INDIA: Don’t Give Mobiles to Girls - BSP MP

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">MUZAFFARNAGAR (NNN-PTI) -- A BSP MP has kicked off a controversy by saying that girls should not be given mobile phones.<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Don't give mobile phones to children, especially girls.<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">I say this at all the places where I make my speeches. And if any of these kids have a mobile, take them away. What are they missing anyway? What are the girls missing without mobile," Rajya Sabha MP Rajpal Singh Saini said.<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Our mothers, sisters.. Did they die if there were no mobiles during their time," he said addressing party workers here last night.<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Saini also reportedly conveyed this view to a man who sought his help after his daughter had eloped.<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The BSP leader told him that the mobile phone was the main cause behind his daughter's elopement.<o:p></o:p></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The BSP leader's comments come months after a panchayat in Baghpat had banned love marriages and barred women below 40 from going out for shopping and using mobile phones outside their homes. --NNN-PTI<o:p></o:p></span></div> </div>

INDIA: Don’t Give Mobiles to Girls - BSP MP

MUZAFFARNAGAR (NNN-PTI) -- A BSP MP has kicked off a controversy by saying that girls should not be given mobile phones. "Do...

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Men and Women in South Africa Still Not Equal: Minister Xingwana

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">PORT ELIZABETH (SOUTH AFRICA) (NNN-SANEWS) -- While South Africa has recorded great strides in the quest for women empowerment and gender equality, there was still persistent inequality between women and men, says Minister for Women, Children and People with Disabilities, Lulu Xingwana.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The problem was compounded by the continuing practices of patriarchy and sexism, Xingwana said at a gala dinner to honour women judges on Friday night. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She told the gathering in the Eastern Cape, organised by the International Association of Women Judges, that her department remained concerned about the slow pace of transformation in the judiciary to include more women on the bench. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"Quite often, when we talk about women representation on the bench, we are told that there are no women to appoint. This is an insult to all women in the legal profession," Xingwana said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She believed that women were as competent as their male counterparts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"The real reasons behind such assertions are the stereotypes that influence the perception of the world around us."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">South Africa's first female Judge President was only appointed two years ago when President Jacob Zuma approved the nomination of Judge Monica Leeuw to lead the North West High Court in 2010. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Xingwana now wants to see 50-50 gender parity in the judiciary. Her address was a strong call for South Africa to do more to ensure that women took their rightful place in the country's courts. It was also seen to be reflective of the frustration felt by many at the perceived slow pace of transformation in key sectors of governance and the economy. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"The pursuit of race and gender representation is not an idle numbers game, but a constitutional imperative... [The Constitution] requires that when appointing judicial officers, the need for the judiciary to reflect broadly the racial and gender composition of South Africa should be considered."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Given the fact that women constituted 52% of the population of South Africa, it was reasonable to demand that the judiciary should progressively realise the 52% women representation on the bench, said Xingwana.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">As a country that had made great strides since the attainment of democracy in 1994, South Africa should be careful of "attempts to reverse some of the gains we have made in this direction," the minister warned.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">"I call on women judicial officers to become vocal on matters such as these so that together, we can ensure that the agenda of women empowerment and gender equality is consolidated and advanced."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Turning her focus to the issue of violence against women, Xingwana moved to underscore that government had done fairly well in tackling the war against gender-based violence.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Cabinet had approved the establishment of the National Council against Gender-based Violence, which is a high-level, multi-sectoral national response to the scourge. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Led by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, the minister expressed confidence that the work of the council would lead to a significant reduction in the incidents of violence against women and children. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The council will be launched later this month. It will, among other things, review and monitor the implementation of the existing 365 Days National Action Plan on No Violence against Women and Children, which was adopted on 8 May 2007. -- NNN-SAnews<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Men and Women in South Africa Still Not Equal: Minister Xingwana

PORT ELIZABETH (SOUTH AFRICA) (NNN-SANEWS) -- While South Africa has recorded great strides in the quest for women empowerment and gender ...

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INDIA: Public Servants to Take Oath to Prevent Female Foetus Abortion

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">NEW DELHI, India   (NNN-Bernama) -- In an effort to crack down on sex selective abortion, India’s Ministry of Women and Child Development has recommended that all public servants take an oath to prevent female foetus abortion on Aug 9. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">According to the latest data, the ratio between girl and boy children is on a declining trend with 914 girls for 1,000 boys in 2011, compared with 927 in 2001, despite various attempts from the government to address the issue. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The public servants have a significant role in arresting the decline in child sex ratio at all tiers of public governance, be it in prevention, advocacy, or in implementing the laws of the land that prohibit sex selective abortion,” Ministry of Women and Child Development’s secretary, Prem Narain said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He said this in his letter to the Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories, and the Secretaries of all Ministries and Departments of the government. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It is important that the public servants are formally made aware of their role in lending a hand to this social cause. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“We have to ensure that girls are born, loved and nurtured and grow up to become empowered citizens of our country,” Narain said. -- NNN-BERNAMA <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div></div>

INDIA: Public Servants to Take Oath to Prevent Female Foetus Abortion

  NEW DELHI, India   (NNN-Bernama) -- In an effort to crack down on sex selective abortion, India’s Ministry of Women and Child Developmen...

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NEPAL: Community Mediation - Boon or Bust?

