International violence against women happens in different contexts and cultures world-wide, and second; that the international study of these problems reveals the complicity and systematic toleration of violence against women by governments all over the world. International collaboration on addressing violence against women is crucial in building effective, wide-ranging responses that can strengthen women's rights wherever they may live. From girls seeking educational opportunities from the recently overthrown Taliban, to female infants snuffed out pre-natally, to girls whose genitals are mutilated, to women forced into survival sex that kills them, women and girls are subject globally to an intolerable amount of debilitating violence. The goal of this course is to increase awareness of these issues, and to formulate collaborative thinking on solutions.

How do we answer claims that acts that constitute violence against women have cultural significance and sanction in other societies? How is the international women's rights movement different from the global human rights movement? What role does international law play in securing rights for women across borders? Does the current construct of international law do enough for women's rights internationally? How can groups work better transnationally to eliminate violence against women?

Representative issues of some of the most pressing and vivid examples of violence against women, such as trafficking will be discussed. After reviewing the issues presented and choosing one, or one not listed here prepare a short report describing the issue and recommendations for addressing the problem.

How much of a role do politics and economics play in shaping women's opportunities and entrenching violence against women ? How should we consider more generalized problems of political or economic disenfranchisement disenfranchisement of women in the context of fighting violence against women?

Lecture 1 The Universality of the Human Rights of Women

How should we evaluate what constitutes "violence" against women as distinguished from norms accepted in the culture in which they occur? What if anything we should do to affect change in cultures not our own? The Taliban justified their violence against women on cultural/ religious grounds. Cultural relativism involves the problem of evaluating acts that constitute violence in one culture that may be accepted and practiced in another cultural and not regarded as violence. Movements to resist forms of cultural imperialism exist around the issue of international human rights. Is there a global consensus on human rights?

Arati Rao considers the application of cultural relativist standards on the international women's rights movement. She argues that cultural relativism is too often a political expedient, used by old guard leaders to perpetuate a status quo that condones oppression of women.

[The Politics of Gender and Culture in the International Human Rights Discourse, Arati Rao in Women's Rights, Human Rights: International Feminist Perspectives, Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper, Eds., 1995.]

"Can we have an international discussion of human rights in a world of cultural difference? ... In United Nations debates, governmental declarations, newspaper editorials, and classrooms, the din of exhortation to greater sensitivity towards differences between cultural groups within countries (and to increased respect for societies elsewhere) has reached unprecedented levels.... And yet, even those who recognize the importance of cultural sensitivity feel that recognition challenged, and even trampled, by an intuitive sense of horror and outrage in the face of human suffering.

"The argument from 'culture' is employed to serve a variety of interests. In international politics, the old insensitive and self-congratulatory voices have risen to a bullying shout today, overriding all who do not subscribe to an unchanged formulation of the established liberalism based vision, with its emphasis on individualism and civil and political rights.... At the same time, extreme and wide-ranging human rights violations by both governments and extra-constitutional groups have continued to be defended, and even justified, on the grounds of cultural difference. At the 1993 Vienna conference, for instance, countries as culturally dissimilar as China, Syria, and Malaysia relied on notions of cultural integrity in their criticism of various aspects of human rights doctrine....

"Some [cultural relativist] defenses are long-lived and repeatedly deployed. For example, when Kenyatta [Kenyan leader] writes that 'it is unintelligent to discuss the emotional attitudes of either side of [female genital mutilation in Kenya], or to take violent sides in the question, without understanding the reasons why the educated, intelligent Gikuyu still cling to this custom'... he seems to be making no more than a call for a sensitive and fair hearing. But when he defends the practice on the grounds that it is 'important to note that the moral code of the tribe is bound up with this custom and that it symbolizes the unification of the whole tribal organization,' we are compelled to question the politics of such a claim, particularly when it is made by a male national leader on behalf of the social group most directly affected by the practice: women. Much-vaunted government reforms often are in reality little more than rhetorical flourishes, toothless legislation, and weak policy measures.

"Cultural sensitivity in the international area is important; it is equally important to retain our awareness of intracommunity gender oppression and, in so doing, fully articulate the painful coexistence of multiple oppressions. For too long, gender has been subsumed by the call to nationalist self-assertion; for too long, gender equality has been asked to take a position secondary to other struggles; for too long women have been required to choose between compartmentalized struggles for freedom. Feminist theory continues to unravel the inextricably connected oppressions of race, class, gender, sexuality, colonial experience, and the like, showing that (false) hierarchies of seemingly separable oppressions can only generate suspect and incomplete political strategies for attaining freedom and equality. That women often accept such misleading analyses of their predicament is insufficient reason to write off the possibility of uniting amidst their very real differences.

"[T]he notion of culture favored by international actors must be unmasked for what it is: a falsely rigid, ahistorical, selectively chosen set of self-justificatory texts and practices whose patent partiality raises the question of exactly whose interests are being served and who comes out on top. We need to problematize all of culture, not just the perceived 'bad' aspects. When we limit our inquiry to egregious violations, we limit our capacity to ameliorate human pain to just that instance of a 'bad cultural practice.' Without questioning the political uses of culture, without asking whose culture this is and who its primary beneficiaries are, without placing the very notion of culture in historical context and investigating the status of the interpreter, we cannot fully understand the ease with which women become instrumentalized in larger battles of political, economic, military and discursive competition in the international area.

As you consider the issues raised in this week's module, ask yourself whether you feel comfortable imposing your cultural values on members of another country or culture. As Rao cautions, ask yourself also who the cultural defenders are. Are there certain acts or traditions we can comfortably condemn despite cultural relativist blinders?

The Universality of the Human Rights of Women

L. Amede Obiora, Feminism, Globalism and Culture 4 Ind. J. Global Legal Stud. 2 (1999) at http://www.law.indiana.edu/glsj/vol4/no2/obipgp.html

A Reservation to the Women's Convention and Objections to that Reservation

Reservation of Bangladesh to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and the Objections of Mexico, Sweden and Germany

Human Rights Committee, General Comment 24 on Reservations

Rebecca Cook, Reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 648-660, 678-687

Fostering Compliance

Rebecca Cook, Effectiveness of the Beijing Conference in Fostering Compliance with International Law Regarding Women in Michael G. Schechter ed., UN-Sponsored World Conferences: Past, Present and Future, United Nations University Press

Radhika Coomarswamy, To Bellow Like a Cow: Women, Ethnicity and the Discourse of Rights in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives 39-57, Philadelphia: U of Penn Press, 1994

Barbara Stark, Women and Globalization: The Failure and Postmodern Possibilities of International Law, Vanderbilt J. of Trans'l Law 33: 503- 571 (2000), 546-556

Lecture 2 International Human Rights

"In earlier times the relationship between international human rights law and women's issues was not a happy one. International law was, after all, state-centered and individualistic in content. Its thrust was basically toward male subjects with only passing reference to women's inequality. It was most important, however, that international law reinforced the division between the public world and private life. By insulating vital aspects of private life such as the family from scrutiny, it ensured that community and private life were not subject to international standards. International human rights law assumed a public sphere where the state and the international system could intervene and a private sphere where state intervention and international scrutiny were prohibited. It was assumed that privacy was a neutral realm of human experience, and that there was no power hierarchy within the private space of the family that affected state interests. As critics have argued, the absence of legal intervention to protect women in the community and in the home devalued women and kept intact the traditional male-dominated hierarchy of the family.

"A revolution has taken place in the last decade. Women's rights have been catapulted onto human rights agenda with a speed and determination that has rarely been matched in international law."

[Radhika Coomaraswamy, Reinventing International Law: Women's Rights as Human Rights in the International Community, Harvard Law School Human Rights Program, 1997.]

For optional reading, you may read the full article on the web at http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/HRP/Publications/
radhika.html

Lecture 3 International Law and Women's Rights

The last decade has seen women's human rights, especially the issue of violence against women, emerging as a very important issue on the international agenda. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women states:

"Traditional human rights scholars and activists claim that this breath of scope in the women's human rights movement will destroy human rights and its meaning in the world today. An angry human rights activist once told me, "Now human rights is the kitchen sink." Others such as myself argue that the women's question enriches [the] human rights [dialogue] and is an important part of the flexibility and adaptability of human rights paradigm to meet new challenges."

[Reinventing International Law: Women's Rights as Human Rights in the International Community, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Harvard Law School Human Rights Program, 1997. (For the full article, see http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/HRP/Publications/radhika.html )]

For a long time, the structure of international human rights laws ignored the specific concerns of women. Women's issues were considered to be private matters better dealt with within the home or community. By drawing a line between the public and private sphere, and by acknowledging only one as worthy of international concern, international human rights marginalized women's issues and created a division that exists till today. Are women's rights the same as human rights? If they are different, does this deny women the freedom and equality guaranteed in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

"... [I]t is, for the most part, women who suffer from torture and ill-treatment within the home. In some states this intimate violence is not a criminal act; rather, it is perceived as an acceptable form of social control within the family. Rape within marriage is still not recognized as a criminal act across the globe. Dowry deaths, although punishable under the law, do not attract the serious attention of law enforcement agencies. Even in those states where intimate violence against women is criminalized, evidence abounds of widespread failure by law enforcement agencies to prosecute offenders, thereby demonstrating and shaping societal attitudes around the issue. In many states, shelters have had their funding cut back or withdrawn altogether, leaving vulnerable women no means of escaping their abusers. The overall picture is, at best neglect, and at worst complicity on the part of the state [End Page 370] and the international community for approaching intimate violence not as a political and a human rights issue, but as a private matter--a social or a cultural practice, sporadic and individualistic in nature. [Realizing Human Rights for Women, Ursula A O'Hare, Human Rights Quarterly, 21.2 (1999)]

Many attribute this problem to the fact that, until recently, the only voices heard at the global level were the voices of men. The exclusion of women from the public world resulted in the development of laws reflecting only the concerns and experiences of men. How different is the situation today? Is it the case that women's voices, when heard in the international arena, are heard only at venues studying and debating women's issues and not within the "mainstream" human rights debate? Ursula A O'Hare in Realizing Human Rights for Women, believes so, arguing that women's issues are "ghettoized" within the United Nations system, as international bodies dealing with women's issues have "limited resources and weaker enforcement procedures than mainstream human rights bodies." As you read about the human rights violations inflicted against women around the globe in this module, think about how different things would be if the boundaries and substance of international human rights were established by women instead.

For Legal Texts, please click here for conventions and declarations on women's human rights: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/un/iinstrum.htm

Lectures 4- 16 Topics in Women's International Women's Rights and Assigned Readings

Lecture 4. Hilary Charlesworth, What are "Women's International Human Rights"? in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives 58-84, Philadelphia: U of Penn Press,1994

Rebecca Cook, Women's International Human Rights Law: The Way Forward in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives 3-36, Philadelphia: U of Penn Press, 1994

Lecture 5. The Women's Convention

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

Arvonne Fraser, Becoming Human: The Origins and Development of Women's Human Rights, Human Rights Quarterly 21: 853-906 (1999), p. 885-904

The Principles of Interpretation in Rebecca Cook, Reservations to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, Virginia J. of Int'l Law 30: 643- 716, 660-663 (1990)

Legal Recognition of the Human Rights Abuses of Women in Rebecca Cook, State Responsibility for Violations of Women's Rights, Harvard Human Rights J. 7: 125-175 (1994), p. 130-137

Hilary Charlesworth, Feminist Methods in International Law, American J. of Int'l Law 93: 379-394 (1999), p. 379-385

Lecture 6. Valerie Oosterveld - International Humanitarian Law: Overview -

Hilary Charlesworth, Feminist Methods in International Law, American J. of Int'l Law 93: 379-394 (1999), p. 385-394,

Kelly Askin, Women and International Humanitarian Law, Women's Human Rights: A Reference Guide, (Kelly Askin & Dorean Koenig eds.) 41-87, Transnational Publishers, New York, 1999

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 17 July 1998, A/conf.183/9

Lecture 7 Valerie Oosterveld - International Humanitarian Law: Cases

Prosecutor v. Akayesu (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), Judgement of September 2, 1998, Case No ICTR-96-4-T (excerpts)

Prosecutor v. Furundzija (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) Judgement of December 10, 1998. Case No. IT-95-17/1-T-10 (excerpts)

Lecture 8 The Scope of State Responsibility

Andrew Byrnes and Jane Connors, Enforcing the Human Rights of Women: A Complaints Procedure for the Women's Convention? Brooklyn J. of Int'l Law XXI: 679-783 (1996), 707-32

Rebecca Cook, State Responsibility for Violations of Women's Rights, 147-152 (issues); 172-174 (limitations)

Karen Knop, "Why Rethinking the Sovereign State Is Important for Women's International Human Rights Law", in R. Cook 153, 159

Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

Lecture 9. Remedies

Dinah Shelton, Remedies in International Human Rights Law, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1999 Theories of Remedies: 38-56 Remedies in National Law: 57-80 Non-Monetary Remedies: 292- 306

Rebecca Cook, State Responsibility for Violations of Women's Rights, 169-171 http://www.genderandtrade.net/

Women's Economic Agenda in the 21st Century" is written by Maria Riley, Director of the Global Women's Project at the Center of Concern. The paper explores why the women's movement is shifting from advocacy that is solely targeting the UN towards an increased focus on international institutions such as the WB, the IMF and the WTO.

