Somali women want a voice at London Somalia Conference

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 As world leaders meet in London tomorrow to decide Somalia’s future, Somali women living in the UK are calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to ensure that women are not denied a place at the peace table.

Tomorrow,  February 23, senior representatives from more than 40 governments are gathering in London to discuss the transition to a new caretaker government in Somalia.

 Somali women are concerned that if they are not part of the political process, their rights will be ignored or even undermined by the new government.

 Although less than a quarter of girls in Somalia are in primary education and violence against women is rife, a leaked draft of the conference communiqué contains no reference to women’s rights or women’s political participation.

In the past, the UK has played a leading role in pushing the UN to recognise the critical importance of women’s participation in conflict resolution, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction, helping to create UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls on states to include women in decision-making on peace and security.

Despite this, formal negotiations on the transition process have been dominated by foreign governments and Somali elites, who are overwhelmingly male.

 Sheffield-based Somali activist Amina Souleiman spoke with hundreds of Somali women and found there was deep concern about women being ignored by the London conference. She said:

“Somalia has been a failed state for 20 years, and all along, men were in charge.
 The draft communiqué talks about a role for Islamists in Somali politics but says nothing about a role for women. This clearly sends the wrong message and gives the green light to clan, tribal and religious leaders to exclude women from the political process.

 “David Cameron must call on the international community to support the participation of Somali women in the political process, to protect women’s rights and to find a lasting peace in Somalia.” 

Chitra Nagarajan, Director of Gender Action for Peace and Security UK, said:

 “The UK government is failing to join the dots here. After doing so much at the UN to champion women’s important roles in conflict resolution and peacebuilding, will it put that rhetoric into practice at home? If the conference communiqué doesn’t include support for women’s participation and put in place ways to protect and promote their rights, it will be a huge missed opportunity to help build a real peace for Somalia, one that has true meaning for both women and men.”

Bust on the US-Mexican border - the end of a dream

Mark Abel

My friend, composer Mark Abel from San Diego (my former editor at the San Francisco Chronicle), witnessed a bust by the U.S. Border Patrol of a group of Mexican “illegals” in the desert a few days ago.  He saw their surrender - the end of their dream of a better life and everything they had risked for it. He thought of how many times this scenario has been repeated in the past 150 years… Here is his account: 


“Deciding that I needed to “get out of Dodge” (i.e., San Diego) for a while and clear my head, I pointed my 22-year-old Mazda down a road I’ve never  been on – California Route 98, which drops south of Interstate 8 in hardscrabble Imperial County toward the Mexican border from the impoverished hamlet of Ocotillo and continues on into the Imperial Valley and the city of Calexico.  The area is known as the Yuha Basin and it is definitely a desert, made up mostly of sand, loose dirt and scrub vegetation. A few forbidding-looking, lunar-like mountains dot the plain here and there.  

I had only driven a few miles when I started to notice a spread-out presence of Border Patrol squad cars and SUV-type vehicles. This didn’t surprise me, since we were probably within five miles or so of the frontier, which lay beyond to the south. 

Yuha desert, near the border

I got about halfway to Calexico before deciding that there was really nothing scenic about the area and that I might as well head back toward Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, one of my favorite places and one that always touches the soul in some way. I braked to turn around after shooting past a pair of flower-laden crosses by the side of the lonely road. I wanted to see who was being memorialized and assumed it was some migrants who died in the desert (nothing unusual in these parts). 

Not thirty seconds after I turned off the engine, a Border Patrol helicopter came screaming in from out of nowhere – zooming directly over my car and not far off the ground. I was startled but quickly deduced that I was probably being surveilled to determine if my car was big enough to ferry a group of migrants out of the area (the answer to that is no.) 

I started back toward Ocotillo. But a few minutes later I spotted the chopper again, hovering over an area about 50 yards off the highway. As I drew closer, I saw a Border Patrol officer striding forward with a bullhorn. Cowering ahead and herded by the chopper, with their hands raised behind their heads, was a group of five or six Mexican men who had apparently been lying prone on the ground, hoping to escape detection. No such luck.


