PHR Student Blog

Today marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, a day set aside to celebrate the political, economic, and social achievements of women around the world. To recognize this historic day, PHR is highlighting the enormous challenges we face in addressing mass rape in armed conflicts.

This blog post is the first of a series of 10 posts that will chronicle PHR Deputy Director Susannah Sirkin’s recent 13-day trip to Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) accompanied by PHR Asylum Network member Dr. Coleen Kivlahan. This diary of their assessment trip seeks to highlight the small — but seminal — achievements of grassroots organizations, women’s rights groups, health professionals, and legal advocates working to serve women and girl survivors of sexual assault in Eastern and Central Africa. The blog series will also underscore the challenges and hurdles that remain.

Kenya Journal

Nairobi, Kenya: How to combat widespread impunity for rape in Central and East Africa, starting here in Kenya? As PHR and other experts have documented for more than a decade, tens of thousands of women and girls have been — and continue to be — sexually assaulted by government soldiers, rebel forces, and civilians, both during and following armed conflict.

A critical problem in addressing this crisis has been the difficulty of prosecuting crimes of sexual violence, to enable survivors to seek justice and to help deter future crimes.

Groups who seek to support survivors’ needs face daunting obstacles: shame, stigma, rejection, lack of political will and poor resources. Perpetrators act with impunity and medical and legal capacity and forensic training required to support prosecutions against these perpetrators are lacking.

We’re here to learn more about this crisis and challenge in Nairobi, and then we’re heading West in a few days to eastern Congo. Dr. Coleen Kivlahan, a veteran PHR doctor, has joined me. She’s a pioneer in setting up SAFE (Sexual Assault Forensic Evaluation) programs in the US, one of our expert asylum evaluators in the DC area, and what’s more, a marathon runner, experienced trainer, and intrepid traveler. I’d go anywhere with her.

Day 1: All over town we see the bold black words on posters, key chains, flyers, wall paintings: Sita Kimya (“I will not keep quiet” in Kiswahili): Say No to Rape — a new awareness or “sensitization” campaign funded by USAID, the US Agency for International Development.

Our aim is to check out the gaps in forensic evaluation — the best practices for health professionals who respond to victims in gathering physical and psychological evidence that can be used in prosecution — and documentation needed to hold perpetrators accountable for this crime. As we know, this all-too-silent crime is suffered by countless women in war as well as in the fragile peace that follows mass violence or armed conflicts. We’re meeting with doctors, lawyers, nurses, police, program administrators, government officials in health and justice, women’s rights activists, and aid workers.

These are travel impressions. The full assessment will come as we pack in our days and peel the onion, since every time we think we understand something, a new layer of complexity reveals itself. Each interview on this trip unravels another set of challenges: policies that seem great versus practices that don’t resemble them at all:

• Standards for treatment of victims and documentation of injuries that exist on paper but are not widely known or understood.
• Confusion about police and/or medical forms required for criminal investigation or evidence.
• Incomplete or inadequate formats for forms.
• Who does what in the investigation and justice systems to prosecute sexual violence?
• What capacities do professionals gathering evidence have and need? Do they have basic equipment?
• Extraordinary people here are making change and pioneering new approaches. Is there the necessary political will to end impunity for rape and serve justice to survivors?

PHR members are invited to attend the Boston Initiative to Advance Human Rights’ sex trafficking film forum event at the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA, from December 2 through December 5. The festival, which is the first of its kind, will screen 12 films, which will be followed by panel discussions with filmmakers, academics, and activists.

The film forum will explore the power of film in bringing about a movement to combat commercial sexual exploitation and modern-day slavery. PHR recently blogged about this issue.

Additional events include an opening night live performance by Tony award-winning actress and humanitarian Sarah Jones, followed by a cocktail hour with hors d’oeuvres by legendary chef Lydia Shire of Scampo, music performance, and a silent auction. On Saturday there will be a book signing with Siddharth Kara, author of Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery.

Tickets are available for purchase now. Discounted tickets are available for students, seniors, and non-profits.

Learn more, including film titles and times, at BITAHR’s the official website, and at their Facebook page.
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We’re just a month away from World Health Day (April 7th) and the official launch of advocacy for the Global HEALTH Act of 2010. So far this month, through this blog you’ve learned about the Global HEALTH Act and gotten some great facts about the health workforce crisis (and how many people are waiting in line for an I-Pad — impressive!). Today’s post includes a few more resources that highlight the impact of Africa’s health workforce shortage. Check them out and share with colleagues. PHR made the following video in collaboration with our Kenyan partner group, the Health Rights Advocacy Forum. In this 6-minute video, four health workers at Mbagathi Hospital talk about  the challenges they face every day — and why they stay and practice medicine in their home country. This moving video can be shown on campus or at your workplace to stimulate discussion and urge people to take action. For more personal stories, check out Africa’s Health Care Worker Crisis: Views from the Ground, a PowerPoint presentation that outlines six main drivers of the health workforce crisis in Africa and explores these challenges through the eyes of four Ugandan medical student leaders. Feel free to use this to make a presentation on campus or in your community, or use facts from it to drive home the need for action. And watch our slideshows of Dr. Fred Katumba and Clinical Officer Jane Byarugaba following them through a typical day as they provide health care to the rural poor in Southwestern Uganda. Dr. Katumba’s work has propelled Lyantonde District to #2 out of more than 90 districts in terms of health outcomes — a phenomenal accomplishment and testament to Dr. Katumba, his staff, and the millions of hard-working health professionals who help communities realize the right to health every day.

