February 2010
NEWSLETTER - MARCH 2010
To view our full website please click here www.engender.org.uk
Happy International Women's Day on 8th March - see here for events around the country
Lots of counting and sexualisation... Engenders project work this year
It looks like 2010 will be another very busy and exciting year for Engender as we have four major projects to deliver. Funding for women-centered projects isn’t easy to obtain at the best of times and with the economic downturn over the past year seeing many funding streams cut back we are especially grateful to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation (EFF) for their support.
All four projects get to the heart of Engender’s core aims - to encourage and support women to lobby decision makers and to evidence where social attitudes are damaging to women. Two projects, Equality Counting (EHRC, Gender plus) and Who Counts (EFF, Poverty) will bring groups of women together in communities of interest (i.e mothers of disabled children, Women with mental health problems etc) to challenge policy makers and service providers using the Gender Equality Duty and other legislation. The third, The Eye of the Beholder (EFF) will explore the increasing sexualisation of young women and girls and the impact of sexism on young people.
We’re particularly pleased that we will be using Participatory Action Research methods within these projects as this means that the campaigns, reports and other material that comes out of the work we do will be evidenced based with a body of research to support it. Finally, our EU funded project, Women Into Public Life sees us working in partnership with Irish women's organisations.
Below is a brief summary of the projects – please contact the office if you would like more information.
Equality Counting Women Into Public Life Our partners in this project are Second Chance Education Project for Women and Foyle Women’s Information Network from North West Ireland. Women into Public Life is funded by the EU Interreg programme and will focus on women living in rural locations in Argyll and Bute and in North West Ireland. The aim of the project is to address the under representation of women in decision making bodies in these areas by working with grass roots groups and developing their leadership skills to enable them to engage with political processes at local, national and European levels. Karen Dargo Angela O'Hagan from the Scottish Women's Budget Group on the continuing work to gender the Scottish budget process You may well recall the great excitement last September when the Scottish Government published the “Equality Statement” on the Draft Budget. Of course you do! This was a significant development, marking considerable progress for Scottish Women’s Budget Group campaigning, and indeed for the Scottish Government. The Statement is the first of its kind in the Scottish Budget process, different from earlier attempts, and clearly linked to the gender equality scheme and equality impact assessment process. SWBG have commented that the Statement is welcome but is clearly a first step as there are numerous deficiencies and weaknesses in the content and process. For the most part, these criticisms have been positively received in what is currently a climate of good will and drive to progress equality analysis of the Scottish Budget. Read the statement for yourself at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/286345/0087193.pdf The 2010-11 Budget sets out the activities and priorities for the £35bn spending of the Scottish Government. There is a barrage of daily commentary telling us that levels of public spending are receding and that deeper and harsher cuts will follow, in Scotland and across the UK. SWBG are concerned about the impact of those cuts on women as users and providers of public services. Cuts in social care, education, health, would all have significant impact on women’s access to services, women’s pay, and sustainable employment as contracts are revised and terms and conditions weakened. We are not alone in these circumstances, as women across Europe and globally are facing these issues. SWBG is working with sisters in the European Gender Budgeting Network and through Engender’s participation in the Commission on the Status of Women. SWBG is alert to these issues, and would welcome comment and contributions from Engender members and other supporters. Better still, join the Scottish Women’s Budget Group at www.swbg.org.uk Angela O'Hagan
Ann Hamilton, Head of Equalities and Women's Services within Glasgow Community and Safety Services, on the aims of the new campaign End Prostitution Now is a ground-breaking campaign which aims to ban prostitution in Scotland and, in doing so, reduce the tolerance and complacency which allows it to flourish. Ann Hamilton
Kath Davies reports on EU and UN gender news United Nations: Beijing+15 review: Engender goes to New York Engender is joining women from around the world at a gathering in New York this month to ask ‘Where next?’ on gender equality. 2010 marks the 15th anniversary of the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995) and the agreement on the Global Platform for Action (PfA). The UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is this year looking at how far we have come since Beijing and what still needs to be done. Engender’s consultative status with the UN entitles us to report on progress to the CSW review meeting, and to attend meetings. Our report – on the good and the gaps – has now gone to CSW: read it here. Thanks to everyone who contributed, and watch out for news and reporting back. New UN Agency for Women – the pressure is on UN slow on proposals for the new agency (Talif Deen) Sarah Taylor, executive coordinator of the Non-Governmental Organisations' Working Group on Women Peace and Security (NGOWG), said, ‘…the magnitude of rape in war is so vast, … the need for the UN to better coordinate its response to the problem is critical … [UN] obligations include helping empower women and bring perpetrators to justice’.
