Catégorie : 1000 women Peace Nobel 2005

Linked with GlobalGiving, with Miseror, and with Anti-Slavery International.

She is She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « I have always been interested in human rights and the dignity of every person. I felt that my actions should empower the most vulnerable and discriminated. For this reason I opted for domestic workers, be it women or children, because they have no voice, no rights. This corresponds to my understanding of slavery. What got me working was the inhuman situation of those women and children. It touched and hurt me as a woman. The urgency started after meeting the 13-year-old girl Sangeeta who was raped, pregnant and had aborted, without understanding what had happened to her » … and: « For children the time is now ».

She says also: « I have not grown tired of fighting for a full life for every domestic worker. It is my vision of a peaceful future to get domestic workers out of slavery into human dignity and justice ».

Download: A handbook on good practice in programme interventions, from Anti-Slavery International 2005.

See her website in netherlandse.

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Jeanne Devos – Belgium

Read: « Ik ben kritischer dan Moeder Theresa« .

She works for the Welfare Trust for Women and Child Domestic Workers, (named on antislavery.org, and on GlobalGiving), for the National Domestic Worker’s Movement NDWM, and for Misereor.

Jeanne Devos on the netherlandse wikipedia.

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Linked with Central Asia, Kazakhstan., and also with Rozlana Taukina – Kazakhstan.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « You cannot go ahead while sitting on your chair » … and « I am grateful to destiny that I am a mother. My unfortunate personal life and the loss of a first child depressed me. Doctors warned me of the risks if I tried to have another child. However, the thirst for the happiness of motherhood filled me so much that I took the risk. It was a difficult delivery but now I cannot imagine life without my son. Children are flowers whose aroma and beauty we enjoy and make us forget all the difficulties of the world. We try to teach and educate them but sometimes we are the ones who learn from them ».

Lazzat Ishmukhamedova – Kazakhstan

She works for the Ishenim Regional Partnership Network (named on DCCA) and for the Moldir Women’s Association MWA.

She says also: « It could be due to my active temperament that I have achieved what I have now. I am filled with joy, satisfaction and pride by what the association has achieved, a support center for children from poor families, the Moldir Micro-Credit Organization and the establishment of other self-help federations with the assistance of MWA. Presently MWA is helping to develop more NGOs to share its 11-year experience in poverty reduction in rural areas. I think the success of any enterprise depends on the ability to think positively in any situation, to set a goal and strive to achieve it regardless of all obstacles. Only then one can achieve the peak which seemed unattainable. It is not for nothing that a Kazakh proverb says, ‘Eyes are afraid but hands work ».

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Linked with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan KMVS.

She is She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « I am getting old but I shall continue to provide my services to all who ask for them, as long as my health permits. I am happy and satisfied, but I am concerned about others around me ».

Without formal education and facing great odds, Parmaben has succeeded in her mission to bring healthcare to Kutchi women … HER earlobes hang almost touching her neck. Thick, white bangles cover her forearms; her richly woven kanjaria and audni speak of her desert-home. She has never had any formal education, and has only recently learned to write her name. (full text).

Parmaben Sava – India

She works for Pachcham (or Kutch) Mahila Vikas Sangathan PMVS (KMVS).

Parmaben Sava is a traditional birth attendant, a midwife who became a leader within her community by educating women on reproductive health issues and rights. A Dalit by birth, she has concentrated her energies and efforts in the Kutch area around the Indian border with Pakistan, changing the lives of the women she has interacted with, and of the generations she has helped bring into the world.

Parmaben was born in Juna (in the Pachcham block), one of five children. Her childhood was very similar to those around her: no education in anything but housework, and marriage at the age of 16. In fact, it was only after she started working with the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) in the late 1980s that she learnt to sign her name.

By that time, though, Parmaben had given birth to four daughters (moving to Dhrobana after marrying), and realized the difficulties a pregnant woman faces, and the pathetic birthing situations.

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Linked with Asian Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development APWLD, and with Korea Women’s HotLine KWHL. And also with Korea fails to tap female workforce.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She is currently Vice-Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, a representative on the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan and a visiting professor at the Graduate School of NGO Studies, Kyung Hee University in Seoul. Ms Shin is a past winner of the 1st Women’s Human Rights Award – Women, Law and Development International, Washington DC. (full text).

She says: « We have established that rape and sexual slavery during wartime are violations of women’s rights and should be punished. Because of our movement, hopefully such a thing will never happen again ».

Heisoo Shin – South Korea

She is in the executive committee of the ‘Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan‘, (Homepage). She works for the Korea Women’s HotLine, and for the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law & Development.

