Women's League President Elected

From: IOL
"The new executive of the ANC Women's League was elected on Sunday with Gauteng education MEC Angie Motshekga being declared the new president of the league.

In a statement, ANCWL said the race was contested between League secretary general Bathabile Dlamini and Motshekga.

"Motshekga won with 1826 votes," ANCWYL said.

Motshekga is expected to give her acceptance speech later on Sunday, the last day of the Women's League conference in Bloemfontein.

The four-day conference started on Thursday.

Nosiphiwo Mwambi from the Western Cape was elected as the new deputy president, Sisisi Tolashe as secretary general, Mpai Mogori as deputy secretary-general and Hlengiwe Mkhize as treasurer. - Sapa"

Britain's "Female Bishop" Question

Hot on the heels of the appointment of Australia's first female bishops, Britain finds itself struggling with the question - to consecrate or not to consecrate.

The question is to be debated at the General Synod of the Church of England.

From: The Independent: "Deborah Orr: A man of God we should all be supporting":
"Controversy has been rumbling since the ordination of women was accepted by the Anglican Church in 1992. But major hostilities began in the US in 2003 with the consecration of the out-and-proud Episcopalian Gene Robinson as the Bishop of New Hampshire. Critical eyes turned next to Canada, when one diocese authorised a gay blessing service. Last month, London was the focus of the wrath of traditionalists, when the flamboyant wedding-style blessing of two gay priests was criticised by the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres, as beyond the narrow remit that the Church of England permits for such ceremonies.

Such is the distaste for the goings-on in the US, Canada, and Britain that 300 bishops decided to boycott the Lambeth Conference, the once-a-decade meeting of the Anglican Church worldwide which takes place next week in Canterbury. Styling themselves as the Global Anglican Future Conference, the group of evangelicals held an alternative meeting in Jerusalem last week. They decided to reject links with Britain, the US and Canada, and to form a breakaway Church, the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, which would in effect become some kind of global anti-homosexual Protestant sect.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, is naturally against such a move. As the leader of the Anglican Church worldwide, he condemns the group as lacking "legitimacy, authority and integrity". He stands, in effect, against the establishment of a church of homophobic Anglicans, although such is the sensitivity of the issue that he is quite unable to express his worries in such strident terms. Even the words he has so far chosen are considered, for him, to be unusually direct and uncompromising.

More than 1,300 clergy have written to Rowan Williams and to the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, threatening to defect to the Catholic Church, which still does not allow the ordination of women or gays, if two votes at the General Synod this weekend result in the ordination of female bishops."


From: This Is London: 1300 Clergy Threaten To Defect In the Women's Bishop Row:
"More than 1,300 clergy have written to the Archbishop of Canterbury saying they will defect from the Church of England if women are consecrated as bishops. Members of the group, which includes 11 serving bishops, say they will take decisive action if two votes are passed this weekend to allow female bishops. At the same time 1,276 women clergy, 1,012 male clergy and 1,916 lay church members who support women bishops signed a statement objecting to the prospect of ' discriminatory' legislation to safeguard opponents."


You can read more on this:
Church Leaders Fear Summer Strife .. - by Riazatt Butt in The Guardian - 17th June 2008
"A motion from the house of bishops suggests a code of practice, which would mean rescinding the Episcopal Ministry Act of Synod 1993. Annulling this act, which promised provision for those opposed to women priests, is seen by some as a move that could split the church. There will be special arrangements for those unable, as a matter of conviction, to receive the ministry of women as bishops or priests, but opponents fear they will not be enough. The first female clergy were ordained in 1994 and the historic event led to £27.4m in compensation being paid out to clergy who left as a result. Out of 512 who left, 72 returned. There are no proposals for similar financial arrangements in the future."

Church faithful may block move for female bishops .... - by Ruth Gledhill, Times Online:
"Sources at the General Synod, which began meeting in York last night to discuss the ordination of women bishops, predicted that many lay members would try to scupper the move in an attempt to preserve the unity of the Church. The 207 lay members of the synod have traditionally been the most conservative house of all. The 205 clergy are less conservative than the laity, but more so than the bishops, who are dominated by the Church’s liberal wing. The debate on women bishops, which takes place this morning, with the vote on Monday, threatens to divide the Church more deeply than the ordination of women priests or the conflict over homosexuality."

