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REGIONAL ELECTRONIC BULLETIN

SEXUAL RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

May 2005 Edition – Year 1, Nº 5

Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights (CLADEM)

OUR BODIES, OUR LIVES, OUR PLEASURES

News, Proposals and Reflections from

Latin America and the Caribbean

“That’s because I like men a lot. I have a doubtful morality.

What is a doubtful morality?

A morality that doubts about other moralities”.

Marguerite Duras. Script of “Hiroshima, Mon Amour”

INDEX

EDITORIAL:

-        May 28th, International Day of Action for Women’s Health and the Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights.

-        News about the Campaign for an Inter-American Convention on Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights.

-        NEWS AND EVENTS FROM THE SOCIOJURIDICAL ENVIRONMENT

Regional

International

-        NEWS ON HEALTH AND SEXUAL RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Regional

International

-        BOOK PRESENTATIONS

-        DEBATES

-        RESEARCH

-        CONVOCATIONS, CONTESTS, FORA

__________ EDITORIAL: May 28th, International Day of Action for Women’s Health and the Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights.

In May, precisely on the 28^th, the International Day of Action for Women’s Health is celebrated. This mobilized throughout the world a number of actions to reaffirm women’s citizen right to the care and preservation of their health, which specifically includes the areas of sexuality and reproduction.

In both areas world society has a pending debt because for the time being there are more words than deeds. The full acknowledgement of the sexual rights and reproductive rights has been produced late in the history of mankind. Traditionally women’s health has been subsumed in “the mother’s and children’s health” and in maternal/infantile programs. When women have not been seen as incubators, banning contraception programs, they have been utilized as subjects of experiments (see the Alliance for Progress of the 60s). On too many occasions women have been victims of compulsory programs on the part of the States and of fundamentalist pressures from conservative sectors.

In a concrete manner, it was in the World Conference on Population and Development (ICPD, El Cairo, 1994) that the bases of these rights, later reaffirmed in the 4^th World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and their follow-ups, were more firmly established. This was so due to the situation of women’s social discrimination and to the inequality of rights they have endured throughout modern history vis-à-vis the males, which has determined cultural, day-to-day, institutional and behavioral phenomena aimed at controlling female sexuality, at binding them to reproduction and to care for their reproductive health only to ensure healthy descendants. Phenomena such as the double sexual morals (in which men were allowed conducts not acceptable for women), premarital virginity and the pressure to have sex or to carry on unwanted pregnancies, traverse all of modern history and still persist in these days.

In this sense, several activities have been carried on in all the countries of the world, which focused on two types of approaches: on the one hand, requests to the State for the implementation of accessible, quality and with gender perspective programs. On the other, the affirmation of the citizen right to enjoy the highest level of sexual and reproductive health on the part of women, which goes beyond the health services. We believe both visions should be articulated, so that the States can give priority to an attention focused on a rights’ approach and in the actions of primary attention, i.e., preventive, including inter-sector actions of the health, education, justice and social action areas, as a way of assuring a truly integral health approach.

At the same time, actions must be performed to disassemble the traditional cultural, ideological and religious mechanisms that limit women’s human rights, as stated by the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women). And furthermore, not lose sight of those situations in which violence against women and sexual violence (for reasons of gender and based on patriarchal visions) impact in the deterioration of their physical and mental health and, on occasions, even in the loss of life, such as in the “crimes of honor”.

In this sense, it is not only necessary to demand better health services from the States, but rather to foster and mobilize actions aimed at awakening the citizens’ awareness and the community’s sensitivity, both of men and women, regarding this issue. The conquests of women must be defended in terms of human rights, citizenship and gender equality, articulating all the levels of the States and civil society and urging the citizenry to permanently exercise the monitoring and social vigilance.

Cristina Zurutuza

Coordinator of the SRRR Area

May 2005

__________ CAMPAIGN FOR THE INTER-AMERICAN CONVENTION ON SEXUAL RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS.

New developments

We remind you that the flyer “Write your rights” is available in Spanish, Portuguese and English, at the Convention’s website (www.convencion.org.uy). This document can be downloaded and printed, for its distribution in all types of gatherings where the male and female attendees can be asked to fill them in. The persons that join this Campaign can send the flyers to Lima, Peru, where all the answers will be systematized.

The Campaign continues its presentation and it is getting underway in almost all the countries of the region with dissemination, advocacy and lobbying actions and above all, the application of the “Write your rights” flyer.

In the website you can also find a list of all the pro-abortion Campaigns that are being carried on in the region as well as worldwide. An ample list of some news items informs us that currently there are campaigns and systematic actions of all sorts in Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico and other countries of the region. On the other hand, we found a most unusual piece of news: in Iran a law permitting abortion was approved.

___________ NEWS/EVENTS OF THE SOCIOJURIDICAL ENVIRONMENT

___________ REGIONAL

ARGENTINA

Oral trial and national mobilization for Romina Tejerina.

