood stunting.

Although the numerous links between empowering women and improving nutrition are understood, more still needs to be done to address the specific nutritional problems of women, adolescent girls and young children. The barriers for women in accessing nutritious diets are numerous and encompass the cost and availability of healthy foods, knowledge about nutrition, as well as the social, cultural and regulatory barriers that shape behaviors and markets.

Over the last nine years, GAIN has been working with our partners through a combination of proven interventions – such as the protection and promotion of breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding – and novel approaches to promote nutrition-related behaviors.

For example, a program in East Java, Indonesia, in partnership with the Ministry of Health’s Directorate of Community Nutrition, seeks to improve the dietary practices of pregnant mothers and children under the age of 2 years. Understanding what influences women when feeding their children and the barriers they face has been crucial to developing motivational messages that empower women to make healthy choices. We found that the whole community – members, friends and neighbors – needs to be involved, as everyone plays a big role in determining the choices that mothers make about what they and their children eat. One major component of the program is a behavior change campaign called Rumpi Sehat (Health Gossip), which comprises of national TV ads; “Emo-Demos” (emotional demonstrations), community activation designed to provoke an emotional response; social media; and interpersonal communication.

Another example is our project in rural Rajasthan, India, where women’s groups have been trained to produce fortified blended foods. These foods are purchased by the state’s social welfare program, which then distributes take-home rations to mothers and children. This project is giving tens of thousands of women access to nutritious complementary foods for their babies, aged 6 to 23 months, which are needed in addition to breastmilk. Currently, similar women’s groups are being set up in the Indian states of Karnataka and Bihar.

Adequate nutrition is important for women not only because it helps them be productive members of society, but also because of the direct effect maternal nutrition has on the health and development of the next generation. Maternal malnutrition’s toll on maternal and infant survival prevents countries from achieving most of the Sustainable Development Goals. While there is no silver bullet or single model to follow, putting women and children at the heart of tackling malnutrition is the right thing to do, a core investment for the success of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Women & Girls Hub.

Forced Marriage and Rape: The Legacy of the Khmer Rouge on Trial

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Nina Teggarty

In Cambodia, the U.N.-backed Khmer Rouge tribunal hears from survivors of forced marriage, but critics say the court should also cover other acts of gender-based violence.

“I just couldn’t understand why falling in love was a crime,” says Youk Chhang, executive director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia, an organization that records atrocities that took place under the Khmer Rouge. From 1975–79, Pol Pot’s brutal regime devastated Cambodia, and an estimated 1.7 million people died from starvation or disease, or were executed.

The Khmer Rouge, known as the Communist Party of Kampuchea (CPK), controlled every part of people’s lives, even love and sexuality. Chhang was only 15 when he witnessed the Khmer Rouge killing a couple because “they fell in love without permission.” To make sure Cambodians married the “right” people, namely those who were loyal to the party, the CPK forced men and women to marry each other.

Survivors of forced marriage are currently giving testimony in Case 002/02, the latest trial to take place at the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh, otherwise known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC). Evidence of forced marriage will be used to determine if senior leaders of the regime committed crimes against humanity.

The Khmer Rouge used forced marriage to exact ultimate control over relationships, as couples were expected to procreate and produce the next generation of party adherents. No one knows how many people were forcibly married by “Angkar” (the communist party), but mass wedding ceremonies, some consisting of more than 100 couples, took place across Cambodia.

Survivors appearing before the court have described how the regime pressured them to marry. “I refused [to marry] several times, but finally the sector committee said I was a stubborn person,” Sa Lay Hieng said in court. Scared of being killed, Hieng was coerced into marrying a man she did not like. Another witness, who was granted anonymity, said she was made to marry a Khmer Rouge officer in a collective ceremony; when she refused his advances on their wedding night, her new spouse complained to his commander, who then raped her. “I had to bite my lip and shed my tears, but I didn’t dare to make any noise, because I was afraid I would be killed,” she said. She was eventually led back to her husband.

The final testimonies relating to forced marriage will be heard in the coming weeks. But some experts argue that other heinous sexual crimes committed during the Khmer Rouge era, such as rape outside of forced marriage, have been overlooked by the court.

In a study by the Transcultural Psychosocial Organization, an NGO that provides counseling to victims appearing before the court, a third of female interviewees witnessed rape outside forced marriage. This finding is echoed by the Documentation Center of Cambodia, which has collected a “significant number of documents” detailing at least 156 cases of rape by Khmer Rouge comrades in cooperatives and detention centers. “The women who were raped were accused of having served in the CIA, KGB or other enemies of Angkar, and taken to be smashed [killed],” said Youk Chhang of the Documentation Center.

Farina So, an expert in gender-based violence perpetrated by the Communist Party of Kampuchea, says that “hundreds and hundreds” of rapes occurred, adding that cadres “used it as a tool to victimize women, to silence them.” In the course of her research, So has interviewed numerous survivors of sexual assault; one of these women, Tang Kim, was considered “an enemy of Angkar” and in 1976 was rounded up – along with eight other women – and readied for execution in Kampong Chhnang province, central Cambodia. While Kim awaited her fate, she could hear the other women being raped and then murdered – “I was terrified to see people being killed off and buried one by one” – recalls Kim in a film made by the Cambodian Documentation Center. She continues, “I saw a Khmer Rouge soldier slashing a woman’s abdomen; they cut it open and took out the fetus.” After being gang-raped by the soldiers, Kim managed to escape and went into hiding.

According to So, Kim tried to submit her civil party application to the Khmer Rouge tribunal, but it was rejected because prosecutors are addressing only sexual abuse within forced marriage. It was, says So, a decision that “really disappointed” Kim and other rape survivors, many of whom have spent decades summoning up the courage to speak about their ordeal.

