Feminist Peace Network

When we are persuaded that the safety of our nations depends on the cold-blooded murder of children, we have no future:

“An Israeli army officer who repeatedly shot a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza dismissed a warning from another soldier that she was a child by saying he would have killed her even if she was three years old.

The officer, identified by the army only as Captain R, was charged this week with illegal use of his weapon, conduct unbecoming an officer and other relatively minor infractions after emptying all 10 bullets from his gun’s magazine into Iman al-Hams when she walked into a “security area” on the edge of Rafah refugee camp last month.”

and:

“Gaza’s main hospital, already overloaded with Palestinians wounded in the week-long Israeli air assault, has reached critical mass, according to a Norwegian doctor volunteering at Shifa Hospital.

“The injured patients are mainly civilians, a lot of children with dreadful injuries,” Dr. Erik Fosse told CNN on Monday, estimating that 20 percent of the more than 500 people dead were children.”

Here is a petition via Gila Svirsky telling Obama that Americans and people everywhere want a meaningful ceasefire in Gaza now.  Sign the petition here.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Action Alerts, Atrocities, Militarism, U.S. Politics, Children | No Comments »

I suppose it was inevitable, now that we know that abstinence pledges aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on, the Vatican had to try another approach to bad-mouthing sex and how better to do that than to make women feel guilty for taking the pill:

“The contraceptive pill is polluting the environment and is in part responsible for male infertility, a report in the Vatican newspaper said Saturday.

The pill “has for some years had devastating effects on the environment by releasing tonnes of hormones into nature” through female urine, said Pedro Jose Maria Simon Castellvi, president of the International Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, in the report.

“We have sufficient evidence to state that a non-negligible cause of male infertility in the West is the environmental pollution caused by the pill,” he said, without elaborating further.”

While the Vatican provided no evidence to prove their assertion, numerous studies suggest that we should be concerned about  the impact of pharmaceuticals and other chemicals on both the environment and on human health.  And estrogen and chemicals that mimic estrogen such as pesticides are of particular concern and are likely implicated in gender changes that have been observed in aquatic life.  But birth control pills are only a part of that picture which also includes looking at how we treat waste, and to single them out can only be seen as the Vatican’s latest Hail Mary attempt to control women’s lives, bodies and health. Currents Between Shores puts it well,

“Does the Catholic Church, in this day and age, seriously think a world without contraception is a viable option in a planet that is already overpopulated? And who is going to feed and take care of all of these children born from “conjugal love”? The Catholic Church? I’ll believe that when I see the Vatican donate all its gold flatware to poor Catholic countries. How the Catholic church can push an anti birth control agenda when most children born in Catholic countries like Haiti or Mexico, live in dire poverty, is beyond me. . . but, of course, this was an unbiased, scientific study.”

Filed under: Uncategorized, Women's Health, Environment, Reproductive Justice | 1 Comment »

From AWID:

“We, the undersigned, representing women’s and human rights organizations working in Muslim-majority countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, express our grave concern for the personal safety of Shirin Ebadi.” Please join in voicing your support for Ms. Ebadi.

Ms. Ebadi, a staunch defender of women’s rights activists and human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran and internationally, has been subjected to increased intimidation and harassment by security forces of the Islamic Republic in recent weeks. These actions follow escalating acts of persecution against women activists ranging from search and seizure of computers and personal property and closure of websites to travel bans, imprisonment, and sentencing of tens of prominent women’s rights defenders. Women’s rights activists have been routinely accused of “acting against the national security of the state” for their peaceful activities calling for equal rights for women and men.

Ms. Ebadi is a founding member and head of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, a nongovernmental organization that was forcibly closed by security forces on December 21. A few days later, following a search that yielded no incriminating evidence, Mehr News Agency, affiliated with the government, reported that Ms. Ebadi had failed to pay her taxes – an allegation that has been refuted by Ms. Ebadi. Yesterday, security officers identifying themselves as tax officials stormed and raided her private law offices, attempting to seize two computers and confidential client files, which she refused to surrender until she was forced to do so.