Church in the lurch ..... - The Independent:
"Some 1,333 vicars and other clerics have written to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York threatening to leave the church if its General Synod presses ahead this weekend with the idea of women bishops. Ho-hum, says the rest of society, for whom gender and sexuality equality has become an unquestioning desideratum, if not an always practised norm, over the past decades. For those with a secularist world view such debates have become a yawning irrelevance.

It would be easy to dismiss all this internal bickering in a club with a declining membership. But there are 77 million Anglicans across the globe, a number which, in contrast to steadily falling numbers of churchgoers in the UK, is elsewhere growing rapidly. It has an important role in a world gripped by violent religious fundamentalism in which good religion is a far more effective tool to combat bad religion than a disdainful or dismissive secularism."

Clergy threaten to leave Church - Turkish Press:
"Citing a copy of the letter that it had seen, the newspaper reported that the signatories, 60 percent of whom are serving clergy, including 11 bishops, will only accept the plans if there are areas where worship is led exclusively by males. On Monday, more than 4,000 Anglicans, including 1,276 women clergy and 1,012 male clergy, gave their support to the proposals for women bishops without special legislation to protect opponents of the move."

Anglican defection threat ... - by Ruth Gledhill, The Australian:
"The church's moderate centre is being pressured as never before by evangelicals opposed to gays and by traditionalists opposed to women's ordination. The crisis is the most serious since the Reformation devastated the Roman Catholic Church in England in the 16thcentury.

The General Synod, the church's governing body, meets on Friday in York, where clergy will decide whether legislation to consecrate women should be introduced, and whether it should have legal safeguards for traditionalists or a simple voluntary code to protect them. The signatories to the letter - who represent 10 per cent of practising clergy and hundreds of recently retired priests still active in the church - will accept women bishops only if they have a legal right to separate havens within the church. "

Can the AB of Canterbury prevent a schism - Belfast Telegraph:
"But the debate between the religion of the present and the past is not couched in such terms. Its language is that of theology and social justice. "The argument for women bishops," says Christina Rees, of Women and the Church, who is a member of the Synod meeting in York today, "is simply that God created men and women equal". Equal but different, says Rod Thomas, of the conservative evangelical group, Reform."

Three options are before the meeting. The one endorsed by the House of Bishops, which its critics describe as a "like it or lump it" option, proposes the change be introduced with a code of conduct on how to accommodate the conservative dissenters. It would abolish the practice of "flying bishops" introduced when women were first ordained in 1994 to minister to opponents of women priests. The other clear proposal is for "non-geographical" dioceses to minister to such priests and parishes. Opponents say they would be a church within a church."

500 clergy set to desert Church .... - by Ruth Gledhill, Times Online:
"Bishops voted narrowly to approve the consecration of women, without enshrining the legal safeguards sought by traditionalists. Instead, dioceses that appoint a woman bishop will merely be asked to sign a voluntary code of practice to ensure that Anglo-Catholics who oppose the move are not discriminated against or forced to act against their conscience. The Times has learnt that some traditionalists are seeking legal advice on whether it will be possible to sue the Church for constructive dismissal under employment law, should the synod vote in favour of the plans. They are angry that they were promised safeguards when the synod voted to ordain women priests in 1992 and believe that they have been betrayed."

Church of England clergy plan mass exit .... - by Ruth Gledhill, Times Online:
"More than 1,300 clergy, including 11 serving bishops, have written to the archbishops of Canterbury and York to say that they will defect from the Church of England if women are consecrated bishops. As the wider Anglican Communion fragments over homosexuality, England’s established Church is moving towards its own crisis with a crucial vote on women bishops this weekend. "

The crisis developing within the English Church bears watching ....

India's "lack" of girls

A recent study has noted the decline in the number of girls being born AND surviving in India. If this trend continues, there will be - in the not too distant future - a distinct lack of girls available for the ever growing male population. This will most likely manifest itself in the lack of available brides and a decline in population. Naturally, this would enhance the "value" placed upon girls - but would it necessarily ease the burden of the provision of a dowry that accompanies many marriages. With the possibility of a decrease in the number of brides available - maybe it will be the turn of the groom to provide a suitable inducement.