Some of the questions that are addressed include:
* How have women benefited from organizing at the UN over the last 25 years?
* What are the strengths and weaknesses of the UN as a political space for women's human rights advocacy?
* How is globalization addressed in the Outcomes Document of Beijing + 5 at the UN?
* Why are women expanding their advocacy to include international institutions such as the WB, IMF and WTO ?
* What critiques are women formulating around trade, investment, debt relief, poverty eradication, SAPs, oversees development assistance and national economic policy-making? *

Lecture 10. Violence against Women

Kenneth Roth, Domestic Violence as an International Human Rights Issue in Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives 326-339, 1994, Philadelphia: U of Penn Press

The Communication Respecting the Violations of Human Rights of Haitian Women before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights p. 1-43.

Aydin v. Turkey 25 E.H.R.R. 251 (1997), 251-257 (headnote), 251-257 & 294-303

Case 10.970 (Meijía (Fernando and Raquel) v. Peru) (1996) IACHR, Annual Report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 1995, 157-200; OEA/Ser.L/VIII.91, Doc. 7 rev., February 28, 1996, read only pp. 157-162, 182-193

Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) 6 Supreme Court Cases 241 (India)

CEDAW General Recommendation 19

Lecture 11. International Trafficking in Women

Although the clandestine and criminal nature hides the actual incidence of sex trafficking, it is perceived to be a growing problem since its root causes - poverty, scarce resources, lack of opportunities for and low status of women, and political and economic instability, as well as the growth of networks of transborder organized crime continue to be global factors. Strategies to address these root factors should be facilitated and supported by the United Nations and its Member States, and at the same time measures should be strengthened to discourage traffickers, protect those who are vulnerable to trafficking, offer legal, physical and psychological protection and empowerment to victims of trafficking, and address the futures of women and children who have been victims of trafficking. States should accord the highest priority to crime prevention and law enforcement policies in relation to this issue. They should ensure that specific offences related to trafficking exist and are widely and clearly defined, and that the penalties for these offences adequately reflect their gravity. International, regional, subregional and bilateral intergovernmental agreements should be formulated and enforced in order to ensure and facilitate the prosecution of offenders, irrespective of location. States should introduce legislation incorporating extraterritorial jurisdiction to facilitate the prosecution of traffickers, as well as clear extradition procedures for trafficking-related offences. Measures should also be introduced to allow confiscation of the criminal revenue of trafficking networks. Judicial cooperation and information sharing between Member States should be encouraged and facilitated.

Measures to encourage victims of trafficking to identify traffickers and act as witnesses in criminal prosecutions should also be explored. These might include restrictions on deportation where victims are prepared to act as witnesses, and witness protection measures. Victims of trafficking should have access to legal, psychological and medical assistance. Victims of trafficking should be awarded compensation through criminal compensation schemes, which could be financed through the confiscated criminal revenue of traffickers. Intergovernmental agreements to guarantee the voluntary and safe return of women and ensure that protection and support is provided to trafficked women awaiting repatriation proceedings should be elaborated. The human rights of victims should be assured and steps should be taken to ensure they are not criminalized or imprisoned. Bilateral agreements obliging cooperation between local immigration officials and consulates to assist trafficked women should be developed and publicized. Measures to guarantee the voluntary and safe return of trafficked women should be put in place, and any barriers for trafficked women to return to their countries, with or without passports or identification documents, should be eliminated. Broad efforts to strengthen training and public awareness of civil servants dealing with migration, particularly those at embassies and consulates and those in charge of the delivery of visas, should be increased, and Governments should train law enforcement officials at all levels with respect to trafficking, violence against women and recognition of trafficking situations, including identification of front companies and groups. Broad-based ongoing educational and awareness-raising campaigns, including the media, to combat domestic and international trafficking should be introduced nationally, regionally, regionally and internationally. Vulnerable groups should be particularly targeted and community-based strategies employed. Relevant cases and evidence should be collected, shared, and the modus operandi of traffickers should be encouraged so as to provide a concrete basis for legal and policy change.

By all means, strategies aimed at trafficking should focus on trafficking and the criminal nature of this activity and those involved in this conduct, rather than on the activity of the victims of trafficking, whose human rights should be assured.

Reading for Lectures:

Human Rights Watch, The Nature of the Abuse, in A Modern Form of Slavery: Trafficking of Burmese Women and Girls into Brothels in Thailand New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993, pp. 3-7

Lois Chiang, Trafficking in Women: An International Issue in Women's International Human Rights: A Reference Guide Vol. I (Kelly Askin & Dorean Koenig eds.) Ardsley, N.Y.: Transnational Press, 1999, 321-364, read only 338-344

Ali Miller and Alison Stewart, Report from the Roundtable on the Meaning of "Trafficking in Persons": A Human Rights Perspective, Women's Rights Law Reporter 20: 11-19 (1998), read only section V. Towards a Definition of Trafficking: Deconstructing a Classic

Janie Chuang, Redirecting the Debate over Trafficking in Women: Definitions, Paradigms, and Concerns, 11 Harvard Human Rights J. 65-107 (1998) 429

Lecture 12 Women and Health

Keynote speech on "The Global Perspective: Outcomes of Beijing+5 Gender Equality, Development and Peace" by Angela E.V. King, Assistant Secretary-General Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women at Panel Discussion on "Progress for Women in the New Millennium: the Way Forward" (UNITED NATIONS, New York, 4 December 2000) http://www.un.org/womenwatch/confer/

A recent Geneva session on the condition of women worldwide concluded, "The absence of a holistic approach to health and health care for women and girls based on women's right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health throughout the life-cycle has constrained progress." See Report of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole of the Twenty-Third Special Session of the General Assembly, Women 2000: Gender Equality, Development and Peace for the Twenty-First Century, U.N. GAOR, 23d Sess., 10, U.N. Doc. A/S-23/10/Rev.1, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/followup/as2310rev1.pdf (2000) [hereinafter Women 2000]. In addition, General Assembly, 56th session Introductory Statement by Ms. Angela E.V. King, Assistant Secretary-General, Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women - 17 October 2001 the Geneva conferees concluded that a significant obstacle to the realization of women's right to health has been the lack of a comprehensive approach to women's health that pays sufficient "attention to the role of social and economic determinants of health." Id. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/hivsummary.htm

Audrey R. Chapman, Conceptualizing the Right to Health: A Violations Approach, 65 Tenn. L. Rev. 389, 407-08 (1998). The economic "disempowerment" of women in African countries is not only tragic, it is also very ironic, considering that these women labor all day long to feed their families. See Press Release GA/SHC/3367, United Nations, Improved Status of Women Necessary to Sustain Economic Growth, Third Committee Told, as Debate Continues on Women's Issues, http://www.un.org (Oct. 28, 1996) (using search terms "African women" and "economic empowerment"). For example, Miss Illo, representing Niger, notes that although African women in rural areas work an average of seventeen hours per day, there exists a "statistical invisibility which fail[s] to recognize the true value of women's work in these areas." Id.

Chapman, supra, at 407-08; See also Allyn L. Taylor, Women's Health at a Crossroad: Global Responses to HIV/AIDS, 4 Health Matrix 297, 314 (1994);

Paul Farmer Ed., Women, Poverty and AIDS, Common Courage Press

Lecture 13. Reem Bahdi - State Responsibility for Changes in Domestic Laws -

Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) [1999] 2 S.C.R. 817, pp1-4 (holding), paras 2-10, 63-77

Baker v. Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) , Factum of the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues, http://www.web.net/ccpi/baker/factum.htrr, 2000

Karen Knop, Here and There: International Law in Domestic Courts, NYU J. of Int'l Law & Politics 32: 501-535 (2000)

P. N. Bhagwati, Creating a Judicial Culture to Promote Enforcement of Women's Human Rights in Andrew Byrnes, Jane Connors & Lum Byk eds., Advancing the Human Rights of Women: Using International Human Rights Standards in Domestic Litigation, 20-26, London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 1997

Lecture 14. Reem Bahdi and Marylin Raisch - Researching International Women's Rights - Bora Laskin Law Library, University of Toronto, Women's Human Rights Resources: http://www.law.utoronto.ca/diana

Marylin Raisch, International Women's Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Guide IV of Selective Source Guides to Research in International Law, August, 2000

Lecture 15-16 Discrimination Against Women, outline of paper topics due

Ch. 10-14 of Cook, Women's International Human Rights Law: Human Rights Committee, General Comment 18 on Nondiscrimination

Discrimination with Respect to Nationality

The Attorney General v. Unity Dow, review 14-15 of Cook, Women's International Human Rights Law: The Way Forward

Committee on Feminism and International Law, International Law Association, Women's Equality and Nationality in International Law, Final Report, 2000, London: International Law Association, p. 4-44.

Discrimination with Respect to Social Rights

Review 71-73 of Charlesworth, What are "Women's International Human Rights"?

Broeks v. the Netherlands, review 23-24 of Cook, Women's International Human Rights Law: The Way Forward

International Human Rights Law: Case Notes and Comments, Vanderbilt J. of Trans'l Law 23: 779-818 (1990), 786

Broeks v. the Netherlands, CCPR/C/29/D/172/1984

Intersections of Different Forms of Discrimination: Race, Ethnicity and Gender - Nov. 2, 2000, return outlines with comments

Yilmaz-Dogan v. The Netherlands, The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, International Human Rights Law: Case Notes and Comments, Vanderbilt J. of Trans'l Law 23: 779-818 (1990), 789-790

23-24 of Cook, Women's International Human Rights Law:

Lisa A. Crooms, Indivisible Rights and Intersectional Identities or, "What Do Women's Rights Have to Do with the Race Convention?" Howard Law J. 40: 619-640 (1997)

See also, Adrian Wing ed. Global Critical Race Feminism: An International Reader (on reserve)

Discussions on Topics Below

B. PAPER TOPICS

Below is a list of prevalent forms of violence against women in several different cultural contexts. Each issue listed has a series of links for further investigation into the topic. Web links appear at the end of the syllabus.

Issues to choose from:

1. Female Genital Mutilation in Certain African Countries

Female genital mutilation, or FGM as the practice is commonly referred to, is a practice occurring today in many African and Middle Eastern communities, despite the fact that most governments do not sanction or support the practice. FGM involves one of several practices ranging in severity from snipping of the girl child's clitoris (clitoridectomy) to full-scale infibulation. Infibulation consists of ' the removal of the clitoris, the adjacent labia and the joining of the scraped sides of the vulva across the vagina, where they are secured with thorns or sewn with catgut or thread. A small opening is kept to allow passage of urine and menstrual blood. Often, this opening is preserved with a sliver of wood...An infibulated woman must be cut open to allow intercourse on the wedding night and is clased again afterwards to secure fidelity to the husband. She is cut open and stitched closed again many times throughout her life for intercourse and child birth. Each time she is cut open and stitched closed, there is an increased risk of infection, loss of blood or even death...Worldwide the estimates of experts vary from 80 million to more than 127 million females whose genitals have been mutilated. According to a government survey conducted in 1996, 97% of the women between the ages of 15 and 49 in sub-Saharan Africa and Egypt have undergone the procedure.' (See incest abuse page in selected links for this issue.)

2. Female Infanticide in China (and India):

Female infanticide (the killing at birth or intentional fatal neglect of female infants) in China is a practice that grows out of deep patriarchal cultural traditions of dependence on male heirs for subsistence in later life. For centuries, daughters left the Chinese home upon marriage, leaving birth parents - mothers and fathers - little incentive to invest in daughters' well being. Sons, on the other hand, especially eldest sons, remained at home after marriage, following time-honored notions of filial piety by serving and caring for their parents needs as they aged. For this reason, a preference for male children developed in China, as it has in many other countries.

However, unlike other countries, China's population control policies limiting parents to one child per family has drastically exacerbated the problem of female infanticide in China. Constrained to having only one child, the traditional preference for male children has caused a drastic increase in female infanticide in China. The pressure on women created by this official government policy creates an enormous burden to have sons. The practice is now evident in China's unequal gender population, with 121 males to every 100 females.