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49qQNoBm0wzzxCwybvInImH6VwWy6PBrcukpd0VrGJfzzE5g5vk2uvWIds1ClCmk1IbRymqUbIB0i8Lnj6_48RKEZi7uDljA7fSJrTX5CkB6Tq-kBfql99NfhElvjtuMQMpawsTZUfu4/s1600/201109220643150203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj49qQNoBm0wzzxCwybvInImH6VwWy6PBrcukpd0VrGJfzzE5g5vk2uvWIds1ClCmk1IbRymqUbIB0i8Lnj6_48RKEZi7uDljA7fSJrTX5CkB6Tq-kBfql99NfhElvjtuMQMpawsTZUfu4/s320/201109220643150203.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Photo: <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/photo/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Natalie Bailey/IRIN</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.0pt;">Jury still out on impact of community mediation on women<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing"><br /> </div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: right;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">KATHMANDU (IRIN) - Community mediation as an alternative to the formal justice system is gaining momentum in Nepal, revealing its successes and its shortcomings in a country without a constitution and an increasingly protracted transition out of a decade-long civil war. <o:p></o:p></span></div><br /> <div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify;"><br /> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A 2008 report by the Geneva-based NGO, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), found many Nepalese living in “governance, law enforcement and justice vacuums - much more pronounced than in the period before the conflict”.  <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The civil war between Maoist insurgents and the government killed almost 18,000 people between 1996 and 2006, according to recent government estimates. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Disputants’ rights to a timely remedy are not being respected by the formal justice system,” said Frederick Rawski, the ICJ representative in Nepal. “This certainly has a role in affecting the support-seeking behaviour of communities.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Procedural and managerial issues make the country’s justice system - which has only one court per district or 75 in total - cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. Official statistics list eight out of 10 people as living in remote areas and 12 districts still have no access to roads. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Courts are virtually inaccessible to a large percentage of the country’s 27 million people, particularly the rural poor and the marginalized, said a 2009 US Agency for International Development (USAID) assessment of the rule of law in Nepal. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Nepal has a long history of traditional arbitration, and community mediation builds on this, said Mukti Rijal, of the Institute of Governance and Development, a Kathmandu-based NGO. Traditional village arbiters, at times seen as elitist, are being replaced by volunteer mediators. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“You now have mediators trained in negotiation, dispute resolution, and specializing in identifying the interests of disputing parties,” said Rijal. In the past decade, local NGOs, with the support of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) as well as the UK and Japanese governments, have helped establish community mediation services. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“We’re at the stage where cases and requests are coming in from neighbouring VDCs [village development committees, a unit of local government] where programmed mediation services are lacking,” said Sundeep Bista of the Access to Justice programme run by UNDP. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“We must recognize the cost impact of the courts on an individual,” said Ramesh Kumar Adhikari, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Federal Affairs and Local Development. Nepal’s annual per capita income is less than US$650 while legal fees in Kathmandu, the capital, can cost up to $1100 per case. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Female-led justice <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Community mediation programmes in dozens of village development committees are run by five donor agencies in Nepal, who usually require at least 30 percent of mediators to be women, and that members of marginalized ethnic groups such as Dalits, who are still widely viewed as an untouchable caste, are also included. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Less than 8 percent of registered legal professionals nationwide are women, according to 2009 data from the Nepal Bar Association. But as women mediators assume new leadership roles, they become trusted and respected members of the communities that may have ignored or shunned them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Women mediators are being selected by male disputants and are often the recipients of the Best Mediator awards [given by recently formed mediators’ societies] because communities are acknowledging that it’s the skills that are most important, not the sex or the caste,” said Rijal. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Usha Malla Pathak, 42, has practiced mediation in the capital region for the past 10 years. “While it can be a difficult job, when I am able to successfully bring two disputing parties together… the community is thankful to me for facilitating the transformation - this kind of social prestige cannot be purchased.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Domestic violence <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Typical issues handled by community mediation include money and marital disputes, road and irrigation accessibility, theft, property inheritance and, increasingly, physical assault and domestic violence. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Taking a husband to court exposes a woman to family and community ostracism and can put their sole source of income at risk, said Rijal. The formal justice system is widely seen as patriarchal and an obstacle to enforcing women’s rights, the ICJ’s Rawski noted. Nepal has no dedicated family courts. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A recent report by the National Women’s Commission of Nepal pointed out that a 2008 Supreme Court ruling extending the statute of limitation on prosecuting marital rape beyond 35 days has yet to be implemented. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The national parliament disbanded in late May this year due to political disputes. Many laws await final passage or enactment, but the Domestic Violence and Punishment Act (2008) allows victims to seek justice through mediation. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Court decisions are very difficult to implement,” said Rijal. “Community mediation is becoming popular because it’s an interest-based, win-win system.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Risk of impunity <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">However, mediation - which does not seek prosecution - risks strengthening the impunity of people who perpetrate violence against women if police refuse to file a complaint and instead send them to mediation, said Kirti Thapa, of the Gender-Based Violence Unit at the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">More government oversight is needed to ensure mediation does not increase impunity in a country where “patriarchal values… are deeply entrenched”, according to a report on access to justice, funded by the UK Department for International Development ( DfID). In cases of gender-based violence, “even if the case is reported to the police, priority is given for settling it within the family or community before taking it further.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Next steps <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The 2011 Mediation Act seeks to expand mediation services, but Kumar Sharma Acharya, of the local Centre for Legal Research and Resource Development (CeLRRD), said more groundwork is needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“The Mediation Act 2011 is an umbrella act that focuses mainly on court-referred mediation. The only chapter on community mediation lacks sufficient procedural provisions.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">In 2012 CeLRRD conducted research on the effectiveness of court-referred and community mediation as opposed to formal justice. Acharya, an author of the report, cited a lack of political will to professionalize mediation, “reflected in the absence of a government agency directly responsible for its operational procedures and integration”. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Donors and the government have expressed concern about how long a volunteer-based initiative can last. The USAID assessment noted that mediation was intended to lighten the courts’ workload, but there is no clear evidence of it having shortened the waiting time for cases to be heard, or reducing the number of cases before the courts.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

NEPAL: Community Mediation - Boon or Bust?