 I kept on driving (knowing the Border Patrol would probably shoo me away if I pulled over) but had slowed just enough to catch a rather heartbreaking tableaux – the end of a common and fiercely held dream of a better life. The image that stayed with me was their “surrender,” with their hands up; it reminded me of an iconic photo from the Holocaust that just about everyone has seen – a Polish Jewish boy marching fearfully with his hands raised, surrounded by grinning Nazi soldiers with guns. This is, of course, unfair to the Border Patrolmen, who are simply doing a job politicians have ordered them to do. But I felt I was somehow experiencing the agony of the Mexicans, whose ambitions in America probably did not encompass anything beyond a life of manual labor – labor that we consider “beneath” us.   

As I drove on, I thought primarily of two things – that these men had walked for god-knows-how-many miles into alien territory, apparently not knowing where they were going, and that they most likely had been led in that direction by a coyote guide who took all the money they had and then pointed them toward an area far from civilization and crawling with Border Patrol, giving them virtually no chance of making it to San Diego or the Imperial Valley, where they might melt into the Hispanic population. Very tough.   

I moved on into Anza-Borrego, whose stark, arid, majestic beauty belies the fact that it was once a place where wooly mammoths, a bird with a 17-foot wingspan, giant ground sloths and saber-toothed tigers roamed, and whales swam in vast inland seas. One’s sense of time slows down very quickly in this place. But sure enough, even here, after about 8 miles there was a Border Patrol checkpoint – in case any “aliens” had made it past the gauntlet in the Yuha Basin. I was waved through with a “Have a nice day” after my white skin and small car were duly noted. … I soon passed a place called Canon sin Nombre (Canyon Without a Name), where I have actually hiked. But all I could think of was the thousands of Mexicans who have perished in our deserts over the decades and how many of them were “sin nombre” – though they most certainly had family somewhere.

Later, I pulled over once more and watched as wispy clouds slowly drifted and broke up high over the Sawtooth Mountains. The late afternoon light silhouetted on the steep slopes the yearning sharp fronds of the ocotillo plants, the solitary stalks of the tall agave, the yellow-green new growth on the cholla cactus. The scene was draped with the silence of the ages. … I thought again of the Mexicans and the deportation that awaited them, and how many times the scenario has been repeated in the past 150 years – despite the fact that their labor has played such an important part in the building of America and the maintenance of our standard of living, faced as it is with possibly insurmountable challenges from the rest of the less fortunate world, which asks, “When will it be our turn?”   

And (though I wished I hadn’t), I thought of the phony, dishonest Mitt Romney and the 11,000-square-foot mansion he is building in not-far-away La Jolla and of the serial liar and attack dog Gingrich – he of the higher moral standard than those folks “on food stamps.” Not to mention Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin. 

In our lifetimes, I suspect, America will get what’s coming to it – what is coming to it already – and the wispy clouds will continue their timeless procession over the mountains, as they always have. And the ocotillos will sprout red flowers in the springtime. 

Composer Mark Abel's orchestral song cycle "The Dream Gallery: Seven California Portraits" will be released on the Delos label in March

Anti-slavery coin - first-ever coin with a social conscience

Anti-slavery prototype coin

A silver coin with the message "Break the Chains of Bondage" will be launched at the World Money Fair, Europe's largest coin convention, in Berlin tomorrow (February 3).

The first-ever coin with a social conscience features on its head side (observe) the silhouettes of a man and a woman back-to-back with a broken chain of five links and the inscription "Break the Chains of Bondage." The tail (reverse) is designed by Luc Luycx, the graphic artist behind the design of the Euro.

The prototype coin is issued by the United Future World Currency (UFWC), a global currency initiative, and being struck by the Royal Mint UK in eco-silver, a responsibly sourced precious metal from recycled silver.

The idea behind the initiative is to encourage Mints and central banks to issue a coin with a clear  anti-slavery message that will end up in the hands of the public and raise awareness of this important cause, says Dr. Sandro Sassoli, founder of the UFWC.