Read:

• United Nations: Reconciling Tradition With Progress Main Challenge For Vanuatu’s Women, Anti-Discrimination Committee Told, May 19, 2007;
• United Nations: Emerging From Civil War, Sierra Leone Faces Serious Challenges Implementing Women’s Anti-Discrimination Convention, May 19, 2007; Expert Committee Told.
• Violence against women, situation of minorities … Serbia’s first ever report, May 16, 2007.

Heisoo Shin has been a leader in bringing the issues of sexual slavery and other women’s human rights abuses to the forefront of the international justice agenda. She served for seven years as president of Hotline for Women in Need, created to receive information from women forced to serve as sexual slaves by the Japanese military in World War II.

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Linked with Circus2Iraq C2I.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « What I wrote in Iraq was based on my first hand experience of talking to Iraqi people, whom I lived and worked with. They informied me about what’s happening to them now and during the war, suffering under the UN sanctions, while UK and other countries were funding, supporting and arming the former Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, despite his well-known human rights violation record ».

She says also: « Play and laughter is so important to the mental and social environment of children, which is enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Children ».

‘Send in the clown’, Jo Wilding’s unembedded reports from Fallujah brought home the horror of the American assault on the city. But when she wasn’t blogging, she was wearing stilts and trying to cheer up Iraq’s traumatised children. She tells Emine Saner why she risked her life for total strangers. (full text).

Jo Wilding – England

She works for Circus2Iraq C2I.

See her own website (‘Don’t Shoot the Clowns’).

Read: A letter to the Prime Ministre.

Originally motivated by political demonstrations, Jo set off to the Middle East to advocate peace and justice in Palestine, Israel and Iraq, sometimes risking her life in these vulnerable areas. She has constructed a cyber website where she writes extensively about people who are physically and mentally traumatized as a result of of armed violence.

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Linked with The Zarina Khan Productions, and with Le Dictionnaire de la Vie.

She is one of the 1000 Women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price.

She says: « The world has to give birth to its soul. Perhaps through theater. Theater and cinema are a way to reach thousands, maybe even millions of people » … and: « I am lucky to say I do not know where I come from. I come from the world, from different religions, different countries. This is the gift I received, which
enables me to push borders beyond the stars ».

She says also: « I think that, after the event, we can always tell our story in a rational way. But like love stories, certain forces are profoundly rooted, part of our personal path before becoming an objective mission. I say that because I have set myself a mission, my own personal reasons arise from my family’s story. My life story was shaped by momentous events in the 20th century. My mother’s White Russian grandparents fled Russia in 1917 because of the revolution, widespread massacre and incomprehension. Yet they aspired to social equality. Their travels led them to discover the world and other cultures. They ended up in Tunisia where they were welcomed with open arms. Lawyers, engineers, and doctors were seen as fundamental architects for the country’s structure. »

See two videos of her production (with ethno music, in french):

• – Rencontres croisées, 17.32 minutes;
• – Itinerance theatral, 15.59 minutes.

Zarina Khan – Tunisia & France & worldwide

She works for The Zarina Khan Productions.

And she says: « One of the main obstacles facing us all is the way society hides behind ‘bunkers of categories’. We cannot say, who we are if we cannot say, where we come from or which community we belong to. That is a major obstacle, which must be undone, urgently. My work is about undoing frontiers and categories. An urgent process, because those bunkers are where war begins. »

See her homepage.

Zarina Khan (born 1954), philosopher, poet, actor, theater and movie director is a true world citizen. In 1993, as war raged in Sarajevo, Zarina set up a workshop there. This gave rise to « The Dictionary of Life, » a play that toured Europe, and has been renewed in new contexts in Beirut, the Balkans, and strife-ridden suburbs, wherever one struggles for human dignity.

Author of several books on human rights, architect of many projects on children’s rights, Zarina’s articles on « a new way of teaching peace » have been published in many languages.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « I believe in my personal capabilities, and this pushes me forward to achieve my dreams in protecting and enhancing women?s rights » … and: « During my 30 years of experience in development issues, I was able to plan, supervise, coordinate and implement interdisciplinary development programmes pertaining to community, women, and gender issues in a multicultural environment ». (1000PeaceWomen).

She says also: « The situation for Arab women has improved slightly in all spheres of public and private life. Women’s access to education and health has increased considerably compared to past decades and their participation in the economy, environment and decision-making spheres is steadily growing » … and: « The rights of women in the Arab region are constantly violated….women are still deprived of exercising their basic rights due to unawareness of these rights or simply because of weak monitoring systems to ensure the realisation of their rights. The application of laws is also prejudiced against women since judges, prosecutors and lawyers are generally hesitant to take up cases involving women’s rights because of societal views that these issues ought to be resolved within the family ». (full interview text).

