‘It Was Death or a New Life’: The Teen Who Fled Syria in a Wheelchair

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 for the Refugees Deeply email list as well as the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Charlotte Alfred

Nujeen Mustafa didn’t realize fleeing from Syria to Europe in a wheelchair would be considered extraordinary. Now in Germany, she has written a book about her journey. Speaking to Refugees Deeply, she says she hopes the attention will demonstrate that refugees are more than numbers.

The first time 17-year-old Nujeen Mustafa saw the sea, she and her wheelchair were hauled on to an overcrowded dinghy headed for Europe.

Growing up in the Syrian cities of Manbij and Aleppo, Mustafa – who was born with cerebral palsy – rarely left the house.

Last September, Mustafa traveled 3,500 miles across hostile borders and perilous seas to Germany in a wheelchair, with the help of her sister.

She describes the odyssey in a new book “Nujeen: One Girl’s Incredible Journey from War-Torn Syria in a Wheelchair,” co-authored by veteran British journalist Christina Lamb.

A year after her journey, Mustafa lives outside Cologne, Germany, with two of her sisters and four nieces. In Syria, she was largely self-taught and learned English by watching American soap opera “Days of our Lives.” She now attends a school for people with disabilities and has learned German.

Meanwhile, Mustafa is still waiting for documents to allow her to stay in Germany and apply for her parents to join her from Turkey.

Refugees Deeply: What are your happiest memories of Syria?

Nujeen Mustafa: I mostly remember my home, the city, the balcony and our family gatherings to watch soccer. That was really fun.

Refugees Deeply: What do you wish more people would know about why people like your family are leaving Syria?

Mustafa: I’ve come to realize that people who have left wars, or witnessed wars, have just become numbers, and they are usually forgotten. It is the politicians who are the ones who are mentioned, and they are not good people for people to read about. I am terrified that in 50 years I’ll hear the names of the people who caused this tragedy in my country, and they’ll be the ones who are remembered, and not me or my family.

Refugees Deeply: What do you hope people would learn from reading your book?

Mustafa: The goal of the book was that people should not think of us as aliens. I speak the words of many other people when I say we are trying really hard, and we are trying to adapt ourselves to the new style of everything. People have to understand, living as a refugee is not easy. I’m not eager to learn German grammar. To rebuild your life from the zero point is not an easy thing to do.

When you end up sensing that people are skeptical, or are mean to you, after all you’ve been through, this is a really unpleasant feeling because you feel like a stranger, like an outcast. I’d like to reassure everyone that we are only guests – I hate the word “refugee” – and if we ever get the chance, we will gladly go back.

Refugees Deeply: What were the best and worst moments in your journey from Syria to Germany?

Mustafa: The best moment was when we decided to go. You think: “I’m going to pass a whole continent, and I’m going to be so far from home.” I told my sister, “This is going to be fun! You’ll never have this experience again in your whole life.”

Because I had this circle of people in my family that were trustworthy and my life was totally normal apart from not going to school, I think that caused me to be oblivious to how my condition was. So even with the wheelchair I thought, let’s try it, we have to do it. You never know what you are capable of until you try. The worst fear was death, but the journey looked possible. Either it would be death, or a new life.

The worst parts were the registration, the fear of getting fingerprinted, that you have to trust Google to know where you’re going and you are surrounded by police all the time. They treat you well, but you also feel like something they will gladly get rid of.

Refugees Deeply: How did doing this journey change you?

Mustafa: Now I know what I’m capable of doing, and that made me more determined, because I know more about what I can do. The reaction of other people to my journey really shocked me. My life was so normal to me, I forgot that it’s going to be considered a weird thing for a wheelchair user who didn’t go to school, to speak English and do this journey across Europe. I was really happy, because I have people’s support, I have friends and to feel useful was awesome.

Now I’m just happy that I’m away from bombing, from helicopters and cluster bombs. Even though it’s a really high-cost thing, because I left behind my family.

Refugees Deeply: In what ways has life in Germany been different to what you expected?

Mustafa: In many ways! Instead of waiting for lunch, I’m waiting to do my next interview. Also getting up early, doing stuff teenagers here do, and the sense of security. You have this internal peace in your heart. You dare to look forward to things, because there is no fear.

I had some difficulties. When I arrived in Germany I thought: “Oh my God, am I going to start speaking like them? Do things like they do?” You have to learn the German language very fast. At school, I was a little intimidated at first because I didn’t understand them well, and they’re always expecting something new, but you get used to it and now it’s fine.

I thought of it as the start of my new life, so I was happy for the challenge. I’m turning 18 years old soon, and it’s time to face life.

Refugees Deeply: What do you hope to do next?

Mustafa: I’m in ninth grade right now and I have one year left at school. I will try to do my best and be the best. I have this tendency to be number one. I’m a perfectionist and that’s crazy. I get a headache when my sisters’ pronunciation of German is totally bad, and it gets on my nerves.

I think when you’re in a new society, you tend to want to prove yourself, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m also trying not to appear awkward and adapt myself to the German lifestyle.

After school, plan A is to study physics and become an astronaut. Plan B is to continue writing. I will write about anything I know – it may be sport, or it may be stories because I have a really wild imagination. The six American winners of the Nobel prize were all immigrants, and I think that’s proof how useful immigrants can be to countries. I will try to help Germany; I will try to do my part.

As soon as I get my residence permit, I will apply for my passport and then I think directly we will fly back to Turkey to see my parents.

Refugees Deeply: Do you think it is more difficult for people with disabilities who become refugees?

Mustafa: As I said earlier, you never know what you are capable of. But I always think of people who are stuck in Syria with disabilities. I know how hard it is to wait for death to come. I think no matter what you should be happy you are alive. I think we must all have faith in God. No one is an extra number of the world’s population. I understand that our society does not understand people with disabilities as people in Europe do, but I think we can maintain hope, and hope for the best. I always say, nothing lasts forever. Even war does not.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

“NUJEEN: One Girl’s Incredible Journey from War-Torn Syria in a Wheelchair” is in bookstores now, published by Harper Wave. Read an excerpt from the book here.

The Push to Get Every African Country to Criminalize Marital Rape

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 Rumbi Chakamba

The U.N.’s Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women states that ‘violence against women shall be understood to encompass … marital rape.’ But spousal rape is still not recognized in the laws of more than half the countries in Africa.

According to the World Health Organization’s 2006 study on domestic violence, the most common form of violence against women is perpetrated by their intimate partners. But in many parts of Africa, the rape of a woman by her husband isn’t considered a crime.

In several countries, including Senegal and Botswana, there is no legislation dealing with the issue of spousal or marital rape, while in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and other countries, the law protects conjugal rights, stating that rape can only occur outside of wedlock. While governments continue to turn a blind eye to marital rape, say activists, many women remain vulnerable to sustained abuse as their country’s laws fail to protect them.

The 2014 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey shows that 8 percent of women surveyed said they had experienced sexual violence from their husbands within the past year, while 14 percent reporting having experienced sexual violence from their partners at least once in their lifetime.

A policy brief on marital rape produced by the African Population Health Research Center for the Kenyan Parliament in 2010 highlighted the stories of various victims in a bid to conscientize legislators on the need for policy change. One was the story of 28-year-old Sally (not her real name), who is a client of the Women’s Rights Awareness Programme, an NGO that provides shelter, counseling and practical and legal advice to survivors of gender-based violence in Nairobi. She reported that she resisted having sex with her late husband because he “had signs” of a sexually transmitted disease, but he would force her. After her husband’s death, Sally went to a clinic to get tested and found out she was HIV-positive.

According to the World Bank Research on Women, Business and Law, only 14 countries in Africa have legislation in place that specifically criminalizes marital rape. While it is possible for women to file complaints in most of the countries that do not specifically criminalize rape, in eight states husbands are exempt from facing criminal penalties for forcing their wives to have sex with them.

Until recently, Malawi was one of the African states where the law was silent on marital rape. Activists in the country have long been fighting to have the act recognized as a crime. In 2001, rights group Women in Law in Southern Africa-Malawi (WILSA-Malawi) drafted a bill on marital rape which sparked fierce public debate. But the debate was eventually shut down by a judge who said such a law would go against one of the basic foundations of marriage. “By entering into marriage, each spouse is taken to have consented to sexual intercourse with the other spouse during the existence of his or her marriage,” Supreme Court Judge Duncan Tambala told reporters at the time.

