Millions of children reaching out to helplines worldwide, new report reveals -

http://srsg.violenceagainstchildren.org/story/2013-11-20_929

Rural Women in Landless Limbo

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/168421-1.htm

Paid work, women’s empowerment and inclusive growth: Transforming the structures of constraint -

http://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2013/1/paid-work-womens-empowerment-and-inclusive-growth

5 Innovative Trends in Women's Economic Equality

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2013/12/13/5-innovative-trends-in-womens-economic-equality/

Unmarried Mothers to Get Children's Birth Certificate in C China

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/167749-1.htm

Women in Power | VSO UK

Women in Power | VSO UK

11th National Congress of Women Promotes Gender Equality Awareness

The protection of women's rights and interests can never be overestimated despite the progress that has been made. [chinanews.com]

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/166651-1.htm

Motherhood in Childhood Facing the challenge of adolescent pregnancy

Motherhood in Childhood

Motherhood in 

Full Report: English | Français | Español | Russian | Arabic

ACWF VP: More Efforts Needed to Close Income Gap

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/166658-1.htm

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY -SOLUTIONS

http://womenintheworld.org/solutions/track/economic-opportunity                                                                       

Rural women: Face the facts

http://vimeo.com/76837724

10 Facts (you need to know) about Hunger

http://www.we-care.com/blog/2013/10-facts-you-need-to-know-about-hunger

Проведение Международного дня борьбы за ликвидацию нищеты

http://overcomingpoverty.org/rubrique/languages?language=ru 

Women, Business and the Law

Добавьте подпись

Bloomsbury - Women, Business and the Law

EmpowerWomen.org

Women’s Empowerment as a Tool Against Hunger in Asia and the Pacific – new report

http://www.srfood.org/en/women-s-empowerment-as-a-tool-against-hunger-in-asia-and-the-pacific-new-report

17 октября - Международный день борьбы с бедностью

Некоммерческое партнёрство "Звезда надежды" присоединяется к акции !17 октября - Мездународный день борьбы с бедностью"

Women’s economic role vital to national development

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2013/09/13/women-s-economic-role-vital-national-development.html

Media Tour to Pilot Schools in Navoi (Uzbek) - UNDP/GEF Project in Uzbekistan

Runaway girls targeted by traffickers

Our partner Boris Mizaiev, from Cisc, Fergana

 
 

NGO capacity building on CEDAW in Samarkand

UNFPA supports the Women Empowerment activities nationwide. NGO representatives took part in two day training 21-22 August on CEDAW in Uzbekistan.

 

UN Population Fund Uzbekistan

China's First Female Vice Premier Fights to Reduce Poverty

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/156272-1.htm

Challenging Barriers to Women’s Leadership in Cooperatives

By Giselle Aris, Enterprise Development and Gender Specialist and Leland Fellow for Land O'Lakes International Development.