A number of women’s organizations convoke. 05.25.2005. Written by: forofem forofem@yahoo.com.ar

The case of Romina Tejerina, from the city of Jujuy, is currently one of the most poignant in Argentina. Barely an adolescent, she was raped (on August 1, 2002) but frightened, ashamed, and not knowing what to do, she did not file a denouncement and she hid a pregnancy that she tried to eliminate at the risk of her own life. The fetus was born and she killed him, stating: “I saw in him the face of the rapist”. She was tried and she has been in preventive prison for more than a year. On June 2^nd the oral trial begins, the last stage of the process in the Argentinean justice. Due to the last reform of the Argentinean Penal Code, Romina runs the risk that the maximum penalty for aggravated homicide be applied to her: life sentence. In said reform an article from the former Penal Code was abolished, the one on infanticide, which had great mitigating elements for cases such as this one. It was based on a well-known phenomenon of world psychiatry: the existence of emotional states severely distorted that can include aggression towards the newborn; among them, puerperal psychosis. Romina’s defense is precisely alleging that she acted in a state of temporary insanity and that therefore at the moment of the deed she was non-imputable. However, Romina is still in prison (even though she has been in prison for more than two years without a sentence and the law specifically establishes that she should be set free) and will face an oral Court, which can be affected by the more conservative opinions, which assume that she was not raped and they simple see in Romina a cold-blooded assassin of her newborn baby. Additionally, they wish to give an exemplary lesson to the movement in favor of the right to abortion in Argentina, an intention that is clear in the fact of having denied it a number of defensive measures.

The women’s organizations of Argentina convoke to mobilizations on June 2^nd, 3^rd and 9^th, in the cities of Jujuy, Buenos Aires, and Rosario. Furthermore, signatures are being collected to be presented at the Nation’s Human Rights Secretariat. The on-line form is at http://www.rimaweb.com.ar/acciones/carta_romina.html. Also, the letter that Romina wrote from jail is there.

BOLIVIA

Editorial on the Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights Framework Law. El Nuevo Día Newspaper, Santa Cruz, May 23^rd. (Summary).

http://ea.el-nuevodia.com/2005/05-mayo/23Mayo2005/

Editorial/Notas/Subeditorial.html

A climate of intolerance with increasingly violent demonstrations is being experienced in Bolivia. There are increasingly more cases of confrontations, aggressions and threats from one sector to another due to differences in the way of thinking and acting that before used to be settled by means of free debate. The examples are not only in the lynchings that have become normal occurrences in neighborhoods full of citizens tired of having to suffer the attacks of delinquents, but rather in other scenarios acknowledged as formal spaces of democracy. Intolerance has even installed itself in sectors and institutions that promote values of love, respect and solidarity.  They are unpleasant aftertastes of old dictatorships, many would say. Actually, they are not only old legacies, they are also signs of new forms of control that are being exercised by power sectors in an attempt to maintain the privilege of controlling the minds and wills that request changes.

An example is given by the heated debate provoked by the Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights Framework Law. Not only was the way of insult and booing retaken to silence different voices, but also that of open censorship to restrict freedom of expression and information. They are signs that should provoke a general alert among that majority that prefers to live in democracy, no matter how imperfect the latter may be. It is necessary to encourage tolerance, respect for ideas, the consequence with the principles and freedoms contemplated in the human rights, and the adhesion of the universal rights consecrated by the country’s juridical order.

Project: Law for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, protection of human rights and integral assistance to the persons that live with HIV/AIDS (Summary of the REDBOL manifest). 05.29.2005.

REDBOL is Bolivia’s National Network of People that live with HIV/AIDS, made up by representatives of the country’s 9 departments. At the reunion of May 29^th they elaborated a manifest in which they highlight that, in spite of the fact that the country’s situation is difficult, they understand that it is indispensable to back up the referred bill. Bolivia participates in the project of the Global Fund for more than US$ 15 million and its Ministry of Health and Sports signed a subsidy covenant to combat the three diseases: Malaria, Tuberculosis and AIDS. The Global Fund, in turn, requested the country to sanction a law to guarantee its sustainability, considering that the persons living with HIV/AIDS are in a very difficult situation. The REDBOL requests the government to support and sanction the referred law. Ramon.torre@mariestopes.org.bo

CHILE

With a minute of silence a movement of lesbian mothers made its debut in Radio Cooperativa, Chile. 05.31.2005. www.rimaweb.com.ar.

In front of the Palace of Tribunals, the Association of Chilean Mothers protested regarding the sentence with which the Supreme Court of Chile took away the tuition of her three daughters to Judge Karen Atala due to her lesbian condition. In the same act, the beginning of the Association of Chilean Mothers movement was proclaimed. They stated their confidence that they will win with their discrimination demand filed against the Chilean State before the Human Rights Inter-American Court (HRIC). “The Chilean State has never won a demand made against it in this Court, therefore we expect this to occur one more time” she added. Socialist legislators expressed their hopes that Parliament would legislate on the issue before the HRIC dictates its sentence.

MEXICO

Law against violence aimed at women and girls approved. 05.03.2005 – Cimac Noticias, Mexico www.cimacnoticias.com

The Senate of the Republic approved the General Law that creates the National System for the Prevention, Protection, Assistance and Eradication of Violence against Women and Girls. This law seeks to counter the violence against the female population, which is the most brutal symbol of inequality. It sets forth that the State must recognize the rights of women and girls as an obligation, since the latter are considered by their aggressors as persons without the minimal rights of freedom, respect, and choice capability. The law’s text, approved on April 28^th last, states that it is clear that in the previous legislation they had only taken into account the violence against women and girls within the family environment, thus making invisible the violence situations in public places, such as the educational spaces, the work places or the street. It is estimated that in order to eradicate gender violence, the multi-discipline intervention of different social operators, such as the sanitary, police and judicial forces is necessary, since at this point in time the priority of all of them must be to put an end to the cycle of violence and endow the victims with legal and social guarantees to make effective their will to change the situation. Therefore the primordial objective of the Law is to set forth the bases for the prevention, assistance, protection and eradication of violence against women and girls, as well as fostering the culture of denouncement among them.