Now, after 15 years of campaigning, WILSA Malawi National Coordinator Mzati Mbeko says the group can claim a small victory with the introduction of the Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Bill 2015. While the bill reaffirms conjugal rights in marriage, it also spells out exceptions where a spouse may refuse to have sex “on reasonable grounds.” According to the bill, those grounds include poor health, recovery after giving birth, recovery after surgery and “if he/she has reasonable fear that engaging in sexual intercourse is likely to cause physical or psychological harm to either spouse.”

The bill also states that a husband can be convicted of marital rape for nonconsensual sex if he and his wife are separated at the time. Though Mbeko touts the bill as a much-needed first step, he is also quick to say that it does not do nearly enough to address the full scale of the problem. “We can now push full throttle for the recognition of marital rape within the law as it [marital rape] is a form of gender-based violence,” he says. “With no law, it will continue and women will continue to suffer.”

But getting lawmakers to take a stronger stand against non-consensual sex within marriage means overcoming deeply ingrained patriarchal and cultural beliefs. Annie Banda, a gender activist in Malawi who has been lobbying for the country to pass a marital rape law, says that in private discussions with various parliamentarians, she has been told that marital rape is simply not possible. “When you are outside the meeting rooms, they will tell you there is no way that a man can rape his own wife,” she says.

In Botswana, too, the attitude toward sex in marriage holds that women give up their individual rights once they enter wedlock. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior police officer in the Botswana Police Service confirms that he and his colleagues do not deal with marital rape cases. “We as the police cannot police in the bedroom,” he says. “How can you refuse to be with your own husband when you belong to him and expect us to intervene?”

Even in places where laws against marital rape exist, cultural beliefs make them difficult to enforce. South Africa was one of the first African countries to legislate against marital rape, in 1993, but research reveals that patriarchal attitudes still influence how the courts handle cases of marital rape. In its 2012 report on marital rape in South Africa, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa documents one case where a judge dismissed marital rape charges because the husband’s “desire to make love to his wife must have overwhelmed him, hence his somewhat violent behavior.” In another case, the complainant was abducted and raped by her husband, who thought it was his right as she had not reimbursed him the lobolo (bride price) he had paid for her. In his ruling, the judge said that the defendant’s actions “though totally unacceptable in law … were shaped and molded by the norms, beliefs and customary practices by which he lived his life.”

Gender activist Annie Banda predicts a long road ahead in the fight to eradicate marital rape. “Marital rape is there, but people do not want to accept it,” she says. “The victims are complaining, but law enforcers still do not believe it is possible for a man to rape his wife, because of our culture.”

Escaping Ebola: Danger from the Desert to the Deep Blue Sea

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 Hereward Holland

Fleeing Sierra Leone for Europe, Fatima and her family endured a dangerous journey across six countries, the Sahara Desert and conflict-ridden Libya. And that was all before they joined the thousands who continue to risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean.

Fatima has been on the run from an invisible terror for almost two years. It took her sister Omo, her brothers Muhammed and Yaya, and her uncle, also called Muhammed. Now she sits on the deck of the Sea Watch search-and-rescue ship 24 miles off the coast of Libya, exhausted and heavily pregnant, but safe.

Her bubbly 10-year-old son Daniel lies in her arms as she recounts her odyssey, which traversed six countries, the largest desert in the world, an ISIS insurgency and the hungry waves of the Mediterranean. “We came, little by little,” she says, stroking Daniel’s forehead.

In 2014, Ebola swept through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, infecting 28,600 people and killing 11,300 of them. The hemorrhagic virus decimated Fatima’s hometown. “It was like during the war,” Fatima said, referring to Sierra Leone’s 11-year civil war in which over 50,000 people were killed. “In Port Loko, Ebola was the worst in all Sierra Leone,” Fatima says of the lush riverside settlement two hours’ drive from the country’s capital, Freetown.

Over a million people seeking asylum arrived in Europe by sea in 2015, mostly fleeing wars in the Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, others, like Fatima and Daniel, were running from other things: disease, oppression and poverty.

As the numbers swelled, Europe’s warm embrace soon turned cold and in March the Turkey-Greece sea route was closed. But while the number of arrivals has gone down, even more people have died at sea this year – highlighting the inadequacy of Europe’s response.

Fatima recalls how she had watched Ebola take whole families. She couldn’t let it take her young family, too. So in September 2014, she fled with Daniel and her husband, Musa, “because it was getting worse every day.”

They wanted to get as far away as possible, which meant first going through Guinea, then Senegal, Gambia, Burkina Faso and eventually ending up in Mali where smugglers offered to take them across the Sahara Desert.

Firm data are unavailable, but a recent report by 4mi, an affiliate of the Danish Refugee Council, says that anecdotal testimony suggests the crossing of the sea of sand could be even more deadly than the journey across the Mediterranean.

Based on interviews with over 1,300 migrants between 2014 and 2016, the report says 1,245 people perished crossing Libya, Sudan and Egypt, compared to 3,771 people killed or declared missingcrossing the Mediterranean in 2015. “The relatively small number of migrants interviewed by 4mi monitors suggests the 1,245 figure is a conservative estimate of those who actually perished.

“It would be safe to assume the number of migrants and refugees dying before reaching the shores of Egypt and Libya is even higher than the number of deaths at sea,” the report says.

Six months pregnant, Fatima and her family squeezed on to the top of a pick-up truck with 30 other people. For three days, they saw no sign of life. “The desert was worse than everything,” she says. “The water was disgusting. It tasted salty. Some died, some survived.”

Once in Libya, the family was robbed of everything, including Fatima’s phone. She and her family spent three months searching for a way to escape the country in the grips of an ISIS insurgency and cross the sea to sanctuary.

Last year, over a million people entered Europe by boat, most of them crossing to Greece from Turkey, although 150,000 crossed from Libya. On average, 10 people died every day, most of them on the longer and more dangerous journey from Libya.

This year, the number of people crossing to Greece has sharply declined, but the traffic on the route from Libya continues apace. Shipwrecks and boat capsizings on the Mediterranean have already claimed over 3,600 people this year, almost as many as last year. In one deadly week in May, the United Nations Refugee Agency estimated 880 people drowned.

By the time Fatima and her family had reached the point they were meant to cross from Libya to Italy, Fatima was sleeping on floors and due to give birth any day. Then their luck turned when they managed to persuade a smuggler to take them on board for free.

“The boat was full of people. People were fighting, people were yelling,” she says. “I suffered a lot. Even if you say you are pregnant, nobody listens to you. I was crying until I got here.”

The Sea Watch search-and-rescue ship arrived to meet them, and the crew plucked Fatima and Daniel from the overstuffed rubber boat. Musa had remained on the boat and would meet them later on the Italian naval vessel that would take them on to Italy.

Sea Watch is part of an informal flotilla of aid ships and European war ships saving thousands of people every day. But the head of mission, Ingo Werth, is concerned that the enterprise, while essential, is only a temporary and ineffectual solution. To really save lives, he says, would require political action.

“It’s a ridiculous game. I think it would be much safer to go to Libya, pick up the people and take them to the Italian shore. It would be much safer. You wouldn’t lose one life,” he says.

A UNHCR spokesman told News Deeply it is urging governments that are still accepting refugees to take in more people through organized channels, including resettlement, work or study schemes, family reunions and humanitarian visas.

For Fatima and her family, the journey is almost over – she hopes. Sitting on the Sea Watch deck, Daniel drifts off to sleep as Fatima begins to contemplate the end of life on the run.

“Daniel is very strong, but we are tired,” she says. “We are tired of that kind of life.”

Photo Essay: Acting and Chatting to End Early Marriage in Malawi

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 Didem Tali

When Malawi passed a law banning child marriage last year, activists applauded it as a significant first step in ending the practice. Now some local groups are using song, theater and dialogue to spread the message and change attitudes towards early marriage.

Malawi has one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world, with one out of every two girls married by the age of 18, according to the umbrella group Girls Not Brides. After immense pressure from activists and grassroots organizations, Malawian President Peter Mutharika signed a bill last year that raised the minimum age of legal marriage from 15 to 18.

