Month: November 2018
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Women on the Front Lines of Peace and Security
Sixth in a series for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence. Photo: UN Peace Keeping. Seh-Dong-Hong-Beh, leader of the Dahomey women’s regiment, drawn by Frederick Forbes, 1851 – Public Domain. Today, November 30, is Benin National Day. What does that have to do with Women, Peace and Security? Well – Benin’s history features the…
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Women Human Rights Defenders
Fifth in a series for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence I am always deeply inspired by each of the heroic women and men who have served as United Nations High Commissioners for Human Rights. The High Commissioner’s “To Do” list is horrific, dealing personally and skillfully with one brutal situation after another. (Many…
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When Women Lead
Fourth in a series for 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence On this day in 1919, American-born Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor (Lady Astor) became the first woman elected to the British Parliament. Women gained the vote in the UK in 1918, and not until 1920 in the US. During this same period, India was…
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Denying Health Care is Violence
Third in a series for 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence. Photo: The Hunger Project – women’s march at the Bissiga epicenter. There is a heartbreaking scene in Christy Turlington’s documentary No Woman, No Cry (2010) as a rural woman walks 12 miles to a birthing center, and is then turned away because she…