Between 10 and 30 million people worldwide are believed to be either enslaved or in bonded-servitude, according to the latest estimate by the UN.  Slavery and human trafficking cross race, religion, gender and ethnic background and exist in every countries.

UFWC are approaching more than 60  Mints attending the World Money Fair  to encourage them to issue the anti-slavery coin. Several Mints and central banks have already expressed interest in issuing the coin, ahead of the launch tomorrow.  The campaign will continue into 2013 and beyond.

French journalist killed in Syria – accident or deliberate attack on the press?

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Gilles Jacquier/YouTube video still

 Just as I wrote my last post, yet another journalist has been killed, this time in Syria,  in what appears to be another deliberate attack on the press.

Gilles Jacquier, 43, an award-winning foreign correspondent for French state television’s France 2, was killed last week in an attack in the divided city of Homs, during a government-escorted media trip, according to an article in the Guardian.

Jacquier, who became the first foreign reporter to die since protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime began in March, was among a group of 15 journalists, when he was hit in the attack, which also killed nine Syrians and injured 25.

Prosecutors in Paris have launched a preliminary murder inquiry as the French government presses for an independent inquiry.

France Télévision filed a legal complaint over the death, saying many unanswered questions remained. The corporation’s editorial director, Thierry Thuillier, said the journalists had been travelling in a convoy with a military escort that strictly controlled media’s movements.

“When the firing started, the Syrian soldiers withdrew, leaving the journalists alone and exposed. Why?” Thuillier asked. He added the fire that killed the journalist seemed to have been very “precise.”

An unnamed source close to president Nicolas Sarkozy was quoted in Le Figaro newspaper saying: “The Syrian authorities were the only ones who knew that a group of western journalists were visiting Homs that day and in which neighbourhood they were in…One could believe it was an unfortunate accident. But it’s a bit of a coincidence for a regime that seeks to discourage foreign journalists and demonise the upbringing.”

Sarkozy has been one of Assad’s most outspoken western critics, calling repeatedly for him to leave office.

IFJ presses UN for action on media killings – 106 journalists and media staff killed in 2011

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wan-ifra.org

Last year has been another bloody one for the media. In 2011, 106 journalists and media personnel were killed – many of them targeted and murdered expressly because they were journalists. In 2010, 94 were killed.

The situation is so alarming that the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), which compiled the list, is urging the United Nations Secretary General BanKi-moon to take drastic action against governments of the most dangerous countries for media.

The Federation believes journalists have been specifically hunted down and blames governments’ failure to uphold their international obligations for the ongoing violence targeting media.  

The deadliest region in 2011 was the Middle East and Arab World with 32 journalists and media personnel killed – and Iraq had the region's highest death toll with 11 dead.  Among countries with high numbers of media fatalities are: 

Pakistan: 11 

Mexico: 11 

The Philippines: 6 

Libya: 6 

Yemen: 6

Honduras: 5 

India: 5   

This year’s list confirms that journalists are among the primary victims of violence in armed conflict, ethnic and religious tensions, as well as political upheavals, which erupted in many countries during the past twelve months.  

Media professionals are exposed to serious risks as they report from the frontline of conflicts, such as in Pakistan and the Arab world, or crime prevention in the lawless parts of Mexico, where they are considered unwelcome witnesses. 

In a letter to the UN Secretary General, the IFJ calls for effective implementation of international legal instruments to combat the prevailing culture of impunity for crimes against journalists. 

“It is abundantly clear that deadly violence against journalists is not just a blip due to conflicts around the world but has become a regular cycle in many countries where journalists are hunted down, targeted and murdered by the enemies of press freedom,” said the letter signed by IFJ President, Jim Boumelha. “In a situation where governments are in denial or indifferent to what has become a regular pattern of targeted killings of journalists, it is incumbent upon yourself and the United Nations to remind them of their responsibility to protect journalists.” 

The IFJ says that violence targets not just journalists but also colleagues from all sectors of the industry, including cameramen, drivers and fixers and other support staff which are all recorded to underscore their crucial role in news gathering and reporting. 

An additional 20 journalists and collaborators also died in accidents and natural disasters incidents. 