The new bill is seen as a significant step toward ending child marriage in the country and has been celebrated by activists and civil society. But according to Faith Phiri, the executive director ofGirls Empowerment Network, a grassroots organization operating to advance girls’ rights in Malawi that operates in Chiradzulu, “The job is far from done.”

The law gives support to those fighting early marriage by giving them the right, for example, to report to the police anyone seen forcing their young daughter to marry. “But solving this issue requires much more than new laws,” says Phiri. “Most importantly, it requires community participation and changes in attitude.”

So activists and local groups are working in rural communities to raise awareness about the new law. In their own ways, they are creating dialogue and spreading the message about the end of child marriage.

A Chief Takes the Law Into Her Own Hands

In Malawi, the tradition of local leadership means village and district chiefs have the final word over the affairs of their community. Decisions regarding marriage and divorce traditionally have to be approved by local authorities, giving village chiefs the power to end child marriages in their communities.

“I made the minimum age of marriage 22 in my own village,” says Ida Alli, the senior chief of Chiradzulu District.

Alli, who was declared a champion of women’s empowerment by former president Joyce Banda, takes pride in making it as hard as possible for people in her village to marry off their daughters. “If I hear rumors that someone might be interested in marrying their daughters off, I personally go to their home, I invite the man’s family, too, and talk to both of the families,” she says. “We talk for hours, and usually for days. I warn them about the dangers of marrying young and the importance of education.”

In the event that talking with the families doesn’t work and a girl needs further protection, Alli invites the girl to live with her at her farm and ensures that she goes to school. The chief also supports vulnerable girls in their efforts to find work and open small businesses.

Alli is aware of the privilege of her position as a traditional leader, and her potential influence on the decisions of her fellow villagers. “In our culture, reputation in one’s community is important,” says Alli. “A lot of people don’t want to do something that is not approved by traditional authorities.”

Fathers and Daughters Open Up

Fathers play a key role in determining whether or not their daughters will get married at a young age, but in patriarchal settings, fathers and daughters rarely have an open dialogue about the issue.

To help family members have honest discussions about early marriage, Girls Empowerment Network got together with community activists and launched Father-Daughter Chat Day. The group regularly runs events that bring together fathers, daughters and other community members to talk about their futures and dreams while they play games, sing and dance.

During one recent Father-Daughter Chat Day, a man held his teenage daughter’s hand and announced, “I promise not to marry my daughter off, and I will support her dreams of becoming a teacher as much as I can.” He then signed a piece of paper and handed it to the village chief as a guarantee that he would keep his promise.

Then the crowd of villagers cheered and applauded as dozens of fathers followed the same ritual, publicly pledging to not marry off their daughters.

Theater and Singing for Those Having Second Thoughts

If the efforts of the village leaders and the father-daughter chats aren’t enough, the girls of Chiradzulu have a secret weapon: Their haunting singing.

Every weeka few local girls aged between 11 and 16 come together after school and compose songs against child marriage. In their most popular song, they ask their communities to support them with their education instead of marrying them off.

“Community theater, music and art have all proven to be great ways for communities to start a dialogue around the issue of child marriage,” says Lakshmi Sundaram, executive director of Girls Not Brides. “They can also help girls and their communities understand and express some of the harmful consequences of the practice.”

Moreen, a 16-year-old community theater actor and an early marriage activist, is sitting on the ground, looking intimidated by the older actor playing her mother-in-law. A child marriage survivor and a mother of two, Moreen recently escaped an abusive marriage that left her HIV positive and moved back in with her family. Now back in school, Moreen is using her passion for theater to get people in her village to understand why girls should wait to get married.

The show stops and one of the actors hands a microphone to a member of the audience to discuss how issues like early marriage or domestic abuse should be tackled. “So, how do you deal with a situation like this at home?” the actors ask the audience, and the crowd starts to buzz with suggestions.

“I don’t want the things that happened to me to happen to other girls,” Moreen says. “Also, acting is a lot of fun.”

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.

Hungry and Isolated, Women Who Survived Boko Haram Face New Nightmare

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 for the Refugees Deeply email list as well as the Women & Girls Hub email list. By Shaista Aziz

Hunger and insecurity stalks the displacement camps of Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state, where people who fled Boko Haram face the risk of famine. Shaista Aziz meets displaced women concerned about destitution and abuse, and the female activists trying to help them.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – Yagna Ibrahim is a woman who has a presence that is difficult to ignore. She strides into the room with grace and confidence, pulls out a chair and sits down next to her friend and fellow women’s rights activist Rabia Musa.

The two women are part of an informal network of women’s rights activists that is trying to mobilize women in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State to help displaced women and children, providing food, clothes, money and other support.

Both are in their fifties, wives and mothers, educated and financially independent. They prefer not to tell their husbands the details of their work in case they think it’s too dangerous.

“Our society has changed forever and we have to work to limit the damage,” Ibrahim explains during an interview in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Over the past seven years, the militant group Boko Haram has set about destroying communities, schools and health facilities in northeast Nigeria and has used sexual violence and the kidnapping of women and girls to terrorize the population. At least 20,000 people have been killed, and an estimated 2.5 million people have been displaced.

Amid the carnage, communities have been unable to tend to their land and multiple harvests have failed. Hunger has taken over. Children and adults have wasted to death. The United Nations’ children’s agency UNICEF warned that 75,000 children could die this year without a major aid effort in northeast Nigeria.

Yet aid has been slow to reach people in the region. Some Nigerians fear corrupt local officials are diverting resources from people in need. The international aid system was slow to recognize the scale of the crisis and has not yet cranked into full gear. Ongoing fighting has complicated the effort – the U.N. estimates that 2 million people remain inaccessible to aid agencies.

The magnitude of the crisis is slowly coming to light as the Nigerian military “liberates” areas previously under Boko Haram control. Each village and town is a piece of a jigsaw that, when pieced together, reveals a level of suffering that has been largely hidden from the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, traumatized families continue to pour out of their destroyed homes and villages, seeking sanctuary, food and medical care in Maiduguri. Their number has risen sharply in the last six months. Maiduguri’s population has almost doubled in size to more than 2 million people in recent years.

There are 11 official and unofficial camps for people who have been displaced across Maiduguri. People living in the unofficial camps have little access to aid. In one of these camps, known as Custom House, residents told aid workers last month that they had no way to buy food and were boiling leaves to survive.

There is a visible absence of men in the displacement camps. Musa explains that it is likely that most have been killed, forced to join Boko Haram or are being held in military detention centers.

“We cannot say for sure what has happened to them but we know that they are unlikely to return to their families,” she says. “This is the situation and the clock cannot be turned back.”

This has left women and children in a particularly vulnerable position, while creating tensions with the wider population.

“These women are widows and they have limited chances to rebuild their lives,” Ibrahim explains. “Many are young and are suffering trauma.”

Ibrahim says that for many women, their best chance at security could be marrying another man, including one who is willing to take up to four wives under Islamic law.

“We are working to reach out to these widows and try to integrate them into the community, but there are plenty of widows and we are limited in numbers of workers,” she says. “This is a huge issue now for our society.”

Even after they escaped fighting for the relative safety of the camps, the threat of violence and sexual assault continues to cast a long shadow over women’s lives.

Most of the displacement camps are surrounded by the Nigerian military. Men carrying weapons are visible inside the camps, likely members of a civilian militia that is armed by authorities.

In Muna Garage Camp on the outskirts of Maiduguri, where around 15,000 displaced people live in flimsy structures that provide little protection from the scorching sun or monsoon rain, women say they rarely venture outside the camp’s boundaries. “We have no reason to leave,” one woman says.

Another woman raises her arms in the air and starts patting her body down. “This is how the men touch our bodies when we leave the camp,” she says. “They say they need to check us for security. Do you think we want to be touched like this?”

People displaced from areas taken by Boko Haram have been met with suspicion in Maiduguri. Local authorities have openly fanned fears that the displaced population may have radicalized Boko Haram sympathizers in their midst.

Women have been particularly designated as suspect. Local officials describe women freed from Boko Haram control as a security risk, some claiming that is impossible to ensure that the camps for the displaced have not been “infiltrated” by “the wives of Boko Haram.”

When people in Borno refer to “wives,” it is a euphemism for rape and sexual slavery. While it is possible that some women have voluntarily joined or married fighters, most survivors describe forced marriage and horrific sexual violence, including rapes by multiple men.

