No Limits Policy Conference - Women's Rights are Human Rights

I’m delighted that so many of us got to attend the No Limits policy conference last week. Many of our online No Limits friends weren’t able to join us, so I thought people might enjoy seeing my notes from one of the morning breakout sessions – Women’s Rights are Human Rights…



Moderated by Randi Weingarten of the American Teachers Federation.

Hillary’s Beijing speech was given nearly 14 years ago.

Approximately 200,000 women and children have been raped in the Congo since the war started 13 years ago. It’s still a novel idea that women’s rights are human rights in many parts of the world.

Hillary (and relief workers) travels the world not to tell survivors what to do, but to listen and become their voice.

To EMPOWER them.

You do that with:
Advocacy
Aid and
Education

Panel:
Lissa Muscatine – was Hillary’s speechwriter in the White House (wrote the Beijing speech!!), worked with her on her book Living History, and now serves as speech writer at the State Dept.

Kakenya Ntaiya – founder of the Kakenya Center for Excellence – building school for girls in Kenya.

JoDee Winterhoff – CARE.

Lissa – Never anticipated that phrase in Beijing speech would mean so much to so many.

Still working to include those still marginalized.

Human rights = dignity and freedom.

1st trip with Hillary (as Sec. of State) was to Asia.

They did town hall meetings with women in South Korea, Indonesia and China.
Hillary met with some of the same women in China as she did at the Beijing conference in 1995.

This is the first time a secretary of state has appointed an ambassador for global women’s issues (Melanne Verveer).

Issues like climate change hits women – Agriculture – women derive much of their income from Agriculture.

Food security initiative – they go in and find out what they need and get it for them.
She used the example where the women in one village said they needed shovels. When someone pointed to a stack of them nearby the women said those were for the men – regular handles etc. The women work in the fields with a baby strapped to their back so they bend down and need a different handle. Little things like that mean so much but we wouldn’t know that if we just went in and told them what to do without listening.

She and Melanne Verveer went to Goma and the refugee camps with Hillary. It was like triage in the camps – so MUCH suffering and violence – sexual violence is being used routinely in conflict areas – it’s a fact of life for so many.

Lissa talked about the role of New Media and how Hillary’s using that at the state department.

Things like instant messaging can be used to quickly and safely report rapes – and cell phones for micro-financing to make person to person small loans.

Kakenya – Grew up in a small village in Kenya, the oldest of 8 children in her family – she helped raise her siblings.

She was expected to marry as soon as she reached puberty and got cut.

Her father abused her mom – she was uneducated and his property just as everything in their home was his. The cattle – the crops the others grew and harvested – he could sell it all and take the money and do with it as he wished.

Her mom never got an education and was helpless – she didn’t want her life for her children.
Girls went to primary school in Kenya. Kakenya admired her teachers – she wanted to teach when she grew up – not farm.

In the 8th grade (at age 13 or 14) she was ready to be cut (female genital mutilation) but she didn’t want that. Bargained her way into high school with her father.

It’s against the law in Kenya to cut girls – but that law is never enforced. Families considered it a disgrace if their daughters didn’t get mutilated.

Kakenya managed to get permission to go to school in the US. Applied and was accepted and raised the money to get here. Her eyes were opened to women’s rights when she got to the states.

At home – girls are worth 7 cows – their father gets 7 cows when she marries.
Something as basic as bathrooms in school make a difference. When a girl reaches puberty and the school has no bathrooms, she stays home 4 or 5 days a month from school.

Thanks to Kakenya and her organization, last year they broke ground on a new school for girls – 32 girls are getting an education there now.

Teachers are trained to see girls with limitless potential. Quality education for them is the result.

JoDee – women’s rights are human rights and there should be no limits – great idea!
Hillary went to 7 nations in Africa in 11 days recently.

Kankenya’s story is not uncommon.

CARE started as a disaster relief organization 60 years ago (?) and delivered boxes of supplies.

They go in and ask what folks need instead of telling them what they need.

Help to build school and work with government to help them understand why girls should be educated.

CARE works in 70 countries and has 12,000 staff. The majority of them are native to the nation they’re working in. They serve 60 million people worldwide.

1.3 billion people are living on a dollar a day or less – 70% of them are women and girls.

A woman dies every minute of every day from childbirth or complications of pregnancy.

Women bear the brunt of poverty in the world. We’re a huge part of the solution.

Health care, food and education.

We’re 3 times more likely to put our resources back into the community than men.

Good news – CARE is not alone in the work.

We now have a women’s power center with Hillary and Melanne at the state department.

In the senate, Senator Boxer chairs the Foreign Relations subcommittee on global women’s issues.

JoDee closed by saying that one day she got a pop-up on her computer asking her if she wanted to “re-set normal”. Didn’t know what that meant so she said no or cancel.

But it occurred to her that we need to RE-SET NORMAL re the way people think about women and our lives.

Q&A
College student from New Jersey said she was the president of the feminist club on her campus (lots of applause). She said people thought women’s rights were no longer an issue or a problem. To the point where people wore t-shirts that said “NO MEANS NO (UNLESS SHE’s DRUNK)”

How do we get the message out that there’s still work to do re women’s rights?

Randi said that’d be a great topic for No Limits – to tackle that notion that we don’t have to worry about women’s rights any more.

We’ve made progress re race relations (black and white etc) but we still have a LOT of work to do re relations between the sexes.

We’re waging a battle of mass culture here.

Part of the solution needs to be economically based.

Women still control massive amounts of income in this society and set family budgets – make a lot of the purchasing decisions.

It might take boycotts of companies that profit from the sexist nature of what’s done in the media and in marketing / advertising.

It’s going to take the political will of women.

Example - Liberia now has a woman leader.

It all started with a sit-down strike and the women who refused favors to their men.

They stuck together and achieved great things.

We need to somehow replicate that model.

This breakout session wrapped up and we all headed over to the main part of the conference center for a fabulous luncheon, more visiting, and to hear our Champion, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speak.