Cooperatives play a critical role in advancing socioeconomic development. They serve as a jointly owned, democratically-managed structure for people to work together toward common goals, and in doing so, they help reduce poverty levels and create jobs. In the world of cooperatives, the agriculture sector dominates: nearly one-third of the largest 300 cooperatives across the globe are centered on agriculture.1 In a group, farmers have increased access to technologies and trainings that improve agricultural productivity, and increased access to markets where they can sell their products at competitive prices. When agricultural producers work together and individual farmers assist each other for the benefit of all, their strength in numbers leads to lower input prices and improved access to financial services. Numerous factors, including access to markets, access to productive inputs, and the quality of the products produced, play a role in determining an agricultural cooperative’s success. Alongside these contributors to success, the global evidence base suggests that gender-balanced leadership in cooperatives is a key determining factor in creating and maintaining a competitive advantage. Nonetheless, men still hold the vast majority of executive level positions within cooperatives worldwide. How can we help change this status quo, and foster an environment where more women can apply their leadership skills to cooperatives? Why Women’s Leadership is Important From the United States to many countries in Africa, one of the most detrimental shortcomings of agricultural cooperatives is their general lack of women’s leadership. The International Development division of Land O’Lakes, Inc. – a full-fledged development organization that currently works in 22 countries across Asia and Africa – has observed numerous barriers to women’s cooperative leadership. These barriers include limited literacy and numeracy skills, discomfort with public speaking, time constraints due to family obligations, and the general perception in many agricultural communities that leadership roles are for men. Despite the fact that women largely predominate in cooperative membership and meeting attendance, because of these obstacles, cooperative leaders tend to be men. The extent of these impediments became all the more clear to Land O’Lakes International Development when it co-hosted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Cooperative-to-Cooperative Learning Event in Kenya in early 2012. Held in 1 http://vitalsigns.worldwatch.org/vs-trend/emerging-co-operatives 2 partnership with Cooperative Resources International (CRI), this event provided a unique opportunity for managers and board members of dairy cooperatives to gather together with industry thought leaders. This collaborative environment provided a unique opportunity for participants to network and gain tools and tactics to increase their cooperatives’ competitiveness, and learn how to enhance the socioeconomic benefits provided to cooperative members. The event included 43 people representing 28 cooperatives from 9 countries on 4 continents – but despite this diversity, only one woman participated. Since female cooperative leaders remain a rarity, cooperatives attending the event selected male candidates to participate. At the event, participants discussed probable causes for this unintentional gender disparity, and concluded that because the event was for cooperative leaders – not members – very few women were considered for participation. A dearth of women’s cooperative leadership persists domestically, as well. Anne Reynolds, Assistant Director of the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives, spoke at a Land O'Lakes Women in Cooperative Leadership Forum in August 2012. She discussed the most current findings from their cooperative-related research, noting that less than 3 percent of United States-based agricultural cooperative board members and leaders are women. Why is the extent of women’s cooperative leadership important? Numerous private-sector studies show that gender-balanced leadership2 creates a strong competitive advantage, including an 84 percent advantage for return on sales, a 60 percent advantage for return on invested capital, and a 46 percent advantage for return on equity.3 When leadership bodies exclude women, competitiveness, product quality, productivity, and profits suffer. Unlocking Women’s Leadership Potential Land O’Lakes International Development projects from around the world provide additional evidence that women’s leadership is critical to cooperative success. In Kenya, for example, Mary Rono started the Koitogos Dairy Dynamic group in 2009 with 15 members. In just over two years, she successfully grew the membership to 350 farmers – and did so in a community that typically shuns female leadership. International Development worked with Mary during the five-year USAID Kenya Dairy Sector Competitiveness Program (KDSCP) and demonstrated key tools to her that she applied to help build her cooperative. Mary became a role model for women dairy farmers around the world when she spoke at the 2011 World Food Prize, where she talked about how she is “creating a new trend in her community of women in leadership, and peacefully bringing the local leaders to understand the value of women leaders in agriculture.”4 Mary’s story is one of many that demonstrate women’s abilities to effectively attract active cooperative members, and to encourage communities to rethink traditional gender norms. 2 Gender-balanced leadership refers to 30% or more of board membership being composed of women 3 The Bottom Line: Corporate Performance and Women’s Representation on Boards, 2004–2008 (Nancy M. Carter, Ph.D., and Harvey M. Wagner, Ph.D., Catalyst 2011) – updated 2012; Thematic Equity Report (Mary Curtis, Credit Suisse Research Institute 2008); Fulfilling the Promise: How More Women on Corporate Boards Would Make America and American Companies More Competitive (Policy and Impact Committee, Committee for Economic Development 2012) 4 http://borlaug.tamu.edu/2011/10/14/world-food-prize-2011-day-two/ 3 Land O’Lakes believes that increasing the level of women’s cooperative leadership is an important objective internationally and domestically, and is making strides in both arenas. In USAID’s 2012 Kenya Gender Analysis and Action Plan report, Land O’Lakes International Development was commended for its high level of gender expertise and for having a Gender Policy, which goes beyond gender requirements set by USAID. As the report notes, Land O’Lakes demonstrates that “gender analysis and strategy development is integral to its work with or without donor funding.” The report also commented on actions taken by International Development to empower women through producer cooperatives under KDSCP, a dairy development program that has helped establish and strengthen 135 cooperatives in Kenya. These actions include supporting poor and female-headed households through the addition of clauses to cooperative membership agreements that allow funds for shares to be raised over time; encouraging men to allow women to apply for women-friendly loans at lower interest rates; and paying women for their milk sales in-kind. These in-kind payments are often facilitated through a cooperative store, where school books, basic food items, seedlings, and other necessary inputs are available. Land O’Lakes has taken similar measures to empower women in cooperatives in other countries. Land O’Lakes’ Gender Task Force, a global collaborative body with representatives from all projects, regularly identifies and promotes measures that are proving most effective. These methods include holding trainings at times and locations that enable women to participate, and inviting two family members – rather than one – to attend. This act alone dramatically increases the likelihood that women will attend trainings, since husbands frequently invite their wives, and that they will later be consulted on agriculture and cooperative-related issues. Land O’Lakes also promotes women’s ownership of agricultural assets, such as dairy cows and goats. Measures like these are essential: with increased asset ownership and improved access to technical knowledge, women’s leadership abilities surge, enhancing their likelihood to be elected to a cooperative leadership role. Globally, the call to action is clear: cooperative leaders and members must work to ensure that increasing women’s cooperative leadership remains a primary objective, and one that is met with successful outcomes. As global markets for agricultural products continue to become increasingly competitive, the presence of gender-balanced leadership in cooperatives will prove to be essential for remaining relevant and ensuring future success. About Land O’Lakes International Development Since 1981, Land O'Lakes International Development has improved the quality of life for millions of people in 76 nations through more than 275 projects worldwide that are generating economic growth, improving health and nutrition, and alleviating poverty by facilitating market-driven business solutions. A business unit of Land O’Lakes, Inc. (www.landolakesinc.com) – a national, farmer-owned food and agricultural cooperative with annual sales of over $14 billion – International Development’s vision is to be a global leader in transforming lives by engaging in agriculture and enterprise partnerships that replace poverty with prosperity, and dependency with self-reliance.

Human Trafficking Victims Suffering Societal Taboos in Azerbaijan

Written by Saadia Haq

When Anja Mammadova, who is now a prostitute working the bars of Baku, was 15, she thought she had a chance of escaping a childhood of poverty in southern Azerbaijan for a better life. Mammadova was working as a manual laborer in the fields with her other three sisters and two brothers. The parents were clearly stretched to put food on table barely enough for all.

She recalls that for first fifteen years of her life, she never wore anything bought first-hand, they were lucky to get torn second hand dresses. Her luck it seemed was about to change, because of a chance meeting with a foreigner tourist, an Iranian man called Ahmad. Soon, Ahmad’s visits to her home became a norm and he asked for her hand in marriage, her parents struggling to support her and her three sisters and two brothers, were happy to agree to the match.

Their couple got married through the Muslim wedding rite and no one really bothered to register the marriage with the country’s civil authorities. After spending a week’s honeymoon in Lenkoran, Ahmad along-with Anja flew to United Arab Emirates. Her content parents came to the airport to bid them goodbye.  After arriving to Dubai, Ahmad took her to a strange and doubtful place, which later she found out, was a criminal hang-out.

Mammadova says, “I never saw my husband again, for worse I realized that he had already taken away my passport and other identification documents.” In a few hours, her world collapsed. It finally sank in that she was about to start working as a prostitute.