The first Muslim woman to be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, Ms. Ebadi has represented numerous human rights activists and promoted legal protections for women and children in Iran. Her work in support of democracy and human rights has had a global impact. In 2006 she joined five other Nobel Peace Prize winners to found the Nobel Women’s Initiative, and she has spoken and published internationally in furtherance of her human rights work. The actions against Ms. Ebadi during the past week demonstrate a targeted effort not only to obstruct directly the work of the country’s most influential human rights defender, but also to intimidate Iranian human rights activists as a group.

We, the undersigned women’s rights activists and organizations, strongly condemn the acts of harassment against Ms. Ebadi and are gravely concerned for her personal security and the protection of the rights of women activists in the country.

Read more…

Filed under: Uncategorized, Sheroes, Militarism, Misogyny, Gender-Based Violence, Human Rights | No Comments »

Thank goodness we liberated the women of Afghanistan:

From RAWA:

According to a report of Radio Azadi, on December 8th, a horrifying crime shooked the little village of Khomdan, some distance from Dasht-e-Qala District of Takhar province. Two women and a 2-year old girl were cut into pieces with an axe, by unknown armed men. It’s still not known who is behind this crime.

The residents of the area told the reporter of Radio Azadi that these women had been raped before being killed, but they say, police did not perform a postmortem to approve it. Even on the eve of the International Human Rights Day, Afghanistan was not spared of such human rights tragedies.

Although organizations that support women’s rights have talked about increase of violence against women in Northern provinces of Afghanistan like Badakhshan, Takhar, Qunduz and Baghlan, it can be seen that most of violence occurs in Takhar province where warlords have full control of the province. Gang-rape and self-immolation of women; murders by husbands and beatings are some examples of these extreme brutalities. The most prominent cases here are that of an 8-year old girl who was raped and then murdered by her rapist, and the mentioned incident.

———-

From RAWA:

The Mirwais Meena girls’school used to be a bustling place with over 1300 students. But now the halls and grounds are nearly empty, the swings hang motionless on the recreation field.

On a late November morning, there were only a dozen or so girls and three female teachers to be seen. The rest, traumatised by a vicious attack on November 12 that left several girls disfigured and two blinded, have chosen to stay at home.

Shamsia, an Afghan school girl, recovers in a hospital after two men on a motorbike threw acid on her in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Nov 12, 2008. Two men on a motorbike threw acid on six Afghan girls walking to school in Kandahar on Wednesday, hospitalizing two of the girls with serious burns, said Dr. Sharifa Siddiqi.

A middle-aged teacher, her burqa draped over her arm, was making her way slowly out of the building. The click of her high heels echoed in the halls, and she wore a very sad expression. She said her name was Najila.

“That Wednesday was a very, very bad day,” she said. “Some girls fainted; they were so afraid that the next day it would be their turn. We had never heard of anything like this before. I want to ask those who did this, ‘Why?’ Girls should be able to go to school and study. I do not know when this country will ever be okay.”

Read more…

Filed under: Uncategorized, Atrocities, Militarism, U.S. Politics, Misogyny, Gender-Based Violence, Children | No Comments »

There are simply no words for this, particularly in light of the fact that elected officials in the region  just agreed to end FGM with assurances that its practice would be prosecuted!
From All Africa:

“About 500 girls were circumcised in Sebei region over the Christmas period, a sharp rise in Female Genital Mutilation from just 90 in the previous circumcision season.

Bukwo and Kapchorwa local leaders said 490 girls aged between 10 and 21 years underwent the ritual that now involves the removal of not only the clitoris but also the entire labia.

The removal of the labia is an influence from the Kenyan Pokot who live side by side with the Sebei. The removal of the entire labia does not only cause excessive bleeding, but also exposes the girls to more chronic infections, painful sexual intercourse and more complications during child birth.”