Photo: Natalie Bailey/IRIN Jury still out on impact of community mediation on women KATHMANDU (IRIN) - Community mediation as an altern...

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AFRICA: “Sexual refugees” struggle to access asylum

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXg4srT0DHVyZBdspG_fGAdEvoO741wC04EOoqSC3fTuNgirLFPbtkfQq_lWgsZgNUpM0Is2Z6Upqe7j7EkWWzhUOaJIor7iVWmIbGD1gLrqT7BBgby2eVDTWv2XvhN91iErUXeN3yTaE/s1600/20080814.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXg4srT0DHVyZBdspG_fGAdEvoO741wC04EOoqSC3fTuNgirLFPbtkfQq_lWgsZgNUpM0Is2Z6Upqe7j7EkWWzhUOaJIor7iVWmIbGD1gLrqT7BBgby2eVDTWv2XvhN91iErUXeN3yTaE/s320/20080814.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Photo: <a href="http://www.irinnews.org/photo"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none; text-underline: none;">Obinna Anyadike/IRIN</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">LGBTI refugees are often forced to hide their sexuality<o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">JOHANNESBURG (IRIN) - As a gay man living in Tanzania, Cassim Mustapha could have faced imprisonment, but prosecutions under the country's Sexual Offences Act are rare, and the bigger threat came from his own community. After one of his neighbours attacked him with an axe leaving a deep wound in his head, Mustapha fled and applied for asylum in Malawi, the first country he reached.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br /> <br /> Persecution relating to an individual's sexual orientation or gender identity is increasingly recognized by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and in refugee law as grounds for claiming asylum. Most such claims are based on the 1951 Refugee Convention's definition of a refugee as someone having a well-founded fear of persecution because of "membership of a particular social group".<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> However, many lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) individuals fail to gain asylum on this basis, either because they are unaware they can do so or because the officials determining their refugee status do not recognize such claims. This was the case for Mustapha in Malawi, one of 37 countries in Africa that criminalize homosexuality. He moved on to Zambia and tried again, with the same result.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> After a third failed asylum application in Zimbabwe, another country that bans same-sex practices, he was advised by UNHCR that his best chance lay in South Africa, a country where the rights of LGBTI people are protected by the constitution and where refugee law spells out persecution relating to sexuality as grounds for asylum.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> UNHCR issued Mustapha with a temporary travel document and he presented himself at the Beitbridge border post where he told immigration officials he wished to apply for asylum based on his sexuality.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"They just said, `Where is your passport?’ and when I didn't have it, they arrested me," he told IRIN from a cell at </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: windowtext;">Musina</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">police station in late January.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Assuming, there had been a misunderstanding, Mustapha made contact with Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), an NGO which campaigns for the rights of asylum seekers, refugees and migrants in South Africa.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">"He was very open about [his sexuality]," said LHR lawyer Wayne Ncube who interviewed Mustapha at Lindela Repatriation Centre outside Johannesburg where he was transferred soon after speaking to IRIN. "He thought he was finally somewhere where his rights would be protected."<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ncube prepared court papers requesting the Tanzanian's release but by the time he returned to Lindela four days later, Mustapha had been deported to Zimbabwe.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br /> <br /> "We haven't heard from him since," said Ncube.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Discrimination</span></strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /> <br /> A study<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>released recently by People Against Suffering Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP), a Cape Town-based refugee and migrant rights NGO, suggests that while Mustapha's experience is not the norm, LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers drawn to South Africa from other parts of the continent by its progressive reputation and legislation, experience high levels of discrimination, not just for being gay but also for being foreign.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br /> <br /> Most of the 25 LGBTI refugees and asylum seekers interviewed by PASSOP had experienced discrimination as they sought accommodation, employment, social inclusion and documentation. The combination of xenophobia and homophobia negatively affected their interactions with landlords, employers, police and Home Affairs officials. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Shunned by the refugee community for their sexuality, their status as foreigners tended to exclude them from Cape Town's well-established gay community.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><br /> <br /> The PASSOP report also found that almost half of those interviewed had not stated their sexual orientation or gender identity in their asylum claims, in most cases because they did not know this was a valid reason for seeking refugee status. Of the 14 interviewees who had stated their sexuality as the primary reason for claiming asylum, most had faced ridicule or inappropriate questions and only two had been successful in their claims.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br /> <!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><table align="right" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background-color: #aabbdc; border: 1pt solid rgb(51, 102, 153); margin: -0.75pt 6pt 3.75pt; width: 200px;"><tbody> <tr> <td style="border: none; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt;"> <div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 8.25pt; mso-element-frame-vspace: 1.5pt; mso-element-left: right; mso-element-top: middle; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> <v:stroke joinstyle="miter"> <v:formulas> <v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"> <v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"> <v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"> <v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"> <v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"> <v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"> <v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"> </v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:f></v:formulas> <v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"> <o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"> </o:lock></v:path></v:stroke></span></v:shapetype><v:shape alt="''" id="Picture_x0020_3" o:allowoverlap="f" o:spid="_x0000_s1026" style="height: 13.5pt; left: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-top: 0; mso-position-horizontal-relative: text; mso-position-horizontal: absolute; mso-position-vertical-relative: line; mso-position-vertical: absolute; mso-wrap-distance-bottom: 0; mso-wrap-distance-left: 0; mso-wrap-distance-right: 0; mso-wrap-distance-top: 0; mso-wrap-style: square; position: absolute; text-align: left; visibility: visible; width: 17.25pt; z-index: 1;" type="#_x0000_t75"> <v:imagedata o:title="''" src="file:///C:\Users\GHAZAN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.jpg"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> <w:wrap anchory="line" type="square"> </w:wrap></span></v:imagedata></v:shape><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There needs to be a clear UNHCR strategy for providing access to asylum in countries where same-sex conduct is criminalized</span></strong><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><v:shape alt="''" id="Picture_x0020_63" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 13.5pt; mso-wrap-style: square; visibility: visible; width: 17.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"> <v:imagedata o:title="''" src="file:///C:\Users\GHAZAN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image002.jpg"> </v:imagedata></v:shape></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div></td> </tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Recently released research<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>by the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of Witswatersrand in Johannesburg which found widespread and systemic problems with the quality of refugee status determination decisions made by the Department of Home Affairs, highlighted the routine failure of Home Affairs officials to recognize sexual orientation as eligible grounds for asylum.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> "I think it’s a general problem with training and knowledge of the law," said ACMS researcher Roni Amit. "Also a lot of them replicate the same discriminatory views about LGBTI people as the general population."<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> A 2008 UNHCR guidance note<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>on refugee claims relating to sexual orientation and gender identity recommends that LGBTI applicants be interviewed by "trained officials who are well informed about the specific problems LGBTI persons face" but provides no guidance on how to fairly adjudicate claims from LGBTI people seeking asylum in countries that criminalize same-sex conduct.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> <strong>Kenya and Uganda</strong><span class="apple-converted-space"><b> <o:p></o:p></b></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> "There needs to be a clear UNHCR strategy for providing access to asylum in countries where same-sex conduct is criminalized," said Duncan Breen, who has conducted research on the plight of LGBTI refugees in Kenya and Uganda (both countries criminalize same-sex conduct) for US-based advocacy organization Human Rights First.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> He noted that in countries where UNHCR officials conduct refugee status determination, such as Kenya, asylum applications based on sexual orientation or gender identity were more likely to be recognized than in countries where poorly trained government officials make such decisions.<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /> In a report<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>released by Human Rights First in May, Breen and his colleagues documented the many security risks faced by LGBTI refugees living in Kenya and Uganda and the threat of arrest if they attempt to seek police protection. Most responded either by frequently moving to new locations or by attempting to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="direction: ltr; text-align: justify; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /> In such cases, said Breen, LGBTI refugees struggle to access vital support and resettlement in a third country was often the only long-term solution. Currently, few LGBTI refugees from Kenya and Uganda are resettled, but Breen said there is increasing awareness among resettlement countries and UNHCR of the dangers facing this group of refugees and their need for resettlement.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

