You can help stop gender-based armed violence in the Pacific
When Pacific governments ignore the gendered nature of arms and security, women’s needs are ignored and women are excluded from decision-making around arms and security. Every minute someone dies of armed violence and women are disproportionately affected by gender-based violence such as domestic violence and rape.
Women’s experiences of armed violence in the Pacific, which have often related to violence in the private sphere, differ significantly from that of men. However, traditionally policies on arms control and security have failed to adequately recognise and incorporate gendered perspectives. This is because arms and security have been viewed as state-centric concepts framed within national security, military security and the institutions of central government.
Despite their integral role in arms control and security at local levels, women have largely been excluded from formal decision-making processes on these matters. If efforts to tackle armed violence in the Pacific are to adequately address the concerns of all members of society, it is critical that arms and security policies and practices, fully mainstream gender and address human security concerns. These efforts must also ensure that women and men have equal opportunities to actively participate in articulating their security needs, in formulating arms and security policy, as well as participating in the provision of that security.
Women in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, negotiated with armed actors to get them to lay down their arms at significant risk to their own lives. Likewise, women in Fiji after the 2000 coup organised peace and prayer vigils.
Despite this, women have often been excluded from formal processes related to disarmament, arms control, peace building and conflict prevention. This is compounded by women in the Pacific having the lowest global rate of participation in national legislatures: they make up only 4% of legislators compared to 21% globally.
A new report launched today by the Pacific Small Arms Action Group — a network of civil society activists throughout the Pacific region including Oxfam — entitled Arms, Security and Gender in the Pacific details how Pacific governments can more effectively address this important issue.
Supporting Oxfam
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families. The Wishing Well recognises the importance of the act of giving. We recognise the significance of the participation of community members and all donations are most appreciated.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support organisations that encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Money donated to The Wishing Well enables traumatised children access to healing therapies. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
Read the Pacific Small Arms Action Group’s new report, Arms, Security and Gender in the Pacific. You can support the report by sharing it on Facebook or twitter with the hashtag #16days.
Help end the live export trade
In October 2014, Animals Australia deployed investigators in the largest coordinated live export investigation in history. The ‘Festival of Sacrifice’ is an international religious festival — but the cruelty that has come to be associated with it has nothing to do with religion. For decades, the live export industry has capitalised on this time of year when live animals are sold and ‘sacrificed’ en masse. Live animals exported from Australia were beaten, whipped, stabbed, and brutally killed. Australian laws are supposed to prevent this. But with the Australian Government yet to lay charges against any live export company — despite ongoing evidence of breached regulations — it inevitably happened all over again.
After horrendous cruelty was exposed by Animals Australia 12 months ago, live exporters were ‘forbidden’ to send animals back into Gaza. Yet this is exactly where our investigators found this terrified bull, and countless others, after thousands were trafficked across the border from Israel.
In Jordan, Australian regulations have been flouted for the second consecutive year. Gentle Australian sheep were illegally sold for ‘sacrifice’, bound, dragged through the streets, stuffed in car boots and subjected to a frightening and painful death.
The only way to reduce suffering of animals during the Festival of Sacrifice is to reduce the number of animals sold for slaughter. Instead, Australia’s live export industry chooses to ‘cash in’ on this lucrative period, and year after year sends as many animals as possible to countries where laws do not protect them from cruelty.
If live export regulations cannot stop animal welfare atrocities from continuing, the answer is simple: the live export trade must end.
Supporting Animals Australia
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families. The Wishing Well recognises the importance of the act of giving. We recognise the significance of the participation of community members and all donations are most appreciated.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support organisations that encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Money donated to The Wishing Well enables traumatised children access to healing therapies. Please see our website for more information:
How can we help?
These animals were not only failed by the callous and corrupt industry that profits from them. They were also failed by the Australian Government. But you can help change that. Don’t let the Australian Government remain complicit in crimes against animals. Make your voice heard today!
http://www.animalsaustralia.org/investigations/festival-of-sacrifice-2014/
Sign the petition to help stop the Sengwer people being illegally evicted
What’s happening?
Right now in Kenya, Hundreds of Sengwer indigenous people – among them children, women and the elderly – are camping in the cold outside Kenya’s western Embobut forest after they were evicted by armed forest warders and police, who have burned down more than 1,000 homes in the past two weeks. The Kenyan government says the forest dwellers must leave so that the forest ecosystem can be restored, and maintains it has paid compensation to help people settle elsewhere. But desperate families who have lost most of their possessions are now living without basic necessities on nearby roadsides. This desperate community needs our help to save their homes — and the forest — before it’s destroyed forever.
“We don’t have a place to call home apart from the forest – we have been evicted by our own government, (and) we are in a deplorable condition.” – Evictee Margaret Chebor
What can we do?
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim’s office has issued a statement of concern pledging to intensify discussions with the Kenyan government.