Trapped into the stinking brothel, Anja was chained and kept hungry for days. More over, she was injected some liquids through syringes that she recalls were some drugs that disoriented her senses. She says, “It was hell on earth, there were several other girls even younger then me. Day and night we were humiliated by our owners and clients. If we even tried to smile at each other, we were punished for that.”

During her almost 2-years’ ordeal, she desperately tried to reason and seek mercy from her clients to help her, but all such attempts were useless.

Anja Mammadova was freed when the Dubai police cracked down the brothel.

She was sent home on the first available flight. But, the story of her sufferings did not end there.

In the staunch Islamic Republic of Azerbaijan, trafficked women’s repatriation in a huge taboo. Azeri activists working on the issue say the situation is extremely challenging, because many trafficked women never manage to return home. And those who return have to face a lot of societal discrimination.

Azeri researchers say that mostly victims reply to newspaper adverts for unskilled jobs abroad as nannies, cleaners or waitresses, and find themselves forced to work as prostitutes when they arrive at their destination.

The country’s interior ministry’s human trafficking department says that most of the women trafficked from Azerbaijan end up in the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. The ministry’s figures show that 95 per cent of those involved in people trafficking are female who work as agents, hiring consultants etc. But foreigners posing as tourists and keeping women for marriage are other methods.”

Anja Mammadova’s marriage taught her a life-long lesson. The Women’s Crisis Center in Azerbaijan says that many women like Mammadova seek their help because they have no place to go.

The Center’s director says, “It is really appalling that many of the returning women are rejected by their families. One woman who was forced into sex slavery and got home by a miracle was stabbed by her own husband.” Then another sad story of a trafficked young woman whose family attempted to kill her”, she said. “It’s a big problem when women who have already lost their way are denied help from their own relatives.”

Sometimes, the ostracized victims of trafficking end up in the domestic sex industry as they have no other way of surviving.According to the Center, a large number of returning women continue to work as prostitutes in the city bars, earning 50 dollars or more from clients.

This is exactly what happened to Mammadova after she was deported by the Dubai authorities following the raid on the brothel.

She had a bitter homecoming. She was constantly summoned by the police, who asked her humiliating questions, and her family refused to take her back.

“I think my father would rather I’d died. When he heard what I had been forced to do he hit me and threw me out of the house,” she said. “My mother gave me 200 dollars, which was all her savings. You can’t live in Baku on that kind of money, so I had to get work somewhere.”

Within a few days, Mammadova was standing at the capital Baku’s center, outside a bar in search of clients.

“We prostitutes have to pay a percentage to the bar management, as well as from time to time pay off to the police.  But things are looking up as now I am bit established with regular clients. In the initial months, there were some really nasty ones who didn’t want to pay. Others beat me up. You know – we get all sorts in this work.”

* The victim’s name has been changed to maintain confidentiality.

References:

1. Azerbaijan Ministry of Interior
2. Women Crisis Center, Baku

Women in leadership: 'It's not going to work the way we're doing it' / Issues and Analysis / News & Analysis / Home - AWID

Women in leadership: 'It's not going to work the way we're doing it' / Issues and Analysis / News & Analysis / Home - AWID

China Pledges to Seriously Punish Newborn Traffickers

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/155234-1.htm

 
 
Делегация НП "Звезда надежды" в конференции в Иркутске

Global EntrEprEnEurship monitor 2012 Women’s Report

http://www.babson.edu/Academics/centers/blank-center/global-research/gem/Documents/GEM%202012%20Womens%20Report.pdf

Tcheng Yu-hsiu: China's First Female Judge

Добавьте подпись

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/155163-1.htm?pos=0

A trailblazer in adopting climate smart practices: one agriculture cooperative’s success story in Nepal

?blogID=1707162397965199094#editor/target=post;postID=8652311527002545410

Useful links, analysis and literature on migrant issues and notably on women migrants available in Russian language on:
http://togetherlive.ru/?cat=14

***********
Полезные ссылки, исследования и анализы о современных миграционных процессах и о женщинах -мигрантах в России доступны на русском языке на сайте:
http://togetherlive.ru/?cat=14

в частности:

"Женщины-мигранты из стран СНГ в России" : http://togetherlive.ru/?p=395

"Трудовая миграция: тенденции, политика, статистика": http://togetherlive.ru/?p=392

"Гендерные подходы в формировании политики регулирования трудовой миграции в РФ: экспертная оценка": http://togetherlive.ru/?p=382

"Образ трудового мигранта из Центральной Азии в зеркале СМИ — 2012":
http://togetherlive.ru/?p=226

"Образование для всех и миграция" : http://togetherlive.ru/?p=220



 

ACWF President Emphasizes Importance of Women's Entrepreneurship

President of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) Shen Yueyue  assessed women's work in northern China's Tianjin Municipality from July 15- 17, 2013, during which she emphasized the importance of women's entrepreneurship.

Shen visited a women's hand-knitting development center in the Binhai New Area, which provides job opportunities to more than 5,000 local women. The center's sales revenue now reaches over one million yuan (US$ 162,900).

Shen also talked to a college graduate named Guo Chengcheng who started her own business at the center a year ago. Shen was glad to hear that Guo and her partners can each earn about 2,000 yuan (US$ 325.8) a month and said that she hoped they would inspire more graduates to follow their example.

Statistics show that more than 220,000 women in Tianjin are currently engaged in the hand-knitting industry which serves as a platform for the Tianjin Women's Federation to promote women's employment and entrepreneurship. Currently, their products are exported to over 30 countries, creating yearly sales revenue of about two billion yuan (US$ 325.8 million).

Shen also visited the Tianjin Women's Entrepreneurship center and a few vegetable greenhouses run by rural women. Many of the women have benefited from the favorable policies provided by the government and women's federations. In addition, micro-credit programs have also helped many of the women start their own businesses.

