6-0 Meeting with Minister for Equalities

The 6-0 major women’s organisations, of which BFWG is one, met Lynne Featherstone MP, Minister for Equalities.  She was eager to learn about the issues on which we are currently concentrating.  BFWG highlighted the work on financial literacy, interest in social entrepreneurs and networking for senior women in academia.  

Lynne Featherstone was interested in the scholarships which BFWG give and was impressed that next year we are celebrating a hundred years of supporting women’s study.

I emphasised our IFUW connections, particularly the concern about the future for women in Afghanistan which had led to letters being written to MPs and to the Foreign Minister.  She was able assure us that the Government shared our concern and had said so at the Bonn Conference which she had attended the day before.  She had been able to put forward the importance of women to the future success of the country in her meetings with both Afghan and other politicians.

In order to really achieve mainstreaming of equality issues in Government plans, bills and directives, Lynne Featherstone calls ministers to equality orals where they have to commit themselves to take the appropriate actions.  She asked us to encourage our members to offer to be mentors within the new plans to support entrepreneurs.

The subjects which the other members of 6-0 are tackling are control of pornography on the web where it would be necessary to opt in rather than rely on parents to ensure control; legal aid for victims of domestic violence; support for the mentally ill leaving prison; care of the sick and elderly in hospitals, care homes and at home to avoid malnutrition; trafficking of women and their care when discovered.

Christel Moor
December 9, 2011

News from 5 December Bonn Conference on Afghanistan--Read the Diary of an IFUW Member Observing the talk

From: International Federation of University Women < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >

Dear IFUW Members,

We would like to thank the many IFUW national federations and associations that contacted their Ministries of Foreign Affairs and other Government Leaders to promote IFUW's initiative to bring pressure on national governments to ensure that Afghan women were adequately represented in the international conference that took place in Bonn on 5 December.  Your efforts not only helped make visible the important international solidarity that exists for Afghan women, but also let leaders know that we believe UN Security Council Resolution 1325 must move beyond words to action.

Heike Mensch of the German Federation, who is a media specialist, assisted IFUW in bringing our initiative to the attention of international and German press.  She was also able, in her personal capacity, to obtain press accreditation toattend the meeting.  She sent the following first-hand account:

    I arrived at the hotel where the press center was established and bumped into the half the delegates of the Afghan Women's Network. I met their European Media Contact Jennifer Rowel.  One of their press releases available can be found at http://www.ifuw.org/docs/2011_bonn_awn.pdf. They were very careful in their formulations – they didn’t refer to CEDAW and 1325; they only circled around it. Other women referred to UN Resolutions as necessary and binding for Afghanistan.

    Sunday evening:
    A very interesting event was organized by the German Ministry for Economic  Development (BMZ) "Women's Rights and Peace for Afghanistan – a Process in the Hands of the Afghan People" with representatives of Afghan NGOs, followed by an exchange with the delegates of the Afghan civil society. The group arrived more than an hour late because UN Secretary General Ban Kim Moon had unexpectedly asked them to meet him for one hour. They said the meeting had been very good but gave no details.

    Most of the Afghan speakers were very good; all were very eloquent. Here I heard the woman speaker of the NGO group, Selay Ghaffar  for the first time and was highly impressed: She speaks her mind very clearly, has strong demands and statements. She is certainly somebody to watch and support. Her topics: much too little empowerment of women, bad handling of women at court, major threats for womens' rights.

    The guiding theme of the evening was the lack of rule of law, violence by security forces (specially to women), not enough participation of women in all areas, the current highest corruption ever in Afghanistan, no access to schools for girls and women, danger of negotiating with "those who violate human rights", the danger posed by terrorists trained in neighbouring countries and the necessity to involve civil society in high-level planning and decision making, lack of health facilities and treatment – 2nd  highest maternal mortality in world,  discrimination of women in laws.

    At the end there was a strong call for "women of the world to stay with us in our struggle".

    There wasn’t much chance for exchange with the delegates of the Afghan civil society, as they left soon after the official part.

    Monday: I stayed on the Press Gallery for several hours and had several useful exchanges.