But what of the future for India's population on a whole - how will the decreasing level of girls impact upon the future of India. As I see it, this will seriously impact on the growth of India's population - it will stagnate and then seriously decline - a point from which there may be no turning back.

This subject has become one of great interest in the media in recent times:

From the BBC News:
"A report by the UK charity says increasing numbers of female foetuses were being aborted and baby girls deliberately neglected and left to die. In one site in the Punjab state, there are just 300 girls to every 1,000 boys among higher caste families, it says.

The document says that Indian woman are put under intense pressure to produce sons, in a culture that predominantly views girls as a burden rather than an asset. It says many families now use ultrasound scans and abort female foetuses, despite the existence of the 1994 law banning gender selection and selective abortion. Some 10 million female foetuses have been aborted in India in the past 20 years, the British medical journal the Lancet has said."

From VOA News:
"The report "Disappearing Daughters" has been conducted by ActionAid and Canada's International Development Research Center.

It says in three of five states surveyed, the number of girls had declined to less than 800 for every 1000 boys compared to the nationwide average of 950 girls. The report says the decline is happening in both rural and prosperous urban areas, showing that the preference for sons cut across economic and social classes.

The "Disappearing Daughters" report has called on the government to ensure tougher enforcement of laws to check the practice of aborting female fetuses. But it says that in the long term, cultural attitudes need to change."

From Yahoo News:
" The report called on the Indian government for tougher enforcement of laws banning pre-natal sex detection and sex-selective abortion, describing their efforts to implement the legisation so far as "woefully inadequate".

Attitudes towards girls as financial burdens for families because of dowry pressures also need to be challenged, while the quality of and access to public health care and state-run schools had to improved, it added.

The report said neglect in poorer areas with less access to public health facilities affected survival rates, but declining ratios in better-served urban areas was down to parental choices about the number and sex of offspring.

Birth order also affected girls' survival rates: all survey sites showed a decline in the number of girls among second-born children; in three sites there were fewer than 750 girls for every 1,000 boys."

The plight of girls in India is steadily reaching crisis point - and something needs to be done soon to address this issue - before it is too late.

Here's something to think about in the meantime - its an ancient Chinese "Song" - but highly relevant:

“When a son is born,
Let him sleep on the bed,
Clothe him with fine clothes,
And give him jade to play...
When a daughter is born,
Let her sleep on the ground,
Wrap her in common wrappings,
And give broken tiles to play...”

Politics & Nigerian Women

Yet another article from the allAfrica website giving support to women to take an active role in local government and politics.

This story is from Hilda Esin, in Nigeria:

Nigeria: Group Applauds Women Participation in Politics
"A non-governmental organisation, Gender and Development Action (GADA), has affirmed that the number of women's participation during the 2007 elections in the South West was higher than the previous elections."

The Director of GADA (Gender and Development Action) Agina-Ude revealed that "during the election the project group supported the women in training on feminist transformative leadership to empower them, and embarked on various activities such as sensitisation and constituency building exercise in all the six states in South West Nigeria.

Agina-Ude commended the results of women gains at the local government election which recorded women 8.6 per cent, representing 2 per cent increase compared to 2003, albeit still a far cry from the minimum of 30 per cent or the desirable 50 per cent.

A breakdown of the figures showed that women were elected into the following positions: five Deputy Governors, 54 members of state Assemblies, 27 in the House of Representatives, and 9 senators.

According to the GADA official, over 110 women aspired and fought through the party primaries and stood gallantly as candidates for the presidency, governorship as well as national and state legislatures, a departure from previous elections where there were few women candidates."

Support for Canadian Women

From: Status of Women Canada:
"Status of Women Canada (SWC) is a federal government organization that promotes the full participation of women in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada. SWC works to advance equality for women and to remove the barriers to women's participation in society, putting particular emphasis on increasing women's economic security and eliminating violence against women."

Recently, two organisations in the Vancouver area, dedicated to helping women and girls be able to leave abusive relationships, and then develop new skills to assist them leading their own lives, received a well needed financial boost from the Canadian Government.