Shen talked to the women about the challenges they face and assured them that the women's federations will do all they can to help the women. She also pointed out that improving women's skills is the key to promoting women's development and both the government and the public should work together to encourage women's entrepreneurship.

Shen also met with Secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Sun Chunlan during her visit. She spoke highly of the city's efforts to safeguard women's and children's rights and interests, saying that the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee and government have found the meeting point between serving the local women and public and giving full play to the advantages of the women's federations.

An Analysis on the Influence of Community Stock Cooperative System on Rural Women’s Rights for Collective Economic Income Distribution

The Rural Community Stock Cooperative System is adopted in economically advanced areas as a new system to clarify collective property rights. Since the system was implemented, it has gained a lot of attention in China. Compared to traditional collective ownership, the design of the Community Stock Cooperative System is to satisfy the interests of three parties: rural villagers, village organizations and local government. It improves resource distribution within communities, and moves them towards Pareto Optimality.

I. Advantages and Disadvantages of Community Stock Cooperative System in Protecting Rural Women’s Collective Property Rights

From the perspective of rural women, Community Stock Cooperative System is very beneficial. First, it changes the joint possession of collective property to several possessions, which has clarified women’s ownership. Second, it has embodies a modern corporate governance structure, which could effectively eliminate the kind of gender discrimination that is prevalent in the old collective income distribution system. Third, the new system distributes mainly monetary assets instead of more substantive assets, such as land. It directly allocates stock shares to individuals, and highlights individual rights. The stock cooperative system clearly gives stock rights to female individuals through a process of shareholder verification, public announcement, and stock share certificate issuance, to prevent any potential violations of women’s rights by household joint possession.

The Stock Cooperative System is innovative not only for recognizing farmers’ economic income rights by contracting land under collective ownership, but also for guaranteeing collective members’ right to share profits from the added value of non-agricultural land. The benefit of non-agricultural land is higher than agricultural land, and the rights to it are based only on identity, therefore, the recognition of villagers’ stock share qualification is stricter than that of household contracting rights.

The Community Stock Cooperative System is more advanced because it has clearer property rights than traditional collective economic organizations. But, the new system’s flaw still lies in it’s imperfect property rights clarification, and incomplete, inefficient governance structure. The new system still has features of joint possession, and its distribution is still based on collective membership, thus it is still possible for the collective to exclude women. The Community Stock Cooperative System strictly confines shares in the community boundary; if you want to have stock shares of this village, you must have collective membership in this village community. The system separates collective stock shares into "individual stock shares" in order to reflect that "everyone" has the right of membership under collective ownership. The system divides the profit sharing classes by different years of working, or farming experience, to comply with traditional quota of collective ownership. It regulates membership changes caused by population migration by adjusting the stock shares quota. This process of distribution and allocation in the new stock share system still maintains the basic structure and contents of collective ownership, which could prove to be problematic. As an expert pointed out, “Women’s land rights are violated because their collective membership is constantly challenged, therefore, individualization of rights becomes the optimal measure for protecting women’s rights, so as to realize the change from social identification to social contract”.

Quasi land ownership has also seen many changes. It was once obtained freely by membership, but now it is bought. In addition, the land obtained by the members was not transferable, but now it is, making the property rights of rural landowners gradually more complete. The new shareholding system changed from an old, closed, community form of system to a new, open, enterprise form of system. Although the current reform of stock cooperative system is not complete, the measures taken have improved it, and helped to get rid of the influence of an informal system of collective income distribution, which was more often than not discriminatory to women.

II. Violation of Women’s Rights in Rural Community Cooperative System Reform

Rural Community Stock Cooperative System is a completely new system with many new conditions and problems. Due to various reasons in the past and present, rural women’s rights are sometimes violated in the new Stock Reform System. In some parts of Jiangsu province, about 20% of women were not treated equally mainly in the four aspects below:

1. Some rural women did not get land in the second round of land contracting, thus they could not receive equal treatment when collective assets were quantified.

2. Illegal village rules have violated women’s rights. For example, some village rules permit only 25-50% of land acquisition compensation for married women. In a city in southern Jiangsu, the municipal government’s documents and the share cooperatives charter states “when married women migrate, their household registration is moved to their husbands’ village, but if they have not migrated within 5 years, they shall not get stock shares.” This kind of proclamation is against law.

3. Some rural women are forced to migrate when they marry urban husbands. Under the former household registration system, rural married women could not move their household registrations to the city, so they just leave the registrations with their parents in the countryside. The new household registration system has lowered the threshold, which enables farmers to gain urban registrations. As a result, some villages force women who have married urban men to migrate out of the village, then cancel their relevant economic rights and interests. However, things have changed over recent years. Some villages enjoy a very favorable collective welfare, as a result, there is no pressure on women to marry urban men, and even if they do, they would not migrate.

4. The long-existed “live with your husband” pattern still stops rural women and their children from fully enjoying shareholding interests from stock cooperative system reform.

III. The Impact of the Community Stock Cooperative System Reform on Rural Women’s Economic Rights

The reform system’s design and implementation has both advantages and disadvantages for rural women’s economic rights:

1. There are no clear rules identifying members of collective economic organizations, thus leaving the rights of married and divorced women unprotected. In economically advanced areas, a key issue in women’s land rights, especially stock rights, is how to distribute property to “married out women”. “Married out women” are those women who did not marry residents of their own villages, and have to leave their household registration, as well as their children’s, in their original villages.

“Married out women,” and children are usually excluded from the category of identified shareholders (villagers) during a stock reform. Because there is no theory or law concerning the identification of membership, household registration is used as the first step of identifying village membership. The next step is to ensure that the villager has fulfilled their obligations to the community, such as complying with the family planning policy. It is also important that the villager resides in, and has a contract to operate land in the community. Other informal elements influence membership as well, such as traditions, family influence, and the village authorities.

