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The SSND delegation to the CSW included (front row) Yasmin Karimian, Maryland; Agnes Agyemang-Barnie, Ghana; S. Yvonne Nosal, SSND, Peru; Nadine Binder, Germany; Jennifer Testi, New Jersey; (second row) Oliva Reekie, New Jersey; S. Carolyn Jost, SSND, Illinois; S. Marleny Bardales, SND, Peru; Linda Rogers Kennedy, Missouri; Jamie St. Eve, Missouri; Vanessa de los Milagros Juarez, Peru; S. Ann Scholz, SSND; (back row) Juliane Bungartz, Germany; S. Joan Burke, SND, New York; Beth Huggins, Wisconsin; Felizitas von Boeselager, Germany; Stephanie Braun, Germany; S. Eileen Reilly, Illinois, and Caitlin Byrnes, New York. Not pictured are S. Ethel Howley, SSND; Connecticut; S. Leonora Tucker, SSND, Ghana; S. Mary Peter Colantuoni, SSND, New York, and Julie Gilberto-Brady.
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Commission on Status of Women
enters second week of work
As the Commission on the Status of Women enters the final week of its 51st session, participants continue to give voice to the girl-child and the issues of discrimination and violence that continue to subjugate her around the world.
The 25 members of the School Sister of Notre Dame delegation who attended the CSW meeting last week, leave empowered to speak out and act on the scourge of discrimination and violence against the girl child. The SSND delegation took part in dozens of parallel events that gave voice to the concerns of girls. The oftentimes emotional stories shared in these sessions were powerful catalysts that motivated the participants to continue their work for change.
Most of the second week of the CSW meeting will be devoted to member state negotiations in which national delegations will hammer out the outcome document. This set of agreed conclusions will outline their commitments to end discrimination and violence against the girl child and will serve as the basis for policy development at the national level. NGO representatives will be following the negotiations closely and lobbying hard for commitments that include measurable action that moves the girls’ rights agenda forward.
“Our hope is that as the CSW continues to negotiate on the wording of the final document, they will not forget the powerful stories we heard of arranged marriages at age nine, forced military service at age 13, and domestic servitude beginning at age 7,” said S. Eileen Reilly, SSND.
The School Sisters of Notre Dame, as a U.N. Non-Governmental Organization with consultative status, was directly involved in several of the CSW events, including a high-level roundtable and “Girls Speak Out” sessions.
The School Sisters of Notre Dame have been involved in the work of empowering girls and women through education since the foundation of the Congregation in 19th Century Bavaria, said S. Ann Scholz, SSND.
“Our foundress, Blessed Theresa of Jesus Gerhardinger, understood fully the importance of educating girls, if the conditions in their society were to improve,” Sister Ann said. “We are simply continuing her work in this 21st Century of ours. Education continues to be the key to ensuring girls’ rights and to eliminating the discrimination and violence that enslaves so many of our sisters and brothers around the world.”
The high-level roundtable on “elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child” provided an opportunity for senior representatives of member states to share experiences, lessons learned and good practices in relation to eliminating all forms of discrimination and violence against the girl child. Vanessa Juarez Arevalo, 15, of Mother Theresa Technical Secondary School in Tejedores, Peru, who attended with the SSND delegation, presented the findings of a UNICEF report, "It's Time to Listen to Us," which included the views of more than 1,300 young people from 59 countries in eight regions.
Vanessa joined panelists that included Hélène Gosselin, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); Dr. Marcus Stahlhofer, World Health Organization (WHO); Evy Messell, International Labour Organization (ILO); Cheryl Morden, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD); Hourig Babikian, Working Group on Girls.
At an NGO session on violence against girls on Thursday, three girls from Togo, Ghana and Haiti told their stories of violence and discrimination that they and their peers face in their home countries and offered possible solutions to eliminating those abuses. The panel, co-sponsored by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, included Agnes Agyeman-Barnie, a student at Notre Dame Girls Secondary School in Sunyani, Ghana who is attended the CSW meeting with the delegation from the School Sisters of Notre Dame.