The Equality Counting project will bring together women who are disadvantaged by a public service provision to work as a group to develop and implement strategies to advocate and action change. Engender will provide training in Participatory Action Research methods and will support these groups as they identify the opportunities in equality legislation and apply it to their situation. We will also facilitate dialogue with the service provider and aid the groups in accessing information and the production of any material. As the groups will be issue specific some will be short-lived, but others may continue after the end of the project. The aim of the project is to enable women to hold service providers to account and to have them demonstrate that they have adhered to gender equality legislation in their decision making process.
In the longer term, we hope that the women involved in the project will gain transferable skills in research, analysis, and lobbying and feel able to challenge policies and service provision decisions in the future. For Engender, supporting these groups will ground our policy work in the real experiences of women. The resulting case studies will be used to inform our analysis and contributions to policy discussion at all levels.
Who Counts?
The aim of this project is to make local authorities and public bodies aware of their obligation to develop policy which has been gender proofed.
Engender carried out an analysis of local authorities Single Outcome Agreements for gender and poverty and found there were no gendered poverty indicators. We are concerned that without an understanding and recognition of the gendered nature of poverty, authorities may develop policies and practices which make women and children more vulnerable to poverty. The ‘Who Counts?’ campaign will work with nine groups of women from three local authority areas to identify gendered poverty indicators relevant to their own community. These groups will use a ’life course’ model which highlights the hazards, risks and vulnerabilities to poverty a woman faces throughout her lifetime. They will develop a campaign pack to be sent to at least 100 community and women’s groups throughout Scotland. The packs will encourage these groups to use the indicators to lobby their local authority on the issue that is of interest to them. They will also encourage the groups to become part of the Who Counts campaign and be part of the What Counts Day.
What Counts Day will see each group stage their own unique event to raise awareness of the gendered nature of poverty and demand that public bodies report on gendered poverty indicators. We will also hold follow up events with COSLA and local authorities. The project will culminate with a Parliamentary meeting which will invite MSPs to sign a statement of support for the women’s demands for Community –Based Gendered Indicators.
Eye of the Beholder
This project will start later in 2010 and run into 2011. We will be working with three groups - young women/girls, young men/boys and parents - to explore the increasing sexual commodification of young women and what it means to each group. We’ll discuss whether we are in a new age of sexual liberation and freedom for women or whether it’s sexual exploitation that is being sold to us in the guise of liberation. Using participatory research and analysis with our groups, we will develop campaign messages and produce materials to illustrate the issues. The project will also involve public debates and exhibitions.
Equality and the Scottish Budget
Following SWBG criticism in 2008 of the lack of progress after ten years of a dedicated advisory group, the snappily titled Equality Proofing Budgets Policy Advisory Group (EPBPAG), 2009 was markedly different. The Advisory Group was renamed the Equality and the Budget Advisory Group, and reinvigorated with new membership and a new focus. The Equality Statement was a product of this renewed commitment. Currently there are a number of strands of work coming from this Group, and some of them will make it directly to the Scottish Government Ministers. This is another significant change, and one which SWBG – and the Scottish Parliament Equal Opportunities Committee – have argued is long overdue.
