Annabelle Garay - Associated Press - Friday 10, 2008

DALLAS (AP) — An expensive cervical cancer vaccine is now needed by young female immigrants before they can become legal U.S. residents, a requirement that immigration advocates say is unfair.

Federal officials recently added the Gardasil vaccine to a list of vaccinations that immigrants must have before they can obtain green cards. The cervical cancer vaccine is required of females ages 11 to 26.

The vaccine protects against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer and genital warts. But the vaccine is one of the most expensive and controversial, primarily because it is given at a young age. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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DeNeen L. Brown - Washington Post Staff Writer - Thurs 9 Oct, 2008

“Call + Response,” a documentary that seeks to uncover contemporary human slavery in its many forms, opens with a sequence showing four men in a taxi heading to a bachelor party. They are almost giddy, anticipating what they will do and what will be done to them. The taxi swings through the streets of a nondescript Asian city with neon lights and billboards. As they near their destination, the men become even more excited.

But the viewer senses that something is extra wrong. The men walk up some steps and open a door.

And in the middle of a white bed sits a small girl, head lowered, black hair covering her face. Someone has placed her on the bed to service the men. They are appalled: “What kind of place is this?” one of them asks. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Arwa Damon - CNN - Wednesday 8 Oct, 2008

The PKK women say they are fighting for their rights. "We want ... society that revolves around women," one says.

QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq (CNN) — The women line the mountainside, locked hand in hand in their green battle fatigues, and begin dancing. It’s a victory dance, they say, that is routine after raids across the border on Turkish troops.

“We want a natural life, a society that revolves around women — one where women and men are equal, a society without pressure, without inequality, where all differences between people are eliminated,” says Rengin, the head of a female battalion of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Baradan Kuppusamy - IPS - Tuesday 7 Oct, 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 (IPS) - An emerging trend in the trafficking of tribal people, mostly young girls, is raising concern among government officials, rights organisations, migration experts and human rights lawyers.

Increasingly, tribal girls in the region are duped and trafficked from their villages to regional capitals like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to work in brothels and massage parlours that attract well-heeled locals as well as tourists.

‘’The trafficking of tribal people is on the rise across the South-east Asian region,’’said Irene Fernandez, executive director of Tenaganita, a leading Malaysian NGO that tracks trafficking of women to Malaysia from across the Asia Pacific region. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Sarah Boseley, health editor - The Guardian - Monday 6 Oct, 2008

A breast cancer cell seen through an electron microscope. Photograph: Science Photo Library

Enough is known about the causes of breast cancer to make a vaccine or prophylactic drug a real possibility, a leading cancer expert said last night.

Professor Valerie Beral of Oxford University, who leads the Million Women’s Study into the causes of the disease, told the Guardian the study had put beyond doubt what had long been guessed - that many breast cancers are caused by the absence of hormonal changes connected with childbirth.

Beral challenged the scientific community to turn its efforts to preventing breast cancer. While money and effort is poured into better drug treatments, hardly anyone is working on prevention. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Kim Sengupta - The Independent (UK) - Friday 3 Oct, 2008

Safia Amajan, director of Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Kandahar province, was slain outside of her home 25 Sept, 2006

Three years ago, Kim Sengupta interviewed five women who wanted to build a new Afghanistan. Today, three are dead and a fourth has fled

It was another murder among so many in the bloody conflict in Afghanistan – a senior police officer gunned down by the Taliban. But the death of Malalai Kakar this week has removed a brave and dedicated champion of oppressed women; it has raised the fears of other women in public life that they too have, in effect, been sentenced to death.

Of five prominent women interviewed three years ago by The Independent for an article on post-Taliban female emancipation, three, including Ms Kakar, are dead and a fourth has had to flee after narrowly escaping assassination in an ambush in which her husband was killed. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Maryam Abubakar Gulma - Daily Triumph (Nigeria) - Thurs 2 Oct, 2008

Health, they say, is wealth. How women could be economically empowered when their major health challenges are not being addressed. From an official document from the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) comes a report that every 10 minutes one woman dies on account of complications of pregnancy or child birth in Nigeria, giving a total of 53,000 per year. This means about 800 women die in every 100,000 live births in the country. Also from global perspective every minute a woman dies in pregnancy or child birth in the world- this adds up to more than 10 million in a generation. Majority of these women live and die in developing countries.

Maternal deaths in Nigeria occur at a rate similar to having an airplane carrying 145 pregnant women onboard crashing and killing all of them everyday. However, since the women are not ‘privileged’ to die in plane crashes, but silently in different communities in Nigeria, nobody except their families hear of the tragedies or feel the pain.