Impunity for the outrage and assassination of women denounced in Mexico.

http://www.prensalatina.com.mx/Article.asp?ID=%7BF12

CAB45-EB23-4F83-8F22-CEAEC5FE2438%7D&language=ES

Mexico, May 31, 2005. The outrage and assassination of women in Mexico has turned nowadays into a national security problem, by reproducing itself in various entities of the federation. The Mexican State, and particularly its Judiciary, are not providing the security needed by women and girls, who do not have information regarding who to go to when they suffer violence and when they try to denounce it they are victims of the constitutional violence, alerted legislator Marcela Lagarde, who heads the Special Commission to Follow-up on the Feminicides belonging to the House of Representatives Chamber of Mexico.

The declarations of President Vicente Fox, who stated that “most of those homicide cases are solved and those responsible are in jail” were also rejected. According to the follow-up done by the Commission, so far this year 33 women were assassinated in the state of Chihuahua. The greater part of these investigations is still pending, which generates great national indignation and a demonstration of 20 thousand persons that marched last week in Ciudad Juarez.

___________ INTERNATIONAL

CANADA

Canada: The revolutionary proposal of the Sex Party. 05.17.2005. MujeresHoy portal, Santiago, Chile www.mujereshoy.com Source: La República.

A new political party that proposes a sexual revolution is testing the well-known tolerance of the citizens of the British Columbia province, located in the western part of Canada. It managed to gather as many followers as journalists in a recent act to raise funds. The motive: in an ample location covered with carpets and pillows, the audience observed an alternative meeting in which several couples performed the sexual act and artists presented erotic and provocative performances. The party has campaigned in the provincial elections for “a positive sexual culture”, promising to teach the children to have sexual activity “in a gradual and disciplined way” and to reject what they consider a negative sexual culture such as the laws that prohibit nudity in public.

IRAN

Iran approved a law that permits abortion under certain conditions. 04.12.2005. La Nación On Line. www.lanaciononline.com.ar

Teheran. The Iranian Parliament, dominated by the Conservatives, approved today a law that permits abortion, within the first four months of pregnancy, if the mother’s life is in danger or if the child may be born with some physical or mental handicap. Up until today the law authorized the abortion only in the cases that the mother’s life was at risk. Such dangers must be certified by three doctors and confirmed by the office of the Legal Medic, stated local sources. To be enacted, the law must still pas the examination of the Guardians Council, conservative organ that has the task of verifying that every new norm does not oppose the Constitution and the Islamic laws applied in Iran. The interruption of pregnancy outside the terms provided for by the law is punished with sentences that go from 3 to 10 years in prison.

___________ NEWS ON HEALTH AND SEXUAL RIGHTS AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

REGIONAL

CENTRAL AMERICA

The impact of social programs on maternity in Central America.  Source: IDB May 5, 2005.

http://www.iadb.org/NEWS/display/WSView.cfm?WS

_Num=ws04505&language=Spanish

In programs of conditioned transference such as PROGRESA, also known as “Opportunities” in Mexico and “Family Bag” in Brazil, the poor families receive a small amount of money under the condition that their children get regular medical checkups and attend school. The IDB has supported many of these programs in different countries and is currently evaluating its results. As part of that evaluation, the institution participated in the study of two programs in Central America to determine if providing more money creates an incentive for families to have more children. According to it, the impact varied depending on the design of the program. The Social Protection Network, one of the programs examined in Nicaragua, granted a global sum to the poor families without taking into account the number of children in the homes. Therefore, the program was not an incentive for families to have more children. The two-year study indicates that the Nicaraguan program had no major impact in the birth and pregnancy rates. Nevertheless, in the Family Allocation Program (PRAF) in Honduras, the number of children is taken into account for the allocation of the amounts, thus creating an incentive for maternity. Given this fact, it is not surprising that the study found an increase of 4.8% in the birth and pregnancy rates. In both programs, the impact was greater in married women aged 20 to 30. The results show that the design of the program should avoid creating an incentive for maternity, indicating the need to strengthen family planning and promoting breastfeeding.

CLADEM’s comment: In this news item the objectives of this type of plans is confusing. Are they to improve the health and school attendance of the children or to increase the fecundity rate of women?

ARGENTINA

Summary. Press release. Homosexuality is not a sickness, but the homophobes make us sick!!! A.Co.D.Ho.: Association against Homosexual Discrimination – Desalambrando Córdoba. desalambrandocba@yahoo.com.ar 05.08.2005 www.rimaweb.com.ar

The GLTTB organizations of Córdoba and the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons state before the public opinion their most energetic rejection and condemnation of the expressions of Priest Gustavo Piva, in which he classifies homosexuality as “an evil and a disease that generates immorality”. It seems concerning to us that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church considers itself the bearer of all knowledge, with a qualified opinion on all the social problems, imposing their points of view as infallible and absolute in planes such as politics, law, ethics, health and sickness. We demand true freedoms and respect for our human rights, since this type of expressions has as its real objective that of promoting and encouraging discrimination and homophobic violence, which are “our daily bread”.

Carmen Argibay talked about the penal reform and abortion

Source: Página/12 – Friday 05.06.2005 www.pagina12/com.ar

The only female member of the Supreme Court of National Justice, Carmen Argibay, pronounced herself against systematic preventive imprisonment for defendants that have not been proven guilty. She pointed out that it is “an abuse and it is against the principle of innocence consecrated in the National Constitution and the human rights of the prisoners”. On the other hand, she reiterated her posture in favor of the de-penalization of abortion, so that it may be contemplated in cases of women that want it “for some reason that seems sufficiently serious”. In this sense she criticized strongly the postures that do not take in consideration the freedom that women must enjoy. She added that society does not take charge of the babies that are born. “I am not against life, but if there is a woman that wants to have an abortion for some reason that seems sufficiently serious, she has to be able to have it under conditions of safety without risking her life”, she concluded.