“Unspeakable things start happening to girls from the age of 12,” Amina, a 15-year-old girl from Bama who recently gave birth to her first child, said in a maternity clinic on the outskirts of Maiduguri.

Another girl, 16 years old and pregnant, said Boko Haram rounded up most of the girls around her age from her village and took them away. While she evaded kidnapping, her brothers said they could not protect her from Boko Haram and forced her to get married.

Women who became pregnant while in Boko Haram captivity have been particularly shunned by local communities. The militant group’s repeated use of women and girls as suicide bombers has also roused the fears of the local population.

This week, a car bomb exploded less than 0.6 miles (1km) away from Muna Garage camp, killing five people. Camp residents told an aid worker – who asked to remain anonymous because not authorized to speak to the media – that a female suicide bomber was behind the attack and that her two-year-old child survived the blast.

The deepening suspicion and fear will make life even more difficult for women who are already struggling to survive on the margins of a fractured society while overcoming the horrors of the past.

In Muna Garage Camp, Aisha, a mother of five, described fleeing her home in Mafa when Boko Haram militants attacked two years ago.

“They came like wildfire to burn and loot our homes – they showed us no mercy, no mercy at all,” she says.

“I picked up my children and ran and have been running since then.”

All the women in this story requested their names be changed for their own protection.

Slow Progress on Ending ‘Legacy of Slavery’ for Domestic Workers

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 Jan Powell

As demand for home help increases around the world, the number of countries adopting laws to protect domestic workers continues to grow. But their abuse and exploitation won’t stop without a fundamental change in social attitudes, say advocates.

When Pavitra left her family and four children in Nepal to go to Oman as a domestic worker, she had high hopes that the job would provide the money her family needed for medical bills. Her sisters had gone abroad before and returned safely with a modest income. But Pavitra’s experience was different. “I would wake at six in the morning and I’d go to sleep at 1 or 2 in the morning,” she says, through a translator. “For breakfast, we had bread and tea and then at four in the afternoon we’d get one meal.”

Then one night, the husband came into the room she was cleaning, shut the door and raped her, threatening to shoot her if she told his wife. Pavitra did tell her employer, who refused to believe her and instead took her to the police, accusing her of seducing her husband. Pavitra was locked up for three months, without access to a lawyer, before she was finally sent back to Nepal. She did not go back to her family, fearing blame and stigma. “If my family, especially my husband, finds out, they will abandon me,” she says.

At least 67 million people worldwide are employed in the home – cooking, cleaning, caring for the very young and the very old. The vast majority of these domestic workers are women who, isolated and hidden away in private homes, are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. According to the Geneva-based International Labour Organization (ILO), around 90 percent of domestic workers lack even the most basic protection afforded to most factory or office workers.

It was to try to improve conditions for domestic workers that the ILO’s Convention on Domestic Workers was adopted in 2011, setting global standards and conditions for the employment of home help. Five years on, 70 countries have taken action on Convention 189, as it is known, with 22 ratifying it, 30 adopting it and a number of others upgrading their own national legislation in line with the convention’s recommendations. But have the laws made any difference to the lives of domestic workers on the ground?

According to Claire Hobden, ILO technical specialist on vulnerable workers and domestic work, who was involved in drafting the convention, it has done some good. The convention has raised awareness of the rights of domestic workers, she says, and has encouraged the creation of many more grassroots organizations to fight for those rights and contribute to law and policy development. In 2012, Uruguay became the first country to ratify Convention 189 and now has some of the most advanced legislation in the world to protect its estimated 120,000 domestic workers. This has led to wage rises, compensation for night work, and paid holidays. A government-led, country-wide campaign has also contributed to an increase in social security coverage for domestic workers. “The percentage of domestic workers registered for social security increased very significantly following the interventions of the government,” says Hobden.

Hobden says the convention has also prompted some countries to modify their own laws to raise standards. Morocco – which voted to adopt the convention but hasn’t yet ratified it – is one of the latest countries to bring in new legislation to protect domestic workers, setting 18 as the minimum age for employment, requiring a contract of work and a minimum of one day off each week, and imposing financial penalties on employers who break the law.

But there are still many countries – particularly in regions such as the Middle East, the Far East and parts of Asia – where domestic work is largely excluded from national laws. And even where relevant legislation does exist, such as anti-trafficking laws, it is often poorly enforced.

In what Marzena Zukowska, spokeswoman for the U.S.-based National Domestic Workers Alliance, describes as a “two-fold care crisis,” shifting employment patterns, with more mothers choosing to go to work, and an aging population mean the demand for domestic services is increasing worldwide. Many domestic workers live in abysmal, humiliating conditions. Frequently dependent on their employers for food and housing, domestic workers’ meals can consist of leftovers and their living quarters limited to cramped rooms at the back of the house.

Migrants, who make up around 17 percent of domestic workers, are particularly vulnerable. In some areas – including the United States, the Middle East and parts of Europe – migrant workers who have complained about their living conditions have lost their jobs, had their visas withdrawn and ended up in prison for being in the country illegally, according to Hobden. “I remember one woman in the U.S. who had her passport and her shoes taken away from her to prevent her leaving the house – this can happen almost anywhere,” she says.

Abuse, too, is common, with domestic workers describing a range of psychological and physical violence – from verbal abuse to beatings, sexual harassment and rape – usually happening behind closed doors and rarely reported.

While strong, effective legislation is an essential tool for change, improving the lives of domestic workers requires a fundamental evolution in the attitudes of those who employ them, say activists. “Too many people don’t see ‘housework’ as real work. They believe that providing food and accommodation is adequate payment,” says Hobden.

Work in the home traditionally goes unpaid in many cultures, or in return for food and lodging. This “master-servant” relationship, which activists say is just a modern version of slavery, is widely accepted in countries where the notion of an employment relationship with labor rights is relatively new.

“You hear about the murders, the scalding by boiling water, the severe beatings, but that sets a very low bar,” says Hobden. “Other employers may think, ‘I’m a good employer because I don’t beat my help.’ But that’s not enough.” For Convention 189 to do its job properly, activists, rights groups and governments need to focus on changing the way both employers and workers think about domestic work. “We need to raise the bar,” says Hobden. “We need to change that social norm.”

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.

As Mothers, Wives and Farmers, Women Feel the Strain of Climate Change

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 Sally Nyakanyanga

With Uganda suffering through climate change-related drought, flooding and unpredictable weather, women take on most of the work to keep their families fed. But lack of land rights means they reap few benefits.

LAGAJI VILLAGE, Uganda – In Nwoya district, families face a daily struggle to grow the crops they rely on for food and income. Extreme weather leaves the ground either too wet or too dry to grow anything. Drought and deforestation mean villagers – usually women – have to spend most of the day traveling long distances for water and firewood. And then there are the elephants.

“We have to grapple with elephants ravaging our crops, resulting in us being unable to fend for our families,” says Stella Ojara, a peasant farmer and mother of 10 who needs her crops to feed her family and the surplus to sell for school fees. A government conservation scheme in nearby Murchison Falls National Park has had success in increasing the area’s elephant population. But when the massive animals go in search of something to eat, they can devastate local crops, sinking Lagaji’s farmers deeper into poverty and hunger.

Even without rampaging wildlife, the effects of climate change – unseasonably high temperatures, perennial droughts, extreme and unpredictable weather – put enormous strain on farmers across Uganda. Making up more than half of the country’s farmers, women bear the brunt of the fight to survive from one planting season to the next. “When the rains come and we plant our crops, the rains vanish, leaving our crops to wilt and die due to inadequate rainfall,” says Jane Ochira, a farmer in the village of Lagaji.

But with limited land rights, few can reap the benefits of their work.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the agricultural sector remains the backbone of Uganda’s economy, contributing over 70 percent of the country’s export earnings. Women constitute 56 percent of Ugandan farmers and make up more than 70 percent of agricultural production, nutrition and food security, at the household level, according to the Women of Uganda Network (WOUGNET). But while women do most of the farm work, they only own 16 percent of the arable land in the country.

Edidah Ampaire, coordinator for Uganda’s Policy Action for Climate Change Adaptation project, says that women’s rights and roles are severely restricted, particularly in rural areas, and that government policies don’t do enough to address the imbalance. “Gender inequality in agricultural practices demonstrates how men have an advantage over women,” he says. “Women from rural areas are highly dependent on land, yet they are less likely to own land.”