The system of Identity-based collective profits distribution, combined with the difficulty in identifying village membership, has allowed the collective will of the villagers to selectively exclude “married out women”. According to the survey of Professor Lu Ying from Sun Yat-sen University, 80.1% “married out women” have lost their stock dividends after married, while divorced women are also unprotected, because with their stock share cancelled, and household registration repelled, they are left with nothing.

2. Periodic adjustments of stock rights have encouraged people to move into the community, like new wives for example. A community periodically adjusts stock rights by retrieving stock rights from those who passed away or moved out, and reallocates them to the new community members. Such adjustments have protected the rights of the new population, but also brought many conflicts. First, as population increases, dividend per share drops and affects every shareholder. Second, as only villagers can get a stock share, people do not move out, and village population explodes, putting a heavy burden on collective economy. Third, complicated population flow has made it increasingly difficult to identify village (collective economic organization) membership, giving rise to more disputes. Since 2003, some villages have allowed no change in stock rights allocation.

3. Fixed stock rights allocation has varied influence on rights of the new villagers. A innovation in the Stock Cooperative system fixes down shareholders, and the total number of stock shares in order to prevent disputes over resource allocation. However, if a married woman and her children changed their household registration in recent years, before the stock rights distribution was fixed, they would not receive stock shares.

4. Clarifying women’s stock share ownership helps to get rid of the potential infringements, which existed under the system of household joint possession. In the past, the family unit distributed and managed the household land, and the land rights were subject to the joint possession of family members. Joint possession by family members meant that individual property rights were not clearly divided between husband and wife. When there was a divorce the woman’s claim to her land would often be overshadowed by that of her husband. “Family is a double-edged sword. It can both protect and jeopardize women’s land rights.”

Changing the Lives of Changsha's Women

This March, the Changsha Women's Federation in Changsha, capital city of central China's Hunan Province, received a special letter sent from the Hunan Province Women's Prison. The letter writer, an inmate surnamed Wang, wrote: "Thank you for showing concern for me and helping me rebuild my confidence and renew my hope in life."

A victim of domestic violence, Wang was sentenced to life imprisonment after she killed her husband because she could no longer tolerate his abuse. Driven to desperation in prison, she had become a problematic inmate.

When the staff of the Changsha Women's Federation got to know her story, they tried to help her rebuild her life by talking to her and re-connecting her with her family. Their efforts have made her feel cared for and hopeful towards the future. Recently, she received a commutation of sentence for good behavior.

This is just one example of how the city's women's federation has helped women fight domestic violence, get involved in politics, start their own businesses and improve their health and lives.

Innovative Efforts in Anti-domestic Violence
The Changsha Women's Federation has won a good nationwide reputation and recognition from the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) for its outstanding and innovative efforts to fight domestic violence. In fact, many of those involved in anti-domestic violence work in China travel to Changsha specifically to learn more about its work experiences in the field.

Thanks to the federation’s efforts, a city-level government policy on the prevention of domestic violence and a local legal policy on anti-domestic violence were issued in Changsha. They are the first such policies to be issued in China.

In addition, the women's federation has also pushed forward publicity activities on anti-domestic violence in many communities and raised awareness of policies and measures protecting victims of domestic violence. It has also expanded the anti-domestic violence prosecution network.

The women's federation's efforts have made Changsha the first city in China with an anti-domestic violence work group. A city-level shelter for domestic violence survivors has also been founded.

The federation has also taken pains to ensure that men are involved in the city's anti-domestic violence work.

"We have a much better chance of fighting domestic violence if men are invited to participate," said one federation staff recently. In February 2009, the federation invited 20 male citizens to form an anti-domestic violence action group.

Promoting Women's Political Participation
As the level of women's political participation is the most important signal of gender equality, the Changsha Women’s Federation has worked closely with other government departments to get more women involved in politics.

In 2007 and 2011, the federation helped issue two important policies on cultivating and selecting women cadres, stipulating a quota for the number of women cadres appointed. With the support of the policy, many more women have had the chance to wield their influence in leadership roles.

In addition, women party representatives now account for 23.8 percent of all party representatives. Women in the city people's congress and the city's political consultative conference account for 21.78 percent and 25.1 percent respectively, putting the city on a higher level than the national women's political participation average of 21 percent.

Helping Women's Entrepreneurship
The Changsha Women's Federation has also paid close attention to the development of local women entrepreneurs. They have supported the launch of 337 women's business projects with total funds of 12.34 million yuan (US $ 2.01 million). They have helped 1,167 women apply for and receive small loans totaling 96.58 million yuan (US $ 15.7 million) altogether.

Guo Weibo, from a small town in Changsha County, is one of the women who have benefited from the small loans project.

More than 10 years ago, after Guo established her cattle raising business, she was hit with a succession of failures: shortage of pasture grass for the cold weather in winter, high cost of buying pasture grass from other areas and the death of 36 cows in the hot weather in summer.

It was only by receiving the small loan that Guo was able to weather the challenges and develop her business.

In addition to helping women entrepreneurs get funding, the women's federation has provided the women with free entrepreneurship education and training courses, and expert-level counseling on business management and project launching. These training and counseling sessions have helped upgrade the women's business skills.

Providing Financial Help to Women with Cancer
"This amount of money to my family is really a huge help," said one woman named Liu when she received 10,000 yuan (US$ 1,631) from the women’s federation to help pay for her cervical cancer treatment. Liu, who was a fiercely independent woman, had felt desperate after receiving her diagnosis. She was worried that the medical bills would financially cripple her already impoverished family.

Luckily for her, the local women's federation helped her after they came to know of her situation. Liu is one of the 338 underprivileged women suffering from breast or cervical cancer who have received financial aid from the federation.

