Amnesty Ad in Chicago

As the NATO summit gets underway tomorrow in Chicago, Amnesty International USA will host a “Shadow Summit”with leading Afghan women’s rights activists to remind NATO of the conversation it should be having on Afghan women’s human rights.

The shadow summit poster, which features the words “Human Rights for Women and Girls in Afghanistan” and “NATO: Keep the Progress Going!” has generated some controversy over the last few days.  You can guess which sentence triggered the controversy.

Some are asking, is Amnesty now a cheerleader for NATO?  Does Amnesty support the war?  What was Amnesty thinking?!

The shadow summit — and the poster — is directed at NATO, not to praise it, but to remind the leaders who will be discussing Afghanistan’s future this weekend about what is really at stake if women’s rights to security, political participation and justice are traded away or compromised.

We were thinking about the hard won gains Afghan women have made since the fall of the Taliban.  Ten years ago, Afghanistan had one of the worst human rights records in the world in terms of women’s and girls’ rights. The Taliban banned women from working, going to school or even leaving home without a male relative.

Today, three million girls go to school, compared to virtually none under the Taliban. Women make up 20 percent of university graduates. Maternal mortality and infant mortality have declined. Ten percent of all prosecutors and judges are women, compared to none under the Taliban regime.  This is what we meant by progress: the gains Afghan women have struggled to achieve over the past decade.

Afghan women’s groups have been sounding the alarm about being sidelined in key decisionmaking processes and about the prospect of a worsening human rights situation as the Afghan government assumes security responsibility in the country and seeks a political settlement with the Taliban.  In areas still under Taliban control, violence against women is rampant, and a recent statement by the Ulema Council (a council of religious scholars) — defended by President Karzai – warns that women should “respect the right of men to polygamy” and should “not travel without a close male relative.”

As a matter of policy, Amnesty doesn’t take a position for or against NATO.  We didn’t call for the bombing of Afghanistan – in fact, readers who were members or following our work when the bombing started in 2001 will remember that our message was “justice not revenge” and that we went into crisis response mode out of concern for the impact on civilians.

And we’re not calling for NATO to remain in the country.  What we want is for peace talks to be inclusive and reflective of Afghan society, including women, in both the planning and the talks themselves.  We want a constitutional guarantee of equality for women and men, along with benchmarks and robust monitoring for women’s rights.  We want negotiating teams involved in peace talks to include at least 30% women.  We want a trust fund to be set up independently of the government, to be administered by women to protect women’s rights and support civil society. We want justice institutions to be trained on implementing the elimination of violence against women law and other measures to protect women’s rights.

And we want the National Action Plan for the women of Afghanistan to be funded to ensure gender mainstreaming in Afghanistan’s government institutions.  We will release an open letter to Presidents Obama and Karzai detailing these demands prior to the shadow summit.

Is the poster confusing?  Yes, especially as it is plastered all over a city packed with NATO protesters.   But please don’t let that stop you from seeing what the shadow summit and Amnesty’s work in support of Afghan women are really about.

The shadow summit doesn’t just talk about Afghan women’s participation, it reflects it.  Afifa Azim, Manizha Naderi, Hasina Safi and Mahbouba Seraj will be featured panelists alongside Madeleine Albright, Melanne Verveer and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky.

It’s our best shot at bringing Afghan women’s voices to the forefront of the NATO Summit.   If you’re in the city, please show up to show your support and then join us for a demonstration at Navy Pier.

Afghan teacher Meher Afroza with her students at an Islamic school in Kabul. Under the Taliban, few girls attended school. Today 3 million girls go to school, and 20 percent of university of graduates are women. (Photo: ADEK BERRY/AFP/Getty Images)

World leaders, dignitaries and reporters will convene in Chicago next week for the 2012 NATO summit, and among the urgent questions they will consider is that of Afghanistan’s future after the 2014 withdrawal of U.S. and allied troops.

Yet Afghanistan’s female leaders were denied a place at the table for these critical discussions—despite Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s promise that the United States would not forsake the rights of Afghan women.