3. Honor Killings in Pakistan and India

"'We do not consider this murder,' said Wafik Abu Abseh, a 22-year-old Jordanian woodcutter [of his "honor" killing of his sister], as his mother, brother and sisters nodded in agreement. 'It was like cutting off a finger.' Last June, Abu Abseh killed his sister, bashing her over the head with a paving stone when he found her with a man. He spent just four months in prison. Marzouk Abdel Rahim, a Cairo tile maker, stabbed his 25-year-old daughter to death at her boyfriend's house in 1997, then chopped off her head. He also said he had no regrets. 'Honor is more precious than my own flesh and blood,' said Abdel Rahim, who was released after two months. (See New York Times reading in selected links for this issue.)

Murders of women in the name of "honor" of the family are an age-old practice across the Arab world in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Israeli-Arab and India and Pakistan. Women may be hunted and killed by family members for adultery, sexual misconduct, or any other nonsanctioned behavior. One of the aspects of "honor" killings that distinguishes it from the murder of female family members in other countries is that the criminal justice systems of the countries in which it occurs often tolerate honor killings. In the two instances above, the system released father and brother within a matter of months for brutal, public murders, "honor" in tact.

4. Taliban and Women in Afghanistan

Half of Afghanistan's population - the female half - was under house arrest at the hands of a merciless political movement called the Taliban. Hopefully they will be liberated after the US actions for September 11, 2001. The numerous horror stories escaping from that country bear witness to the extreme violations of the rights of women. Women were forced to cover every inch of bare skin and are threatened with death if they venture from their homes without the requisite amount of coverage, or the requisite male escort. The Taliban excluded once practicing women doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals from employment, and in cruel irony, restricts women from seeking medical attention, personal help, or services from men. Girls were prohibited from seeking education, so they do so secretly in abandoned buildings with blankets on the floor.

5. Trafficking of Women Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation is an increasing type of international crime generating huge profits with low risk for traffickers. This trafficking of women is symptomatic of the change in global relationships and the contraction of economies and hyperinflation. Women are particularly affected by loss of jobs and are lured by false promises and misled by incorrect information, hoping for work and a better life. They are brought from developing countries to Western Europe. Basic human rights are violated. They are exploited in the labour force legally or illegally, forced to work as prostitutes and in slave-like conditions. Trafficking of women is symptomatic of the globalized world economic order and socio-political climate polarizations, corruption, and tensions. The global landscape continues to be defined by a constellation of dependent relationships, and intractable forces of change continue to create violations and inequities. The credibility of the rule of law appears ineffective to alleviate oppressions and address criminal networks around the globe. Alongside the consolidation of wealth and power in the hands of a few non-governmental authorities, sprout human rights campaigns and documents aspiring to the protection of human dignity. Although there is a steadily evolving global culture of adherence to human rights standards, breaches and abuses remain flagrant and deplorable. An obvious constraint on the international human rights regime lies in the nature of those who govern, and the nature of conciliatory power. Although common interests and the adverse repercussions of flagrant abuse in the international arena generally motivate sovereign States to fulfill their treaty obligations in good faith, systematic reliance on the political will and cooperation of the States is clearly insufficient. Governments have a long history of disparity between the theory and practice of their pronouncements and ideals. So do individuals. The complexities of the trafficking issue underscores the fact that there is as much a need to develop effective implementation mechanisms for the protection of human rights as there is to proclaim those rights. While legal rights do exert some influence, they are essentially dependent variables. Even when accompanied by stiff mechanisms that monitor reception and implementation, they have a limited capacity to compel any particular course of action. Rights impose correlative duties on others to refrain from acting against the interests of the persons holding the rights. Hence, human rights are of practical significance only if corresponding legal obligations are established. By the same token, unless a duty can be effectively enforced, it is merely a voluntary obligation subject to the whim of the addressee. Given the decentralized character of the world arena and the complexity of most of the issues it handles, the ideals and objectives of socio-legal reform require implementation measures that are both more aggressive and independent from existing power structures.

1. Global problems are those that by their very nature transcend the capacity of the nation-state to deal with them effectively as an independent entity. For instance, global threats to the environment; massive, persistent gross violation of human rights; and the protection and use of natural resources in the global commons are problems that are far beyond the capabilities of even the strongest nation-states. The U.N. may have a constructive role to play as a forum for the determination of the public interest of the globalizing international community, as the main U.N. organs have directly contributed to promoting the international "public interest", a notion well-known in domestic public law. The U.N.'s role in promoting participation of non-state Actors in international lawmaking, dispute resolution, and forming a network of global governance, can also be directed to solving trafficking and corruption problems. There is a need to develop a global legal framework in order to curb the power and influence of such global actors as corrupt governments, multinational corporations (MNCs) and powerful interest groups. The U.N.-initiated code of conduct for MNCs is an early example for what is advocated as the U.N.'s legislative role in dealing with certain global problems.

6. Women and War and Conflict Sexual Violence as a Tool of War

7. Women's rights and gender equity

8. How should we categorize non-physical violence against women resulting from economic, political, and social structures within their communities?

What relationship does economic discrimination have to violence against women? To what extent are limitations placed on women in these areas - political, economic, and social - perpetuating forms of violence against women around the world? Or are political and economic disinfranchisement separate and distinguishable issues? Should we be considering these issues holistically when we talk about violence against women? Lets start with Amarya Sen's "Many Faces of Gender Equality" Vol 18 Issue 22 Oct-Nov 9, 2001 in the Hindu Times . Also read:
Feminism and Globalization: The Impact of the Global Economy on Women and Feminist Theory
Introduction Alfred C. Aman, Jr.
Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy Saskia Sassen
Implications of Global Polarization for Feminist Work Gracia Clark
Dividing the Surplus: Will Globalization Give Women a Larger or Smaller Share of the Benefits of Cooperative Production? Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt
STOP STOMPING ON THE REST OF US: Retrieving Publicness from the Privatization of the Globe Zillah Eisenstein
Globalization, Privatization, and a Feminist Public Susan H. Williams
Strategic Sisterhood or Sisters in Solidarity? Questions of Communitarianism and Citizenship in Asia Aihwa Ong
As the World (Or Dare I Say Globe?) Turns: Feminism and Transnationalism Fedwa Malti-Douglas

For a general resource page dealing with economic, political, and social issues, in addition to violence, see: http://www.now.org/

For a discussion relating to the political participation of women, focusing on women's roles in Parliamentary governments, see: http://www.int-idea.se/women/release2.htm

For a list of links to issues of political participation of women in developing countries, see: http://women3rdworld.miningco.com/newsissues/
women3rdworld/msub42.htm

For an informative keynote address on the economic disadvantages faced by women, suggesting a relation between economic participation and empowerment, see: http://www.runet.edu/~gstudies/keyecon.html

These are just a small sampling of the many resources available on these issues. Feel free to bring additional information into your analysis and see the globalization links below

--------------------------------------------------------------

Links for Topics on International Violence Against Women

Female Genital Mutilation in Certain African Communities

For an introduction to the practice of female genital mutilation, see: www.fgmnetwork.org/intro/fgmintro.html

To access Amnesty International's resource page on FGM, see: www.amnesty.org/ailib/intcam/femgen/fgm1.htm

For a discussion of the role of cultural relativism in addressing FGM, see: http://www.scu.edu/SCU/Centers/Ethics/
publications/iie/v8n3/rightsandcultures.shtml

To learn more about the practice of FGM in Egypt and learn about an Egyptian court's decision to overrule a state-mandated ban of FGM, see: http://incestabuse.about.com/health/incestabuse/
library/weekly/aa070797.htm

To read about new alternatives to FGM that have been proposed in one Kenyan community, see: http://www.fgm.org/chelala.html

For a Pulitzer prize winning photo-documentary of a girl preparing for the tribal ritual and then undergoing FGM operation, see: http://www.pulitzer.org/year/1996/feature-photography/works/page-01.html THESE PICTURES ARE RATHER GRAPHIC. PLEASE VIEW WITH DISCRETION.

If you are interested in more reading on FGM, see: http://www.ippf.org/fgm/index.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------

Female Infanticide in China

For a comprehensive overview of female infanticide in China with special attention to legal barriers to addressing its eradication see: Sharon K Hom, Female Infanticide in China: The Human Rights Specter and Thoughts Towards (An) Other Vision, (1992)

This page provides links to other pages featuring information about female infanticide in China and other countries: http://home.westshore.cc.mi.us/jbwolff/mgac/
chinainfant.htm

For a view of internal efforts to secure women's rights within China, see: http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~dvess/gissues/wacch.htm

For a review of the issue of human rights in China more broadly, delivered by a prominent scholar in the field, Professor Andrew Nathan of Columbia University, see: http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/EVENTS/
COMMUNIQUE/interview.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Honor Killings in Pakistan and India

For an overview of the practice of honor killing, see: http://women3rdworld.miningco.com/newsissues/women3rdworld/
library/weekly/aa011299.htm

To get a sense of the greater problem of violence against women in Pakistan, including honor killings among other problems, see: http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/oct/pakpr.htm

For an article from Jordan dealing with "honor" and the family, see: http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/chastity.htm

To read a short position paper on honor killings suggesting possible means of addressing the issue, see: http://www.mwlusa.org/pub_hk.shtml

For a newspaper story on women's league attempts to end "honor killings" and save women, see: http://www.conservativenews.org/InDepth/archive/
199903/IND19990308e.html

--------------------------------------------------------------

Taliban and Women In Afghanistan

For general information on the women in Afghanistan under the Taliban, see: http://www.phrusa.org/research/exec.html

For basic information on the status of women in Afghanistan today, see: http://www.state.gov/www/global/women/

To check out facts relating to Afghanistan, published by a feminist organization, see: http://feminist.org/afghan/facts.html

For a story on Afghan women under the Taliban, see: http://mosaic.echonyc.com/~onissues/su98goodwin.html

To view the U.S. Resolution addressing women's rights violations in Afghanistan, see: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c106:./
temp/%7Ec106UGfYCf%20

-----------------------------------------------------------

Trafficking of Women

For a Fact Book on global sexual exploitation, see: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/catw.htm

For information on the trafficking of women and children in the Mekong Sub-Region, see: http://www.unifem-eseasia.org/Resources/Traffick2.htmll

For an article addressing the "West's Sex Industry" in Ukranian slaves, see: http://www.captive.org/Information/WorldBeat/ EasternEuropeandFormerSovietUnion/bird_July_6_1998.htm#

Globalized, Wired, Sex Trafficking in Women http://www.geocities.com/vanessavonstruensee_2000/traff.html

Donna Hughes Information on Trafficking in Ukraine http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/ukraine/add.htm

For the U.S Government's position on the trafficking of women, see: http://secretary.state.gov/www/picw/trafficking/index.html

For a statement from the Regional Asian Conference on "Organising Against Sexual Exploitation": The Dhaka Declaration, see: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/dhakadec.htm

For a statement from the Regional Asian Conference on "Organising Against Sexual Exploitation": The Dhaka Declaration II, see: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/catw/dhakdec2.htm

To listen to the experiences of women in Burma and the Dominican Republic, please select program 9820 - Trafficking in Women, available at this site: http://commongroundradio.org/

To access a statement on the need for human rights standards for the treatment of trafficked persons, see: http://www.hrlawgroup.org/site/programs/traffic/No2.htm

Global Newsstand: E-Trafficking CIAO DATE: 03/01. Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy. Spring 2001. E-Trafficking Scott Worden. The ... www.ciaonet.org/olj/fp/fp_marapr01wos01.html

USAID's Women in Development Publications
... Trafficking in Persons: USAID's Response. A Publication of USAID's
Office of Women in Development September, 2001. ...
www.genderreach.com/pubs/trafficking/us01.htm
Gender, violence and sexual exploitation http://www.twnside.org.sg/women.htm
* Europe pledges harsher penalties for 'sex slave' traffickers (B.Kennety) 8 Mac 2001
* Poor protection for victims of sex trade (L.Delong)
* Modern slavery - forcing millions of women into sex trade
* Sexual exploitation in Cambodia (Dr Wendy Freed)
* Twilight zone for women red-light workers along Indian highways (M.Menon)
* Gender violence in Guatemala (Victoria Rich)
* The plight of Sri Lankan women (Kalinga Seneviratne)
* Surgical strike: Peru's sterilisation campaign and the US' hidden agenda (Elizabeth Liagin)
Trafficking Prevention Project in Ukraine, Winrock International
Trafficking in Women: Moldova and Ukraine, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, December 2000
U.S.-Ukraine Regional Law Enforcement Workshop Against Trafficking in Women and Children, June 21-22, 2000, Kiev, Ukraine
Legal Study on Trafficking in Women from Ukraine, Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, 1999
Preliminary Survey Report on Sexual Trafficking from the NIS, MiraMed Institute, 1999 (Russian / ???????)
See publications by International Organization for Migration
Men create the demand; Women are the supply, Donna M. Hughes ??????? ??????? ?????; ??????? ???????? ????????????
------------------------------------------------------

