Human rights chief "shocked" to hear about discrimination against women in Indonesia

       The High Commissioner of Human Rights in United Nations, Navi Pillay, told reporters on Tuesday that she was shocked at the number of women who were discriminated against. While on a mission in the country she was able to speak with a women victim group and they expressed to her how they felt. Because of this, she said that Indonesia needed to ratify international human rights treaties. They also have to be translated into domestic law. This means that it has to be law at all levels and some may see it as a threat to the country's sovereignty.
      The women spoke about the horrors they faced. The harsh enforcement of the Sharia Law in Aceh protects the cruel acts of stoning and caning. Places where many women come together to socialize, such as hair salons are being raided at anytime and it has them constantly living in fear. Not only do these people discriminate against women, but they attack the LGBT community as well. Pillay also encourages the government to ensure their protection so they can feel safe.
     Through discrimination, inequality is clearly visible. It is as if whoever is doing this feel that women and members of the LGBT community do not have the same rights as them and they treat them less than their worth. As humans, we should all be given an equal chance but people are not willing to make and accept changes so we all have this opportunity. Hopefully, by Pillay visiting Indonesia as a Human Rights Commissioner, it brought attention to this discrimination. People may watch more closely and the government will actually do their job to protect them and stop these violent attacks.

Story:

 http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2012/11/human-rights-chief-shocked-to-hear-about-discrimination-against-women-in-indonesia/

Pakistan Parents Say They Murdered Daughter In 'Honor Killing' Because She Looked At A Boy

      This article caught my eye as soon as I looked at it. A young girl all of 15 was brutally beaten and killed by her parents for looking at a boy as he road by on a motorcycle. Apparently there has been a line of deaths attached to the "honor killings" in Pakistan. This is where women are being killed by their own families because they rebel against getting married or have a relationship outside of marriage. This is known to damage the family name and hers was looking at this boy, which her father told her she shouldn't before.
      Although her father told her it was wrong to do this, from behind bars he stated that by the time she said that she would not do it again that he "had already thrown the acid on her." They have an older daughter who began to grow suspicious after two days of her parents not allowing her to see the young girl. It was then that she reported to the police and the girl's destroyed body was found.
     Last year, over 20 women were killed in these so called honor killings. But, it was not only the fact that they did not want to get married that got them killed, it was if they went against their families in any way. According to this article women were being killed in "honor" over property and inheritance rights as well.
     In what way is this right? This is definately a form of inequality. These women are forced to do somethingt they do not want to do, or face death. These arranged marriages are never in the best interest of the women. They often end up in abusive, controlling relationships and if it comes to divorce, they often end up in poverty with no way to provide for themselves. I'm not sure whether this is a government enforced thing but something needs to be changed about it because it is evident that the women are not seen as equal.


STORY: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/05/pakistan-parents-killed-d_0_n_2078365.html

South Africa mine strikes: Police fire tear gas

      For the past few months, there has been nothing but turmoil between the miners in many companies in South Africa, and the companies and government they work for. Back in August, at least 40 people were killed trying to resist police when on strike and this article reveals more police brutality as many strikes still go on. This article focuses specifically on the platnium miners. In a recent, blog of mine, I spoke about many of the miners returning back to work because they were given an ultimatum: to start working again, or lose your job. Losing their job was something that many of them could not afford because they already worked for low wages to support their family and their situation was a prime example of the inequality gap in South Africa.
      The platnium mine workers refused to come back to work until their demand for higher pay be met. Being as angry as they were, they set fire to an electricity sub-station and set up barricades to block off police. To disperse the crowd, the police ended up shooting plastic bullets and tear gas into crowds of people. This only can lead to more violence and the want to fight against authority.
     South Africa's gap between the income of workers and the owners and leaders is the among the most unequal in the world. Trying to get workers back by force will not solve anything. The workers want their demands to be met, but according to this article they are demanding $1,840 a month, which is 3 times more that what they make now. The owners should take into consideration how dangerous the mining industry is, the people that these workers have to provide for and their ways of living. A question they could think about is could they live off the wages that they are giving to their workers. South Africa has lost millions of dollars during these strikes so the corporations need to come together to figure out how they will change this before more people die, or they lose more money.