Indeed, recent developments signal that the significant but tenuous gains Afghan women have made over the past decade are mere bargaining chips in negotiations between U.S., Afghan and Taliban leaders seeking to expedite the transition to Afghan rule. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has proposed a program of “reintegration and reconciliation” with the Taliban that holds grim implications for women and girls, and in March he briefly endorsed an edict issued by a council of clerics that would allow husbands to beat their wives in certain situations and encourage gender segregation in workplaces and schools.

One of our ads in Chicago in time for the NATO summit

Thankfully, Afghan women refuse to be silenced. As the NATO summit begins next week, two prominent women leaders, Afifa Azim, executive director of the Afghan Women’s Network, and Manizha Naderi, executive director of Women for Afghan Women, will take part in Amnesty International’s May 20 Shadow Summit for Afghan Women, in Chicago. They will not only raise their voices in defense of women’s rights, they will argue that the full political, economic and social participation of women in Afghan society is vital to lasting peace.

Nargis Nehan, head of Equality for Peace and Democracy in Kabul, told NPR:

“We know how to communicate with the rest of the world, and we do have our own constituencies within Afghanistan—not only women, but also men.”

This generation of Afghan women leaders have finished school, graduated from university and won 27 percent of the seats in parliament in 2010. They have spoken to the international media and appealed to the U.N. Security Council to defend hard-won human rights advances—including a new law prohibiting violence against women,  early and forced marriage, and the deprivation of access to property, education or healthcare.

The question of history is a thorny one for the United States as it prepares its exit from a decade-long military intervention that has “quagmired” two administrations. But the Obama administration must not submit to political expediency and allow the Afghan government’s overtures to the Taliban and other insurgent groups to threaten women’s rights. At this critical moment, Afghan women desperately need us to stand with them to make sure that their rights are not swallowed up by the quicksand of transitional politics.

Sign our action: Women’s rights are non-negotiable in Afghanistan

Will Armenia step up protections for women? (Photo KAREN MINASYAN/AFP/Getty Images)

The smallest yet probably oldest of the successive Soviet nations, Armenia prides itself for its ancient traditions. In his International Women’s Day statement, President Serge Sarkissian wishes women “happiness, luck, and healthy and strong families,” commending the preservation of women’s “traditional role.”

Does the latter include being a victim of violence? The Armenian government’s very poor record on combating widespread violence against women may suggest so.

Armenia is the only country among its Council of Europe neighbors without legislation criminalizing domestic violence. Armenia’s government has been arguing that it will pass comprehensive legislation once the Council of Europe finalizes its convention on the issue. It’s been nearly a year since the Council of Europe convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence opened for signatures, yet Armenia hasn’t ratified it (see the interactive map of countries that have).

Here are five reasons why Armenia must step it up in the fight against violence against women. If you agree, take action here.

1. Way too many. Amnesty International’s November 2008  “There’s no pride in silence: domestic and sexual violence against women in Armenia” report found that 25% of women in Armenia are victims of abuse. Even worse, victims don’t have effective access to the criminal justice system, shelter, medical care, redress, and reparation.

2. Way too unfair. In May 2010, a teacher who had continuously sexually and physically abused mostly girls at a boarding school for disabled children was sentenced to only two years in prison (while a businessman who had sexually exploited teenage boys received a 15-year sentence). Initially, when prominent female activist Mariam Sukhudyan alerted the media about the abuse, law enforcement promptly pressed charges - not against the pedophile but the activist!

3. Way too little. In October 2011, military contractor Yanis Sarkisov was sentenced to an only ten-year prison term for brutally beating his wife Zaruhi Petrosian to her eventual death. According to Petrosian’s sister, the wife had endured ongoing cruel physical abuse at the hands of Sarkisov and his mother, who was never charged with the murder.

4. Way too unbelievable. In 2011, a 13-year-old girl was allegedly raped by her father, and the police carried out no effective investigation. But the worst was yet to come. The society turned against her and her mother, with the parents of her classmates demanding her expulsion and neighbors demanding their eviction. The rape victim’s mother says her daughter is suicidal.