AFRICA: “Sexual refugees” struggle to access asylum

Photo:  Obinna Anyadike/IRIN LGBTI refugees are often forced to hide their sexuality JOHANNESBURG (IRIN) - As a gay man living in Tanza...

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Indian Women Migrants Vulnerable to Exploitation in Gulf: UN

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">NEW DELHI, India (NNN-Bernama) - Indian women, who form the third largest female migrant workforce from South Asia in the Gulf, often end up in vulnerable situations while working for employers as justice is out of their reach, a latest UN report says.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The report, titled 'Migration of Women Workers from South Asia to the Gulf', said migration of women from South Asia to the Gulf was likely to increase despite conditions that could lead to exploitation. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"It is also likely that women migrants will continue to encounter discrimination and exploitation at different phases of the migration cycle, in both sending and receiving countries," Press Trust of India quoted the report as saying. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The report was also critical of provision that made it mandatory for female emigrants from India to have completed matriculation or be of 30 years of age. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Though it was initiated with the objective to protect the rights of workers, anecdotal evidence indicates that the provision not only restricts the rights of women to work but also promotes unregulated migration, where female workers end up in more vulnerable situations," the report said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In 2010, about 6.45 million female migrants originated from South Asia, with Nepal having the highest number of migrants followed by Sri Lanka and India. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Saudi Arabia received the highest proportion of Indian migrant workers to the Gulf region in the same year. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The report said recruitment in Gulf countries was usually carried out under the kafala system where contracts were very individualised and made women workers highly dependent on their employer. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IN; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">"Insufficient pre-departure orientation makes single women migrant workers vulnerable to exploitation and human rights abuse, as they are often duped by agents or employers," the report added. -- NNN-BERNAMA</span></div>

Indian Women Migrants Vulnerable to Exploitation in Gulf: UN

NEW DELHI, India (NNN-Bernama) - Indian women, who form the third largest female migrant workforce from South Asia in the Gulf, often end u...