When Women & Girls Hub approached the Khmer Rouge tribunal to ask why the current trial is focusing exclusively on forced marriage, the court’s spokesperson, Lars Olsen, said co-investigating judges had concluded that rape outside forced marriage was not an official policy of the Khmer Rouge. He pointed to this statement from the tribunal: “Those who were accused of ‘immoral’ behavior, including rape, were often re-educated or killed [so] it cannot be considered that rape was one of the crimes used by CPK leaders to implement the common purpose.”

The survivors and their lawyers, who campaigned for years to have forced marriage added to the list of crimes prosecuted in court, are waiting for the expected judgment in late 2017.

Girls Take a Place at the Table to Discuss U.N.’s 2030 Agenda

This article originally appeared Oct. 12 on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Christine Chung

The U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals promise gender equality, but a panel marking the International Day of the Girl agreed that achieving the goals requires monitoring and active participation by girls to make sure governments deliver.

In Geneva, there was no missing the fact that yesterday was International Day of the Girl. Various U.N. offices usually reserved for dignitaries, like those of the director-general and the UNICEF Geneva liaison, were taken over by girls, while a flash mob of young women and their supporters gathered at the Place des Nations in front of the square’s iconic statue of a giant three-legged chair.

To mark the day, Plan International organized a panel featuring young activists from Zambia and Germany, U.N. officials, and Colombia’s ambassador, to discuss how girls fit into the U.N.’s 2030 agenda.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in September 2015, comprises 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets for people, planet and prosperity. According to Alfonso Barragues, director of the U.N. Population Fund in Geneva, the main difference between the SDGs and the Millennium Development Goals, which were set out in 2000 with a 2015 deadline, is “a paradigm change.”

“The MDGs were an aid contract between developed and developing countries,” Barragues told the panel. “The SDGs are a social contract, so it’s an agenda for girls and their generation.” Panel members agreed that a key tool in carrying out that agenda is data.

The fifth SDG specifically aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Speaking on the panel, Ngandu, a young woman from Zambia, laid out the prejudices she faces every day. “To be a girl in Zambia is to be a second-class citizen,” she said. “People believe that boys are more knowledgeable than girls.”

“Girls face human rights challenges that are enormous, massive, but their situation is essentially invisible,” Barragues told Women & Girls Hub. “This is an invisibility that takes place in front of our eyes.”

As part of the panel, Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, CEO of Plan International, said that “the invisible girl is the first barrier to be broken.” Plan International’s new report, “Counting the Invisible,” shows how data not only reflects gender differences and inequalities, but also provides girls and those advocating for their rights a useful tool to demand accountability. “The SDGs are not a framework but a promise,” said Albrectsen. “Promises need to be monitored. Everyone needs to hold their governments to account.”

Barragues referred to data as a fundamental tool, saying, “Emphasis on data would kill several birds with one stone: for planning, evidence-based advocacy and ultimately strengthening the social movements of girls.”

After an audience member commented on the difficulties in addressing the needs of sex-trafficking victims, the panel moderator, U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore, noted the challenge of giving attention to both data and the voices of those whose experiences it aims to quantify.

“We can’t measure everything. At the end of the day, we have to address the root causes, not just the symptoms, which are easier to measure,” said Barragues. “Social norms and attitudes that come from patriarchal views that women are inferior, these create the power imbalances that put girls at a disadvantage.”

Gender bias is ingrained in the measurement process, resulting not only in the lack of data but even in “bad” data, write contributors Mayra Buvinic and Ruth Levine in “Counting the Invisible.” One consequence is that data can misrepresent reality so that women appear more dependent and less productive than they actually are, which in turn influences policy decisions.

In addition to the importance of gathering better data, the panel also discussed investing in quality education and facilitating active participation by girls in policy discussions as keys to empowerment. Speakers both on the panel and in the audience noted that a solution to gender inequity can only be achieved with the participation of boys and men.

“We should empower women, but we can’t leave men behind,” said Luca, a young woman from Germany on the panel. “We rise, and we take them with us.”

Barragues said there are promising efforts to involve men in the process of empowering women and girls. He points to the International Geneva Gender Champions, an initiative launched by the U.N. Office at Geneva and the United States Mission to the U.N.

“These are heads of agencies and organizations and ambassadors committing to advancing gender equality in the work of the international community in Geneva,” he said. “For example, the initiative promotes panel parity at those events organized by the U.N. There are over 150 champions already mobilized, including the high commissioner for human rights. In fact, the majority are men, which is helpful to promote men’s engagement on gender equality, but is also telling in terms of who holds rank. Ultimately, we are striving to see parity in all areas.”

In Jordan, Women More Vulnerable to Effects of Extremism, Says Report

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Flora Bagenal

As Jordan struggles with rising extremism, a new U.N. report suggests women are much more vulnerable than men to the effects of radicalization, such as an increase in domestic violence and being blamed if their children join an extremist group.

Since the war started in Syria in 2011, neighboring Jordan has shouldered the burden that comes with being one of the countries closest to the crisis. Over 635,000 Syrian refugees have settled in Jordan since the conflict started, putting enormous strain on its resources and infrastructure.

Jordan is also the third-largest contributor of fighters to ISIS, the so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, after Tunisia and Saudi Arabia, and the country has seen a significant rise in support for the group back home. In early 2015, researchers estimated ISIS and other jihadi groups had about 9,000 to 10,000 Jordanian supporters.

As in many other countries facing the threat of radicalization, Jordan’s government has announced plans to tackle violent ideology, putting in place increased security measures and launching a nationwide counter-extremism project that targets radical preachers and young men thought to be at risk of indoctrination.