War Crimes: Sexual Violence as a Tool of War

Women and war ... Geneva, 17 October 2001 - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) report Women facing War, a study on the impact of armed conflict on women www.icrc.org/eng/women

For information on war crimes in Rwanda: Breaking the Silence, see: http://www.echonyc.com/~onissues/f97rwanda.html

For a feature on East Timor: Raping the Future, see: http://motherjones.com/east_timor/features/women.html

For the United Nations Response to Sexual Violence And Armed Conflict, see: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/public/cover.htm

For an article regarding the atrocities that took place during war in Yugoslavia, see Todd A Salzman, Rape Camps as a Means of Ethnic Cleansing: Religious, Cultural, and Ethical Responses to Rape Victims in the Former Yugoslavia

Women, globalization and economic crisis from Third World Network
* Globalisation heightening gender inequalities (M.Sandrasagra)
* Women's Perspectives (Peggy Antrobus/DAWN)
* Double whammy for women (Boonthan Sakanond)
* Asia-Pacific women grapple with financial crisis and globalization (V.T. Corpuz)
* Women: Last in, first out (Prangtip Daorueng and Kafil Yamin)
* The globalization of mining and its impact and challenges for women (V.T. Corpuz)
* Impact of new world trade regime on peasant women in the Philippines(Teresita Oliveros)
* Globalization the cause of poor women's woes, says panel (Dzodzi Tsikata)

(B) Women, poverty and economic issues
* Women demand role in FTAA debate (M.Valente) 5 Apr 2001
* Gender and Economic Reforms in Africa(GERA): Call for Proposals
* Asia: Women do not benefit fairly from economic growth
* Microcredit reaches more poor women (Farhan Haq)
* Sri Lanka: Asian rural women deprived of transport (Feizal Samath)
* Africa: Urged to invest in education of girls to reduce poverty (Moyiga Nduru)
* Promoting sustainable human development rights for women in Africa (Yassine Fall )
* Asian female migrant workers require protection, says ILO (C. Raghavan/SUNS)
* Women as consumers and producers in the world market (Evelyn Hong/TWN)
* Effects of structural adjustment on women and the poor (Dzodzi Tsikata)

(B1) Women and global institutions (WTO, World Bank etc)
* Gender discrimination not good for growth (G.Mutume) 7 Mac 2001
* Women's Caucus Declaration
* ILO: Migration of women is a survival strategy ( Zoraida Portillo)
* Seeking a fair deal to working women for maternity (Someshwar Singh/SUNS)
* Women's groups express "outrage" at WTO outcome
* The World Bank derogates women's rights (Michel Chossudovsky)
* The effects of WTO on women's rights (Vandana Shiva)

(C) Women and health
* 2,000 women protest against GM food, blockade supermarket in Brazil
Women, Gender and Equity
* Latin America: Women immigrants, the target of xenophobia (M.Valente) 23 Jul 2001
* Japan: Steps in gender equality come too slowly for women (S.Kakuchi) 4 July 2001
* EU action plan brings gender to the fore (G.Hopkins) 24 June 2001
* Latin America: Scant progress in status of women, says UNIFEM (G.Gonzalez) 10 Apr 2001
* Women demand political will in disarmament negotiations (G.Capdevila) 8 Mac 2001
* The truth behind Sri Lanka's gender development statistics (N.de Soysa)
* The long march towards gender equity in SADC (D.Mavunduse)
* Only 8 states close gender gap, says UNIFEM (T.Deen)
* US: Falls short of UN goals on gender parity (T.Deen)
* Sita and her daughters: Women workers at an Indian export-processing zone (T K Rajalakshmi/PANOS)
* Seeking a fair deal to working women for maternity (Someshwar Singh/SUNS)
* Pushing the Women's Agenda Forward (Padmaja Padman)
* Pushing the Women's Agenda Forward - Strategies to tackle concerns (Padmaja Padman)
* Mixed findings on progress for women (Murtaza Mandli-Yadav)
* Women in India's trafficking belt (Meena Menon)
* The women workers of Dhaka (Jeremy Seabrook)

(G) Gender, media and culture
* Does communication revolution benefit women? (C.Martin)
* Fat is (still) a feminist issue (Sarah Stephen)
* The death of Diana: Love and grief in a savage society (Jeremy Seabrook)

(H) Beijing Summit and After
* Action plan to elevate women gets mixed results (T.Deen)
* Beijing Conference: Gender justice and global apartheid (Vandana Shiva)
* Depoliticising gender in Beijing (V.T. Corpuz)
* Women's conference ends in compromise (Yvette Collymore)
* North-South differences in perceptions in Beijing
* "NO" to prejudice and to violence
* The NGO Beijing Declaration
* Beijing Declaration of Indigenous Women
* After Beijing, new aid and trade conditionalities? (Martin Khor/TWN)
* Governments didn't deal with roots of poverty

(I) Women's movements and activism for women's rights
* Asia: Women far from critical mass to change political scene (J.Son) 19 June 2001
* Redefining the role of women in Indonesia (Abdul Razak Ahmad )
* The women's movement in India: Action and reflection (Urvashi Butalia)
* The contending discourses on women in Iran (Farideh Farhi)
* Women and rural finance (Jayati Ghosh)
* Women's resistance in Chiapas
* Ghezali's dangerous beat (Julie Wheelwright)
* Manzini fronts women's fight (Muharyani Othman )
* Who is Ramona? (Terry Wolfwood) *

------------------------------------------------------------------

Selected Readings

------------------------------------------------------------------

RAPE CAMPS AS A MEANS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING: RELIGIOUS, CULTURAL, AND ETHICAL RESPONSES TO RAPE VICTIMS IN THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA, Todd A Salzman

Human Rights Quarterly 20.2 (1998) 348-378

Currently, the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, is trying indicted war criminals in the Bosnia-Herzegovina war. During this conflict an estimated 20,000 women endured sexual assaults in the form of torture and rape. Although these atrocities were committed on all sides of the warring factions, by far the greatest number of assaults were committed by the Serbs against Muslim women, though Catholic Croats were targeted as well. While in past conflicts rape was sometimes considered an inevitable byproduct of war, and thus largely ignored when it came to punishing the perpetrators, the Bosnian conflict brought the practice of rape with genocidal intent to a new level, causing an outcry among the international community. Evidence suggests that these violations were not random acts carried out by a few dissident soldiers. Rather, this was an assault against the female gender, violating her body and its reproductive capabilities as a "weapon of war." Serbian political and military leaders systematically planned and strategically executed this policy of ethnic cleansing or genocide with the support of the Serbian and Bosnian Serb armies and paramilitary groups to create a "Greater Serbia": a religiously, culturally, and linguistically homogenous Serbian nation.

Serbian governmental and military powers appear to have utilized systematic rape as a weapon of war to serve their overall objective of "ethnic cleansing," a euphemism for genocide. According to a Commission of Experts appointed by former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the expression "ethnic cleansing" is relatively new. "Considered in the context of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, 'ethnic cleansing' means rendering an area ethnically homogenous by using force or intimidation to remove persons of given groups from the area." Ethnic cleansing is accomplished through the use of "concentration camps, torture, sexual violence, mass killings, forced deportations, destruction of private and cultural property, pillage and theft, and the blocking of humanitarian aid."

According to Ruth Seifert, "[a] violent invasion into the interior of one's body represents the most severe attack imaginable upon the intimate self and the dignity of a human being: by any measure it is a mark of severe torture." This violent invasion has occurred against the women on all sides of the conflict in Bosnia: Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. What differentiates the Serbian practice of rape and sexual assault from other assaults is that it is a systematic military policy conceived and planned before the outbreak of the war to effect the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from Serbian territory. On the subject of rape and sexual assault, the United Nations Commission of Experts concluded that "the practices of 'ethnic cleansing,' sexual assault and rape have been carried out by some of the parties so systematically that they strongly appear to be the product of a policy." In a follow-up report, the United Nations General Assembly asserted that it was "[c]onvinced that this heinous practice [rape and abuse of women] constitutes a deliberate weapon of war in fulfilling the policy of ethnic cleansing carried out by Serbian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and . . . that the abhorrent policy of ethnic cleansing was a form of genocide."

Perhaps the strongest indication of a Serbian systematic policy is reflected in the five patterns of rape documented by the United Nations Commission of Experts. These patterns required logistical coordination, especially within rape camps where rape was used to impregnate Muslim and Catholic Croat women.

In the first pattern, sexual violence occurred with looting and intimidation before widespread fighting broke out in a particular region. As ethnic tensions grew, those in control of the local government would encourage paramilitaries, individuals, or gangs of men to initiate a policy of terrorizing local residents. These people would break into homes, steal property, and torture and sexually assault the inhabitants, oftentimes in front of other family members or in public.

The second pattern of sexual violence occurred during fighting. In the process of attacking a town or village, the forces would rape or sexually assault some women in their homes. Once the town was secured, the forces would gather the surviving population and divide them according to sex and age, selecting some women for rape or sexual assaults. The forces then transported the remaining population to detention facilities. The psychological impact of these atrocities is evident. Through fear and intimidation, victims and witnesses would be hesitant to return to the scene of such events.

The third pattern of sexual violence occurred in detention facilities or other sites referred to as refugee "collection centers." After the population had been divided, men of fighting age were either tortured and executed or sent off to work camps while women were generally sent to separate camps. There, soldiers, camp guards, paramilitaries, and civilians raped or sexually assaulted many of the women. Generally, these sexual assaults occurred in one of two ways. The most common practice involved selecting women from crowded rooms, taking them to another location, raping them, and either murdering them or returning them to the collection center. Another, though less frequent practice, entailed raping and sexually assaulting women in front of other detainees, or forcing detainees to rape and assault one another, thus humiliating the victims and instilling terror in the witnesses. In this setting, gang rapes were frequently reported as being accompanied by beatings, torture, and other forms of humiliation.

A fourth pattern of sexual violence occurred in rape camps established in buildings such as hotels, schools, restaurants, hospitals, factories, peacetime brothels, or even animal stalls in barns, fenced pens, and auditoriums. No one was exempt from the punishment in these camps. Frequently, the Serbian captors told women that they were trying to impregnate them. In so doing, they would create "Chetnik babies" who would kill Muslims when they grew up. Furthermore, "they repeatedly said their President had ordered them to do this." One woman, detained at a rape camp in the northern Bosnian town of Doboj, reported that women who became pregnant had to remain in the camp for seven or eight months. Gynecologists examined the women and those women found pregnant were segregated from the rest and received meals and other "special privileges." Only after it was too late for these women to get an abortion were they released and usually taken to Serbia. The frequently reported intent of Serbian soldiers to impregnate Muslim and Catholic Croats, the presence of gynecologists to examine the women, and the intentional holding of pregnant women until it was too late to legally or safely procure an abortion all point to a systematic, planned policy to utilize rape and forced impregnation as a form of ethnic cleansing.

A fifth pattern of sexual violence occurred in "bordello" camps. Rather than a form of punishment, women were held in these camps to provide sex for men returning from the front lines. While many of the women in the other camps were eventually exchanged for other civilian prisoners, these women were generally killed.

[I]t [is] impossible to arrive at any accurate statistics on the number of rapes, the number of rape survivors, and the number of pregnancies that resulted from those rapes. Estimates vary anywhere from 20,000 rape survivors reported by the United Nations Special Rapporteur to as many as 50,000-70,000 reported by the Bosnian government. The Bosnian government estimated that some 35,000 women, primarily Muslim but also Croat, became pregnant from rape. Given medical estimates of the percentage of pregnancies from rape, this would indicate some 3,500,000 incidents! This shocking statistic reveals another shortcoming to obtaining accurate information on the number of rapes and pregnancies resulting from rape; namely, the use of statistics for propaganda to incite the masses. Though the statistics vary, sometimes radically depending on the source, what is undeniable is that the practice of rape, [End Page 363] and in particular rape with the intent to impregnate the victim, was both widespread and systematic among the Serbian forces, paramilitary groups, and civilians.

----------------------------------------------------------------

FEMALE INFANTICIDE IN CHINA: THE HUMAN RIGHTS SPECTER AND THOUGHTS TOWARDS (AN) OTHER VISION Sharon K. Hom, Columbia Human Rights Law Review; Sharon K. Hom

Cite as: 23 Colum. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 249 Columbia Human Rights Law Review Summer, 1992

I. FEMALE INFANTICIDE: SPHERES OF VIOLENCE AND GHOSTS AT THE WELL

"You must not tell anyone," my mother said, "what I am about to tell you. In China your father had a sister who killed herself. She jumped into the family well. We say that your father has all brothers because it is as she had never been born." [FN15] A. Overview: Female Infanticide in China Defined narrowly, infanticide is the deliberate killing of a child in its infancy, and includes death through neglect. [FN16] It "has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity . . . . Rather than being the exception, it has been the rule." [FN17] Although not viewed as cruel or violent by the societies that practiced it in the past, infanticide is now considered a crime by national governments all over the world. [FN18] Because there are very few cases of preferential male infanticide, as a universal social practice, female infanticide is a reflection of the deadly consequences of the cross?cultural domination of patriarchal [FN19] values and culture.