Commemorate World AIDS Day TODAY by joining a nation-wide movement to protect women’s rights and promote women’s health.

Today, World AIDS Day, marks the first day of the 10,000 in 10 Campaign, a joint effort of Physicians for Human Rights, the American Medical Student Association, Advocates for Youth, Americans for Informed Democracy and the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.

Between World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) and International Human Rights Day (Dec.10), join the campaign to mobilize 10,000 Americans to support US ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2010.

Be one of 10,000 strong. Sign the petition here and forward to 6 friends.

Human rights violations such as widespread gender-based violence, systematic stigma and discrimination, and economic, social, health and educational inequalities put women at a disproportionately high risk of HIV/AIDS. Protecting women’s rights is essential to halting the feminization of AIDS.

CEDAW is the top international treaty that sets the standards for critical women’s rights issues, including equality in civil, political, and economic life, protection from sexual violence, and reproductive
freedom-all key to the fight against AIDS.

After 30 years of failed attempts at US ratification, CEDAW finally has the strong support within the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Administration needed to make ratification in 2010 possible.

Let’s make the most of this new opportunity: Visit www.humanrightsforwomen.org and sign on.

If you are on facebook, spread the word and use this as your status today:

Celebrate World AIDS Day (Dec 1) and Human Rights Day (Dec 10)—join 10,000 Americans calling on senators to stop AIDS by protecting women’s rights at www.humanrightsforwomen.org

Or Tweet:

Celebrate #WorldAIDSDay—join 10,000 Americans calling on Senators to stop AIDS by protecting women’s rights at www.humanrightsforwomen.org

Let your Senator know now is the time to ratify CEDAW and show that the US is serious about global health and women’s rights worldwide! thanks for your support!

PHR’s “10,000 in 10” Campaign officially launches on December 1st—help us ensure the US ratifies CEDAW in 2010.

Why CEDAW? Why now?

1. Suggestions that the US is a leader in human rights is questionable when the country is not a party to the main human rights treaties, including CEDAW;
2. US calls for other countries to fulfill women’s human rights lack credibility when the US has not ratified the main women’s human rights treaty;
3. Successive administrations would be under a legal human rights obligation to submit periodic reports on its implementation of the rights contained in CEDAW;
4. US civil society could monitor and report on what the US government is doing to implement the human rights of women in this country. Called a ‘Shadow Report’, this report is submitted to the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (the Committee). The Committee welcomes this information to ensure that it is as well informed as possible;
5. Individuals and groups can make complaints against the government to the Committee;
6. The Committee on its own initiative can investigate grave or systemic in-country violations of women’s human rights.

The latter two procedures are only available when a country has accepted them. Hence, this would require the US ratifying the Optional Protocol to CEDAW.

If the US ratifies CEDAW, fulfillment of women’s human rights in the US would no longer be at the whim of different administrations. As the U.S. would be a party to CEDAW, people within the US could demand that any US administration fulfill the rights contained in the treaty.

The Save Darfur Coalition honored Darfuri women refugees at the Farchana Camp in Chad to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25 and to kick off a global campaign of activism against gender-based violence.

Women refugees in Farchana Camp in eastern Chad drew up a groundbreaking, one-page women’s empowerment document known as the Farchana Manifesto, which outlines the needs and challenges women face in the camp, along with demands for participation and accountability in shared decision-making.

The document was written in June 2008, after seven women suffered torture and public humiliation. They were bound, whipped and beaten with thorny sticks of firewood because they worked outside of the camp to earn money for their families. Shamed as prostitutes, these women had their goods, money and food ration cards taken away by force. Though there is no proof, it is likely that at least some of these women became pregnant as a result of rape.

In response, eight Darfuri women authored a one-page document in Arabic to shed light on the plight of women refugees and open a dialogue with the world. This document made its way from the Farchana camp into the hands of Physicians for Human Rights and is published on PHR’s site DarfuriWomen.org, along with a video about the Farchana Manifesto.

In November 2008, PHR sent a team of four experts — three doctors and one human rights researcher — into the camp to report on the lives and needs of the women living there.

The team discovered that out of the 88 women interviewed, 32 had experienced sexual violence. Many who shared their stories had never previously spoken about the attacks for fear of isolation, stigmatization or retaliatory violence.