WOUGNET says making land available to women gives them the chance to sustain themselves and their households as climate change forces them to spend most of their time cultivating fields and collecting firewood and water, leaving little time to make an income.

But even women who own land can find themselves unable to grow enough to feed their families, let alone surplus to sell on. “The poor and rural communities, mainly women, are greatly affected by climate change as they depend on extracting resources from the land for their daily survival,” said Paul Mukwaya from Makerere University, speaking to the press last year. As farmers and family caregivers, women have to deal with a slew of consequences resulting from drought and flooding, not just food and water shortages, but also high incidences of malaria and other water-borne diseases. “Food has been rotting in the garden due to floods, and diseases like malaria have caused deaths in families,” says Lagaji farmer Jane Ochira.

Struggling to provide for their families, constantly on the search for food and water, and often battling illness or caring for sick family members, women also suffer from the impact that climate change has on their husbands. According to George Onen, the parish chief for Patira and Pabit in Nwoya district, many women in rural Uganda are subjected to domestic violence due to tensions at home over food shortages and mainly during harvest time. “Poverty and food shortages create fertile ground for conflicts and domestic violence in the home,” he says. “It’s saddening that some men during harvest time, instead of saving the money and preparing for the next farming season, will decide to waste the money on drinking and marrying more women.”

And when the situation becomes too dire to bear, women can find themselves completely alone in the struggle to keep their families fed. When a crop fails due to extreme weather conditions, men will often become “migrants,” leaving for the city to find work and sometimes not returning, according to Maria Mutagamba, minister of water and environment. “They abandon the family when the land is no longer productive to search for work in the city, leaving behind the women suffering with the children.”

This story was reported with the support of an African Great Lakes Fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

For Kinshasa’s Homeless Girls, a Life of Abuse and Servitude

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 Didem Tali

Of the 25,000 street children in Congo's capital, the majority are young men. But while boys can make money through manual labor, girls often find that prostitution and exploitation are their only options for survival.

KINSHASA, Congo – When Cecilia’s parents died suddenly in 2009, there was nobody left to look after her. “I had some older siblings but they are all in Angola. Nobody asked after me,” she says. “They just abandoned me.” Only 8 years old at the time, she ended up living on the streets of the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hungry, cold and afraid. So it seemed like a miracle when, after two weeks of homelessness, she was approached by a woman who offered to adopt her. “You are too pretty to be on the streets,” the woman had said to Cecilia. “Come home with me and I’ll make you my daughter.”

That was how she found herself working as a “domestic house slave,” says Cecilia, now 15. For six years, she was physically, verbally and sexually abused, sometimes by the six biological sons and daughters of her new “mother.” Then one day, the woman punched Cecilia so hard, she broke her front teeth. Cecilia ran away, back to the streets, where she has been living ever since.

Cecilia is one of 25,000 street children in Kinshasa, a figure that, according to UNICEF, has almost doubled in the last decade. The DRC’s high fertility rates combined with the ongoing urban sprawl of one of the biggest cities in Africa means the number of homeless children continues to increase, says the organization. It’s a problem across sub-Saharan Africa, where 200 million children are living in poverty, at risk of exploitation, abuse and disease. And in many places, those risks are disproportionately greater for girls.

“There are more boys in the streets of Kinshasa than girls – I would say a third of the street children are girls,” says Jean-Pierre Godding, a project manager at the grassroots charity Street Children of Kinshasa.

But, “girls are considered more ‘useful’ than boys. Families usually exploit girls as much as they can.”

For one thing, girls are more vulnerable to sexual violence, says Godding. “Boys can do small manual jobs to make a bit of money here and there. But girls in the streets often end up in prostitution.”

Those who don’t become sex workers might get pulled into domestic work. “Families tend to keep girls to run the household chores and help raise the other children in the family,” says Godding. “Many girls also marry young, which is another reason why they don’t end up in the streets as much as the boys.”

Chloe, 16, turned to prostitution when she ran away from home two years ago. “My sisters wanted to marry me off to an elderly man,” she says. “I’d rather be in the streets and do sex work than be an old man’s wife.” For Chloe, like so many other girls on the streets, rape, sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, violence and stigma are everyday realities. But even when their circumstances change for the better, it’s difficult for them to leave that world. “They usually have a ‘boyfriend’ who solicits customers for them in return of protection,” says Godding. “Their self-esteem and perception [of themselves] take a significant hit.”

Organizations like Street Children of Kinshasa can offer support for the city’s young homeless people, providing dorms, some education and food. Sometimes, the organization can trace the families of abandoned children and negotiate with them to reunify the family. It also offers micro-credit programs to help the families start small businesses and thus have better economic means.

But Godding believes keeping children off the streets means going back to where they came from. “The only way to permanently help out these girls is economic empowerment and development for the children and their communities,” he says.

According to Clemence Petit-Perot, a program director at the Children’s Radio Foundation, which uses radio and broadcast training in Africa to boost community dialogue and participation, giving street children temporary shelter, protection and education might be quick wins. But long-term solutions, she says, lie in changing public perceptions and mobilizing communities.

“Street children in Kinshasa and the rest of Africa suffer from intense stigma,” says Petit-Perot. “Most people see them merely as thieves or prostitutes. If there’s a crime [in a rundown area] the police and the community usually blame the street children.”

“A strong dialogue is the only way for communities to understand that street children are complex human beings with difficult decisions and challenges, rather than just shadows.”

Neither Chloe nor Cecilia see their situations as inevitable. Chloe wants to quit sex work one day and go to school. Cecilia loves clothes and dreams of becoming a fashion designer. But both know there is no easy path off the street.

“People tell me I am very good with fashion and styling. I would really love to go to fashion school and learn more,” says Cecilia, who makes sure to put on beautiful skirts, necklaces and bracelets every day. “But I don’t know if I can do that. I need to go to high school first.”

The names and personal details of some of the children have been changed to protect their identities.

This story was reported with the support of an African Great Lakes Fellowship from the International Women’s Media Foundation.

Syrian Girls Say Building Minds Will Help Build Futures

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 Fiona Duggan

Fiona Duggan, of the children’s charity Theirworld, writes about the aspirations of Syrian girls she met in Turkey – a country where more than 60 percent of refugee girls are out of school.

“Education is important because it builds a person’s mind, and the mind will build the future,” says Ethar, a 15-year-old Syrian girl, with a winning smile.

Explaining why going to school is important to her, the teenager, who fled Aleppo with her family four years ago, is unwavering in her conviction. Now living in Gaziantep, Turkey, she attends a school for Syrian refugee children.

This Tuesday was International Day of the Girl – an occasion to commemorate and further acknowledge the importance of girls, their potential and the role they play in building stable and equitable communities. But it is also a time to recognize the barriers they face, devise the means to overcome them, and start putting a plan into action.

Girls and women are subject to unique vulnerabilities in crises and conflicts. Displacement, poverty and the breakdown of built-in familial and social protections can place them at higher risk of sexual abuse, violence, exploitation and psychosocial distress. Conflict often exacerbates poverty, and girls can be pulled out of school or even forced into early marriages to alleviate economic burdens on traditional family structures.

The Syrian refugee crisis is no different. A new briefing paper published by Theirworld highlights an alarming statistic. In Turkey, more than 60 percent of Syrian refugee girls are out of school. This means that more than 370,000 female refugees under 18 years old are at risk of being forced into child labor, early marriage or other forms of exploitation. There has also been a dramatic increase in the number of child marriages – 15 percent of Syrian refugee girls living in Turkey now get married before the age of 18.

I met with Ethar during the second week of October. A keen robotics enthusiast, she enjoys nothing more than tinkering with her robot’s mechanics and programming its every move. She is remarkably eloquent and poised when she talks about education.

“It’s our right … it’s our right to build the future. Building the future needs boys and girls. Without education, girls will not reach their potential, which not only harms them, but also the communities they live in,” she explains, building the logic of her argument with every sentence.

Global education campaigners, including Theirworld, are calling for more to be done to get girls like Ethar into school. The Turkish government has been striving to increase the number of refugees enrolled in school by 50 percent, but more must be done to ensure the international community delivers the $1.4 billion financing – including the $71 million gap Turkey faces – that is desperately needed to enroll all Syrian refugee children, and vulnerable children in host communities, in school by December 2016. That time is fast approaching.

