There was not a dry eye last night in the POV lounge at the W in Washington, D.C., where Vital Voices and the Avon Foundation for Women hosted Men’s Voices to End Violence Against Women, a tribute to three extraordinary men who are making the world a brighter and safer place for women.

CNN’s Candy Crowley and advocates including V-Day founder and playwright Eve Ensler headlined the invitation-only reception with moving tributes to Dr. Denis Mukwege, the founder of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo; Luis CdeBaca, Ambassador-at-Large of the U.S. State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons; and Stephen Lewis, former UN Ambassador and Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Each of the men honored restated their commitment to ending violence against women, imploring other men and women to join in a global movement for gender equality. In his remarks, former UN Ambassador Lewis said on behalf of his fellow honorees:

“We can promise you tonight that we will work to the end of days to end violence against women.”

Past Vital Voices Global Partnership Leadership Awards honorees Marina Pisklakova-Parker (2004) and Somaly Mam (2009) introduced Ambassador CdeBaca at the standing-room-only affair. Other notable guests included Vital Voices and Avon leadership, network members, and Jimmie Briggs, journalist, co-founder and executive director of the Man Up Campaign; Susan Ness, former FCC commissioner; and Joan Winship, director of the International Association of Women Judges, among the guests.

Tonight is our signature Global Leadership Awards benefit at the Kennedy Center, which marks the mid-point in a week packed with International Women’s Day events and celebrations. On Monday, Global Leadership Award honoree Panmela Castro painted a mural for an event at the Diane von Furstenberg studio in New York Monday, while honoree Rebecca Lolosoli presided over an artisan bazaar graciously hosted by the D.C. law firm Perkins Coie. On Tuesday morning we announced the Women Can and Do campaign and rang the bell at the New York Stock Exchange with partners Avon, Time Inc. and Standard Chartered Bank.

The Women’s Learning Partnership hosted an all-day program today entitled 2020 Vision: Mobilizing for Women’s Rights and Eliminating Violence Against Women.

Ambassador Melanne Verveer gave the first keynote address, stating that governments should not relegate “women’s issues” as a special category since they are hard power issues that should be mainstreamed. When women are suppressed and the government is weak, terrorism takes hold, making women’s rights a national security issue. The main issues under the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) that must still be addressed include education for girls, economic participation for women, the right of political participation for women, the right to be free from violence, and the right to health. These issues must be addressed holistically and in connection with each other since they are highly interdependent. Women’s advocates must also seek less visible, untraditional allies like men and religious leaders when seeking women’s rights.

Panel 1: Securing Women’s Safety and Dignity: Mobilizing for a World Free of Violence Against Women.
In this panel, women’s activists from Jordan, Nigeria and Brazil discussed how governments are slowly starting to pass legislation criminalizing violence against women, though implementation is slow. Young women leaders are critical to the women’s movement to continue fighting for further implementation and greater achievement of the BPfA goals. The panel also highlighted the vital importance of sex disaggregated data and gender budget analysis to understand the true nature of women’s rights in individual countries. Coalitions of women to mobilize politically are also vital for women to achieve political presence and power.

Thoraya Obaid, Executive Director of UNFPA, gave the second keynote address. She discussed how culture seems to be in opposition to women’s rights and human rights. She argued that instead, culture is a major catalyst for human rights change and that a cultural and gender lens is necessary to bring change from within. This approach brings deep insights and contexts for indigenous change. As an example, women are working all over the world to interpret religious texts from a feminist perspective. Activists must work through the national system to change laws as well as the community level to make change on the ground. Partnering with men is also necessary to make them a part of a credible solution to women’s rights.

Mary Robinson, Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, gave the third keynote address and suggested that the 10th anniversary of Security Council Resolution (SCR)1325 shouldn’t be marked by rhetoric but with better implementation. Deputy Under-Secretary Asha-Rose Migiro recently formed a high-level steering committee for SCR 1325 and asked Mary Robinson to chair an NGO committee to advise the steering committee. This advisory body is comprised of experts in the NGO community working on issues related to women and security.