Even when the violence is caught on tape, Armenia’s authorities can dismiss it, especially if the assailant is the appointed governor of Syunik – Suren Khachatrian. In 2011, he hit businesswoman Silva Hambardzumian in the lobby of a hotel after being accused of corruption. Despite security camera video showing the assault, the authorities dropped Hambardzumian’s claim, explaining that she had not sustained an injury! And the ruling Republican Party refused to condemn the assault, let alone fire the governor. In other words, an Armenian official can hit a woman without facing any penalty as long as she doesn’t sustain injury.

5. Way too important. Armenia’s government must raise awareness of violence against women as an unacceptable and punishable crime and a human rights violation, as nonprofits don’t have the mechanism to carry out this monumental mission by themselves.

Please take action to send Armenia’s authorities the message that domestic violence legislation should be adopted now, before it’s way too overdue.

Afghan Young Women for Change (YWC) activists, holding placards which read "where is justice?", take part in a protest denouncing violence against women in Afghanistan in Kabul on April 14, 2012.

President Obama made an announced visit to Afghanistan on May 1 to sign an agreement intended to lead to a pullback of US troops from Afghanistan by 2014. The document is very specific on issues around the arrangements related to security and interestingly, trade and commerce but inadequate when talk to turns to human rights in general and specifically women’s rights.

Amnesty will continue to urge the US government to implement an action plan to protect and promote women’s rights in Afghanistan as they pull back from the country.

Women in Afghanistan, however, aren’t waiting around for vague assurances by the US and Afghan governments. They are taking matters into their own hands and demanding justice for the victims of past human rights violations and the promotion of human rights for all in their country.

Young Women for Change led a demonstration protesting against injustice and calling out the Afghan government for its failure to prosecute human rights violations committed against women and girls. They noted:

“Since Nawroz, New Year, at least five women have been killed in Afghanistan. Three women were killed in Herat, one of whom was beheaded by her husband. Another woman was killed by her husband in Khost and another was hanged after the unjust decision of the tribal court in Paktya”

But now, even the rights of the women to protest the injustices of the government are under threat. They are under threat from a Taleban movement that espouses and extreme ideology that stands against women’s rights.

But the threat to women and girls are also from an Afghan government that has shown a worrying pattern of pandering to Taleban ideology at the expense of human rights and a US government that seems more interested in declaring victory on the “war on terror” than in securing human rights gains promised by the Bush and Obama administrations.

The Obama – Karzai agreement doesn’t come close to what Afghan women are demanding. The agreement also doesn’t come close to what US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton said in 2010 to female Afghan officials:

We will not abandon you, we will stand with you always … [it is] essential that women’s rights and women’s opportunities are not sacrificed or trampled on in the reconciliation process.

This is why the US must implement an action plan to ensure that the US and its allies carry out promises made to the women of Afghanistan. And we need your help to demand that Afghan women’s rights are non-negotiable.

© STR/AFP/Getty Images

The U.S. Senate is poised to vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA)– a key piece of legislation that, since 1994, aims to protect women in the U.S. from terrible acts of violence and exploitation.

But critical new protections in the bill – to protect Native American women, LGBT people and immigrant women in particular – are in danger of being left out. For example, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and others have indicated they may introduce an alternative bill that would strip out the amendments in VAWA that protect Native American and Alaska Native women.

This would be a huge mistake. We need a strong bill that protects ALL women. With VAWA coming to a vote in the near future, here are five reasons (among many!) that the Senate should think twice about before gutting these new key protections:

1. Native American and Alaskan native women face domestic and sexual violence at epidemic proportions. One in 3 Native women will be raped in her lifetime. Two in five suffer from domestic violence. Nearly 86% of rapes and sexual violence are perpetrated by non-Native men.

2. Native American and Alaska Native women living in sovereign territory often face complex jurisdictional issues between state, federal, and tribal criminal justice systems, making protection, reporting, and prosecution nearly impossible. New VAWA provisions would improve access to justice for these women.

3. Immigrant women in the U.S. often face higher rates of sexual harassment and of battering than other women, yet are less able to report these crimes due to their legal status, isolation and other factors. A 2004 study in New York City, for example, found that 51% of intimate partner homicide victims were foreign-born.