Filed under: Uncategorized, Atrocities, Gender-Based Violence, Women's Health, Children, Violence Against Women, Maternal Health, Reproductive Justice, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) | No Comments »

Okay, we get that expecting President Bush to visit the site of a massive toxic spill is not realistic, but we’re wondering how long it will be until Obama makes an appearance.  In the meantime, we honor sheroes like Erin Brockovich for her effort to help the victims of the recent spill in Roane County, Tennessee seek justice and answers.
From Knoxville Biz:

“Nationally known environmental law consultant Erin Brockovich says she plans to visit Roane County next week to talk with residents worried about the fallout from TVA’s Dec. 22 ash spill.“A lot of people don’t feel confident about what they’re being told,” she said Wednesday from her California home. “We’re going to share what we do know and what to anticipate. We’ll bring along experts and answer some of their questions.””

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From Black Agenda Report:

“Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has called upon President-Elect Barack Obama to “please, say something about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced by the Palestinian people, by the people of Gaza.” McKinney spoke to CNN news from the Lebanese city of Tyre, where she had debarked from the relief vessel Dignity after it was rammed on the high seas by an Israeli patrol boat, early Tuesday morning. Passengers also report the Israelis fired machine guns into the water near their ship”

“”I would like to ask my former colleagues in the United States Congress to stop sending weapons of mass destruction around the world,” said McKinney, who was the Green Party’s presidential candidate in November. “As we are about to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, let us remember what he said. He said that the United States is the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. And guess what: we experienced a little bit of that violence, because the weapons that are being used by Israel are weapons that were supplied by the United States government.”

A CNN reporter who accompanied the passengers and crew of the Dignity confirmed that the boat “was sailing with full lights” when “one of the Israeli patrol boats, with no lights on, rammed the Dignity, hard.”"

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Word of vision from Janie “Oquawka” Rezner as we begin the New Year:

We can see how the patriarchy has taken this most precious and natural sexual connection between women and men–and perverted it into a horror on earth.   Where fathers and uncles molest and rape their own children and wives, where millions of children and women all over the world are turned into sexual slaves to be tortured,where illegal immigrant women being held in jail are raped;  the list is endless.   It happens anywhere that depraved and enraged men can rape and torture and get away with it. The possibility of rape is  feared by all women everywhere.

Although we here are among the privileged,  we are surrounded by  a violent, war-ravaged, fear driven world.  Many of  us have suffered child-abuse and sexual abuse in one form or another.  And still we  keep on going with our life’s tasks, not the least of which is to truly awaken to our enslavement by the patriarchal culture and to say, ‘no more!’.

Our birthright as creatures on earth is to live in peace, in harmony with the earth and with each other.  Our birthright is to live with open hearts and spirits,  living into our fullest potential, which is ever expanding. Our birthright is to have our ‘work’ be our own unique creative contribution - - - to the whole.

We are living at the edge of time . . .. .  .in a time like no other.  We are being guided and introduced into the greatest reality of all –that of the divine.  This is the  Journey of the Soul into the Mother  . .

One must come into a state of knowing one’s self in order for the curtain to pull  back; that   means  going deep and finding peace with and loving the inner parts of ourselves. There is no free lunch, however.  The journey for that “knowing” crosses  through the “sea of hurts and fears” that have been tucked away into the recesses of the heart. There is no way to go around it, it must be crossed.   Once one enters the seas of hurts and fears, perhaps with the help of a trusted companion, and begins to  uncover and  honor  and grieve the injustices, the shame and guilt and  the losses, amazingly the pain loses it’s grip.  The wound  becomes  soothed by a mothering hand. A healing can take place  . . a healing that opens the door to many things.  Once we have opened to our own pain, we can then  be fully present to another’s pain.