The First Lady of Nigeria, Hajia Turai Umar Yar’adua has made, as a priority agenda, total focus on maternal and infant health. She has initiated a programme in partnership with wives of governors to take the campaign to grassroots in their respective states where the problem is more extreme. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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MARIA ALETA O. NIEVA - ABS-CBN News, The Philippine Star - Wednesday 1 Oct, 2008

Female migrant domestic workers are often the most vulnerable to abuses and violations due to the gender-specific nature of their work. These violations come in several forms, and the bad experience most likely leaves the victim scarred for life.

Sharu Joshi Shrestha, the Regional Programme Manager for Migration of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in Nepal, said the violence experienced by women migrant workers also affects the victim’s family, community and country.

“If we do not address violence against women migrant workers, and the only thing we talk about is maximizing benefits, then we’ll be losing a larger part of realities, and we have to pay the cost,” Shrestha said. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Marcelo Ballve - New American Media - Tues 30 Sept, 2008

POSTVILLE, Iowa– The women could have just packed up a few belongings, gently broken the news to their children they could no longer remain in this country, and gone back to Mexico and Guatemala.

Cruz Rodríguez, 31, thought she would do just that in the days after May 12, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents stormed a kosher meatpacking plant in this small town, arresting her and nearly 400 other undocumented workers.

Rodríguez was among some 40 detainees, almost all women, ICE released with ankle bracelet monitoring devices the day of the raid, so they could care for their children as they waited to see an immigration judge. . .

. . . read complete article and see videos of workers . . .
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Philippine Daily Inquirer - Monday 29 Sept, 2008

Filipina seafarers face “tides” as they integrate into a male-dominated and hierarchical industry, according to a pioneering feminist research conducted by a UP professor for Kanlungan Centre Foundation Inc., an NGO which caters to migrants and their families.

The study, titled “Pinays On Board: An Exploratory Study on the Working Conditions of Filipino Women Seafarers is scheduled for unveiling in forum on Sept. 29, 1 to 4 pm, at the audio-visual room of the UP College of Social Work and Community Development in Diliman, Quezon City. The forum is organized by Kanlungan, the UP Center for Women’s Studies, and the UP Department of Women and Development Studies.

“Women’s navigation into a male-dominated and hierarchical maritime industry has not been smooth sailing. They have to face triple ‘tides’ as they navigate the world – as seafarers, as Third World migrants and as women,” said UP Journalism Professor Lucia P. Tangi. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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BBC News - Sunday 28 Sept, 2008

Malalai Kakar was not allowed to work as a police officer under the Taleban

Gunmen in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar have killed the country’s most prominent policewoman, officials say.

Lt-Col Malalai Kakar, head of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women, was shot in her car as she was about to leave for work.

Her son was also wounded in the attack, and is said to be seriously injured. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Louisiana’s John LaBruzzo Comes Under Fire for Suggesting $1,000 Payments to Poor Women, Tax Incentives for Wealthy Couples

Marcus Baram - ABC News - 25 Sept, 2008

As Hurricane Gustav loomed off the coast of Louisiana, thousands of impoverished people flocked into shelters, where some of them seemed unprepared to take care of their young children’s basic needs, forgetting to bring along diapers or medicine.

That heartbreaking scenario inspired Louisiana Republican State Rep. John LaBruzzo to start thinking about ways to stem generational welfare, in which many welfare recipients have children who also end up dependent on government assistance, according to the representative.

His idea — giving $1,000 to poor women to undergo reproductive sterilization. . .

. . . read complete article . . .
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Stephanie Holmes - BBC News - Thursday 25 Sept, 2008

India's success in meeting goals on education is not matched in health

The Millennium Development Goals were hailed as a new framework for development - tangible targets that would propel and direct change in the spheres of hunger, health and human rights, equality and education. 

But, as politicians, advocates and experts gather in New York, the economic storm clouds of soaring commodity prices and a global slowdown threaten to overshadow the future. . .

. . . read complete article . . .

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Naomi Lakritz - Calgary Herald - Wed 24 Sept, 2008

If only our charming neighbours to the south could turn down the volume on their presidential election for a moment, and tear their gazes away from the fascination provided by their own navels, they might see how a campaign should really unfold when there are women candidates.

Last week, amid zero fuss about her hair, her clothing, her glasses, her cattiness potential, her husband, her children, or any possible predilection for moose meat, Tzipi Livni was elected leader of Israel’s Kadima party, and aspiring prime minister. . .

. . . read complete editorial . . .
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