Female infanticide [FN20] in China existed as early as 2,000 B.C. "Girls were the main, if not exclusive victims of infanticide and tended to have a higher infant mortality rate in times of poverty and famine." [FN21] Yet despite the view of infanticide as homicide throughout the different Chinese dynasties, there appears to be little evidence in the recorded texts of actual liability imposed upon parents who killed their infant children. [FN22] Since the public re?emergence of female infanticide in the post?Mao era, there have been prosecutions in the early 1980's of only a few well publicized cases. [FN23]

Despite Chinese official condemnation and outrage [FN24] at the crime of female infanticide, and despite legislative pronouncements prohibiting the practice, [FN25] the reality remains that female infanticide continues. [FN26] Although the extent of the practice is difficult to document [FN27] and quantify, and many reports, both foreign and official Chinese, differ in their analysis of the extent of and responses to the problem, [FN28] Chinese government officials do not deny the reemergence of what they regard as a shameful legacy of feudal China. [FN29] In addition to outright infanticide, there are other indicators of abuse: deliberate neglect, malnutrition, higher mortality rates for female infants, and abandonment. In 1988 and 1989, there were reports of infants, usually handicapped [FN30] or female, being abandoned in railway stations or other public places in major cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, and Guangzhou. [FN31]

Although female infanticide in China is arguably a crime within the existing legal framework of domestic civil and criminal law, and is clearly officially condemned by Chinese leaders, the tendency to narrowly define female infanticide in isolation from the broader question of gender inequality and violence against women limits the analysis of the problem and the possible responses. Both Chinese literature and official rhetoric and the Western analysis of the problem focus on the persistence of feudal thought and practices and reflects a tendency to characterize female infanticide as the "unfortunate consequence" of Chinese population control and modernization policies. This narrow definition and its resulting explanations, however, need to be re?examined. How the problem is conceptualized filters our capacity to imagine solutions and alternative visions which might inform these approaches. [FN32] Expanding and contextualizing female infanticide more broadly, therefore, may help break the hold of the coercive hegemonic narrative about Chinese women's lives dictated by the authoritarian power? holders and promote a questioning of the assumptions of legitimacy held by the existing social institutions and practices.

B. Reconceptualizing Female Infanticide as Social Femicide

Maxine Hong Kingston has written powerfully and eloquently to break the silence in her family about the past, about the past in which women who broke the social rules paid for their "transgressions" with their lives. In the story of No Name Woman, Ms. Hong's aunt, impregnated by a man whose identity she protects with her life, is violently attacked and terrorized by the villagers. Finally, overwhelmed by desperation and the exhaustion of giving birth in a pigsty, she throws herself and her new born female infant into the family well. In the suicide and the "infanticide", there is not only a killing of (an)other, but a killing of the self, an acceptance of the diminished value of female life, her daughter's and her own. And tragically, these two deaths are limited not only to Ms. Hong Kingston's semi?autobiographical memories of a family past, but are reminders of the difficulty of eradicating this violence on a domestic, national and global sphere.

Because the impact of particular incidents of violence have ramifications beyond the individual victim, [FN33] female infanticide must be reconceptualized as more than a privatized prohibited social practice whose causes stem from the remnants of feudalism. The killing of girl?infants is a form of violence against the infant herself, the mother, and all women in the society in which the practice occurs. Female infanticide is no less than a gender based discriminatory judgment about who will survive.

At the familial and societal level at which the mother is subjected to enormous pressure to bear a son or face the consequences of abuse and humiliation, [FN34] female infanticide is a form of policing and terrorist practice of control over women to keep them in their prescribed reproductive role as the bearers of sons. Reminders of the reality of the persistence of female infanticide are present in media stories, in official pronouncements, and in the content of the numerous education campaigns to eradicate these abuses. In the insidious and implicit ideological message conveyed under the explicit condemnation of these abuses, female children, women, and men may be conditioned to accept the legitimacy or perhaps worse, the inevitability of the devaluation of female life. [FN35]

At the same time, it is important to clarify the actors involved and not leave my proposed re?conceptualization adrift in a sea of unmediated social forces or faceless individuals, institutions, or ideologies. If viewed narrowly as the killing of female infants, the guilty responsible parties appear to be the mother herself, or the father, relatives, midwives or medical workers [FN36] who might get involved. An appropriate "solution" to this privatized conception of the problem would be to criminalize this behavior and to focus on education, deterrence, and punishment of individuals. This "solution" in fact describes the Chinese government's approach. In addition to general criminal and civil prohibitions against female infanticide and the maltreatment of children, education and propaganda campaigns are the Chinese government's primary strategies in responding to the persistence of the female infanticide problem which continues to haunt the implementation of China's population control policies. [FN37]

Although legal prohibitions and protections are clearly significant in terms of norm building and contributing to a climate of equality for girls and women, the isolated privatized criminalization of the problem is not enough to eradicate the practice or the underlying ideological and structural causes of the problem. If viewed as a form of social femicide [FN38] which occurs as a result of the existence of spheres of violence against women, female infanticide would be viewed as more than a crime committed by individuals. Within a "spheres of violence conceptualization," female infanticide, the forced abortion of fetuses against the consent of the pregnant woman, [FN39] the abortion of supernumerary children, the abuse of wives who "fail" to bear sons, suicides by despondent women, and malnutrition of female versus male children are all forms of the devaluation of female life.

All of these forms of abuses against females are in fact inevitable and foreseeable gender?based consequences of official Chinese policies adopted in the context of the existing structural, ideological, and cultural realities. Nor is this the first time Chinese policies have had foreseeable and disastrous consequences for women. After the introduction of marriage and divorce reforms in 1949 and 1950, there followed an alarming rise in the number of deaths and acts of violence against women who had attempted to use their newly guaranteed "rights" to filefor a divorce. [FN40] Although the authorities were supportive of women's rights and social reforms in the family sphere, their failure to prepare or educate the masses to accept such legislative changes and policies resulted in women bearing the costs of the resistance to these changes. Government leaders cannot simply point to a formal system of law and policy to avoid responsibility for promulgating policies which have deadly gender based consequences and for failing to adequately plan for the inevitable resistance and reaction of the Chinese people.

As social femicide, these cultural practices and abuses implicate government policy?makers and leaders at the institutional and ideological level, and raise questions about the locus of responsibility for the impact of these policy decisions. Re?conceptualization of the problems as social femicide urges the reframing of a more appropriate social response.

[FNa1]. Associate Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law at Queens College, Fulbright Professor, People's Republic of China (1986? 88), New York University School of Law, J.D., Sarah Lawrence College, B.A. A draft of this article was first presented to the East Asian Legal Studies, Harvard Law School, February 6, 1992. I thank Ninotchka Rosca who first suggested that I write about female infanticide and that I try to write about these difficult issues "with a human voice." I owe a special debt of the heart and spirit to all my Chinese students, colleagues and friends. I thank my father for his many stories; Kevin P. McCarthy for sharing his enduring faith in our human/divine capacity for transcendence; the following friends and colleagues for reviewing drafts and providing valuable comments and suggestions: Bill Alford, Xin Chunying, Ruthann Robson, Joyce McConnell, Vivien Ng, Celina Romany and Bill Zarit; my research assistants, Cynthia Green, David Hyland, Donna Russell, Marisa Steffers, and Marinda van Dalen for their dedicated efforts; Debbie Udit, Pat Tynan, and Joan Berke for life?saving computer and administrative support; and Helena Lai, Julie Lim, and Kathy Williams for expert library research support.

[FN15]. Maxine Hong Kingston, The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts 3 (1975).

[FN16]. Williamson, supra note 3, at 62?63.

[FN17]. Id. at 61. Williamson points out that infanticide has satisfied important familial, economic, and societal needs. In Imperial China, Japan, and Europe, it has been practiced as a method of controlling population growth, and avoiding starvation and social disruption.

[FN18]. Id. at 72.

[FN19]. I use the term patriarchy, deriving from the Greek, "the rule of the father," in this discussion to refer to the fundamental and universal status of male dominance, authority and control exercised by men over women, embodied in social institutions of power (such as the family, law, and government) and their legitimating ideologies. See, e.g., Lerner, supra note 10, at 239. Mary Daly has more critically defined patriarchy as the "society manufactured and controlled by males; FATHERLAND; society in which every legitimated institution is in the hands of males and a few selected henchwomen; society characterized by oppression, repression, depression, narcissism, cruelty, racism, classism, ageism, objectification, sadomasochism, necrophilia; joyless society, ruled by Godfather, Son, and Company; society fixated on proliferation, propagation, procreation, and bent on the destruction of all Life." Mary Daly in cahoots with Jane Caputi, Websters' First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language 87?88 (1987).

[FN20]. I use the term to mean the induced death (euthanasia) of infants by suffocation, drowning, abandonment, exposure, or other methods. In China, reported methods also include crushing the infants skull with forceps as it emerges during birth or injecting formaldehyde into the soft spot of the head. Maria Hsia Chang, Women, in Human Rights in the People's Republic of China 260 (Yuan?li Wu et al. eds., 1988).

[FN21]. Elisabeth Croll, Feminism and Socialism in China 24 (1980).

[FN22]. Historically, infanticide was viewed as a crime although there appears to be very little evidence of actual criminal punishments imposed. However, feticide was not regarded as a crime and abortions appear to have been common. During the Qin dynasty (221?207 B.C.), infanticide was viewed as homicide. During the Han dynasty (202 B.C.220 A.D.), infanticide was viewed as ordinary homicide with the death penalty given in some cases. By the Southern Sung (1133 A.D.), there was a provision which provided for a three year imprisonment for infanticide. In the Yuan dynasty (1279?1368 A.D.), the penalty was only the confiscation of one?half the guilty parents property. By the Qin (1644?1911), there did not appear to be a specific punishment in the Criminal Code for infanticide. Julie Jimmerson, Female Infanticide in China: An Examination of Cultural and Legal Norms, 8 UCLA Pac. Basin L. J. 57?62 (1990).

[FN23]. See Dep't of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1983, at 754 (1984) (reporting that perpetrators of female infanticide are punished with prison sentences ranging from 3 to 13 years). This Report is submitted annually to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, in accordance with Sections 116(d) and 502B(b) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as Amended.

[FN24]. See Dep't of State, State Department Country Reports for 1990, at 851, 853 (1991) (reporting that despite strong government opposition to infanticide and the prosecution of offenders, the government has not been able to eradicate the practice, and the practice "persists in some impoverished rural areas").

[FN25]. "Infanticide by drowning and other acts causing serious harm to infants are prohibited," Marriage Law of the People's Republic of China (1980) ch. III (Family Relations), art. 15; "Maltreatment of old people, women and children is prohibited," Chin. Const. (1982) ch. II (Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens), art. 49. Although the Criminal Law (1979) does not explicitly forbid infanticide, Chapter VII (Crimes of Disrupting Marriage and Family), art. 182 prohibits abuse of a family member and Chapter IV (Crimes of Infringing Upon the Rights of the Person and the Democratic Rights of Citizens), art. 132 proscribes the death penalty, life imprisonment or not less than ten years of fixed?term imprisonment for the intentional killing of another. For the text and English translation of the Marriage Law, the Constitution and other Chinese Laws, see Law in the People's Republic of China (Ralph H. Folsom & John H. Minan eds., 1989) (providing only a descriptive and superficial commentary on Chinese law in general, but useful as a one volume reference for translations and texts of Chinese laws) [hereinafter PRC Laws].

[FN26]. In early 1990, Reuters reported that the practice of drowning girl babies had revived again in China's Guangxi province resulting in a ratio of newborn girls to boys of 100 to 121. Surge in Girl Baby?Killing, Chi. Trib., Feb. 22, 1990, at 19. In June 1991, an American journalist reported once again that female infanticide may be a cause of the apparent disparity of girls to boys. See Nicholas D. Kristof, A Mystery from China's Census: Where Have Young Girls Gone?, N.Y. Times, June 17, 1991, at 1, which suggests that newly released 1990 official Chinese census data "support previous suspicions that 5 percent of all infant girls born in China are unaccounted for."

[FN27]. The difficulty of accurate reporting of the number of female infanticides is in part attributable to the fact that about 80 percent of the Chinese people live in poor, rural areas where the only effective deterrent to infanticide may be the willingness of neighbors to report suspicious circumstances.