Thanks to such dedicated efforts to help women in various aspects of their lives, the Changsha Women's Federation has won fame throughout China. Moving forward, the federation is determined to continue improving the lives and health of the local women that it serves.

Greater gender equality seen in city

A survey has found that people believe there is greater equality between men and women in Shanghai than in the rest of China, local media reported Thursday.

The Shanghai Women's Federation and researchers from Fudan University polled 155 people for the survey, according to a report in the Youth Daily. The respondents gave Shanghai an average score of 80.74 regarding their perception of gender equality, accounting for factors such as employment, income, education and health. Respondents gave the country as a whole a score of 70.49.

Female respondents made up 67.7 percent of the sample. Nearly 46 percent of the respondents had a bachelor's degree.

When asked their feelings about International Women's Day, which falls on March 8 every year, about 42 percent of male respondents thought that Chinese women were highly respected, as opposed to 19 percent of female respondents.

More than 29 percent of female respondents expressed that they did not have any special feelings about International Women's Day. About 19 percent said they only felt good about having a half-day off work.

The survey's researchers pointed out that the disparity between the perception of men and women about the day was because male respondents paid more attention to its symbolic meaning, while female respondents focused more on its practical benefits.

Nearly half of both men and women agreed that men should take a more active role in promoting gender equality, according to the survey.

Also nearly 55 percent of the respondents favored the idea that men and women should enjoy equal rights, obligations, opportunities and treatment. More than 77 percent thought there were innate differences between men and women, but acknowledged that women still deserved equal treatment.

Women should have equal access to employment, education and healthcare, said Yan Wenhua, an associate professor in the School of Psychology and Cognitive Science at East China Normal University. "However, gender equality should be achieved by admitting that there are biological differences between men and women," she said.

The survey also explored respondents' attitudes about shengnü, which literally means "leftover women." The colloquial term can be used to describe unmarried women between the ages of 25 to 35, depending on the speaker's view about when a woman ought to be married. About 37 percent of the survey's respondents thought the word no longer conveyed a negative meaning, while 35.5 percent thought it implied a bias.

"People use the word shengnü on different occasions for different reasons. It is really difficult to say whether it is derogative," Yan said.

China Distributes More Than 100 Bln Yuan in Small Loans to Women

Under a financial support program, interest-free loans worth more than 100 billion yuan (US$16.3 billion) were distributed to more than 2.34 million women by the end of September 2012.

In the first nine months of 2012, about 55.31 billion yuan (US$9.02 billion) in small loans was distributed to women, outnumbering the total of the last two years, said Song Xiuyan, Vice President of the All-China Women's Federation (ACWF) at the 11th Executive Committee Meeting of the 10th National Women's Congress held on January 10, 2013 in Beijing.

In 1996, the China Women Development Foundation (CWDF) of the ACWF established a fund to issue small loans to help needy women shake off poverty. More than 20 provinces and regions across China have implemented financial support programs, such as the Hong Kong Poverty Alleviation Program and the Mary Kay Women Entrepreneurs, playing an active role in the poverty alleviation of women.

After 10 years of persistent efforts, the financial support program is making full use of a circular fund model. As the program develops, increasing numbers of women benefit from the small loans. The implementation of the program has demonstrated that it is a model for self-sustainable development and can provide distinct social and economic benefits.

In 2009, the ACWF, together with China's Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and the People's Band of China, issued a notice to further improve the program and promote women's employment.

In accordance with the notice, the government has instituted a number of preferential policies for women increasing loan limits, coverage, lending agencies and subsidies.

In recent years, women's federations of different levels have actively negotiated with local authorities to advance the financial support program and worked hard to promote it, supervise loan implementation and provide post-loan services.

"Thanks to the efforts of various authorities, more women have benefited from the program," said ACWF Vice President Song.

"I have obtained loans of 100,000 yuan (US$16,300) in total to raise poultry and earn an annual net income of 30,000-40,000 yuan (US$4,890-6,52o)," said Yuan Zhanmei, a woman from Liangshuiquan Village, Huanghua Township, Chongxin County, Pingliang City, in northwest China's Gansu Province.

"I can pay off one loan within two years and I still have profit in hand," said Yuan. She has not only obtained good profit but also led village fellows to make money of their own.

The financial program has helped women like Yuan to obtain start-up funds and master various types of skills to embark on their paths to make their fortunes and shake off poverty.

Helping Women Achieve their Entrepreneurial Dreams

In China, there are a large group of women entrepreneurs who have not received formal business education and lack funding and social resources. However, the 'Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women MIT Sloan-Yunnan University Women's Entrepreneur Program' is changing all that by helping many of them learn more about business and financial management and launch a business project.

The Program
Three years ago Goldman Sachs established its 10,000 Women project, a US$100 million, five-year program to provide 10,000 women in underserved parts of the world with management education, access to capital, networks, and mentors. It operates through more than 80 academic and nonprofit organizations. To date it has reached 5,000 women in more than 20 countries.

In 2011, MIT Sloan joined the 10,000 Women project through the MIT Sloan-Yunnan University Women's Entrepreneur Program, a collaboration with the School of Business and Tourism Management of Yunnan University in Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province. Three Yunnan faculties spent time at MIT Sloan for training in areas of entrepreneurship and action learning. A team of MIT Sloan faculty and administrators is assisting with the design of workshops and laboratory courses that the Yunnan faculty will teach to a cohort of 300 women entrepreneurs.

Case Study: Shang Meiling
Shang Meiling is one of the 300 Chinese women entrepreneurs who have benefited from the program. Not only has her vegetable growing business seen increased profits, but she has also used the knowledge she learned through the program to help her fellow villagers.

Born in a small village in Jianshui County in the Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan Province, Shang's early life was a struggle. Although she worked hard in school and did well, she had to drop out after junior middle school to help her poverty-stricken family with farming work.