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HEALTH: Treat the Mother - Save the Baby

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWZfMw6XY2brAbiDqrnhRFZGWOq_U0q7sErAoVPLuRiCQdASxENHvtmdASAWU619qNklxn4wpuhyPd191RRHPP_7B8fM7wYLnQ3zl_Y90ig_iEzgympEAXC_VT16F-B86UY3kIKiZCho/s1600/201205151237530313.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWZfMw6XY2brAbiDqrnhRFZGWOq_U0q7sErAoVPLuRiCQdASxENHvtmdASAWU619qNklxn4wpuhyPd191RRHPP_7B8fM7wYLnQ3zl_Y90ig_iEzgympEAXC_VT16F-B86UY3kIKiZCho/s1600/201205151237530313.jpg" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Photo: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamcnelson/3098244355/"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none;">Super.heavy/Flickr</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Something to smile about...</span></div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">LONDON (IRIN) - The past decade has seen great advances in child survival, but while toddlers and small children are benefiting, the death rate for new-born babies remains stubbornly high. Now a new report suggests that paying more attention to their mothers’ health, and focusing on certain damaging but treatable diseases, could be one key to tackling neonatal mortality.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The traditional childhood killers - measles, pneumonia and diarrhoea - are all down; even where malaria is still rife, treated bednets are saving children’s lives. But as deaths from other causes drop, mortality in the first month of life looms ever larger. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Statistics published recently by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore show that, worldwide, around 40 percent of children who die below the age of five die in the first month of life, and that rises to 50 percent or more in regions like Europe and South East Asia where other causes of childhood death have been reduced. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Many of these babies were born too soon, or born too small; others were born with infections contracted from their mothers. In all these cases it is the mother’s health during pregnancy which is the key to the babies’ survival, and now the American Medical Association has published astudy of the incidence in pregnant women of health problems which are known to affect their unborn babies, and which can all be treated. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The researchers looked at 171 studies from Sub-Saharan Africa over a 20-year period, which showed whether women attending ante-natal clinics were infected with malaria, or with a range of sexually transmitted and reproductive tract infections - syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia and bacterial and parasitic infections of the vagina. If left untreated, these can lead to miscarriages, stillbirths, premature births and low birth-weight babies. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Malaria affects placenta <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Matthew Chico, a research fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who led the team, stresses the far-reaching effects of these problems. In malaria, for instance, the placenta does not function properly. “What you end up with,” he told IRIN, “is a low birth-weight baby, and low birth weight is the single most common factor in neonatal mortality. And it leads to lifelong consequences. Low birth-weight babies underperform at school and end up earning less, and curiously they even end up with more cardiovascular problems later in life. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The good news is that all these conditions are treatable. It is just a question of finding the best way to reach these women, many of whom will have no symptoms and be unaware they are infected“There are multiple consequences. Girls are at greater risk, for instance, of having low birth-weight babies themselves and so it continues into the next generation. We have to break the cycle.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Chico and his colleagues divided the continent into two regions - East and Southern Africa, and West and Central Africa, because of the way the higher incidence of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa might affect the results. They also excluded South Africa, because malaria was a major part of the study, and malaria there has been reduced to the point where it is no longer an issue. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">What they found was alarming. The incidence of syphilis and gonorrhoea was relatively low, under 5 percent, and the most recent figures show them on the decline. But in East and Southern Africa more than half the women attending antenatal clinics tested positive for bacterial vaginal infection and more than a quarter had the parasitic infection, trichomonas. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">These figures were a little lower in West and Central Africa, but those areas had a higher rate of malaria infection, around 40 percent, although this had reduced a little in more recent studies, an indication perhaps that the promotion of bednets for pregnant women has had an effect. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The averages conceal considerable variations from place to place, with one set of figures from Blantyre, Malawi, showing more than 85 percent of women had a bacterial vaginal infection and another, from Ngali in Cameroon, reporting that almost 95 percent of women there were infected with malaria. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">So what can be done? Effective treatment could make a major dent in neonatal mortality. “It’s been established that universal coverage with preventive treatment for malaria would reduce neonatal mortality by a third,” says Chico. “So add to that an STI [sexually transmitted infection] and RTI [reproductive tract infection] component and the reduction could certainly be more than that.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The good news <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The good news is that all these conditions are treatable. It is just a question of finding the best way to reach these women, many of whom will have no symptoms and be unaware they are infected. The current treatment regime is to give all pregnant women preventive treatment for malaria using Fansidar (sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine). But growing resistance to the drug means this is less effective than it used to be. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">One possibility is to do a blood test for malaria at each antenatal visit, and only give treatment if the test is positive. “The screen and treat approach minimizes drug use,” Chico told IRIN, “and that would minimize drug resistance. But the test doesn’t show if the placenta is infected, which is what affects the unborn baby, and this approach doesn’t give protection against sexually transmitted infections. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">“Or else you could use a preventive combination therapy with an antimalarial plus azithromycin, which is primarily an antibiotic and will act against the other infections, but also has some antimalarial properties. Many doctors don’t like to give a pregnant a woman any drug unless they are sure she needs it, but in this case the alternative is much more grave. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">“What we need now are studies to compare the alternative treatments in similar populations. Only then will we know what path to follow.” </span></div>

HEALTH: Treat the Mother - Save the Baby

Photo:  Super.heavy/Flickr Something to smile about... LONDON (IRIN) - The past decade has seen great advances in child survival, but wh...

