UNCSW 56th Session Addresses Rural Women and Their Role in Poverty Eradication

The fifty-sixth session of the Commission on the Status of Women will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from Monday, 27 February to Friday, 9 March 2012.

The themes include:

1.) Priority theme:

The empowerment of rural women and their role in poverty and hunger eradication, development and current challenges

2.) Review theme:

Financing for gender equality and the empowerment of women (agreed conclusions from the fifty-second session)

3.) Emerging issue:

Engaging young women and men, girls and boys, to advance gender equality

AWE has endeavored to build an integrated program around the 56th session of UNCSW for our “first-timers” as well as returning attendees.  This issue of the Journal focuses on the schedule of the events planned, including side-events being co-sponsored by AWE, and the new attendees coming from numerous African countries as well as the United States.

The AWE Program at UNCSW will begin Friday, February 24 and continue through midday on Saturday, March 4.  This time period allows for
orientation on the first weekend and a vital wrap-up period the following Saturday for new, sponsored attendees.
Our program will be hosted by the Episcopal Church Center and will include workshops, discussion and worship which will add to the rich, varied activities put on by the NGO CSW committee here in New York http://www.ngocsw.org/

 

16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence- November 25 to December 10

The theme for this year’s campaign is From Peace in the Home to Peace in the World: Let’s Challenge Militarism and End Violence Against Women

During the 16 days of activism, churches will be encouraged to participate through prayer, special services to mark the occasion, sermons to emphasize the issue, speakers or films at adult forums, articles written in church and diocesan publications, and many other ways. A blogsite is available http://episcopal16days.wordpress.com/?blogsub=confirming#subscribe-blog so you can share what you are doing. Also other resources can be found here including prayers and a liturgy created by the Rev Barbara Hutchinson and used last year in the Diocese of Long Island.

The most important document to read on this year’s campaign is –Report on Intersections of Violence Against Women and Militarism — The chapter headings, which will give you an idea of the issues covered in the campaign, are:

Violence Against Women, Militarism and Feminism- 0verview

Towards a Feminine Critique of Militarism- there are strategies listed for each of these

• Political violence against women

• Proliferation of small arms and their Role in Domestic Violence

• Sexual violence during and post conflict

• Sexual violence by state actors ie peace keepers

• Bringing together the women’s, peace and human rights movements

The report is found here in full http://cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter/publications/vawmilitarism2011.pdf

Another more in depth resource on Militarism and VAW can be found here http://16dayscwgl.rutgers.edu/militarism-vaw

We also recommend using the discussion guide for Women War and Peace as a resource for the 16 days campaign as the same issues are addressed in the films.

And finally, go to the 16 days website here http://16dayscwgl.rutgers.edu/