But research published by U.N. Women in July suggests women could be equally or even more affected by radicalization than men in Jordan, both as victims and perpetrators. The report, based on 47 interviews and focus-group discussions with a cross-section of Jordanian society, calls for more research into the role of women in radicalization. It says much more needs to be done to include them in counter-extremism work.

“People of all different beliefs overwhelmingly said that while men get radicalized, women are more at risk of the effects of radicalization,” says Rachel Dore-Weeks, a peacebuilding expert for U.N. Women in Jordan who coordinated the research. The effects include a rise in violence at home, increased restrictions on women’s movements and a greater risk of being coerced into sharing or spreading radicalized views.

Dore-Weeks says 87 percent of those surveyed said women are at risk of suffering the effects of radicalization, with 71 percent saying women face a bigger risk than men. Until now radicalization has been framed much more in terms of the security implications and the risk it poses to young men, rather than the wider effect it can have on communities in general.

“People said when they had experienced living in communities where there was a rise in radicalization, either via people in Jordan or people going to fight in Syria and Iraq and coming home, they saw those communities getting much more conservative and much more insular,” says Dore-Weeks. “As a result, where women had been eking out freedoms and breaking gender norms little by little, they were really pushed back.”

In cases where fighters have returned from the front line, respondents reported a rise in incidents of domestic abuse at home and said women could be banned from leaving the house, taking public transport or voicing opinions in public.

It was also reported that when young men or women become radicalized, their mothers are often blamed by society and feel more responsible for their children’s behavior, putting them under more pressure from their communities.

Several women interviewed for the report admitted they feared they could be unwittingly pushing their children to become radicalized. “I always encourage my son to pray, because I believe … religion makes you able to differentiate right from wrong,” one unnamed woman said. “However, even though I respect being religiously committed, lately my son has been taking things a bit too far.” The woman told researchers she saw changes in her son’s behavior, including a new, more extremist attitude toward his sisters, that made her think he might be joining ISIS.

While researchers for the report were unable to speak to women who had been radicalized themselves, several respondents reported knowing women who had been radicalized or targeted by extremists. Often, they said, women were recruited because of their role as “influencers” in the home. While some reported women being targeted online, others said women could be targeted at female-only religious study groups.

The reasons respondents gave for women potentially becoming radicalized were similar to those for men, including financial pressures, lack of prospects, and religious conviction. It was also said women could be persuaded to join ISIS or other radical groups as a way to escape domestic abuse or because of a divorce or other difficult situation at home.

Nikita Malik, head of research at the U.K.-based counter-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation, (which was not involved in the report) says counter-radicalization experts have in the past overlooked how important women are to groups like ISIS, reducing their role to that of wife or mother when, in fact, they are highly valuable to recruiters.

“Islamic extremist groups like ISIS are effective because they are made up of a web of networks and women play a key role in that network,” she says, adding that women are needed to bring up children already indoctrinated into the group, to communicate messages within the community, and to uphold a sense of sisterhood, adding legitimacy to the idea of an Islamic caliphate.

Malik says understanding this is key to involving women in de-radicalization work. “In Jordan, we need to see women deployed more as agents of change,” she says. “When a young person is at risk of being radicalized, they won’t turn to an M.P. or an academic – they will turn to a neighbor or a mother or a friend.

“We have to train this level of potentially powerful women to enact de-radicalization.”

Some of that work is already underway, triggered by the U.N. Women report, including a pilot project in universities to create safe spaces for young men and women to talk about radicalization and voice concerns about people they know.

U.N. Women is also in talks with the Jordanian government about approaching female imams to work with the community on countering violent extremism.

And Dore-Weeks says the organization hopes to carry out more detailed research on what drives both men and women into the arms of extremists.

“It’s much more complex than saying it is angry young men who don’t have jobs,” she says. “For the most part it appears to be middle-class people who are being targeted or traveling to [Syria and Iraq] to fight. For them, it is about ideology, it is about fighting a sense of injustice.”

Pushing to Put Women and Girls at the Center of Development

This article originally appeared on the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about issues that affect women and girls in the developing world, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Eline Gordts

As world leaders gather in New York for the U.N. General Assembly, Katja Iversen, president and CEO of Women Deliver, says that gender should be at the forefront of the development conversation.

One year ago, during the 2015 U.N. General Assembly, world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals: 17 targets to help end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030. This year, as global leaders meet to debate how to make that ambitious agenda a reality, Women Deliver argues that gender should be at the forefront of the conversation.

On Wednesday, the international advocacy organization officially kicked off Deliver for Good, its campaign to transform the way the development community looks at women and girls – from powerless victims to agents for change – and to push stakeholders to apply a gender lens to the Sustainable Development Goals. Nine organizations, including Business for Social Responsibility, Landesa and Plan International, have signed on to the campaign.

Women & Girls Hub spoke with Katja Iversen, president and CEO of Women Deliver, about Deliver for Good’s approach and goals on the sidelines of a panel discussion hosted by the organization in New York.

Women & Girls Hub: Why is putting women and girls at the center of the Sustainable Development Goals so important?

Katja Iversen: The philosophy of the campaign is that we need to invest in women and girls if we want to see positive change happen in the world. While some people may find that obvious, apparently it’s not.

We need to focus on them, their needs and their opportunities. The Sustainable Development Goals are a fabulous opportunity. Every single country in the world has to make national plans, so why not use this opportunity to really place women and girls at the center of them. They should be a focus in health, education and economic development plans.

We do anything we can to put girls and women in the driver’s seat and also showcase, with evidence, how they are the change agents. That evidence is rolling in. Studies by McKinsey & Company explained during the panel have shown that it economically pays off to invest in women and girls.

