International

Nigeria: The stoning of Amina Lawal

Spain: Physicians analyze their role in gender violence

Italy: Every two days one death due to intra-family violence 

Regional

African Union adopts Women’s Rights Protocol

2003 Written Press Award: “For the life of women, not one more death” 

National

Argentina: Crimes with a brand

Brazil: A debt almost 20 years old with women

Chile: Sexual abuses during Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973 – 1989)

Dominican Republic: Women victims of drugs and prostitution

El Salvador: Women vulnerable before their partners and before the law

Guatemala: More than 200 indigenous women raped and murdered

Mexico: Feminicide still in focus

Nicaragua: Zoilamerica Narvaez still threatened by Daniel Ortega

Paraguay: 250 girls and adolescents sexually exploited 

Electronic peeks at gender violence

Suggestions of sites to visit on the Internet 

Monitoring the Bulletin

Nigeria: The stoning of Amina Lawal. The Appeals Tribunal of the state of Katsina in Nigeria, has transferred the appeals hearing of the sentence to death by stoning of Amina Lawal to August 27, 2003.  The offense committed by Amina, a 30-year-old woman, was to have a daughter when she was divorced.  Pregnancy out of wedlock is sufficient proof to be accused of the “offense” of adultery, according to the new Muslim code, based on the Islamic Law (Shari’a).  Amina was sentenced to death by stoning on March 22, 2002.  Aside from Amina, currently three men and one more woman have been sentenced to death in the country.  The signatures in favor of Amina keep on coming, with the purpose of putting an end to corporal punishment and the death penalty in Nigeria.  More than 8 million signatures have been collected so far, but we are still awaiting yours.  To sign your support, visit www.amnistiapornigeria.org 

Spain: Physicians analyze their role in gender violence.  Two hundred family physicians discuss in Spain their role in domestic violence, since up to 90% of the abused women come back for consultation one year after they have been maltreated.  The VIII Summer School of the Family and Community Medicine Spanish Society considers that the family physician is a health specialist in the best conditions to detect precociously the violence cases and stop them from getting more serious, and he has an important role in their detection.  It is calculated that only 10% of the actual cases are denounced.  For further information: www.canariasahora.com/portada/editar_noticia.asp?idnoticia=22186&idtemagemeral=6 

Italy: Every two days, one death due to intra-family violence (Women Today).  In Italy, every two days a person dies in relation to violent deeds in family surroundings, according to a study made public by the Eurispes Institute, with official data gathered during the first four months of the year.  Between last January and April, 62 persons were murdered in 49 of the 54 offenses reported –some with multiple homicides- most of them, as was to be expected, with the woman as victim and the man as material perpetrator.  34 assassinations were between couples -18 of them marriages- 16 between family members other than spouses, and 4 infanticides. Some of the killers later took on their own lives.  The couples-related assassinations were committed mostly by men (30 versus 4), with an age shared equally, between 31 and 41 years old and 41 and 51 years of age.  According to the Eurispes study, the reasons that trigger these actions are headed by mental suffering (11), major conflicts between the partners (8), the non-acceptance of the separation complicated by the presence of children (7), and the rest were cases impossible to classify (7). Source: www.mujereshoy.com

African Union adopts Women’s Rights Protocol. (Womentoday/Amnesty International).  On July 11, 2003, the Women’s Rights Protocol was adopted in Africa, in the Third Summit of the African Union in Maputo (Mozambique).  The Protocol shall be enforced as soon as it is ratified by 15 States.  The Protocol shall be the complement to the African Carte in order to promote and protect the human rights of women in Africa. 

Among its precepts are the rights to life, to the integrity and safety of the person, to the participation in the political and decision-making processes, to heritage and to having the rights to adequate nutrition and lodging guaranteed, as well as the rights of women to be protected against harmful traditional practices and during armed conflicts.  It also protects the right of women to access justice and to receive equal protection before the law.  The Protocol obliges, likewise, the African governments to include, if they have not yet done so, these fundamental principles in their national Constitutions and in other legislative instruments, and to guarantee their effective application.  Furthermore, they must incorporate into them a perspective that takes into account the discrimination of women in their political decisions, legislation, development plans and activities, as well as guaranteeing women’s general well-being. 