"The two organizations will receive a total of $483,312 in funding over three years from the Women's Community Fund of the Women's Program of Status of Women Canada. This Fund supports eligible organizations in carrying out projects at the local, regional and national level. To qualify, the initiatives must work toward the equality and full participation of women in the economic, social and democratic life of Canada.

As announced in Budget 2008, the Government of Canada will develop an Action Plan to advance equality for women by improving their economic and social conditions, and their participation in democratic life."

Source: CNW Group

Ingrid Betancourt

Finally - after six long years, Ingrid Betancourt has been released from her jungle prison. Along with a number of other prominent people, Betancourt had been taken hostage by FARC, one of the oldest surviving guerrilla armies in South America.

From the Times Online:
"To the rest of the world, Betancourt, 46, a Colombian politician, may have been just one of dozens of VIP hostages held in the jungle by Farc, Latin America’s oldest surviving guerrilla army. But this “Joan of Arc of the Andes”, as she has been dubbed by the Colombian press, was French-educated and a dual national by a first marriage.

For six years her epic ordeal of solitude and survival has caught the popular imagination in France, her image as resonant as Madeleine McCann’s in this country. Betancourt’s portrait has been suspended from hundreds of town halls, including in Paris, her spirit of resistance and force of character touching a nation as details of her plight filtered out sporadically in videos, letters and accounts from fellow captives.

Throughout this time she attracted the full might of the French Establishment — first from Dominique de Villepin, the former Prime Minister, and later from Sarkozy, who even pledged to win her freedom in his election-night victory speech last year. "

Betancourt had been taken hostage in 2002 - she was one of 2000.
"Betancourt had made four attempts to escape, was chained by the neck day and night and often tortured. She remained defiant, acting as leader of her hostage group, fighting for small privileges.

Betancourt said that she drew great strength during her years in the jungle from hearing the voice of her mother, a former beauty queen, in broadcasts to her on the radio."

Swinfen Charitable Trust

This story is a true testament to how the internet can be used to save lives.

Picture this: two septuagenarians sitting pensively in front of three computer screens, waiting for the email to arrive. This is Lord and Lady Swinfen - and the emails upon which they are awaiting come from war-torn areas around the globe. These emails are a call for medical assistance - from doctors and other medical professionals - struggling with the influx of sick and injured, battling on in extreme conditions and often without the medical technology we often take for granted.

From: The Florence Nightingales of the Internet:
"Every day a small charity set up by Lord and Lady Swinfen uses email and digital photography to put patients from some of the most deprived and war-torn regions of the world in touch with globally renowned surgeons and consultants. Last year alone the charity, which was established in 1998 and is funded almost entirely by the couple, helped more than 400 people.

From their home near Canterbury, Lord and Lady Swinfen spend almost every waking hour monitoring three computer screens. The moment an email comes in from a doctor explaining symptoms with photographs and X-rays, they forward it on to a specialist in that field – every one of whom, like the Swinfens, gives their time for free.

The way in which the charity works is simple. The Swinfens take normal digital cameras – bought from high-street shops for no more than £200 – and train medics in war-torn countries how to download the images they take and email them to the charity's headquarters. Requests for help are then forwarded on to volunteer specialists who either email their advice back, or, in urgent cases, call the medic. Hospitals too poor to afford complicated video links have sudden access to a wealth of expertise. Thanks to the Swinfens' work, just under 140 hospitals in regions as far flung as Laos and Lithuania are now being aided by 382 eminent experts from the UK, US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The pair speak with unabashed admiration for the doctors on the other end of the emails, such as the British medic working out of the back of a car in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan and the French consultant in Antarctica. But they reserved particular praise for the Iraqis who persist in peril. So far two of their network in the country have been murdered.

Lord Swinfen, a former Army officer who spent many years with the John Grooms Association for the Disabled, was working in Bangladesh at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed in 1998 when he met Lt-Col David Vassallo on a trip home. The Army surgeon had thought up the idea of transmitting images back from Bosnia to Surgeon Commander Peter Buxton at the (since closed) Royal Haslar military hospital in Portsmouth. Lord Swinfen took the idea on board in Dhaka and, within a year, two other hospitals – in Nepal and the Solomon Islands – had embraced telemedicine.

