No name
Respected and long established British feminist organisation publishes research on impact of MeToo in UK, covering the 'powerful, disruptive impact' of the movement. It analyses harassment by gender and age, provides data on the public's willingness to challenge harassment, and makes recommendations on how to change the law.
A comprehensive overview of how the campaign for ‘Yes’ – which led to the repeal of the Eight Amendment of the Irish Constitution and legalisation of abortion in May 2018 - was organised in Ireland.
See also https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/27/world/europe/savita-halappanavar-ireland-abortion.html; https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/26/ireland-has-changed-utterly-the-cruel-eighth-amendment-is-history; https://www.ft.com/content/b60d313e-f826-11e8-af46-2022a0b02a6c and https://mobilisationlab.org/stories/how-powerful-conversations-yes-ireland/
The author highlights the peculiarities of the ‘MeToo’ movement in the United States, and the differences between North American and Egyptian society. She then describes the origin and tactics of Operation Anti-Sexual Harassment and Assault (OpAntiSH), a women-led, feminist and civilian group combatting sexual assault in Cairo
Press release on the report published on 23 February by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). The report argues that the UK violates the rights of women in Northern Ireland by unduly restricting their access to abortion. It shows how thousands of women and girls in Northern Ireland are subjected to grave and systematic violations of rights through being compelled to either travel outside Northern Ireland to procure a legal abortion or to carry their pregnancy to term.
See also https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/23/northern-ireland-abortion-law-violates-womens-rights-says-un-committee; https://humanism.org.uk/2018/02/23/northern-ireland-abortion-law-breaches-womens-rights-says-un/ and https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/abortion-northern-ireland-un-women-human-rights-a8819306.html
Reports that universities (both student unions and the authorities) are becoming more active in trying to prevent, and taking action against, forms of harassment. But a survey published in March 2018 found 70% of female students had suffered harassment or assault and only 6% had reported it to the university. Harassment is a problem both between students and between some staff members and students.
See also: Suen, Evianne, '#MeToo movement reaches an all-time high across UK universities', 23 August 2018 https://theboar.org/2018/08/metoo-movement-sexual-uk-universities/
This interactive long report explores the killing of Berta Cáceres, environmentalist and recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize, and contextaulises it within the emergence of a cohesive feminist movement in Honduras. It also reports the statistics on violence against women in the country, and initiatives to tackle it.
The author notes that forced labour is a sensitive and rarely publicized topic, although it has existed in China for decades, for example in construction work. It sometimes surfaces, as in the 2007 scandal about children, the elderly and adults with disabilities who were kidnapped in Zhanxi province, often with the collusion of local authorities, and forced to work in brick kilns. Later similar stories in other provinces came to light. The article also covers other forms of exploitation, such as students forced to work cheaply as interns in order to graduate - a practice that received global attention in 2012 in relation to electronic supply chains. The author notes the role of local NGOs and sometimes the local media in exposing abuses.
See also: Bengsten, Peter, 'Hidden in Plain Sight: Forced Labour Constructing China', openDemocracy, (16 Feb, 2018), https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/beyond-trafficking-and-slavery/hidden-in-plain-sight-forced-labour-constructing-china/
Gives account through pictures and captions of the history and activities of ‘New Rhythm’, a small feminist group in Kyrgyzstan that is raising awareness over many problems the women of the county face, such as domestic violence, early marriage, sexism, and the lack of encouragement to young women to pursue higher education.
The short documentary explores the rise of the #MeToo movement in India. It also shows how the accusations on sexual harassment extended from the media industry to academia and the political sector, alongside campaigning for women to speak up when harassment happens in the private sphere as well. Men and women in India have been speaking up against violence against women since 2012-2013, following the death of a 23 year-old young woman. This episode initiated a more grounded conversation on sexual assault against women and especially against women of lower castes. In fact, according to Indian’s Crime National Bureau, more than four Dalit women – the ‘untouchable’ - are raped every day. In 2018, India was rated the most dangerous country in the world for women by the Thompson Reuter Foundation because of high rates of sexual violence. Reports attested that in 2016, India had 338,954 reported crimes against women (38,947 were rapes).
For first hand interviews with survivors, please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13w-CJRoi30&vl=en.
See also: India was highlighted as one of the worst country for sexual violence, human trafficking, and for cultural and religious discrimination by Thomson Reuters Foundation’s 2018 survey (http://poll2018.trust.org/country/?id=india).
In this work the author presents the work of Nigerian feminist sociologist, Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí, as a decolonising force having the power to disrupt sub-Saharan African philosophy, Western feminist thought and discourses on African decolonisation in highly significant and surprising ways.
Journalist Elly Draking interviews Isabel Agatón, human rights lawyer and director of CIJUSTICIA (Centre for Research in Justice and Critical Studies of Law) to highlight her key role in the creation and implementation of Law 1761 in 2015 in Colombia, which made femicide a legally defined crime, punishable with up to 50 years in jail. It also highlights the obstacles the Colombian government still faces in implementing this law, fully.