Women & Girls Hub: The Deliver for Good campaign cuts across sectors and focuses on “the whole woman.” Please expand on those ideas.

Iversen: It’s important because it’s the most efficient. We’re not a body part. I’m not identified by a sickness or by my age. We’re whole people. Why build a clinic for nutrition advice, a separate clinic for HIV and one for family planning? It’s a holistic approach that looks at people as whole people and not as however an organization wants to define them.

It’s also efficient funding-wise. It’s not as if we live in an abundant world, so why not do it the best way? Let’s come up with some smart solutions that bring it together.

Women & Girls Hub: Peder Michael Pruzan-Jorgensen, the senior vice president of Business for Social Responsibility, explained during the panel discussion that in many parts of the private sector, the development of women and girls is still a foreign language. What are some of the crucial things that can be done to make it part of their language?

Iversen: Make it easy, and make it economically viable and desirable.

Showcase the evidence that proves that investing in women and girls will lead to growth for the company. I met with the CEO of Sony yesterday, and he said that investing in women, whether at the assembly line or in boardrooms, has paid off. He said that with the evidence there is now, he wouldn’t be a responsible manager if he didn’t invest in women.

It’s also important for us to get into the fora where people like him are. Make the communities come together. At the Women Deliver conference, we brought together 65 business leaders. We also worked with BSR to develop a book – a toolkit, basically – that explains how to approach this, whether you’re a small, medium or multinational company.

Women & Girls Hub: That ties into an interesting insight Peder brought up – that just targeting the multinationals is not enough, because those big companies are not the main employers that women and girls in the developing world interact with.

Iversen: Exactly. The biggest growth in employment is in small- and middle-sized companies. If those companies apply a gender lens and break down some of the gender barriers and prejudices, that’s where the growth in the female workforce will come from.

Women & Girls Hub: Plan International CEO Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen noted today that in the areas where her organization works, the needle hasn’t moved much when it comes to the lived reality for women and girls. How can we speed up actual change in women and girls’ lives? How can we go from amazing goals to implementation?

Iversen: I’m a pragmatist. Let’s look at who’s out on the front line, the organizations that are working in the field. We need to push so that those people and organizations deciding the reality put gender central, do more and get the opportunity to do more by receiving funding for what they do well.

The U.N. works with governments, that’s their job, but we want to push in the same direction across sectors, with everyone who touches upon the lives of girls and women.

This conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Women’s Refugee Commission: Protecting Female Refugees Is Essential

This article originally appeared on Refugees Deeply and the Women & Girls Hub of News Deeply, and you can find the original here. For important news about the global migration crisis and issues affecting women and girls, you can sign up to the Women & Girls Hub email list as well as the Refugees Deeply email list. By Preethi Nallu

Speaking at the opening of the United Nations Refugee Summit on September 19, Women’s Refugee Commission members reiterated their calls for a “complete rethink of traditional humanitarian response.” This conversation is part of our “Voices from the Summit” coverage.

NEW YORK – Addressing world leaders at the first roundtable of the U.N. Summit for Refugees and Migrants on Monday was a defining event for Foni Joyce from South Sudan. A 24-year-old woman who was displaced from her home due to conflict, she opened the conversation at the morning session, as an individual representative of displaced women and girls across the world whose specific needs deserve closer attention amid the accelerating migration influxes.

“The solutions are right in front of you. We can contribute,” said Joyce, speaking on behalf of the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC). Joyce had to defy odds to be able to graduate from university, but she would like to see education and employment become more accessible to female refugees in their transition towards stability. Indeed, it is not often that women are leading voices at the podium, whether with international policies or community-level decisions within displaced communities. The WRC has been working on rectifying this dearth of female voices that has become abundantly clear over the Mediterranean migration crises.

Given that a majority of women like Joyce increasingly end up in urban centers of the world, while seeking asylum, WRC has been documenting this growing trend and its impact on female refugees over the past several years.

In February of this year David Miliband, the president of the International Rescue Committee, announced a statistic at the U.N. that rang alarm bells for mayors of cities and municipalities across the globe.

“At least 60 percent of refugees are now living in urban areas,” Miliband said during his briefing.

This never-before-witnessed level of urban displacement is being investigated by field research that calls for a more “nuanced” understanding of the hurdles that female refugees, in particular, face in urban contexts.

Earlier this year, WRC published a report called “Mean Streets,” based on conversations with diverse refugee populations in Quito, Ecuador; Beirut, Lebanon; Kampala, Uganda; and Delhi, India. Over this summer, they further identified the risks that female refugees in Greece and Turkey, especially those stranded in urban centers, encounter due to an “ineffective” deal between the European Union and Ankara.

Reiterating their “Call to Action on Protection Against Gender-based Violence in Emergencies” at the U.N. summit in New York, the WRC’s researchers explain that policy initiatives do exist to protect female refugees in transition and once they reach their destination. What WRC researchers would like to see is an explicit commitment from governments and acceptance of a concrete action plan that they, together with 50 other groups, have endorsed as part of a five-year road map.

The latest findings, WRC says, show that Greece is “shockingly ill-equipped” to handle basic gender-based needs. Marcy Hersh, senior advocacy officer at WRC, spoke with Refugees Deeply about how the U.N. summit can pave the way not only for protection of women and children but also for providing livelihoods and education. These crucial elements can reduce the risk of women and minors being trafficked, attacked or manipulated into harm.

Refugees Deeply: Could you spell out your main campaigning points at the U.N. Summit for Refugees and Migrants?