story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20137096

Feminist activists urge 'women's voices' to be heard as they rally in Parliament

        This article covers a recent rally held near Parliament by women who felt that inequality and its effects on them need to be changed. In addition to that, they seeked support for abortion rights. They used the great suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst, as their guide to gaining women's rights. These demonstators were over 200 representatives from different women's rights groups and their main goal was bringing attention to their needs in concerns in order to end gender inequality.
      Although it was mentioned that more women were in work now than anytime before, there still weren't enough women in the MP to represent them well. Unless the whole Parliament changes, the women do not feel comfortable there because the policies are not "gendered," therefore basically being a prime example of this inequality. Women work within the public sector and low paying jobs so when cuts come about, they are the first to go and get affected by it the hardest.
      There are many reasons why this rally was taking place. From pay, all the way to domestic violence, the women felt that they needed to be heard on all issues. A Green Party MP, Caroline Lucas, stated "We are not going away until we make sure that gender inequality is history." As far as the abortion rights, they feel men should not have a say so on the rights to their body. If anything this article is trying to get peopel to see that urgent action is needed for representation of women across the board.
      Gender inequality needs to be changed in some way. I know there are many people who still believe that the traditional gender roles are how it should always be with the men being the breadwinner and the women looking after him, their children and the home. But, times have CHANGED. There are to many factors involved in this day and age where the women must become independant and do things for herself and whoever she takes care of. Being that gender inequality is present in the workplace, makes it harder for women to excel without being put down by men. I've always heard the saying "times change, people don't," but they need to start changing and being more tolerant.

Story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20066101

South Africa Gold Fields workers 'end strike'

             This article revisits a strike that has been going on in South Africa for over two months. It has finally came to an end. The gold miners who went on an illegal strike because of inequalities were reported to come back to work. 15,000 of them returned because the company made it clear that they would lose their jobs. Only 1,500 miners did not return. The reasons they went on strike was because they are the hardest workers who bring all of this in for the "prosperity" of the country, but these people did not benefit from any of the work they did. There was still a huge gap between the rich and the poor, and they were among the poor but they worked to benefit the rich.
            Almost fifty people have died during this strike. South Africa's economy is struggling because the workers refuse to come back an work if the unequal treatment is still present. President Jacob Zuma felt the way to end these disputes were to urge them to come back to work and the company's executives should freeze their pay until they do so. The workers for major companies have been returning back to work. At the Gold Fields Mine- KDC east, workers have not returned to work but that is because of union disputes not wages. Many miners feel that the National Union of mineworkers is to close to the government which is the ANC so that is why they are not standing up for their rights and refuse to support them.
            Just because the miners returned to work, it did nothing to end the dispute. Inequality is still present because they were basically forced by threat. Telling someone they will lose their job when this is their only means of living is just giving them an ultimatum. They have families to support, even though it isn't much to give. The unions and government are corrupt in their actions.

Namibia: Nation Must Bridge Yawning Gaps in Inequality, Says UN Independent Human Rights Expert

Namibia seems to remain one of the countries in the world with the highest levels of inequalities on race, gender, region, ethnicity and class even through two decades of economic and political gains.The Human Rights expert realized the damaging effects of colonialism but feels that the country has not been excelling at the pace it should be.Although Namibia has been politically stable, growing economically, and has been rich in natural resources since its independance from South Africa in 1990, extreme cases of poverty are still present. The developmental poilcies that are in place do nothing to help the poorest of the Namibians.The expert also mentioned that a number of "impediments" prevented "good policies from producing intended outcomes." This meant that the lack of things such as efficiency, skills and monitoring did not bring about the outcomes that were expected even after all that money was put into the project to fix these issues.There are severe gaps in social policies which prevent the people from rising out of poverty. It seems that the only way to close these gaps are to develop efficient programs that can work together to bring health, education, land reform and many other things to the people of Namibia. The gender inequality is clearly shown when she highlights the women. They are the face of inequality in Namibia. What the men receive, such as education and a fair payment, the women do not. They usually are affected by unemployment and HIV/AIDS. There is one thing the government needs to do: quickly address the needs of the poorest Namibians. Give them access to health, education, protection, land, housing and gender equality! As the government, they should do what is in the best interest for all of their citizens. It seems that wherever these inequalities are extremely present, it all turns back to the government and what they SHOULD be doing for their country. You  have to give everyone a chance to climb the ladder because that next person could be beneficial to the country, or better yet the world. All these people need are an opportunity and the government could atleast give them that.

Story:

http://allafrica.com/stories/201210091087.html

Are women winning the power battle in Africa?

