 |
|
Take
Action Archives
Calls to Action
-
Kenya Electoral Crisis
From MADRE (www.madre.org): Outrage in Kenya has exploded into violence and thousands of women and their families are caught in the crisis. You can help!
Hundreds of people have been killed and more than a quarter of a million people have fled their homes since violence erupted across Kenya after last month's rigged presidential election.
Thousands of uprooted families are subsisting in make-shift camps without sufficient food, medical care, or safe drinking water. Incidents of malaria are on the rise, especially among children, as people crowd around stagnant water pools in areas that lack sanitation.
Families who remained in their homes also face a humanitarian emergency. Many of the wounded have no access to medical care. Some towns have been totally cut off from essential supplies and markets. Children are going hungry because their parents cannot reach their jobs or collect their wages.
In the countryside, mothers are rationing food and drinking water among their children because venturing into the bush to collect water or firewood for cooking is simply too dangerous. In the women-led village of Umoja, where MADRE works, economic life has ground to a halt because the tourist trade on which the women depend is completely suspended.
Help provide food, medicine, and other basic necessities so that women and thier families in Kenya can survive this crisis and begin to rebuild. Please contribute to MADRE's Emergency and Disaster Relief Fund. With your help, MADRE can respond to this emergency.
Call for Urgent Resolution
http://www.petitiononline.com/kenya08/petition.html
Updates
http://www.pambazuka.org/actionalerts/index.php
Press Releases
Kenya: YWCA Calls for Peace With Justice and Protection of Women's Rights
- International Women Leaders Global Security Summit and Call to Action: The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands in partnership with The White House Project, the Council of Women World Leaders and the Women Leaders Intercultural Forum convened the International Women Leaders Global Security Summit from November 15-17, 2007 in New York City, New York. The Summit brought together women governmental and civil society leaders, e.g. Mary Robinson, former President, Ireland; Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister, Canada; and Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Fomer President, Latvia. Charlotte Bunch, Executive Director, CWGL, was among those who attended. Participants focused on issues such as global security, climate change, terrorism, economic insecurity, and humanitarian intervention and peace building.
During the Summit a Call To Action was formulated, which can be signed by others. Please click here to read more about the The International Women Leaders Global Security Summit and the Call to Action.
- Open letter asking for solidarity from Nicaraguan women activists: "We regret to inform you that in Nicaragua, a new action that bears witness to the increased presence of fundamentalists attacking feminists for defending the human rights of women is taking place..." Click here to read letter
- Bomb blasts in Algeria
A call from concerned Algerian citizens to citizens' organizations, progressive parties and unions in Europe
http://www.siawi.org/
Today December 11, 2007, Algiers was devastated by two bomb blasts. The first reports claim 26 dead and 177 wounded. According to press reports, Al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb has claimed responsibility for these attacks.
After a decade of murder and terror in the nineties that made 200,000 victims, the Algerian people are exhausted. Yet this new escalation in violence is no surprise to us. In spite - or because - of the blanket amnesty officially labeled a 'reconciliation' policy - i.e. an overall presidential pardon granted without even establishing facts and responsibilities -, Islamic armed groups never surrendered arms, and 'pardoned' perpetrators paraded in villages, threatening their opponents and the survivors of their atrocities again, forbidding music, controlling 'morality' and imposing gender apartheid.
For a long time, in Algeria as well as in other Muslim countries, European and North American governments led by their interest in gas entertained the most ambiguous relations with the extreme right political forces working under the cover of Islam.
But for a long time too, the vast majority of progressive parties and organizations in Europe and North America, as well as progressives in Asia and Africa and the anti globalization movement, refused to distance themselves from these same extreme right forces, under the pretext of defending the rights of the oppressed.
We are numerous, in Algeria as well as in other Muslim countries and in the North African diaspora, to oppose the theocratic project of Islamic armed groups (i.e. the law of God as interpreted by extreme right religious forces), and to stand for a secular republic (i.e. the laws of the people that can be changed by the will and vote of the people). But we fought this battle virtually without support from those in the international community who should have been our allies.
On the eve of yet another battle against theocratic extreme right Islamic armed groups in Algeria, we call on citizens' organizations, progressive parties and unions, human rights groups and all concerned citizens in Europe and beyond, to extend direct immediate and sustained political support to all progressive forces, parties, unions, people's organizations, and women's organizations working for a secular republic in Algeria.
Reach out to these forces, network with them, exchange with them. They/we need support and visibility.
It is an illusion to think that this theocratic project will stop at your borders. Supporting those who are on the front line ultimately serves the interest of democratic freedom in the world.