World leaders have promised on a few occasions to ramp up educational commitments, but so far they have failed to deliver on their promises. To keep our promises to children – who are, after all, the architects of our future world – we must keep up the pressure to ensure all Syrian refugee children go back to school, and that they return soon.

But this also means making sure both girls and boys go back to school. Not only is current funding insufficient, the U.N.-led education plan itself fails to acknowledge the gender differences that affect children returning to school.

The plan clearly points out a number of barriers to education, including language constraints, psychosocial support, incentives for teachers, social integration, transportation and access to temporary learning centers. But the lack of a strategic focus on creating equal access for both genders further threatens the futures of Syrian refugee girls, who are left out of education and remain at risk. In order for the humanitarian response to be effective, programs and targeted interventions in countries with large refugee populations such as Turkey must be sensitive to gender-specific needs.

This means we must ask the girls what they want and need. At the same time, we must also improve access to free, quality education for all Syrian refugees, regardless of gender or age.

Farah, a 16-year-old Syrian girl also living in Gaziantep, has faith in the power of education and her female friends.

“Anyone can do anything if they have the will to do it. The world is open to them. Nothing is impossible,” she says. The optimism of girls like Farah who have endured a lifetime’s worth of hardship in the short span of their young lives is remarkable. It must be harnessed.

We as a global community must work together to open the world of education to them. Remember Farah’s words – nothing is impossible.

Images provided by Theirworld, a global children’s charity.

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

Blind Bias: Why More Women Suffer From Preventable Vision Disabilities

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 Christine Chung

As the health community marks World Sight Day, women from low- or middle-income countries still make up two-thirds of blind people around the globe – and most of them have a condition that can be cured or prevented.

There are 39 million blind people across the world, and a further 246 million suffering from low vision, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Almost two-thirds are women, the vast majority of them living in low- or middle-income countries.

The WHO says 80 percent of all visual impairment can be prevented or cured with solutions that are relatively easy and low-cost. For example, cataracts, which account for more than half of all cases of blindness, can usually be treated with a 15-minute operation to insert a $2 intraocular lens. But for many blind women, cost is only one of several barriers to diagnosis and treatment.

There is no biological reason for the increased prevalence of vision impairment in women, according to research by the Seva Foundation, a nongovernmental organization that provides eye-care services in over 20 countries. But access to eye healthcare is a major factor.

“In many cultures and regions, within families and the context of communities, blind and vision-impaired women are not considered as important as men to get services,” says Johannes Trimmel, advocacy director of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). “It’s a question of financing and cost recovery where investment in families is rather going to men and to the younger generation than to women and the older generation.”

Even where surgery is offered for free, getting to the clinics is often a challenge for many vision-impaired women, as is having the information to know that services are available and that their disability is treatable. The Gender and Blindness Initiative, launched in 1983 by the Canadian Global Health Research Initiative, found that the utilization of eye-care services is strongly associated with the socioeconomic status of women and female literacy – an indicator of educational attainment. Highlighting examples from southern India, the Seva Foundation report Gender and Blindness shows that investment in female education improves all aspects of public health, including eye care, and often without having to add to existing health services.

In low-income settings, blindness or low vision can be a disability with severe consequences. In many parts of the world, people who become blind experience a diminishing quality of life, with the loss of independence, mobility and productivity as well as social status and self-esteem. And their families are likewise negatively affected. According to a Nepali proverb, a blind person is a mouth with no hands – someone who needs so much help in their daily lives that their sighted caregiver loses education and employment opportunities.

Despite the potentially massive economic, psychological and social costs of blindness, all eye-care services are reaching only 10 percent of people who need them, says Suzanne Gilbert, Seva Foundation’s cofounder and senior director of Innovations and Sight.

“If you design programs that are inclusive of women, it’s likely to serve everyone who needs them,” she says. “Figuring out how to reach women requires attention to location, affordability – often meaning it has to be free – and quality of care, not just the outcome but also during the process. Are the patients being rushed? Ignored? Or are they being listened to?”

Compounding the impact of gender prejudice in access to healthcare is age discrimination. Over 80 percent of blind people are aged 50 and above. Vision impairment often appears later in life, and in many contexts is accepted as an inevitable part of aging, even when there are solutions. And that discrimination isn’t just about cultural attitudes and the allocation of health resources, it’s present even in the process of data collection. Organizations tracking women’s health stop when the women reach the end of their fertility: Women over 49 years old are ignored in the Demographic and Health Survey and UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey.

“Not being counted in statistics and survey means a denial of and exclusion from information, and prevention and support services,” said Justin Derbyshire, CEO of HelpAge International, a network of organizations working with and for older people, in a recent speech to the WHO.

And then there is the fact that, in many countries, funding is often directed toward health issues that are considered more urgent than loss of vision. As far back as the 1980s, the World Bank identified cataract surgery as one of the most cost-effective interventions that can be offered in low- and middle-income countries. But it also notes that these countries face competing health demands like maternal and child care.

With global demographic trends pointing to progressive and rapid population aging, preventable and treatable blindness will only grow as a pressing health and human rights concern. “We have been working on establishing community-based eye care that can reach all who need it,” says Gilbert. “The key factor is not to approach this as a charity, but to provide quality eye-care services for those who are able to pay, and subsidize those who can’t.”

Later this month, IAPB will hold its general assembly, which takes place every four years. Trimmel hopes it will provide an opportunity to address head-on the barriers that women face. “It’s not just the ophthalmologists, it’s not just the service centers, the community health workers, the people working on education or equality generally,” he says. “It needs structures and people to work well together for women to have equal access to eye care.”

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.”

Carolyn Miles: Without a Gender Equity Shift We Won’t Reach 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 Flora Bagenal

On International Day of the Girl, Save the Children has released a report detailing the five worst parts of the world to be young and female. Carolyn Miles, CEO of the organization, reveals their plans to ensure a brighter future for young girls in the developing world.

One girl under the age of 15 is married every seven seconds, according to a report published today by Save the Children. Based on indicators such as rates of child marriage, teen pregnancy and the likelihood of dropping out of school, the report also outlines the best and worst places in the world to be a girl. Niger sits at the bottom of the list, closely followed by Chad, Central African Republic, Mali and Somalia. The best place in the world to be a girl? Sweden.

The study, released to coincide with the International Day of the Girl, takes a closer look at the impact of early marriage and early pregnancy on the outcomes of girls’ lives, and calls on the international community to do more to ensure girls in developing countries have the chance to enjoy a childhood.

While the findings of the report once again highlight slow progress on girls’ rights globally, Carolyn Miles, president and CEO of Save the Children, says there is still reason to be optimistic. Real change, she says, is happening in areas where it once seemed impossible. Women & Girls Hub spoke to Miles about setting tough targets for tackling these issues over the next 15 years.

Women & Girls Hub: What has changed for girls’ rights since you started working in this field?

Carolyn Miles: I’ve been working on these issues for a really long time and I think the good thing is that you do see real progress in some countries in terms of the equity for girls. I’ll give you an example. I was in Mali about 18 months ago and I visited a school there. First of all, they had a headmistress not a headmaster, which is fantastic because these girls really need role models. Then when I asked her who the stars of the school were, she said we could go and meet them, and they were three girls. Ten years ago, that would not have been the case in the sixth grade. We would be lucky if there were girls in the sixth grade let alone the star students. So you do see progress and you do see change, but the disparities are still really great, which is what this report is all about.

Women & Girls Hub: What do you find most frustrating about the lack of progress for young girls?

Miles: I guess what’s disappointing is that a lot of it is not about policy. I was just in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has a policy that no girls get married under the age of 18, and yet a third of girls get married before they are 18. So obviously this isn’t about policies.

A lot of the time it is about changing behavior and it’s about convincing families to value girls as highly as they value boys. That’s why one of the things we looked at in this study is women in the highest level of government. Women in those position are more likely to change policy, but they are also role models, so families see women can be leaders, and that starts to change the way people value girls.

We’re not just trying to name and shame countries for this report – we show the report to the countries in the worst position in advance of publishing it. But what we want is to work with these countries to change the situation.

Women & Girls Hub: What can Save the Children and other international organizations do to improve things for the girls featured in this report?