In this article, the questions arises whether or not women truly have been able to gain power in African countries. It recognizes that in the past twelve months, two African women were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and women who became the first female chief prosecutor and chair in the countries of Gambia and South Africa. Even the country of Rwanda has the highest number of female parlimentarians in the world. Of course this may all seem fine and great but in reality the women are still seen as no comparison to men and are not allowed to hold their ground, therefore they are still unequal. Proof is shown by the Global Gender Gap studies which shows although these women are succeeding, less than 1 in 4 managers, legislators or senior officals are women in most African countries. Females still lack in education in Africa and in fact Sub Saharan Africa is the most unequal region in the world. A debate has risen to see, what has really changed. There is still a large gap in the literacy rate within many countries. Out of the 30 countries, 23 of them are in Africa. The question is "what barriers remain for women with leadership ambitions?" I believe that it is the fact that since society seems that it has always been dominated by men for centuries, it is hard for women to climb our of the gender role without some men being there to knock them down. In order to break the barrier, more women need to work together to make themselves heard and support each other in the struggle. They plan on havinga debate which will include key leaders in society to come across what they think should be done in orde to bring about this enquality. I think that how society is slowly changing should be a reason why the gender normalities can and should be broken.

Story:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00yly93

Greek austerity: 'We need painful change'

Once again, tension has risen in another country due to income inequality. People in Greece took to the streets and decided to strike and voice their opinion on the economic situation. In this article, four people from various occupations give their opinion on what is going on. A university lecturer spoke on the "terrifying" unemployement rate of 25% and the fact that 60% of the youth is unemployed.  He also feels that the people who are suffering from this ineuality need to have a plan which includes creating more jobs for themselves because they can not get jobs from the outside. Since there is the rich north and the poor south, the people need to come together in a union to put an end to it. A professor of economic says the biggest problem is that there in corruption not only in the government, but in the people. They use bribery to get benefits from the state. Now they are allowed to sit around all day while hardworkers are being taxed to support them. It's a big circle of corruption. Waiting around for European Union handouts doeesn't bail out the economy, it bails out the government. A teacher and housewife from Athens disagreed with the strike but she also hates to see that the government is affecting the poorest people. Why is it fair for the wealthiest people to pay the minimum tax? It seems that the government has been in an ongoing scandal that is hard to get out of and the only way they can is to take responsibility for what has already been going on. A tourism industry worker feels that the plainess of these austerity measures is hard to accomplish but needed in order to get Greece out of this hole the government's been digging for so long which mislead the citizens. In order to make this work the government should not apply these measures so radically because it makes the citizens want to rebel and take action against what is going on. One can only hope that the unrest dies down to where a peaceful solution can be made.

Story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19726122

Bangladesh: Discriminatory Family Laws Fuel Female Poverty

This article focuses on gender inequality when it comes to divorce. Bangladesh's laws on separation and divorce trap women in a horrible lifestyle. This article mentioned that they are trapped either in an abusive, hurtful marriage or when they divorce; their life basically falls apart because they are driven into poverty. While there are suppose to be places these divorced women can go, they end up homeless, hungry and suffering from bad health. Bangladesh ignored how these personal laws can lead these women into poverty. In a report, it is documented how the country's laws impoverish many women. It also states that some women stay in abusive marriages in fear that leaving will lead to destitution. The women are even denied the right to marital property. Based on the three religions in Bangladesh, which are Muslims, Hindus, and Christians, they all have different personal laws none of which benefit the women. Muslims personal law embraces polygamy for men. They don't even enforce the fact that the man has to get consent from the first wife in order to marry the second. In the Hindu law recognizes polygamy for men but not divorce which has trapped women in marriages for over a century. Nina Goswami stated “It is time our lawmakers changed these colonial-era laws and protected Hindu women.” The Christian divorce laws are far more restrictive on women. Men can divorce their wives if they allege she committed adultery but women have to prove that their husband committed it. Gender inequality leads to women’s contributions going unrecognized. Women take care of the homes, bare the children and still get treated as if we are inferior to men. This just proves that inequality exists in all aspects and being that this country bases these rules off of religion it just makes it seem like they use their religion to justify these issues. It never crossed  divorce was a big deal until I read about how hard is was for women than for men. It’s like the women are just thrown out as if they didn’t do anything to contribute to the special union of marriage.