[FN28]. In 1985, Michael Weisskopf, an American reporter, extrapolated from demographic information compiled by a 1982 Chinese national census, and suggested that there were almost 300,000 cases of female infanticide during 1982 and 345,000 in 1983. Michael Weisskopf, China's Birth Control Policy Drives Some to Kill Baby Girls, Wash. Post, Jan. 8, 1985, at A1. Although the Renmin ribao (People's Daily), Apr. 7, 1983, at 4, had already reported in 1983 ". . . the phenomenon of butchering, drowning, and leaving female infants to die is very serious," and numerous official references to the problem can be found in the Chinese media, the Chinese government nevertheless demanded a retraction from Weisskopf. The Chinese government claimed that the reports were exaggerated and that there were only rare cases which were checked and corrected immediately. Shi Chengxun, Family Planning: The Chinese Embassy Replies, Wash. Post, Jan. 15, 1985, cited in Dae Chang, supra note 2, at 257.

[FN29]. The city of Chongqing reported 2,800 cases of female infanticide in 1984. Fang Fu Ruan, The Nation, June 18, 1988, at 848?49. See also Jonathan Mirsky, One Child Per Family (No Girls): The Infanticide Tragedy in China, The Nation, July 2, 1983, at 12?13 (referring to the Anhui Women's Federation analysis of infant mortality rates in its own and a neighboring province and concluded that the likely number of girls killed at birth was 709).

[FN30]. A Chinese Eugenics Society (Zhonghuo Yousheng Xiehui) was established in 1988. Fazhi ribao (Legal System Daily), May 26, 1988, at 1. Perhaps reflecting an inevitable consequence of the focus on a eugenics approach to "improving the quality of the population," 22.6 percent of the abandoned children were deformed or handicapped. Jimmerson, supra note 22, at 73.

[FN31]. See Alison E.W. Conner, Child Protection Legislation in China, Law Inst. J. 519 (1990) (citing the Guangdong Province Nanfang ribao (Southern Daily), Jan. 1981, as reporting that the abandonment of female infants was a common occurrence and that midwives were used to drown or suffocate female newborns). In 1989, reports from Guangdong indicated that of the 10,000 infants abandoned, 90 percent were female. Jimmerson, supra note 22, at 73. See also Maria Chang, supra note 20.

[FN32]. See, e.g., Joyce McConnell, Beyond Metaphor: Battered Women, Involuntary Servitude and the Thirteenth Amendment, 4 Yale J. L. & Feminism 201 (1992) for a radical and creative framework for analyzing the theoretical, doctrinal, and factual connections between involuntary servitude and intimate violence. By focusing on the 13th Amendment prohibition against slavery, the institution of slavery, contemporaneous Congressional debate, and judicial interpretation of the Amendment and criminal statutes, and challenging the public/private dichotomy which places slavery in prohibited "public" marketplace sphere and battering in a protected "private" sphere, Joyce McConnell lays the foundation for a new discourse on domestic violence.

[FN33]. At a meeting called by the Secretary General of the United Nations, attended by 29 experts from 24 countries, including China, the problem of family violence was discussed. Violence against women in the family was identified (once again) as "a serious issue, both in magnitude and effect" including traumatic effect on the women victimized, the long term development of women and children, and the achievement of peace. See Dae Chang, supra note 2, at 153?54.

[FN34]. Maria Chang reports that women in China are systematically abused and discriminated against for giving birth to girls. Maria Chang, supra note 20, at 264 (citing Renmin ribao (People's Daily), Jan. 31, 1983, at 3). Two examples she cites include a Tianjin woman who suffocates her female infant and then commits suicide after repeated physical abuse by her husband and mother? in?law for giving birth to a girl (citing Guangming ribao (Guangming Daily), Mar. 3, 1984); and the murder of two daughters and his wife by a Chinese man who declared that he was too young to be condemned to a life without sons. He was a brigade leader and delegate to the People's Congress (citing Jiankang ribao (The Health daily)) Id. Chang points out that these Chinese accounts of abuse are also corroborated by Western journalists, such as Weisskopf. Women are blamed for the female sex of the child, and "unsuccessful wives have been posioned, strangled, bludgeoned and socially ostracized . . . .[Some have been driven] to suicide, others into mental institutions . . . . The pressure on women is so great that many openly weep on learning they have given birth to a girl." Id. (citing Weisskopf, supra note 28).

[FN35]. I have suggested elsewhere that both Chinese socialist ideology and the two key social institutions of power, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese family, reflect authoritarian and hierarchal assumptions which legitimate the supremacy of a male engendered vision of the "natural" order of society. Hom, supra note 9.

[FN36]. See Maria Chang, supra note 20, at 260 (discussing "state sanctioned" infanticide performed by hospital doctors and medical personnel).

[FN37]. The educational approaches of family planning are reflected in the ongoing forums, conferences, and meetings to "discuss" the need to raise consciousness regarding the responsibility of Chinese citizens to practice family planning and to root out feudal ideas about the preference for sons over daughters. See, e.g., National Forum on Family Planning Held, Lanzhou Provincial Service, Aug. 17, 1990, reported in FBIS?CHI?90?162, Aug. 21, 1990, at 20; Jiangxi Couples Learn to Limit Family Growth, XINHUA, Aug. 19, 1990, reported in FBIS?CHI?90?162, at 32; Song Ping Stresses Family Planning Work, Beijing Renmin ribao, Mar. 3, 1991, reported in FBIS?CHI?91?045, Mar. 7, 1991, at 10.

[FN38]. I use the term social femicide to suggest the implication of the role of an existing social order in practices which result in death and devaluation of female lives. For an international example of attention to the problem of the impact of social practices on women, see U.N. Report on Traditional Practices, supra note 5. The Working Group on Slavery of the Sub? Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights (Working Group) identified various traditional practices which have an adverse impact on the health of women. These practices include female circumcision, traditional birth practices, and preferential treatment for male children. In selecting these practices as priority problems, the Working Group considered the extent of the phenomenon, the mortality and morbidity rate and other factors. The Working Group's report suggest a clear link between preferential treatment of boys and the excess morbidity and mortality among girls. It estimated that about one million female children per year die as the result of neglect. As one of the consequences of son preference, female infanticide reflects the deadly impact for female children of the value systems and "preferences" of patriarchal societies, and thus is a form of social femicide.

[FN39]. Induced abortions are viewed by the government as an important component of the national effort to reduce the rate of population growth. Abortion, together with vasectomy, tubal sterilization and insertion of an intrauterine device, is one of the four planned birth operations. For women between the ages of 15?44, the abortion rate jumped from 23.1 per hundred in 1971 to 61.5 in 1983. See Christopher Tietze & Stanley K. Henshaw, Induced Abortion: A World Review 1986, at 31 tbl.2 (6th ed. 1986). For a demographic survey, see Virginia C. Li et al., Characteristics of Women Having Abortion in China, 31 Soc. Sci. Med. 445 (1990). Many western observers correctly point out that female infanticide is not a coercive measure condoned by the authorities to limitpopulation growth, but instead is a reflection of resistance to the policy on the part of rural population. See, e.g., Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Resistance to the One?Child Family, 10 Modern China 345?74 (1984). However, this analysis is problematic because it accepts an implicit public/private distinction in terms of spheres of responsibility. See infra notes 196?99 and accompanying text.

[FN40]. In a survey by the Women's Association, of 59 counties in Shanxi province in 1949, out of 464 female fatalities, 97 percent were related to the women's efforts to get a divorce. These fatalities included suicides by women denied divorces (40 percent), suicide because of abuse inflicted upon women by their families for initiating divorce proceedings (20 percent), death as a result of their family's torture and abuse (25 percent); and suicide in relation to family disputes about divorce (12 percent). This pattern was repeated in other parts of China, resulting in more than 10 thousand female fatalities in central and southern China alone. Maria Chang, supra note 20, at 252 (citing Beijing Renmin ribao (Beijing Daily), Mar. 8, 1950, at 2; Ma Tieding, Changjiang ribao (Changjiang Daily), June 10, 1951, at 3).

[FN41]. Boys were clearly more valued than girls in traditional China. Resources were viewed as wasted on girls who marry and become part of their husbands' family. Girls were often described as goods you lost money on. In a society which traditionally and even today lacks a pension security system for more then 80 percent of the population, it is not surprising that boys are referred to as "like heavy cotton quilts in the winter; if you don't have one, you will freeze to death." Steven Mosher, The Broken Earth: the Rural Chinese 260 (1983). Rural families want male children so badly, that an education propaganda play depicts one mother of daughter after daughter naming her daughters Yin?erh("Bring forth a son"),Chao?nan("Call forth a boy"), and Lai? ti ("Come little brother"). This son preference is also present in other parts of Asia and in North Africa, resulting in high female mortality, delay in care, higher female malnutrition, and lower female literacy. U.N. Report on Traditional Practices, supra note 5, at 24-34.