So can we hang up our budget anoraks and move on? Well, no. Not just yet – nor for a while longer. The Budget approved in Parliament on 3 February in Draft form contained lots of positive phrasing on commitments to equality, but little by way of concrete programme actions or spend assessed for its contribution to gender equality. The Draft Budget is accessible at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/284860/0086518.pdf
So the work of SWBG, Engender and the Scottish Government continues. With equality impact assessment far from being embedded into the policy and programme process within Government, there is a long way to go. Judge for yourself from recent evidence to the Equal Opportunities Committee, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/s3/committees/equal/or-09/eo09-1201.htm Time to Tackle Demand - the End Prostitution Now campaign breaks new ground
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We launched the campaign in December with a series of hard-hitting posters focusing on the men who buy sex. All too often, the focus is put on the women involved in prostitution while the men who buy sex are invisible from public debate. Now, for the first time, the men who pay women for sex will be targeted and made visitble.
The posters show actors playing ordinary men in everyday situations, such as work or a football match, contemplating the reality of having used a prostitute. Each picture is accompanied by a quote from a real punter. The posters go against the idea that men buy sex because it is their only option. In fact recent Scottish research showed almost half of punters had wives and girlfriends.
Our campaign, which has the full support of Strathclyde Police, is also pushing for the creation of a range of offences to target the purchase of sex. These offences would affect those who buy or seek to buy sex, those who arrange or advertise the sale of sex and those who provide accommodation where the sale of sex takes place. Despite kerb crawling becoming an offence in October, it is not illegal to pay for sex in a brothel or massage parlour.
We believe that prostitution is an appalling form of human exploitation. It blights the lives of those involved, their families and the communities where this awful trade takes place.
Tackling demand is the key to this issue.
The amendments we propose will extend the reach of the law so there is no hiding place for the pimps, punters and brothel keepers. In England and Wales it has recently become an offence to buy sex from a woman who is controlled by force, but the changes we’re proposing would go much further. MSP Trish Godman will be lodging the amendment and, if accepted, it will be considered as part of the Criminal Justice and Licensing Bill currently going through the Scottish Parliament.
We believe it’s all about changing attitudes. A change in legislation will put out the message that if you’re buying sex, you’re doing something anti-social and harmful that will also be against the law. It's about targeting the demand as opposed to those who are supplying.
But this isn't just about fining and imprisoning the men who buy sex; it’s about making a change in public perception about right and wrong.
More than 50 per cent of women in prostitution have been raped and/or seriously sexually assaulted, while at least 75 per cent have been physically assaulted.
If it goes ahead, the legislation would place us on a footing with Sweden, Norway and South Korea. Sweden introduced legislation 10 years ago that criminalised the men who buy sex. Before the law came into effect, around 2500 women were involved in prostitution on Stockholm's streets. Now there are fewer than 100.
The number of punters has dropped by 80 per cent and researchers found Swedish men were least likely of about 30 nationalities to use prostitutes as they considered it unacceptable.
Another phenomenon has been a fall in sex trafficking. It has fallen to 200 women, while Finland sees 15,000 a year brought across its borders.
The main challenge for us has been how to make this about men and not the women. However, it was important that the campaign didn’t demonise the men, but instead reflected the truth that punters are predominately average and often men with partners and children.
We don't want people to say 'I don't recognise that person, so it doesn't affect me' - prostitution affects all of us in some form.
As part of the campaign we have launched a website – www.endprostitutionnow.org – where you can show your support by sending an email to your MSP calling for a change in legislation.
The more people we have behind us, the stronger our voice will be.
It’s time to add your name to the growing list of people who want to criminalise the buying of sex and, ultimately, to End Prostitution Now. Engender International News
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There’s likely to be a lot of information and updating coming from the CSW54 Beijing + 15 review on the web. If you want to follow what’s happening see the main CSW website and/or UN info: www.un.org/womenwatch and if you twitter, why not follow EngenderUK as our women in New York will be tweeting.