BRAZIL

Editorial on abortion of the Editorial Revista de Saúde Sexual e Reprodutiva, IPAS BRAZIL – 05.28.2005 – www.ipas.org Own translation and Summary. www.revista.ipas.org.br

The magazine centers the editorial for the month of May on the issue of abortion. It affirms that abortion is a significant cause of death in the female population, but has been taken little into account in the governments’ actions aimed at the reduction of maternal mortality. In Brazil it is the second cause of obstetric internments in the SUS (Unique Health System), it continues being treated with archaic technology and with a prejudice that cannot be disguised on the part of the health professionals. Nevertheless, it notes that in Brazil this issue is being transformed since 2003, through the actions of Lula’s government –in particular the Women’s Technical Area of the Ministry of Health- which has generated the National Pact for the Reduction of Maternal Mortality, which objective is to reduce the avoidable deaths that occur in the pregnancy period, birth, puerperium and abortion. The realization of training courses in 40 maternity institutions, following an approach to medicine based on evidences, provides a broad range of basic practices to classify and enhance attention in this field.

The issue to be underscored is that the model of attention in women’s sexual and reproductive health must be humanized. The Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights National Plan, launched by the Ministry of Health in March 2005, based on an inter-sector perspective, focuses on this premise. This plan is the product of the construction shared between the Ministry of Health jointly with the Ministries of Education, Justice, Agrarian Development, Social Development and Combat to Hunger, with the participation of the Human Rights Special Secretariat and the Secretariat of Policies for the Promotion of Racial Equality. Among its multiple actions, the following stand out –aside from the expansion of the MAC offer and other services- access to voluntary surgical sterilization within the SUS network, the expansion of the Health and Prevention Program in the schools, the attention of adolescents and youngsters, the humanized attention of post-abortion and of women victims of violence (sexual and domestic).

Declaration of the Summit for Juvenile Leadership of Latin America and the Caribbean (Summary). May 16^th, 2005 – Latin American Network of Catholics for Freedom of Choice – 06-01-2005 www.catolicasporelderechoadecidir.org  –  catolicasal@wamani.apc.org.

A large number of young leaders from Latin America got together in Belo Horizonte and elaborated the declaration that can be consulted in the electronic address included. Among other points, they state that they do not recognize distinctions of race, ethnics, gender, sexual orientation, language, religion, political opinion, nationality or social origin; they affirm that “Latin America and the Caribbean see their development opportunities limited due to a great public debt and the unfavorable conditions that have been set forth for its compliance. It shall be impossible for our countries to reach the Millennium Development Objectives (MDOs) as long as those conditions that permit our countries to invest the necessary recourses for its development”. They criticize the current development model predominant in the region, affirming that it is inadequate for the democratic construction of maintainable societies. It is noted that their countries are under a strong pressure of multilateral organisms that induce the governments to establish economic goals but not social priorities. This pressure has a strong impact on the sovereignty and autonomy of the Latin American and Caribbean nations and impedes the prioritization of the social and environmental issues. We underscore that the MDOs are encased in and must have the political orientation of the conventions, conferences and treaties already signed by the countries.

COLOMBIA

State sterilization plan causes controversy – 05.05.2005 – ADITAL and Rima www.rimaweb.com.ar

The Pilot Plan of the Ministry for Social Protection of Colombia to sterilize women that have more than four children, as a form to combat poverty, has provoked a great debate. On the one hand, between the sanitary authorities and the Catholic Church and some international organizations. On the other, there are opposed opinions from other areas. The plan is developed as a pilot in Cúcuta and in the municipality of Roncesvalles in Tolima. The Minister of Social Protection stated that the proposal cannot be discarded, even though he recognized that the decision must not be conditioned by poverty. Sterilization is a valid alternative if and when it is practiced in the best of conditions, even though the ideal situation is that all women, regardless of their socioeconomic situation, could access contraceptive methods, indicated the Minister to the local station Caracol.

The Women’s Participation and Equality secretariat considered the measure necessary because in Cúcuta there are many cases of poor women with even more than 10 children. In spite of the controversy caused by the campaign, the mayor of Cúcuta, Ramiro Suárez, intends to broaden the project and sterilize men also. On her part, the auxiliary representative of the United Nations Population Fund declared that doing campaigns in which only one contraception method is promoted goes against women’s rights. Finally, the Catholic Church, which has always opposed birth control and the use of contraceptive methods, estimates that the official program attempts against the persons’ freedom. The local press has denounced, on various occasions, that these poor women, stimulated by the regional governments, go  to the sanitary services to receive help, not knowing that a no-return sterilization will be practiced on them. They do not know what is done to them and they are unaware that the authorities have as goal to tie the tubes of hundreds of women to avoid demographic growth, add the communications media.

INTERNATIONAL – UNITED NATIONS

Editorial – Against homophobia – Latin American Network of Catholics for Freedom of Choice – 06-01-2005 www.catolicasporelderechoadecidir.org – catolicasal@wamani.apc.org

May 17, 1990 was a historical day for the international society: the General Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) suppressed homosexuality from the list of mental diseases. It thus put an end to a century of medical homophobia, at least formally because in the deeds even today there is still as much homophobia among the health specialists as among the rest of society.