General Links
Association of Women in Development www.awid.org

ACPD Action Canada for Population and Development Action Canada pour la population et le développement www.acpd.ca
ACPD mobilizes public support for international population and development issues. It focuses on the inter-relationships between population growth and structure, the environment, over-consumption, poverty, sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equity and equality, human rights, migration, and economic issues.
Amnesty International www.amnesty.org
Amnesty International is a worldwide campaigning movement that works to promote all the human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international standards. In particular, Amnesty International campaigns to free all prisoners of conscience; ensure fair and prompt trials for political prisoners; abolish the death penalty, torture and other cruel treatment of prisoners; end political killings and "disappearances"; and oppose human rights abuses by opposition groups.
ATHENA Foundation www.athenafoundation.org
The ATHENA Foundation is dedicated to creating leadership opportunities for women. The prestigious ATHENA Award Programs recognize individuals and companies on local, state, national, and international levels. The ATHENA Award recipients are selected for their professional excellence, community service, and also for actively and generously assisting women in their attainment of professional excellence.
AVIVA www.aviva.org
What is Aviva? "The internet magazine you can contribute to." AVIVA is a FREE 'Webzine', being run by an International group of Feminists based in London. AVIVA is an International Women's Listing Magazine which enables women all over the world to make contact with each other. AVIVA offers to act as Website 'host' to Women's Groups and Services globally. Contact us for details.
Blue Jean Online www.bluejeanonline.com
Where young women unite to change the world.
CSD Women's Caucus www.earthsummit2002.org/wcaucus/csdngo.htm
Women's Caucus to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development: 2000 - 2002 After the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was created to monitor progress of implementation of Agenda 21. The first 5-year review was held in June 1997. At its 55th Session in the autumn of 2000, the UN General will agree the place and agenda for the Summit - a 10-year review of Agenda 21 and a forward looking Summit conference. This will be the first major UN Conference since the Food Summit in 1996. The UN CSD has pioneered the concept of multi-stakeholder dialogues, based on the acknowledgement of the role stakeholders have in implementing the global agreements. Women were the key group setting the agenda in 1992 - because they started their work before others. We need to do the same for 2002. The CSD Women's Caucus is calling upon women's NGOs, grassroots women's groups, women in academia, business etc. to join us now.
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) www.dawn.org.fj
DEVELOPMENT ALTERNATIVES WITH WOMEN FOR A NEW ERA is a network of women scholars and activists from the economic South who engage in feminist research and analysis of the global environment and are committed to working for economic justice, gender justice and democracy. DAWN works globally and regionally in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific on the themes of the Political Economy of Globalisation; Political Restructuring and Social transformation; and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, in partnership with other global NGOs and networks.
Human Rights Watch: Women's Rights www.hrw.org/women
Human Rights Watch is dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world. We stand with victims and activists to prevent discrimination, to uphold political freedom, to protect people from inhumane conduct in wartime, and to bring offenders to justice.
International Center for Research on Women http://www.icrw.org
MISSION: To improve the lives of women in poverty, advance womens' equality and human rights, and contribute to the broader economic and social well-being. ICRW accomplishes this, in partnership with others, through research, capacity building and advocacy on issues affecting womens' economic, health and social status in low and middle income countries.
International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN) http://www.genderandtrade.net
The IGTN is an international network of gender advocates actively working to promote equitable, social, and sustainable trade. The Network utilizes research, advocacy and economic literacy to address the specific trade issues of the seven regions: Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Pacific.
International Women's Tribune Centre http://www.iwtc.org
The International Womens Tribune Centre (IWTC) is dedicated to achieving womens full participation in shaping a development process that is just, peaceful and sustainable. IWTC is an international, activist organization rooted in the first global non-governmental womens meeting held in 1975 in Mexico City.
International Women's Development Agency (IWDA) www.iwda.org.au
International Women's Development Agency is an Australian based non-government organisation which undertakes projects in partnership with women from around the world, giving priority to working with women who suffer poverty and oppression.
KIT Gender www.kit.nl/gender/
KIT Gender aims to work for social justice and gender equality. We see our role as contributing to the international efforts to bring a gender perspective to development policy and programming processes. We seek to influence public policy to be more responsive to the aspirations, needs and priorities articulated by women themselves.
MADRE www.madre.org
Since 1983, MADRE has worked in partnership with community-based women's organizations in conflict areas worldwide to address issues of health, education, economic development and other human rights. MADRE provides resources and training for our sister organizations and works to empower people in the US to demand changes to unjust policies. Based on the priorities of the women with whom we work, MADRE develops programs to meet immediate needs in communities hurt by US policy and supports women's long-term struggles for social justice and human rights.
The National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK) www.ncwk.org/
The National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK) was formed in 1964 as an umbrella organization to co-ordinate the activities of Kenyan women Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Community Based Organizations (CBOs). NCWK is the focal point for NGO implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action in Kenya. "The purpose of the Council is to provide a forum where representatives of all women's associations in Kenya can meet to discuss and take action on matters of common interest."
Network of East-West Women www.neww.org
The Network of East-West Women links women across national and regional boundaries to share resources, knowledge and skills. NEWW's mission is to empower women and girls throughout the East (Central and Eastern Europe, and NIS and the Russian Federation) and the West by dialogue, networking, campaigns, and educational and informational exchanges. NEWW supports action and joint projects inspired by feminist principles.
Nisan Young Women Leaders www.nisan.org
Nisan Young Women Leaders is the only organization dedicated to the advancement of young women in Israel. Nisan's innovative programs develop the leadership potential of Jewish and Arab Israeli young women, support their initiatives, and foster communication and cooperative partnerships among them. Connections initiated during the organization's "Leadership Development Programs" for high-schoolers are cultivated on a long-term basis through participation in alumnae activities and utilization of the Young Women's Resource Center.
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women http://www.unifem.undp.org
UNIFEM promotes women's empowerment and gender equality. It works to ensure the participation of women in all levels of development planning and practice, and acts as a catalyst within the UN system, supporting efforts that link the needs and concerns of women to all critical issues on the national, regional and global agendas. UNIFEM focuses its work at the country level within the context of the United Nations Resident Coordinator System. Playing a strong advocacy role, the Fund concentrates on fostering a multilateral policy dialogue on women's empowerment.
WEDO Women's Environment and Development Organization www.wedo.org
WEDO is an international advocacy organization that seeks to increase the power of women worldwide as policymakers at all levels in governments, institutions and forums to achieve economic and social justice, a healthy and peaceful planet, and human rights for all.
Women in Global Science and Technology (WIGSAT) www.wigsat.org/
Women in Global Science and Technology supports global networking on critical issues in science and technology for development. This includes women's formal and nonformal science and technology practices around the world, for policy advocacy and action which promotes their S&T contributions to sustainable development.
Women's Human Rights Net www.whrnet.org
whrNET is a collaborative Information & Communication Technology (ICT) project developed by an international coalition of women's organizations. whrNET aims to strengthen advocacy for women's human rights through the effective utilization of information and communication technologies.
Women's Human Rights Resources www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/diana/mainpage.htm
The purpose of the Women's Human Rights Resources Web Site is to provide reliable and diverse information on international women's human rights via the Internet.The site includes a large collection of materials including academic articles, UN documents, NGO reports, case decisions, fact sheets, research guides and related links. The site is searchable as well as organized into subject areas. The materials are annotated and many are posted in full-text.
Women's Learning Partnership http://www.learningpartnership.org/WLP/about/index.html
Women's Learning Partnership for Rights, Development, and Peace (WLP) is an international, non-governmental organization (NGO) registered as a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization in the United States. WLP works to empower women and girls in the Global South to re-imagine and re-structure their roles in their families, communities, and societies.