Marcy Hersh: The summit should advance effective asylum and legal protection mechanisms in domestic migration management policies and in international forums. It must seek to end arbitrary detention for asylum seekers and instead emphasize the lifesaving importance of access to comprehensive reproductive health services. We are looking for an explicit, detailed commitment to protect all displaced women and girls from gender-based violence while in transit and upon reaching their destinations. We are also calling for expansion of legal and safe employment opportunities that leverage the capacity of refugee women and youth to sustain and protect themselves and their families.

Refugees Deeply: Is it possible to formulate a global, binding policy to protect displaced women and girls from gender-based violence (GBV)? How would such a policy come into effect?

Hersh: I would say that that the policy initiatives needed to protect displaced women and girls from the threat of gender-based violence, in fact, already exist and it is our hope that the U.N. Summit for Refugees and Migrants is an opportunity to further the uptake of said initiatives. The “Call to Action for the Protection of GBV in Emergencies” is a commitment by all humanitarian partners to change how we work so that every humanitarian and refugee response provides safe and comprehensive services for those affected by GBV and mitigates GBV risk. A group of more than 50 governments, U.N. agencies and NGOs have developed a five-year road map that outlines concrete steps all humanitarian and refugee stakeholders can take over the next five years to build this change into the policies, systems and mechanisms we use to respond to emergencies. Each stakeholder has unique strengths and capacities, and by coordinating action and working together we can provide better protection from GBV to the people we serve. When more partners become members of this initiative, and fulfill their commitments under the road map, displaced women and girls will experience meaningful protection.

Refugees Deeply: How does the current E.U.-Turkey deal expose female refugees to gender-based violence (GBV)?

Hersh: Virtually overnight, the E.U.-Turkey agreement forced an unprepared and ill-equipped Greece to shift from being a transit country, where refugees stayed for a few days, to being a host country for 50,000 stranded refugees seeking legal protection. The consequences have been alarming. The deal has had profound and distressing ramifications for refugees, especially women and girls seeking asylum and family reunification in Europe. Refugees now endure prolonged displacement, family separation and unacceptable hurdles to accessing legal protection. Refugee women and girls face unsafe and dire living conditions, increased risk of gender-based violence and heightened fear, anxiety and uncertainty.

Refugees Deeply: How can this situation be remedied?

Hersh: In our recent report, the Women’s Refugee Commission issued a number of recommendations to the European Union, Greece and Turkey. Foremost, we urge the E.U. to review and overhaul its humanitarian and asylum policies to fairly, humanely and expeditiously respond to the needs of all refugees seeking safety, protection and relocation and adhere to international and European laws that bar the return of refugees to unsafe countries. We call on the E.U. to increase financial, material and human resources and oversight to help Greece and Turkey effectively adjudicate claims and deliver needed humanitarian services.

We call on both Greece and Turkey to establish appropriate alternatives to sheltering refugees, wherever they are. Turkey is also urged to ensure refugees have equal access to legal protection and aid regardless of nationality, and to facilitate and increase humanitarian assistance, legal counsel and psychosocial support for returned refugees.

Refugees Deeply: How can the Greek asylum system be scaled up to better protect the interests of all asylum seekers and lone women in particular?

Hersh: Greece must build the capacity and resources of the Greek Asylum Service to ensure the timely and fair review of asylum claims, as well as requests for family reunification or relocation. They must ensure that refugees have information about legal options and processes in a language they understand. Lastly, they must simplify and streamline administrative requirements and decision-making processes to reduce bureaucratic delays.

Greece should coordinate closely with international aid organizations to upgrade safety and services at all sites – increasing access to specialized medical care, psychosocial support and safe spaces for GBV survivors, and reproductive health care and mental health services.

Refugees Deeply: Is there evidence of discrimination based on nationality in terms of aid and shelter, once refugees arrive in Greece?

Hersh: Refugees’ rights and ability to access legal protection in Europe vary dramatically depending on nationality. WRC believes policies linked to nationality create an unofficial and unfair hierarchy among refugees – impacting everything from protection options to the ability to access services. Such discriminatory policies are also in contradiction of the concept and tradition of due process and individualized determinations.

Refugees Deeply: What are the conditions you discovered in Turkey that render it less than safe for mass returns?

Hersh: WRC was not granted direct access to the centers where refugees are returned. From our mission in Turkey, we learned that returned refugees arrive in Turkey most often by boat or sometimes by air and are then transported to one of two “removal centers.” Non-Syrians are largely sent to a center in the Kirklareli area near the Bulgarian border and Syrian refugees to the Düziçi center, a remote site in southern Turkey. Turkey describes removal centers as temporary accommodation while background checks and the registration process unfolds, but WRC would characterize the facilities as detention centers. Freedom of movement is limited at these sites, and individuals can’t leave the premises. Possessions were confiscated and specialized medical care, legal counsel and other needed services are reportedly not available. European MEPs who visited the sites “documented violations of fundamental rights” and cases of “inhumane and degrading treatment.”

Refugees Deeply: Given that a majority of female refugees across the globe are now in urban centers and often on streets, how should U.N. agencies and NGOs address the needs of such refugees differently? Where has UNHCR’s 2009 Urban Policy fallen short?

Hersh: Protecting urban refugees with heightened risks, including women and adolescent girls, requires innovative, tailored programming and outreach. First, recognizing that they are the chief responders in urban settings, humanitarians must systematize and broaden engagement of local actors. Next, in recognition that shelter and livelihoods are extremely fraught with risks and dangerous for urban refugee women, humanitarians must develop proactive and targeted strategies for addressing GBV risks related to shelter and livelihoods. Lastly, humanitarians in urban settings must balance programming done within refugee communities with sessions in the host community. Women refugees remarked that while GBV awareness-raising activities, for example, are beneficial to refugee communities, it is equally important – if not more important, in some locations – to conduct these activities within the host communities where they feel vulnerable and targeted.