After giving a brief review of the anti-nuclear weapons movement that developed in the 1980s and the landmark treaties that were signed then, Coburn points to the difficulties campaigners face in the Trump era.
Discusses the possible development of the anti-nuclear weapons movement in the US following the election of President Trump.
Joint initiative between the government of Cuba, ECLAC and the Federation of Cuban Women that saw government authorities, international officials and representatives of civil society in Havana assess the existing policies in favour of gender equality and women’s rights that have been implemented over the past 40 years in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. They also debated the main challenges that lie ahead.
Discusses the anti-nuclear weapons movements in the late 1950s, for example the Committee for Non-Violent Action, and the shift of focus, from the mid-1960s until the early 1970s to the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War by many local and national peace groups in the United States. In the late 1970s and 1980s Europe and the United States experienced a resurgence of concern over nuclear weapons.
Rich discusses whether public attitudes in Japan to maintaining strict constitutional constraints on use of its military 'Self-Defence Forces' are changing. (The postwar constitution includes a clause to renounce war and Japanese policy has been based on a refusal to fight outside its borders, although it is closely allied to the US.) The article notes the consistent pressure from Conservative Prime Minister Abe to strengthen Japanese military power through increasing the budget, and his role in passing new security laws in 2015 that permitted for the first time Japanese troops to take part in combat overseas. It also notes there was strong popular resistance to the new security laws and that there are regular protests against US bases in Okinawa.
See also: 'Stop War': Thousands protest in Japan over military expansion law change', RT World News, 30 June 2014.
Reports on the campaign during the 2017 UK election by Frack Free United (a network of residents near fracking sites and campaign groups) and Cross Party Frack Free (group of MPs, Peers and parliamentary candidates, as well as local councillors, who support a national ban on fracking).
On the week marking the United Nations Sixteen Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, Council on Foreign Relations published a link featuring six publications from the Women and Foreign Policy Program. The publications are:
- CFR Discussion Paper: Countering Sexual Violence in Conflict (Include PDF);
- ‘Sexual harassment and gender-based violence in the workplace’ (http://fortune.com/2017/11/17/sexual-harassment-legal-gaps/);
- ‘Rape as a tactic of terror’ (https://www.cfr.org/event/countering-human-trafficking-and-sexual-violence-conflict) inclusive of a discussion with human rights activist, Yazidi survivor to ISIS’ sexual slavery and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nadia Murad. The link provides both the video and its script);
- ‘The economic costs of violence against women’ (https://www.cfr.org/report/closing-gender-gap-development-financing);
- ‘Ending gender-based violence in conflict’ (https://www.cfr.org/blog/its-time-end-gender-based-violence-conflict);
- ‘Addressing gender-based violence in peace agreements’ (Link not retrievable).
Feng outlines difficulties of Chinese women’s experience for organising mass protests. However, she sheds light on the mass initiatives that happen behind the scenes, such as the WeChat group named “Walking with women from all over the world” from which Chinese feminists attending the march can broadcast live video and photos. It also reports on the sexist campaigns led by the Chinese government that portray women as submissive to patriarchal ideologies and stereotypes.
Account of the activism by Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, an NGO based in Santa Fe, New Mexico that led President Obama and the Department of Energy to abandon the proposed Nuclear Facility as part of the Chemistry & Metallurgy Research Replacement Project (CMRR) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).
Journalist Karla Zabludovsky recalls the horrific murder of Micaela Garcia for her 'NiUnaMenos' activism in April 2017and how the movement developed in Argentina since her death.
Provides a basic account of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the censorship that followed, the setting up of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, the birth of the movement led by the hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) and the perception of them in the United States
An account of the origin of #NiUnaMenos in Argentina, that arose prior to #MeToo in the USA – and of the progress the country achieved in tackling femicide. Although femicide and other forms of violence against women are still high and cruel, Argentina is the most advanced country within Latin America for the protection of women’s rights. The #NiUnaMenos movement was born in 2015 after a tweet by journalist Marcela Ojeda about the murder of Chiara Páez, 14-year old and pregnant. The young woman disappeared in May in Santa Fe province, and her body was found buried under the patio of her boyfriend's home. She had been beaten to death. Marcela Ojeda’s tweet “Women, together. Why don't we scream? THEY ARE KILLING US” gave rise to the start of #NiUnaMenos.
Comprehensive report on the 2017 Women’s Strike that involved more than 50 countries worldwide, and started by taking inspiration by 25,000 women in Iceland that, in 1975, gathered in the streets of Reykjavik refusing to go to work, clean, cook and taking care of the children.
For more info on the International Women’s Strike, also visit: http://parodemujeres.com/about-us-acerca-de/
Account of resistance to the TransCanada Corporation's Keystone XL oil pipeline to protect ancestral lands and the environment against oil spillage. President Obama halted the project in 2015, but President Trump gave TransCanada the go-ahead in March 2017. In response two Native American communities launched a lawsuit against the Administration in 2018.
See: 'Native American Tribes File Lawsuit Seeking to Invalidate Keystone XL Pipeline Permit', npr, 10 Sept. 2018.