Institutional Members' Websites ABT Associates, Inc. www.abtassoc.com
Abt Associates is a research-based consulting company that uses proven research techniques and analytical tools to gather information and transform it into usable knowledge that yields results.
Academy for Educational Development www.aed.org
Founded in 1961, AED is an independent, nonprofit organization committed to solving critical social problems in the U.S. and throughout the world through education, social marketing, research, training, policy analysis and innovative program design and management. Major areas of focus include health, education, youth development, and the environment.
ACDI/VOCA www.acdivoca.org
ACDI/VOCA identifies and opens economic opportunities for farmers and other entrepreneurs worldwide by promoting democratic principles and market liberalization, building international cooperative partnerships, and encouraging the sound management of natural resources.
American University - Department of Sociology http://www.american.edu/cas/department_sociology.shtml
The Department of Sociology of the College of Arts and Sciences serves as a center for the advanced study of societal change, social institutions, and social processes. Its programs offer in-depth training in sociological theory and research methodology, as well as six areas of concentration: Gender and Family; Inequality and Stratification; International Training and Education; Macrosociology; Applied Sociology/Social Policy; and Justice.
Barnard College - Barnard Center for Research on Women www.barnard.columbia.edu
Barnard College is a liberal arts college for women located in New York City.
Bond Street Theater Coalition, Ltd. www.bondst.org
The Bond Street Theatre is a physical theatre company with a social consciousness, a global view and a sense of humour. It is located in New York City and was founded in 1976.
Brigham Young University http://fhss.byu.edu/wri
The Women's Research Institute is committed to the scholarly study of women's unique patterns of development, their viewpoints and contributions, and their involvement in families, religions, communities, and societies throughout the world.
CARE www.care.org
CARE is one of the world's largest private international relief and development organizations. CARE reaches out to people whose lives are devastated by humanitarian emergencies, or who are struggling each day in poor communities to survive and improve their lives. CARE focuses its approach at the family and community levels.
CEDPA The Centre for Development and Population Activities www.cedpa.org
CEDPA is a women-focused nonprofit international organization founded in 1975. CEDPA's mission is to empower women at all levels of society to be full partners in development.
Center for Field Assistance and Applied Research Peace Corps www.peacecorps.gov
The Peace Corps serves to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women; To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served; and to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
Center for Gender in Organizations SIMMONS Graduate School of Management www.simmons.edu/gsm/cgo
The Center for Gender in Organizations (CGO) at SIMMONS Graduate School of Management is dedicated to advancing learning and understanding of the connection between gender, in all its complexities, and organizational effectiveness. By gender in all its complexities, we mean working with gender at the nexus of race, class, ethnicity, and sexual identity. The Center works at the intersection of research and practice and is a resource for profit and non-profit organizations worldwide.
CSIW Center for the Strategic Initiatives of Women www.csiw.org
At the international level, CSIW advocates to change the image of the Horn of Africa from a zone of conflict to one of expanding possibilities for the development of peace, human rights and democracy with women and young people playing a leading role.
Center for Women's Global Leadership Rutgers University www.cwgl.rutgers.edu
The Global Center's programs promote the leadership of women and advance feminist perspectives in policy-making processes in local, national and international arenas. Since 1990, the Global Center has fostered women's leadership in the area of human rights through women's global leadership institutes, strategic planning activities, international mobilization campaigns, UN monitoring, global education endeavors, publications, and a resource center.
Childreach PLAN International USA, Inc www.childreach.org
Childreach, the U.S. Member of PLAN International, is a global, child-focused development organization linking, through sponsorship, caring people in the U.S. with needy children and their families in emerging countries.
CIDA/Development Information Centre www.acdi-cida.gc.ca
CIDA supports sustainable development activities in order to reduce poverty and to contribute to a more secure, equitable and prosperous world. Working with partners in the private and public sectors in Canada and in developing countries, and with international organizations and agencies, we support foreign aid projects in more than 100 of the poorest countries of the world.
Cooperative Housing Foundation www.chfhq.org
CHF works with a wide range of organizations to develop systems, policies and practices that increase access to affordable housing, community services and finance.
Crafts Center www.craftscenter.org
The Crafts Center is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of low-income artisans around the world by increasing their economic independence and supporting crafts production that respects fair trade and labor practices, cultural traditions, and the environment.
Department for International Development Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland http://formin.finland.fi/english
As a member of the European Union and one of the Nordic countries, Finland adheres to the principles of democracy, legitimacy and respect for human rights. One of the goals of the Finnish foreign policy is to promote these values internationally.
Family Health International www.fhi.org
Family Health International (FHI) works to improve reproductive and family health around the world through biomedical and social science research, innovative health service delivery interventions, training and information programs.
The African Women's Development and Communication Network FEMNET www.africaonline.co.ke/femnet
FEMNET's goal is to strengthen the role and contribution of African NGOs concerned with women's development by providing channels for these organizations to reach eachother and share ideas.
Federation of Women Lawyers FIDA-Kenya www.africaonline.co.ke/fida
The Federation of Women Lawyers - Kenya [FIDA (K)] is a non-profit, non-partisan and non-governmental membership organization, committed to the enhancement of the legal status of Kenyan women through legal aid, monitoring women's rights, advocacy, education and referral.
Florida State University Women's Studies Program www.fsu.edu/~womenst
The Florida State University's Women's Studies Program is an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental program that examines the status, accomplishments, perspectives, and development of women in history, culture and contemporary society.
Ford Foundation www.fordfound.org
The Ford Foundation is a resource for innovative people and institutions worldwide. The foundation works mainly by making grants or loans that build knowledge and strengthen organizations and networks. Since our financial resources are modest in comparison to societal needs, we focus on a limited number of problem areas and program strategies within our broad goals.
Gender Studies in Agriculture and Rural Development Wageningen Agricultural University http://www.sls.wau.nl/crds/cent_gs.htm
Gender Studies in Agriculture combines the study of gender relations with the study of rural development processes, as well as relating these to biophysical and technical aspects of agricultural production, and the rural environment.
Georgetown University Law Center Women's Law Fellowship Program www.law.georgetown.edu/wlppfp
Since 1983, the Women's Law and Public Policy Fellowship Program has enabled law graduates with a special interest in women's rights to work in the nation's capital on legal and policy issues affecting women.
Global Fund for Women www.globalfundforwomen.org
The Global Fund For Women is a grantmaking foundation supporting women's human rights organizations around the world working to address critical issues such as gaining economic independence, increasing girls' access to education and stopping violence against women.
Global Vision, Inc. www.globalvision.net
Ronald and Louise Younts founded ACSinc.NET in early 1996 with the intent of providing high quality connections and websites to the local business community.
Hewlett Packard www.hewlett-packard.org
History and Facts: Founded in 1939 Corporate headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif. Chairman -- Carleton (Carly) S. Fiorina President and Chief Executive Officer -- Carleton (Carly) S. Fiorina 88,500 employees worldwide (as of October 31, 2000) More than 540 sales and support offices and distributorships worldwide in more than 120 countries.
HIVOS www.hivos.nl
Hivos (Humanist Institute for Development Co-operation) is an organisation working to further emancipation and democracy and to combat poverty in developing countries. Hivos provides financial and political support to over eight hundred local private organisations in more than thirty countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and South-Eastern Europe.
Inter-American Development Bank Headquarters www.iadb.org
The Inter-American Development Bank, the oldest and largest regional multilateral development institution, was established in December of 1959 to help accelerate economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean.
International Center for Research on Women - ICRW www.icrw.org International Virtual Assistants Association www.ivaa.org
The International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to the professional education and development of members of the Virtual Assistance profession, and to educating the public on the role and function of the Virtual Assistant.
International Women's Health Coalition www.iwhc.org
IWHC works to generate health and population policies, programs, and funding that promote and protect the rights and health of girls and women worldwide, particularly in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and countries in post-socialist transition.
Iowa State University Women's Studies Program - WIID www.iastate.edu/~wsprogram
Since 1977, the Women's Studies program at Iowa State University has given students the opportunity to learn about women's issues from feminist and interdisciplinary perspectives.
JSI Research and Training Institute www.jsi.com
JSI provides an extensive range of research and consulting services in the health care and service sectors. JSI brings creativity and innovation to all our endeavors. We value our partnerships with clients. Our assets include strong working teams on all projects; easy access to a broad range of disciplines; and flexibility and responsiveness to client needs.
Laubach Literacy www.laubach.org
Laubach Literacy is a nonprofit educational corporation dedicated to helping adults of all ages improve their lives and their communities by learning reading, writing, math and problem-solving skills.
Lincoln University of Missouri www.lincoln.edu
Lincoln University of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was chartered in April 1854 as Ashmun Institute. As Horace Mann Bond, '23, the eighth president of Lincoln University, so eloquently cites in the opening chapter of his book, Education for Freedom, this was "the first institution found anywhere in the world to provide a higher education in the arts and sciences for male youth of African descent."
Michigan State University www.isp.msu.edu/health
Michigan State University Women and International Development www.isp.msu.edu/WID
The Women and International Development Program at Michigan State University (MSU-WID) is recognized nationally and internationally for its unique program in publishing papers, sponsoring speaker series, and providing resources relating to women and international development.
Microsoft www.microsoft.com
Microsoft's vision is to empower people through great software - any time, any place and on any device. As the worldwide leader in software for personal and business computing, Microsoft strives to produce innovative products and services that meet our customers' evolving needs.
Ministry of Women, Family Welfare and Child Development Republic of Mauritius http://women.intnet.mu
Aims and Objectives To promote and defend women's rights as human rights, work for the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and ensure that legal measures are taken to promote equality between men and women. ...and more
Kathy Morrell and Associates www.kathymorrell.com
Kathy Morrell & Associates, Inc. is a project management firm specializing in the production of meetings and special events. We offer a highly dedicated and professional staff, committed to personalized services.
Ms. Foundation for Women www.ms.foundation.org
The Foundation has a strong record of crafting creative and effective grantmaking, training, and public education strategies to create and improve economic opportunities for women in the United States; safeguard women's health & safety; and help girls sustain their self-confidence and vitality.
Network Women in Development Europe (WIDE) www.eurosur.org/wide/porteng
WIDE (Network Women in Development Europe) is a European network of gender specialists, women active in Non-Governmental Development Organisations (NGDOs), and human rights activists. It was formed in 1985 in response to the Forward-Looking Strategies developed at the Third UN World Conference on Women in Nairobi.
New Hampshire College CED Program www.nhc.edu
New Hampshire College is a private, coeducational college known for its solid educational programs and excellent connections with employers.
Newcomb College Center for Research on Women Tulane University www.tulane.edu/~wc
The primary mission of Newcomb College Center for Research on Women is to advance knowledge about women by documenting and preserving women's historical pasts, fostering the creation of scholarship about women, and promoting the inclusion of the scholarship on women throughout the educational system.
NORAD - Norwegian Agency for International Development www.norad.no/english
The Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) is a directorate under the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (UD). NORAD's purpose is to assist developing countries in their efforts to achieve lasting improvements in political, economic and social conditions for the entire population within the limits imposed by the natural environment and the natural resource base.
The North-South Institute www.nsi-ins.ca
The North-South Institute (NSI) is the only independent research institute in Canada focused on international development. The Institute conducts research on Canada's relations with developing countries and on a wide range of foreign policy issues.
NOVIB - Netherlands Organization for International Development Cooperation www.novib.nl
NOVIB is an organization based in the Netherlands working to give poor people the power and resources to control their own lives. NOVIB is a member of OXFAM and this website is presented in a number of languages.
Ohio State University, WID www.ohio-state.edu
The Ohio State University has as its mission the attainment of international distinction in education, scholarship, and public service. As the state's leading comprehensive teaching and research university, Ohio State combines a responsibility for the advancement and dissemination of knowledge with a land-grant heritage of public service. It offers an extensive range of academic programs in the liberal arts, the sciences, and the professions.
Ohio University Libraries http://www.library.ohiou.edu
Ohio University Libraries is a network of libraries for use by students at Ohio University.
Open Society Institute www.soros.org
The Open Society Institute (OSI) is a private operating and grantmaking foundation that seeks to promote the development and maintenance of open societies around the world by supporting a range of programs in the areas of educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches to complex and often controversial issues. Established in 1993 and based in New York City, the Open Society Institute is part of the Soros foundations network.
Oxfam America www.oxfamamerica.org
Oxfam America invests privately raised funds and technical expertise in local organizations around the world that hold promise in their efforts to help poor people move out of poverty. These projects are characterized by what we call partnerships with these local organizations - a unique and highly successful approach that ensures lasting change.
Pact, Inc. www.pactworld.org
Pact's mission is to help build strong communities globally that provide people with an opportunity to earn a dignified living, raise healthy families, and participate in democratic life. Pact achieves this by strengthening the capacity of grassroots organizations, coalitions and networks and by forging linkages among government, business and the citizen sectors to achieve social, economic and environmental justice.
Partners of the Americas www.partners.net
Partners of the Americas (Partners) is a network of citizens from Latin America, the Caribbean and the United States, who volunteer to work together to improve the lives of people across the region, through nonpolitical, community-based activities. Besides providing technical assistance and training to communities in Latin America, the Caribbean and the U.S., Partners' network of volunteers promote collaboration in the region's social and economic development through working relationships among professionals and institutions across the hemisphere.
PLAN International www.plan-international.org
Founded during the Spanish Civil War in 1937, PLAN International is one of the largest child-focused non-profit development organisations. Aiding deprived children in developing countries, PLAN International is non-political and has no religious affiliations.
Population Action International www.populationaction.org
Population Action International (PAI) is dedicated to advancing policies and programs that slow population growth in order to enhance the quality of life for all people. PAI advocates the expansion of voluntary family planning, other reproductive health services, and educational and economic opportunities for girls and women. These strategies promise to improve the lives of individual women and their families while slowing the world's population growth. To these ends, PAI seeks to increase global political and financial support for effective population policies and programs grounded in individual rights.
Paul Shapiro and Associates www.paulshapiro.com
Since 1991, Paul Shapiro Associates has developed a worldwide reputation for excellence in training and consulting in the fields of Project Management and Human Resource Development. We have worked with clients in over 20 countries, and have supported projects from as small as $25,000 to as large as $4 billion. We have implemented training and processes locally and have managed global transformations.
Population Council www.popcouncil.org
Population Council is an international, nonprofit institution that conducts research on three fronts: biomedical, social science, and public health. This research and the information it produces helps change the way people think about problems related to reproductive health and population growth.
Princeton University www.wws.princeton.edu
The Woodrow Wilson School is a professional school that prepares talented men and women who seek careers in public service. The School's graduate programs provide a rigorous education for those with a practical desire to make the world a better place.
Radcliffe Public Policy Institute www.radcliffe.edu/pubpol
The Radcliffe Public Policy Center creates new ways of thinking about important economic, social, and political issues--both nationally and around the world. The Center and its fellows undertake interdisciplinary research and convene scholars, policymakers, business and labor leaders, and members of the media. Its primary research themes are work and the economy, and science, gender, and society.
Rockefeller Foundation www.rockfound.org
The Rockefeller Foundation is a knowledge-based, global foundation with a commitment to enrich and sustain the lives and livelihoods of poor and excluded people throughout the world.
Save the Children www.savethechildren.org
Across the United States and around the world, Save the Children has helped to weave a safety net for an ever-increasing number of children. On January 7, 1932 in New York City, Save the Children was created to respond to the needs of the children of coal miners in Appalachia.
School for International Training www.sit.edu
The School for International Training (SIT) helps students and working professionals develop cross-cultural competence and global leadership capabilities. Through experiential, field-based learning, SIT participants prepare to advance international understanding, work effectively in multicultural environments, and achieve sustainable development at the community level and on a national or global scale.
Shaler Adams Foundation www.shaleradams.org SIDA - Swedish International Development Agency www.sida.se
SIDA's task is to create conditions conducive to change and to socially, economically and environmentally sustainable development. Peace and security are key prerequisites for development. The prevention of conflicts and catastrophes is an important part of our charge.
Smith College Project on Women and Social Change www.smith.edu/wsc
The Smith Project on Women and Social Change is an interdisciplinary faculty research group. Founded in 1978, the Project draws together faculty from a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, political science, sociology, education, history, exercise and sport studies, literature, psychology, religion, and economics. The Project's faculty participants are involved in research and teaching exploring women's contributions to social change and the ways in which women are affected by change. Members of the Project undertake both individual and collaborative research and translate their findings into teaching.
Society for International Development wwww.sidint.org
Created in 1957, the Society for International Development (SID) is a unique global network of individuals and institutions concerned with development which is participatory, pluralistic and sustainable. SID has over 3,000 individual members in 125 countries, 55 institutional members and 65 local chapters. It works with more than 100 associations, networks and institutions involving academia, parliamentarians, students, political leaders and development experts, both at local and international levels.
Society for Participatory Research in Asia www.pria.org
PRIA is a Delhi based voluntary development organisation, striving for socio-economic and socio political equality and welfare. PRIA undertakes a wide range of social initiatives within the perspective of participatory development and research.
Startec Global Communications www.startec.net
Startec is an Integrated Communications Provider of VoIP data and Internet services to the emerging economies. Founded in 1989, our mission is to become the leading provider of communications services to ethnic communities located in major metropolitan areas.
Sun Ovens International Inc. www.sunoven.com
Sun Ovens International Inc. is a firm that produces small ovens that allow people to cook using the heat of the sun!
Trickle Up Program www.trickleup.org
An international non-profit organization based in New York City, the Trickle Up Program helps the lowest income people worldwide take the first step up out of poverty, by providing conditional seed capital and business training essential to the launch of a micro-enterprise.
UNICEF www.unicef.org
For more than 53 years UNICEF has been helping governments, communities and families make the world a better place for children. Part of the United Nations system, UNICEF has an enviable mandate and mission, to advocate for children's rights and help meet their needs.
UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women www.undp.org/unifem
UNIFEM promotes women's empowerment and gender equality. It works to ensure the participation of women in all levels of development planning and practice, and acts as a catalyst within the UN system, supporting efforts that link the needs and concerns of women to all critical issues on the national, regional and global agendas.
University of Iowa www.uiowa.edu
Visit the web page of the University of Iowa - an institution whose top priorities are high-quality education, world-class research, and deeply committed service. For over 150 years, we have been educating young people who have made positive impacts in their communities--within Iowa and throughout the world.
University of Missouri - Kansas City www.umkc.edu
Visit the web page of UMKC to learn more about this US school.
University of Oregon International Studies Program http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~isp
The International Studies Program offers interdisciplinary bachelor of arts (B.A.) and master of arts (M.A.) degrees. Themes of the program are cross-cultural communication and understanding, environmental issues, and international development. A student's course of study is tailored to meet individual career objectives, leading to opportunities in education, government, law, communications, business, non-governmental organizations, philanthropic organizations, and private voluntary organizations.
USAID United States Agency for International Development www.usaid.gov
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the independent government agency that provides economic development and humanitarian assistance to advance U.S. economic and political interests overseas.
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University www.vt.edu
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is a public land-grant university serving the Commonwealth of Virginia, the nation, and the world community. The discovery and dissemination of new knowledge are central to its mission. Through its focus on teaching and learning, research, and outreach, the university creates, conveys, and applies knowledge to expand personal growth and opportunity, advance social and community development, foster economic competitiveness, and improve the quality of life.
W. K. Kellogg Foundation www.wkkf.org
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to apply knowledge to solve the problems of people. Its founder W. K. Kellogg, the cereal industry pioneer, established the Foundation in 1930. Since its beginning the Foundation has continuously focused on building the capacity of individuals, communities, and institutions to solve their own problems.
Wellesley College Center for Research on Women www.wcwonline.org
For more than a quarter century, the Wellesley Centers for Women has been a driving force, both behind the scenes and in the spotlight, promoting positive change for women and girls. WCW is the largest women's research center in the USA.
Women for Women International www.womenforwomen.org
Women for Women International is dedicated to building a world that ensures equality and justice for all. Women for Women International's definition of justice includes economic, political, and social justices that has gender equality at its core. Women for Women International envisions a world where no woman is abused, poor, illiterate or marginalized; where women have full and equal participation in processes that ensure their health, well-being, and economic independence; and where women have the freedom to define their lives, future and reach their full potential.
Women of the ELCA www.elca.org/wo
Women of the ELCA is the women's organization of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. As a partner in the total ministry of the church, the organization affirms, supports and challenges women in their daily ministries at home and around the world.
Women's Edge www.womensedge.org
Women's EDGE is a dynamic coalition of individuals and respected organizations that is giving women and families around the world an economic edge.
World Bank www.worldbank.org
Founded in 1944, the World Bank Group consists of five closely associated institutions. Our mission is to fight poverty for lasting results and to help people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and forging partnerships in the public and private sectors.
YWCA of USA www.ywca.org
The YWCA is the oldest and largest women's membership movement in the United States. Three hundred and thirteen YWCAs operate across the country, representing two million women, girls and their families. The movement's mission, to empower women and girls and to eliminate racism, is the guiding principle for all YWCA child care, shelter, health, fitness, and social justice programs.

About AAA / Join AAA / Jobs & Careers / AAA Meetings / AAA Publications
Sections & Interest Groups / Staff Directory / Anthro Links / Support AAA

Questions or comments? We want to hear from you!
Contact us  / AAA Privacy Policy

Copyright © 1996-2006, American Anthropological Association
2200 Wilson Blvd, Suite 600, Arlington, VA 22201; phone 703/528-1902; fax 703/528-3546