Despite this setback, Shang was determined to continue educating herself in some way. Through TV programs, books, and broadcast programs, she mastered advanced techniques in cultivating and marketing vegetables like onions, peppers, purple sweet potatoes and many others. She gradually gained local fame for her skill in growing onions.

It was then that it occurred to Shang that the individual farmers in her area could all benefit from a sort of cooperative through which the vegetables could be pooled and sold wholesale for higher profits.

To find out more, she listened to radio programs about vegetable cooperatives and how to sell by signing large sales contracts beforehand.

In December 2007, Shang and the other local farmers formed a cooperative named Miandian Town Vegetable Growth and Sales Cooperative. They also set up the Miandian Town Fruit and Vegetable Association.

With the help of Shang's years of experience in growing and selling vegetables, the cooperative succeeded in signing many contracts with several vegetable trade enterprises in the Honghe prefecture. The scale-management model brought abundant profit and the cooperative soon expanded quickly, with 260 more farmers joining in.

Expanding Sales Channels through the Internet
Despite their initial success, in 2008, vegetables in Miandian County faced a very poor market in sales. A 30-kilogram sack of onions could only be sold for 3 to 4 yuan (US$0.49 to 0.65).

Shang tried different ways to revive sales, but was unsuccessful. Then she watched a TV program about Internet businesses and hit upon the idea of marketing the vegetables online.

Shang sought the help of the local county's Sales and Marketing Cooperative to connect them to the 'Honghe Prefecture Farming Products Information Web' so that they could post information about the vegetables online. At the same time, Shang worked on strengthening relationships with older customers.

Thanks to her tireless efforts, Shang received more than a dozen calls or emails within a month, asking about their products and some making an offer to buy their products directly.

Shang later decided to choose the online sales model after comparing offer prices and purchase amounts. Her decision helped her to sell more than 5 million yuan (US$815,500) worth of onions for the first time.

In order to diversify the business, Shang's cooperative introduced many other kinds of vegetables through the information web.　                         　
Taking It to the Next Level
With the development of her vegetable business, Shang began thinking long-term about how to further optimize the agricultural industry's structure and meet the demands of rural economic development. To do this, she felt it was important that she learn about modern business management and agricultural development. .

In came the 10,000 Women project, which provided Shang with an opportunity to receive free high-quality training courses on women's entrepreneurship.

"After attending the training program, my business concepts have greatly improved. I also learned a lot about team building and financial management," said Shang. She added that the most important thing is that she made a lot of friends through the program who have given her many ideas on how to expand her business.

After the training, Shang created a plan to optimize her business's industrial structure. Developing profitable economical crops has become a priority of the optimizing process.

Based on her new knowledge on modern business management and her trips to agricultural bases in east China's Shandong Province and southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, she chose Brazilian mushrooms as the new product to be introduced.

Since then, Shang's cooperative has developed a Brazilian mushroom growing base of more than 200 mu (33 acres) with an estimated annual growing capability of 540 tons by 2014. Profits are expected to reach more than 3.24 million yuan (US$ 527,796), with each farmer earning 3,000 yuan (US$ 489) each year.

Shang is just one of the women entrepreneurs who have benefited from the 'Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women MIT Sloan-Yunnan University Women's Entrepreneur Program'. Many other women entrepreneurs' stories are also as impressive as Shang's. It is to be hoped that similar programs will be launched in the future to help even more Chinese women achieve their entrepreneurial dreams.

Governments Gamble with our Future.South Feminists Demand Responsible Action Now

While governments were locked in their semantic battles in the Rio+20 process, women’s and other social movements continue to fight on multiple fronts for human rights, justice and sustainability. These struggles take place on diverse territories and geographies including the body, land, oceans and waterways, communities, states, and epistemological grounds. Each of these terrains is fraught with the resurgent forces of patriarchy, finance capitalism, neo-conservatism, consumerism, militarism and extractivism.

An understanding of the deeper structural roots of the crises we face today and analytical clarity on the inter link ages between different dimensions are both critical. There is no core recognition that the multiple crises we face are caused by the current anthropocentric development model rooted in unsustainable production and consumption patterns, and financialisation of the economy that are all based on and exacerbate gender, race and class inequities.

In sharp contrast to twenty years ago at the historic Earth Summit when linkages between gender and all three pillars of sustainable development were substantively acknowledged, the Rio+20 outcome document has relegated women’s rights and gender equality to the periphery without recognition of a wider structural analysis.

 Over the past few months we have witnessed and confronted attempts by a small group of ultra conservative states (with the strong support of an observer state – the Holy See), to roll back hard won agreements on women’s rights. We are outraged that a vocal minority have hijacked the text on gender and health and blocked mention of sexual and reproductive rights, claiming that these have nothing to do with sustainable development. Meanwhile most states concentrate on what they considered their 'big ticket' items of finance, trade and aid with little interest to incorporate a gender analysis into these macroeconomic issues.

There is a reference to women’s “unpaid work” but without recognizing the unequal and unfair burden that women carry in sustaining care and wellbeing (para 153). This is further exacerbated in times of economic and ecological crisis when women’s unpaid labour acts as a stabilizer and their burden increases. For example, reference to the root causes of excessive food price volatility, including its structural causes, is not linked to the risks and burdens that are disproportionately borne by women (para 116). Development is not sustainable if care and social reproduction are not recognized as intrinsically linked with the productive economy and reflected in macroeconomic policy-making.

Reference is made to the critical role that rural women play in food security through traditional sustainable agricultural practices including traditional seed supply systems (para 109). However these are under severe threat unless governments stop prioritising export oriented agribusiness. The reason why such wrong-headed policies are not adequately addressed is because of corporate interests that are protected in the Rio+20 outcome.