Listen to: Let’s End Violence against Women (UNIFEM, 2007), 1.05 minutes.
Listen to: UNIFEM english PSA, 0.31 minutes.

Listen also to: Malalai Joya’s Speech on Afghanistan in Sydney (Part 3), 9.43 minutes, added March 29, 2007. (see also Malalai Joya on this blog).

Haifa Abu Ghazaleh – Jordan

She works:

• for the United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem), mainly for its Arab States;
• for the Jordanian Ministry of Education, with a website in arabic language, and its english short version;
• and for the ‘General Federation of Jordanian Women’ GFJW.

The GFJW has not its own website, but is mentionned in english on the following sites:

• – Arab Youth Directory;
• – ILO;
• – Queen Noor of Jordan;
• – Embassy of Japan in Jordan;
• – Jordan Times, April 21, 2006;
• – Arab Women Organization of Jordan;
• – Jordan Times, June 16, 1999;
• – Jordan Information Center. (etc. etc.).

For over 30 years Haifa Abu Ghazaleh has worked with governmental ministries, NGOs and UN bodies, striving to integrate women’s economic, political, social and cultural rights into development planning.

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Linked wit the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development CAFOD, with Comprehensive Future, with the Pax Christi British Section PCBS, and with the Peace Education Network PEN.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « Creating connections, crossing barriers of time and place and being human with one another are paramount peacemaking elements for me ».

Patricia Gaffney – England

She works for the Pax Christi British Section PCBS, for the Peace Education Network PEN, and for the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development CAFOD.

Patricia was raised in a hard-working Irish immigrant community in west London, with strong Catholic roots. After training as a schoolteacher, she taught for six years at a Comprehensive in west London. In 1980 she joined the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development CAFOD as Schools and Youth Education Officer. Since 1990 she has been the General Secretary of Pax Christi.

Through annual monitoring Patricia has played a key role in calling on church institutions to cease investment in arms industries. As a result, no Catholic dioceses or religious orders now have arms investments. Through annual monitoring Pat has been a key person in calling on church institutions to cease investment in arms industries. As a result, no Catholic dioceses and religious orders now have arms investments.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « That hateful discrimination against illegitimate children, adulterers, foundlings, and those outside the church is finished forever » … and: « I had not discovered the situation during my studies; I had no consciousness of the existence of the laws that discriminated against women. I had no consciousness that the law discriminated against my self ».

Read in spain: Orden Josefa Camejo, 14 de febrero de 2007.

Ana Lucina García Maldonado – Venezuela

She works for the Federación Latinoamericana de Abogadas(*), for the COMITÉ DE SAN FELIPE DEL AGUA (scroll down), and for the Fedla (Latin American Federation of Lawyers).

(*) named on Maria Telo, and on Ayuntamiento de Astorga.

Ana Lucina García (61) managed to unify her two passions, and with them, she was the driving force behind the legal changes that resulted in the overcoming of gender inequalities in her country. She is a diplomat by vocation and a lawyer by profession. Her practice as a lawyer, besides her work as a parliamentarian and diplomat, demonstrates her continuous commitment to the feminist cause. Through this work, she contributes to the building of a real peace.

She was born into a Conservative family in Venezuela. Her roots are deeply linked to the Andean geography.

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Linked with Upendo Village NFP.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

She says: « I believe every single life is worth living. If we can help even one out of the two million, then I think for me that will be a great achievement ».

• Photos Documenting the HIV/AIDS Crisis in Africa.
• Photos Upendo Children’s Home.

Google Videos:

• Hamilton Masakadza speaks out on HIV/AIDS.
• While Africa sleeps tonight.
• HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe.
• ORPHANS OF MATHARE trailer.
• Info Video with Jars of Clay.
• Red Rose « Thank You Mama » and « AIDS » Poems.

Florence Muia – Kenya

She works for the Upendo Village NFP.

Sister Florence Muia, 45 years old, is the fifth of nine children. She was born and bred in Machakos District, Eastern Kenya, and has been an Assumption Sister of Nairobi ASN for 28 years. Sister Florence ministers mainly to women and children affected by HIV/Aids at Upendo Village in Naivasha, Kenya.

As a visionary, she dreamed of a safe haven for women and children affected by the disease. Upendo, the Kiswahili word for love, is such a sanctuary. She devotes her energy, commitment and skills to the success of this ecumenical project. She directs the outreach programs of Upendo Village and works on securing funding and resources in Kenya.

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