4. Native women and girls are over-represented among trafficking victims in the US. Legal protections and services to victims are limited in general, and even less available to Native women. New VAWA provisions would help protect these women from sex trafficking.

5. LGBT survivors of domestic violence often face discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity when attempting to access services. New VAWA provisions would help protect LGBT people from discrimination when they are in need of help.

Don’t let Congress kick Native American women, LGBT people and immigrant women to the curb. Tell Congress to protect ALL women by supporting the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act today!

And if you’re on Twitter, please retweet this message to Senator Hutchison to leave VAWA alone:

Stand w @amnesty for a strong #VAWA that protects ALL women, incl Native women! Don’t gut VAWA @kaybaileyhutch owl.li/apsF6

— AmnestyInternational (@amnesty) April 20, 2012

Afghan Young Women for Change (YWC) activists, holding placards which read "where is justice?", take part in a protest denouncing violence against women in Afghanistan in Kabul on April 14, 2012.

Despite enormous improvements to women’s livelihoods in the decade since the fall of the Taliban, much action is needed by the Afghan government and the international community.

For example, women in Afghanistan face some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, more than half of all girls in the country do not attend school, and many women are forced into marriage shortly after puberty.

To make matter worse, women can face the prospect of being jailed for reporting violence perpetrated against them as reported in Human Rights Watch’s new report, detailing the detention of 400 women and girls imprisoned in the country for “moral crimes”.

These “moral crimes” are not crimes at all but is discrimination by the police, the judiciary and government officials against women trying to report abusive relationships. As the report notes:

[I]n one court record that Human Rights Watch reviewed, Tahmina J., 18, said she was raped. Instead of pursuing her allegations, the court’s decision warned that women should know that it is unsafe for them to go out at night, and said the victim must not have screamed very much or someone would have heard her. The court concluded that two men took Tahmina J. to an abandoned building and “sexually assaulted” her, yet convicted her of zina and sentenced her to two-and-a-half years in prison, where she remains today.

Instead of using very scarce resources to prosecute the perpetrators of serious human rights violations against women and girls, Afghanistan is prosecuting women and girls who have not committed a crime.

Human rights – and women’s rights – must be non-negotiable. The United States must affirm that it should and will help protect Afghan women. Their human rights, their safety, their very lives must not be sacrificed as U.S. troops withdraw from the country.

Take action for Afghan women and girls now

Noor Almaleki

Noor Almaleki was 20 years old and living in Pheonix when she and her friend, 43-year-old Amal Khalaf, were struck by a car driven by Noor’s father. While Amal survived, Noor later died, and her father, Faleh al-Maleki, was later convicted of killing his daughter.

The case of Noor Almaleki has drawn attention, most recently last weekend on CBS’s “48 Hours: Mystery” program, as a suspected case of a so-called “Honor Killing”—one committed here in the United States.

And yet, while the case of Noor Almaleki has made national headlines because it happened in Arizona, so-called “honor killings” happen around the world at an alarming rate, often with little press and no justice for the victim.

Women around the world suffer so-called “honor violence” at the hands of relatives, usually male, in an effort to reclaim family “honor.” If a woman or girl is accused or suspected of engaging in behavior that could taint her family’s status, she may face brutal retaliation from her relatives that often results in violent death.

So-called “honor” crime is rooted in a global culture of discrimination against women, and the deeply rooted belief that women are objects and commodities, not human beings entitled to dignity and rights equal to those of men. Women’s bodies, particularly, are considered the repositories of family honor, and under the control and responsibility of her family (especially her male relatives). And large sections of society share traditional conceptions of family honor and approve of “honor” killings to preserve that honor.