First signatories:
SIAWI, Secularism Is A Women's Issue (siawi.org)
Marieme Helie Lucas, Founder of WLUML, coordinator SIAWI, Montpellier
Hakim Arabdiou, Paris
Selim Ducos, Paris
Lalia Ducos,women human rights defender, Paris
Cherifa Kheddar, president Djazairouna, Blida
Amir Rezzoug, photographe, Marseille
Saleha Larab, journalist, Alger
Samia Allalou, journalist, Paris
Mohamed Ali Allalou, animateur radio, Paris
Aziz Smati, film director, Paris
Karima Bennoune, Associate Professor Rutgers School of Law, Newark
Malika Zouba, journalist, Paris
Mohamed Sifaoui, journalist, Paris
Asma Guenifi, psychologist, Paris
- Women's Coalition Demands G-8 Action on Violence Against Women
The 2007 G8 Summit is scheduled for June 6-8, in Germany, the country holding the current presidency of the G8. Chancellor Merkel and her Minister of International Development, Heidi Wieczorek-Zeul, have indicated their intention to raise issues of gender discrimination and disparities as integral to G8 funding commitments to addressing HIV&AIDS. The Women Won't Wait campaign calls on the G-8 to go beyond rhetoric and to commit substantial resources to efforts aimed at responding to, addressing, and eventually ending violence against women and girls, as an epidemic in and of itself and as a major driver in the HIV and AIDS epidemic. The following call to action is directed toward the G8 countries on the eve of the Heiligendamm Summit. Women Won't Wait to the G8
- Sign the global petition to support UN Special Procedures!
The petition below has been launched by a number of human rights organizations and is intended to show support for the people who work within the UN system who are "Special Rapporteurs" and members of working groups that focus on certain issues and countries. The rapporteurs are "independent experts" and many have been instrumental in making advances in areas of women's human rights, human rights defenders, health and sexual rights. Certain States are trying to weaken or eliminate their mandates. We believe that a strong system of Special Procedures is necessary within the UN, and in the Human Rights Council, to ensure advances in the human rights framework and protection of gains already made. To read more about the petition, visit the petition website at http://www.actforspecialprocedures.org.
Women Respond to War in Iraq
- Sexual Domination in Uniform: An American Value by Linda Burnham, WCRC Executive Director http://www.coloredgirls.org
- One Year Later: Women’s Human Rights in “Liberated” Iraq (MADRE) http://www.madre.org
- The Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice (WICEJ), made up of 40 women's organizations in 22 countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Pacific, North America and Europe, brings together women engaged with the issues of economic justice and globalization, trade, women's rights, human rights, immigrant rights, indigenous rights, peace & security, and anti-racism. WICEJ works to link gender with macro-economic policy in both inter-governmental policy-making arenas and within social movements. WICEJ utilizes an integrated feminist analysis which links the multiplicity of systems that oppress women and recognizes the diversity of women's experience. The Center for Women's Global Leadership is a member of WICEJ. Women's International Coalition for Economic Justice Opposes Attack on Iraq, and War on Many Fronts, March 25, 2003 http://www.wicej.addr.com/antiwar.html
- Statement from participants at the AWID International Forum on Women's Rights and Development, October 3 - 6, 2002, Guadalajara, Mexico:
We the undersigned who are gathered at the AWID international conference in Guadalajara Mexico are united against the proposed United States led aggression against Iraq which is contrary to international law and violates fundamental human rights.
We come from more than 100 countries from all regions of the world and work for women's human rights and development. We express our concerns and those of our constituencies who are alarmed by and opposed to the increased militarization of the United State and other governments around the world.
We urge the United States to immediately desist in its polices of military and economic aggression and to collaborate with the international community to promote peace, human rights and economic justice.
For Spanish and French version, see http://www.awid.org/go.php?pg=forum9_antiwar&theme=forum
- Whose Security? by Charlotte Bunch, published in the September 23, 2002 issue of The Nation
- Women of Color Resource Center: Raising Our Voices for Peace and Justice, 10 Reasons Why Women Should Oppose the US "War on Terrorism"
- Women Say No to War, WEDO http://www.wedo.org
- International A.N.S.W.E.R. http://internationalanswer.org
- United for Peace & Justice http://www.unitedforpeace.org
- New Yorkers Say No To War http://www.nysaynotowar.org
- Code Pink http://www.codepink4peace.org
- American Friends Service Committee http://afsc.org/iraq
Campaigns
|
|
|