The Human Rights African Commission, an organism created to monitor the compliance of the African Carte by the State Parties until the establishment of the Human Rights African Court, is in charge of overseeing the application of the Protocol.  Also, the State Parties in the Protocol commit themselves to point out in their periodic reports before the African Commission the legislative and other nature measures that have been adopted to guarantee the full realization of the rights proclaimed in the Protocol.  Source: Mujeres Hoy: www.mujereshoy.com 

2003 Written Press Prize: “For the life of women, not one more death”. The Non-Violence against Women and the Isis International Communications and Publications Programs, with the support of UNIFEM, convoke, for the second consecutive year, to the 2003 Written Press Prize: “For the life of women, not one more death”. The purpose is to stimulate the contributions of the newspaper persons in Latin America and the Caribbean in the eradication of violence against women, particularly regarding the assassination of women for gender reasons. 

All the professional men and women of the written mass media may participate in this contest, with works on feminicides occurred in their countries or in the region and that have appeared in the press during the period August 2000 – September 2003.  The awards shall be granted to best reporting, chronicle, interview or news works, published in the written press of regular and massive circulation on a regional, national or local scale, within this period. 

An original and three copies of the publication must be sent, as well as a certification of the media in which it was published, the publication date (if it does not appear in the original article).  The works must be sent to the address of Isis International: Esmeralda 636 – 2º Piso, Santiago de Chile, at the latest on October 15, 2003, indicating name, last name, postal and/or e-mail address, and a short resume of the participant. 

Three awards of one thousand Dollars each (US$1,000) and an acknowledgement diploma shall be granted.  The awards shall be made public on November 25, 2003, the International Day of Non-Violence against Women.  For further information, www.isis.cl/temas/vi/concurso2003.htm  and/or write to Isis International: isis@isis.cl, Isabel Duque: iduque@isis.cl or Ana Maria Portugal amportugal@isis.cl

Argentina: Crimes with a brand. (Mujereshoy). Leyla Lazar (22 years old), Maria Soledad Morales (17), and Natalia Melmann (15), were subject to the worst atrocities without an energetic response from the police or political authorities.  “The key words are: party, power, and cover-up.  In the crimes of Leyla Lazar (22), Maria Soledad Morales (17), and Natalia Melmann (15) –it was revealed or is under investigation- there was a party of the police or political establishment.  There they were raped, killed, and the police or political establishment covered up the assassinations”, says unabashedly (sic). This is quite true, especially if the assassinations are committed in the provinces or in border towns, such as Ciudad Juarez, for example.  There are certain similarities in the modus operandi of the murderers of Santiago del Estero, Mar del Plata and Catamarca, with the ones of Ciudad Juarez. 

As the Argentinean specialist, Ana Maria Fernandez states: “For these crimes to occur there has to be a justice or political connections system that guarantees the assassins that it will cost them nothing to kill somebody behind these parties; and a State terrorism that can cover up these crimes.  It is not happenstance that the persons that can be killed without any costs are poor women”.  Bodies raped, disfigured, and/or cut into pieces.  These are the crimes with a brand, an expression of a culture in which the norms and forms of living together determine the gender oppression.  The Mexican feminist anthropologist, Marcela Lagarde, has a conclusive definition for this type of crimes: the policy of the extermination of women.  Source: Interredes 16-A, Isis International. 

Brazil: A debt almost 20 years old with women. The United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee), met in New York in its 29^th sessions period (June 30^th to July 18) to, among other things, examine the National Brazilian Report for the years 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997 and 2001, on the compliance of the CEDAW –Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. 

With the presentation of this report, the Brazilian State pays a debt of almost 20 years with the women of its country, given the commitment to report initially and periodically to the CEDAW Committee the compliance with the Convention efforts, from the time it was ratified, in 1984. 

The Governmental Report was elaborated with the collaboration of a consortium of persons and organizations under the coordination of Flavia Piovesan and Silvia Pimentel, from CLADEM-Brazil. 

In order to collaborate with the CEDAW Committee on the analysis of the Governmental Report, the women’s movement presented its Alternative Report, “Brazil and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, Document of the Women’s Movement for the Compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women by the Brazilian State: Proposals and Recommendations”, elaborated jointly by entities, persons and 13 National Networks and Articulations of Brazilian Women, boosted by CLADEM-Brazil and AGENDE. 

In this sense, CEJIL, CLADEM and AGENDE presented also the “Document to CEDAW on the compliance of Brazil with the obligations contracted as State Party of the Convention in relation to violence against women – Violence against Women: The Maria da Penha case”, with the object of attracting the attention of the CEDAW Committee specifically towards Brazil’s non-compliance with its international obligations in relation to the prevention, sanction and eradication of violence against women. 