Miles: We have set our sights really high for children by 2030. We want no child under five to die of preventable disease. Every child should be in school and get a basic education, and we want to change the way the world thinks about violence against children. If you look at those goals, the only way we are going to get there is if we look at the children who are worst off in all those places. The children who are worst off in health, in education and in protection. Girls are at the end of the line on most of those issues.

Women & Girls Hub: Do you think global attitudes toward girls are changing?

Miles: I do. I think a big turning point, if you look at the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), the issue of equity is a huge part of it, specifically about gender. Not only is there a specific goal about gender, but in all those 17 goals there is a huge amount of work around equity and a big recognition that, if we don’t get a gender equity shift, we will never reach any of those goals.

Women & Girls Hub: Can it get depressing when you find yourself facing such hugely ambitious targets?

Miles: I think the only way you can approach this job is looking at the glass as if it is half full. If you look at child survival, to me that is one of the most exciting pieces of progress we have made. In 1990, you had 12 million kids who died of preventable diseases and now you have under 6 million. That’s 25 years; that’s in our lifetime.

So why not be ambitious and say, if we can do that in 25 years then we can save the last 6 million in 15 years? We know exactly where those kids live, we know what they are dying of. It’s not about not knowing; it is about changing behavior. [Changing attitudes toward girls] is really hard because it is getting to the core of people’s beliefs and changing the way people think. It’s not easy to do and it will take some time, but things are changing and we have to hold on to that.

The names of the girls in the photos have been changed to protect their identities.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Shining a Light on Invisible Girls and Women: Why Gender Data Matters

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 Zahra Sethna

On International Day of the Girl, girls are demonstrating their ability to change the world. Yet more needs to be done to make all girls visible, including gathering meaningful data about their lives, writes Plan International’s Zahra Sethna.

It’s hard to ignore a girl like Masline. An 18-year-old student at a school just outside of Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, she is smart, confident and determined. Talking about her hobbies makes her smile. She loves to write poetry and is especially inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello.

Masline is a great example of what happens when girls are empowered to reach their potential. She sailed through her secondary school exams with top marks, and once she finishes her current course of study she would like to become a teacher and act as a role model for other girls.

The sad truth, however, is that around the world there are millions of girls who don’t have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams like Masline.

In a recent qualitative research study of vulnerable girls in Zimbabwe, 81 percent of the 121 girls Plan International spoke to said that at one point or another they had to drop out of school, either temporarily or permanently. Most of the time this was because they couldn’t afford tuition and school fees. Once out of school, they said it was hard to go back and doubly hard to fight off the pressure they faced to get married and lessen the financial strain on their families.

When girls drop out of school and get married as children, they often become invisible to governments and policymakers because their realities are not being captured in official data and statistics. They become much easier to overlook and more vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and violence.

The plight of invisible girls is the focus of our new report, “Counting the Invisible,” which makes the case that improved data on the barriers facing girls and women is essential to achieve true equality.

How Data Can Help

Just having more data will not make all the difference to these girls. Data alone can’t change the world, but when data is collected and analyzed in the right way, they certainly can help make change possible. The insights it reveals can help inform policy and program choices. It can identify needs and challenges and help lead us to the groups of people who face the biggest barriers to realizing their rights, such as rural communities, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities. It can provide the evidence advocates need to press for change. And it can show us what works and what does not, so we can be sure to invest in the solutions that really transform lives.

Here’s an example: Let’s say a municipality wants to address the barriers girls face in getting to school. The municipality puts public transportation options in place so girls don’t have to walk long distances, and then it measures how many girls have access to that public transportation. Still, the problem persists – many girls still walk long distances or fail to attend school.

What this municipality failed to do was talk to the girls themselves to fully understand the challenges they face. If they had done some qualitative research, they might have learned that many girls are afraid for their safety in public. In Nicaragua, 65 percent of the girls we spoke to said they do not feel safe on public transportation and 59 percent do not feel safe walking on their own in public places. If girls don’t feel safe riding the bus or walking by themselves in public, having access to public transportation has little meaning in their lives.

When data reveals the scope and scale of an issue, it becomes harder for policymakers to avoid taking action.

That much-needed context is one part of the problem. Sparse data is another. For example, a lack of data on how much time women spend on unpaid household work has led to a misguided impression that women in developing countries have free time to spend on training programs or other well-intentioned community development interventions. When built on an inaccurate assumption of how much time women can afford to spend participating, these interventions often see high dropout rates and low returns on investment.

When data reveals the scope and scale of an issue, it becomes harder for policymakers to avoid taking action. Advocacy efforts in Kiribati, a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean, led the government to conduct its first study on violence against women and children in 2008. Until then, gender-based violence was considered an issue to be dealt with in private. There were no policies or laws in place and little clarity as to how police were expected to respond.

When the results of the study were released in 2010, the nation was shocked to learn that nearly 70 percent of women who had ever been partnered said they had experienced physical and/or sexual violence by an intimate partner. On the back of these findings, some significant legal and social changes were made. This included a new national law, training for police and healthcare providers, changes to school curricula to teach children about respectful relationships and gender equality, services for survivors of violence, and special police units trained to deal with domestic violence. Data can, as this example shows, be a powerful force for change.

That’s why Plan International has joined with a group of like-minded partners to develop an independent measure to track progress for girls and women from now until 2030. This new initiative will produce an assessment that aims to become the leading source of information for advocates, activists, governments, civil society partners and others working to achieve gender equality.

By measuring and monitoring progress and gaps for girls and women, partners will hold governments and other stakeholders accountable for delivering on the commitments they have made. Partners will also complement existing data with original qualitative and perceptions data that more fully reflects girls’ and women’s realities and highlights their right to influence decisions affecting their lives.

The partnership has a simple vision: a world in which every girl and woman counts and is counted. A world in which every girl can, like Masline, learn, lead their own lives, make decisions about their future and, ultimately, thrive.

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

Anjali Sarker: Girls Have to ‘Break the Barriers in Ourselves’

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 Hannah McNeish

From cultural curse to social entrepreneur, Bangladeshi innovator Anjali Sarker is determined to cut through caste and gender to allow people at “the bottom of the pyramid” to rise to their potential.

Anjali Sarker remembers her seventh birthday well, because it was the day her parents brought home the best present possible – a baby sister who she decided was “a little angel.” But Sarker’s delight soon turned to distress when she overheard an uncle giving his condolences to her father about the birth of this “curse” – another girl instead of a treasured boy.

As she got older, Sarker used her uncle’s comment to drive her determination to enter the male-dominated world of business. She lobbied her parents to let her attend Bangladesh’s top business school, despite their pleas for her to follow the path most parents wanted for their girls, becoming a nurse or primary-school teacher.

But Sarker persisted and by the age of 20, she had been featured in Forbes magazine for one of her innovations: Toilet+, a startup that installs eco toilets in the homes of the rural poor and pays people for the solid waste they collect. In a country where many children die of diarrheal diseases, Sarker knew that encouraging more hygienic toilet habits could save lives.

Since then, she’s been collecting accolades and awards for her work with social businesses and she’s currently a Global Shaper at the World Economic Forum. She has channeled her dislike of hierarchies into a youth news network, Campus2Career, aimed at students who struggle to find business news and career advice beyond the civil service. And for her day job, she is team leader at BRAC, managing other young innovators.

Women & Girls Hub caught up with Sarker in Nairobi, where she was speaking as an Aspen Institute New Voices Fellow, to ask her about breaking down prejudices and breaking up all-male panels at conferences.

Women & Girls Hub: What were some of the challenges you faced getting to where you are today?

Anjali Sarker: When I was working in my enterprise, I had to tell my parents, “I’m not working on anything, it’s just my university assignments,” when in reality I had to go to places.

When I was meeting the investors, they asked me the same questions, in a very derogatory manner. They were like, “You are 20 and you are asking for money – do you even have a bank account?” If you want to discriminate [against] a woman, you can find a hundred reasons to stop her from doing what she’s doing.

Women & Girls Hub: How did you overcome the prejudices you mentioned in Bangladeshi society, such as people judging you by your age, gender and social status?

Sarker: You need to have a strategy. From a very young age, my father taught me how to play chase and even though I’m a grown-up and I don’t play chase anymore, I really cherish the idea that it’s a game. If somehow plan A fails, you have plan B and you execute that. That’s how I save myself from frustrations.

Women & Girls Hub: Do you get a lot of emails or calls from girls wanting to know how you cracked the business world?