In our last newsletter we reported that in September 2009 the UN adopted a crucial resolution on gender equality and women's rights. This would lead to creation of a new United Nations agency to promote women’s rights all over the world. Moving all its women’s agencies into a single agency should simplify access and make the entire consultative process simpler and more effective. However, progress on the new agency seems to need speeding up and the EU has been particularly critical of the lack of movement. Talif Deen (IPS) reports below. Check the ‘Gear’ website for news of progress. www.un-gear.eu/index.php
Against the backdrop of continued gender discrimination worldwide, the European Union (EU) has urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to speed up the creation of the new UN agency for women‘. The proposal will bring four existing UN gender agencies – the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues (OSAGI), the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW) and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) ¬– under a single new UN body to be headed by an under-secretary-general. According to UN sources, a woman USG is likely to be named, possibly before the next meeting of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) 1–12 March.
Ambassador Yanez-Barnuevo [Spain] said the EU was calling on the secretary-general ‘to urgently advance’ the process of appointing the new under-secretary-general. The new UN official, he said, should be in ‘a position to lead the organisation through the changes required to have a strong UN entity focused on advancing gender equality and the empowerment of women’.
If the General Assembly endorses Ban's proposal, the new entity will have an annual budget of about 500 million dollars (2008 funding for the four existing gender entities was 6.2 million dollars from the regular budget of the United Nations and 218.5 million dollars from voluntary contributions). But the new figure of 500 million dollars still falls far short of a demand made by an international coalition of women's organizations, the Gender Equality Architecture Reform Campaign (GEAR), which has called for a start-up of 1.0 billion dollars.
The new agency will be a subsidiary organ of the UN General Assembly and report to the Assembly through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The Commission on the Status of Women will play a crucial role in guiding its work and an executive board will oversee its operational activities. Making a strong case for the new body, the report says that gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched in every society.
Adapted from Talif Deen, IPS report. Full report at: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50226
New UN Envoy to Crack Down on Sexual Violence 
When the Security Council adopted resolution 1325 in October 2000, it was an historic event: for the first time the UN's most powerful political body dealt with a gender-related issue, explicitly linking women to peace and security.
In February, that resolution completed a full political circle when Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Margot Wallstrom of Sweden as his Special Representative (SRSG) to tackle violence against women and children in the world's battle zones.
The appointment of Wallstrom, currently a vice president of the European Commission, comes amidst continued reports of gender violence, including rape and sexual abuse both locally and by humanitarian aid workers and UN peacekeepers, mostly in war zones and in post-conflict societies.
Marianne Mollmann, women's rights advocate at Human Rights Watch, said the United Nations has long needed a high-level focal point to address the horrific crime of rape that so often goes unpunished during wartime chaos. But even the most committed individual, said Mollmann, ‘needs adequate resources to get the job done. UN member states should step up their support now’. www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50198
For more Feb 2010 EU and UN gender news see here or to find out more about Engender International see
http://www.engender.org.uk/projects/39/European_And_International.html
Kath Davies
"Victims of human rights violations are not automatically human rights defenders"
Miranda Pio asks you to support Gita Sahgal
I would like to raise my deepest concerns with regards to the recent suspension of Gita Sahgal, Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International, following her interview with the Sunday Times.
I feel that Gita Sahgal has raised some important questions and would like Amnesty International to give clear and transparent answers about their close collaboration with Moazzam Begg and the organisation Cageprisoners, who have openly shown their support for Islamic fundamentalism.
As an expert on human rights, women’s rights and religious extremism, with over thirty years of experience as an activist and researcher, Gita Sahgal is raising legitimate anxieties about how Amnesty International has come to collaborate with individuals that have publicly shown an affiliation with an extremist ideology based on discrimination.
Given the invaluable contribution that Amnesty International has made to end violence against women and protect the rights of all minorities, I feel that its association and legitimisation of religious fundamentalist messages would severely weaken the work it has carried out so far.
I do not dispute that everyone has a right to life without torture and a right to fair trial and due process. Like Gita Sahgal, I completely abhor the illegal detention and torture at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, as part of the so-called “War on Terror”. However, the assumption that victims of human rights violations can automatically be considered human rights defenders is a very dangerous one.
What Gita Sahgal has identified is too important to be dismissed as an internal matter.
The fight against the use of torture should not be deployed to sanitise the position of individuals and organisations linked to religious fundamentalism, terror and discrimination. Such links are very damaging to Amnesty International's name which can be used to provide a platform and legitimacy, for a cause which completely undermines its core commitment to universal human rights.