We can  begin to trust the wisdom of the Universe. We can gaze into the velvety  night sky and be touched by the beauty of the stars and planets above.  We  begin to see the amazing journey we are on and can find the courage and moral conviction to take a stand against the injustices of the world and say, “no more!”  We  begin to trust the wisdom of the Grandmother,  and our own wisdom, and can open to  what  Great Spirit has to teach us.  . . as She ushers us into this new age of Love in the Heart.

–Janie “Oquawka” Rezner

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In recent years, the darkness of the Winter Solstice season has become a time that allows me the opportunity of deep reflection. Last night I lay in bed under the warmth of my Grandmother’s comforter while the winds howled outside my window thinking about the horrible irony that just a few days after the celebration of Bethlehem’s most famous birth, with the seasonal tidings of “Peace on Earth, goodwill towards man” (sic) still ringing in our ears, the Israeli government began its latest war against the Palestinian people.

And here in this country, an ecologic disaster of epic proportions is unfolding in the state of Tennessee after 2.2 million pounds (the latest number) of toxic sludge from a coal-fired plant spilled from a holding pond, covering some 300 acres of land. According to the New York Times,

(I)n just one year, the plant’s byproducts included 45,000 pounds of arsenic, 49,000 pounds of lead, 1.4 million pounds of barium, 91,000 pounds of chromium and 140,000 pounds of manganese. Those metals can cause cancer, liver damage and neurological complications, among other health problems.

And the holding pond, at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a T.V.A. plant 40 miles west of Knoxville, contained many decades’ worth of these deposits.

As the footage above says in a way that words cannot, the myth of clean coal is a lie, a terrible toxic lie. Just as the notion that you can win peace by waging war is a deadly lie that also endangers us all. What really can one say, except that we cannot go on like this. Each time we kill, each time we desecrate the earth, the peril grows as we draw ever closer to the precipice.

It may well be that we have gone beyond the point where the damage done is fixable or even manageable in some livable way. But if we are to find a path towards sustainable survival, what we must understand is this–the killing in Gaza and the poisoning of the earth in Tennessee are not separate, unrelated events. They are both part of the toxic belief system that claims that empowerment comes from exerting power over land and people. If we are to truly be empowered, we would do well to head these words of Starhawk,

“Justice is not a question of one side defeating the other, but of finding the dynamic balance between them that generates the energies that sustain the world.”*

May this be our resolution for the New Year.

*These excellent words come from a statement by Starhawk that is included in the 2007 We-Moon calendar.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Commentary, Militarism, Environment | 1 Comment »

Joint statement from Israeli women’s groups on the violence in Gaza received via e-mail:

We women’s peace organizations from a broad spectrum of political views demand an end to the bombing and other tools of death, and call for the immediate start of deliberations to talk peace and not make war. The dance of death and destruction must come to an end. We demand that war no longer be an option, nor violence a strategy, nor killing an alternative. The society we want is one in which every individual can lead a life of security – personal, economic, and social.

It is clear that the highest price is paid by women and others from the periphery – geographic, economic, ethnic, social, and cultural – who now, as always, are excluded from the public eye and dominant discourse.

The time for women is now. We demand that words and actions be conducted in another language.

Ahoti: For Women in Israel
Anuar: Jewish and Arab Women Leadership
Artemis: Economic Society for Women
Bat Shalom
Coalition of Women for Peace
Economic Empowerment for Women
Feminancy: College for Women’s Empowerment
Feminist Activist Group – Jerusalem
Feminist Activist Group – Tel Aviv
International Women’s Commission: Israeli Branch
Isha L’Isha: Haifa Feminist Center
Itach: Women Lawyers for Social Justice
Kol Ha-Isha: Jerusalem Women’s Center
Mahut Center: Information, Training, and Employment for Women
Shin Movement: Equal Representation for Women
Supportive Community: Women’s Business Development Center
Tmura: The Israeli Antidiscrimination Legal Center
University against Harassment – Tel Aviv
Women and their Bodies
Women’s Parliament
Women’s Spirit: Financial Independence for Women Victims of Violence

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