SPAIN

Women journalists from all over the world make their voices heard in Barcelona against the informative censorship – 05/08/2005 – Solidary Channel, Spain. www.rimaweb.com.ar

Women journalists of Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Peru, Mexico, Andorra, Canada, Iraq and Great Britain exposed their testimonies during the rounds “Women against Silence”, organized in Barcelona by the Freedom of Expression Coordinator. With the motto: “Women against silence”, these activities were organized for the freedom of information in the world, celebrated on May 3 and 4 in Barcelona (CCCB). This is its 5^th edition, which has been opened to new areas such as drama or the realization of documentaries. The intention was to show that the right to information is subject not only to the publications (dailies, magazines, weeklies, etc.), radios or TV but rather to each one of the cultural areas.

For multiple reasons all over the world, the communications media suffer restrictions and pressures, which are endured particularly by those women that maintain positions opposed to the reigning traditions and mafias.

_________________ ORGANIZING OURSELVES ____________________

ARGENTINA. Campaign for legal, safe and free abortion. Own elaboration. May 27 and 28, 2005.

The National Campaign for legal, safe and free abortion has already been launched officially, on May 27^th and 28^th throughout the country, headed by more than 100 organizations –especially feminist and of human rights- and relevant personalities from very different environments such as Parliament, culture, science and art. The public acts and press conferences, with flags, flyers and collection of signatures, were held in Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Rosario, Cordoba, Santiago del Estero, and Neuquén, among other cities and regions of the country. The Campaign had been decided in a self-convoked Assembly in the city of Córdoba, on May 7^th. There it was decided that the Campaign would be undertaken from May 28^th until November 25, 2005, due to the meaning that these dates have for the aspiration to a more fair and equal world for women, that rescues the right to choose regarding their sexual and reproductive life and their life project in general, for which it is indispensable that she can have the children she wishes and when she wishes them.

The Campaign’s activities shall comprise all type of actions, but above all the collection of signatures, the dissemination and advocacy campaigns (for which posters and flyers shall be made available) and the activism in the press media. On the 28^th of each month public acts will be staged. The sheets of paper with the signatures shall be presented to the National Parliament in November in Buenos Aires. They will not have a juridical value in terms of popular consultation (procedure that is not habilitated for the case of the Penal Code’s reform, as is the case), but it does have a political and pressure value.

BRAZIL

Gay march for civil union shakes Sao Paulo for legal equality in the unions. (DPA). La Capital newspaper, Rosario. 05.30.2005. www.lacapital.com.ar

Close to two million persons requested the Brazilian Congress to address civil equality. The already classic Gay Pride Manifestation, which was done yesterday for the ninth time in the Paulista Avenue, in the heart of the city of Sao Paulo, gathered close to two million persons, according to the organizers. Convoked under the motto “Civil union already, equal rights, no more, no less”, the gigantic manifestation gathered close to 700,000 Brazilian and foreign tourists and for the second year it will be the largest event of its type in the world. Last year 1.5 million persons participated.

This year the concern of the organizers is centered on promoting the civil union of homosexuals in the same legal conditions as that of heterosexual couples and for that they expect to collect 1.2 million signatures to press the Brazilian Congress into put up for voting the corresponding project, which has been presented several years ago and is currently paralyzed. However, the effect of this march and the high number of adhesions shall force the House of Representatives to put it up for vote.

_________________ PRESENTATION OF BOOKS ___________________

ARGENTINA

Abriendo espacios: Guía política de salud y derechos sexuales y reproductivos (Opening up spaces: Political guide on health and sexual rights and reproductive rights). 05.25.2005. www.cirp.org

This book, published by the Swedish Association for Sex Education (RFSU), with the collaboration of the Center of Reproductive Rights (CLRP), celebrates the 10^th anniversary of the El Cairo Conference. It is aimed at all the persons that want to update themselves regarding the political debate around health and sexual rights and reproductive rights. It is a useful tool for the persons that deal with and promote these issues. The report, among others, provides a general analysis of the Program for Action and refers to international treaties and documents that reinforce the Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights as fundamental human rights.

It is possible to read it online at: http://www.reproductiverights.org/esp_pub_bo_abriendoespacios.html

Presentation: “The Sexual and Reproductive Health and Responsible Procreation”. Published by the Ministry of Health of the Argentinean Nation. 05.07.2005. Own source.

It was presented on May 7^th, at the Book Fair in Buenos Aires, and it is based on the National Law on Sexual Health and Responsible Procreation and the program that this law creates. It takes up again aspects of materials previously elaborated within the Program’s framework. It can be consulted at: www.msal.gov.ar

UNITED STATES

Killing the partner: an evolutionary risk? 05.29.2005. By Sharon Begley. www.online.wsi.com, www.ciudaddemujeres.com. Own Summary.

As far as evolution theories go, few are so hair-raising as the one of David Buss, psychology professor at the University of Texas in Austin. In The Murderer Next Door: Why the mind is designed to kill, he explains that the male mind “has developed adaptations to assassinate”. An “adaptation” is a characteristic that offered an evolutionary advantage. According to Buss, these are males with difficulties to replace the lost access to a uterus, for which they are programmed to raise their attractiveness (you’re so strong and powerful!), by killing their unfaithful partner.