“We are alarmed by reports of recently evicted families in the Embobut Forest and Cherangany Hills areas of Kenya…The World Bank is not involved in the reported evictions, nor has the Bank financed or supported these actions…Far too often, the voices of the poor and disenfranchised around the world are not heard. The cases of the people in the affected communities in Kenya should be urgently evaluated in a fair and transparent manner.” – World Bank Group statement
Supporting Avaaz
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families. The Wishing Well recognises the importance of the act of giving. We recognise the significance of the participation of community members and all donations are most appreciated.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support organisations that encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Money donated to The Wishing Well enables traumatised children access to healing therapies. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
World Bank President Jim Yong Kim says he wants to change the Bank. Let’s hold him to his word, demanding that he call on the Kenyan government to stop these vicious land grabs and commit to new human rights standards for all future grants. Add your name to the petition:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_the_forced_evictions_loc/?fpbr
You can help end global hunger
13.1 percent of the world’s population is hungry. That’s roughly 925 million people who go undernourished on a daily basis, consuming less than the recommended 2,100 calories a day. In a world that can produce enough food for everyone to eat, hunger and malnutrition remain the number one risk to health worldwide, especially for those who are already fighting poverty. The world produces enough food to feed all 7 billion people who live in it, but those who go hungry either do not have land to grow food or money to purchase it.
Climate change is the single biggest threat to ending global hunger. More extreme weather and our changing seasons are pushing food prices up and its availability down. Families living in poverty rely on the rains to come following the annual dry season. Without it, their crops will fail. When food reserves run out, families face the “hungry season” head-on.
The world’s poorest nations and farmers are being hit increasingly hard with women bearing the biggest burden. When a mother is undernourished during pregnancy, the baby is often born undernourished, too. Every year, 17 million children are born this way due to a mother’s lack of nutrition before and during pregnancy. Similarly, women in hunger are so deficient of basic nutrients (like iron) that 315,000 die during childbirth from hemorrhaging every year.
Around the world, people, business and governments, are taking action. The Australian Government must join with them to stop climate change making more people hungry.
Supporting Oxfam
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families. The Wishing Well recognises the importance of the act of giving. We recognise the significance of the participation of community members and all donations are most appreciated.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support organisations that encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Money donated to The Wishing Well enables traumatised children access to healing therapies. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
Join with Oxfam in their fight to end world hunger. Sign the petition that calls on the Australia’s political parties to:
- Have a long-term plan to dramatically cut carbon pollution in-line with Australia’s responsibility to keep global warming well below 2 degrees
- Increase investment in poor communities, including small-scale farmers, enabling them to adapt to extreme weather, changing seasons and future uncertainties
- Play a constructive role internationally towards strong global climate agreements.
Sign now:
Join with Amnesty International and help end the ban on abortions in El Salvador
What’s happening?
In El Salvador, you can end up in jail for having an abortion. In El Salvador, it doesn’t matter if you’re pregnant as a result of rape, or whether the pregnancy is a risk to your life: abortion is banned in all cases. If you’re found guilty of having an abortion, or of helping someone have one, you could be imprisoned for up to 12 years. Even if you have a miscarriage, you could be jailed for up to 50 years for aggravated homicide, because the state suspects you of having a clandestine abortion. With no proper education on sex and relationships, and obstacles to accessing contraception, El Salvador has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Latin America. And more than half of all deaths of pregnant teens are due to suicide.
Every year, thousands of women and girls are denied their human rights by El Salvador’s total ban on abortion. The Salvadoran government is ultimately responsible for the resulting deaths of women and girls, and for the thousands whose human rights have been violated by the ban. The effects of the ban are nothing less than institutionalized violence against women and girls, and amount to torture – a conclusion backed by the UN. El Salvador’s total ban on abortion is a serious human rights violation and must be urgently repealed.
Supporting Amnesty International
The Wishing Well was established in 2010 to offer children in out-of-home care, such as foster care and residential care, a range of healing and treatment options usually not accessible as a free therapy in mainstream health.
The Wishing Well raises funds to enable children and young people to access developmentally-appropriate and trauma-informed treatments shown to be highly effective in dealing with severe trauma and neglect. These therapies respond to the unique needs of each child and young person.
The Wishing Well is a not-for-profit incorporated charity organisation, established and managed by people seeking to improve outcomes for children and young people in out-of-home care and their families. The Wishing Well recognises the importance of the act of giving. We recognise the significance of the participation of community members and all donations are most appreciated.
The Wishing Well operates ethically, effectively and empathically with a view to achieving quality outcomes and a satisfying working environment, and as such we support organisations that encompass similar ideals.
The Wishing Well gratefully receives donations, funding and resources through bequests, corporate partnerships, fundraising events, grants, online donations and other fund raising activities. Money donated to The Wishing Well enables traumatised children access to healing therapies. Please see our website for more information:
How you can help
Amnesty International is putting together a petition to send to the president of El Salvador. You can call on President Sánchez Cerén to decriminalize abortion. With your help, we can work to decriminalize abortion, release the women and girls who have been imprisoned, ensure safe access to abortions for all women and girls, and guarantee them access to modern contraceptive information and services and education.
Sign the petition now:
https://campaigns.amnesty.org/actions/end-abortion-ban-el-salvador
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