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‘SABLA’ Scheme Expected to Benefit about 100 Lakh Adolescent Girls Every Year

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 18px;">New Delhi (PIB) --- As many as 100 lakh adolescent girls per annum are expected to be benefitted under the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empowerment of Adolescent Girls (RGSEAG)–‘Sabla’ scheme- of the Government. The centrally-sponsored scheme was introduced in 2010-11 on a pilot basis in 200 districts in all States and UTs.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Against the allocation of Rs. 340 crore for the year 2010-11, a sum of Rs. 330 crore (approx.) were released to States/UTs. The year 2011-12 was the first complete year of implementation of the scheme, against the allocation of Rs. 750 crore in 2011-12, Rs. 561.11 crore have been released to States/UTs for implementation of the scheme. As reported by States/UTs, coverage for nutrition under Sabla in 2011-12 was 84.82 lakh adolescent girls. An allocation of Rs. 750 crore is made for the scheme for 2012-13. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">This was stated by the Minister for Women and Child Development, Smt. Krishna Tirath, in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

‘SABLA’ Scheme Expected to Benefit about 100 Lakh Adolescent Girls Every Year

New Delhi (PIB) --- As many as 100 lakh adolescent girls per annum are expected to be benefitted under the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Scheme for Empower...

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India Has New Map to Make Travel Safe for Women

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (NNN-Bernama) -- An exclusive travel map for women will become reality soon, aiming to help women avoid travelling after dark to places where incidents of eve-teasing and sexual abuse against women are high, Press Trust of India (PTI). <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">A state map marked with dots highlighting the 'shady places' is an initative being launched as part of the Nirbhaya project under the social welfare department, is the brainchild of Jagjeevan N, the former head of gender self learning programme. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">He said that to collate data required for such a map, the Kudumabsree workers of all panchayats will collect information on incidents of eve-teasing and attacks against women from their respective wards with the help of cops and the excise department. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">"The information for the map would be collected through survey forms that would be distributed in all houses in the locality. Prior to the distribution of survey forms, a list of different kind of issues would be prepared," he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The Kudumbasree workers will collect information and then categorize it on the basis of the nature of crime. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">After data is collected from ward, they will compile it and then it will be superimposed on the map of the ward. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">"Each kind of crime will be differentiated from one another by the colour of the spot. Incidences of sexual assault will be marked red. Yellow, blue, orange, and green colours would also be used," he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Even though the draft plan is yet to get a final nod of the government, five panchayats in Malappuram have already started mapping crime against women on a trial basis. The Kudumbasree workers of Areekode, Alankode, Vandur, Kalikavu, and Moothedam are now being trained to carry out the survey. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Sibin P Paul, gender resource person and coordinator of Kudumbasree, Malappuram, said workers will be directed to specific wards based on the number of crime cases reported from different areas in panchayats. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">The data would also be collected through Ayalkoottams, schools, and Kudumbasree meeting and, it will be coordinated by the panchayat-level Jagratha Samitis. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Apart from this, the maps will make people aware of the crime status of their native villages. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">"The map will help women identify the places that are more dangerous tovisit and the places where they should be more careful while travelling," said P K Thomas, executive director in-charge of Kudumbasree Mission. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS","sans-serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">According to sources at the district office of social welfare department the map will highlight spots even in rural areas and will ensure safety for children too. The crime mapping is also likely to help authorities take pre-mptive steps to prevent violence in the marked areas. -- NNN-BERNAMA<o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

India Has New Map to Make Travel Safe for Women

  THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India (NNN-Bernama) -- An exclusive travel map for women will become reality soon, aiming to help women avoid travel...

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India and Brazil Sign Statement of Intent for Promotion of Gender Equality and Advancement of the Rights of Women and Children

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPpvhH-yRvbBVDhyphenhyphenh2ksjChHuArnfFGsNyTJaBRdmN56jf-1QFerx7SSNeR0_e5L1Nwo_wExhDcxb6DpUdqi65XPZtm_9hSeKeQ7nw1sE7ydL5Gz6NAf1NbjLj9l4pUk8H0vnj2zylY0/s1600/l2012033039997.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEPpvhH-yRvbBVDhyphenhyphenh2ksjChHuArnfFGsNyTJaBRdmN56jf-1QFerx7SSNeR0_e5L1Nwo_wExhDcxb6DpUdqi65XPZtm_9hSeKeQ7nw1sE7ydL5Gz6NAf1NbjLj9l4pUk8H0vnj2zylY0/s320/l2012033039997.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">PIB Photo</td></tr> </tbody></table><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">New Delhi (PIB) --- India and Brazil signed a statement of intent for promotion of gender equality and advancement of the rights of women and children, here yesterday. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">According to the statement both the countries will work towards formalization of a Memorandum of Understanding or Agreement (MoU/A) which will address several issues regarding promotion of gender equality and advancement of the rights of women and children in the two countries. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">A bilateral Joint Working Group (JWG) will be formed which will be headed by representatives of the Ministry of Women and Child Development, India and Secretariat of Policies for Women of the Federative Republic of Brazil and comprise representatives of other Ministries, Departments and Organizations as these may be co-opted by the signing parties. Details of the JWG will be worked out within ninety days from the declaration of this statement and its meeting alternatively in both the countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">As its first activity the JWG will include an Action Plan that includes the identification of actions at different levels aimed to achieving the following- <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">a.       Economic empowerment of women; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">b.       Inclusive education; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">c.       Advancement of the rights of children; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">d.       Egalitarian, pluralistic and inclusive participation of women in spaces of power and decision making including political leadership; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">e.       Equality of women in the workplace; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">f.       Skills development and skills up-gradation of women and adolescents; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">g.       Improvement of living conditions and overall health of women and children; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">h.       Women’s access to civil documentation, in rural and urban areas; <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">i.       Eliminating discrimination and violence against women; and such other goals within the purview of this Statement as the competent authorities may agree upon. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Moreover, the countries also agreed to provide mutual cooperation in terms of exchange of visits and sharing of information and experience through publications, workshops, seminars, conferences, trainings and video conferences; sharing of best practices; promotion of civil society co-operation; establishment of joint institutions, projects and other joint mechanisms, as the competent authorities may agree upon regarding these objectives. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In addition to this, both the countries agreed to work towards promotion of the value of education as a fundamental tool to achieve empowerment, participation, inclusion, tolerance and respect for diversity by which they are characterized; achieve health for all women and children; condemn all acts of violence committed against women and children and join forces to fight gender based violence in any of its manifestations, within the framework of the international agreements and of the respective national legislations in force; and to take steps to increase egalitarian, pluralistic and inclusive participation of women in positions of power and decision-making at national and regional level. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The countries also stated their intent to pay special attention to the inclusion of women in economic processes, promoting their economic empowerment and focusing on women who live in conditions of extreme poverty; promote information exchange between the countries to eliminate discrimination against women and to achieve gender equality, as an essential step to achieve more inclusive societies, where women can participate on equal terms with men in political, social and economic spheres of both countries; and continue to promote gender equality through mainstreaming gender in all public policies taking into account especially the circumstances that characterize vulnerable groups of women. <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