Impressive First Ladies around the Globe

In recent years, first ladies have begun to take a more active role in promoting diplomatic relations as they accompany their husbands on state visits.

Naturally, the fashion styles and demeanor of these prominent ladies have garnered much media and public attention, with some even attaining the status of minor celebrities. 

Hillary Clinton: The Most Active First Lady

From 1992 to 2000, Hillary Clinton was the First Lady of the United States, alongside her husband, then-President Bill Clinton. During that period, she gained worldwide attention and laid the foundation for her own future political career. She frequently accompanied her husband on his state visits or traveled alone.

In July 1993, she accompanied her husband to attend the Group of Seven Summit (G7 Summit) in Tokyo, capital of Japan. In 1994, she served as head of the U.S. delegation to attend the Lillehammer 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Norway and in 1995, she and then-U.S. Vice President Al Gore attended the inauguration ceremony of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa.

Clinton has said that she often acted on her own to send out the message that a nation's prosperity is associated with women's education and happiness.

In her autobiography Living History, Clinton explained that state affairs largely depend on personal relations between state leaders, but that the relations require continual cultivation and various informal dialogues.

Glenn P. Hastedt and Anthony J. Eksterowicz, two professors from the Political Science Department of James Madison University, jointly wrote an essay titled First Lady Diplomacy: The Foreign Policy Activism of First Lady Clinton, and concluded that "Former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was one of the most active first ladies in modern memory".

Carla Bruni: A Fashion Icon

Ex-model and singer Carla Bruni, wife of Nicolas Sarkozy who held the office as French President from 2007 to 2012, became famous as one of the best dressed and most poised first ladies around.

When she visited Britain with Sarkozy in 2008, the former model wore a grey hat and a grey turtle neck dress as well as a pair of black gloves to see Queen Elizabeth II. Her appearance won her a compliment from Harpers & Queen, a British fashion magazine, who described her attire as elegant and reminiscent of the late Princess Diana.

At the welcome banquet later that day, Bruni turned up in a gorgeous evening dress, occasioning a later comment from one British celebrity, who said that Bruni was the only topic of the night and no one talked about bilateral ties.

Britain's Daily Mail pointed out that Bruni had made the smart move of wearing all-British designers on her trip.

Bruni was selected as the ambassador for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria on December 1, 2008, which was also World Cancer Day. Since then, she has visited several African countries and raised money for AIDS patients.

Political analysts have said that although she was not as politically influential as Hillary Clinton, Bruni went a long way towards enhancing Sarkozy's presidential image.

Miyuki Hatoyama and Kim Yoon-ok: The Most Approachable First Ladies

Miyuki Hatoyama, wife of then-Prime Minister of Japan Yukio Hatayama, and Kim Yoon-ok, wife of then-President of South Korea Lee Myung-bak, were well-known in their time for being two of the most approachable first ladies around.

When Hatoyama accompanied her husband to visit South Korea in 2009, Kim invited her to a Korean traditional cuisine institute, where she showed Hatoyama how to make Korean kimchi. Hatoyama used her bare hands to practice making the kimchi and when Kim told her that most modern Korean women wear gloves because they do not want the strong smell to stay on their hands, Hatoyama said that she would like to experience the making of kimchi with bare hands.

Kim had previously learned that Hatoyama had published many cookbooks, which is why she took the latter to a cuisine institute.

Although the two first ladies did not take part in diplomatic activities on their state visits, their charm and approachability made them very popular among the media and public.

First Lady Diplomacy

First lady diplomacy now makes up an important part of modern diplomacy. State leaders' wives are influential in enhancing the effectiveness of a country's public diplomacy and augmenting its soft power.

In some countries, first ladies have begun to undertake diplomatic duties. For example, it has become a fixed arrangement for the U.S. First Lady to host the families of foreign politicians at Camp David, the president's country residence.

Professor Zhang Xiaojin from the Beijing-based Tsinghua University says that first lady diplomacy can enhance transparency with regards to the first family's activities.

Depending on their backgrounds and interests, some first ladies may visit hospitals or schools on state visits or restaurants and museums to show respect for the host country's culture.

Nowadays, summit diplomacy usually has dual functions in public diplomacy and diplomatic protocol and thus, first lady diplomacy is an integral part of modern diplomacy, says Professor Zhang.

http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/151585-1.htm

Beijing Establishes Special Office to Distribute Small Loans to Women

A special office to supervise and manage the small loans for women program under the China Women's Development Foundation (CWDF) was established in Beijing on July 2, 2013.

The office, jointly set up by the CWDF and the Rural Development Institute of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, aims to promote the smooth, systematic and professional operation of the small loans for women project, which could be a turning point in the project's development.

The project has been implemented in more than 20 provinces and cities since 1996, distributing more than 160 million yuan (US$ 26.08 million) in loans, benefiting more than 100,000 needy families and helping more than 300,000 women to start their own businesses. 

Guangxi Encourages Women to Join in Social Development

The Guangxi Women's Federation plans to launch various activities for rural children and grassroots women, including migrant workers and entrepreneurs, to encourage them to take part in social development efforts.

The federation held a meeting in Nanning, capital of southwest China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on July 9, 2013, to announce the launch of these activities.

The federation will also hold an activity to educate migrant women and left-behind children, whose parents have left them in their rural hometowns to work in the cities, about the relevant laws and regulations that pertain to their rights and interests. In addition, migrant women will receive professional training in transportation, catering, tourism and shopping, which will allow them to get more involved in the tourism and service industries.

The Guangxi Women's Federation will also encourage women entrepreneurs to contribute to the development of local tourism or related industries.

Guangxi, located in southwestern China, is well known for its natural beauty and scenic spots, including the Lijiang River. Tourism is fast becoming the key to Guangxi's development. 

Некоммерческое партнёрство "Звезда надежды" (Калининград)

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