Killing, according to the author’s rationale, gave so many “advantages to our primitive ancestors in the competition to survive and reproduce themselves” that currently “the psychology of assassinating your partner has evolved so much in all men and is latent in their brains”. As proof, Buss cites homicide statistics showing that more men than women commit murders. In a period of five years in Dayton, Ohio, 52% of the women that died were assassinated by their husbands, lovers or former husbands. Likewise, unemployed men have a greater tendency to kill women that abandon them than those who have a job. And the women between ages 15 and 24 are assassinated by the partners or former partners more frequently than mature women.

Comments of the editorialist: The risk and the danger of this type of assumptions is that they justify as biological, immutable and additionally –in this case- “advantageous for the species” a tendency that even though it is real (the figures support it), it has cultural roots in the persistence of discriminatory-against-women patriarchal patterns that justify (as this same pseudo study) the superiority of the male and the legitimacy of the use of violence against women.

ITALY

She will do justice – Interview (Moira Soto). Summary.

Source: Página/12 – Friday 05.06.2005 supplement Las12 www.pagina12/com.ar/suplementos/

The prolific Italian writer Dacia Maraini (authoress, among other novels, of The Story of Piera, of which a movie was made) presented at the Book Fair in Buenos Aires her last novel, “Colomba”. Maraini, born in Florence, has a strong commitment for the causes she deems just, starting by women’s human rights. Women have impregnated her literary work, in which texts she has concocted a plot that entwines women’s voices throughout the story and vindicates them in their rights and their leading roles. For sure, it is not by chance that her novels have more often than not women as their main characters (Memories of a Thief, The Story of Piera, The Long Life, Isolina, among others) just like the majority of her theater pieces (La Donna Perfetta, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Norma 44). She puts in her stories a deep justice sense, with a transparent and firm commitment, affirms the interviewer.

In this sense, Maraini continues the saga of the great Italian writers born in the past century: Elsa Morante, Anna Maria Ortese, Roseta Loy, and Natalia Ginsbur. Additionally, she participates in the Contraparola group, where together with other journalists, she seeks to generate awareness regarding issues such as sexual slavery. Recently this group wrote a public letter addressed to the consumers of prostitution, especially that of girls and women coming from other countries. “Dear client: You may not know this, but nowadays the majority of the prostitutes in Italy are slaves, they come from Africa, they have been bought and sold…” “We asked the client –explains the writer- how he could make love to a woman whose sad story he ignored, a woman cheated, often abducted, forced, maltreated. Because today, many of those prostitutes that have sex with clients that consider themselves normal persons, with nice feelings, are girls brought from Africa, from the East, without passports, to be sold and bought just like in the old slave markets, but in a clandestine manner. These girls cannot escape this terrible destiny: they lock them up, they exert violence against them, and they threaten them with killing their children, their families. In some cases, and this makes the situation even more horrifying, the victims are little girls, minors. This letter to the clients had the effect of a denouncement campaign against the brutal violation of human rights in the 21^st century. And not only in Italy but in other European countries as well, which see themselves as civilized. We published it in all the newspapers, even paying when it was necessary”.

________________________ DEBATES _________________________

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC. Action for women’s health. By Margarita Quiroz (summary) http://www.hoy.com.do/app/article.aspx?id=45234

Never as right now had women’s health been so threatened. Pregnancy in adolescents, maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS, in the last years, have turned into the main enemies of the young Dominican woman. 23% of the young Dominican women are mothers or pregnant. Maternal mortality in the Dominican Republic reaches one of the highest levels in Latin America and the Caribbean (200 dead women for every 100,000 births). By comparison, Cuba and Puerto Rico show a zero rate. Meanwhile, the data of February last (DIGECITSS) indicates that 15,759 persons live with HIV/AIDS in the country, of which 38% are women and 62% are men, with an increasing feminization.

In view of such a situation, it is urgent to define strategic guidelines to be developed by the State that respond to the need to have national policy in place to confront the young women’s health situation, prioritizing the issues in question. The proposal was set up by the secretariats of Women and Public Health, Social Security, the Pan-American Health Organization, NGOs and international institutions related to the area, to the Millennium Development Objectives.

Among the proposals there are expanding the coverage of situational analysis and services so that they be humanized, integral and friendly; designing services for adolescents and youngsters; providing economic resources; training and sensitizing service providers and developing campaigns to promote the rights of the male and female citizens, specially young women and men. Finally, it has been proposed to guarantee the equal distribution of resources and information by means of an efficient inter-sector coordination, and institutionalizing follow-up and evaluation plans for the programs focused on women’s integral health and user-friendly services for youngsters.

FRANCE

FRAGILITIES. Diseases are being invented. 05.21.2005. La Vanguardia newspaper, Barcelona, Spain. www.lavanguardia.es/. Interview by Victor Amela. Own summary.

The extremely powerful French pharmaceutical industry has already launched in France an image campaign to counter the arguments of Philippe Pignarre, former executive of the pharmaceutical industry. This man, who knows the industry inside-out (he was in Sanofi-Synthélabo), has exposed to the public light its fragilities, claiming that the industry does not invest to create the pharmaceuticals we need, but rather it limits itself to be a mere money-making machine. These arguments are exposed in the book “The Great Secret of the Pharmaceutical Industry” (Gedisa), full of accurate data. And also of proposals, such as the one “to break up the mergers” and to propitiate smaller and specialized laboratories, in collaboration with university teams: “If any valuable medicine appears, it will come from these! Do not expect them from the large laboratories”, affirms Pignarre.