India and Brazil Sign Statement of Intent for Promotion of Gender Equality and Advancement of the Rights of Women and Children

PIB Photo New Delhi (PIB) --- India and Brazil signed a statement of intent for promotion of gender equality and advancement of the righ...

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Development: Microfinance - possibilities and limitations

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br /> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody> <tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3kuWBIMDShj8_mjqA9CXfbXn90Wyg8NyWmGHZyHRPSMdr9dkINPJ_Wf0J50CXMGesQI9PtiYui9U8LKLkfbQSBMrZRTIihirXcAge-f8odILFYPUXOAVms8QQTtluiff1FkYlvm8bCRg/s1600/201106081516360437.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3kuWBIMDShj8_mjqA9CXfbXn90Wyg8NyWmGHZyHRPSMdr9dkINPJ_Wf0J50CXMGesQI9PtiYui9U8LKLkfbQSBMrZRTIihirXcAge-f8odILFYPUXOAVms8QQTtluiff1FkYlvm8bCRg/s1600/201106081516360437.jpg" /></a></td></tr> <tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN<u1:p></u1:p></span></i><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Benefits in the balance? Small-scale gold trader,<span class="apple-converted-space"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal"><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Ankavandra</span></i></st1:city><i><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10pt;">,<span class="apple-converted-space"> <st1:country-region u2:st="on"></st1:country-region></span><st1:country-region w:st="on">Madagascar</st1:country-region></span></i></st1:place><i><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal"><br /> </div></td></tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">LONDON</span></st1:place></st1:city><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';"> (IRIN) - The scope of microfinance to lift poor people out of poverty and provide mechanisms of empowerment is being challenged as questions are raised about the supporting evidence.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">In a discussion hosted by the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>'s Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the academic evidence was concluded to be unclear, unreliable and inconclusive.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"[There is] no clear evidence that microfinance has any positive or negative impacts," said Maren Duvendack, ODI fellow and author of a recent systematic review of microfinance, while David Roodman, of the Centre for Global Development, added: "I [wouldn't] say microfinance doesn't work, I would say it does not systematically reduce poverty. We do not have credible academic evidence that microcredit on average lifts people out of poverty... We [also] do not have evidence that microfinance is systematically making people worse off." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Range of services <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"I think a lot of people think that microfinance equals microcredit [providing small loans]," Duvendack told IRIN. "[Microfinance is] not just credit and savings, [but also] insurance, business skills, training, financial literacy." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Most studies consider the impact of microcredit, but Roodman suggested another of the microfinance portfolio products - microsavings - could have positive impacts on poverty reduction. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Duvendack, however, who is completing a study on the impact of microsavings, said it showed no significant benefits over microcredit. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Microfinance risks <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The predominance of microcredit as a microfinance tool could be a significant<o:p></o:p></span></div><table align="right" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #eeeeee; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1pt; border-image: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1pt; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1pt; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1pt; margin-bottom: 3.75pt; margin-left: 6pt; margin-right: 6pt; margin-top: -0.75pt; width: 280px;"><tbody> <tr> <td colspan="2" style="border: none; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt;"> <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-element-anchor-horizontal: column; mso-element-anchor-vertical: paragraph; mso-element-frame-hspace: 8.25pt; mso-element-frame-vspace: 1.5pt; mso-element-left: right; mso-element-top: middle; mso-element-wrap: around; mso-element: frame; mso-height-rule: exactly; text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: #006699; font-family: Tahoma; font-size: 9.0pt;">"This year, I expect even a larger profit"<o:p></o:p></span></b></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-style: initial; border: none; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt;" valign="top"> <div class="MsoNormal"><br /> </div></td> <td style="border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-style: initial; border: none; padding: 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt 3.75pt; width: 200.25pt;" width="267"> <div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #006699; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.0pt;"><br /> Just three years ago, Shila Rani Mazumder and her husband were struggling to make ends meet in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Bangladesh</st1:country-region></st1:place>. Her husband earned just US$3 per day as a carpenter and she worried she would never be able to send her two children to school.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> "Each month, we were short of money. Quarrelling became a regular part of our daily life," the 31-year-old told IRIN.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> In 2010, she learned about a microfinance initiative in her village to help poor people and decided to take a chance. With a loan of $63 payable over one year, she invested in growing vegetables in their fields. She was also provided agriculture, fisheries and livestock training by the microcredit organization.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> "After one year, I paid back the loan and earned a good profit," she said.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> In 2011, she borrowed another $360 and is working to pay that back now. "This year, I expect even a larger profit," she said. But the dividends are already being realized in other ways; both children now attend school.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> Many people in the Adampur village in Comilla District, 60km east of the capital Dhaka, have changed their lives with the help of micro credit from the Centre for Community Development Assistance (CCDA), a local NGO, which has been operating providing microfinance for poor people in Bangladesh since 1992.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> According to CCDA, close to 2,300 residents, mostly women, in Mazumder's village receive microcredit support, with almost 100 percent repayment rates. Across <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Bangladesh</st1:country-region></st1:place>, the organization is supporting close to 60,000 people by providing microfinance support, offering one-year loans at 24.72 percent interest per year.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> MA Samad, executive director of CCDA, said farmers in the area needed money at certain times of the year, particularly in September and October.