Shirin Ebadi, 2003 Nobel Peace laureate, gave the final keynote address. She spoke about the women’s human rights movement in Iran and the growth of feminism among hard-line religious women as they experienced discriminatory laws themselves. Many of the activists were arrested and faced persecution during the recent One Million Signatures campaign, but it is important for the women’s movement to be seen as compatible and consistent with the principles of Islam. By using a feminist interpretation of Islam, they can argue against the fundamentalists who use religious rhetoric to treat women with inequality.

Panel 2: Movement Building from the Local to the Global: What CEDAW Means for Women at the Grassroots.
The second panel was comprised of women activists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region who discussed local and regional campaigns for women’s rights. The One Million Signatures campaign in Iran has garnered wide international support, but many of the leaders were arrested and lost their jobs and homes, leaving them without any financial resources. The women continue to fight for their rights and are slowly forming partnerships with sympathetic men who will advocate with them. The “Equality without Reservation” coalition of Arab states is advocating for uniform reservation of CEDAW, removal of all reservations to the Convention, and ratification of the Optional Protocol. Many Arab countries are moving in the direction of lifting reservations as a result of the work of NGO advocacy. Additionally, the equal citizenship campaign by many NGOs in the Arab region advocates for laws that allow women to pass on their citizenship to their children. Many MENA countries have laws that specify male citizenship and define women’s identity in relation to their male relatives, in contrast to many of the state constitutions that guarantee equality. Recently, three MENA countries have enacted nationality laws that allow women to give citizenship to their children and other countries are moving in that direction.

During today’s CSW sessions, representatives from each of the regional groups gave updates on the progress achieved and remaining gaps and challenges in the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA).

Bader Al-Dafa, the Executive Director of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), mentioned that many countries in the region have passed laws allowing women to pass their citizenship to their children and have established quota systems for women’s political participation. Nineteen out of the twenty member states have passed CEDAW many have removed their reservations. Areas of improvement include the need for greater political participation of women and better sex disaggregated data to show where the problem areas lie.

Jan Kubis, the Executive Director of the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), stated that there was great diversity within his region, but that there were several areas of regional progress such as a substantial increase in the criminalization of domestic violence and promotion of women’s access to equal employment. However, remaining areas of concern include women’s access to financial resources, the gender wage gap, lack of social protection for women and the insufficient implementation of gender budget reforms.

Lalla Ben Barka, the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), focused primarily on education for women, stating that while the gender gap in primary education had been achieved, the gap in secondary education was the next target. She also mentioned that women in Africa must have strengthened inheritance rights, better access to maternal health, and greater participation in local level politics. African countries have had great success implementing quotas to increase the number of women in high-level government positions. Many countries have also been working to eradicate FGM and including a gender perspective in their environmental policies and practices.

Sonia Montano, Chief of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean’s (ECLAC) Women and Development Unit, reported that several Latin American and Caribbean countries have elected women heads of state in the last five years, many countries have put political quota systems in place, and have made gains in education for women and gender based violence. The legal frameworks of most countries must still be changed to give women greater equality and to ensure that the changes reach the targeted women.

The U.S. delegation to CSW also gave a briefing today at the U.S. Mission. Meryl Frank, Ambassador to CSW, stated that this year’s delegation strived to achieve balance among its representatives, including politicians, academics, and business leaders. According to representatives Beth Brooke, Connie Evans and Ellen Chelser, they highly value the input of NGO delegates that are working similar issues. Ambassador Susan Rice explained the U.S. government’s commitment to the new gender entity at the UN, ending violence against women in war, and improving access to education for girls in the Muslim world. Finally, Tina Tchen from the White House Council on Women and Girls outlined the objectives of the Council, including integrating a gender perspective into all government agencies and budgets and advocating for issues of women in the workplace, such as equal pay, paid leave models, and work/life balance.

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Join Me on the Bridge
To honor the resilience of millions of women survivors of war around the world, Women for Women International is hosting a global campaign called Join Me on the Bridge on International Women’s Day: March 8, 2010. Women from Rwanda and Congo will come together in peace on a bridge between their countries to demand an end to war and to demonstrate that women can build the bridges to peace and development. At the same time and in solidarity, women (and men!) will come together on bridges throughout the world, creating a truly global movement that says NO! to war and YES! to peace and hope. Learn more about Join Women on the Bridge.