Sarker: It’s a super-funny question because I get more messages from men, who say, “I‘m very inspired and you’re so articulate. How can I be like you?” And I say: I wish more girls said this!

When you speak at conferences, you see only 20 percent of the audience are girls and the rest are men. No wonder I’m getting more messages from the men. The girls are still inside their houses. So it’s the boys who do the projects, who go outside, who take part in different things.

It’s not in our blood that we have to stay inside the house, but it’s the culture. It’s very linear: You be a good girl. You get married. You have a family. Those are the success metrics for women. I haven’t seen anyone telling a girl child, “You have to earn money, you have to be independent.” Rather, the mother tells the girl, “Buy this dress, make sure your makeup is perfect.” No one is telling that to a boy, so a boy is thinking of how to progress in his career.

Women & Girls Hub: How do you see things changing for the younger generation?

Sarker: If I think about my mother, she never traveled abroad. She just stayed in the same job. I will not do that. It’s changing gradually. Now girls and women have a lot more options. They’re doing more. They’re coming out of their houses. Progress is slow but it’s happening.

Women & Girls Hub: And you’re breaking up “manels”?

Sarker: Yes, I hate those! I organize a conference on innovation every year, and this is my biggest pain and my biggest pleasure – that I ensure there will be no panel without a woman. I try to ensure that it’s 50/50, if not 60/40, but at least one woman.

Women & Girls Hub: What is the idea behind Campus2Career?

Sarker: It’s a new portal for the youth across the country, but it’s not for the elite universities. It talks about a lot of different youth news issues and helps young people make the smooth transition from student life to career opportunities. We are trying to promote non-traditional professions to them, telling them they don’t have to only run after government jobs. They can do entrepreneurship; they can be a sportsperson if they want to. They don’t have to study economics or business or the most sought-after subjects, but they can study literature and be a journalist.

These people feel they don’t have options, because no one has ever told them they do. People who are studying in top universities; they know how to find information from Harvard Business Review. A person hundreds of miles from the capital doesn’t know enough English to use Google and find that. So we are really making things simple for them, in our native Bangla – we don’t use English. We are really focusing on the bottom of the pyramid and seeing how we can give them the most useful information possible.

Women & Girls Hub: What do you say to other girls who want to get into business and are being told they can’t?

Sarker: Don’t be afraid. Once we get the courage to do it, we can do it all. My organs have nothing to do with business, so whatever a man can do, I can do that, too. But all the difference is in our mindset: that I think a man will do better than me, so I stand back. I think before breaking the other barriers, the institutional ones, and talking to other people, we have to break the barriers in ourselves.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In bid to aid homeless women, New York passes bill requiring shelters to provide tampons

I'll be 100 percent honest: Until this week, this issue never even crossed my mind. It never dawned on me that homeless women face the same monthly period as every other woman in the world. In the following story, Kailah Willcuts gives her testimony on how being on her "time of the month" only exacerbated the everyday struggles of homelessness. Her words moved me. She opened my eyes to a widespread issue facing millions of American women; an issue that isn't discussed enough.

Now, we need to work together to support these homeless women. We need local, state and federal law to recognize the risks and shame that homeless women face and to take measurable steps to aid their health. Stand with me and stand up for them.

-Victoria Mendoza

nytlive.nytimes.com - For the 50,000 homeless women living in the U.S., having their period is more than an inconvenience. Lacking access to sanitary pads or even a place to shower, homeless women are often forced to improvise by using socks, paper towels, plastic bags, or even their limited clothing items.

“Not only is it terrible, but it’s also embarrassing,” admitted Kailah Willcuts, 27, who said she had been homeless for more than eight years. “Not to mention that now you have this stain on your pants. I only have the clothes that I’m wearing, so I’m standing there half naked, bloodied, you know, washing my clothes out.”

As far as dealing with her period goes, things might be getting easier for Willcuts. New York City, where Willcuts currently resides, recently became the first city in the country to require public schools, jails, and homeless shelters to provide free pads and tampons.

“You shouldn’t have to decide between a pad and having lunch,” said Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, who helped champion the legislation. “It’s about dignity and women understanding that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this process. Once we take the taboo away from this product, then we are really empowering women.”

Read more

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.”

Childcare Crisis for Mothers in Nairobi Slums

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 William Davies

For women living in Kenya’s slums, lack of access to childcare can make going to work impossible. Those who can afford daycare struggle to find a place in overcrowded rooms packed with babies, while other mothers are forced to leave their children home alone.

NAIROBI – The fried potatoes that Linet Njeri sells on a rubbish-strewn street in Mathare, a slum in Nairobi, are delicious. She’s been selling bags of potatoes – lightly salted, warm and crisp – to passersby for 15 years. Crawling around Njeri’s feet, occasionally perilously close to the wood-burning stove that heats the frying oil, is her 16-month-old daughter, Rosemary. Njeri also has four other children. The oldest is manning a shop behind her, one is at school, and the other two she has left at home, alone.

“I’d like to expand my business, but I can’t because I can’t afford childcare,” says Njeri, who is a single mother. She says she feels lucky because she has her own business, and that means she can bring her youngest with her. “If I was employed, I don’t know what I would do.”

Most days Njeri makes around 600 shillings ($6), but from that she has to pay for the potatoes, wood and oil. “It is a struggle,” she says. “I have to keep Rosemary here with me. Daycare charges 100 shillings a day. It is too much.”

For mothers in Mathare and other slums across the Kenyan capital, lack of access to childcare is a major barrier to work – and to the path out of poverty. Nearly half of all Kenyan women aged 15 to 49 have a child under the age of five.

But because there are so few childcare options, especially in the slums, women face an almost impossible decision on a daily basis. Leave their babies home alone and go look for work, or stay with their children, but fail to earn enough money to feed them.

Kenyan women make up just under half of the workforce, but less than one in five of them have permanent jobs; the rest are casual workers. There are very few jobs that provide childcare, so women in the slums are forced to take on casual work, with the result being they never know if they’ll find work or not.

Walking through Mathare, home to some 300,000 people, a visitor can see several women with their babies tied to their backs as they bend over doing laundry. Other children, seemingly unaccompanied, play alone in the street.

Tucked down one alley, in a tin-roofed shack measuring about 3m (9.8ft) squared, 23 children are being looked after by three women. There are no windows, and the room is crammed with kids aged between six months and three years.

“This is one of the best daycare centers in Mathare,” says Judy Analo, 41, who brings her two grandchildren here every day. Before finding the center, she could only work alternate days with her daughter, as someone had to stay at home to look after two-year-old Tracy and 14-month-old Constantine. “It was so hard to find this place. I saw lots of other places, but this place is much better, as when you pick your children up they will be clean.”

The daycare, which doesn’t have an official name, is open six days a week, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., but is oversubscribed. They regularly turn mothers away, as they can’t fit any more children into the room.

“Things are really bad,” says the owner, Veronica Ngesa. “Some people leave their children in the streets alone when they are just eight months old.” Others, she says, lock their babies and children in the house all day as they go to work. “There are so many children, so there is a real need for places like this.”

Ngesa’s daycare is supported by the British charity Tushinde, whose name means “Let’s succeed.” The funding pays for two meals a day for the children, many of whom arrive on their first day severely malnourished. The mothers, many of whom are single parents, each pay 30 shillings a day, which is still a struggle for some who might only earn a few hundred shillings a week.

“Many women are casual workers, so if they don’t go to work they don’t get paid,” says Sally Nduta, a social worker and development manager at Tushinde.

But for many women living in Kenya’s slums, even having the option to work is a luxury. “There is a great need for daycare. Forty-six percent of women who want daycare are not able to get good daycare for their children, so they can’t go to work,” says Nduta. “What we do is a drop in the ocean.” She wants the government to enact new laws to make companies provide childcare for those who need it.

Lucy Inziani does whatever work she can – laundry, cleaning, even manual labor – if it means she can provide for her children. Before finding the Tushinde daycare, she couldn’t work, and her family struggled to survive. “Other places are dirty,” she says. “Sometimes the rooms are very small and they are really congested.” It’s hard to imagine a more congested room than the one we are standing in, but all the women here say it’s spacious compared to others.

Even with the dire conditions, mothers who are able to access any daycare at all are the lucky ones. For thousands of others in the slum, earning enough money to survive means risking the health and well-being of their children on a daily basis.