Story:
http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/16/bangladesh-discriminatory-family-laws-fuel-female-poverty

Malema and the miners in South Africa

This article brings light to a violent strike that has been going on for five weeks in South Africa by the miners. The reason is that it is years after the apartheid, which is a system of segregation and discrimination based on race, the blacks who live there are being worked and used and the only people who benefit are a small group of elite. A former leader, Julius Malema called out for this strike because he feels that all of the resources of the country should benefit all the people of the country but more specifically the people who put their life on the line to extract these resources. Since speaking out, he has been expelled from the African National Congress political party and is being investigated for corruption. This all sparked from an incident on August 16th where 34 miners were killed by police and became one of the most violent confrontations since the apartheid. Economic inequality hit South Africa hard. This mining strike highlight the huge income and leadership gap. One miner even stated "Black people in South Africa are being used like toilet paper. and then flushed." Known as the "Rainbow Nation" for it's extraordinary diversity is races, tribes, languages and many other aspects, it's shocking to see that income inequality would be the issue to tear this nation down nearly two decades after the apartheid. Income inequality for a country such as this can lead to detrimental impacts on economic development and business envrionment in other countries. It shows the leaders inablity to step up and take action against corruption and inequality. How can someone step up into a role to be leaders of a country when you can not represent all of the people fairly? In South Africa, there is a disparsity in wealth all over the country and on top of that poverty and crime. Instead Jacob Zuma's government remained silent on the issue instead of making a change. Putting something on the back burner doesn't bring about change.

Story: http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/11/malema-and-the-miners-in-south-africa/?iref=allsearch

Democratic convention: A question of inequality

Income inequality is a major issue throughout the world. Recently, President Obama spoke of restoring the middle class and economy. In a church basement some men and women decided to discuss this inequality. Simone Campbell who put this meeting together was able to go to the convention and stated ""We all share responsibility for creating an economy where parents with jobs earn enough to take care of their families," trying to get people to realize that families are struggling while the rich prosper. She and the people that she spoke with for years realized that this is a national and moral problem in the United States.The shrinking middle class in countries has become something that many people worry about. It has even become harder because it has hit home. According to this article, there was a study done saying that 85% of people who say they live in the middle class say that it is difficult to maintain. The MA Senator Elizabeth Warren said that this struggle for the restoration of the broken middle class is the fight of the people and of Obama's as well. This article's message is that the next president has a lot to face. Being that our country's middle class has been diminishing since the 1970's shows that the road to recovery will be a long one. Policy experts feel that improved education, cuts to the executive's salary, and financial training for the social class together are some of the ways this huge gap can be fixed. This article also exposes the most common argument by those of the upper class-- that hard working Americans should not have to assist people who are down on their luck. With a mindset such as that, how can this nation grow and flourish again. Reliable income makes people feel more stable in life.Without it, people live in constant fear of sinking into poverty or being able to rise in social class. The big question is: Will President Obama be able to live up to his pledge and help in making the right steps forward to lessen income inequality and restore the middle class?

Story:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19494471

Inequality: Does Race Still Matter in South Africa

In South Africa, the South African Airways recently advertised to train cadet pilots. Thinking that it would be equal,  the trade union put in two applications with the same background and experience, except one person was white and the other was black. It took a turn when the white person’s application was rejected and the black person’s was accepted. This caused a massive disruption in which  a spokeswoman commented that the system of discrimination had no place in South Africa. Only 15% of SAA’s workers are black, mixed, and Indians so this showed as a need to come in and change how it has been. The emphasis should not be on who gets the job, it should be on inequality and class issues being that South Africa is one of the two most unequal societies in the world. Of course, it cannot be race. In South Africa, there is a large poverty stricken population who is willing to do what is necessary to strive So, for it to seem like the South African Blacks will target the “rich white” is insane. They will target the rich in general or anyone who may be doing better than what they have. Basically, this article is saying that the underlying issue are poverty, lack of education, and and inequality. The lack of education is devastating. South Africa is the worst performer in math and sciences and textbooks didn’t even get delivered to the children this year. The South African Political Analyst who wrote this is saying that they can protest and do all they want about getting blacks into power, but in the end race doesn’t really matter.  Even if the people wanted to get blacks into power, they (people) would have to get an education first because you can’t lead others without a direct path of your own.  There is a potential downfall ahead if some South Africans don’t take care of these three main issues. I think that they really should not focus on this the race and try to make it a bigger issue than what it is. They need to put a bigger emphasis on the failing education and high poverty rates which is making their country this way. This is a prime example of inequality between social classes because it's causing many people to struggle and a middle class is nowhere to be found. It's either extremely rich or poor.

 Link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19402353