This morning, in honor of International Women’s Day, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon and other high-level UN officials addressed the CSW delegates about the progress made since Beijing as well as the remaining challenges. He also discussed his goals for implementation of gender equality within the UN system by hiring and appointing more women to senior positions. He said, “Until women and girls are liberated from poverty and injustice, all our goals – peace, security, sustainable development – stand in jeopardy.”

A few of the parallel meeting highlights…

Leveraging Arab Women’s Power, sponsored by Karama.
This day-long session on various efforts made by Arab countries to implement international human rights norms for women, such as CEDAW, the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA), and Millennium Development Goal 3, featured activists, politicians, NGO representatives and academics from many Arab countries. Panelists discussed the particular issues affecting the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, such as high rates of illiteracy, violence against women, lack of employment opportunities, regional conflicts, lack of economic resources for women, access to healthcare, and the interpretation of international law with shari’a principles. Many of the panelists suggested that governments give greater budget allocations to women, in areas such as education, maternal health, economic resources, judicial training and implementation of national laws.

From Turbulence to Transformation, sponsored by The National Council for Research on Women, Deloitte, and Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs hosted a high-level panel of speakers, including Ambassador Melanne Verveer, Edith Cooper of Goldman Sachs, Chris Grumm of Women’s Funding Network, and Letty Chiwara of UNIFEM. The panelists discussed the economic crisis and the need for financial capacity building for women. As NGOs, governments and businesses come together and collaborate, they can achieve amazing results that transform communities. Funding specifically designated for women is also a source of leveraging power behind some of today’s largest issues. Ambassador Verveer mentioned that the U.S. believes strongly in investing in women overseas as a method of eradicating extremism and that the way we talk about investing in women must change, moving from a soft power tactic to a hard power strategy.

Today’s sessions included many statements from government representatives on the progress and implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Countries highlighted the increased numbers of women in political leadership, closing the gender gap in primary education, laws addressing domestic violence, revised family codes, and implementation of gender budget initiatives. Representatives of regional groups encouraged states to work together to continue achieving gender equality and ensuring women’s access to economic resources. Finally, the UN was encouraged to set the example by improving the number of women appointed to high-level positions within the UN structure.

One of the most popular speeches was by the U.S. Ambassador, Meryl Frank, who noted that some of the obstacles to the BPfA included women’s access to education, poverty, rape as a weapon of war, maternal health, human trafficking, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. She reiterated President Obama’s commitment to improving the status of women around the world and highlighted some of the measures taken by the U.S. administration to address these issues. Specifically, she urged states to give women equal legal rights to own and inherit property, a problem faced by many women in Africa who have lost male family members to AIDS and are left without any economic resources. She also stated that while trafficking was not a major issue at the Beijing conference, the world has become more aware of the great harm experienced by victims exploited by this practice. The U.S. is deeply committed to working with NGOs, corporations and governments on this issue. Finally, she expressed the U.S. government’s support for the new gender entity at the UN, which will consolidate and coordinate all the efforts made to improve the lives of women around the world.

In addition to the CSW sessions at the UN Headquarters, a rich variety of parallel events sponsored by UN agencies (such as UNIFEM, UNDP and UNICEF), governments and NGOs are held at the UN, nearby hotels and office spaces. A few highlights…

How Security Council Resolution 1325 Supports Women’s Leadership in Resolving the Israel-Palestinian Conflict, sponsored by UNIFEM and the International Women’s Commission for a Just and Sustainable Palestinian-Israeli Peace (IWC).
Israeli and Palestinian representatives of peace-building NGOs and members of IWC chapters stated that women have historically been at the forefront of the peacemaking process in the Middle East, but they are kept out of the decision-making process. They met secretly while attending international conferences, even when it was illegal for both sides to do so. The relationships that these women built with women’s movements around the world affected their own search for peace. The delegates also insisted that not only do feminist women need to be at the negotiation table, they must also frame the discussion and promote dialogue among men so that they seek peace with each other.

Women in Decision-Making: Gender Based Violence in Zambia, sponsored by the NGO Coordinating Council.
Zambian representatives and leaders of NGOs working with victims of domestic violence and rape spoke about the inability of women to make decisions regarding sex, which increases the spread of HIV/AIDS. In Zambia, while a woman is condemned for contracting HIV/AIDS and considered a prostitute, there is no law punishing men for knowingly having sex while HIV positive and infecting a partner. Zambia also has one of the lowest rates of women’s participation in politics, yet few women can run for office without the support of their husbands, who are unwilling to accept politically active wives. On a positive note, some of the customary law practices have been more beneficial to women than the traditional courts by giving women access to divorce, alimony, and penalizing domestic violence. Chiefs have also been spearheading efforts against child marriages.