Refugees Deeply: How can the U.N. better engage local actors and why is this key?

Hersh: Local actors are the first responders in humanitarian emergencies. They are the first on the scene, they have the best knowledge of humanitarian needs, and will stay the course, providing lifesaving support to displaced populations, long after international donor funding dries up and international partners have moved on to the next crisis. The World Humanitarian Summit included in its Grand Bargain a commitment to direct 25 percent of humanitarian funding “as directly as possible” to local and national organizations. Fulfilling this pledge would be a major milestone and would firmly recognize the essential contributions of civil society organizations in humanitarian response.

Refugees Deeply: How would you propose for “accountability mechanisms” to be put in place to assess the performances of U.N.’s implementing partners?

Hersh: There needs to be far greater accountability throughout the humanitarian system, not just from the U.N. to its implementing partners, but in fact a more robust system of mutual accountability that resonates at all levels. When donors issue funds to an implementing partner, they will include mandatory monitoring and reporting to ensure that the aims of the project are achieved and that the funds are well spent. In order to achieve thorough and meaningful change throughout the humanitarian system, accountability must go in the other direction as well, from implementing partners, up to the U.N. and donors.

The World Humanitarian Summit provides an ideal opportunity to create mechanisms of mutual accountability, where everyone’s commitments, be they from an NGO, a U.N. agency or a donor, all are monitored and publicly reported on, to ensure that all actors fulfill their pledges. It is only through collective action and collective accountability that members of the humanitarian community will meet our ambitious and essential goals.

Women & Girls with Disabilities Need Empowerment, Not Pity, UN Experts Tell States

Disability is a feminist issue, but we often fail to consider disability in feminist policies or gender in disability policies. Everything from the need for representation and dealing with expectations and stereotypes, to encouraging girls and women to love themselves and paving the way for others to tell their stories, is central to both feminist and disability work.

Now, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is helping to promote disability visibility and advocacy with a statement about the rights and needs of women with disabilities--and society's responsibilities toward them.

Click through to read an outline of the statement from the Women's UN Reporting Network, or read the full General Comment; which discusses the main areas of concern for girls and women with disabilities, recommendations for practical steps to better serve everyone in our communities, a call to repeal discriminatory legislation and more. And always remember--we're fighting for the rights and empowerment of all women.

wunrn.com - States too often fail to uphold their obligations with regard to women and girls with disabilities, treating them or allowing them to be treated as helpless objects of pity, subjected to hostility and exclusion, instead of empowering them to enjoy their fundamental human rights and freedoms, the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) has said.

“Policies for women have traditionally made disability invisible, and disabilities policies have overlooked gender. But if you are a woman or a girl with disabilities, you face discrimination and barriers because you are female, because you are disabled, and because you are female and disabled,” said Committee member Theresia Degener.

To help to address this, the Committee has issued guidance for the 166 States that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on how they can promote the empowerment of women with disabilities to enable them to participate in all spheres of life on an equal basis with others, as set out in the Convention and expressly in Article 6.

The guidance, termed a General Comment, stresses that refraining from discriminatory actions is not enough. States need to empower women by “ raising their self-confidence, guaranteeing their participation, and increasing their power and authority to take decisions in all areas affecting their lives.”

Read more

After swimming at the Olympics, a Syrian refugee gains a new platform at the U.N.

After swimming to escape Syria and saving the lives of other refugees -- then swimming as part of the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team at the Olympics -- Yusra Mardini probably deserves a bit of a rest. Instead, the tenacious Syrian teen was honored earlier this month at the first Global Goals Awards and continues to raise awareness for refugees. Read on to learn about Mardini, as well as more about what refugees face -- and what they can achieve. 

washingtonpost.com - A Syrian teenager who saved fellow refugees from drowning and then swam for the refugee team at the Olympics was among those honored at the first Global Goals Awards in New York City.

Yusra Mardini, 18, who fled Syria with her sister in 2015 and now lives in Germany, received the Girl Award at the ceremony on Tuesday night.

The awards honor champions for women’s and girls’ rights and were organized by UNICEF, a children’s humanitarian program run by the United Nations.

Mardini, who had to swim for her life when her overloaded boat broke down in the Mediterranean Sea on the way to Europe, captured headlines when she competed at the Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

At a U.N. summit on migrants and refugees this week, she told world leaders that she wanted to change perceptions of those displaced from their homes.

Read more

UN: Empowering Women Helps the World

The Women’s Empowerment Principles, a joint initiative of the UN Global Compact and UN Women, are a set of standards aiming to set a foundation of equality and to advocate for workplace rights for women. In this post by the UN Global Compact, learn more about the principles and how empowering women to participate fully—both economically and professionally—helps raise the standard for business and society.

Article by UN Global Compact

In collaboration with UN Women, the UN Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with 10 universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. By doing so, business, as a primary driver of globalization, can help ensure that markets, commerce, technology and finance advance in ways that benefit economies and societies everywhere.

A key component to achieving several initiatives for 2015 is the empowerment of women in communities and in the workplace.

UN: Empowering Women Helps the World

Women's Empowerment Principles are a set of principles for business offering guidance on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. They are the result of a collaboration between the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) and the United Nations Global Compact.