He also says that the most necessary medicines nowadays are the ones against cancer, AIDS, cardiovascular ailments, diabetes and ageing, for example, Alzheimer disease. But research is increasingly expensive and the priority is on the bottom line. Therefore, many companies “only touch up medicines we already have so they seem new… and charge much more for them”. In 1999, “the cost of the medication for a patient with cancer of the colon was 500 Euros; in 2004 it was 250,000 Euros”. Whilst research is increasingly more expensive, the manufacturing of medicine is cheap, but the sales price is 10 or 20 times higher. “The bad thing is that there is no legal obligation to disseminate comparative studies between generic medicines and the brand copies… We are not informed! But the ten largest US pharmaceutical laboratories financed with US$ 10 million the electoral campaigns of the candidates (2000 data). That is, they have the political establishment on their side. The pharmaceutical lobby is the most powerful one.” Furthermore, since many are multinationals, when in a country things get difficult for them, they threaten with closing down and relocating themselves.

______________________ RESEARCH ___________________________

ARGENTINA – UNICEF research

The police, the State and the family itself are identified as the main threats for children. (Summary, article by Mariana Carvajal). www.pagina12.com.ar – 05.31.2005

A study performed by UNICEF among boys, girls and adolescents of the country’s different social sectors revealed that one of the more frequent forms of violence they perceive is maltreatment within their families. The police, the security guards in the juvenile amusement places, the abuses at school and work, other sources of aggression. “In adolescence, the police become one of the main risk factors” states the study.

The police institution is the one that reflects “the larger rates of violence” towards them. The Buenos Aires adolescents consider that the State “is the first one” that does not take care of them and they identify as violence “the lack of adequate controls, whether regarding the amusement parks as well as the educational institutions”. Also, they point out “the abuse of power and the excess of control” on the part of adults as generators of violence at school.

Among the boys and girls of the urban areas and the sectors with smaller resources, the most frequent forms of violence they perceive is physical and psychological maltreatment within their families. At the presentation of the study the governments were urged to take measures so that the guarantee of the children’s rights ceases to be “an illusion”. “As long as we consider acceptable that a father attacks his children to educate them or that a teacher does not respect his pupils; as long as we are not filled with loathing when a policeman tortures or kills a transgressor child or when this same child is condemned to the darkness of an unhealthy and violent jail, little will change in Latin America. The repressive option and the fear that the rhetoric of the war on crime is creating in our countries represent a setback and a risk to the implementation itself of democracy”, considered Pinheiro, director of the study.

The national survey was performed among Argentinean kids and adolescents from March 14^th to April 29^th. It was a qualitative research, based on the testimonies given by minors aged 9 to 17 in twelve focus groups set up in several points throughout the country. They were all supplied the same set of questions used in each one of the countries that participate on the world study on violence. The sample included kids from the middle-class and low-income sectors, from the rural zones, from one aboriginal community as well as kids and adolescents with hearing and motive handicaps. www.unicef.org.ar

COLOMBIA

New easy and inexpensive method to detect cancer of the uterine tubes. www.lanacion.com.ar – 05.29.2005

A new method to diagnose with a simple blood test the cancer of the uterine tubes, the most lethal cancer among the women of the lesser developed countries, was presented by the Immunology Institute of Colombia, directed by researcher Manuel Elkin Patarroyo. The new method intends to detect in the blood the Human Papilloma virus (HPV), considered the inductor of uterine tube cancer. This is a chemical test of a drop of the patient’s blood, similar to the AIDS test.

The test, which has an effectiveness rate of at least 92%, eliminates the discomforts of the traditionally used tests, such as the Papanicolau or vaginal cytology tests, which barely report a limited certainty between 40% and 70%. Additionally, it would performing it on those women that for cultural reasons avoid the Papanicolau, such as Muslim women or those that have difficulties of any kind to transfer to the health posts. It can be incorporated into the routine tests because it is inexpensive.

Dr. Patarroyo, renowned scientist, has decided not to patent this method, because he wishes it to be free. He will donate it to an institution that will be in charge of disseminating it at a low cost or without it, just like, years ago, he donated the patent of a vaccine invented by him to the WHO.

RESEARCH BY SAVE THE CHILDREN – The situation of the girl-soldiers in the armed conflicts – 05.02.2005 – (Jonathan Steele, The Guardian – www.guardian.co.uk. Translated by Clarín. conexiones@claringlobal.com.ar

A hidden army of 120,000 girls is working or combating with armed groups all over the world and the international programs to help them usually fail or aggravate things, announced recently in a report the Save the Children organization. The study, titled “The Forgotten Casualties of War: girls in armed conflict”, refers to minors who are abducted and forced to live with armed groups. Some bear arms, others work as cleaning personnel and cooks. “Almost all of them are forced to be sexual slaves or “wives” of the commanders”, it states.

Albeit the horror of the boy-soldiers is well known, the report says the focus of international concern is usually centered on the boys. But of the approximately 300,000 children that, it is estimated, live with armed groups, approximately 40% are women. In general, those responsible for starting the disarmament, de-mobilization and reintegration after a conflict are the United Nations and the World Bank, but the Save the Children report says that these programs tend to ignore the special problems these girls have to confront. The success of a program of this type, which almost never has sufficient funding, is usually measured by the amount of arms collected and not by the successful reintegration of the former combatants. And the girls are the ones that have the biggest problems. Their return to their homes is usually as depressing as their going away. Their families and the communities isolate them on account of their “immoral” experiences. Consequently, they are trapped between the recrimination of the armed group if they leave and of the community if they come back. The programs are not aimed specifically at helping the girls, who told Save the Children that they had been disconcerted by the military orientation of the reintegration process, which increased the problem of being stigmatized by their community. They are usually considered as violent, rebellious, dirty, promiscuous or simply generators of problems. Without any other means of survival, many are forced to charge in exchange for sex, which stigmatizes and isolates them even further.