Their reputation has spread by word of mouth, and they receive daily offers of help from doctors or pleas for aid from hospitals. Their work often mirrors the trouble spots of the day. Current requests come from Zimbabwe, Burma and the earthquake-hit region of south-western China."

Learn more about The Swinfen Charitable Trust

Girls and Conflict

Ian Wishart (Plan Australia) published a rather interesting look at girls in areas of conflict - and by that I mean girls who live in areas dominated by armed conflict. I would like to share this with you.

Helping girls best way to keep a lid on conflict
Ian Wishart - June 30, 2008

"Can you imagine your eight-year-old daughter engaged in battle with a gun? In wartime girls are drawn into violence in many ways. They can be forced from their homes, separated from their families and lose the chance of an education. They can be abducted by armed groups and forced to act as porters, camp domestics, combatants, spies and even soldiers' "wives". Of the estimated 300,000 child soldiers in the world today, approximately 100,000 are girls.

Even after war, recovery can be slow and painful. Boys usually gain preference in the recovering school system as girls are expected to care for younger siblings, marry or complete domestic chores. Some will even have their own children to look after, children conceived though sexual violence. These girls, and their children, will face discrimination and stigma in addition to the struggle to begin a post-conflict life.

Children do not start wars yet they are most vulnerable to its deadly effects. War violates every right a child has, the right to life, the right to be with family, the right to grow and develop their personality and the right to be nurtured and protected.War exacerbates injustices. This is particularly so for girls. Girls frequently face discrimination, exclusion, control, and various levels of emotional and physical violence in times of peace."

Plan has written the second part of its report - "State Of The World's Girls". I would like to submit my opinion on the article once I have read and explored this much further. For now, please read Ian's article in the Sydney Morning Herald in full.

Women in Local Government

I would like to post for you some extracts from an opinion piece written by Samuel Tarawally, which appeared on the allAfrica website (30th June 2008) - I think it should be essential reading.

Sierra Leone: Women in Local Government
Concord Times (Freetown)
Opinion: - 30 June 2008 - Posted to the web 30 June 2008
Author: Samuel Tarawally

"Political participation in any form is the action to participate and vie for power. It is the access to the guarantee of fairness and justice in peoples lives. It is stimulating, challenging and an opportunity for both women and men to contribute to their society. And no matter what issues really influences society, political participation is the effort to expend, to achieve power and in-turn derive a change, a policy or result, which is in the best interest of society.

From ancient Africa, women have assumed power in their own right. Women ruled in early Austronesian societies from Polynesia to Madagascar including the Philippines and Indonesia even in West Africa. This is no strange phenomena. Women participation all over the world, and the consequent impact it will have on our political cultures, is thus at a crucial transitional point. Growing recognition and acceptance that women bring different and unique talents to the world of politics has resulted in women making remarkable headway in different political structures during the latter years of the century.

Women constitute a resource that no country should ignore in terms of their potentials. They have a wealth of knowledge and experience to contribute thereby improving the quality of decisions. Women can influence decisions made at local level to ensure that they are gender sensitive and are able to support the empowerment of women. Women in local government can be a conduit for women in communities to communicate their concerns and aspirations to the local authorities. In addition to playing a critical role in the advancement of women, they can use their experience as an opportunity to build a consistent, personal stature and confidence to stand for national elective office.

The absence of women in any elective body means that the concerns of over half the population in cities, towns and villages will not be addressed. Until the percentage of women in leadership positions reflects women percentage of the population, they will remain outsiders. But when women get involved, their voices are heard and their power is taken seriously. When they tuned out, remain uninformed, or refuse to participate, they hand the future to others. When women stand up, speak out, organize and fight for their positions, they encourage others to do the same, empower the less powerful and sometimes win positive change.

Women's perception of themselves and their place in society has changed dramatically over the years owing to certain social factors and to the immense influence of feminist thoughts and actions. Women have come to some consensus that politics has to be transformed, and that political transformation needs active involvement of women."

These are just excerpts - the whole article can be (and should be) read at:
Sierra Leone: Women in Local Government by Samuel Tarawally (30/06/2008)