The Women's Empowerment Principles are: 1. Leadership promotes gender equality 2. Equal opportunity, inclusion and nondiscrimination 3. Health, safety and freedom from violence 4. Education and training 5. Enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices 6. Community leadership and engagement 7. Transparency, measuring and reporting

The Women's Empowerment Principles—Equality Means Business is a joint initiative of UN Women and the UN Global Compact. The Principles outline seven steps for business on how to empower women in the workplace, marketplace and community. The Principles highlight that empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors and throughout all levels of economic activity is essential to build strong economies; establish more stable and just societies; achieve internationally agreed goals for development, sustainability and human rights; improve quality of life for women, men, families and communities; and propel business' operations and goals. Learn more at the WEP’s Website. For a full list of companies that have signed the CEO Statement of Support for the WEP’s click here: WEPs Company Database

This year, a number of global milestones—the twentieth anniversary of the Beijing Platform for Action (PfA), the Post-2015 Development Agenda and anticipated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—provide a unique opportunity to ensure that the business community commits, contributes and is a key partner to achieving gender equality.

8 charts that show why life is still harder and more dangerous for women

While some countries have made great strides in recent decades toward gender equality, we still have a long way to go before reaching true parity. International Women's Day is Tuesday, March 8, and the theme this year is #PledgeForParity. "Worldwide, women continue to contribute to social, economic, cultural and political achievement," the International Women's Day website proclaims. "And we have much to celebrate today. But progress towards gender parity has slowed in many places."

We'd like to pass on this article from The Independent, with five striking graphic representations of areas that still need a lot of work to reach equality, safety, and happiness of all.

independent.co.uk - Women still earn less than men across all sectors and occupations, hold just a fifth of global parliamentary seats and face an estimated 118-year wait for the gender pay gap to finally close.

Those are some of the startling statistics showing how desperately initiatives to improve education, health and quality of life asInternational Women’s Day approaches.

Sexual abuse

SexAbuse-graphic

More than a third of women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives.

The most common form is domestic violence or attacks by current or previous partners, which occur most frequently between a woman’s teenage years and menopause.

Additionally, at least 46 countries have no laws protecting women against domestic violence and many nations that do enforce them poorly.

Child sex abuse

SexAbuseChildren-graphic

An estimated 120 million girls and women under age 20 have been subjected to forced sexual intercourse or other forced sexual acts – around 10 per cent.

A Unicef report found that the violence was a “global reality” across all countries and social groups that could include harassment, rape or sexual exploitation in prostitution or pornography.

Read the rest here.

Winners of the Freedom from Violence Photo Competition in India send a strong message for change

Check out this amazing album from the UN Women Asia & the Pacific Flickr page, highlighting the winners of their UN Women’s Freedom from Violence Photo Competition. Photographers used their skills and time to highlight women's issues, raise awareness, send a powerful message and paint a revealing picture of what women's lives—and rights—mean for them and for the world.

Click through to view the whole gallery and to read stories about the photos. Visit them online to learn more about UN Women Asia & the Pacific.

flickr.com - Tash McCarroll, Akshita Agrawal and Animesh Malakar are the three winners of UN Women’s Freedom from Violence Photo competition.

They won Nikon Cool Pix cameras for their award-winning effort.

Akshita Agrawal recognised women's freedom of choice as central to ensuring their dignity. “A woman who has the freedom to make choices lives a life of dignity and respect,” she said.

Tash McCarroll spent four days on the streets of Mumbai in Dharavi talking to people about women's rights and taking photographs.

She saw UN Women’s Freedom from Violence Photo Competition as "a great opportunity to educate others and advocate about women's rights to different groups of people, both men and women". She believes that campaigns like this contribute to pushing for change.Tash is one of the three winners of UN Women’s Freedom from Violence Photo competition.

Here we feature the three winning pictures as well as the ten runner ups from the Freedom from Violence for Women and Girls Photo Competition.

Through the two-month long photo competition that ran from 9 December 2012 to 10 February 2013, UN Women encouraged young people to show the world what freedom from violence against women meant to them. As part of the UN Secretary General's UNiTE to End Violence against Women and Girls campaign, millions were encouraged to discuss and prevent violence against women through social media and on ground activation

To defeat ISIS, listen to the women

Far from just being victims of ISIS, Syrian women have risen as some of the biggest agents of change and relief in the area—and an invaluable source of wisdom when it comes to defeating ISIS. Fatima Sadiqi, who founded the Centre for Studies and Research in Morocco, notes how the use by ISIS of enslavement and sexual violence has awakened in many a keen awareness for the need to fight for women's rights—which may be the key to defeating ISIS: "Looking at the big picture, advancing women's rights appears to constitute the first nail in the coffin for the jihadi ideology. Indeed, using the lens of women's rights is the only way to break the jihadi ideology."

The Hill covers a panel discussion, personal stories and more to show how women are driving change in the fight against the terror and extremism in a recent story excerpted below.

thehill.com - In a world inundated with news, information and entertainment, it is easy to miss something important or to forget about it. We hear about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on a near-daily basis because its media operation is sophisticated and omnipresent. We see the terror organization's soldiers, guns, bullets, bombs and beheadings. We see its victims.

But a new, positive trend is on the horizon: the role of women, not just as victims of ISIS, but as powerful change agents to reverse the tide of terrorism.

Instead of fixating on the warriors and the wounded, let's listen more often to the strong women on the ground in places where ISIS and other extremists have ripped apart lives, literally and figuratively — lives of innocent people, especially women and girls. Those are the sounds we need to hear.

Last month, Nadia Murad Basee Taha bravely told her story to the United Nations. Her experiences in Iraq at the hands of ISIS should make your blood boil. Like many Yazidi women in the region, she was kidnapped, beaten and raped by members of ISIS, who sold and bought her as a human sex slave over a three-month period. She did not mince words. "Rape was used to destroy women and girls and to guarantee that these women could never lead a normal life again. ... [The] Islamic State has made Yazidi women into flesh to be trafficked in," she said, adding that the group uses women as "war booty."