Attending the CEDAW session, representing the NGOs and the Brazilian women’s movement, were: Marlene Libardoni (AGENDE), Ana Alice Costa (REDOR), Denise Hirao, Flavia Piovesan and Silvia Pimentel (CLADEM-Brazil), Nilza Iraci (Articulacao de ONGs de Mulheres Negras) (NGOs Articulation of Black Women).  To access the governmental and alternative reports, as well as to have further information about what occurred at the CEDAW session, consult CLADEM’s website: www.cladem.org and the CEDAW campaign bulletins Nos. 5, 6, and 7 of AGENDE in the website: www.agende.org.br 

Chile: Sexual abuses during Pinochet’s dictatorship (1975 – 1989).  (Santiago de Chile, Mujereshoy).  By means of a public statement, the women, represented by the NGO Women’s Institute, indicated that sexual violence, in all its forms, was practiced by agents during the dictatorship in several detention and torture centers.  According to these women, during the military regime, the sexual violence exercised by the repressors included anal, vaginal and oral rape, and was performed by persons, by means of torture elements or by animals.  This denouncement is added to the one by Odette Alegria, who denounced the current Head of the Investigations Police, Nelson Mery, as one of the agents that maltreated her and subjected her to sexual abuses while she was detained at the Army’s Artillery School, in 1973, in the city of Linares, 306 kms. south of Santiago.  For further information, consult: www.mujereshoy.com 

Dominican Republic: Women victims of drugs and prostitution (Mexico, CIMAC).  A study of domestic violence and drug consumption in women in the Dominican Republic that are sent abroad for prostitution purposes, revealed significant abuse in the consumption of pharmaceutical as well as illegal drugs. 

The study, done by the Centro de Apoyo Aquelarre (Aquelarre Support Center), sponsored by the United Nations Office Against Drugs and Crime in the Dominican Republic, revealed that tranquilizers, sleeping pills, antidepressants, alcohol, marihuana, cocaine and heroine, among others, are the substances most widely-used by women in and outside the workplace.  This, according to the investigation, was due to the conditions in which they perform or performed their tasks, since some of the owners forced them to consume some sort of drug, to the point in which it was considered as a prerequisite to maintain the job and as an inherent fact of the sexual work. 

The analysis pointed out that four out of ten women that consume some sort of drug stated that they had had to utilize at some point in time medical services to take care of a problem related to drugs. This study, applied to women between 15 and 29 years of age, revealed that the women were taken out of the country through “friends” networks, travel organizers and even family members or persons that motivated them to make the journey.  The destinations of these women were mainly other countries of the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the United States, where the women were employed as waiters, dancers and sexual dates. 

Most of the women (95%) confessed having accepted the trip due to economic reasons.  Most of them, the study highlights, were victims of violence, sexual abuse, and psychological maltreatment during their childhood, which could indicate a high correlation among the intra-family violence, the consumption of drugs, and the insertion of women into the sexual market.  Regarding violence at the workplace, the study refers that over 95% said they had been sexually abused at work and 61% in the Dominican Republic.  Source: www.cimacnoticias.com 

El Salvador: Women vulnerable before their partners and before the law (Radio Internacional Feminista/CIMAC).  Violence against Salvadorian women increased 85.9% in the last five years, informed the Salvadorian civil association Las Mujeres por la Dignidad y la Vida (Las Dignas) (Women for Dignity and Life).  In the eyes of this association, the problem has reached worrisome levels and makes evident the inefficiency of some institutions in charge of imparting justice.  They made a call to sensitize, train and specialize the public officers and institutions that deal with this issue, so that women may be able to access a more equal justice system.  They assured that almost all of the victims were killed by their sentimental partners and they died due to wounds caused by firearms or knives.  Source: www.fire.or.cr 

Guatemala: More than 200 indigenous women raped and murdered (Guatemala, CIMAC/Cerigua). More than 200 indigenous women were raped and assassinated during the last two months in Guatemala; therefore it is urgent that the Legislative power approve the Sexual Harassment Law, alerted the civil group Multidisciplinary Team of Women’s Organizations.  In an open letter, the organism asked the countries of the Consulting Group to intervene so that the Guatemalan legislative power approve the Sexual Harassment Law, in compliance with the Peace Agreements and in view of the rapes and assassinations of women.  Source: www.cimacnoticias.com 

Mexico: Feminicide still in focus.  Feminicide in Mexico, which maximum expression are the crimes against women in Ciudad Juarez, continues to be focused on.  At least one woman disappears each week and more than 300 have been assassinated since 1993 in Ciudad Juarez, recalled in Spain the founder of the Our daughters return home association, Marisela Ortiz. 