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> "The micro-finance support is helping the farmers in the area. Many poor people have changed their lives with the help of microcredit," he said, noting that it was not easy for them to get loans and microcredit was largely the only option available to them.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br /> <br /> He denied that the interest rate was high. "Before the introduction of microfinance, people used to take loans from 'mohajan' [informal money lender] and they often charged even two or three times the amount microfinance organization charge," Samad said.<o:p></o:p></span></div></td> </tr> </tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> hindrance to poverty reduction, as the risk of indebtedness is high. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">According to another ODI fellow, Milford Bateman, micro-enterprise failure after funding with microcredit can strip poor people of all their remaining assets. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"It is the overall lack of access to credit for small and medium enterprises that prevents micro-enterprises growing into anything more substantive," Bateman added in an ODI paper. Microfinance initiatives have provided a social legitimacy for poor people to become indebted, commented Bateman, and the commercial business model has meant high interest rates for microcredit. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Microfinance institutes [are] now required to generate high financial rewards for their managers (salaries, bonuses) and owners/shareholders (dividends and capital gains)," Bateman explained. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"The fear is that significant financial flows are flowing out of the poorest communities, rather than being retained and recycled within them to underpin productive investment as the precursor to an escape from poverty." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Consensus is growing that microcredit should not be offered to the poorest of the poor due to the risk of harm, said Ruth Stewart of the Social Science Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London, at a London International Development Centre event. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Limitations and advances <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">The limitations in evidence of microfinance for poverty reduction result from poor study design and unreliable data, despite more than 30 years' experience. Hopes remain that robust and well-designed research, including randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews, will provide clearer conclusions in coming years. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Microfinance initiatives will not be successful in a vacuum, according to Duvendack. They will need to operate as part of a broader poverty reduction strategy with appropriate large- and small-scale economic frameworks to support advancement for poor people. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Another forthcoming systematic review by Duvendack will also show no benefits of microfinance as a tool to empower poor women, although it does increase recognition of poor people as consumers of financial services, and can result in the development of regulatory frameworks around consumer rights. These factors were argued as possible forms of empowerment and new regulatory frameworks for <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">India</st1:place></st1:country-region> were cited. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"There are indigenous models and we need to investigate these models," said Will Derben, head of community relations at Barclays Africa. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Indigenous community models to provide finance for poor people, like the Susu men in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Ghana</st1:place></st1:country-region>, have been overlooked during implementation of microfinance tools. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Potential customers, as well as existing community models, need to be better understood so as to be better supported by microfinance initiatives.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Also overlooked, Duvendack told IRIN, may have been other potentially important financial tools, such as targeted welfare programmes, conditional cash transfer programmes, or small-scale agricultural growth programmes. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"I think we need more studies to be clearer about what is the actual impact of the various products," said Duvendack. "Do we have to have credit plus savings together or savings alone, or credit alone - or what is it now?" <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Growth <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">By 2008, the microfinance industry had grown to include at least 2,420 microfinance institutes in 117 countries, according to microfinance institute exchange; the number continues to grow annually. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Microfinance institutions are able to be relatively self-sufficient, to innovate, to provide jobs and to compete in financial markets. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">For Barclays Africa, Derban said, "Microfinance is a concept. It's about finding that balance between providing a financial service that will improve people's lives but yet be viable commercially. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"We need to provide financial services and we need to find ways of improving the system. Everybody wants to be banked." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">To maintain a balance between doing social good and implementing successful financial products, Derban explained, Barclays Africa combines its commercial expertise with regulations bound to the philanthropic budget used to invest in community projects. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"I think it used to be the case where a lot of people that came into the microfinance sector came via the NGO route, where it's all about helping. [Now] we're seeing... more commercial people are coming in." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Regulation <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"Certainly we shouldn't just let the market do its own thing," added Roodman.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"> "Government does need to play a major role, setting the rules of the game and ensuring that it stays on an even keel." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Continuing to increase funds invested in microfinance, Roodman reflected, would not only be unnecessary, but could also potentially create harmful "microcredit bubbles". <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">"We cannot assume that more is always better. The amount of money going into microcredit these days poses the largest threat to the largest strength of microfinance." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br /> </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Microfinance, argued Roodman, offers "a cautionary tale about putting a lot of money into things where the impacts are not rigorously dealt with". <o:p></o:p></span></div></div>

Development: Microfinance - possibilities and limitations

Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN Benefits in the balance? Small-scale gold trader, Ankavandra ,   Madagascar LONDON (IRIN) - The scope of microf...

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