That’s the narrative that is used to justify these brutal attacks on women and girls, but here are the facts:

• The UN estimates that around 5,000 women and girls are murdered each year in so-called “honor killings” by members of their families
• “Honor” killings are widely reported in regions throughout the Middle East and South Asia, but these crimes against women occur in countries as varied as Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom, and the United States.
• Like other forms of violence against women, “honor” violence against women may be considered a form of torture, whether enacted by the state or by an individual.
• While “honor” crime is committed predominantly against women and girls, “honor” crime is also on the rise against LGBT people, particularly gay men
• In many countries, the punishment for “honor” crimes are inadequate or non-existent—laws either do not recognize “honor” crime or have insufficient sentencing for such crime. And in countries where laws have been passed to curb “honor” crime (for example, in Jordan), such laws often go un-enforced.
• According to the Iranian and Kurdish Rights Organization, “Honor Killings are on the rise”, especially in Europe and the US.

Women in Lahore, Pakistan protest "honor" killings. (Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)

Make no mistake: there is no honor in violence against women, and no cultural, social, or religious belief is ever a valid reason to commit violence against women, or deprive anyone of their fundamental human rights.

The murder of women in the name of “honor” is a gender-specific form of discrimination and violence and should be regarded as part of a larger spectrum of violence against women, as well as a serious human rights violation. Violence against women in a global epidemic, and it effects women in every country, at every level of society.

The continued coverage of the case of Noor Almaleki reminds us that women across the world—including our own country—are at risk of such types of gender-specific violence. But so, too, should countless attacks on women’s rights that are part of a culture of discrimination against women.

Any attack on women’s human rights threatens to reduce women to objects or devalue them as less than fully human, and as such, aids and abets in a global culture in which such horrific violence, as happened to Noor and as happens to countless women, is not only possible, but is all too common.

Learn more about violence against women as a human rights issue and take action on behalf of women around the world.

Syrian women demonstrate against President Bashar al-Assad's regime KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP/Getty Images

First, the welcome news: a new tool was launched last week by the Women’s Media Center’s project, Women Under Siege, to track sexual violence committed against women in Syria. Using Ushahidi technology, this project uses crowdsourcing to collect and map evidence of sexual violence, in real time or as close to real time as the “crowd” would like. Survivors, witnesses, and first-responders can submit reports via email, Twitter (using #RapeinSyria) or directly via the site.

Collecting this type of data is vital toward ensuring accountability for human rights crimes related to sexual violence, especially in conflict settings where human rights monitors may be unable to gain access. By highlighting the issue to the public and policy-makers, by empowering women and girls with a tool to share their stories, and by compiling reports of crimes related to sexual violence which are incredibly under-reported as it is, new technological tools allow us to see through the fog of war and send a strong message to perpetrators of violence—your crimes will not go unnoticed.

#Eyesonsyria

We have been utilizing new tools and techniques such as crowdsourcing, remote-sensing and interactive mapping for quite some time now. Last year, we launched the interactive Eyes on Syria platform. By mapping user-submitted solidarity messages and activism stories, as well as visualizing human rights abuses, Amnesty has been able to publicly highlight the atrocities being committed in Syria. As a grassroots human rights movement, nothing would be complete without a means for taking action—so integrated into the map are action outlets where folks can click to take action.

The deployment of these new tools and technologies by the international community for human rights monitoring, research, advocacy and direct service provision have filled an integral niche in our work, including the rapid saturation of social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook into our daily lives. Social media, in the same vein as the deployment of new technological tools, can be used to convey information across time zones and political boundaries, and serve as a means of community empowerment. Personally, I use social media apps to stay in touch with friends near and far, to share and read interesting or thought-provoking articles, and more increasingly, to help track the news.

With the advent of anything new, however, new risk is inherently generated as well.

Stalking women in the United States

So a bit of scary news: this past weekend, while I was skimming Facebook from my smart phone, I came across an article a friend had posted…. which scared me. As a woman, it scared me. As someone who uses social media and understands the somewhat limitless applications of technology, it scared me. After reading more, I became even more scared, and quadruple checked my privacy settings on all of my social media apps and then considered deleting all of my accounts because if this was happening now, who knows what could happen in the future. Why was I so freaked out? Because I learned about the “Girls Around Me” app (developed by Russian development company i-Free), which collects location data from Foursquare, shows local bars and restaurants where women had “checked in” and matches that info with their public Facebook profile–including photos and dating status.