The list of journalists and media personnel killed in 2011 is available here.

The IFJ is the world’s largest organisation of journalists, representing more than 600,000 journalists in 131 countries around the world.

Savings revolution - a new form of microfinance for the very poor is spreading like wildfire

Microcredit - providing credit to the poor (who can usually offer little or no collateral in return) -   was introduced and popularised by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus in the 1970s as a way to lift poor people in the developing world out of poverty and help them start small businesses.  It has been very successful in Bangladesh, for example. 

But recently the practice has attracted mounting criticism. Behind success stories are disturbing reports of debts dependency and microcredit institutions hounding their debtors.

When I was in Ghana recently, Plan International took me to see a very exciting new model of microfinance in action in a poor suburb of Accra.  The system, called Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), is based on savings rather than debts and is managed in the community by the people themselves rather than by professionals. 

Freedom savings group in Accra/Fjona Hill

It is a very simple, flexible and transparent system that is particularly attractive to poor women because it emphasizes small, regular savings, social insurance, participatory management, lack of pressure to borrow frequently or in large amounts and access to lump sums to meet household obligations and emergencies.

 

The scheme was initiated in 1991 in Niger by Care International, and since then was further developed by various NGOs. It is now attracting a lot of attention and rapidly spreading across the developing world, changing lives in the process. Savings groups now have 4.6 million members in 54 countries. 

 

I have written a story for the Economist about it. Here it is: 

Helping the poor to save

Small Wonder

A new model of microfinance for the very poor is spreading

Dec 10th 2011 | ACCRA | from the print edition

“MY GROUP has rescued me and my children from poverty,” says Faustina Kwei, rearranging baskets piled high with cassavas and plantains around her market stall in a poor suburb of Accra, Ghana’s capital. She used a combination of savings, dividends and loans from a savings group to rent her stall and buy stock. For the first time, she can feed her two children well and send them to school.

Ms Kwei (pictured) is one of millions of poor people to have benefited from the hottest trend in microfinance: village savings and loans associations. Millions of people like her survive on meagre and erratic earnings. Access to the simplest financial services can help stabilise their incomes, which in turn makes them less vulnerable to diseases and natural disasters. An unexpected flood or fever can push a poor family into utter destitution, or the muscular arms of loan sharks.

To read the full story, click here.

Women in the media – who is running the show?

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I belong to a group called Women in Journalism  (WiJ). We work across all the written media, from newspapers and magazines to the new media. We network, campaign, train and party. It is fun and it is needed.

I am often asked – especially by male colleagues - why do we need such an organization in this day and age. Well…Where do I start!

Kira Cochrane, a WiJ member and Guardian feature writer, trawled newspapers, radio and TV shows looking at the gender of writers, presenters and guests over several weeks. The results, published in a Guardian article this week, are even worse than I suspected and it is so depressing.

From Monday 13th June to Friday 8th July – before the school summer holidays started, to avoid any skewing effect – Kira and a group of researchers carried out a simple count of newspaper bylines. They went through seven daily newspapers in their entirety each day, counting and recording the number of male and female writers, and then calculating the percentage values.

They found that in a typical month, women journalists accounted for just 22.6 per cent, as opposed to 77.4 per cent for male reporters, and there wasn't a single day, on a single newspaper, when the number of female bylines outstripped or equalled the number of male bylines.

During that four-week period, they also logged the gender of reporters and guests on the BBC radio 4 agenda-setting Today programme and the BBC TV political show Question Time.

72% of the BBC political show Question Time contributors are men and 84% of reporters and guests on Radio 4's Today show are men.

Where are all the women?

Does it matter who reports the news and appears on current affairs programmes?

According to the most recent survey by the Global Media Monitoring Project (March 2010), women feature in only about a fifth of the world’s news headlines and just ten percent of all news stories.

“Literally thousands of stories about, by and for women are never told.  This sends a message that women’s experiences and opinions are just not as important or as valid as those of men,” says Alison Clarke, who created Women’s Views on News, a women’s daily online news and current affairs service, to redress the imbalance in women’s favour. (The site is down at the moment because of technical difficulties).