    Opening of Conference by
    1. German Min. Foreign Affairs Dr. Westerwelle:  He didn’t mention women at all, ending with a wish of hope for children.
    2. President Karsai: only mentioned some statistics  - percentage of women now in public sector, education, central governmentt – never near 50 %. He spoke of being on a good path.
    3. Secretary General Ban Kim Moon: He was the only opening speaker to explicitly and extendedly demand "more women in positions of power", "more women in political participation in all areas", "guarantee of women's rights", "more education for  boys and girls", "women are ½ the population … must be fully empowered", Afghanistan must apply international standards".
    4. German Chancellor Merkel: mentioned women only once in context: All parts of society, including women and children, must be respected.

    I talked to several members of the Afghanistan NGOs that travelled over for the Civil Society Forum. Most interesting was Najiba Ayubi, the Media Director of the Killid Group, the biggest NGO funded group of radio stations in Afghanistan - now eight stations. It has a  women’s magazine produced only by women.  40% of her employees are women. We spoke for a long time and exchanged many ideas and experience – she is a very enlightened, free thinking journalist and feminist and strong fighter for the cause of women. She is very interested in contacts with IFUW and would like to help us find good contacts to university women.

    While talking to Najiba the women of the Civil Society Forum received a note from Hilary Clinton. She asked only the women to meeting with her. I tried to speak with Najiba after this, but she was in constant talks with politicians. Will try to get in touch with her by mail to find out more.

    I got some more addresses of Women NGOs and several Afghanistan representatives promised to send me some more contacts. Here again, all were very interested in finding out more about us.

    Conclusion of Conference. The text of Afghanistan Government can be found at http://www.ifuw.org/docs/2011_bonn_conclusions.pdf.  There are several important remarks about the inclusion of women on all levels and about human rights and fundamental freedom – where women are mentioned explicitly.

    I had some very good conversations on the side with Afghan expatriates and with journalists from the region. They are all very concerned, that the insurgents  (Taliban) will gain more power. They called for sanctions against the enemies of Afghanistan – "some neighbours". Many said "we know who our enemies are". They all spoke of the great need of education in all parts of the country, specially the rural areas.  All expressed their hope, that Afghanistan will never again be left alone by the international community.

    (A photo of Heike Mensch at the conference can be seen at:  http://www.ifuw.org/docs/2011_HeikeMensch_Bonn.jpg

--

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Report of CIR Meeting, 12th November 2011 - 'Judgement Reserved'

Patrice Wellesley-Cole, Senior Immigration Judge, spoke on Judgement Reserved at the International Meeting held at the University Women’s Club on November 12, 2011.  The title was revealed as being the usual statement given after a hearing as, before judgement can be given, it is necessary to research the verity of claims.

Patrice gave a brief history of immigration and asylum law which  showed ho these had developed.  The introduction in 1993 of the right of appeal in asylum cases has led to a real increase in the work of the courts.  Asylum can be sought on the basis of race, religion, political opinion, or being part of a particular social group.  The process of asylum claims was explained and Patrice gave examples of cases to illustrate the complexity of some.  She discussed the current concern about the number of unaccompanied minors, many from Afghanistan.  

Immigration cases differ in many ways.  At the moment the question of academics from outside the EU being able to stay more than five years is being questioned.  The difficulties of repatriation and deportation were discussed too.  Patrice considered the right to remain in the UK and the obligations for those seeking citizenship.
This was a wide ranging and informative speech which was much enjoyed by the audience and it led to a lively discussion.  Reports in the news will be much more fully understood now.

The afternoon session looked at progress in responding to IFUW resolutions.  Margaret Middlemass outlined the responses to those relating to numeracy and financial literacy.  Margaret will draft a letter to MPs to be sent to members for their use in supporting the recommendations of the Vorderman Report on maths teaching and the calls for compulsory financial capacity education in schools   Letters to the BBC and ITV were advocated to encourage them not to denigrate maths and excuse lack of numeracy, and to request repeats or updates of programmes dealing with budgeting and money matters in an easily accessible format.

Betty Prichard outlined the plans for the ‘Bio-ethics and Women’ day in Newcastle on September 29, 2012 and encouraged members to attend.  Possible topics and areas of interest were discussed relating to pregnancy, birth and death.
Christel Moor highlighted the need to lobby our government to support UN Resolution 1325 and ensure that women are included and their issues are fully considered in the upcoming conference on the future for Afghanistan.  Members agreed to write to their MPs.

During the CIR Meeting, Elizabeth Poskitt, Chairman of the Trustees of the BFWG Scholarship Fund, presented  the M H Joseph Scholarship to Alice Clifford for her work in the reduction of microphone artefacts between souce and microphone live sound. 

Christel Moor
CIR