The end result was that the user could essentially see how many women were in a particular location based off publically available information provided by social media, what they looked like, and what their names were. According to a comprehensive article published in the Atlantic, the “branding was crass… but, as the developers of the app argued, they had technically done nothing wrong aside from being piggish and crude.”

Thankfully, there was such a public outcry after this app hit the public domain that Facebook and Foursquare have blocked the app’s use of its APIs, claiming it violated its privacy policies. This forced the developer to pull Girls Around Me from the app store. Perhaps they saved some lives by doing so.

The Atlantic further suggests that “if violations like this continue, respecting the context in which data’s given might not just be a good privacy practice, it might become a good business practice.” And I couldn’t agree more.

So please think about things for a moment

Technology can do so much good—for women and men around the world—but we must respect the context in which information is presented as well as the intent of the presentation of such information. The fight for accountability for sexual violence committed against women in Syria will absolutely be enhanced by the mapping platform put out by the Women Under Siege’s project. Human rights in Syria will absolutely be better protected due to the Eyes on Syria platform. Don’t get me wrong–I am a huge supporter of these types of initiatives and encourage folks around the world to think about how they may enhance their goals.

It’s when I read about the scary things that people do with technology such as the company that put out the “Girls Around Me” app…that make me take a second to think about things, and I encourage you to do the same.

What information am I putting out there about myself that could put me at risk? What information are my friends putting out there about themselves that could put them at risk? And finally, how can we encourage all to respect the context in which we put out and use personal information? Because, well, it’s the appropriate thing to do—and at Amnesty we believe that first, you do no harm.

Follow me on Twitter @katiestriff

Mumbai slum residents protest the destruction of their homes by multi-national corporations. PHOTO: RAVEENDRAN/AFP/Getty Images

I’ve spent the past two weeks working with a number of NGOs focused on women’s human rights in the urban slums surrounding Mumbai. These communities are a ground zero for human dignity, where basic needs are not met and human rights are routinely crushed by poverty and the pace of urbanization.

The underworld I traverse each day exists within a global financial capital, a land of five-star hotels and luxury cars. The stark contrast illustrates the urgency of putting human dignity at the center of the dialogue about social change in an increasingly urbanized and inequitable landscape.

Article 1:
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

I’ve never seen such extreme yet proximate inequity. Each morning I pass women and girls, barefoot and stunted, picking through dumpsters and street waste to pull out yesterday’s recyclables to sell, while drivers of private cars carry well-to-do school children in air-conditioned comfort to their studies.

This is a society still struggling to shed itself of the complicated and intersecting legacies of colonialism and caste, exacerbated by economic competition, globalization and urbanization. Tent cities and slums crop up in between towering skyscrapers; haves and have-nots live wall-to-wall, yet worlds apart. The headline of my Hindustan Times condemns the latest version of the state government’s budget, which reserves only 1 percent for Mumbai’s poor, who constitute the bulk of its population.

Article 3:                    

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Violence is entrenched here, particularly for women: the 2005 – 2006 National Health and Family Survey found 40 percent of married women reported that they had experienced violence in the home. Police routinely fail to respond to domestic violence complaints, and girls and women are commonly harassed by groups of boys and men, in what’s known as “eve teasing.” Students andteachers also routinely assault girls at school.

Many parents say they keep girls home for their own protection; a girl embodies the family’s honor, and if she is raped the family is ruined. Many families refuse to report abuse because of the stigma. Just last week a mother in Madhya Pradesh reported the rape of her daughter, only to be shot by her husband and brother-in-law for reporting the crime.

Article 6:
Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

The government estimates there to be 200,000 people living in Shivaji Nagar, the slum I am working in that abuts Mumbai’s largest dumping ground. The researchers and community social workers I am working with put that number closer to 600,000, even a million. That’s at least three times as many people as the government recognizes, who crowd into already overflowing buildings (I read weekly of injuries from buildings collapsing) and whose waste contributes to already overflowing (open) sewers.

A community worker I spoke with this afternoon re-calibrates my expectations for what success looks like: “In this community, we are fighting to even get birth certificates, so people can be recognized and access services. A birth certificate is your first human right.” The majority of people here are not counted, and therefore not taken into account.