“The women of the Farchana Refugee Camp have confronted and continue to suffer from violence,” said Niemat Ahmadi, a genocide survivor and liaison to the Darfuri diaspora community at the Save Darfur Coalition.

These women have greatly amplified the courageous voices of victims of sexual violence in the camps.  Despite the suffering, they remain determined to seek justice for themselves and for women around the globe.

For each of the next 16 days, the coalition’s campaign will honor a leader in the fight to empower, protect and uplift Sudanese women and promote a corresponding action. The campaign will conclude on December 10 (International Human Rights Day).

The Save Darfur Coalition is asking that activists observe the 1st day of the campaign by reading and sharing the Farchana Manifesto with their networks.

(Cross-posted on DarfuriWomen.org)

Last Friday, the PHR team delivered to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a joint advocacy letter, urging that sexual and gender-based violence (SGV) programming be recognized as an urgent need in Sudan. Forty advocacy and human rights groups called on Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sudan Envoy Scott Gration to recognize the absence of vital SGV programming following the March 2009 expulsion of international humanitarian organizations and key Sudanese NGOs.  The number of supporting organizations has since grown to more than 60.

The team from PHR met with General Gration’s office, and with the office of the Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues on Friday, to present the letter and advocate for the inclusion of SGV programs in the Sudan Policy benchmarks.

The elimination of SGV services in Sudan is a perfect storm of collateral damage: when the 16 international humanitarian organizations and NGOs were expelled, these programs — and equally importantly, the network of SGV-focused personnel and leadership — disappeared. In a climate where remaining staff and organizations were afraid to rebuild or renegotiate their contracts for fear of Government of Sudan retribution, services for survivors of sexual violence in Darfur collapsed.

Despite this, and despite the fine work of the State department on a number of gender-based violence issues, the issue of sexual violence was not explicitly recognized in the administration’s Sudan Policy review, nor was it included in the details of US strategic objective #1, which deals with the humanitarian situation in Darfur. It was, however, recognized by the UN panel of experts in the recent report released on the humanitarian situation in Darfur, and has been a key sticking point for activists in the US at the recent Pledge to Protect conference.

Today — just in time for the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women on November 25 — PHR has launched  a congressional action for advocates and activists to urge Senators and Representatives to join us in our call to the State department on this issue. Partnering with our co-signatories, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International USA, the Arab Coalition for Darfur, the Enough Project, Save Darfur Coalition and others, we continue to advocate for the restoration of services as basic as emergency assistance for injuries, documentation of injuries sustained during these brutal attacks, access to HIV/AIDS prophylaxis treatment, pregnancy testing and psychological and social support. We ask Hillary Rodham Clinton and General Gration not only to include SGV programs as a benchmark in the Sudan policy, but also:

• To ensure that renegotiation of technical agreements between humanitarian organizations and the Government of Sudan takes place, so that international humanitarian organizations and NGOs can incorporate or SGV programs into their authorized operations in Sudan.
• To monitor Government of Sudan obstruction of SGV services in Khartoum and on the ground: SGV services must be restored and made available to all IDP populations, including West and South Darfur, where humanitarian operations have historically functioned at a lower level than in North Darfur state.
• To support and facilitate coordination between aid agencies, camp residents and UNAMID gender desk officers. The recruitment of gender desk officers must involve camp residents, and the work of gender experts should fully utilize the expertise and resources of aid agencies as well as camp residents, to ensure the establishment of culturally competent services.

We need action to protect the rights of survivors in Darfur: please let your US Senators and Representative know.

(Cross-posted on DarfuriWomen.org)

Between World AIDS Day (December 1) and International Human Rights Day (December 10), PHR is launching the 10,000 in 10 Campaign. We’re mobilizing 10,000 Americans, including students nationwide, to ask their US Senators to support US ratification of the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 2010.

We need your help to meet our goal. It will take 2 minutes:

• The petition is online now. Help us reach 10,000 signatures today!
• Get More Involved: Join our “10,000 in 10 Leadership Team” and make a pledge to collect 50 signatures from family, friends and colleagues. Email me at skalloch[at]phrusa[dot]org to join the team.

Why CEDAW?
Women all over the world are facing discrimination, abuse and systematic inequities that make them especially vulnerable to some of the most severe global health challenges. Until we promote and protect women’s rights, the most severe diseases and health complications will continue to disproportionately affect women world wide.

Why Now?
The US remains one of only 7 countries in the world who have yet to ratify this critical treaty, along with Sudan and Somalia.

Since the treaty was adopted by United Nations in 1979, efforts for US ratification have come up repeatedly in the Senate but faced significant obstacles by CEDAW opponents, crushing potential for ratification. Now, CEDAW has strong support within the Foreign Relations Committee and is listed by the Obama administration as one of the top three treaties to ratify.

Things are looking a lot brighter: Let’s make the most of this new opportunity to protect women’s rights and support women’s health worldwide by finally ratifying CEDAW!

Let your Senator know that it’s time for the United States to ratify CEDAW and get serious about women’s rights worldwide.