Bearing Exquisite Witness: Women Using the Arts for Peacebuilding, sponsored by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice (IPJ).
Representatives from the IPJ, a playwright and a professor from Brandeis University discussed how women all over the world use the arts to express their emotions about conflict and to build peace. Theater works in areas of direct violence, structural violence and after mass violence to shed light on suppressed injustice and creating a “moral imagination”. Forms of resistance can be engaged in creative ways, as the arts celebrate individual identities and imagine a better future. The process of remembering the past helps trauma survivors deal with the emotions of the past and heal.

Editor of The Daily Beast Tina Brown, who has long been involved with Vital Voices, announced the first annual Women in the World summit on February 17. The three-day summit will “showcase leaders on the frontlines working on innovative solutions to challenges ranging from sex slavery to girls’ education in the developing world to women caught in the violence of war zones.”

On the opening night of the summit, Meryl Streep will join fellow Academy Award winning actress Shohreh Aghdashloo and five other critically acclaimed actresses to stage a reading of SEVEN, the documentary play produced by Vital Voices that tells the stories of seven remarkable women in our network. This production is graciously being led by renowned director Julie Taymor.

Read about the summit on The Daily Beast.

Sandra Kasonso is a valued member of the Vital Voices network. We were first introduced to Sandra in 2007, when she attended Vital Voices of Africa: A Leadership Summit for Women and Girls, a summit hosted by Vital Voices in Cape Town, South Africa. Sandra most recently participated in a Vital Voices Women’s Artisan Product & Business Development Program training held in Nairobi, Kenya. The following is a blog post written by Sandra about her experience organizing a Global Women’s Mentoring Walk in Zambia.

My name is Sandra Ndona Kasonso. I first heard about Vital Voices from the American Center in Zambia when a staff member, Betty Nalungwe, nominated me to attend the leadership summit in Cape Town in 2007. The article I am writing is about the mentoring walk I organized with five friends in Zambia.

Vital Voices Network member Sandra Kasonso

I can’t remember when I first saw the mentoring walk email from Vital Voices requesting interested people to participate. I took an interest but wasn’t sure I could commit and so I ignored it. Months later I was telling Melysa Sperber, Vital Voices’ Global Grants Manager, about my girls club and how I wanted to help the girls achieve their dreams. I was looking for ideas when Melysa suggested the mentoring walk. I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get involved and requested more information, which Global Programs Assistant Nicole Hauspurg sent. After going through the mentoring walk tool kit and overview I thought it was a great idea and passed the overview to friends for comments and support.

I mainly had to fight my self-doubt. First, I asked myself where would I start? Did I have what it took to lead this? So I hung back.

Continue Reading »

Diane von Furstenberg hosted a Vital Voices luncheon for the media, fashion and philanthropic elite to honor Chouchou Namegabe, a journalist from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who has devoted her career to exposing the use of rape as a weapon of war in her country.  Chouchou showed the room of powerhouse women that every person has the ability to make a difference, despite insurmountable odds.  Joining Diane von Furstenberg were Diane Sawyer, Tina Brown, Wendi Murdoch to Yael Melamede, a film producer of an Oscar-nominated documentary. Continue Reading »

Today, October 20, 2009, IPS caught up with Mu Sochua, Cambodian opposition lawmaker, as she traveled to Bangkok to discuss the freedom of expression in Southeast Asia.

Recently, the Cambodian National Assembly approved a new set of penal codes, which Sochua feels may not sufficiently protect free speech. She explained to IPS, “The goal of some of the articles is to restrict people making critical comment about civil servants, the police, politicians failing in their duty. It will make it more difficult even for me, for example, as a parliamentarian, to say that a minister is corrupt, because the minister can sue me since my exposure would be an offence under the penal code.”

Sochua was also asked about the possibility that she would one day run for prime minster of Cambodia. She replied, “It will be feasible within my party because we are promoting democratic ideas. I could be one of the candidates, but there are other women who are good to qualify.”

Read the full interview