Article 7:
All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 16:
(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

Last week, India’s lawmakers amended Indian marriage law so that women’s property rights will now be protected in divorce, and adopted children will now will have the same rights at divorce as biological children. Yet the very same week a court ruled in favor of a man who wanted to divorce his wife because in his opinion she wasn’t giving him enough sex. The court ruled that when women deny sex in marriage that is “cruelty, and grounds for divorce.”

There is no such thing as marital rape under India’s laws. And India is notorious for child marriage. According to the International Center for Research on Women, 44.5 percent of Indian girls marry before the age of 18, and arranged marriages are still very much the norm. As I wander the twisting footpaths through the slums, girls are visible everywhere doing wash, cooking and caring for children, the telltale green bangles of a married woman jingling on their wrists.

Article 25:
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing, medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Behind my office lies the Shivaji Nagar dumping ground, the largest dump in Mumbai. It is a mountain of waste, upon and around which people live, across which roads traverse, and from which thousands of people, mostly women and children, make their meager living as “rag pickers.” On the outskirts of the slum, houses consist of pieces of plastic and tin stitched together. Water coverage is the lowest in Mumbai, and the distance between public latrines the farthest in the city.

Women who do come to the clinic don’t have the information they need to space children. A doctor I speak with says she can’t counsel adolescent girls on sexual and reproductive health and rights because it isn’t “acceptable.” The Indian Hindu custom of sati—which instructs women to self-immolate over their husbands’ funeral pyres—is rare and explicitly outlawed, but surviving widows are often outcast and struggle to survive.

Though life is a particular challenge for women, it is harsh for everyone. The very location of these communities renders their occupants criminals, “illegals,” undocumented and under-served. You are only legal if you can prove having lived in a house for a certain number of years—the exact figure keeps changing. Paradoxically, the government exacerbates the problems by continually uprooting communities and relocating them here. There are plans to relocate hundreds of thousands more residents from other slums where development contracts have been secured, in what is called transferable development rights.

“Two things get tossed out here,” says Professor Parasuraman, the head of an initiative studying the area at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, “unwanted people… and also Bombay’s waste.”

The Professor’s words perfectly encapsulate the central problem—that this is place has so devalued the dignity and rights of human beings that they are quite literally dumped, as far from the fancy buildings downtown as possible, in the very same place as all the rest of the city’s trash.

You can follow Lyric Thompson and the Women’s Human Rights network of Amnesty USA @AmnestyWomenRts or on Facebook at Amnesty International USA Women’s Human Rights Network.

Jenni leading protest march in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, February 2012. Jenni was arrested for the 40th time that day. Photo courtesy of WOZA.

Every year on March 8th we celebrate International Women’s Day. I have been blessed to know many amazing women in my life: my mom, my sisters, my aunts, my friends. It’s nice there is a day of the year set aside to honor and remember strong, powerful women who make a difference in our world.

Ginetta Sagan was one of those women. Ms. Sagan, once a political prisoner herself, was a fearless and outspoken human rights defender who tirelessly worked to improve the lives of others. Amnesty International USA established a fund in her honor which annually recognizes a woman who, often at great personal risk, dedicates her life to improving the lives of others.

It was my honor and privilege to nominate this year’s winner, Jenni Williams of Women of Zimbabwe Arise. Jenni co-founded WOZA to inspire and educate women to embrace and demand their human and civil rights in Zimbabwe. The organization is now 80,000 strong; men and women who practice strict non-violence as they urge the Zimbabwe government to take measures to improve the lives of all citizens.

Perhaps the best testament to the power of Jenni and WOZA occurred this year on International Women’s Day. In past years, WOZA members often took to the streets that day, dancing and singing as they demonstrated and delivered their demands to government officials. This year WOZA didn’t march; however, on their Facebook page, WOZA commented the central business district of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe was full of riot police, anticipating a march.

And how did the riot police know it was International Women’s Day? Because Jenni and WOZA taught them. Commemorating the day by gathering in armed groups might not be the best way to celebrate, but because of Jenni and WOZA, the police spent the day thinking about powerful women struggling to make the world a better place. And that, my friends, is a victory.