The “Girls Speak Out” session on Friday featured an international panel of teens who described the discrimination and violence they have overcome. The session was moderated by CBS Anchorwoman Katie Couric and was co-sponsored by the Working Group on Girls, of which S. Ann Scholz, SSND, is co-chair.
SSND participants will use this experience to further their work for peace and justice. Beth Huggins, a 20-year-old student from Mount Mary College who was part of the SSND delegation, said a session on female genital mutilation in Africa left her wondering why it is that some of the strongest perpetrators of continuing harmful cultural practices are women.
"This really showed me how powerful what we believe can be in our lives," Huggins said. "Whether or not this practice was initiated by men or women does not matter. What is important now is that the women be educated to understand the risks and be given the freedom to explore other culturally-related rituals that could be used as new rites of passage.
"The experience of being a part of the SSND delegation to the CSW reinforced for me the truth of how change happens: we build off of the relationships we have and slowly awareness grows until transformation is possible."
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CSW offers chance to showcase efforts to eliminate discrimination, violence against girls:
A look at a few of last week's panels, events
The Human Dignity of Women in Contemporary Society :
Sponsored by the Holy See to the United Nations, Path to Peace Foundation, Vincentian Center for Church and Society of St. John's University, New York, panelists discussed issues through the prism of the dignity of each human person and described current best practices in both preventing and addressing violence against women.
"It is ironic when sensitivity to women's issues is stronger than ever that the world is obliged to confront new forms of slavery and violence directed at women," said Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Apostolic Nuncio to the United Nations.
"If we want to sustain change, then peoples' consciences must find common ground on this issue of discrimination and violence"
School for Violence:
How Young People Learn Their Roles
In this workshop, sponsored by Womankind Worldwide, participants looked at the lessons and roles young people around the world learn in their daily lives which lead to violence and discrimination against women and girls. It explored what schools can do to challenge these attitudes and behaviors.
"We are all victims of gender stereotypes," said the director of a preventative education program in Zimbabwe. "We are born into a society where everything is already arranged, our roles. But we are not born into gender-based violence. Men and boys are taught gender-based violence. Because it is learned, it can be unlearned."
No Excuses : Defending Women's and
Children's Rights in Times of Terror
Despite international tools and protocols on gender inclusion, when the debate turns to “security” women and children, their rights and their contributions, are forgotten or ignored, according to the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice in San Diego, which sponsored this parallel event.
Abuse against women and girls cannot be ended unless it is dealt with in times of violence, said Dee Aker, executive director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice. Wars, conflicts and fears of war cannot be used as excuses for not giving girls rights, she said.
Patterns that are shaping the problems of the world include globalization which promotes the use of girls and women for cheap labor, a rise of religious extremism, with politics that identify with the extremism, and the increasing gap between rich and poor, said Elahe Amani, gender, peace and social justice activist with the Women's Intercultural Network.
Girls Inventing Solutions :
Integrated Water and Transport
Concerned that girls in rural areas are deprived of education because so much time must be spent transporting water to their villages, students from Nerinx High School in St. Louis, Mo., set out to invent an apparatus to alleviate the problem.
The St. Louis students created a device that simultaneous allows the transporting and treatment of water. The students worked in teams to create each component of their apparatus using materials indigenous to the areas where the device would be used. For instance, they are making filter disks from clay and coffee grounds and firing them in a kiln. They also are working on a method to create activated charcoal from corn husks to use in their filtering system.
The students' goal is to perfect the invention so that it removes 99 percent of contaminants and to make the instructions for building the devise available without charge to improve the quality of life of girls in rural areas.
Saving Girls, Saving the World:
Beyond
Gender Equality,
moving towards girls' rights
NGOs are having been growing up, said Pirjo-Liisa Penttinen, national secretary general of the YWCA of Finland. Started to provide humanitarian relief and welfare, modern NGOs are active in people's movements, social movements, development movements and building alliances and solidarities in a global world.
Paulette Senior, CEO of the Canadian YWCA, said, that YWCA are re-focusing their commitment to providing empowering programs for girls.
"There is a link between how we education young women and girls and having them see themselves as political leaders."
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