Read the whole story here.

International Day of Rural Women

“Collectively, rural women are a force that can drive global progress.”—Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Rural women—their contributions, families, struggles and communities worldwide and how we can all honor, support and recognize them—were the focus of International Day of Rural Women, Oct. 15.

Rural women are often acutely in need of support, but they’re not the only ones who benefit from their empowerment. The key roles they play in their communities position rural women uniquely well to benefit those around them as they thrive. Yet even as the world has seen many advances in medicine, economics, production and more; the number of rural women living in poverty has risen.

Rural women make up about a quarter of the world’s population and produce about half of the world’s food, yet they own only 1 percent of the land. They are resilient, strong, hard workers—from the women who provide for their families each morning only to go out and work 12-hour days fishing or harvesting to the women in sub-Saharan Africa who, collectively, spend about 40 billion hours hauling water each year—yet they are undereducated and often receive little access to training or essential tools for their work.

Women also play pivotal, and sometimes desperately difficult, roles in their families. They are the most likely to be caregivers both for young and old family members, usually on top of their daily responsibilities. When food resources run scares, it is most often women in poor rural families who go hungry, giving food instead to their children and husbands.

International Day of Rural Women was established by the UN in 2007 and first observed in 2008. The observance raises awareness of the crucial role rural women play in the welfare of societies worldwide, and invites governments and organizations to pledge their support for these women, their families and their communities.

Simple measures can often go a long way. Providing women and girls with greater access to education can help for a lifetime. Less than half of school-aged girls in many rural communities attend school, and when family resources suffer, they may be pulled from school to help support the family. Women often have no chance to continue their education, but studies have shown that women with secondary educations tend to marry later, have fewer children and be less susceptible to domestic violence. When women are given access to skills-based training and agricultural resources it can greatly increase the productivity of their farms, helping to feed hundreds of millions worldwide.

When rural women win, everyone wins.

Through concerted and cooperative efforts to empower rural women; governments have begun to fight hunger, bolster economies, deal with natural disasters and rising food prices, support families and transform societies.

We would like to express our support of and admiration for the strides made and awareness raised through International Rural Women’s Day. It’s second only to our admiration for the women themselves. You are superheroes.

Learn more about International Day of Rural Women.

The Fight for Women's Rights Continues Worldwide

“If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard.” Those words first entered the international conscience 20 years ago, as Hillary Clinton, then First Lady of the United States, spoke at the fourth annual United Nations World Conference on Women in Beijing. The issues of that conference, the progress made since then and the road we still must travel have been the focus of this year’s International Women’s Day March 8, Women’s History Month and the 59th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. Efforts, events and initiatives will continue throughout 2015.

Observations like these commemorate women’s achievements throughout history and the ongoing struggle for gender equality. They also serve each year to shine a spotlight on women’s accomplishments and reflect on the progress women worldwide have made—and still must make. As the United Nations observes Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (also known as Beijing+20), this year’s International Women’s Day theme is #MakeItHappen. Make what happen? Aren’t women equal?

Not quite.

The Global Gender Gap Report, an index last released in November 2014, tracks gender inequalities in economics, politics, education and health in 142 countries. While inequalities in health and education are shrinking dramatically worldwide and eliminated in many countries, there is still work to be done—and economic participation and political empowerment are still dramatically unequal worldwide and in most countries. Some countries have made great strides in recent decades toward gender equality—a move that helps not only women, but the country as a whole, as countries with empowered women who are able to realize their full potential are most successful on the international stage.

It’s also worth noting that, despite recent advancements, not one country has reached total gender equality.

Sometimes, it’s even worse. Women and girls around the world continue to face threats including domestic partner violence, female genital mutilation, sex trafficking, barriers to education and lack of health care or birth control.

In spite of performing about 60 percent of the labor worldwide, women often receive a fraction of the wages that men do—not nearly enough to support families.

One in three women will be physically or sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

Even as the United States celebrated Women’s Equality Day Aug. 26, marking 95 years since women in the country won the right to vote, women in the country still make up only 20 to 25 percent of elected officials at the state and federal level—despite turning out to vote at rates much higher than men. The U.S. Supreme Court, at its highest female representation ever, still only boasts three women to six men.

It’s not all bad. Women are, and always have been, crucial players in developement of societies and economies. Women are starting businesses at greater rates than men in recent years, often funded by other women investors. Women are holding political office more than ever before. The number of women in the United States Congress has nearly tripled in that time, though they still make up only 20 percent.

Perhaps most encouragingly, more people are getting on board. Women and men around the world are realizing that the struggle for equality is a cause that helps us all.

Feminism and women’s issues overlap other serious concerns like labor organization, education, environmental conservation, world hunger and poverty.

President Barack Obama said, in his 2014 State of the Union Address, “Of course, nothing helps families make ends meet like higher wages. That’s why this Congress still needs to pass a law that makes sure a woman is paid the same as a man for doing the same work. Really. It’s 2015. It’s time.”

Leaders, activists and citizens from around the world can make it happen—from petitioning world leaders to take action on women’s issues, to starting and investing in women’s business, to taking a critical look at gender relations and the way they talk in their everyday lives—through steps big and small, political and personal, familial and financial.

Whether you’re leading an event or march, joining one of the hundreds of celebrations around the world or fighting for equality in your community and home, we can do this. It’s 2015. It’s time. Get out there and make it happen. ----- International Women’s Day: The discussion and movement continues! Learn more about 2015 initiatives and events around the world. Facebook Twitter Use the hashtag #MakeItHappen