As a worldwide human rights organisation, I believe it is Amnesty International’s duty to show transparency and clarify these questions for members, followers and partner organisations who wholeheartedly support and trust their work.
I would therefore urge you to support Gita Sahgal, who has courageously raised such an important issue, by signing the petition (http://www.human-rights-for-all.org ) or by writing a letter directly to Amnesty International asking for clarification.
Miranda Pio
In the run up to the general election the Fawcett Society are asking What About Women and leading a campaign wtih partners, including Engender, to highlight both the underrepresenation of women in the Houses of Parliament and the issues that matter to women. Please take a minute two compete the small survey (4 questions) that Fawcett have issued - the info they gather will make it's way to the men in suits. What About Women Survey The Gender Equity Index 2009 compiled by Social Watch is a comprehnsive report on the position of women worldwide. The picture is of slow progress and in some cases a reveral of gains. Focussing on the three gaps - Education, Economic Activity and Empowerment - the index is sobering reading. http://www.socialwatch.org/node/11561 The Equality and Human Rights Commission Scotland have announced that they are to undertake a major inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland with a particular emphasis on commercial sexual exploitation. Baroness Helena Kennedy QC will lead the inquiry which is due to be completed by the summer of 2011. Launching the inquiry, Morag Alexander, EHRC Scotland Commissioner said that she hoped the investigation would deliver real change in preventing and prohibiting trafficking and in protecting it's victims. EHRC Trafficking Inquiry The third Million Women Rise march takes place on March 6th and hopefully there will be some coverage of it in the national media. The organization is a coalition of individuals and representatives from the community and voluntary sectors and the focus of the group is Violence against Women and girls. If you can’t make it to the march, why not sign up to the coalitions comprehensive Statement of Demands on their site http://www.millionwomenrise.com/about/about/statement.html
Beijing+15 Results of Online Discussions The UN’s Womenwatch website has been facilitating on-line discussions of the twelve critical areas of the Global Platform for Action for Women which will be reviewed when the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) meet in early March. The 12 areas are: Women’s National Commission welcomes new Commissioners The WNC have announced two new commissioners to their Board. Olivia Bailey, National Women’s Officer for the National Union of Students and Jan Floyd-Douglass who has worked at Citicorp, Zurich and Barclays. Commissioners serve for two or three years and they meet four times a year. Find out about the WNC commissioners, old and new, at http://www.thewnc.org.uk/about-wnc/wnc-commissioners/commissioners-biographies.html The Campaign to End Rape have submitted an inital report of their recent online survey to the Stern Review on Rape. There were a total of 1,236 responses from 24th Oct 2009 to 20th Nov 2009, when the survey was temporarily closed to allow inital findings to be collated and presented to Baroness Stern. The survey asked what women knew about rape and between the initial replies and those which were received when the survey reopened, the final results are likely to be the largest gathering of womens views on the subject in many years. For more info and to read the inital results see http://www.cer.truthaboutrape.co.uk/
NEWS
Add your voice to Fawcett Society's What About Women Campaign
Gender Equity Index 2009
EHRC launch inquiry into trafficking in Scotland
Million Women Rise
Violence Against Women, Women and the Economy, Institutional Mechanisms, Women and Health, Girl Child, Armed Conflict, Education and Training, Women and Poverty, Women in Power and Decision Making, Women and the Environment, Women and Human Rights, Women and the Media.
The purpose of the discussions was to enable individuals, groups and networks who couldn’t attend the CSW sessions to have a voice. The threads have attracted contributions form around the world and give a sense of the challenges and progress in each area. The online discussions for all areas will be completed by March 1st and summary reports will be published on the Womenwatch website shortly afterwards. See http://www.un.org/womenwatch/
Campaign to End Rape intial survey results
Words not enough? Take Direct Action
Violence Prevention Network have launched an Edinburgh Direct Action Group which will take part in actions to raise awareness about violence against Women. If you are in Edinburgh and would like to find out more about the group please contact the Network through their site contact VPN