The girls identified, in the report, many ways in which the international community could be more useful: by means of mediation work with the community and the family to explain that they were forced to join the armed group; by creating psychological and emotional support networks; and with concrete help to start a new life.

_____________ CONVOCATIONS – FORA – CONTESTS _____________

ALAS – REGIONAL JURIDICAL ESSAY CONTEST

http://www.red-alas.org/

Mechanisms for the Guarantee and Protection of Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights in Latin America.

Organized by the Latin American Law Academicians (ALAS Network) with the sponsorship of the University of Toronto’s Reproductive Rights Program. The region’s law academicians are convoked to examine and imagine instruments that ensure the sustained and generalized application of the sexual rights and reproductive rights. In particular we are interested in promoting the juridical analysis as from the situations that are taking place in the national and regional environments.

Characteristics

Regional juridical essay contest

Objectives

o                         To promote the juridical and interdisciplinary research of gender justice in Latin America.

o                         To seek the contribution of ideas for the institutionalization of national and international mechanisms capable of guaranteeing the protection of the sexual rights and reproductive rights in Latin America.

Basic Issue

Mechanisms for the Guarantee and Protection of the sexual rights and reproductive rights in Latin America.

Addressees

Law professors, or of issues related to women’s rights in the region.

Prize

US$ 2,500 and it will be published in a specialized book or magazine of renowned prestige.

Juries

Eduardo Cifuentes Muñoz, Cecilia Medina and Marta Lamas.

Characteristics

The works must be unheard-of and original; they must be at least 20 pages long but no longer than 30 pages (size A-4), 1.5 spacing, type of letters Arial 12 and presented in Spanish.

Dates

Deadline: September 30, 2005. The name of the winner shall be made known on November 30, 2005. Further information and bases in http://www.red-alas.org/

CEPAL

Electronic consultation on violence against boys, girls and adolescents 05.27.2005 Invitation to participate. www.red-alas.org/

The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL) invites you to actively participate in the e-consultation of citizens on violence against boys, girls and adolescents in our region.

The consultation is available until June 1^st, 2005. It is organized through the Latin American and Caribbean Network of Social Institutions, RISALC.org, and is supported by other United Nations agencies such as OACDH, UNICEF and WHO. The opinions shall be a valuable contribution to the world study on violence against boys, girls and adolescents and is done by special appointment of the United Nations General Assembly, and its results will be presented before the General Assembly in 2006. An independent expert specifically appointed for this purpose is in charge of the presentation.

To enter this discussion forum, it is necessary to enter http://www.risalc.org/, click Foro e-consulta ciudadana sobre la violencia contra los niños, niñas y adolescentes, located under Redes y comunidades virtuales. Then enter Registro (located in the upper part of the site), fill in the data and to finish, click in “signup”. Finally, open the e-mail account that was entered in the registration process; there you will find a message confirming your inscription in the Forum and you will be provided with a password. At that time you must enter the user name and password in the Forum page. So, participate freely!

SPAIN

“Everybody made fun of me”. Muslim journalist granted Human Rights prize tells about her experience regarding the so-called “crimes of honor”. 05.08.2005 – La Vanguardia newspaper, Barcelona, Spain.

I am 37 years old. I was born and currently live in Amman, single and no kids. I have a Doctorate in Journalism. I work in The Jordan Times, specialized in criminology. My policy is to defend the right to life, because in Jordan women are assassinated for social matters. I am Muslim. I have just received the Ciutat de l’Hospitalet of Human Rights. In an interview for a newspaper, I told them I was a student when the Palestine intifada exploded and a friend asked me to write something about it in the university newspaper. I feel that turned me into a journalist, specializing in homicides when I came back to Jordan.

Whilst doing that report, she discovered that there was a considerable number of women assassinated by family members: clubbed to death, beheaded, shot, burned… Finally she decided to systematically investigate these crimes. One in particular impacted her: in May 1994 a female student was assassinated by one of her two brothers. It happened to be the second try. The first one was perpetrated by her older brother, who raped her repeatedly and threatened to kill her if she told the family. But she got pregnant and had to tell about it. She had an abortion, in spite of the fact that it is illegal, the family forced her to do it. The brother tried to make good his threat without success and was put in jail. The family arranged a marriage with a man 15 years her senior and was divorced six months later. The same night of the divorce her brother went to look for her with a box of chocolates. Once at home, they made her read the Koran and the brother cut her throat. All the neighbors thought it was normal that the young girl had been murdered for having been raped by her brother. “She was not a good girl”, they said. “Since then, I dedicate myself to showing these crimes to the world, eleven years now” she stated. However, women end up in jail for their own protection, whilst the murderers get sentences ranging from six months to one year in jail. The Jordan Times reports some 25 cases per year. “I have been threatened and I have lost friends, but I am not quitting; I fight for a fundamental right: life.

 The electronic bulletin Sexual Rights and Reproductive Rights is a publication of CLADEM’s regional SRRR area

For further information: www.cladem.org

CLADEM – Latin American and Caribbean Committee for the Defense of Women’s Rights

Regional Coordination: España 225, 1er Piso, Dpto. C, Rosario S2000DBE, Argentina. Telefax: (54 341) 425-2242 coordi@cladem.org

Regional Office: Apartado Postal 11-0470, Lima 11, Peru. Phone: (51 1)463-9237 – Fax: (51 1) 463-5898 oficina@cladem.org