“Students, mothers, girls, workers of the maquila industry..., no woman is safe in Ciudad Juarez”, stated Ortiz at the round table of the summer course Gender Violence, directed by the renown Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon, organized by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.  In this Mexican city, “women are ill-at-ease due to the impunity on the part of the authorities in the face of the atrocities committed during the last ten years”, she said.  Ortiz requested “political, moral and juridical justice” vis-à-vis the “cover-up” of data about these disappearances, which authors still remain unknown due to the “extreme inefficiency” of the authorities, which are, she said, “de-humanized” on account of the “weight of power and corruption”. 

Baltazar Garzon, who was recently in Ciudad Juarez, reaffirmed his support to the civil organizations and the victims of the feminicides in Ciudad Juarez and maintained his offer to take the case before the European Parliament so that it can issue a pronouncement. 

It is worthwhile informing that, after knowing about the report of the Special Rapporteur of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for Women’s Matters of the OAS, the Mexican president created an inter-ministries sub-commission, which involves 23 areas of the federal government, to handle the crimes against women in Ciudad Juarez.   

The Mexican government is designing an integral policy to confront the problem of the women’s assassinations in the northern town of Ciudad Juarez, confirmed the Human Rights sub-secretary of the Foreign Affairs Secretariat, Marie Claire Acosta.  The diagnosis operation will be performed by the Office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations for Human Rights and its objective shall be to achieve changes that guarantee the enforcement of human rights and the design of State policies in this respect.  For further information: www.cimac.com and www.mujereshoy.com/secciones/990.shtml 

Nicaragua: Zoilamerica Narvaez still threatened by Daniel Ortega.  Zoilamerica Narvaez shook up a substantial part of the world when she denounced the sexual abuses committed by her step-father, Daniel Ortega Saavedra, former president of Nicaragua and leader of the Sandinista faction.  He abused her for over twenty years.  Zoilamerica is still tormented by the unpleasant memories of the sexual abuses that she suffered at the hands of her step-father.  See: www.elsalvador.com/noticias/2003/07/07/nacional/nacio4.html 

Paraguay: 250 girls and adolescents sexually exploited. According to an investigation performed in Ciudad del Este, in Paraguay, 900 women are engaged in sexual trade activities, of which 250 are minors.  Ciudad del Este is considered a fertile zone for the exploitation of minors in this area.  Therefore, from the International Program for the Eradication of Infantile Work (IPEC), of the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Program for the Prevention and Elimination of Sexual Commercial Exploitation of Girls, Boys and Adolescents at the Brazil/Paraguay Border, is developed.  The conclusion says that most of them consume legal and/or illegal drugs such as marihuana and cocaine and are more exposed to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), since the use of condoms “is the client’s decision”. 

To date, there are no responses committed on the part of the public institutions and “the mistrust towards them is the predominant characteristic in the population under study.  Furthermore, the independent or joint performances of the Municipality, the Police and the Judiciary, are factors of double victimization of minors”, refers in another point the document. 

Within the legal framework, there is talk about Paraguay’s evolution, not only due to the recent enactment of the Adolescence and Childhood Code and a new Penal Code, in which pimping is considered a deed punishable by jail penalties, but also by the ratification of Convention 182 of the International Labor Organization on the worst forms of infantile labor, in 1998.  But this is not just about complying with the adhesion to treaties and enacting laws, but rather of using them in favor of the real victims: the boys, girls and adolescents.  Source: www.adital.org.br

•  CLADEM friends: We dearly request that you send us the Electronic Bulletin in larger print.  I am already near-sighted and even with my glasses on it is very hard to read.  The reports we get via the Bulletin are very good. Many thanks for everything.  Lic. Gloria Baez Posadas.  Misiones, Argentina.

• We receive CLADEM’s electronic bulletin on violence against women.  We think it is excellent.  We would like you to publish as sites with information on the issues and that are produced by us at Isis International the following: www.redfem.cl of the Red Feminista Latinoamericana contra la violencia domestica y sexual; www.mujereshoy.com: Women’s site in Spanish with a special section of Non-Violence against Women; www.isis.cl: Site of Isis International with a special section dedicated to Non-Violence against Women.  We shall circulate the information produced by you.  Kind regards, Isabel Duque, Non-Violence against Women Program, Isis International.

• Congratulations on the quality of the Bulletin and its regional scope. Kind regards, Lena Levinas.

• For sure, this edition of the Electronic Bulletin is very good!! Regards, Laura Asturias (Tertulia, Guatemala)

• Dear CLADEM friends: Is everything OK? I enjoy very much receiving CLADEM’s Bulletin.  Aside from promoting a network of persons and information on violence, I always remember you and how much we care for you! Miriam Steffen Vieira (Porto Alegre, Brazil).